Knowledge and Empathy

Not long ago I watched a cable documentary on the interrogation by CIA agents of Al Quaida suspects.  This program outlined the intricate and detailed methods that have been put in place to break Al Quiada suspects down, to get information from them, to derive intel, to bring them to their knees.  These suspects had all been guilty of killing innocent people for the purpose of their dastardly cause.  It was a harrowing documentary.  However, one line in the documentary stuck out to me, and has remained with me ever since.  This CIA interviewer said that the two most important aspects to bring into a CIA interrogation of an adversarial suspect are:

Knowledge and Empathy

I couldn't believe my ears when I first heard it.  You mean that power and domination are not the keys to breaking suspects down?  You mean that cruelty and hate are not the two most important behavioral characteristics?  Really?  These two characteristics could apply to a good Sunday school lesson....

Knowledge and Empathy?

This show went on to illustrate how Knowledge was a critical piece to interrogation.  A person needs to understand all of the facts of a suspect, and that person's background, and that person's crime before going in to interrogate them.  That is obvious.  However, less obvious was the fact that Empathy was critical to helping a suspect to change or be reformed.  If an interrogator went into a questioning room with animus or anger or venom or hatred, the entire interview would  backfire.  A CIA  interviewer needed to demonstrate empathy, compassion, heart-felt connection, dare I say....love!

Jesus told us the same thing.  Love is the greatest power in the universe.  "Love the Lord Your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind," Jesus reminded us, and "Love your neighbor as yourself."  This, Jesus told us was  and is the greatest commandment of all time.  This embellishment of the SHEMA (Hear oh Israel) wasn't the most warm and fuzzy notion of all time, it was and is the most powerful.  The apostle Paul reiterates this same truth in the book of Corinthians, "And now those three remain:  faith, hope and love.  But the greatest of these is love." (1 Cor. 13:13).

A lot of times we humans feel that in order to better someone else we need to be meaner than them, harder than them, tougher than them, more acerbic than them, more cunning more dastardly.  However, quite the opposite is the truth.  What is really needed of us is that we become more loving than our adversaries or our opponents.  The one who loves more, wins.  The one who loves more...WINS

That's the story of the cross.  The one who loves more wins!!!

All For Now,
GB

Feeling is Not Believing

About five years ago, a man walked into my office at the church and introduced himself with a definitive introductory statement - "I can't feel!"  "Excuse me?" I asked.  "I," said the man, "display sociopathic tendencies."  Knowing that Atascadero State Psychiatric Hospital was less than 5 minutes from my church, a place where many violent sociopaths were housed - I instinctively reached for the buzzer on my phone to alert my assistant that she needed to intervene in my meeting ASAP.  "No," said the man, "don't worry, I'm harmless, I am just here for advice."  "What can I do for you?" I asked.  The man went on to say that he had been unable to feel ever since he was a young boy.  He didn't have the ability to empathize with the feelings of others, or the ability to actually feel pain or joy himself.  "My problem," said the man, "is that I wonder if I can believe in Jesus.  If I can't feel, then can I be a follower of Christ?  Don't I have to feel God in order to believe in him?"  My friend was asking a very important question.

This past week at FPC, we looked at the text of Naomi and Ruth (As Chuck Swindoll has said, this is the most beautiful story in the entire Bible).  The story, you will remember, hinges around the statement by Ruth that, "Where you go, I will go and where you stay I will stay.  Your people will be my people and your God my God.  Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried." (Ruth 1:16).  Ruth's definitive statement is striking for several reasons.  First, there seems to be no emotional (feeling) basis to the statement.  Naomi was demonstrating nothing resembling a warm fuzzy or a kind or a compassionate relationship with Ruth.  Ruth and Orphah, remember, are told to "Go back to their people."  Second, Ruth seems to be making this declaration with all of her being - she is all in in this decision to "Go with" Naomi.  Scholars have called this a Covenantal Relationship.  Covenant is marked by a reasoning deeper than emotion - it is marked by choice, and by commitment.  It would seem that Ruth is believing without feeling in this instance.  It would seem that;

Feeling is Not Believing

And thus answering my friend's question, of whether he could believe in God, without feeling God."  The answer is an indefatigable - YES!

The sixteenth century Reformer, John Calvin, greatly distrusted the connection between feeling God and believing in God.  Calvin wrote, "Man's mind is like a store of idolatry and superstition; so much so that if a man believes his own mind it is certain that he will forsake God and forge some idol in his own brain."  Again, even more than distrusting feeling, Calvin seems to be suggesting that we should distrust our thoughts as well as our feelings.  (Remember, of course, that Calvin does not suffer from the Cartesian Dualism - the split between thoughts and feelings - that would become prevalent in enlightenment philosophy of later periods).  That Calvin, a towering legal and theological thinker would suggest that we should distrust our thoughts, is both an act of humility on Calvin's part, and an act of reality on my own (If Calvin distrusted his thoughts, I must surely distrust mine....).

Jesus seems to also validate the notion that we shouldn't necessarily trust our feelings when it comes to believing.  After Jesus comes back to life again, and visits his disciples in the upper room, Thomas asks to put his hands and fingers where the nails have gone through Jesus' hands.  In other words, Thomas does not believe because he does not feel/see God.  Jesus says to Thomas, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." (John 20:29).  And Jesus might have added, "Blessed are those who believe without feeling me in their heart."

Why am I writing this blog post and laying out this philosophical argument that "Feeling is Not Believing?"  Simply because of this.  I know too many people who are basing their relationship with God only on the feelings they do or they do not have about Him.  If they feel good about their faith, they believe.  If they don't feel good about it, they don't believe.  Ultimately, belief in God begins with a decision (to Go where God Goes, that God's people will be our People).  It is usually after this initial decision that we then have feelings towards God (of love, affection, adoration, joy, completion, peace). But, in the case of my sociopathic friend, he will never have these feelings - but he still can BELIEVE!

Cerebrally...:-)
All For Now,
GB

My "A" Team

Every Thursday morning, at about 8:00AM, I begin the 5 hour process of writing a first draft of my Sunday message.  Usually this is a pleasant process, though sometimes it feels like I am wading through molasses in Minnesota in the middle of winter.  Before starting, I always try to remember what John Ortberg told me once about preaching and the importance of starting the process with "Joy."  A bad sermon is one that is written without "Joy," a good one always has "Joy", John told me.  And so, even if I am not feeling "Joy" as I begin my message writing process I always try to manufacture it, and pray for it.  There is always something to be joyful about.

One of the great encouragements to me is that each week, on Thursday morning, I do not write my sermons alone.  As I sit at my writing desk in my home, (and glue my butt to the chair - Dale Bruner's words not mine...), I remember that at the very same moment there are four incredible women in my church office who are meeting to pray for the church, to pray for the FPC ministry, and to pray for my sermon writing process.  These women, it must be said, are:

My "A" Team

My "A" Team take their jobs very seriously.  For example, a week or so ago, I was in my office because by some act of God I had actually finished my sermon draft a day earlier on Wednesday.  I entered my office at church.  For some reason it had slipped my mind that my "A" team were meeting there.  The women were all deep in prayer.  "What are you doing?" they asked.  "We were praying for you.  You are supposed to be writing your sermon."  "I know," said, "I finished yesterday."  They did not say it, but I sensed a collective message from their gaze; "Well, get back and work on it some more, we are praying for you..."

Prayer changes reality.  Let me say that again.  Prayer changes reality.  Many years ago in Seattle, Washington, a group of mothers decided that it was time that the University Presbyterian Church of Seattle, Washington had a serious University ministry.  These women decided that what they would do to help get the ball rolling was to meet weekly and to pray in a hotel lobby called, "The Inn."  Year after year they prayed.  No college program.  The moms went to the church leadership and decried the lack of a University ministry.  No college program.  The moms continued to meet and pray.  Every week they prayed in season and out of season.  Their main prayer?  A serious college program.  Finally, somewhere along the line, God answered that prayer.  Today, there is a program at UPC, Seattle that has somewhere between 1,000 and 1,500 college students a week, who meet on a Wednesday night.  The name of the program?  "The Inn" - named after the hotel where the handful of moms prayed for so many years.

The beginning of 'The Church" as we know it, is really a story about the power of prayer.  Jesus ascended into heaven, and for a long period, 10 days to be exact, the disciples were listless, lost, without purpose, without direction, without Jesus in their midst.  The Bible tells us that these early disciples and apostles (not just the first 12, but around 72), met in an upstairs room and prayed.  We do not know how long they prayed, but we know that somewhere along the way a wind entered that room and blew through, carrying with it little licks of fire on the tops of each of their heads.  We call this Pentecost (50 days after Easter).  The early disciples were God's "A" team of prayers.  If God was assisted by "A" team prayers, so can we be.  Who are your "A" team?  Do you serve on an "A" team of prayer?  Would you like to serve on my "A" team of prayer.  Give it a try.  And change the world!

All For Now,
GB