For parents worried about their children

My morning prayer and Bible reading brought me to the opening chapter of Job today, and these words I don’t think I’ve ever really taken time to notice before:

His sons used to hold feasts in their homes on their birthdays, and they would invite their sisters to eat and drink with them. When the period of feasting had run its course, Job would make arrangements for them to be purified. Early in the morning he would sacrifice burnt offerings for each of them, thinking, “Perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.” This was Job’s regular custom. (Job 1:4-5, NIV)

When we read of Job we often focus on everything that come later, but this morning I find myself reflecting on Job as a model for parents.

As a pastor, I interact with many parents and grandparents who are distressed by or worried about their sons, daughters, and grandchildren. They do not know how to reach them, and they worry over poor choices that they feel helpless to do anything about.

I wonder if Job might serve as a model here.

We no longer need to sacrifice animals, of course. I don’t want to advise grandmas to be slaughtering goats in the back yard. Jesus Christ was the final and perfect sacrifice for all sin.

But perhaps, like Job, we parents and grandparents might rise in the morning and seek purification and forgiveness for our households and our children. We can turn to God in prayer and lift them up in the name of Jesus, praying that by the blood of the lamb the Father might forgive them – even for sins we are not sure they may have committed.

Just as Job loved his family, so we might follow his lead in loving ours.

The path of true peace

He that sleeps in death, has a false peace; he that is awakened, has no peace at all; he that believes, has true peace …

— John Wesley, “The Spirit of Bondage and Adoption“

When I first started to read John Wesley’s works, one of the things that I found most helpful was his attention to the spiritual condition of individuals. He writes much like a physician describing various forms of disease and illness, and often times even makes that comparison himself. To be a caretaker of souls, he writes, you must understand the causes of symptoms before you can administer the proper medicines.

In the sermon quoted above, Wesley discerns three spiritual states, each with its own characteristics and needs.

Sleeping
The sleeper or “natural man” is one who is either not aware of the things of God or imagines themselves to be in good stead with God when they are not. The first group we might call non-believers. The second group includes both those who worship a god other than the Trinity or who worship in the Christian manner but mistakenly think that mere outward worship and adherence to formal practices such as attending church semi-regularly and praying from time-to-time mean they are on good terms with God.

Such folks are at peace but it is the false peace we read warnings about in the prophets. Like the kings of the Old Testament, they can find no shortage of people to tell them that they have the approval of God, but such comfort and peace is difficult or impossible to square with careful attention to the Bible.

Waking
The sleepers are many. The awakened are few. These are persons who have come honestly face-to-face with their sin. They see and therefore grieve the fact that they are out of line with God, damned justly, and unable by their own power to do anything about it. This is why, as Wesley says, they have no peace at all.

The awakened are tormented and troubled. They know they deserve to suffer. Like the prodigal son, their unworthiness is the only plea on their lips.

As terrible as this state is, it is a huge spiritual achievement. Nothing is more difficult in the work of ministry — I have found — than helping sleepers shake off their slumber. Nothing is more emotionally and spiritual draining than walking through the daylight with an awakened sleeper who sees God and — like the disciples and prophets before them — is struck with terror.

Believing
An awakened sinner who cries out to Jesus and who does not relent until they have found him is the one who truly believes. They have a belief grounded on a deep assurance that Jesus Christ has forgiven them and that they are beloved not because they are worthy but because God is great. And the fruit of this faith — which is a gift given to us by God — is peace, true peace.

The believer requires continual encouragement and support as they grow in Christian maturity — we Methodists call this “going on to perfection.” And they need the watchful love of fellow Christians to help them along the way and help them avoid slipping backward or away from their faith. The grace of God will bring to full flower what he has started within them, if the believer continues to be a co-worker with God in their own spiritual growth.

Pastoral Challenge
Such is the landscape of the spirit that Wesley saw as he did his work long ago in England. The map he left us remains useful to those of us working in different fields. I find that pastoral work requires a great deal of attention to such things because there is so much temptation to let sleepers rest in comfort and so much difficulty in helping people through this process to a place of real peace.

The work is hard and the rewards are few. It should never be forgotten that Wesley was tossed out of many churches for disturbing the slumber of those who were used to lullabys rather than gospel preaching.

As tempted as I am to let sleepers lie, I am regularly in my pastoral work brought face-to-face with those who have been permitted to sleep and have found the bedtime faith that they have spent a lifetime in provides no comfort or peace in the day of trouble. They come to the edge of their mortality and they try to lean on their faith and discover it has nothing to give them but empty words.

I am not very skilled at helping people navigate this spiritual terrain. I am trying to do it better as I go. But I am grateful to those who have left me guidance, Wesley and others, so I might help the souls in my care find what God has promised.

 

Not as soldiers but as Christians

In the wake of St. Louis, my reading through some of John Wesley’s works fell upon his tract, “The Principles of a Methodist Farther Explained.” It is part of a series of writings Wesley put down in response to critics of the early Methodist movement and Wesley in particular.

In the beginning of this document, he explains why he has been reluctant to enter into disputation and controversy with his critics.

Fear, indeed, is one cause of my declining this; fear, as I have said elsewhere, not of my adversary, but of myself. I fear my own spirit …. I never knew one (or but one) man write controversy with what I thought a right spirit. Every disputant seems to think, as every soldier, that he may hurt his opponent as much as he can; nay, that he ought to do his worst to him, or he cannot make the best of his own cause. …

But ought these things be so? (I speak on the Christian scheme.) Ought we not love our neighbor as ourselves? And does a man cease to be my neighbor because he is of a different opinion? nay, and declare himself so to be? Ought we not, for all this, to do to him as we would he should do to us? But do we ourselves love to be exposed, or set in the worst light? Would we willingly be treated with contempt? If not, why do we treat others thus?

As we move forward from St. Louis as a church, these words resonate with my spirit.

If we examine ourselves, we know that we often should share Wesley’s fear, although too often we dismiss it, taking up rather the contrary position that the rightness of our cause purifies the viciousness of our methods. Too often we Christians — we Methodists — look no different from the world in the midst of our disagreements and our self-justification of our methods.

No, not all of us are guilty of this offense, but enough that we should all take time to reflect, repent, and reconsider how it is we talk to, with, and about each other. We will not need to look far to find excuses to continue to rend at each other. I hope and pray that we might be instructed by Wesley’s words of caution and heed the words of Christ.