Month: March 2019

The Taxman Cometh

“Oh, you better watch out, you better not cry. Better not pout, I’m telling you why: the tax man is coming to town . .  .”

Okay, I know that’s not how the song goes. And I know the arrival of Santa is much more joyfully anticipated than the metaphorical coming of the taxman. It is after all, more blessed to receive than to give – at least in this context. But we are now in what is known as “tax season” (“To everything there is a season,” as it says in Ecclesiastes 3?). Which means that millions of us are negotiating the impossibly complex world of the US tax system to file tax returns (or extensions) by April 15th.

It’s not that paying taxes is wrong; the Bible tells us that it is proper we pay what we owe. When Jesus was asked whether it was right to pay taxes to Caesar, he pointed to the image of Caesar on the coin and commanded famously, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:15-21). Later, Paul said, “For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God. Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed . . . ” (Romans 13:6-7). And apart from paying the imperial taxes levied by the Romans, every Jewish man over the age of 20 also paid an annual half-shekel Temple tax to support the upkeep of the Temple. Throughout history, the words of Ben Franklin have been true: “In this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” (By the way, Ben died five months after writing that. I wonder what his estate tax was?)

It’s not so much that taxes are wrong; after all, someone has to pay for the protections and services that governments provide. But there are problems with our taxes, which make the annual April 15th deadline so unpleasant.

First, there is the complexity of our system, or should I say, systems. There are local, state, and federal tax codes and requirements. The federal code alone is over 10 million words and 71,600 pages long. It is so complex that no one really knows what all is in it: when people call the IRS to get help with tax questions, they get different answers depending on who answers the phone. Entire industries of tax preparers, attorneys, and software engineers exist solely to help people and companies navigate – and pay – the right amount of taxes.

This hit home recently while Karen and I were preparing our tax returns. After careful reading I learned that we cannot claim our cat as a dependent. Nor can we claim cat litter as a medical expense, though it would make us sick if we didn’t scoop or change it often. Similarly, I cannot deduct my haircuts, even though keeping my hair at a good length is a community service: I am helping to keep California beautiful by doing so. At the very least, this blog should be a charitable deduction; it is after all, non-profit. But I won’t try slipping anything past the IRS – they have guns and prison cells, after all.

Second, there is the vast amount of government waste of our taxes. One sore point we have about paying the taxes we pay is that so much of it is wasted in corruption, boondoggles, bad choices, and political favors. There are so many inefficiencies, duplications, and overpriced purchases, not to mention the billions of dollars that just vanish without a trace. This is not just the loss of money – it is the squandering of human effort, labor, and resources which are taken from us “for the greater good,” but which never get used for what they are intended to help.

Just a few examples, courtesy of The Waste Report*: $50,000 given to the Georgia Christmas Tree Assoc to run commercials promoting Christmas trees at Christmas; $158 million in federal lunch money diverted by LA schools to pay for lawn sprinklers and TV station salaries; $188,000 to study why Americans don’t want to use the metric system;  over $250,000 for Pakistani kids to visit Space Camp and Dollywood; and $15 million to study the effectiveness of golf equipment in space. Seriously.

Even when our tax money is spent where it is supposed to be, we have to wonder whether the programs we fund actually accomplish what they are supposed to. And this is an issue regardless of one’s political leanings, because the benefits of spending as much as we do in any area can be questioned, whether it is for welfare, farm subsidies, the military, or education. If we knew that every cent we paid was doing some good, we probably would feel better about paying what politicians call our “contributions.” But we know it’s not.

Third, there is the conflict between what is Caesar’s and what is God’s. The third level of disquiet I have when it comes to taxes is with the conflict between what government demands and what God demands. I will gladly render to Caesar what is his, but if it conflicts with what I owe God, then there is a problem. Here I am thinking about a range of things: the funding of abortions and abortion providers; the persecution of Christians who stand up for their faith in the workplace, in school, or in their businesses; government agencies suing people for following their consciences when baking wedding cakes; the denial of tax-exempt status to religious organizations; the carrying out of wars and assassinations for political reasons; and the censoring of speech by government-funded colleges.

I could cite many examples of this God/Caesar conflict, but my point is not to argue over specific cases but to address the bigger question: what if Caesar commands me to do something, or to fund something, that is in direct conflict with what God commands? Here are some thoughts to consider:

    1. The physical and spiritual realms overlap. We can’t just divide things neatly into two piles, one for spiritual activities such as worship, prayer, fasting, and scriptural study, and the other for secular things such as school, work, sports, and taxes. Jesus always directed us to the spiritual application of every area of life. He didn’t say to withdraw from the world like a hermit, but to be active as God’s children in all we do. This makes it harder to divide Caesar-things from God-things, but that’s just the point: everything belongs to God ultimately, and the way we act toward everything in our lives is how we are acting toward God. Do we care for the poor and oppressed? Then we are caring for Jesus (Matthew 25:40). Do we “work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men” (Colossians 3:23)? Do we approach all areas of our lives with thankful hearts, seeking to please and honor God by what we do? If so, then we have to view our relationships to the governing bodies in our lives in terms of how God would view our actions.
    2. God himself has instituted all authority. He has done so to establish order, restrain evil, and ensure justice (Romans 13:1-4). Likewise, Peter commands us, “Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.” (1 Peter 2:13-17). How we act toward authorities shows how we act toward God, for he is the Supreme Ruler over all, and our actions and attitudes are visible witnesses to the world. Therefore, we are to respect the people who serve in government and treat them as people who themselves have duties to perform.
    3. We are part of the problem. In our country (and state and city), we have a role as citizen-voters to speak up and vote our consciences. Too long too many good people have sat back and allowed others to make bad governing decisions. Too many times we have just shaken our heads and said, “Isn’t that terrible!” and just gone back to our own selfish pursuits, rather than standing up and speaking out. We hear about “activists” who shape public policy and the use of taxes; why are we not as active in voicing our concerns? When our forefathers rebelled against British rule, one of the main issues was “taxation without representation.” Now we have representatives whom we elect, but are they representing our values?  Not if we don’t speak up. Likewise, how many of our voices have been “bought” by politicians through government payments, grants, and subsidies? It’s hard to speak out against misuse of money when some of that money goes back into our pockets.
    4. At some point, we may need to just say “No.” God’s law is greater than man’s, and there may be a point when obedience to God means saying no to government demands. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused to bow down to Nebuchadnezzar’s golden statute (Daniel 3). Daniel refused to cease praying to God in spite of Darius’ forbidding it (Daniel 6). John the Baptist was imprisoned and executed for speaking against the ruler named Herod, and Peter and the Apostles were arrested and beaten for speaking about Jesus (Acts 5). And so on. Throughout history, Christians have suffered persecution and martyrdom for refusing the commands of anti-Christian rulers to deny Christ and worship the approved gods. We may face the same dilemma: do we keep quiet and go with the flow, or do we stand up for what we believe. Before we do, there are certain criteria we must take into account if our protest is going to be God-honoring.

What are those things? Tune in next week for Part 2 of this article . . . In the meantime:

May the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen.

Read: Daniel 6, Acts 5:17-42

 

*The Waste Report, issued annually by Sen. Rand Paul.

 

 

 

 

Half a Mind is Better Than None

Have you ever heard the expression, “I have half a mind to . . .” followed by some action the speaker is contemplating? An example might be, “I have half a mind to go to my boss and tell him/her off!” or “I have half a mind to tell that blogger he’s just plain nuts!” (For your sake, I hope the other half of your mind talked you out of blasting your boss; for my sake, I hope the second example has never occurred to you.)

Actually, I have come to suspect that the expression may be a description of me after all; that for all intents and purposes, I have only half a mind. Let me explain.

Half my mind is beautiful.

On the one hand, I have a marvelous mind (a “Beautiful Mind” as described in the 2001 movie by the same name, about a math genius named John Nash). Not that I’m a math genius, but my mind does come up with things that astound even me. For example, I can remember poetry my mother told me in grade school (Old Ironsides), the seven hills of Rome, Avogadro’s number (6.023 × 1023), the words to German folk songs I learned in high school, and the name of the Zulu king at the 1879 battle of Isandlwana. I once devised a math formula on my napkin while eating at a restaurant, for the number of lines needed to connect any number of dots on my napkin: x=n(n-1)/2. Since retiring I have taken up doing the New York Times crossword puzzle, and have been surprised how many archaic words I never use that pop into my mind and are the correct answers to the given clues. I can memorize sermons and dramatic monologues. And, recently I stood behind a young man who was wearing a t-shirt written in Russian; though I’m not a Russian speaker, I realized that I could read it: it was Jesus’ statement in John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (Нет больше той любви, как если кто положит душу свою за друзей своих.) Yes, I have a beautiful mind, matched only by my humility.

The other half, not so good.

But, like I said, it’s only half a mind. The other half, not so good. The other half is what happens when I walk into a room and forget why I went there. It’s what shows up when I think about someone I’ve known for twenty years and somehow can’t remember their name. It’s what takes over when I sit down to write a blog and end up distracted by everything else in the room instead. And unfortunately, it’s what takes over at night when I lie down to sleep. Instead of blissful peace and dreams of cuddly sheep jumping over a fence, my mind races with whatever I was doing in the hours before bedtime. I lie there with my (half) mind tied in knots, obsessed with solving the aforementioned crossword puzzles, moving colored blocks in a Tetris-like video game I was playing, replaying exciting scenes from an action drama I was watching, or imagining conversations in various situations that are unlikely to ever happen (such as what I would say from the gold medal podium at the next Olympics). Worst of all, I find my faulty half-mind thinking about things that are contrary to what God would have me think. Too many unpleasant, judgmental, prideful, or just plain sinful thoughts try to form and get my attention.

Recently, while I lay there contemplating sleep (Or as Edgar Allen Poe put it in his poem, The Raven, “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,”) I was struck by how much I was obsessing over trivial matters and letting those random thoughts control my mind. I thought to myself, “If I have a decent (half) mind, why can’t I just stop those other thoughts and fall asleep?” and “If I can’t keep my mind from dealing with all those fruitless thoughts. how can I apply it to fruitful pursuits, instead?” It was in the turmoil of that struggle that 2 Corinthians 10:5  popped into my mind: “We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.”

It was one of those moments when something seems so obvious we wonder why we weren’t thinking it all along.

It was one of those moments when something seems so obvious we wonder why we weren’t thinking it all along. In my case, I knew that those random thoughts that were keeping me awake had taken me captive and that I had let them, for whatever reason. Maybe my mind was trying to hold onto the satisfaction that those thoughts had given while I was awake and doing them. But now, that it was time to sleep, I needed to take them captive so that they served me and not the other way around. The more I thought about the verse from Second Corinthians, the more I realized I had to deliberately control my thoughts and take them captive.

It’s amazing how many times the Bible talks about our minds. On the one hand, Scripture teaches us that our very thought processes and abilities are imperfect and flawed by sin. When God destroyed most of mankind by the Great Flood, it was because “every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5). Second Corinthians 4:4 says, “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers . . .” Romans 8:5-6 warns that “Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires;” and Jesus said in Matthew 15:19, “For out of the heart come evil thoughts.” Acts 17:19 tells us that idols are formed “by the art and imagination of man.” There is even one verse that describes me: “even at night their minds do not rest” (Ecclesiastes 2:23)!

Although our minds have tremendous abilities and can sometimes do wondrous things, they were affected by mankind’s fall into sin and God’s resultant curse on all creation. Just as our bodies eventually wear out and die, so also our minds depend on our flawed brains to function properly. When I applied for a graduate program in history in my 30s, I was accepted, but told that I would have been too old for a similar program in math – because by that age my brain would have already lost too many math abilities.

And even when our brains are “firing on all cylinders” we tend to use our mental faculties for selfish and sinful purposes. How many geniuses were involved in creating the atom bomb? How many brilliant chemists devised poison gas? How many crooks use their smarts to embezzle funds at work or con people out of their savings? Even though there are many videos out there showing dumb crooks doing stupid things (such as robbing a gun store), how many successful schemes never get detected?

Sin has affected every part of our being, including our minds. Luther called it the “bondage of the will,” arguing that we are unable to choose God or what is right on our own power.  Luther’s Small Catechism puts it this way: “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him. . . ” Likewise, Reformed theologians called our mental sinfulness part of the “total depravity” that sin has caused, in which every part of us, including our minds, is affected.

So then, what do we do? Do we give up and say, “Well, that’s just human nature. I might as well not try to do better”? The answer is, “No.” Even though Scripture recognizes our shortcomings in mental ability and sinfulness, it still commands us to look to the Lord and focus our mind on him and his will. Colossians 3:2 says, “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.” Philippians 4:8 reads, “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”  Paul warns in 1 Corinthians 14:20, “Brothers, do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature.”

When I graduated from high school, my parents gave me a little book which bore a title taken from the King James Version of Proverbs 23:7, “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” Their point was to encourage me to think right thoughts, so that I might have a better life and one more in keeping with God’s commandments. In other words, I could overcome my inherent limitations by focusing on the good and striving for it.

That was good advice, which I will strive to follow more now, and which I will commend to you as well. Let us follow the advice of the song, “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face; and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace.”*

And with that thought and song in my mind, good night!

Now may the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen.

Read: Philippians 4:4-8, Romans 7:21-25, Romans 8:5-6, Colossians 3

*from The Heavenly Vision, by Helen Howarth Lemmel

Elegy in a Churchyard

In 1751, Thomas Gray published his famous poem, “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,” in which he contemplated life and death and his own waiting grave. Yesterday I contemplated some of the same subjects while sitting in church. My wife and I were attending the memorial service for a man we’ve known for almost 25 years now. He was elderly and in poor health, and had expressed he was ready for his earthly journey to end. As a solid Christian, he anticipated heaven and the chance to see his wife, who had preceded him in death just a few months earlier. Still, it’s always hard to say good-bye to someone you like, even though you know his passing is a blessing to him.

As I sat in the service, I thought back over the many funerals I conducted while serving in active pastoral ministry. I officiated at 160 services, of which five were during my first year of retirement, and one was before going to seminary. (This compares to 76 weddings and over 300 baptisms.) As I pondered the words of yesterday’s service, a number of incidents from “my” funerals came to mind. I’d like to share some of the “high-lights” and “low-lights” with you.

The first service was while I was serving as an interim preacher at a small, country congregation in nearby Edinburgh, Indiana. The pastor had died, and my own pastor sent me over to help out while I was still taking part-time seminary courses by extension. I preached almost every Sunday and taught confirmation classes, but when it came to administering sacraments and conducting funerals or weddings, a real pastor was called in.

It was in this context that I assisted at the service of a 12-year old boy who had suddenly become ill and died. His parents and the small, family-like congregation were devastated; I remember visiting the dad right after the boy died, and hearing his lament that God could have let his son live long enough to play his beloved baseball one more season before taking him. I didn’t know how to respond – I probably still wouldn’t.

But I definitely wouldn’t say what the real pastor said during the eulogy. She said, “God has a lot to answer for, to take this boy so young.” She was in touch with the family’s questioning of “Why? Why him, and why now?” but even though I had barely begun my seminary studies, I knew her statement was wrong. God has nothing to have to answer for. He is God, and he can do as he wishes. Whether he caused the death outright or just allowed a natural disease to run its course was his decision. Who am I, or who was that pastor, to charge God with wrongdoing?

Scripture says that God’s ways are beyond our scrutiny and judgment. Though we may ask, as the psalmists do, “Why, O Lord?” (Psalm 10:1, 88:14, for example) when evil befalls us, we are in no position to judge God. We are told that God’s ways and decisions are unsearchable: “The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable” (Isaiah 40:28), and in Romans 11:33, “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” As high as the heavens are above the earth, so are his ways higher than ours, and his thoughts than our thoughts (Isaiah 55:9). When righteous Job questioned all the suffering he endured, God responded to him with, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding” (Job 38:4), and “Will you even put me in the wrong?
Will you condemn me that you may be in the right?” (Job 40:8). Clearly, to charge God with wrongdoing and attempt to judge him based on our limited knowledge and standards, is itself wrong.

When the service ended, we stepped outside to the small cemetery in the adjacent churchyard for the burial. I read Jesus’ words from John 11:25-26 aloud: “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” When I read the words, I choked up, barely getting them out – not just because I shared the family’s grief, but also because I looked forward to the day when that entire little cemetery (and all others) will empty at Christ’s return. The hope of what is to come trumped the loss at what had happened. That is the message every funeral should proclaim.

The second service I conducted was about nine months after I was ordained. The woman was a non-member referred to me by friends of hers when they learned she had terminal bone cancer. I visited her off and on for several months, praying with her and reminding her of our faith even as the cancer spread and wreaked havoc in her body. Finally, on a Maundy Thursday morning, I sat with her and her family as she said her final good-byes and slipped into eternity. It hit me hard. As it happened, I preached at out church’s Maundy Thursday service that evening, and struggled greatly with the message, which was about Judas’s betrayal and our participation in his sin. And about Jesus’ pending death.

When I preached at her service, I had no idea that I would be doing the same for her unbelieving husband two years later, though thanks be to God, he came to faith during one of my visits to him just prior to his death. After his conversion, his family wondered about the change that had taken place in him, and asked me just prior to beginning his service, “What did you do to him? He’s a different (better) man now!” I had to reply that it wasn’t me, but God’s doing. I realized that my ministry to his wife was not only for her comfort, but also the means to lay the groundwork for his salvation.

There was the “Wrong Name” service.  Less than two years after my ordination, I made the one mistake every preacher dreads: saying the wrong name in a funeral service. In my defense (he rationalizes) the odds were stacked against me. I had two services just three days apart for two non-member women who were about the same age. Both services were at funeral homes. One woman’s name was Barbara and the other Margaret, both of whom, you will note, had the same number of syllables, and basically the same vowels. Though the sermons were different, I used the same template for both services, just erasing the first person’s name from my service book and writing in the second one. Of course, I missed one of the changes, so when it came time in the second service to read the deceased’s name, I said the wrong one. As soon as I did, my heart sank and I knew the family would be upset and my career would be over, but from every indication, no one noticed – except of course, my wife, who was attending that service. Spouses always catch those things. I determined to be more careful in the future, and never again made that mistake – at least as far as I know . . .

The “Open Mic” service. Though I did officiate at a number of services where the family wanted everyone who wanted to, to get up and say something, there was one that stood out more than others. We held the service at a school cafeteria where the young man had worked. There was a large turnout of co-workers, students, and friends of the family. The service proceeded just fine until it came time for the eulogy. In keeping with the family’s request, I invited people to come forward to the microphone and give their tributes. Many people spoke, until finally it appeared it was time to move on. Just as I began the benediction, a man stood up and asked to speak. I started to tell him he was too late, when the family asked me to let him speak. I deferred, and stepped back. He came up, took the mic in hand, and began his remarks with the words, “I didn’t know the deceased, but . . .” He went on to completely undermine my Christian message of faith and resurrection, telling everyone that the deceased was now a tree, or a bee or something like that. I resolved never to let that kind of thing happen again, so in future services, I declined requests for open mics and asked family to designate two or three people they knew and trusted to give a few memories of the deceased. Those services went much better.

There are many other funerals and  memorial services I could tell about, such as the one where I had to inspect the un-embalmed body of the deceased to make sure he was wearing his glasses and wedding ring; when I reported to the widow that he was, she asked me if he still had his dentures.

But rather than going too long, I want to close with my philosophy of the reasons we conduct Christian funerals. As I tell the families, we have four goals in every service. First, we remember and honor the deceased, being thankful for his or her life and the memories they leave us. Second, we seek to comfort all who are grieving, easing their pain and giving them hope. Third, we praise and honor God, thanking him for his gift of life – for that person and for all of us. And fourth, we preach the Gospel to all who attend, calling on them to believe in Jesus Christ and what he has done for them by his own death and resurrection, that they too might not fear death but look forward instead to eternal life. To fail any of those goals is to let down all who mourn, for even though Christians mourn the loss of loved ones, Paul reminds us, “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.” (1 Thessalonians 4:13-14).

No matter how many funerals there are, or whatever human failings enter into the services, the great message of hope is the same as what I read at that first service years ago: Jesus is the resurrection and the Life. Whoever believes in him, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in him shall never die. May you also believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing have life in his name. (John 20:31).

May the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen.

Read: Job 38-41, Isaiah 40, John 11