What is wealth for?

 We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.

Luke 12.13-21

13 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” 14 But he said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” 15 And he said to them, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” 16 Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. 17 And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ 18 Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ 20 But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ 21 So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

One day the Publisher’s Clearing House prize patrol pulled into the driveway of a large house in Palm Beach, Florida. The woman who owned the home was presented with an oversized check for ten million dollars. She told reporters, “I already have a Mercedes, but now I want a Jaguar and a BMW, too. And some more antiques. Of course, I’ll have to add a new garage and a new parlor.” She put most of the money in blue chip stocks and contracted with a caterer for a big party for her family and friends. Not much later, she wrecked her new Jaguar and was killed. There was no security in the good life after all. Incredibly, she had no will. The state took over her fortune and kept a great deal in probate fees and taxes. What a pity she did not prepare while she had time.

Actress Mae West was credited with saying, “I’ve been poor, and I’ve been rich and let me tell you, rich is better.” Jesus told a story of a farmer whose lands and holdings produced an abundance so big even he was surprised. It doesn’t sound like a tough problem, does it? There was so much food and produce that he could hardly take it all in. It’s a miracle! What to do with it all? Can’t just leave it lying out on the ground. The farmer is quite happy with himself. There are worse things that can happen to a farmer than having a super-abundant crop. Nowhere does the parable indicate that the farmer actually worked very hard for his abundant crop. “The land,” said Jesus, “produced.” The farmer did not earn the bounty. It was presented to him.

It’s kind of like compound interest or stock dividends. Sure, the farmer had to have done something, sometime, to get any harvest at all. He surely tilled the soil, but then things went along on automatic pilot. It’s sort of like investing in the stock market these days. The Dow goes up, it goes down, but in the last forty years it has gone up by 3,282 percent.

There’s nothing in the parable that tells us the farmer deserved such an abundant crop. But really, this is not a parable about farming and crop production, is it? It’s about you and me and our obligations in managing the things we have and being stewards of our souls.

II

Where did the farmer go wrong? The same way we all do: He asked himself what to do and got an answer from his own best advisor, himself. “I know what I’ll do! I’ll tear down all my barns and build bigger ones.” Then I’ll have enough to last for years and years. Party down and take it easy! That’s what I’ll do! It sure is easy to answer tough questions when one answer is to live high. We don’t need someone else’s advice for that. It’s obvious.

The farmer was all plans, no prayer. “Gosh,” he says to himself, “What do I do with all this stuff? I’d better ask someone I can trust to give me an answer I like! And that would be me!” With God out of the loop, the coast is clear. The thought of asking the United Methodist Commission on Relief or the local food closet whether they could use any of his wealth doesn’t cross his mind. The moral issue of shutting everybody out of his life escapes him. “I will” do this, “I will” do that, “I will” do the other thing. He looks himself right in the “I.”

The old barns have to go, and new ones must be built. Obviously, the future harvests will be just as big. Those dividend checks and annual raises and Christmas bonuses are going to keep coming on in. No plan to pile up wealth seems too far out when we don’t ask God for advice.

The farmer mentally clones himself and says, “Mister, you’ve got it made.” We’ve all done that once or twice: looked into a mirror on a really good day and said, “Here’s to you, kid.” People who admire themselves have no competitors or rivals.

There’s no hint the farmer recognizes that his abundant life was God’s gift. He just wants to figure out how to park it until he can get around to using it. Since he can’t eat it all today, the answer is to eat it all later. What the heck—you can’t take it with you, right? So live the good life and take things easy for a good, long while.

When we look inward, it is easy to check out of public life and public obligation. When our hearts are not thankful, we do not ask God what to do. So we converse with ourselves, “What do I do with all my stuff?” It’s an ordinary question, just one of personal management. But when we cut God out of the loop, we mismanage the gift of God’s provision. It’s obvious what to do when we only seek our own permission to do what we already want.

III

Hello, God, goodbye party! Just when the farmer sees an endless horizon of the good life, God shows up like a fraternity house mom who wants to close down the keg room. The farmer had tried to shut God out of his life. God was not impressed that the farmer debated with himself and won. “You moral vacuum!” God cries out. God is not fooled for a minute.

God made the world, but God didn’t make it infinite. The farmer went off track when he asked himself what to do with the super-abundant gifts of God. He shut the moral issues out and considered only the mechanics. “Where can I put it?” was the wrong question. “Why do I have it?” was the right one. He made a plan, but it was the wrong plan.

So God announces the truth of the inner man. If the farmer looked in a mirror and liked what he saw, God looked through a window and didn’t. On the outside was the picture of success and prosperity. On the inside was greed and covetousness, morally empty of godly considerations.

The farmer will die that very night. It will be a natural death, maybe in his sleep. God won’t kill him. God is no avenger lashing out in anger. The farmer just happened to strike the jackpot shortly before his time on earth ran out. All his hopes and dreams will die with him.

The farmer wanted to possess his things, but his things wound up possessing him. When God asked him who would get them when he died, he had no answer. He had no higher goal for God’s gifts than to use them for pleasing himself. Whose things will they be now? He can’t reply. He never thought about that.

Oh, he had time to do it right! He could have managed his affairs so that his wealth could benefit others. Then it would have been easy to handle the superabundant gifts of God’s creation. He could have had a bigger dream than his next meal. He might have formed a higher hope than for another day to sleep late. He could have managed his affairs to do God’s work and achieve God’s purpose. Then when God asked who will get his things, he could have answered, “The people of your Kingdom, Lord, for that’s why I have these things from you.”

Not long after the funeral of John D. Rockefeller, a reporter called Rockefeller’s accountant. “How much did he leave behind?” the reporter asked. The accountant thought for a moment, then replied, “All of it.”

The farmer was right to know he couldn’t take it with him. He was wrong to think that his only obligation was to himself. God reveals the farmer’s immediate future to him. It’s grim, but not as grim as the vacuum of his soul. His end is already on the way. The party’s over before it began.

IV

There are two ways to be rich. One way is to make all we can, save all we can and pile up all the extra stuff we can as fast as we can. “A penny saved is a penny earned,” said old Ben Franklin, who was rather well off when he died. The other way is to make all we can, save all we can and give all we can. In the end, the rich farmer came to ruin because all his wealth meant something only to himself. His self-satisfaction destroyed his compassion. He chose the wrong way to be rich.

The farmer’s fate was typical of those who choose the wrong way. He piled up extra things for himself but was not rich toward God. The tragedy is not that the farmer died; we all die. The tragedy is that he died so poor in spirit that he left not a ripple among the lives of those around him. That’s an inherent problem with material wealth. It can be overcome, but it’s tough. Maybe that’s why Martin Luther liked to remind people that God divided the hand into fingers so money could slip through.

There was a twelve-year-old boy whose school asked the children to bring a contribution to Santa Claus Anonymous, a group that provided gifts to poor kids who wouldn’t get any otherwise. The boy saved a dollar to take to school, but it snowed that morning and only teachers reported. So the boy hiked through the snow to give the dollar to the principal. The principal almost broke down when the boy appeared with the money, because the boy was on the list to receive a gift from Santa Claus Anonymous.

It doesn’t take wealth to be rich toward God. Whether one is wealthy or not, it takes love, a love of people greater than a love of things. We like to think success in this world is measured by how much money we leave behind. Maybe its best measure is by how much love we give away, and how we use God’s gifts for God’s work. We can be funnels of God’s generosity to the world at large. It is God’s grace that makes this possible.

With every provision God puts in our hands, he creates a fork in the road of life. Both ways lead to getting rich. But the way of one fork is piling up stuff and hoarding it for empty purposes. It ends in false hopes and shattered dreams. The way of the other is a life of love and sharing and giving God’s things for God’s purposes. It’s being rich toward God. Every day we choose a path, and there are no other paths to choose.

 A philosopher once wrote that there is only one universal problem. In all the world, he said, there is only one question that everyone faces, everywhere, at all times. It is simply what to do next.

The rich farmer stared at that question and blew it. “What do I do now?” he asked himself. Then he stretched out his arms and raked God’s gifts into his pile like a poker player in Las Vegas. He mismanaged God’s miracle, and, in the end, he was busted.

We don’t need to gamble with the future. We know who holds the future. The things we have, we have from God, sometimes so much that we’re not sure what to do next. But it is not where to stash them that is the problem. It is why do we have them. God knows, God knows, and we will get be wealthy in the ways that matter in the end, if only we seek to know what God knows.

Why does prayer work?

1 John 5:14

This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.

James 5:16

Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

Several years ago, Christian writer Cory Copeland wrote of the death at 55 years of age of his father’s best friend, stricken by a heart attack standing on his own driveway.

   Over the next few days as the news of the event spread, I began to see Facebook posts and tweets asking for prayers of comfort and healing for the family. As a close‑knit Church often does, our congregation was rallying around this crestfallen clan and asking everyone to seek God’s love and mercy so that He might prop them up in grace throughout their difficult time. Yet, as I read the numerous statuses and 140‑character messages of caring devotion, one question began to run rampant through my still‑reeling mind: Why?

   It wasn’t that I didn’t care about the grieving family this great man had left behind. In fact, it was quite the opposite. I hurt for them and with them, and I shared in their sudden and brutal loss.

   No, I was haunted by this question because I wondered what good it might do to ask God to comfort this family. After all, He’s a benevolent God, and there was no doubt He was already surrounding these hurting people with His love and grace and mercy without my instructing or requesting Him to do so. He didn’t need me pointing Him in their direction. ... 

Prayer is a paradox. We take it for granted that God already knows the things we are praying about, and that God knows whether those things are good or bad. God’s knowledge and goodness are a given. People mostly pray to get God to do something, to get God to exercise divine power.

We do believe God has the power to intervene in human affairs. If we thought God could not act in our lives, we would not ask God to do so. But we don’t take God’s power for granted: The very fact that we ask God to act means we are uncertain he will. Prayer sometimes seems like a roll of the dice. We can find ourselves praying with no real expectation that it will accomplish anything. Yet, says James, “The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

It’s baseball season. A player stands at the plate. He raises the bat. The umpire calls out, “Play ball!” The catcher signals the pitcher for a fast ball. The pitcher winds up and throws. The hitter sees the ball and predicts where it will go. He has to decide whether to swing. Just think how many happenings are all coming together into the one single moment at which the ball passes over the plate. So many happenings are related together to make that moment that we couldn’t name them all if we tried. Before the players even arrived, the grounds crew mowed the grass and raked the infield. The custodial staff cleaned the locker rooms. A bank approved a new loan to keep the stadium afloat for another year. The visiting team traveled into town. We could go on like this all the way back to Abner Doubleday, who invented baseball in the first place.

All these prior events come together in the first pitch, coming in waist high over the plate. The batter doesn’t swing. “Strike!” yells the umpire. Many things had to work to make this one moment, but the batter was free to swing or not. No swing.

In every moment there are countless prior events, some good and some bad. But in every event, no matter how enormous or small it seems to us, there is the will of God toward the good. We call it grace. The grace of God is everywhere, in all times, in all places, and in all circumstances. In the dedication of a church building, there is grace. In the birth of a child, there is grace, in the vote of the U.S. Senate there is grace. There is grace even in the veins of a heroin addict, grace all the way down to where his blood cells rub together. God’s grace is everywhere, even in the most desperate times and places, even when it is not apparent or much perceivable. God’s grace is custom-fitted for each situation, nestling within all the other events that make up every moment.

In every moment, God’s will is toward the good. Every moment is made up of many influences, and one of those influences is God’s grace pushing toward the good. But like Casey at the Bat who decided not to swing on a perfectly good pitch, God’s grace can be resisted. God’s grace is not coercive. Some level of self determination is built into creation. In human beings, we call it free will. God’s grace influences but does not crush our freedom.

Prayer is a grace multiplier and grace magnifier. Prayer is raw material for God’s grace. In prayer we connect through faith our weakness with God’s strength, and God connects our faith with the things or persons prayed for. By praying we participate in God’s work. In prayer we seek to influence events to conform to God’s good will. God receives our prayers and fits them into all the influences working within each moment.

Our prayers during worship services are mostly for medical-related reasons. I’ve heard it called it the organ recital  – Aunt Edna’s kidneys, Uncle Albert’s heart. Beginning in the 1980s, medical science began to pay attention to whether praying for the ill or injured actually does any good. Studies continue today, including by the National Institutes of Health, which beforehand refused even to publich an article that had the word “prayer” in it.

Studies at Duke, Dartmouth, and Yale universities show, for example:

• Hospitalized people who never attended church have an average stay of three times longer than people who attended regularly. 
• Heart patients were 14 times more likely to die following surgery if they did not participate in a religion.
• Elderly people who never or rarely attended church had a stroke rate double that of people who attended regularly.

A journal published by Harvard University in 1998 included this tidbit:

In a 1987 study, cardiologist Randolph Byrd at San Francisco General Hospital asked intercessory prayer groups from across the United States to pray for roughly half of the 393 individuals admitted to the coronary care unit with either heart attacks or severe chest pain. This was a scientific experiment in which none of the patients, physicians, or nurses knew which individuals were receiving prayer. Those who were prayed for showed dramatic improvement: fewer deaths, fewer complications, and fewer medical interventions.

To be fair, other studies have not shown a positive link between prayer and healing. So while the body of research is compelling, it is not necessarily convincing in a scientific sense. That’s okay. Science cannot provide every answer for every question. Persons pray from faith rather than research.

So why does prayer work? Methodist theologian Marjorie Suchocki put it this way:

Prayer changes the world. God works with what is, in order to lead the world toward what can be. To pray is to change the way the world is by adding that prayer to the reality of the world.

Prayer changes what is possible for the future. There is a future possible with prayer that is not possible without it. There are “redemptive possibilities” for the world that are not reached without prayer.

Not every prayer is useful to God. James wrote that if we pray selfishly, God does not respond (James 4:3). God’s will is only for the good. If we pray for something not good, then that prayer is useless to God for influencing events. It’s like handing a lawnmower to a brick mason. A brick mason can’t use a lawnmower to build a wall, and God does not use prayers for bad to accomplish his will for good.

Isaiah said that sin separates us from God and makes God ignore our prayers. “Your iniquities have separated you from your God,” Isaiah wrote, “your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear” (Isa 59:2). Since we all have sin in our lives, how will God hear our prayers?

Jesus said that we should try to have faith at least the size of a mustard seed. Just the tiny amount of faith that leads us to say, “Thy will be done” – and mean it – is enough to break through our sin in prayer. Faith enough to begin is faith enough for God to hear.

Prayer is intimate communication with God. As we continue to pray we open ourselves to God’s grace. We give God permission to change us in our deepest places. God leads us to renounce the reign of sin in our lives. As we grow in faith we become more godly. We gain greater understanding of God’s will. We grow in compassion for other people. As our own character becomes more like God’s, our prayers become more powerful. Righteous people pray powerful prayers.

The Apostle John tells us to be confident that God hears us when we pray according to his will. We can and should pray for specific things. After all, on the night Jesus was arrested, Jesus prayed very specifically about what he wanted. But at the end, Jesus said that what he wanted most of all was what God wanted. That’s the place to end up in our prayers: turning our own desires, as heartfelt as they may be, over to God.

The world consists of events, of things that happen and affect other things. Prayer is something that we make happen that God uses to affect other things.  We count on God to hear and respond when we pray. God counts on us to pray. Our prayers become tools in God’s hands to shape the world for the Kingdom of God. We’re all in this world together, you and I and God. God uses our prayers to work his grace fully. So prayer is not empty speech. Prayer is as fundamental to the makeup of the universe as atoms. Our prayers help God bring the full potential of grace into each moment.

John Wesley put it this way:

   God's command to "pray without ceasing" is founded on the necessity we have of his grace to preserve the life of God in the soul, which can no more subsist one moment without it, than the body can without air.

   Whether we think of, or speak to, God, whether we act or suffer for him, all is prayer, when we have no other object than his love, and the desire of pleasing him.

   All that a Christian does, even in eating and sleeping, is prayer, when it is done in simplicity, according to the order of God, without either adding to or diminishing from it by his own choice.

   Prayer continues in the desire of the heart, though the understanding be employed on outward things.

   In souls filled with love, the desire to please God is a continual prayer.

   As the furious hate which the devil bears us is termed the roaring of a lion, so our vehement love may be termed crying after God.

   God only requires of his adult children, that their hearts be truly purified, and that they offer him continually the wishes and vows that naturally spring from perfect love. For these desires, being the genuine fruits of love, are the most perfect prayers that can spring from it.

“This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.”

Why do we love our chains?

Imagine a fellow who has been in state prison for 25 years. Then he receives a pardon from the governor. The warden and a couple of guards come to his cell, open the door and tell him he's free to go. Good news! So the former prisoner runs out of the cell, but after only a few months he discovers that his newfound freedom is harder to handle than he imagined it would be. He has to make decisions he never had to make before. He has to work for a living, decide where to live, what to eat and what to wear. He has to pay taxes and maintain a car. He has to set his own agenda for each day. Life outside the joint is complex and confusing. Being free actually overwhelms him. Finally, he commits another crime so he will be returned to prison, where the routines are familiar, the stresses are known, and in his mind life is easier even though he has no freedom. 

Believe it or not, this kind of thing actually happens once in a while. 

Spiritual imprisonment is one way of understanding how the Apostle Paul came to understand the human condition apart from Christ. He used the metaphor of slavery to describe it. Slavery was found all over the ancient world and then as in modern times, slavery was a form of imprisonment. Paul taught that our prison doors are opened by Jesus, but we have to get up and walk out and make sure we don’t go back. 

Galatians 5:1, 13-14:

1 For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. 13 For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. 14 For the whole law is brought to fulfillment in a single commandment, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

What Paul says is: we have already been pardoned by Christ, but we must not go back to spiritual prison once we have claimed the liberty Christ has already given us. Our freedom in Christ has a purpose and unless we live out that purpose, merely being pardoned does not make us free. 

We are pardoned first of all from imprisonment by every kind of spiritual bondage already in the world. Paul handily provides an incomplete list just a few verses later that he calls works – note the plural – works of the flesh: 

“… fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” 

The plural, works, is important to note because these are sins or sinful habits that we get to pick and choose. I’ll never fall into drunkenness because alcohol holds no attraction to me. But I have to plead guilty to at least some of the others, especially that category, “things like these.” 

Works of the flesh are chains that bind us in spiritual slavery, they are the bars that hold us in spiritual prison. The tragedy is that we forged the chains ourselves and we installed the bars by our own choices. That is the real issue: apart from spiritual liberation, we do not make the right choices because we cannot. 

“By contrast,” Paul continues, “the fruit” – note the singular – “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.”

We do not get to pick and choose which of these we want and which we do not. The Christian character is a whole package. Unlike the works of the flesh, the fruit of the Spirit is sharply defined. It is these nine things and that’s all. There’s no “things like these” because love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control encompass everything we need to be free in Christ. They are inter-related and inter-dependent. We grow in holiness in all of them or backslide in all of them. 

The paradox of Christian discipleship is that while spiritual freedom is gained for us by Christ, we can only realize it by serving Christ’s friends through love. Just following rules won’t do it. In fact, Paul said the whole Law is brought to fulfillment in the single commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves.

Christian freedom is the will and ability to love others as Christ loves them: as perfectly as is humanly possible. 

But our freedom in Christ is not freedom to do just anything. Paul never would have agreed that, say, adultery is immoral for Jews but permitted for Christians since we are not bound by Jewish Law. Being released from legalism does not give us a license to do just anything we want. Obtaining a driver’s license might bring new freedom, but it certainly gives its bearer much more responsibility, not less. True freedom always brings responsibility. 

Such it is with Christian freedom. We haven’t been granted freedom by Christ in order to stay enmeshed in habits of sin. Our responsibilities are greater now than before! Indeed, in our baptism we have “crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” We are to live by the Spirit of God and be guided by the Spirit. 

Jesus requires his followers to leave their past shortcomings, failures and sins in the past. No wistful looking back! I don’t claim it is easy. But our freedom to give Christly love brings responsibility to live as perfectly as possible, trusting that Christ’s power is strongest in our weakest places. We strive to become more and more conformed to Christ’s character in love. Martin Luther wrote that Christ makes Christians lords and masters over sin and death, so from deep thankfulness to Christ we become servants to one another in love. We are not compelled to do right from duty but delighted to do right in joy. So, said Luther, we are first to love God wholly and then we can do what we want, trusting that by the Spirit’s guidance we won’t go too far astray. 

Here’s the rub, though: Freedom truly lived means making choices. But Americans today prize personal autonomy so much that, in the words of David Hart in Atheist Delusions, our culture has become "a fertile void in which all things are [claimed] possible, from which arises no impediment" to our desires – and therefore we "may decide for ourselves what is right or wrong.” 

Which is to say that modern Americans as a whole no longer believe that there are objective criteria by which to judge our choices because there can be no higher good than being able to make a choice in the first place. All judgment, whether divine or human, infringes on choosing – and being able to choose solely on one’s own has come to take "an almost mystical supremacy over all other concerns." 

This would be merely silly if it was not so literally lethal. True human freedom is emancipation "from whatever constrains us from living a life of rational virtue" and that leads to our intellectual and spiritual flourishing. Freedom is the ability to overcome "our willful surrender to momentary impulses, our own foolish or wicked choices. … We are free not merely because we can choose, but only when we have chosen well.”

To choose poorly is to enslave ourselves to the impermanent, the irrational and eventually the destructive. Simply choosing, unconnected from divine guidance and godly standards, is to choose ultimately to reject freedom, to stay enslaved to what Paul called the body of death and finally to choose to perish rather than attain everlasting life. 

And that is one thing from which Christ has freed us – the dictatorship of personal autonomy unshaped by godliness or divine virtue. In contrast, wrote John Wesley, we should live as people who are washed and sanctified, “as well as justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.’  

You are really changed [Wesley continued]; you are not only accounted as righteous but actually made righteous. The inward power of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made you really, actually free from the power of sin and death. This is liberty, true gospel liberty, experienced by every believer: Not freedom from the law of God, or the works of God, but from the law of sin and the works of the devil. See that you stand fast in this real, not imaginary liberty, wherewith Christ has made you free. And take heed not to be entangled again in the yoke of that vile bondage to sin, from which you are now clean escaped.

For freedom Christ has set us free: free to love, free to live in joy and peace and patience. Free to be generous in all we have, free to be gentle with even those who offend us, free to control ourselves to live in ways to please God. 

Free at last!

Free at last!

Thank God Almighty,

We’re free at last!

What does "Just War" mean?

Just War Theory (JWT henceforth) forms the basis of modern international law regarding the causes, conduct, and conclusion of warfare. JWT is not a modern concept, however. It has sprung over many centuries of thought in the Christian traditions to resolve the tensions between the teaching of Christ and the realities of national affairs in a fallen world. For example:

The principal influence on JWT were Saint Augustine, AD 354-430, and St. Thomas Aquinas of the 13th century. Of the two, Aquinas remains the more influential and all work on JWT since him builds on his work. 

But what is war? The question seems self-evident, but modern Conventions such as The Hague and Geneva Conventions are careful to define. For centuries, war has been understood to be an act of nation-states, not of combat between non-state combatants, no matter how well armed and organized. Understand, however, that armed conflict between a nation state and a non-state combatant does qualify as war under the Conventions and other relevant treaties. 

War is an act of deliberate destruction of an enemy's lives or physical assets. Absent "intentional lethality," there is no war regardless of what armed forces may otherwise do. Historically, however, the purpose of those operations has not simply to kill, but to compel submission by the enemy. As the US Army's World War 2 Gen. George S. Patton said, "Battles are won by frightening the enemy. You frighten the enemy by inflicting death and wounds." 

Europe's most celebrated theoretician of war is Prussian Gen. Carl von Clausewitz, 1780-1831, whose book, On War, is still studied around the world. One of his central tenets is that, "Politics is the womb in which war develops," and therefore, war is "the continuation of politics by different means.” 

Today's conventions clearly recognize that principle. 

In theorizing about war, these are the underlying visions of warfare that are used, usually more than one is used. 

As you can see, a nation's leaders may use moral principles to decide that employing the armed forces is justified under the various Conventions and the leaders' own national principles. But they may also see that while war is morally justified, it would be unwise and would likely have unacceptable outcomes. 

And that  leads to what are the bases, or templates, for which war might be made? I will let my slides speak for themselves:

Just War Theory JWT is a holistic view of war with a focus on attaining justice, limiting suffering, and encompassing all three of:

• The cause of war
• The conduct of war
• The termination and aftermath of war

So, let's look at the basic details:

Just War Theory, along with international conventions and accords, forbid wars of conquest or aggression. The basic principle is that a nation may justly go to war to defend against aggression or to protect such aggression against third parties. However, Europe's history, culminating in the 30 Years War of the early 1600s, led to rejecting protection of third parties as an excuse to go to war. The Peace of Westphalia established national, geographic boundaries as the demarcation of nations (warring of parties), not language, tribal identity, or ethnicity. And the Peace deliberately set the internal affairs of a nation as immune from interference, especially war, by other states. 

This has formed a foundation for "governance" (if one may use that word) for war ever since, and is reflected strongly in the United Nations charter. The UN charter does explicitly allow for international alliances outside the UN that may establish war making for defensive purposes, with NATO being a primary example. 

Just War Theory holds as a matter of principle that making war therefore must be undertaken to establish a more just peace than pertained prior to the conflict. And the war may not itself be of greater evil than that it seeks to prevent. 

That war may not justly be waged absent reasonable prospect of success is important. It relates directly to the tenets of just conduct of war, and especially the greatly misunderstood principle of proportionality, about which more later. 

The Principle of Proper Authority

Just War Theory mandates that nations may go to war only with proper authority to do so. There is no international agreement on what that may be as a universal standard. The UN Charter permits specific kinds of war without UN consultation, but requires UN Security Council approval for other wars. (President Truman, for example, gained UNSC approval for the Korean War.) 

The UN Charter also recognizes that nations make security arrangements and treaties outside the UN structure. The most famous example is Article 5 of the NATO Charter, which requires every NATO member nation to respond militarily if any NATO member is attacked and Article 5 is invoked.

 

However, the only authority that can declare the United States is at war is the US Congress, not the UN. Treaties do not overwhelm the US Constitution. The UN cannot make American war legal or illegal, but it can make it legitimate in eyes of world. 

The US Constitution distinguishes between declaring war, which can be done only by Congress, and making war, which is the purview of the executive. As then-Senator Joe Biden accurately explained in 2001, the Congress has declared war when the Congress thinks it has. Hence, he said, an Authorization for the Use of Military Force meets Constitutional muster as a declaration of war.

I'm the guy that drafted the Use of Force proposal that we passed. It was in conflict between the President and the House. I was the guy who finally drafted what we did pass. Under the Constitution, there is simply no distinction ... between a formal declaration of war, and an authorization of use of force. There is none for Constitutional purposes. None whatsoever. 

Constitutional lawyers over many decades have held that varying kinds of enabling acts, such as monetary appropriations for military action, have also amounted to Constitutional satisfaction and, at least, consent of the Congress to action ordered by the president, in whom the Constitution grants authority to conduct warfare.

Just Conduct of War

Let me begin by reiterating that warfare is intentional lethality and destruction. Just conduct of war means that there must be limits to both. And that is where the principle of proportionality comes in. 

The doctrine of proportionality is simply stated that the means of conducting the war must be proportionate to the goal for which the war is waged. Another way of looking at it is that while the just ends desired do not justify any means to attain them, they absolutely justify some means. The tenet of proportionality, then, is to assess what the justified means are, then employ those means and not the unjustified ones.

The centering question of the doctrine of proportionality is deciding the violence necessary to achieve the war's objectives while not using excessive violence to do so. To employ too little violence is as disproportionate as to employ too much. It is unjust to wage war ineffectively even for a just cause.

Hence, proportionality means that one cannot use more force than necessary, but must use all the force that is necessary. It is critical to understand that proportionality does not mean, and never has meant, anything like a tit-for-tat response. 

In this, as in most of the just conduct tenets, huge gray areas of uncertainty abide. The combatants must do the best they can.  

The doctrine of Discrimination of violence means that weapons may not be employed with little or no regard to the nature of the target. Specifically, non-combatants may not be deliberately targeted and in fact, warring parties must use all achievable means to avoid it. But as warfare of the past 100-plus years has showed, it is permissible to bomb enemy factories even though factory workers are not members of the military. 

However, an international standard called Common Article 3 governs combat between state and non-state combatants. Its states that civilians' presence at a location does not automatically make that location off limits from attack. As Human Rights Watch explained during 2006's Hezbollah war, 

It, too, can be targeted if it makes an “effective” contribution to the enemy’s military activities and its destruction, capture or neutralization offers a “definite military advantage” to the attacking side in the circumstances ruling at the time. 

Other Categories

• There are Hague Protocols on chemical and biological weapons. In this, United States policy since at least the 1960s has been in compliance. It is that the US will not use bioweapons, period, and will not be the first to use chemical weapons, but retains the right to respond likewise against an enemy's use of them. (As for nukes, US policy has not changed since they were invented: We have atomic weapons, and if you do not want us to use them, then do not attack us. Other nuclear-armed nations have basically the same stance.) 
  
  
• Use of civilians as hostages or “human shields” is prohibited. 
  
  
• Hospitals, other categories (such as houses of worship) may not be attacked. 
  
  
• No “false flagging,” such as marking combatant vehicles with the insignia of the International Red Cross. 
  
  
• Honorable surrender is defined, required to be honored. Pretense of surrender is prohibited for any reason. 
  
  
• Militarization of protected structure removes its protection. A hospital, for example, may not be bombed, but if a combatant places anti-aircraft weapons atop it, it may legally be leveled without warning. 
  
  
• The Conventions specify permissible treatment of POWs and refugees, including prohibitions of torture and other actions. 
  
  
• Retribution actions are permitted, but very narrowly. For example, if a combatant nation executes 20 POWs because two of them had attempted escape, the those soldiers' nation may execute in retribution POWs that it holds, but only up to a point. 

The Conventions also specify occupying power obligations and define the distinction between lawful and unlawful combatants. Unlawful combatants are not afforded all the protections of lawful combatants. 

And the Conventions define and require the responsibility of moral action and accountability for all sides. That is, a warring nation is required to bring to discipline any member of its armed forces who commits a war crime.  

Just Ending of War

Here, there are three guiding principles:

• Enduring peace 
• Restraint of the victor 
• Reconciliation among warring parties

What is the future of JWT, especially in its relation to international accords? I close with a link to an article by Jeff McMahan, professor of philosophy at Rutgers University and author of The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life and Killing in War. Click here: "Rethinking the ‘Just War,’ Part 1" (part 2 is linked at the end of that article).

What about the demonic?

Luke 8:26-39:

26 Then they arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. 27 As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. 28 When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of his voice, "What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me" – 29 for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.)

30 Jesus then asked him, "What is your name?" He said, "Legion"; for many demons had entered him. 31 They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss. 32 Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. 33 Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.

34 When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country. 35 Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid.

36 Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. 37 Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them; for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned.

38 The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but Jesus sent him away, saying, 39 "Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you." So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.

The basics here are pretty simple. Jesus went across the Sea of Galilee to a Gentile land. Right on the beach a wild-acting, naked man confronted Jesus and demanded to know why he was there. The man was possessed by many demons who referred to themselves as “Legion.” Jesus easily commanded the Legion to depart the man. They asked Jesus for permission to enter a herd of pigs, which Jesus granted. The pigs ran into the water and drowned. The man put on clothing and sat at Jesus feet, while the pig herders ran to town to tell the tale.

For Jesus this was pretty ordinary stuff, not a challenge at all. But when the people came out and saw the scene, they became greatly afraid and wanted to Jesus to leave. So he did. The healed man stayed behind and became the first missionary to the Gentiles. 

As is usually so, there is some imagery in the story that Luke’s early readers would have picked up:

· the Holy Land was occupied by the Roman 10th Legion, whose symbol was a wild boar, which is to say, a pig. Pigs were unclean in Judaism. Luke may have been covertly identifying the imperial power of Rome as unclean, a sort of inside joke for Luke to pull, since Luke is usually careful not to offend Roman sensibilities. The destruction of the pigs and the healing of the man symbolically remove uncleanness from Gentiles if they follow Jesus. 

· Jesus tells the healed man to “declare how much God has done for you,” but instead the man goes about proclaiming much Jesus had done for him. So we are led to understand that the acts of Jesus and the acts of God are the one and the same, and by implication that Jesus and God are the one and the same.

· the abyss that the demons begged Jesus not to send them to was a term for the prison for disobedient spirits. Basically, they didn’t want to go back to jail. There is no explanation why Jesus permitted them to enter the herd of pigs, but the pigs right away ran off a bluff into the sea. Since “abyss” in the Bible is also used to represent the deep waters of the sea, the joke’s on the demons – they wound up in an abyss anyway. Jesus’ hearers must have laughed aloud at that. 

· No early Jewish Christian would have wondered about the ethics of Jesus letting the pigs be drowned. “Instead, the fate of the pigs would show that justice had prevailed all around: The man had been delivered from the demons’ torment, the unclean herd had been destroyed, the demons had gotten what they wanted, and in the end they had been destroyed along with the pigs. Jesus outwitted the devil. The demons that wanted most to avoid being sent into the abyss have been drowned in the lake.” The lesson: “When it gets its way, evil is always destructive and ultimately self destructive” (NIB, Luke, R. Alan Culpepper).

A popular explanation for the reason the townspeople wanted Jesus to leave was that he had ruined the local economy by causing the herd of swine to be drowned. I doubt it. That sounds like a twentieth century attempt to make the gospels rationally intelligible, to explain Jesus in natural terms. But this story is about the interaction of the supernatural evil of the demonic with the supernatural goodness of the Son of the Most High. And for some reason, the people were afraid of supernatural goodness, although they had learned to live with supernatural evil. They recognized the power of good but could not live with it. Perhaps their collective comfort zone was being too quickly disrupted, or perhaps they had never suspected that pure goodness could be so powerful and even include some destructive elements. 

Jesus did not condemn their fear. His act of kindness for the fearful people was to send the healed man home to witness to his countrymen the power of God. The Gospel of Mark, in telling this story, reports that “all were amazed” at the man’s preaching.

Despite the between-the-lines meanings, our modern world cannot cope with the story very well. It begs the question: What about demons?

My conversations and email correspondence with my colleagues about this passage revealed a near-universal consensus that demons are merely metaphor for all the bad stuff in our society. Here’s a quote from a Canadian pastor’s sermon:  

The demons faced by people in our society are very real. These demons are the things that lurk in our own families or within our own selves. . . . family violence, racism, self-centeredness, fear, poor self-image, drug addiction, alcoholism, and all of those other 'isms' which keep people from being the people God created them to be.

Such takes are mainstream biblical interpretation. Respected New Testament scholar R. Alan Culpepper wrote, “In our day, we have become far more accustomed to attributing calamities and disorders to the forces of nature or to internal mental or emotional problems. The remedy is not exorcism but counseling or medication. The story of the Gerasene demoniac should now be interpreted so that it speaks a word of assurance and hope to those for whom every day is a battle with depression, fear, anxiety, or compulsive behavior” (NIB, Luke). 

Bringing the victims of these conditions to rest at Jesus’ feet is indeed a healing ministry, but I submit that pastors are cruel to label their illness or disorder as demonic. There is no therapeutic value or pastoral care in telling an alcoholic or addict or clinically depressed person that their problem is demonic. It has no biblical basis and pastors should not counsel along those lines. 

The Gospels explicitly distinguish between natural illness and the demonic. So should we. In the New Testament, demons are not metaphors for human sin or dysfunction, they are supernatural beings, opposed to God, who can possess and control a human being.

Perhaps many clergy today crave the intellectual approval of our peers and parishioners. Perhaps we want everyone to know how enlightened we are and taking demons seriously as the New Testament presents them seems so superstitious and gullible. We have string of degrees from respected universities and seminaries, so we grasp for sophisticated modernity in interpreting these sorts of passages. But this is a disservice. Clarity is needed now. In 2009, Barna Group’s research showed that 59 percent of self-described Christians agree that Satan is not a living being, but 64 percent also said that persons “can be under the influence of spiritual forces, such as demons or evil spirits.”  In 2014, a Public Policy Polling survey showed that among Americans age 18-29, that number still holds and is growing. Among young adults who said they professed no religion at all, 85 percent said they believed in supernatural events and beings. 

Probably most Christians who have ever read about demons in Christian literature would say that they are fallen angels, in rebellion against God, who are allies of Satan. Only two New Testament verses indicate this, and they are too skimpy to draw a definitive conclusion about the origin of demons, even though the New Testament takes their existence very seriously. And so do many people today. Both Pope John Paul II and Pope Francis conducted exorcisms and Francis increased priestly attention to and education about the demonic.  

On the website Mental Health Source a psychiatrist replied to a question whether the standard psychiatric text, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, recognized demon possession as real. “I'd have to say, no,” he wrote. “However, psychiatry certainly recognizes many instances in which an individual claims to be ‘possessed by demons’, or behaves as if he or she were ‘possessed.’ Psychiatrists would almost certainly attribute such behavior to one of several recognized psychiatric disorders; e.g., paranoid schizophrenia, dissociative identity disorder or some other dissociative disorder … which includes so-called dissociative trance states. The [diagnostic manual] states that ‘possession trance involves replacement of the customary sense of personal identity by a new identity, attributed to the influence of a spirit, power, deity, or other person, and associated with stereotyped ‘involuntary’ movements or amnesia.’” 

It would be pastoral malpractice to suggest that mentally ill persons need nothing but Jesus and not proper professional care. But mental and physical health does have a spiritual component, a position that medical researchers are increasingly adopting.

Rejection of demons as real beings began in the 1700s with the skeptical philosophers and was subsequently reinforced by rationalist philosophers. Since then, the supremacy of scientific materialism as the dominant world view of western cultures has reinforced this opinion. Westerners generally scoff at the very idea of the supernatural, not just demons, but also angels and even the traditionally understood activity of God directly acting in the ordinary affairs of persons and countries. 

Judith Hayes, writing for the “Freedom From Religion Foundation,” said, “Belief in demons and fairies and goblins and dragons ended, for most people, ages ago, and is remembered only in some Fairy Tales. Such primeval superstitions should be left behind, in our colorful past, where they belong.” 

A Reformed Scottish pastor named Jason Kortering disagrees. He wrote that he did not believe in demonic influences before serving many years as an exchange pastor in Singapore. After seeing pagan worship and its effects in one of its native lands he became convinced that, “Devils are real and the spiritual battle is intensifying.” Missionaries preparing for pagan lands, he wrote, should be trained to deal with demonic presences. 

In 1994, I had a long conversation with the chief of police of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. For brevity's sake, I will skip how this came to be. But he told me that there were entire sections of Rio that were so controlled by criminal organizations that the police would not go there and that even ambulance crews would refuse calls to go there. He described some of the crimes there and said they were simply demonic. 

I was at that time serving as a principal staff officer for the US Army Criminal Investigation Command, which is basically the Army's FBI. Every day I received summaries of investigations initiated in the prior 24 hours. Most were ordinary kinds of thefts and fraud. But there were always violent crimes and many were so unspeakably horrific that I cannot describe them here. Were they demonic? I cannot say no. 

To say spiritual beings such as demons or angels do not exist is to claim to know too much. We cannot sensibly claim that God created only physical creatures. To interpret demons in the Bible merely as metaphors for human frailty denies both biblical teaching and the lessons of history that there is a powerful influence for evil at loose in the world, prowling and looking to devour, as 1st Peter puts it. Not all human depravity can be attributed exclusively to human sinfulness. At the minimum there is a non-human magnifier of human sinfulness that operates in opposition to God. We can be biblically and psychologically correct, I think, to call this magnifier of evil the demonic. Just think of world history between 1933 – 1945. (Gen. Dwight Eisenhower said after the war that when planning military operations, “Violence took a seat at the table.”)

 That being said, the clear testimony of the gospels, reinforced by two millennia of Christian faith, is that Christ overcomes the demonic. The destruction of evil does not necessitate the destruction of persons. In the working of God’s salvation, persons are saved even while the legions of evil are plunged into the abyss. 

Martin Luther got it right when he wrote his great hymn, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” Verse three confidently proclaims:

Though hordes of devils fill the land,
All threatening to devour us,
We tremble not, unmoved we stand;
They cannot overpower us.
This world's prince may rage,
In fierce war engage.
He is doomed to fail;
God's judgment must prevail!
One little word subdues him.

The aliens among us - who is my neighbor?

Having this past week attended the annual conference of the Tennessee-Western Kentucky Conference of the UMC, I have questions about a resolution that was passed by overwhelming majority with no debate, "Welcoming the Migrant in our Midst." You may read the entire resolution here. 

I am impelled to ask some questions about exactly who the resolution is referring to. "Migrants" is a very inexact term. I would like the resolution's authors to explain who exactly is a migrant. I'll take it for granted that no US citizen is a migrant within the intent of the resolution. So:

1. Is a migrant any foreign national (FN henceforth) presently inside the United States? For example, does migrant status include foreign nationals who are here as tourists? 
2. Or, are there any categories of FNs in America who do not qualify as migrants, for example, FNs enrolled as students in US universities? Or FNs employed by a home country corporation and sent here for business purposes?
3. Are FNs who enter the US across the southern or northern borders through established federal entry points, with proper identity documentation, but not as tourists or for other temporary purposes, included as migrants? 
4. Are FNs who enter the US across the southern or northern borders by deliberately avoiding established federal entry points (hence, entering the US in violation of US law) included as migrants?
   
5. The resolution's first paragraph states that migrants "have journeyed here seeking safety, security, and better financial opportunities..." Specifically, then, are FNs who enter into the US seeking other things, such as smuggling deadly drugs (i.e., fentanyl) or engaging in human trafficking, included or excluded in the resolution's understanding of migrants? 

Once I know the answers, I will have more to say. Of course, what I say will depend on what the answers are.

Pentecost advocacy

Pentecost was a Jewish celebration long before it was a Christian one. It was one of the designation of the Feast of Weeks, which came after Passover. In Jesus’ day, Pentecost was a time to renew the covenant God made with Noah. This festival day seems to be the reason the disciples gathered together in one place. They were good Jews and wanted to observe the holy day.

Jesus had ascended to heaven, leaving his disciples behind. He had told them that God would give them a great gift after he departed. Jesus had indicated it would be the Holy Spirit. Sometimes we hear that the Holy Spirit was not among human beings until the day of Pentecost, but that’s not the case. The spirit of God moved over the surface of the waters, says Genesis. Ezekiel and Isaiah both spoke of the Spirit, as did the Psalmist. Of course, Peter spoke of the Holy Spirit when he quoted the book of Joel in his sermon in our passage.

So the disciples were waiting for something to happen, but they didn’t know exactly what or when. The Scriptures don’t tell us what they were actually doing just before the Spirit hit them. Of course, what matters is not what they were doing before, but what they did after. 

Jesus had promised his disciples that he would send the Holy Spirit. One instance was in the passage from the Gospel of John: 

15:26 “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. 27 You also are to testify because you have been with me from the beginning. 

16:4b “I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you. 5 But now I am going to him who sent me; yet none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ 6 But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts.

7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. 8 And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment:

9 about sin, because they do not believe in me;

10 about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer;

11 about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned.

 12 “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 14 He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. 15 All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

Right off the bat Jesus tells us that the Holy Spirit is the Advocate. An advocate is someone who takes the side of another. There are two senses of advocacy. One is friendship or alliance. 

I remember reading a short story written about a hundred years ago of two brothers, rivals as brothers often are, whose mother’s birthday was coming up. Each saved money to buy her a special present.

Their family was of the working poor. Mom was a maid, and her sons saw her every day leave home carrying her broom, her mop and bucket, and cleaning rags. They knew she worked very hard for them.

The older brother determined to save enough money to buy his mother a small comb with a silver handle – an astonishing luxury for a woman whose husband had not been able even to afford to buy her a diamond for her ring. The older brother hauled coal, swept stables and ran errands for people for a nickel each until he had enough to buy the comb. He bought it, hid it under his bed, and counted the days until his mother would receive it. He imagined the thrill he would get as he thought of how she would react to such a splendiferous present. Her could hardly sleep at night. 

Truth be told, though, one big reason he wanted to give her the silver comb was that he knew his younger brother could not possibly attain so grand a present. He relished a looming sense of superiority over little brother. 

The big day finally came. After supper, their father, a stock clerk in a store, brought out a modest cake with a single candle. They sang, “Happy Birthday” and mom cut a piece for each of them, making the boys’ pieces the largest. Father left and returned with a small, wrapped package, presented it to his wife and wished her happy birthday. She unwrapped the package to reveal a lace shawl. She held it up in awe. She had never had anything like it before. 

 Big brother turned to little brother. “You go first,” he said. Little brother disappeared out the back and returned carrying – a new mop and bucket. “Happy birthday, Mom!” he exclaimed happily. 

And mom . . . mom just sat back and her eyes filled with tears. But they were not tears of happiness, as older brother quickly noticed. Mom was silent for a moment and then sobbed, “A bucket! It’s my birthday. I scrub on my knees and wring out a mop all day long, and for my birthday I get a mop and bucket!”

Little brother began to cry, too. Then dad said, “Dear, I know what you must be thinking. But please take a look at this bucket. It has wheels, so you won’t have to carry a heavy bucket full of water from one room to another anymore.”

Mother looked up, suddenly interested. “Oh, my,” she said, “that’s good!”

Dad continued, “It has a lever-driven mop squeezer. You won’t have to take the mop to a house’s sink and wring it with your hands anymore. It will wring the mop for you when you press this lever. No more bending over.”

Mom clapped her hands and laughed aloud. “This is so wonderful! I’m sorry I didn’t understand at first!” She took her younger son into her arms and hugged him. “Thank you!” she said.

Father affixed a certain gaze on the older brother. Dad knew about the silver comb. “Son,” said the father, “what is your present for your mother?”

The older brother felt the comb in his pocket. What a treasure it was, and yet something stayed his hand. It was a grand present and fine, but what would Mother think of the bucket when she held the silver comb? Would she remember again how hard she worked for so little, and push her younger son and his bucket aside to embrace a gift to make her feel like a queen, if only a little? How diminished would his little brother feel, again? 

“Well,” demanded his father, “what are you giving your mother?”

The older brother said softly, “Half the bucket.”

An advocate is someone who supports you, who props you up, who endorses your honest efforts to do well. I would guess that the younger brother had a different relationship with his older brother from that day on. They were rivals no more, but companions and friends.

 One of the most influential religious philosophers of the twentieth century, Alfred North Whitehead, wrote, “Religion is the transition from God the void to God the enemy, and from God the enemy to God the companion.” Some people don’t much think of God at all; to them God is a term without a real referent. God is a void. Others resist the work and will of God in their lives; they scoff at God, perhaps, but really see God as someone opposing them.  

But God is really our companion. In fact, I think one of the chief things Jesus did was prove that God is not our enemy and certainly not a void. God is our friend. Yet Jesus said, “. . . if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.”

Unlike Jesus, who could only be in one place at a time, the Holy Spirit is everywhere at once. The Holy Spirit is the enduring companionship of God in our lives. Hence, Paul wrote,

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

This kind of relationship is intimate and personal. A little word study indicates how close the Spirit is. The Hebrew word for the Spirit of God is ruah, which means breath, or wind. In the beginning, says Genesis, when God created the heavens and the earth, the Spirit (or breath) of God moved across the waters of creation. The New Testament word for Spirit means wind or breath, also. In John 20, Jesus breathed upon his disciples and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” which they certainly did on Pentecost. Two unrelated languages used the same concept to name the Spirit of God. Coincidence? I think not. 

Breathing is one of the most intimate acts. When a baby is born, the sound of its cries and breathing is the first thing the moms and dads wait for. 9-1-1 operators hear frantic calls that “my child” or my wife or my husband isn’t breathing. Medical care is high-tech, with machines to monitor brain waves and heartbeats, but it is the cessation of breathing that marks the passing. 

So considering how the Scriptures describe the Holy Spirit, I would say that the Spirit is as close as our next breath, in a very literal sense. All this is to say the advocacy of the Holy Spirit is up close and personal and allied with us, not opposed to us. 

Yet this advocacy and companionship is for a purpose. If on the one hand the Spirit comforts us and intercedes for us, on the other the Spirit also kicks us in the tail to live out our calling as disciples. Consider the famous account of the Day of Pentecost in Acts. 

 The future apostles and other disciples were all together in one place when “there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind.” Wind, Spirit, I am sure you picked that up. But did you get it: violent wind! Something is up. There is turmoil coming! Then tongues as of fire rested on each of them, then they heard each other speaking is many different languages. 

It must have been quite a scene because passersby scoffed that they were all drunk with new wine. Peter, emboldened by the Holy Spirit, preached that the last days had come. And so they had. We live in them still. 

What the Spirit did that day was jerk Jesus’ disciples into the future, to bring it about by continuing the work of Christ in the present life of the world. When the Holy Spirit hit them, it hit them all together, at the same time, and it blew them right out of their meeting room into the hostile, mean streets of Jerusalem and the world.

They were transformed into group of folks given something ultimate to do, to tell the entire world about Life. And they were given the ability and power to do it, the power of the Holy Spirit.

Pentecost is thus called the birthday of the Church. The great days of the Church are not only in the past. What happened on Pentecost can happen again – here and now – when we are willing to be picked up, possessed of God and be used as God’s instruments, when we are willing to set aside the pleasures and profits of the secular world so we can be instruments of God’s love and witnesses to Christ’s salvation.

On Sundays when we are together in one place, God comes into our lives to renew our redemption and our redemptive purpose, to heal our wounds and sustain us in our community of faith. God sends us to carry each other’s burdens, to meet one another’s difficulties. God calls us to live above mundane things and rise above despair and anxiety. God calls us to God’s self, to seek God’s face in our hearts and the hearts of others. So we meet together. 

May the Holy Spirit rest on us and send us out of the church as witnesses into the streets where we live and work.