Faith

I thought this, from Mark Elrod's Lame-O Weblog, was cute:

Three couples - one elderly, one middle-aged and one newlywed - wanted to join the local church. The pastor told them that the church had a special requirement for new parishioners. He said that each couple had to abstain from having sex for two weeks as a sign of their commitment to the Lord's work. They all agreed and returned to the pastor's office at the end of two weeks. The pastor went to the elderly couple and asked, "Were you able to abstain from sex for the two weeks?" The old man replied, "No problem at all, Father." "Congratulations! Welcome to the church!" said the pastor. The pastor went to the middle-aged couple and asked, "Well, were you able to abstain from sex for the two weeks?" The middle-aged man replied, "The first week was not too bad. The second week I had to sleep on the couch for a couple of nights, but, yep, we made it." "Congratulations! Welcome to the church," said the pastor. The pastor then went to the young couple and asked, "Well, were you able to abstain from sex for two weeks?" "No Pastor, we were not able to go without sex for the two weeks," the young man replied sadly. "What happened?" inquired the pastor. "Well, the other night, my wife was reaching for a can of coffee on the top shelf and dropped it," said the young man. "When she bent over to pick it up, I was overcome with lust and we had sex right there on the floor." "You understand, of course, this means you will not be welcome in our church," stated the pastor. "That's okay," said the young man. "We're not welcome at the Wal-Mart anymore either."

In a Sunday school class I was in recently someone commented that radical Islam in flourishing in our prison systems. I guess I had heard that Islam was flourishing, but didn't realize it was the radical flavor. For example, see articles here and here. Anyway, this reminded me that the US is the country with the highest percentage of its population incarcerated.

I came across this story recently in James Montgomery Boice's The Minor Prophets. It reminded me how Dave Keim used to tell it every year to the college students at Laurel in Knoxville. Wonder if he still does.

In the 19th century there was an acrobat (Jean Francois Gravelet) who was known by the stage name Blondin because of his fair coloring. Blondin gained a reputation for himself in Europe before coming to America, and once here he gained even greater fame by walking across Niagara Falls on a tightrope. Thereafter he was associated in everyone's mind with the Falls. He did numerous stunts on his crossings. On one occasion he pushed a wheelbarrow across. On another he paused to eat an omelet. Once or twice he carried his manager on his back. On one of these latter occasions, after he had reached the edge again, he is said to have turned to a man in the crowd and to have asked him, "Do you believe I could do that with you?" "Of course," answered the man. "I've just seen you do it." "Well, then, hop on," invited the acrobat. "I'll carry you across." "Not on your life!" replied the spectator. There was clearly a form of belief in the man's first response, but it did not result in action. What is called for spiritually is a belief that will fully commit itself to Jesus, thereby allowing Him to carry the believing one over the troubled waters of this life.

This passage caught my attention when I read it the other day:

13 Another thing you do: You flood the LORD's altar with tears. You weep and wail because he no longer pays attention to your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands. 14 You ask, "Why?" It is because the LORD is acting as the witness between you and the wife of your youth, because you have broken faith with her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant. 15 Has not the LORD made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? Because he was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth. "I hate divorce," says the LORD God of Israel, "and I hate a man's covering himself with violence as well as with his garment," says the LORD Almighty. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith. You have wearied the LORD with your words. "How have we wearied him?" you ask. By saying, "All who do evil are good in the eyes of the LORD, and he is pleased with them" or "Where is the God our justice?"

What God seeks from marriages... The intensity of God's dislike of divorce...and violence... The God can be "wearied" by his children's words when they complain about not getting a fair shake.

The episode of One Punk Under God that I watched on Wednesday (I guess it was this week's episode) opened with Jay Bakker speaking to a church audience that is almost exclusively African-American. The crowd is enthusiastic and vocal, but then he brings up the fact that he's been criticized recently for speaking out in support of gay marriage. The room goes silent and stays that way as he continues to speak. He calls out the crowd, somewhat vaguely, for not supporting the "freedom" of others considering that their ancestors once lacked freedom. That's an unfair comparison, of course, and you can't help but feel that Bakker was playing to the camera, but regardless you have to also admit the guy has the courage of his convictions even if you don't agree (like I don't) with the basic conclusion that the homosexual lifestyle should be acceptable within the church. We also find out in this episode that the other shoe drops and Bakker's Revolution church loses its primary source of funding over Jay stand on homosexuality. The episode ends with Revolution apparently in jeopardy as Jay announces that he is leaving Atlanta to move to NY so that his wife can continue her studies. It makes me wonder if Jay had this "out" in the back of his mind when he decided to risk Revolution for the sake of speaking out about his convictions...that he might be leaving it soon any way.