Sunday, October 30, 2005

The Church as Host

This is an article I wrote for "The White Rose", a periodical published by Old St. Paul's Scottish Episcopal Church in Edinburgh, Scotland. Shortly after returning to the States after spending a year in Edinburgh, I received a request from Nick Clark, one of our Scottish friends, to write an article about "the Church as Host".



In the American South, especially in the rural areas, we have a tradition that over the years has come to be known as “Southern hospitality”. It is still seen in some parts of the South in the friendly wave people give when they pass each other on a lightly travelled stretch of a farm-to-market road. It is characterised by the way strangers are greeted and welcomed in the home, and popularised by the Beverly Hillbillies’ famous “set a spell…kick your shoes off…y’all come back now, ya’ hear.” Of course, as the world gets busier, engrained traditions of hospitality seem to quietly fade into memories. But my Dad still tells me stories about the good ole’ days when people offered a stranger at the door not only a cold drink but a bite to eat as well. Truly hospitable folks would not only open their door to strangers, but would open their table as well. So, to my mind, an enduring symbol of hospitality will always be an open table.

One of my favourite worship songs begins: “Lay your burden down, every care you carry, and come to the table of grace for there is mercy. Come just as you are; we are all unworthy to enter the presence of God, for He is holy.” It is a beautiful call to worship to be reminded that Christ’s table is open to sinners, and that the Host of the universe turns no one away from His spiritual feast. Our Creator, who first sets the table with his own precious body, offers Himself freely to all who believe in Him. In the flesh, He hosted the first meal, and in the flesh He continues to host it as long as this world endures, for the Church is the Body of Christ.

Unfortunately, as the Church has struggled through the centuries with factions and divisions, the universal welcome of Christ’s table has become much more difficult to hear. Now we tend to share Christ’s table with people who think like us and speak like us and hold the same beliefs as us. The visiting stranger is often consigned to a chair in the corner while the “family” sits down at the table. Sure, the stranger might be graciously offered doughnuts and coffee when the service is over, but doughnuts and coffee won’t satisfy his spiritual hunger. Any secular club in town would gladly bribe a new visitor with doughnuts and coffee, but the Church has a higher calling than that. The Church has a divine mandate to open Christ’s table to all of God’s children, serving as host in this spiritual meal.

So, as I think back over our recent experiences in Edinburgh churches and ponder what it means for a congregation to fulfil its role as “host”, I find that a good host is a one of which I can say this:

“We were strangers, and you invited us in…to kneel with you in the presence of the same God, to eat of the same bread and to drink of the same cup and to commune with you in sharing the body of Christ. We came as sinners and you did not condemn us but acknowledged your sin in return. You knelt beside us as our brothers and sisters in Christ, accepted us as members of your spiritual family, and shared with us your spiritual feast.”

Our year in Edinburgh could best be described as spiritually invigorating, because we have this new awareness of the vastness of the body of the Christ. When I imagine Christ’s Church meeting together on the Lord’s Day to share in His feast, I envision an enormous rectangular table. There is a place with my name, so I pull out my chair and sit down at the table. I look across the table and see my friends in Abilene, Texas sitting just across from me. Then I look off to the East and see Christ’s table, lined with Christians, stretching like a ribbon across the flat West Texas plains and disappearing over the horizon. And I know that somewhere along that table there is a group of people that we love very much sitting down at the same meal, sharing the same bread, drinking of the same cup, and worshipping the same Lord. I know their names and I can recall their faces even though I am unable to see them, and I am consciously aware of our communion with one another. Then, if I listen very closely, my spiritual senses veiled by earthly flesh can barely detect the sound of the Lord of the feast pulling out His chair and taking His place at the head of the table, pouring out His blessings on His children and reminding them to continue in love and unity until He comes again in glory.

Lay Your Burden Down

This is a call to worship I presented back in 2004.


I am sure you understand the feeling…walking through the doors of that building you have entered week after week for so many years, to which you attach so many fond memories…being greeted with warm smiles, hugs, and handshakes…everywhere you look there are the warm, smiling faces of old friends and new acquaintances. You can hardly make it to your seat there are so many people interested in asking you how are doing and how your week has gone, most of them genuinely interested. An old familiar face stands up at the podium and seems to have to work rather hard to gain the attention of so many people who just can’t seem to get enough of the fellowshipping. After everyone settles down a bit he finally begins to speak. With a grin from ear to ear and excitement in his voice, he says “Welcome, everyone, to the weekly meeting of the Kiwanis Club!”

You look around at those sitting near you and beside you…You notice your buddy Charles who helped you move into your new home a few months ago, and over there are Andy and Joan who came to visit you in the hospital after that minor surgery a few months back. As you glance around from face to face, your attention is distracted by the speaker who seems to be trying to say something important, but it’s nothing you haven’t already heard. He’s just repeating the 6 objects of the Kiwanis club:

1) To give primacy to the human and spiritual rather than to the material values of life.
2) To encourage the daily living of the Golden Rule in all human relationships.
3) To promote the adoption and the application of higher social, business, and professional standards.
4) To develop, by precept and example, a more intelligent, aggressive, and serviceable citizenship.
5) To provide, through Kiwanis clubs, a practical means to form enduring friendships, to render altruistic service, and to build better communities.
6) To cooperate in creating and maintaining that sound public opinion and high idealism which make possible the increase of righteousness, justice, patriotism, and goodwill.

And you think, wow, this is a really wonderful club; it has everything I need in a community. Fellowship and friendship, a commitment to righteousness and ethical behavior, an emphasis on valuing loving relationships, plenty of opportunities to give to charitable causes and perform acts of service to make the world a better place. What more could you want in a club?

Then as the speaker drones on, your mind drifts into a thought experiment. What’s the difference between the Kiwanis club and the Church? I mean, it seems like the Kiwanis club is already pretty close, so we wouldn’t have to change a lot about it to make it look like a church service. I guess first we would need to move our weekly meetings to Sundays rather than a week day; that one’s pretty obvious. We already say a prayer at the Kiwanis club, so we’re covered there. We do need to add a song or two, though. We could probably get away with something like “God Bless America” or “Kum Bah Yah”. To handle the communion requirement, we could serve crackers and grape juice for breakfast instead of ham and eggs…and I think that about covers all the bases.

So, it seems the Church and the Kiwanis club really aren’t so different after all. They’re both about good, righteous people coming together in a community to extend the warmth of fellowship to one another and to reach out to people in need. Chess clubs are clubs focused on chess. Investment clubs are clubs focused on investing. So, maybe the Church is just a club focused on God. Or is it?

Is the Church a club? And if it is not a club, then what is it? Is there anything that makes the Church different from every other club in the world? Is there anything that makes her special, or is the Church just one more organization; one more community of people passionately united by a common belief or cause?

Well, if we were in class right now, this would be a good time to discuss those questions, and I hope we all take advantage of the opportunity to do just that when we dismiss for classes. But I’ll go ahead and start us off with my answer just to provide a framework for our worship this morning.

The Church is the Body of Christ, the literal Body of Christ. The Church is not simply a collection of like-minded people; it is a living, spiritual organism with Christ at its head. Two thousand years ago, Christ’s physical hands healed wounded people and that healing did not stop at His ascension. Christ’s Body, His Church, continues to heal wounded people by His divine power. Through His Body, His outpouring of infinite love continues. Through His Body, suffering and oppressed people find hope. Through His Body, the world continues to experience the physical presence of God on earth. Through His Body, sinners find forgiveness by the Grace of God.

What is it that we expect to happen we when pray to God? By what means do we expect Him to answer our prayers? When we cry out to God “May the lost people of Abilene come to know you” or “Please, Lord, provide shelter for the homeless and food for the hungry” or even “Lord, please stop the genocide in Sudan.” What is it that we are expecting to happen? What does it look like when God steps in to heal a broken world? Shouldn’t we expect a decision made by Christ, the head of the Church, to initiate some kind of meaningful action in the Body? The head decides to heal, but hands do the touching. The head decides to encourage, but the lips do the speaking. The head decides to reach out to the lost, but the feet do the walking. The head decides to bless the world with God’s infinite love, but it’s the Body of Christ, the Church, that does the loving.

The Church is not a club for like-minded people who are looking for friendship; the Church is God’s means of showing His friendship to the people of the world. The Church is not a loose collection of independent, local congregations each lamenting their own weakness when their memberships decline; Christ’s Body, His Church, timeless and universal is the single most powerful force this planet has ever known and the gates of Hell will not overcome it. The Church, unlike a club, is not united by the common interests and beliefs of its members and it is not divided when individuals disagree. The Body of Christ is united by blood. It is not a community, and it is not a club; it is a body, and as it is Christ’s Body, the Church is united by the blood of Christ.

We are all here today only because we have been saved by the blood the Jesus. We have nothing to boast about. It is not our own power, our own abilities, or our own righteousness that makes Christ’s Church the most powerful force on the planet. It is God’s divine strength working through weak and imperfect people. In fact, it is only in our acknowledgement of our weakness that His power is made perfect. Maybe that is something else that sets the Church apart from the clubs. Clubs find their strength and power in the abilities their members. The Church finds its strength and power in our own humility and willingness to surrender completely to God’s will. We are only powerful when we recognize our powerlessness. We are only made perfect once we recognize our imperfections and our need for God’s grace.

Well, after all this club-bashing, there is one club I can think of that it probably wouldn’t hurt us to emulate. I’m thinking of Alcoholics Anonymous. If we are going to look like a club, I only pray that we will look like that one, people who find strength in admitting weakness and find fellowship in a shared brokenness. It’s tragic that the Body of Christ has seemed to gain a reputation for being judgmental when we all know that none of us are righteous before God. We all stand condemned as sinners except by the grace of God. Or maybe we don’t know it, or just like to forget that we really are sinful people saved only by God’s grace. Maybe, like the members of AA, we just need to remind ourselves once in a while. “Hi, I’m Jeff and I live a sinful life. I am here this morning because I have been saved by God’s grace.” Whatever you have done, however bad you think you’ve been, you are not alone in this crowd. We are all imperfect, fallen, sinners, every one of us. We come together this morning not proclaiming our own righteousness but declaring God’s grace for sinners like us. The Church is a place for sinners. Christ did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. If you don’t think you’re a sinner, then what need do you have for God’s grace and why would want to waste a Sunday morning praising God for a gift you obviously don’t need?

Today we will participate in imperfect worship to a perfect and holy God. The worship will may appear poorly planned; the song leaders may miss some notes or lead the songs too fast or too slow. The preacher may ramble a little. The communion thoughts may be completely off-the-wall. And all of us may be continually distracted by the cares of the world. But, even in spite of all of our imperfections, one thing is certain; we will worship in the presence of the Creator of the universe. He is here among us, right now, in this place. You may feel unworthy to enter the presence of a holy God, but you are no more unworthy than anyone here. Come to worship just as you are and lay the burden of your guilt at the foot of the cross where there is mercy.

Thursday, October 27, 2005

In the Image of the Creator

For Software Developers
(This essay draws much inspiration from Fred Brooks.)


We are created in the image of God, and being created in His image we naturally exhibit His divine qualities in miniature. I believe that the aspect of God’s nature we call Love is exactly the same multifaceted, spiritual phenomenon as the love we share with our friends, our spouses, and our children but that, in our case, that divine quality is simply scaled down to human proportions.

It is no new revelation that through certain human activities we can obtain a clearer understanding of God’s nature and his character. People have always known that the joys and trials of parenting are Christian object lessons, giving parents a unique insight into the joys and trials God himself experiences in relating to us. In the book of Hosea, particularly, God uses human marriage as an object lesson to attempt to convey to his children Israel how deeply they were hurting Him with their idolatry.

Love, joy, peace, hope, jealousy, beauty, patience, kindness, and so many other aspects of God’s nature are reflected in miniature in our own human lives, and by experiencing and exhibiting these qualities on the human level we grow in our practical understanding of who God is. Our preachers could preach every Sunday for a decade on God’s patience and we might gain a surface level understanding of the concept, but after caring for an elderly relative with Alzheimer’s we might suddenly feel like we understand God’s patience so much more fully. So, in our continual pursuit of a closer relationship with our Savior, we often use our daily, human experiences as object lessons that teach us on an intimate level who God really is.

One aspect of God’s nature, that is simple to understand on the surface but very difficult to personally experience, is God’s role as creator of the universe. That one doesn’t scale down to the human level quite as easily as some of God’s other divine qualities, or does it? Painters and sculptors have always claimed that their respective arts are reflections of God’s artistic genius in the creation of the heavens and the earth. The artist’s eye for beauty must be due to his being made in the image of the One who sculpted the first landscapes and painted the first sunsets.

But the claim of the fine artists is only partially accurate; a landscape is not just a sculpture on a grand scale, but a dynamic, living ecosystem. A sunset is not just an aesthetically pleasing phenomenon on the horizon; it’s the result of an intricate and carefully planned system to power all life on earth. The God of creation is not playing the role of fine artist; he is fundamentally concerned with more than aesthetics. He is a designer of complex systems that work together for a useful purpose.

So, who can claim to reflect this creative nature of God? What occupations involve designing and building complex systems that do something useful, striking a balance between form and function, creating systems that serve a useful purpose and do so in a way that is elegant and beautiful?

I will venture to claim that the occupation that most clearly reflects God’s creative nature is that of the software developer. I make this claim from personal experience because I see so many similarities between what I do in my daily work as a software developer and what our God did at the beginning of time. Of course I realize that my creative acts are only a meager shadow of God’s creative power in the same way that our love for our children is only a meager shadow of God’s divine love for us, but the joys and trials I experience as a software developer continually give me a deeper appreciation and respect for God’s creative genius. Let me provide a few specific examples.

First of all, software developers, like the Creator, build our creations out of pure thought. There is never any need to struggle with some intractable physical medium like clay or steel. We simply speak the words (well, type them on a keyboard) and the thoughts of our minds spring into existence out of nothing. Even a sculptor cannot really claim to make anything. He must at least start with stone or clay and then whittle or shape it. But, the software developer says “Let there be a binary search tree” (in rather more words than that, of course), and there is a binary search tree. There are no limits to what he can produce. He is constrained only by the feebleness of his mind and the vague boundaries of Turing computability. But his creations of pure thought are not confined to the realm of thought like those of a fiction writer; his creations can move images on a display or direct a robot and otherwise interact with the real world. He can then look at the real effects of his creation and “see that it is good”.

Secondly, software developers, like the Creator, cope with the complexity of intricate systems by using layers of abstraction. Basic functions and general tools reside in the lower layers of a software system while higher layers in the system use those lower-level tools as building blocks for more complex functionality. The point is to hide the complexity of the lower layers from the higher layers in the application. In the same way, the universe is constructed in layers; the incredible complexity evident at the quantum level is neatly invisible to us humans who are primarily concerned with the universe at the molecular level. We can live our entire lives in a world of wood and plastics and soil and, thanks to the layered design of the universe, never once concern ourselves with the odd behavior of quarks. So, because the concept of abstraction is such a key tool in the work of a software developer, we can readily recognize it and appreciate it when we notice it being used elegantly in God’s created world.

Thirdly, software developers can appreciate the subtle design decisions involved in the creation of any functioning system. So often people will look at a beautifully designed piece of software and not appreciate the numerous design decisions that guided its development, each decision often requiring many hours of agonizing over the various design possibilities. But, oddly, the user’s lack of appreciation for the software’s complexity is the mark of a beautiful system. If the developer has done his job correctly, even an inherently complex software system will appear simple and obvious to the user. The highest compliment a software user can give is: “Well of course it works this way. How else would it work?” So, we have the unique opportunity to sympathize with our Creator when people, blinded by the elegant simplicity of life and the cosmos, fail to appreciate or even acknowledge the genius involved in its design and creation.

Finally, software developers have a unique perspective on the interrelatedness of command and creation. People often wonder why God needed to rest on the seventh day of creation. After all, he only spoke a few sentences; what could have been so hard about that? The creation account in Genesis appears to most people to cast God in a management role. He doesn’t really seem to be doing any creating; he just sits there and gives orders. “Let there be light,” he says, and they assume that due to his divine authority the uncreated light just leaps into existence at His command. This is a disturbing view of creation because it casts God as a passive actor and allows no place for Him to pour His genius into the created things. We want to be able to attribute the beautiful and clever aspects of the created world to design decisions made by God Himself. We don’t want to picture Him chanting some magical incantation like “Let there be fish” while some lower spiritual being faithfully follows the order and painstakingly designs the anatomy of marine life.

Software developers have an answer for this dilemma because we recognize that the command itself can be a creative act. The source code we write is technically a set of commands to the computer, but it is important to realize that all of the intelligent design decisions are encapsulated in the command. The computer doesn’t get to make any decisions. It is only an automaton executing its orders according to a set of predetermined rules. No one would claim that the programmer is playing a managerial role by simply giving commands to the computer which does the real work. Knowing that the acts of command and creation are one and the same, we can read Genesis in a different light. We must assume that the scripture “Let there be light” is a rough and simplified translation of what God really said which was to utter a precise encoding of the physical properties of light in the machine language of the universe. (In case you missed it, God already built the hardware in Genesis 1:1.) This understanding of creation preserves God’s full participation in the creative act, reassuring us that the intricate design of our bodies, our ecosystems, and our galaxies are the result of God’s careful planning and creative genius.

A common question among Christians is: how does your occupation harmonize with your Christian faith? This has been a difficult one for software developers to answer. We don’t have an easy answer like ministers and teachers and other Christians whose jobs involve working directly with people. But our occupation does serve as a perfect object lesson in getting to know God intimately as “Creator”. It’s as if we are three-year olds, happily banging away with our little Fisher-Price tool sets, and looking up to find that we sit at the feet of our Father who also is toiling at His workbench. Although what we do is only a meager reflection of God’s creative power, we can feel the same satisfaction as a child who feels like he is, in some small way, following in his Father’s footsteps.

“Dad and I, we make stuff.”