Living Grace to the World

I got this question from a friend with a three year old. They ask some of the most challenging questions!

Hi Gerry,
I wonder if anyone has ever asked you this… She wants to know if we poop in heaven? She was on the potty last night and we were having multiple toddler conversations including how everyone poops and talking about our dog in heaven. She combined the two thoughts and came up with, “mommy? do you poop in heaven?” I said i didnt know and we would find out when we got there. I told her to ask one of our pastors (kind of more for fun ) she told me to ask you
just a light thought for your Wednesday afternoon!
thanks for any response you might have for a 3 year old!

And here’s the answer:

The immediate place after death is in heaven with Jesus and that’s probably a bodiless existence so no pooping (or eating). But I am with Randy Alcorn and many others that we will live in an Edenic existence on the New Earth. It talks about the marriage supper of the Lamb. That may be metaphorical but I think it will be exquisite. So tell her she’ll get to eat the most wonderful food with Jesus and He will be duly impressed with her timely pooping! Perhaps she and I should talk about it Sunday!

Good theology is important stuff!

On Saturday I’ll go to be Brad and Barb Little’s going away party. They’ve been at Burlingame Baptist for a long time. Now they head off to Minnesota for a whole new ministry assignment. Long time friends moving on. We’ll see another long time friend, Lisa Hotovec. She’s been the worship leader at the church for years, doing pastoral ministry. We’ve done most of our contact by email, doing “Hi on” and such. So a face to face meeting will be refreshing.

Sherry and I are looking at the possibility of getting another house so she doesn’t have to go up and down stairs. Her knees are making it hard for her. And her Mom can’t come visit since her knees are far worse. If we do, we’ll keep this home. It’s so good and so full of memories. So we see our first place near Adventist Hospital on Saturday morning.

This is very happy news, I have to say. What was supposed to be a pretty quick, easy basic summary of doctrine turned into an almost endless work as we tried to say many things with clarity and conciseness. Imagine saying everything you want to say about the role of the Mosaic Law in the life of a believer (may I eat bacon? Must I keep Sabbath?) in a paragraph! It was HARD. And that was on top of very busy schedules. So writing sessions squeezed into everything. The last month since I got back from China and Kansas City have been dominated by trying to finish Doctrine: Timeless Truths for Truthless Times.

Crystal and I were emailing final revisions as I was in my all morning class and Mark was on the airplane heading to Colorado. We got it and this is her email to Crossway:  “

Thank you so much for your patience as we wrapped up this massive project! All three of us are beyond bug-eyed and exhausted! But the manuscript is done and as cut as we can get it, so we are sending it to you.”

So now Sherry can have a husband again, and I can take a little slower pace in life and do some paper grading and such.

Another thing that’s developed is that Vintage Jesus our first book written two years ago (ancient history!!) is up for an award. Christian Retailing has various categories of books, including Evangelism. There we are.

What a mix to be in! 

I’m working on my sermon for next week at Grace. We are doing a series on the attributes of God, which I’m totally excited about. Jay starts it today with God as covenant maker. I go next week with God as Father. Quite a metaphor!

But then there’s a challenge: what do I say?? Trinity, sure. Father of our Lord Jesus in the sense that the Father begot Him in the womb of Mary and really fathered him in His life here on earth, at least His life as Messiah. Joseph apparently died before Jesus began His ministry. I can’t imagine him abandoning his family.

But what does “father” connote? The ancient archetypes are king, warrior, lover, and wise man. Certainly our thinking is not limited to human fatherhood. We learn fatherhood from Him, not vice versa. The prodigal sons parable teaches a very different view of fatherhood, for example.

So I’m thinking, meditating, searching. I’ll be developing my thoughts here. Any ideas or insights will be welcomed!

You can look here and enjoy pictures of Joy’s seventh birthday while you reflect   Just one to tantalize

I was very interested in Obama’s speech in Cairo. My time in Beirut and with segments of the Muslim community here in Portland make this a point of keen interest. His judicious quotation of the Quran supplemented by quotations from the Talmud and the New Testament was super. In fact he quoted it four times. No president has ever made reference to the Quran before. He affirmed Muslim women who wear the hijab, but only if they make their own choice to wear it. The right balance. His thoughtful use of Arabic words, beginning with the greeting of peace from American Muslim communities, was outstanding. He even murmured “Peace be upon him” after citing Muhammad. Then he respectfully affirmed his own choice of Christianity as a young adult. Showing he could use the language and values of Arabic honoring Muslims reaches to a constituency he needs to include as president of the USA and world leader.

His comments about Palestinians were not as good. He ignored the occupation of Gaza by Egypt, which was much more harsh than that of Israel. He also ignored the reality that Palestinians in countries like Lebanon are in horrible straits. Where is the condemnation for those camps? I continue to think the Palestinians are political pawns moved by Arab countries, it seems. Similarly, affirming a two state solution ignores the reality that Fatah and Hamas fight each other to the death.

On the other hand, the president has affirmed the unbreakable tie between the USA and Israel, the reality that they must stop building settlements in the West Bank (which the last four presidents have said but not required), and that all who deny the Holocaust are baseless, ignorant, and hateful. His visit to Buchenwald with Elie Wiesel was touching as his tone became very somber, especially as he remembered his great uncle’s response to liberating a section of the camp. He also refuted the stereotypes of the USA, affirming that it is one of the greatest source of progress in the world.

Quite a speech.

One response that grabbed my attention came from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, whose criticism of the speech to a gathering to honor Ayatollah Khomeini included the statement that “People of the Middle East, the Muslim region, and North Africa — people of these regions — hate America from the bottom of their hearts.” Why did no one in the media condemn such a statement? In total contrast, President Obama committed himself to correcting misconceptions of Islam in the USA. Fortunately we can’t even imagine him, or President Bush (the reckless cowboy president by some characterizations), making such a statement about Iran.

In another incident, a convert to Islam decided to murder (commit a true hate crime) two young American soldiers at a recruiting center in Little Rock out of pure hatred for America.

It is interesting to compare President Obama’s statement on this awful incident and his statement on the assassination of Dr. George Tiller.

“I am shocked and outraged by the murder of Dr. George Tiller as he attended church services this morning. However profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence.”

“I am deeply saddened by this senseless act of violence against two brave young soldiers who were doing their part to strengthen our armed forces and keep our country safe. I would like to wish Quinton Ezeagwula a speedy recovery, and to offer my condolences and prayers to William Long’s family as they mourn the loss of their son.”

He was shocked and outraged by Dr. Tiller’s assassination, but only saddened by the murderous hate crime enacted against the soldiers. The act of the first is a heinous act of violence but the second was a senseless act of violence. Why so much softer to the hate crime against totally innocent soldiers?

On the other hand, the President’s statement has very positive statements about the victims of the hate crime, but no support for Dr.Tiller, not even sympathy for his wife.

One wonders what he was signaling with that difference? But statements like this show the complexity of analyzing political speech. I find I despise the talk radio people. They just blast people whom they characterize in “us-them” terms. I refuse to listen to them. Is that sin?

Politics are so messy. Life is too, I guess. Getting things right so that misunderstandings are minimized is so difficult. Speaking clearly and with the the unction of the Spirit and the wisdom of the Church is a good start. I need all the help I can get.

I saw an article where a fellow reserved the “right to heckle.” What a right for a person to claim! It is typical  of our American culture for sure. Assuming the presentor is being positive – and that may be a false assumption — people reserve the right not just to interact, not just to present an alternative approach, not just to disagree, but to heckle, to make fun of. Really sad that it’s such a value in our culture.

It’s not a cultural value in China, I found. The picture that comes to mind is school children in Taiwan and Shanghai doing exercises standing in neat rows with every movement in unision. Definitely NOT American!

The response of many evangelicals to President Obama’s nomination of Judge Sotomayer is telling. There was an automatic rejection, accusing her of racism, judicial activism and all that. But there is only the one imfamous quote about a “wise Latina woman” (which read in context has a very different flavor. See here. But no one has presented a place where she was judicially active, pro-abortion or the like. In fact there is some very strong calls from the pro-abortion side that she might be dangerous!

So what I’d like to see is for right wing Christians to be respectful and say something like, “President Obama, given your political philosophy, you have made a very good choice. We applaud you for picking her.”

I was very glad to see that virtually all the Christian organizations decried the murder of Dr. Tiller. While he is certainly an evil man, pushing the edges as an abortionist, murder is NOT the answer. He will be a martry to the cause of the abortion rights people.

It would be so good if Christians were know for living righteously and eager to help people who were struggling with things. How sad that we react with unreasoned criticism . . . and even heckling.