Beam Me Up! (From Emanuel's June 2011 newsletter)

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ –
“So when they had come together, they asked [Jesus], ‘Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?’ He replied, ‘It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’ When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.” Acts 1:6-9

Our Scripture readings from the book of Acts tell of a time of “going and coming”. On June 5, we remember Christ’s ascension, when Jesus was lifted up into heaven. We’re told that Christ went to prepare a place for his disciples, and intercedes for us before the throne of God. Christ’s “going” into heaven is followed by Pentecost, the “coming” of the Holy Spirit, which we celebrate on June 12. Christ and the Spirit, along with God the Father, make up the Trinity, which we’ll consider on June 19. One (admittedly greatly oversimplified) way of thinking about the Trinity is to think of God the Father above us, Jesus the Son beside us, and the Spirit within us – God as Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer - yet not three Gods, but one God in three persons. Through the Holy Spirit, God is present within us, giving us strength for facing our own challenges and for ministry to others.

Changing the topic a bit: In looking at the first two sentences from the Scripture that opens this newsletter, I’d ask us to think back to a spectacular prediction for May 21, 2011 that didn’t come to pass. Harold Camping and his followers proclaimed – via Camping’s “Family Radio” station on 106.9 FM, via billboards, via ads on the sides of buses, and via folks on the street handing out flyers – that the “Rapture” would happen on May 21. According to Camping, on May 21, all true Christians were to be snatched off the earth to meet with Jesus in the clouds, while all others were to be left behind. Despite the clear meaning of Jesus’ words to his disciples – “it’s not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority” and Jesus’ own words in Mark 13:32 and Matthew 24:36 that not even the Son knows the day or hour, but only the Father – Camping repeatedly proclaimed “Judgment Day – May 21, 2011” on his website “WeCanKnow.com” Camping has also proclaimed that on May 21st of another year, May 21, 1988 to be exact, the spirit of God left the churches, and Satan entered in. Camping repeatedly told his listeners “Come out from the churches – Depart out from among them!” My response is that perhaps Harold Camping’s arrogance had so completely inundated and overwhelmed the “ministry” of Family Radio that there was no longer time or space for God to get a word in edgewise. And, as Proverbs 16:18 states, “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” I’m not privileged to know whether God’s spirit has “departed out” from Family Radio – but I strongly urge our members and friends, if you’re in the habit of listening to Family Radio, to turn the dial elsewhere.

Harold Camping is only the most extreme of a whole parade of would-be “prophets” – Hal Lindsey, John Hagee, Tim LaHaye, on and on and on and on – who have ripped Bible verses out of context and pasted them together (sort of like a ransom note pasted together from single words clipped from a newspaper) to construct supposed timelines for the second coming of Christ. As 2 Timothy 4:3-4 states, “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths.” Sensational (but false) myths about the End Times will always outsell sound (but demanding and perhaps disagreeable) teaching about how to live as disciples of Christ in the present. But listening to these sensational but false predictions, these myths, is escapism, a way to run away from the life of discipleship to which Christ has called us, as Jonah tried to run away from God’s call for Jonah to preach to Nineveh. I think of the predictions of Camping, Lindsey, Hagee, LaHaye and company as “spiritual junk food”. Like candy or “energy drinks”, spiritual junk food such as the End Times “rapture” myths of Camping, Lindsey, Hagee, and LaHaye may taste good and fill our bellies for a time, but it won’t help us grow strong in the Lord. A diet heavy in spiritual junk food will stunt, not strengthen, our spiritual growth. And if we habitually overindulge our craving for spiritual junk food, we may not desire or even recognize healthy spiritual nourishment even if it’s right in front of us. Like the sugar high we get from eating too much candy, we may briefly feel ourselves spiritually lifted up, may for a time feel “special” because we in our hubris mistakenly think we have an “inside track” on knowing the mind of God. But, like the crash that follows overindulgence in candy or “energy drinks”, we will inevitably find ourselves spiritually depleted and let down when these predictions fail, as they always have, just as Camping’s followers – some of whom, sadly, donated their life savings to help Camping broadcast his wild speculations – these days are likely feeling depleted spiritually, emotionally, and financially, and wondering just what possessed them to empty their bank accounts on Camping’s behalf.

Any such feeling of spiritual let-down is not because God is a liar or the Bible is untrue, but is a direct result of relying on the false teachings of charlatans like Camping and Lindsey and Hagee and LaHaye and company. Paul responds to the “false teachers” mentioned in 2 Timothy 4:3-4 by offering the following advice or “sound teaching” to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:5: “As for you, always be sober, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, carry out your ministry fully.”And here’s some more sound teaching: In Acts 1:11, two angels told the disciples, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?” Setting dates or constructing timelines for Christ’s return is exactly, precisely what Jesus told his disciples not to do. Clearly, rather than standing around staring into the sky (or sitting on our Barcaloungers reading the latest sensationalized “Left Behind” novel) we are to be steadfast in waiting on the Lord through prayer and study of Scripture and active in serving God and neighbor. We are to receive the promised power of the Holy Spirit, and be Christ’s witnesses – perhaps not in Jerusalem, Judea, or Samaria (though our giving to the UCC’s special denominational offerings helps us to witness in these and many other places) – but (to put Jesus’ command in local terms) to witness in Bridesburg, in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and to the ends of the earth.

Make no mistake: Christ will come again. Christ could come again before I put this newsletter in the mail or on email. Christ could come again today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year. Or Christ may not come until long after all readers of this newsletter, along with their children and grandchildren, have passed on to their eternal reward. Despite what Camping, Lindsey and company tell us, God simply hasn’t given us that information. As Jesus said quite clearly and plainly and definitively and authoritatively in our opening quote from Acts, it’s not for us to know. We must accept that God has both the authority and the right to keep God’s own counsel on the timing of Christ’s return. Christ’s final word on the subject, before his ascension: “Mind Your Own Business!!” No matter: until that day, whenever it comes, we at Emanuel United Church of Christ are to be about the ministry that Christ has given us here on this earth that God has created and in this neighborhood in which God has placed us. In the words of an old hymn (“He Who Would Valiant Be”, #296 in the E&R Hymnal):

“Since, Lord, thou dost defend us with thy Spirit, We know we at the end shall life inherit.
Then, fancies, flee away! I’ll fear not what men say; I’ll labor night and day to be a pilgrim.”

May God be with each of us on our lifelong pilgrimage of Christian discipleship!
See you in church!

Pastor Dave