Dear Trekker,
Pastor and author Eugene Peterson (translator of The Message) makes an amazing, startling statement: “There are a thousand ways of being religious without submitting to Christ’s lordship, and people are practiced in most of them.” (Yes, of course, “we” created them all!) Further… “We live in golden calf country. Religious feeling runs high, but in ways far removed from what was said on Sinai and done on Calvary” (Under the Unpredictable Plant: An Exploration in Vocational Holiness, 1992, Eerdmans).
I am reminded of one of my favorite stories: “Bubba was a good ole’ boy, born and raised a Baptist deep within Catholic Cajun country of Louisiana. Back in the day when Catholic folk were not permitted to eat meat on Fridays, Bubba would intentionally fire up his backyard grill and allow the tantalizing aroma of fresh meat to waft through the neighborhood, driving his neighbors crazy. So some of his neighbors begged their local priest for a solution. He replied, “Well, have you ever thought of making Bubba a Catholic?” Well, no they hadn’t. When they approached Bubba, surprisingly he replied: “Sure, I’ll be a Catholic.” So Bubba went through adult catechesis and was baptized a Catholic. The priest incantated, “You were born a Baptist and raised a Baptist, but now you’re a Catholic.” Bubba was pleased as were his neighbors. But a few weeks later, the same Friday night occurrence caught them by surprise. As some went over to accost Bubba in his backyard they found him musing quite loudly over his grill, “You were born a deer and raised a deer, but now you is a catfish.” Bubba didn’t quite get it, or did he?
Peterson goes on to say, “While everyone has a hunger for God, deep and insatiable, none of us has any great desire for him. What we really want is to be our own gods and to have whatever other gods that are around to help us in this work.”
And so religious practices, some well-meaning, many dubious, replace true worship of the authentic God of Sinai and Calvary! Serious, not humorous, apostasy can result. We seem to be able to worship most anything except the Savior!
Such was Earth Day a few weeks ago! Earth Day 2017 (April 22) drowned out Easter this year as if the resurrection had never happened. Sadly, as we revered Earth Day, which is always accompanied by predictions of gloom, our worship and reverence of the Resurrection lapsed into oblivion. Hunger for God, without worshipping Him alone, can over time, morph into ridiculous statements and beliefs… and new religions can be birthed. In 1970, when Earth Day was hatched, one Ivy League professor pontificated, “Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”
So it is easy to see how “religions” form. Americans of all stripes have paid a steep price and watered down their faith in the false eddy of environmentalism, another new religion. Who controls the universe? Who sets the boundaries? Who calms the oceans and the seas with a word? Who said I am the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End (Rev 22:13)? That One might be worthy of our worship! And we must desire Him only. And be careful, so-called modern day true believers can become as distracted as people with no faith at all!
The Apostle Paul says quite emphatically to believers in Ephesus. “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (Ephesians 4:4-6). When we believe and live such singular, undivided faith, Paul states: “Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head that is Christ (Ephesians 4:14,15). Stability, grounding, etc. is key to understanding life and truth. And there is no sure foundation apart from Jesus Christ.
The Apostle James also appeals for surety of foundation, but with a caution. “But when one asks (for discernment and wisdom), he must believe and not doubt because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double minded man unstable in all he does (James 1:6-8).
A sure foundation in Jesus alone, as God in the flesh (the meaning of incarnation), is upon whom we must stand. This is the only beginning and end of wisdom. This is the only reliable destroyer of duplicity and exploitation. There is much we do not know about timing and the universe, about culture and its future, etc. But the Master Architect holds our future! The timing of “His Kingdom come” and the unfolding of our ultimate destiny is in His hands alone. Our futures are in our hands only to the point of choice God grants us now. We do not control the universe or craft our ultimate existence beyond this life. We, of highest creation, remain, creation only.
But, if we submit to Christ’s Lordship, we will escape the idyllic lure of the religious fads of our or any day. The church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ. When rooted and built up in Him, the winds of “fiery ordeal,” which can whip up a frenzy of false faith and detract and destroy the rootless, need not do so with you and me, trekker. Standing together, back to back, brother with brother, a strange irony takes place. Winds of weal and woe actually deepen our faith and strengthen our roots, deeper and deeper into the ground zero of Jesus! Winds that previously yanked us to and fro now drive roots deeper and wider into Jesus soil. All is well as we are embedded in Christ, and not steeped in or confused by the siren calls of the religious raconteurs!
Another environmentalist of the 60’s-70’s heyday said “The threat of a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery for mankind.” Well, maybe! But only if it is in God’s overall architectural plan for the universe He created and sustains by His spoken word.
Here’s the rub, trekker! Without grounding there is no developing, growing, authentic faith. With grounding, our faith stands and withstands, proving ever more lasting and authentic to any observer. We shall together, overcome, for greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world (1 John 4:4).
Your friend,
Jim Meredith
