Monday, April 29, 2013
337 - Giving As Good As We Get
Spirituality
Column #337
April 30, 2013
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers – Zionsville
For 2,000 years the proposition “You should be a Christian” has been countered with the question: “What do I get?”
Sermonizers, evangelists and ministers endlessly answer seekers and new believers suggesting a transaction: “Johnny, tell ‘em what they’ve won!” Believers get a new life in Christ; forgiveness of sin, the wisdom of God, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, plus eternal life, grace, freedom, mercy, peace, patience, kindness …
Not enough? Well, how about health, wealth, and happiness?
Still not enough? OK, you’ll be rich, smart, good looking and all your prayers will be answered in the Godly affirmative: Yes! Just, c’mon, be a Christian!
Religion “buyers” (us) and “sellers” (preachers) too often leap reflexively and opportunistically from encountering the sober and divine gift of Jesus Christ into the hysterical earthly realm of fallen humans trying to satisfy worldly appetites.
It’s an equation mostly unchanged in two millennia of Christian thought. Twenty-first century mankind is no less mercenary than our ancestors. Freer, perhaps – plus with iPhones, game shows, etc. – but still asking Jesus “What’s in it for me?” We’ll listen to a surprising idea, consider obedience and faith, suppose the existence of “right” and “wrong”, entertain the notion of Jesus Christ as the son of God and savior of humanity, and maybe even tolerate the inconvenience of church. But eventually we ask, “”What do I get?” I’m here to say, that’s the wrong question.
For fun and re-edification, I am re-reading Oxford theologian Alister McGrath’s “Christian Theology,” an 800-page college text. My son used this introductory survey while taking a Religious Studies minor at Purdue. My copy is one I picked up years ago from friend and pastor Russ Blowers who had a spare in his home library. Certainly, the “benefits” of Christianity, i.e., “What do I get?” is noted and discussed.
Since Jesus appeared, defining the earthly value of Christian belief has been nearly as extensive an enterprise as defining the nature and person of Jesus Christ. Origen, Tertullian, Chrysostom, Athanasius, Augustine, the Cappadocian Fathers, Maximus (the Confessor), Anselm, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin and countless scholars have dissected, parsed, imputed, translated, investigated, and expounded on every word of scripture and every imaginable detail of Christ’s place in the Godhead and Jesus’ influence on the world. Yet we sit in church, or somewhere, and ask, “What do I get?”
When contemplating Christ and all He gave, it seems a self-centered misstep to negotiate one’s Christian walk in terms of “What I can get.”
No, being about Christ is being about “What I can give.”
That expresses divine love - the Gospel - and that’s as good as it gets.
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) poses this “give and get” - Christ forgiving us; us forgetting ourselves.
April 30, 2013
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers – Zionsville
Giving As Good As We Get
By
Bob WaltersFor 2,000 years the proposition “You should be a Christian” has been countered with the question: “What do I get?”
Sermonizers, evangelists and ministers endlessly answer seekers and new believers suggesting a transaction: “Johnny, tell ‘em what they’ve won!” Believers get a new life in Christ; forgiveness of sin, the wisdom of God, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, plus eternal life, grace, freedom, mercy, peace, patience, kindness …
Not enough? Well, how about health, wealth, and happiness?
Still not enough? OK, you’ll be rich, smart, good looking and all your prayers will be answered in the Godly affirmative: Yes! Just, c’mon, be a Christian!
Religion “buyers” (us) and “sellers” (preachers) too often leap reflexively and opportunistically from encountering the sober and divine gift of Jesus Christ into the hysterical earthly realm of fallen humans trying to satisfy worldly appetites.
It’s an equation mostly unchanged in two millennia of Christian thought. Twenty-first century mankind is no less mercenary than our ancestors. Freer, perhaps – plus with iPhones, game shows, etc. – but still asking Jesus “What’s in it for me?” We’ll listen to a surprising idea, consider obedience and faith, suppose the existence of “right” and “wrong”, entertain the notion of Jesus Christ as the son of God and savior of humanity, and maybe even tolerate the inconvenience of church. But eventually we ask, “”What do I get?” I’m here to say, that’s the wrong question.
For fun and re-edification, I am re-reading Oxford theologian Alister McGrath’s “Christian Theology,” an 800-page college text. My son used this introductory survey while taking a Religious Studies minor at Purdue. My copy is one I picked up years ago from friend and pastor Russ Blowers who had a spare in his home library. Certainly, the “benefits” of Christianity, i.e., “What do I get?” is noted and discussed.
Since Jesus appeared, defining the earthly value of Christian belief has been nearly as extensive an enterprise as defining the nature and person of Jesus Christ. Origen, Tertullian, Chrysostom, Athanasius, Augustine, the Cappadocian Fathers, Maximus (the Confessor), Anselm, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin and countless scholars have dissected, parsed, imputed, translated, investigated, and expounded on every word of scripture and every imaginable detail of Christ’s place in the Godhead and Jesus’ influence on the world. Yet we sit in church, or somewhere, and ask, “What do I get?”
When contemplating Christ and all He gave, it seems a self-centered misstep to negotiate one’s Christian walk in terms of “What I can get.”
No, being about Christ is being about “What I can give.”
That expresses divine love - the Gospel - and that’s as good as it gets.
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) poses this “give and get” - Christ forgiving us; us forgetting ourselves.
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