Picking a Fight...

"If you can live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust." -Thomas Aquinas

Preamble:

I wrestled with this article a lot. I apologize for the delay. I’ve rewrote this numerous times. It’s one of my longer pieces. I’ve included numerous passages of scripture, quoted purposely from The Message version of the Bible to illustrate a point, in as modern a language as possible, that I’ve been uncomfortably convicted of. The point of this overall writing process from day one has been to challenge and articulate what I think, feel, and believe. It’s also been to take what I see in the world around me and “lay it up against” what I think, feel, and believe. I suspect and expect people will disagree. I expect I will be wrong at times. I invite you into my struggle anyway. Welcome to my first public written wrestle….

I love movies! Especially the ‘epic’ kind.

It’s one of the few ways I can get lost in a world that’s not my own. That I can be inspired, challenged, angered, grieved, and stirred in about a 2-hour block of time at no expense of my own, except the indigestion caused by a large Cherry Coke - light ice - and some pretzel bites with that cardboard bowel of fake cheese-wiz like substance.

One of my all-time favorite scenes is from the movie Braveheart. The first epic battle. The English have oppressed the Scottish for power to rule all of the land. King Longshanks declares ‘Prima Nocta’ (first night). Any Scottish person getting married was required to give his new bride over sexually to the ruling English lord of the land on their first wedding night. It wasn’t enough to subjugate a people with military might and poverty. The English wanted to breed the Scottish out of existence.

The Scottish ‘nobles’ weren’t much better. They would rather compromise and negotiate under the guise of being soberminded, peaceable, and reasonable people when really, they were cowards. Fattening themselves on more land and titles given to them from their enemy at the expense of their own people.

In steps William Wallace. Through a series of events, his secret bride is murdered at the hands of the English because she refused to be violated, and Wallace is reluctantly thrust into a battle for the freedom of his people. He didn’t want to fight the English originally. He wanted to live below the radar and out of the affairs of his people. To live a quiet, peaceable life, with a wife and a few kids tending to the family farm. Yet when injustice hit home all of that changed to seeking justice for the death of the woman he loved.

The battle lines are drawn at Stirling. The Scottish are outnumbered 3 to 1. The nobles are looking to weasel out through negotiating. More English show up. Just as the men of Scottland decide to flee, Wallace and his warriors show up on horseback, painted in blue savagery. He rouses his countrymen with one of the most inspiring battle speeches in cinematic history, culminating in the statement:

“Would you be willing to trade all the days, from this day to that, for one chance, just one chance… to tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they will never take our freedom!”

This becomes the mantra of the day.

Scotland cheers!

Heck - We cheer!

Wallace rides over to his men and the sole Irishman, Stephen, says:

“Fine speech, now what do we do?”

Wallace:

“Just be yourselves…”

As Wallace turns his horse to ride toward the English to, what everyone thinks, is to honor the tradition of discussing terms, his childhood friend, Hamish, asks:

“Where are you going?!”

To which Wallace replies, wild eyed:

“To pick a fight!”

He rides into the center of the battlefield and instead of negotiating terms, he offends every sensibility the tyrants have.

The English underestimate the Scottish.

They underestimate Wallace.

They suffer a horrible and humiliating defeat, setting the stage for the eventual freedom of Scottland from the tyranny of England.

Epic, isn’t it?!

The seeds of freedom planted because someone had the courage to “pick a fight.”

How about some Bible? …

In the writings of Dr. Luke it says,

“When it came close to the time for his Ascension, he gathered up his courage and steeled himself for the journey to Jerusalem.”

I’m not a Greek scholar but my translation is: Jesus was going to, “Pick a fight.”

I say this because look at what He did…

Jesus purposefully rode into a Roman occupied town on a donkey, a call back to a several hundred-year-old prophecy in Zechariah that had extreme significance for Jewish people and the hope they placed in their future king and deliverer.

He’s stirring up everyone in the city.

Jesus is leaving a life of intentionally drawing away from the crowds, to being on full display before the people, before Rome, and especially before the religious leaders.

The next day, to make a point of who exactly He was picking a fight with, He went to ‘church’ (the temple) and started flipping tables:

“Jesus went straight to the Temple and threw out everyone who had set up shop, buying and selling. He kicked over the tables of loan sharks and the stalls of dove merchants. He quoted this text: My house was designated a house of prayer; You have made it a hangout for thieves.”!

As if that wasn’t direct enough, later in the text, Jesus starts making the following statements to the religious elite of His day:

“Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the Kingdom of God before you.”

When they tried to trap Jesus into offending Rome regarding taxes, Jesus’ response:

“Why are you playing these games with me? Why are you trying to trap me? Do you have a coin? Let me see it…give Caesar what is his and give God what is his.”

In the writings of former tax collector turned disciple, Matthew, we read about Jesus, our example, teaching the crowds and His disciples about the religious leaders of the day:

“I’ve had it with you! You’re hopeless, you religion scholars, you Pharisees! Frauds! Your lives are roadblocks to God’s kingdom. You refuse to enter and won’t let anyone else in either. You’re hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You go halfway around the world to make a convert, but once you get him you make him into a replica of yourselves, double-damned. You’re hopeless! What arrogant stupidity! You say, ‘If someone makes a promise with his fingers crossed, that’s nothing; but if he swears with his hand on the Bible, that’s serious.’ What ignorance! Does the leather on the Bible carry more weight than the skin on your hands? And what about this piece of trivia: ‘If you shake hands on a promise, that’s nothing; but if you raise your hand that God is your witness, that’s serious’? What ridiculous hairsplitting! What difference does it make whether you shake hands or raise hands? A promise is a promise. What difference does it make if you make your promise inside or outside a house of worship? A promise is a promise. God is present, watching and holding you to account regardless. You’re hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You keep meticulous account books, tithing on every nickel and dime you get, but on the meat of God’s Law, things like fairness and compassion and commitment—the absolute basics!—you carelessly take it or leave it. Careful bookkeeping is commendable, but the basics are required. Do you have any idea how silly you look, writing a life story that’s wrong from start to finish, nitpicking over commas and semicolons? You’re hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You buff the surface of your cups and bowls so they sparkle in the sun, while the insides are maggoty with your greed and gluttony. Stupid Pharisee! Scour the insides, and then the gleaming surface will mean something. You’re hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You’re like manicured grave plots, grass clipped and the flowers bright, but six feet down it’s all rotting bones and worm-eaten flesh. People look at you and think your saints, but beneath the skin you’re total frauds. You’re hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You build granite tombs for your prophets and marble monuments for your saints. And you say that if you had lived in the days of your ancestors, no blood would have been on your hands. You protest too much! You’re cut from the same cloth as those murderers, and daily add to the death count. Snakes! Cold-blooded sneaks! Do you think you can worm your way out of this? Never have to pay the piper? It’s on account of people like you that I send prophets and wise guides and scholars generation after generation—and generation after generation you treat them like dirt, greeting them with lynch mobs, hounding them with abuse. You can’t squirm out of this: Every drop of righteous blood ever spilled on this earth, beginning with the blood of that good man Abel right down to the blood of Zechariah, Barachiah’s son, whom you murdered at his prayers, is on your head. All this, I’m telling you, is coming down on you, on your generation.”

Jesus knew how to pick a fight! So much so that it wasn’t His actions that got Him in trouble as much as what He said and how He said it.

So much so, that His words got Him murdered…

Yet through the murder of one God-Man, who was brave enough to pick a fight, bold enough to speak the truth - offending the religious elite of His day- Jesus paved the way to set nations free.

How about Paul, the writer of most of the New Testament. The writer who bids us to imitate him…

“As for the rumor that I continue to preach the ways of circumcision (as I did in those pre-Damascus Road days), that is absurd. Why would I still be persecuted, then? If I were preaching that old message, no one would be offended if I mentioned the Cross now and then—it would be so watered-down it wouldn’t matter one way or the other. Why don’t these agitators, obsessive as they are about circumcision, go all the way and castrate themselves!”

“I can’t believe how you waver—how easily you have turned traitor to him who called you by the grace of Christ by embracing an alternative message! It is not a minor variation, you know; it is completely other, an alien message, a no-message, a lie about God. Those who are provoking this agitation among you are turning the Message of Christ on its head. Let me be blunt: If one of us—even if an angel from heaven!—were to preach something other than what we preached originally, let him be cursed. I said it once; I’ll say it again: If anyone, regardless of reputation or credentials, preaches something other than what you received originally, let him be cursed. Do you think I speak this strongly in order to manipulate crowds? Or court favor with God? Or get popular applause? If my goal was popularity, I wouldn’t bother being Christ’s slave.”

“Steer clear of the barking dogs, those religious busybodies, all bark and no bite. All they’re interested in is appearances—knife-happy circumcisers, I call them.”

“Don’t be naive. There are difficult times ahead. As the end approaches, people are going to be self-absorbed, money-hungry, self-promoting, stuck-up, profane, contemptuous of parents, crude, coarse, dog-eat-dog, unbending, slanderers, impulsively wild, savage, cynical, treacherous, ruthless, bloated windbags, addicted to lust, and allergic to God. They’ll make a show of religion, but behind the scenes they’re animals. Stay clear of these people. These are the kind of people who smooth-talk themselves into the homes of unstable and needy women and take advantage of them; women who, depressed by their sinfulness, take up with every new religious fad that calls itself “truth.” They get exploited every time and never really learn. These men are like those old Egyptian frauds Jannes and Jambres, who challenged Moses. They were rejects from the faith, twisted in their thinking, defying truth itself. But nothing will come of these latest impostors. Everyone will see through them, just as people saw through that Egyptian hoax.”

“For there are a lot of rebels out there, full of loose, confusing, and deceiving talk. Those who were brought up religious and ought to know better are the worst. They’ve got to be shut up. They’re disrupting entire families with their teaching, and all for the sake of a fast buck. One of their own prophets said it best: The Cretans are liars from the womb, barking dogs, lazy bellies. He certainly spoke the truth. Get on them right away. Stop that diseased talk of Jewish make-believe and made-up rules so they can recover a robust faith. Everything is clean to the clean-minded; nothing is clean to dirty-minded unbelievers. They leave their dirty fingerprints on every thought and act. They say they know God, but their actions speak louder than their words. They’re real creeps, disobedient good-for-nothings.

“The very credentials these people are waving around as something special, I’m tearing up and throwing out with the trash—along with everything else I used to take credit for. And why? Because of Christ. Yes, all the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant—dog dung. I’ve dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by him.”

(The word dog dung is actually ‘skubalon’ which is a crass word - not profanity, but definitely lacking refinement/sensitivity and generally a word avoided by the so called “intelligent” of the time.)

The point I’ve been wrestling with is this…

I find most of American Christians brittle.

I find much of the culture of American Christianity today packaged in brittleness.

I find the God of these particular Christians not big enough for the reality of the life I see swirling around me and the challenges this fallen world presents.

I confess. I fear.

I fear that I’ve been tainted by this impotent Christianity and am fighting with all I have to be balanced.

I labor to not be arrogant and prideful, BUT to not let the excuse for balance cripple me from being radically bold.

To be the Christian that speaks the kind of truth that God can use to set captives free, turn the world upside down, and shake up the status quo - no matter the cost.

I’m afraid that the claims for balance and a certain spiritual poise are nothing more than smoke screens for cowardice and disobedience.

I fear for years I bought that lie and I fear, I’ve grieved that I’ve yet to weigh that cost.

I see a half-truth being flaunted today that seems to be one of the primary causes the American church is ineffective at shaping the culture instead of the culture shaping it.

Christians love, at the first sound of a bold - dare I say harsh - word, to turn into the tone police and quote scriptures such as:

“Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.”

or

“And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth,”

Let me just stop and say, I don’t think our normal disposition as Christians should be one of harshness. I think we should consider the person, and the circumstances, falling far on the side of grace whenever we can. We should be known for kindness and a measured tone much of the time. Speaking the truth in love.

Yet, as I’ve attempted to demonstrate from the start, that is not all God’s Word says. That’s not the full counsel of God. Clearly scripture is teaching that there is a time and place for just about everything, including to be bold and at times…harsh. Read the prophets!

There are at least three sin categories I’ve noticed when the Bible records harsh words being spoken into a situation:

• Idolatry

• Polluting the Gospel

• Turning a blind eye to or perpetuating injustice.

There appears to be a special category of focus for the most severe harshness regarding those who profess to be religious leaders but are leading people in error overtly or in ignorance.

One of my favorite Tony Evans quotes is:

“When there’s a mist in the pulpit, there’s a fog in the pew.”

It’s troubling to me at the reluctance of bold, authoritative, sound preaching and teaching from the pulpit/lecterns of the church that addresses the issues God’s people are facing in a world that is messy and complicated! I hear a lot of theories, or my favorite “principles”. The thought seems to be:

“I’ll give you a broad principal but it’s your job to go home and figure out how it applies to the world you live in because we have so many different congregants with so many different beliefs, I don’t want to put myself in a corner to have to offend any one group to severely.”

This is usually seasoned with, “We just preach or teach the essentials here.” to spiritualize it and make it seem more peace seeking - sometimes marinated in the quest for unity.

It’s always a red flag for me when I can reflect on a spiritual leader and come away saying,

“I really don’t know where they stand on any of the issues plaguing our community today.”

Yet… when God has clearly spoken - on race, on sexuality, on government, on porn, on the sanctity of life, on fanaticism, on war, on whatever - preacher or teacher, our job is to clearly speak!

To speak the truth from pulpit to pew, boldly when necessary!

I feel and see Christians lost in the highways and byways of this world. They’re not directing traffic; they’re throwing up beacons of despair to a world declaring either in what they say or by their silence that “I’m just as lost as all of you - but at least I know where I’ll spend eternity.”

‘Biblical illiteracy’ is the common term in the church today, but I feel like it’s more like ‘Biblical Disorientation’!

If you’ve ever been lost before you know the feelings of fear and panic. Depending on how long you’ve been lost - dread and hopelessness can consumer you. How are you supposed to confidently show someone They Way when you are walking through life feeling lost?

Perhaps that’s why most Christians tend to stay to themselves and have such a hard time with genuine community.

Perhaps that’s why Sunday morning church is still one of the most segregated times in America.

Perhaps that’s why we’ve accepted the intellect that keeps us safe, calm, peaceable, dead, sanctimonious, and bored… over the Spirit that set’s our souls on fire and compels us to speak the truth boldly.

The physical world is often a good illustration of the spiritual world.

For example:

I love you, in Jesus name, but if you every fixed your mouth to speak inappropriately to one of my children or my wife, AT MINIMUM you’re going to hear harsh words from my mouth and rightly so! I’m not saying I’m going to cuss you out… but you're going to hear from me! I suspect most people would agree!

If I saw someone who watched his loved ones get treated inappropriately and he said and did nothing… I just don’t think we could be friends! That just wouldn’t sit right with me.

Lord forbid you ever put your hands on one of them! I’d have to write all of these articles from prison as part of the incarcerated ministry the Lord apparently called me to…

God is love, but He has wrath. God is the great I Am, the self-existent, self-sufficient one. Yet He’s also a jealous God.

Every relationship worth having requires something fierce…

If your house was on fire and you needed to get everyone out, but your child was upstairs moving slow in the confusion, you might be compelled to speak harsh in the moment. To shake them out of the fog and get their feet going because lives are at stake. Nobody would blame you…Sometimes we need to be shaken out of the fog of where we are at to save our lives and get us to where we need to be!

Here’s a true story I heard last week:

An older, sweet couple are my neighbors.

They feed the squirrels and rabbits out in front of their door every day.

They love my dog, Jude, and my dog loves them. A big plus in my book. They credit Jude with helping them get over their fear of Pitbulls, and though my wife and I correct anyone who calls our Jude a Pitbull (he’s an American Bully!) we let them slide for the sake of canine therapy healing.

My neighbors are so sweet and soft spoken, but they told me a story the other day that was contrary to how I’ve known them. We were discussing our love for the outdoors - camping, mountains, and cabins. Before retirement, the husband had a high-profile job where he traveled the world. The wife was a single mom without a lot of money before they met. She would take her kids camping often as a cheap form of vacationing. When they became married, she thought she’d finally get to travel the world! Of course, her new husband took to the outdoors with a passion instead. They were referred to a cabin on a mountain by a friend one time. The referring ‘friend’ neglected to tell them that the cabin sat at the end of one of the most difficult trails in the Smokey Mountains! They traversed treacherous, terrain for hours until they came to a mountain face with a rope ladder and hand holds scaling a vertical ascent. The husband re-assured his wife that she’d do fine.

“Just don’t look down.” he said.

The wife began her climb. At about the 1/2 way point she…looked down. Not only that, but she also froze. Try as she might she could not get her body to move forward. Her knees were locked. Her husband’s gentle words of affirmation and encouragement did nothing to set her free. Then something happened that never happened before - that she didn’t see coming. A voice from below, in a tone that sounded awfully like her husband, yelled from the depths,

“Now you listen to me! Don’t you look down again! Unlock your knees and get your a$$ moving up that rock right now!”

Like magic her frozen state ended, and she climbed up the rock face to safety.

I remember the wife saying,

“My husband never talked to me that way before or since but guess what, it was exactly what I needed to get me where I needed to go… not to mention, it probably saved my life!”

We walked away from that conversation laughing but it also got me thinking…

---

There’s a world full of charlatans that are feeding our families and our churches poison on a moment-by-moment basis. They’re doing it from pulpits, schools, and media while we are more offended by tone than the fact that it’s killing the souls of our people, tainting the message of the Gospel, and offending the heart of God.

We are all living on borrowed time. We can step from this life to the next at any moment. Some will step into a “house on fire” and we are worried more about tone than the eternal torment of a life apart from God.

We have multitudes of saved and unsaved stuck on a ladder of indecision between who and what they will follow. The consequences for many are perilous. Many will make decisions or refuse to make decisions that will rob them of years if not decades of peace and significance at minimum. For some, the only way you’re going to get them ‘un-stuck’…. to move… is to be bold… dare I say harsh… and tell them to get their a$$ up the ladder.

Because of Him,

Ron