One of the many joys of our good life is the granola Becky bakes once a week or so and I eat almost every morning. Frankly, it is the best granola ever. Hemp seed is included on the ingredient list. We are told that hemp seed is a great source of protein, amino acids, and other healthy things. And no THC in these hemp seeds.

The other day I was looking at the cheery package in which our hemp seed is delivered from our Canadian supplier, Manitoba Harvest. The people at Manitoba Harvest say they “exist to make life super,” and they invite those of us who consume their product to join them “in making this world a super place.”

Hemp Hemp Hooray.

The presbytery committee of which I am a member is called the Church Health Committee. One of our tasks is to assist the leaders of our congregations as they seek to revitalize and reenergize the ministries of their churches. One of the first steps in the process is to articulate a vision or mission statement – what is God calling this church to do in this place at this time?  Such vision statement should be clear, memorable, and even a bit pithy. The idea is that everything a church does should be rooted in its mission statement. Now, I have never been a big mission statement fan, but several of the churches I served had such statements on their websites or printed on their stationery – remember when churches had stationery? “To Know Christ and Make Him Known” one church said of itself. “Sharing the Life of Jesus,” another declared. From children’s Sunday school to the youth group to community service to Lord’s Day worship all we did was to be measured by our mission statements. I am not sure we succeeded, but perhaps we did.

I don’t know how it would look on a church’s website, but “To Make Life Super” is definitely pithy. And what better mission than “making the world a super place”? One of the health and wealth churches might want to think about using it. Their pastor could write a book, “Your Super Life Now.”

Sometimes as I am crunching my morning granola, I think about the church and its mission. The Shorter Catechism tells us our mission, our purpose, is “to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” Heidelberg calls us to a life of gratitude for all God has done for us. Jesus invites us to abide in him. Paul looks forward to finishing the race, reaching the goal, to seeing face to face what we now see in a mirror dimly, to being united with Christ. Union with Christ, the theologians say.

To be sure, evangelism and acts of mercy, service, and justice are parts of our mission, but they are corollary to our first call to union with Christ, to the glorious hope of the gospel, to abiding in Jesus and his love. We are to glorify God and enjoy him forever. The church is that community, that family, where God is glorified and enjoyed in all we do. Programs come and go; our mission never changes. Our lives are to be transformed by the gospel from self-absorption to love of God and neighbor. One life at a time we invite others into that transformed life.

Those who advocate for missions of mass evangelism or programs of social change find a “one life at a time” strategy to be inefficient in its approach and insufficient for the needs of our times. But from the favelas of urban Brazil to the rural villages of Guatemala, from North Philadelphia to the tree-lined streets of the suburbs, “one life at a time” is the only lasting and effective strategy I have seen.

Amazingly, surprisingly, living and bearing witness to a life marked by union with Christ really is super, if not in the way Manitoba Harvest means it.

Hemp Hemp Hooray!

The Preacher of Ecclesiastes reminds us there is a season for everything. Well, this year’s winter season has long outlived its welcome. With spring officially set to start at 10:46 this morning (Friday, March 20), winter needs to move along. At least in northeastern Indiana, it has been a long winter. Our first flakes were seen in early November with some pretty serious snowfall by the end of the month. And, yes, as I write on Wednesday, March 18, the forecast has had snow in it. Four, going on five months of cold. Winter has taken far more than its allotted 91 days of calendar space.

There has been a dust-up or two this week among social media Christians. Typically, it is wise to ignore such dust-ups and avoid social media Christianity altogether. But fools rush in… More on foolishness below.

In one controversy a well-known evangelical pastor preached a sermon where he told the story of visiting an older and wiser pastor whose ministry had been long and faithful. The older pastor was near death, and the younger pastor asked him about his Bible reading and his prayer life in his final days, seeking an assurance that it was “well with his soul” as he approached death. “Really?” critics of the inquisitor asked. “Will the old saint be welcomed into glory based on his Bible study and prayer habits in the final days of his life?”  Too much law and too little grace, the critics argued.

In the other (of many such) online fight, the token evangelical columnist for the New York Times defended the progressive and theologically heterodox candidate for senator from Texas, arguing that he “acts” more Christian than many “MAGA Christians.”  To be sure, the candidate seems nicer and more polite than many of his adversaries. But should we really say that Gabriel’s announcement of the incarnation and Mary’s faithful response to it are a proof-text for a woman’s right to have an abortion? Continue reading →

In June of 1967 I was just finishing my sophomore year of high school and was already something of a news junkie. I remember well watching with eager fascination the news reports coming from the Middle East during what would come to be known as the Six-Day War between Israel and a consortium of Arab states. I’d read the latest stories from the front each morning in the San Diego Union and then watched each evening as Walter Cronkite moved model tanks and aircraft across a 3-D map of the region.

The war was over in six days, and we knew the good guys had won.

As we come to the sixth day of the war against Iran, we have no such sure knowledge. Some wonder who the good guys might be in this conflict, and in our wired world there is no Walter Cronkite whose reporting we believe to be implicitly true. For many of us, the conflict and our view of it have become a litmus test of other partisan sensibilities – or insensibilities.

An accurate assessment, let alone understanding, of what is happening is shrouded in the fog of war, to use an often-repeated phrase. The New York Times tells us “fog of war” has “come to be used by military experts to describe the often imperfect information that officers and troops must process in the thick of battle.”

The fog is thick today. Continue reading →

Many of us are aware of last week’s tragic news of the deadly avalanche in the California’s Sierra Nevada not far from Lake Tahoe.

The heart-rending story reminded me of the much happier story from 40+ years ago when Becky and I and a group of good friends set off on cross-country skis from Badger Pass in Yosemite National Park for a couple of days at Ostrander Ski Hut, ten miles and 3,000 feet in elevation gain away.  By the time we reached Ostrander, we, too, were caught in a winter blizzard and our two-day trip ended up being a four-day trip. We weathered the storm in the protection of the old stone hut and by the time we skied out through three feet of new snow, the sky was blue and the sun was bright.

Good times and a story we have told often. On that trip and other wilderness expeditions, one of our friends, who was also our leader, made wise decisions – at Ostrander to hunker down, and on other expeditions to turn back. I thank God for his wisdom. Continue reading →