I’m pretty sure that if a intrepid CNN reporter had been at the Red Sea moments before Moses stretched out his staff and the wind began to blow, he might have asked: “Your people are in a pretty precarious position here. Do you have an alternative? Plan B?”

I’m also pretty sure that Moses would have answered, “Sorry. No plan B. It’s the Almighty or our goose is cooked.” [Or the Egyptian equivalent thereof.]

Lately, I’ve been thinking about Moses quite frequently…

Matthias with Sister Ursula in front of “House Nazareth”

One generation will commend your works to another;
they will tell of your mighty acts.” Psalm 145:4

As we move relentlessly closer to the deadline for the down payment on “House Nazareth” (April 25th), I’m sometimes tempted to panic: “Lord, you led us out on this limb; you answered our prayers and did two miracles - you moved the hearts of the sisters and the Catholic officials to sell this property to Philosophia and you brought in gifts and short-term loans for the security deposit by the deadline of December 21. We did due diligence and acted as responsibly as we knew how to your leading. So many friends have sacrificially prayed and given. Please do not let this vision fail!”

Recently God reminded me that this is always the pattern of His working: When He led the people of Israel out of Egypt he “said to Moses, ‘Tell the Israelites to turn back and encamp near Pi Hairoth, between Migdol and the sea. They are to encamp by the sea, directly opposite Baal Zaphon.” (Exodus 14:1-2 NIV) In other words, He led them into a military trap! The Israelites were completely exposed: the sea on one side and an open flank on the desert; perfect for the shock troops of Pharaoh in their chariots (the most technically advanced military force of the time).

Moses, as a prince of Egypt, had been trained in the palace corps and surely recognized the danger of the maneuver. But God said to do it anyway. Why does God arrange things like this for his people? He made the reason clear in his orders to Moses: “I will gain glory for myself through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord.” (V. 4) In other words, it is so that it will be transparently clear to the entire world that this was not the achievement of Moses or the Israelites, but rather the work of God alone.

That is breathtaking! It’s like all the Chinese kung-fu movies where the Master makes a strategic move that appears to everyone to be absurd and sure to lead to defeat, only to have it be revealed that it was really an expression of the most profound understanding and wisdom and wins the battle.

But why does God want all the glory for himself? Isn’t that kind of like us preening ourselves so others will flatter us and build us up? Actually, this is different: God wants all the glory for himself not because his weak ego needs our praise but because we need to praise Him for our sakes! For us humans, living in constant praise of God is like the water a fish swims in. Take a trout out of the water and it soon expires. God sets up object lessons of faith - like the Exodus - to remind us that this is the case and lead us back into the ocean of praise that we are designed to live in. (We forget so quickly where our true happiness lies!)

SO… (as Rabbit said to Winnie the Pooh) “here we ALL are”. Out on the end of a limb. Only God can get the glory. It’s right, but still not a very comfortable place to be perched! But I guess that’s just the way it should be; the children of Israel didn’t feel very secure until they were finally across the Red Sea.

The Scriptures make it clear that when we’re between the Red Sea and Pharaoh’s army, it is honoring to God and good for us when we seek him in what the old saints used to call “earnest prayer”. In keeping with this, we’ve set up a 24 hour prayer chain for the “House Nazareth” project.

It would be a great encouragement if many folk joined with us. For information, please email Mary Ellen Stewart at:

Wow! We have quite a week behind us. We’ve been eager to make a short DVD/video film on the vision of Philosophia and “House Nazareth” to help communicate the enormous opportunity this represents. We worked like beavers all week and finally finished up Sunday afternoon just before we had to drive Seanne back to the airport. But we made it! Thanks for your prayers! As soon as we can, we’d love to show it to you.

The interesting thing is that during the production process almost everything that could possibly go wrong did. Seanne - who’s done a fair number of film projects - commented: “Almost every film I’ve worked on has had some glitch. That’s just part of the territory; but this project had all the glitches!” (From computer issues to the digital camcorder we were using for editing breaking down.) Pete Stewart - friend, board member and encourager - commented: “I think we’re doing something to make Satan mad!”

That is the point, isn’t it? I’ve often wondered if, as followers of Jesus, we could somehow calibrate how close we are to the center of God’s will by the amount of spiritual flak we get? (I realize that’s oversimplified, but there is a kernel of truth somewhere there…)

Here’s the current update on “House Nazareth” finances from Dale: donations = $71,240; interest-free loans (until 01. June, 2005) = $451,000. This is part of the “second miracle” of “House Nazareth” (the first was that the Sisters and the Roman Catholic real estate people in Germany decided to offer the property to Philosophia. When God confirmed this and the necessary funds came in by the deadline in December, the next step was possible.) As you can see, there is a long way to go to reach $1,000,000 in donations and longer loans by the end of April: this will be the third miracle of “House Nazareth”. Please continue to pray!

Sorry that I haven’t yet posted an update on “House Nazareth”. Our eldest daughter, Seanne, has flown up from Los Angeles and is helping us this week to make a 10-15 minute video introducing the vision of Philosophia International and the “House Nazareth” project.

I’ll keep you posted and try to get the update finished as soon as possible.

Would you please pray for our work this week on the video? Please ask God to very clearly lead our thoughts and help us to communicate this vision well. Thanks!

Since I’ve been reflecting on the interface between faith and action and how that can play out in social and political life, I’d like to recommend a recent article by Jeffrey Goldberg in The New Yorker about Michael Gerson, senior policy advisor to President Bush and former chief speech writer.

I think it illustrates very well the cross-currents and ambiguities facing someone trying to live out their faith in the real world.

Let me know what you think of the article!

P.S. Some have suggested a little larger and clearer typeface, so I thought we could try this out. Please tell me if it helps!

(A friend wrote an excellent email in response to yesterday’s blog on Bonhoeffer. I’d like to share with you my reply.)

Dear Lance,

Thanks for your cogent thoughts! I think that your question, “Where are the Bonhoeffers in America today?” is well put.

The answer, I believe, is “They’re among us.” But the occasion for them to come forth is not always completely clear!

I think each of us must be “little Bonhoeffers” [actually, “little Christs”, as the early believers were mockingly called!]; men and women who stand for right and justice when the situation is NOT completely clear. (By 1945 any idiot could recognize the “signs of the times”. But in the 1930’s you sometimes had to really be careful and listen to the Lord!)

One connected thought may be of help in such a situation:

Pete and I were talking yesterday about how to recognize evil. I’ve always found M. Scott Peck’s definition of evil in his book People of the Lie very helpful: evil is anti-life; anti-life in ALL its forms.

God said to the Israelites just before they crossed into the promised land:

I have set before you life and death, blessings
and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your
children may live.” Deuteronomy 30:19 (NIV)

God’s “law” is not the PRIMARY reason why evil is evil (i.e. God did not arbitrarily decide: “Let me think. I believe I’ll say ‘eating’ is sin; no, no… let me think… I’ve got it! I’ll make stealing sin! Now, let me see, what else could we say is sin…?”)

God and his law are not arbitrary like that. There is a deep reason reaching back even beyond the beginning of our race why “sin” is sin: it violates God’s intention to give his creation LIFE. That’s why He hates it so much.

In the very early days of Nazism, it was sometimes really hard for even mature believers to exactly put their finger on what it was that was evil about Hitler. (Of course, if you’d read his book, Mein Kampf, you would have known; but many had not.)

My impression from talking with German people of that generation is that it was usually those who had a highly tuned sense of evil being “anti-life” (in all it permutations) that saw things clearly from the start. They saw correctly that being “pro-life” is a seamless cloth that cannot not be parted without destroying it.

Cardinal Joseph Bernardin once wrote:

“Our moral, political, and economic responsibilities do not stop at the moment of birth. Those who defend the right to life of the weakest among us must be equally visible in support of the quality of life of the powerless among us: the old and the young, the hungry and the homeless, the undocumented immigrant and the unemployed worker.”

My thoughts on reading this go immediately to organizations like Prison Fellowship that are incarnations of just this principle.

(By the way: take a look at the website of “Restorative Justice”, a division of PF led by a good friend of ours. Their work is one of the pro-active sides of Prison Fellowship.)

Thanks again for your good note!

Shalom!

Clark

Ann and I finally had a chance yesterday evening to watch the Bonhoeffer program that we recorded on Monday night. It was very impressive.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German evangelical pastor who, along with his brother and brother-in-law, was deeply involved in an entire series of plots to assassinate Adolf Hitler during the so-called “Third Reich”. They paid with their lives.

What impressed me again about Bonhoeffer, though, was not so much his participation in the assassination plot, but his clear public stand against the Nazi discrimination and persecution of the Jews from the very beginning of Hitler’s dictatorship. That took not only courage but also clear thinking and a firm commitment to standing for what was right regardless of the personal consequences.

It is hard for us today to imagine the atmosphere that ruled in Germany in the 1930’s. Nazi propaganda had succeeded in blaming all of the nation’s troubles on “international Jewry”; responsibility for troubles ranging from the humiliation of the Versailles treaty ending World War I to the economic problems of everyday people was firmly placed on the Jews. The only comparable emotion in America today is the animosity shown toward innocent Muslims and Arabs after 9/11 - only 100 times worse. (Fanatic terrorism is, of course, a different issue.)

Bonhoeffer said, following the pogrom on the “night of crystal glass” in 1938 when hundreds of synagogues were burned or desecrated and thousands of Jewish homes vandalized: “Whoever doesn’t raise his voice for the Jews has no right to sing Gregorian chants.” In other words: No business as usual in the church! Unfortunately, he was a lone voice crying in the wilderness; the huge majority of his fellow pastors remained silent.

Reflecting back while he was incarcerated in prison, Bonhoeffer revealed the key issue in a letter to his friends: “The final question for responsible people is not ‘How can we come out of this looking good?’ but ‘What kind of world do we pass on to the next generation?’”

What did it all accomplish, though? Didn’t it all end in failure? Every assassination plot went awry; Bonhoeffer and his brother were hung naked from the gallows in a concentration camp days before the war ended.

As an American who has lived and worked almost thirty years in Germany, I know what Bonhoeffer accomplished: by understanding the depth of the Gospel, exercising political and social responsibility and following his conscience in the midst of a very confusing and foggy situation, he became a model for German young people after the war of what it means to follow Christ. The church was totally discredited for its participation in the Third Reich. (Pious, Bible-believing folk were some of the most fervent supporters of Hitler; especially in the early years. Why? Because he stood for “traditional German values”!) Without Bonhoeffer and a few others like him it would have been so much more difficult for anyone in post-war Germany to choose for a life with God. His true legacy is that he showed his nation and the world what it means to follow Christ with a political conscience.

One final disturbing thought (and prayer): I have the uncomfortable feeling that the mood in the United States today is not all that far from the sense of discontent, fear and insecurity that gripped the German people in the pre-Hitler years. I don’t think it’s so clear where this nation could end up if there were, for instance, an attack on the homeland with a weapon of mass destruction. How much of our own personal liberty would we be willing to give up for “security”? How would we react to the “outsiders” among us; the Muslims and Arabs, for instance? Would we stand for what is right if our entire society was rushing in the other direction? God give us the wisdom to understand our times, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer understood his.

P.S.: If you’re interested in learning more about Bonhoeffer, a DVD (or video) of the broadcast can be purchased at Amazon. There is also an excellent radio dramaproduced by “Focus on the Family”. A timeline of Bonhoeffer’s life is available at the PBS website.

P.P.S.: I haven’t forgotten about “House Nazareth”!! I’ll try to write an update for you on the weekend. Please pray for Matthias and Sieglinde. They are under a huge amount of pressure in structuring the rent situation for professional offices on the ground floor and negotiating mortgage terms with the German bank.

It rained pretty consistently during our time in Oregon (it’s not for nothing that the University of Oregon mascot is a duck!). One of the benefits of this was being able to experience the ocean a time or two in the midst of a real wind. Two thoughts came to our minds as we reflected on the overpowering immensity of the sea:

The ocean is a metaphor for the love of God: its capacity and power is far beyond any possible human ability to contain it; a bottle can be “full” of the ocean and yet the sea is unfathomably greater than the capacity of any container we humans could come up with. In the words of the old song about the mighty Mississippi, “it just keeps rollin’ ”. God’s wisdom is the same.

The Apostle Paul breaks out in praise at the end of his “teaching section” of the Epistle to the Romans:

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and
knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments
and his paths beyond tracing out!” Romans 11:33 (NIV)

The ocean is also a simile for the totality of the presence of God as it will be when the Promised One rules. “The earth,” said Isaiah, “will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.” (Isaiah 11:9; NIV).

The response of the People of God through the ages has consistently been: “Come quickly, Lord Jesus!”

Short News Item on House Nazareth: Matthias reports that talks with two architects went well. The suitability of “House Nazareth” for our missionary project has been consistently confirmed each step of the way.

Have you had a chance to check out the Philosophia International website? We try to explain there the biblical and theological background to the vision. “House Nazareth” is the structure - “Philosophia” and the “every-day” fellowship of believers in business and professional life form the heart and life of it.

There is a one hour broadcast this evening (Monday, 06. February) on PBS about the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the evangelical pastor martyred by Hitler. It’s reported to be pretty good. You might want to check local broadcast times!

We’re back in Boise! Thanks for your prayers - the time in Oregon was very significant. (More on that at a later time.) Ann has been reading an excellent book, The Passionate Life by Breen and Kallestad. The authors have developed a tool for reflecting on how to live a life completely committed to Christ that is in balance and harmony with who you are as a human being. Ann passed the book on to me and I wanted to share an important thought from it.

One of the main points I gained was that work is to rise out of rest, not the other way around. Usually, we work and work, then collapse from exhaustion into “rest”. But the Biblical pattern was the opposite: God made Adam and Eve and commissioned them to care for the world, then the “rest day” began as the first day of creation!

“This was our first full day as humans - a day of rest. After a busy day of being created, the next thing we did was hang out with God for a whole day. Then the work began. We only have to go to the first page of the story to see that. From this we see an important principle of life: We are to work from our rest, not rest from our work.” (p. 69)

I don’t know about you, but I’ve got some personal rewiring to do in light of that!