Eschatology

Building a Legacy

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Luciano Pavarotti died last week. I don’t know why, but the loss of the greatest opera tenor of the last century hit me hard. When I consider the sheer amount of music that overwhelms us, Pavarotti singing his signature aria, “Nessun dorma” from Turandot, still manages to claw through millions of musical pretenders as it ascends to that upper echelon of musical perfection. That last series of the legendary tenor’s sung notes still sends chills down my spine.

This morning, I listened to his rendition of “Che gelida manina” from La Bohème and I couldn’t stop the tears.

Maybe, on second thought, I do know why I’m melancholy. And it’s not just the thought of losing Pavarotti’s stellar voice. He represents one of my only remaining links to my father who died in 2000.

Dad would sit in his favorite chair and listen to Pavarotti for hours. He bought a high-end stereo system in 1970 just to listen to the Italian tenor sing. Dad could barely operate the thing, but all the fumbling with the controls was worth it when Pavarotti (just entering his prime) sang with so much passion and skill it made those Dynaco speakers weep.

You see, it’s about legacy.

Pavarotti not only left a tremendous musical legacy—he’s sold an astonishing 100 million albums—but he was known as a true humanitarian who raised millions of dollars for a variety of charities around the world. Remembering his humble days as a baker’s son, Pavarotti routinely used his fame to help others. In one celebrated gesture, he flew in a noted vet from Britain to examine a neighbor’s ailing dog.

More than 150,000 showed up to view Pavarotti’s body for the few hours it lay in state. Italian TV notes that at least five million in that nation watched the funeral on TV.

My Dad didn’t draw quite so many. His legacy won’t touch Luciano’s. Fact is, he didn’t leave much legacy at all except for a son who appreciates a good aria sung well. Dad focused on the wrong things and it showed in how he died. All this makes me sensitive to the issue of legacy.

When I’m in bed at night listening to the tinny strains of katydids outside, the issue of legacy creeps up on me. Legacy’s consumed more than a few sleep cycles, keeping me up late, wondering. Why? Because, in many ways, we Christians are defined by our legacies.

What are we leaving behind as entropy claws at us? Are we building a house of straw or one of gold encrusted with jewels?

Mention heaven and everyone will ooh and aah about how wonderful it will be, but they’ll never talk about the fire. As I’m thinking about my legacy, though, I can’t escape that purifying flame:

According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw– each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.
—1 Corinthians 3:10-15

One of the main reasons that Detroit lost to Tokyo can be traced to legacy. Ford, GM and Chrysler opted to live for the quarter. Toyota and Honda went for the 50-year plan. The Japanese manufacturers understood the necessity of planning so as to deliver a legacy of quality and innovation.

My son and I do a lot of geocaching. Because the little treasure boxes they use in that sport/game are best stashed on public land, we find a lot of them in cemeteries. Gets you thinking, doesn't it?More than a few of those abut church property. Perhaps if every church went back to burying its congregants in a plot of ground the living would need to pass through every Sunday, it would do a lot toward getting us to think about our legacies.

Instead, we’ve buried ourselves in the present. In one moment in time, most of us met Christ, in an instant, in the blink of an eye. And we were changed. But now what?

See, just stepping into the starting blocks isn’t as important as finishing the race of life well. This is our training ground. Are we learning anything for the Kingdom? Are we doing anything for the Kingdom? Considering that most of us became Christians before the age of 21, we’ve got another 60 years of discipleship looking to build a legacy on the foundation of Jesus Christ.

It’s not just you and it’s not just me building, either. Together, we are building. That’s because Christ founded a community.

So what legacy is our community leaving as time passes? By most studies, the average church has 15 peak years before an inevitable decline. I suspect that’s largely due to the reality of Detroit Syndrome in our churches. We shoot to make our short-term goals, but what’s the long-range plan? Why is it that most churches don’t have a 50-year plan?

I think even a plan of that length doesn’t cut it. If more and more people live into their 80s and beyond, then we need a church plan that covers them from cradle to grave.

Now, let me see all the hands for those of you who attend a church with an 80-year plan? None? How about 50-year? Or say, 20? Ten? Man, I’ve feelin’ like Abraham here. How about a year plan? Okay, so you’ve got that. Oh, you say you don’t? Uh…

I can’t say that Pavarotti had a 70-year plan, but he was savvy enough to mine his talents for everything they were worth. That amounted to something.

But what of you and me and our churches? What legacy are we leaving behind?

Anyone here led more than ten people to Christ? Truth be told, that shouldn’t be so hard. What’s so hard about leading at least one person to Christ every year? Yet I’ve got believe that most of us have failed in this task.

So we’re actively discipling a dozen or more newbie Christians every year, right?

***crickets***

Do you ever wonder about your legacy? It matters to God. It also matters to people around you, both those who don’t know Christ and those who do. Your legacy can change the world because of Christ in you.

For most of us, life is easy right now. Better think about that legacy in the fat years because when the thin ones come, it may be too late.

Snow, Wheat, Chaff

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Sunday, we got our first heavy snow this winter. Usually, we have one under our belt by the start of December, but this year it took until two-thirds through January. I blame Al Gore.

As one of the worship musicians at our church, I'm compelled to make the Sunday worship. I called the worship leader and was told we were on. No time for sandbagging the pickup bed. Slip on the parka and go. Since I go in early for practice and the rest of the family comes later, I knew I'd be the only Edelen there. My wife's next car will be AWD to match my 4×4. Every car should be AWD, if you ask me.

I now live in one of those areas that mystified me as a kid tuned to school closings on the radio. "Man, those Western Brown School District kids are ALWAYS getting off, even when it's like a half-inch of snow!" was the familiar lament. I had no idea where Western Brown, Felicity Franklin or Betel Tate schools were located, but I envied the heck out of them for getting off school if a mere handful of flakes conglomerated. Now I live in one of those areas and I better understand. Twisty country roads infrequented by salt trucks and snowplows tell you all you need to know.

Five minutes from church, the snow turned to sleet. I wanted nothing more than to turn around and go back home. I can handle about two feet of snow in my 4×4 pickup, but ice remains the great equalizer. It makes everyone look stupid. Wheat

So the worship team all showed. We wondered as we looked out the church windows if it would only be us. The pastor walked in, his shoulders slumped, and he wore a sanguine, confused look. To call off the meeting or not. The ice came down. The clock hands spun.

Meet.

All told, maybe sixty out of our three hundred regular attenders showed. Twenty percent. The normal buzz that stirs right as the service started wasn't there. You could hear the echoes in the sanctuary. We were here, but it all seemed perfunctory.

From my vantage point behind the drums center stage, I couldn't help but ask if I was seeing a vision of the American Church circa 2025, when the glory days of Evangelicalism surrendered to tough times for Christians. I noted the faces in the pews and did a mental check of the 20/80 rule. Yep, the 20 percent of the church that did 80 percent of the work took up their regular positions in the pews. The faithful.

Who's left when the tough times come, when it's life-threatening to label oneself a Christian? What will your typical American megachurch look like when the penalties come down and meeting isn't as easy as it once was? Will that enormous building feel like an empty warehouse? Had it been an empty warehouse for a decade already?

Maybe we'd all flee to house churches by then, leaving behind the vast complexes that held the Starbucks and Lifeway shops, mute testament against presumption. Perhaps we checked out of Christianity altogether. It simply got too hard. We'd have to give up so much. Everything we worked for years for. Renounce and keep.

Or stay true to Christ and kiss the earthly goodbye. Make the choice. Now.

But this morning, snow explained the thinning. Stole some of the vibrancy, too, I think. If persecution, and not weather, faced us, I wondered if we'd be excited. The underground Chinese Church gets cited for its powerful testimony amid persecution. Could that be us, too, in the same circumstance, our faces beaming? If the sword replaced snow?

You've got to wonder who would fall away, who would betray the remnant, and who would instead die by the sword, the name of Jesus on their lips. The martyrs. Wheat.

It's so easy to be chaff.

Busting Myths About Christianity: Assessing Myths 4-6

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The other day, we looked at three myths that dog Christianity, particularly the form found in America. Today we'll examine three more.

The ten myths:

  1. Christians are more judgmental than non-Christians.
  2. Christians are stingier than non-Christians.
  3. Christians are more intolerant of other people than non-Christians.
  4. Christians are more short-sighted than non-Christians. 
  5. Christians don't know how to have fun. 
  6. Christians despise intellectuals more than non-Christians do.
  7. Christians prefer kitsch over important art.
  8. Christian subculture mimics the world rather than creating anything lasting.
  9. Companies run by Christians are as unethical as secular companies, and perhaps more so.
  10. Christianity causes more problems in the world than any other religion.

Let's look at numbers four through six…

4. Christians are more short-sighted than non-Christians

You won't find a church with a Fifty Year Plan. Or a Twenty, for that matter. Long-range goals don't figure into much of what we do in American Christianity. In many way, we American Christians resemble a school full of amnesiacs, always learning, but never remembering the past well enough to build toward a future.

Somehow, we've allowed the first half of one passage to subsume the rest of Scripture: 

Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit"– yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.
—James 4:13-14 ESV

While most of us would deem "Live for today for tomorrow you die," to be the ultimate self-centered expression of a culture hellbent on hedonism, we've somehow aligned it with the James passage. We get all dispensational and start talking how "it's all going to burn." Our lives take on "So what?" sheen.

That so many people who call themselves believers fall into this trap should bother us. But it doesn't.

Jesus said this:

"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
—Matthew 6:19-21 ESV

We need to look at James in light of Jesus. The Lord tells us that our mist-like life here and now has eternal purpose that will carry over into the afterlife. Singer-Sargent "Hercules and the Hydra"It is one thing to live for the day, but quite another to live for the day so eternity is richer.

You don't hear enough sermons about storing up treasure in heaven. I hear plenty about living the good life now, yet the only correct way to understand "it's all going to burn" is not as an excuse to cover profligacy this side of heaven, but as the means of testing every man's and woman's work after we die.

Who can blame a non-Christian for going for the gusto now? He or she's got nothing else to look forward to. Some will move beyond the "live for the moment" lifestyle that plagues America, opting for the concept of a "legacy." Even that may be wishful thiking, hoping our typical three-month collective memory will somehow stretch out to a century or more.

But when a Christian adopts "grab all the gusto' as a personal motto? That's the most pathetic short-sightedness of all. Yet how much of modern Christianity in the United States lives by that mantra? Better that we all be poor wretches considered the scum of the earth by non-Christians than we build a Camelot now that will only succumb to moths and rust.

Are all Christians that short-sighted? No. But increasingly, our churches fill with folks looking for the good life stamped by the Holy Spirit's seal of approval. When our preaching says nothing of building a true legacy that we will actually play out in eternity based upon what we do now, our short-sightedness damns us to a future as the shoe-shine boys of heaven, buffing the sandals of saints who laid it all down, even unto death.

We know we have an eternal future. What is more short-sighted than living as if that doesn't matter?

Assessment: Confirmed

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5. Christians don't know how to have fun

When it comes to amusing ourselves to death, I think American Christians find as many ways to do it as non-Christians, albeit with fewer F-words and less full-frontal nudity.

We demanded, and seem to have received, more movies geared to Christians. And while the finished products haven't been all that spectacular, our craving for more will ensure they keep coming–with increasing regularity.

I plan on writing more about this topic in the near future, but in many ways, we Christians in the United States traded sanctification for entertainment. When God Himself no longer seems to excite us, we surround Him with our little cultural dog and pony shows, praying someone will pay attention. How else do we explain the entertainment complexes we used to call "churches." At one point in time, we went to see men on fire for God, but now preachers have to literally pour gasoline over themselves and light a match to get anyone to sit up and take notice.

Oddly enough, this fifth myth may be a remnant from the Seventies, before Christians got hip to their entertainment choices. I'm not sure non-Christians today hold the opinion that Christians don't have fun. That's been replaced with the concept that Christians don't really care about the life and death belief system they hold, practicing those beliefs more as a hobby than a way of life. If anything, it's the non-Christian who's grown more serious about life, while too many of us Christians worry that our new 60" TV still isn't big enough to show all the fine detail in the latest Left Behind video game we bought after reading the book and seeing the movie.

It's quite sad that in so many instances the one thing that separates us from non-Christians isn't the amount of entertainment we consume, but the randomly-sterilized nature of the entertainment we spend millions of dollars buying. Sure, their violent video game has swearing, but our violent video game doesn't.

If we think we're fooling God with that kind of subtlety, we're only fooling ourselves.

Assessment: Busted—perhaps too Busted

***

6. Christians despise intellectuals more than non-Christians do 

It would be safe to say that I don't personally know any Christian intellectuals. On the other hand, while I do not know any non-Christian intellectuals, either, I know a few who have convinced themselves they are. And as we all know, an audience that only consists of one's self is usually an easy audience to please.

First Things has a couple online articles covering Mark Noll's seminal book on this issue, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (found here and here). Dr. Noll researched that book during my tenure at Wheaton, and though I never took any classes from him, I had a few other profs I'd classify as intellectuals. Unfortunately, like most intellectuals, those profs congregated in very tight circles. The less intellectually rigid of us rarely encountered them "in the wild." And so it is today.

I knew an Old Testament scholar who attended the same church I once did. Sadly, that church never seriously appreciated the kind of study that scholar pursued. Though they trotted him out on occasion as a kind of "please take the witness stand, Doctor" expert, he eventually left the church. I suspect he tired of being a sort of intellectual freakshow amid people who'd rather be watching Fear Factor.

So whither the Christain intellectual? Do any still exist?

Say what we will about history, but it's loaded with Christians (and people who mentally assented to Christianity) who drove the arts, philosophy, literature, and science—and in large numbers.

But what happened to them all? Where did they go? Sure, you see a Plantinga here, and a…uh, hmm. I'm not coming up with any names for contemporary Christian lit authors. Artists? Nope—no one comes to mind. In fact, I suspect that most Christians, even if their lives depended on it, couldn't name one contemporary Christian intellectual or artist.

Are we so bereft today that all we can remember are those great Christian intellectual luminaries of the past? Christianity nurtured Western civilization into being, yet in the 21st century we Christians gave it all away.

Perhaps we missed the point of this verse:

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
—1 Corinthians 1:20 ESV

Rather than understanding that cleverly invented myths from the world's wisemen don't trump the eternal truth of God correctly handled God's wise men, we threw all the wisemen—and their wisdom, no matter the source–out.

That this ignores most of the rest of Scripture, and also makes a fine distorted case for tearing all the wisdom books out of the Bible, eludes far too many people. In the end, Christianity never calls anyone to turn off his mind. To insist it does only results in the kind of brain-dead emotionalism that leads to error. Hoisting godly wisdom by it own petard makes the Church look vacant in the cranium.

While the non-Christian may ignore the intellectuals, I suspect precious few of them are hauling out treatises to discredit the life of the mind. We Christians of the 21st century, unlike our predecessors of long ago, seem to be the ones intent on slaying the intellect.

If the few Christian intellects left decry the problem, perhaps there's some truth to the rumor. But then, we don't listen to anything they say anyway.

Assessment: Confirmed

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More myth assessments in days ahead…

Entries in this series:

 

{Image: Hercules and the Hydra by John Singer-Sargent — Simply awesome.}