Who Do You Think You Are?

(Feb. 2007 Church Newsletter)

I read an interesting story in a magazine a few years back about a dog that belonged to a certain family in the Midwest. When this poor little puppy had been born, his mother was very sick and died just after delivering her litter – and this poor puppy was the only one that survived. The family knew that the puppy had little chance to survive without a mother, so they turned to books and local veterinarians for advice on how to care for it. Despite their best efforts, the puppy refused to eat from a bottle, and it seemed he might not make it.

Help came from an unexpected place. The family who cared for the puppy also had a cat, and by a strange coincidence this cat had a litter of kittens just a day or two after the puppy was born. This mother cat, whether by maternal instinct or simply by confusion, took the puppy in as one of her own. While she could not feed the puppy, she acted as a mother to it and treated it just like one of her other kittens. The puppy, now sensing a mother’s love, began to eat and received the nutrients it needed to live and grow.

The writer of the story wanted to show just how powerful this “adoption” had been. While the puppy had learned some instinctually “doggy” habits like scratching himself with his hind leg, in many ways he seemed to believe he was a cat. He cleaned himself carefully like a cat, preferred cat food to dog chow, scratched on furniture, and loved to sit in the sun of a low window sill. In short, the puppy acted just like the other kittens, his “adopted” brothers and sisters.

While today I doubt the accuracy of all the details of this story, I recognize a kernel of truth in how the puppy perceived himself. Having been the owner of a dachshund for a few years, I learned to recognize what some people call the “small dog complex.” Experts say that small dogs, because they have little or no sense of themselves, tend to act as though they are as large as any dog or person they come into contact with. Our little Lizzy, like most dachshunds, was fiercely protective in spite of her size. On seeing a stranger or another dog, she would rush at them full speed, barking and baring her teeth… until she got close enough to realize just how big that thing was. Then, realizing her mistake, she would usually roll over on her back and whimper. If Lizzy had ever really come to terms with her identity, it’s likely she never would have left the house!

So why has my column suddenly turned into Animal Planet? While the magazine story certainly had some interesting parallels to our own adoption as children of God, I was more intrigued by what it says about our identity. That puppy acted like a cat because his only models for behavior were other cats. Lizzy acted like a big dog because she didn’t have a real understanding of her own size. How we act, it seems, is greatly influenced by how we see ourselves.

Sometimes we – as Christians, and as a church – decide to act less on who we really are, and more on how we see others acting around us. As Christians, it’s an easy trap to fall into. We know with our heads that we have been changed by God, but when we look more closely at others around us rather than our true identity, we fall back into old habits of sin and helplessness. We know with our heads that God has called each us to serve and follow Christ, but when we look around and see how others refuse to serve, we fall back and think, “maybe God isn’t calling me to do that after all…” We can only move forward in our walk when we have a proper understanding of our true identity.

As a church we fall prey to this failure of identity as well. We may not say it out loud but it’s the way we think: “We can’t accomplish much, we’re only a small church.” “We don’t need to do that kind of stuff, that’s for big churches.” Sometimes, we talk ourselves into being so small and useless that we feel God has put our church family here for no other reason than to gather and sing songs on Sunday morning. Is that really all we are about?

And are we really a “small church?” Don’t look at other churches for the answer, look at our church: We have a vital and healthy congregation, wide diversity, strong ministry programs, and a rich heritage of music, missions and education. There’s more potential for God’s Kingdom-work here than we realize. Are we really a “small church?” Does size really matter?

Perception is everything. Who do you think you are?

Picking A President

(K-V Dispatch Column, 2/14/07 Edition)

It seems there’s no shortage of folks who want to run for President in 2008. Just in the past two weeks, several have declared they are “in the race,” or that they’re looking into the possibility – which means, of course, that they will be “in the race” soon enough. Why so early? Elections aren’t until next November. We shouldn’t be paying attention until at least this time next year.

Or should we?

I think now is the time to start looking seriously at presidential candidates, because now is the time we’re likely to see who they really are. As the race gets tighter, the candidates will give focus-group speeches rather than talking to the everyday you-and-me. Instead of talking abut their passions and motivations, next year they’ll be telling us what they think we want to hear.

So where does the Christian fit into all of this? We’ve seen more in the past few years that, for better or worse, Christian Americans have influenced elections and policies. But before we jump up and down in victory, we should take a moment to reflect on what it means for us, as the Church, to have so much influence in our government.

Jesus opened up the age-old matter of church-vs.-state when the Pharisees came to him in Jerusalem with a loaded question: “Is it right for us to pay taxes to Rome?” Jesus knew their intentions, and he gave the perfect answer: “Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and give to God the things that are God’s.”

Jesus wasn’t just making a clever turn of phrase, and he wasn’t just trying to outfox the Pharisees. He was making a statement to us about our relationship to our government and society.

As members of a democracy, citizens of our great nation, each of us is responsible to have a voice in what goes on in our communities and our nation. We are responsible for the choices we make – or fail to make. If we elect a leader, then you and I are somehow implicit in the successes and failures of that leader. If we vote for a policy change, then you and I share the consequences that come from that change.

How do we, as Christians, make decisions? How do our decisions impact our nation and world? These are questions each of us can only answer for ourselves. But the fact remains, we have been given a mandate – both by our country and by our God – to take responsibility and action. Help the oppressed, feed the hungry, care for the poor… these are the things God consistently tells us we should do, both as individuals and as a nation.

Sure, it’s another 19 months until we choose our next president. But let’s take our God-given blessings and duties seriously, and begin even now to choose and to pray for our future leaders.

Speaking of faith

In a recent post on Waiting To Live, I mentioned a difference between faith and belief – belief being what we know, and faith being how we act on it.

In the case of the movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” there are some times when knowing leads us to crisis. Are we going to react in faith by acting on what we know? Or are we going to pretend we didn’t hear it?

On the elections

Like Daryl, I tended to vote for change in the elections this week. I don’t honestly know what we accomplished. I’m not sure whether we’ll see change, or just retribution and a swinging of the pendulum. I have gotten so disillusioned with politics in recent years, that for a long time I will have difficulty finding the redemptive aspects that Jim Wallis and his crew are working to find.

We also had another kind of vote here in Virginia: the marriage amendment passed overwhelmingly. I don’t think anyone was surprised. We haven’t seen the end of this issue — It will become a national/federal issue before long. And then Virginia will be knee-deep in it once again.

In other states’ news, I had to laugh at the ad that Corker ran against Ford in the last days of the Tennessee election… and almost had to cry when I saw that it worked.

Other people’s ideas

As I just mentioned on a post on Daryl’s blog, sometimes I don’t have a lot to add to a conversation. In those times, I’m better off to just stay silent – and in the “real world,” I generally do. But for the sake of blogging, it gets boring when someone doesn’t post for, oh, two weeks straight.

While I did have a thought that wrapped up some of my recent thinking on faith, for the most part I’m fresh out of originality right now. I’m pouring most of my creativity these days into my ministry and my sermons (which are no longer published unless I get to write them down). So, instead of giving any original ideas out right now, I’m going to instead point you to a few places that have sparked my interest lately.

Explore some links. See what you think. I’m interested in your responses.

I am continually saddened by the goings-on in the Western Christian world. I am very sad and sorry for Ted Haggard, who reminds me of myself in some ways. The higher up we are in the world, the higher our pedestal, the greater must be our eventual fall. My heart and prayers are with Mr. Haggard right now as he comes to terms with a new kind of life – and applaud him for his eventual honesty and the mode of restoration he seeks.

By the way, I appreciated what Tony Campolo had to say about the matter.

I am also deeply saddened by the concept of brainwashing promoted by the camp leaders in the film “Jesus Camp,” but am even more saddened that some people (presumably Christians?) decided that the best way to deal with it is to vandalize and promote a kind of backwards warfare. What kind of message are we sending to those children?

Look in the next post for more…