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HEAVEN'S LITTLE HELPERS #5

HELPING GOD HEAL

We take note of a rather interesting birthday happening in the world of religion. Mary Baker Eddy, founder of the Christian Science religion, was born on July 16, back in the year 1821, in Concord, New Hampshire. And as we wrap up our radio series entitled GOD'S LITTLE HELPERS, there are a couple of points for us to notice.

It's been our theme this week that so often in Bible times — and here in 2002 as well — human beings are prone to leap into the battlefield and try to do God's work for Him. A certain situation cries out for a miracle, and God appears not to be up to the task, or perhaps just not interested. And so we "help" God. There are Old Testament stories where it didn't look like God could provide a necessary heir, a promised son. So people like Abraham and Jacob went through all sorts of marital shenanigans to make up for God's deficiencies in talent and power.

Well, there have been some well-publicized stories, dramatized in TV programs, where adherents of the Christian Science religion would seem to have learned this lesson better than any of the rest of us. Because there are cases where a loved one in that religious tradition was desperately sick. But rather than seek medical counsel or take a prescription drug or accept surgery, this person — or their spouse or child — would simply "trust God" for healing. And sometimes on Chicago Hope, that person gets well. And sometimes they don't. But rather than "help" God by going to the emergency room, this believer leaves everything in God's hands.

Now, 181 years after the birth of this remarkable woman, we don't cite these examples to lift up a group to ridicule. We want to respect the convictions of others. I would, like, however, to point you to a very insightful article entitled Birth of a Troubled Conscience, by Glenn Tinder, which appeared in the April 26, 1999 issue of Christianity Today. Dr. Tinder is a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts in Boston, and the article was adapted out of his book, Professors Who Believe. He's an Episcopalian today, but was raised as a Christian Scientist by a very devout mother.

And he explains to us, as an insider, that there were two core beliefs in the church of his youth. According to Mary Baker Eddy, a good and omnipotent God simply could not, would not create anything evil. So there really is not anything evil in this world. There is not such a thing as sin. According to Tinder:

"The core truth is not that we are saved. It is rather that we have never been lost."

In terms of sickness, much the same approach is taken. You are really not sick, they say. "Sickness is an illusion." Here's Dr. Tinder again:
"Faith, therefore, does not bring healing but rather a realization that one was never sick to begin with."

The expression, "knowing the truth," then becomes all-important. "Everyone is well" and "Everyone is good" become the realities to hold onto. Dr. Tinder observes:

"A logical Christian Scientist does not deplore and try to eradicate sinful desires but tries simply not to notice them."

In our Bible study, then, of GOD'S LITTLE HELPERS, where does this take us? Have we found here a better way, where we say, "I am well; I feel fine; I leave all things to God" . . . when there is a good, trained, Christian doctor at a hospital just down the street? Do we say, "I am good; I am doing all right spiritually; there's no sin in my life" when the Word of God clearly states:

"All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God"?

Friend, the upshot of the Bible's teaching is this. There are things that are God's job, and for us to try to "help" Him is like trying to suck the Pacific Ocean dry with a straw. Back to Abraham. If God says He's going to make of you a great nation, as uncountable as the stars in the heavens, then for you to have one baby with your wife's servant girl . . . is absolute foolishness. Abraham and Sarah were trying to do God's job for Him. Was Peter with his one sword and the one ear he chopped off in Gethsemane really going to alter the plan of salvation, and keep Jesus from going to the Cross? Jesus came here to go to the cross! What Peter was attempting was about like trying to paddle UP Niagara simply because he was trying to do God's job for Him. God was determined to defeat Satan, and Peter was just getting in the way. For you and for me, the issue of salvation is where we most often try to take over heaven's role, where we attempt to save ourselves by our good works.

Having said that, we need to spend this Friday noticing that the Bible does go on to say that there are many, many things that you and I can do, and should do, as "fellow laborers with God." First Corinthians 3:9 calls us "fellow workers," not fellow "loungers" or fellow "observers." There is a time, we mentioned the other day, to sing Onward, Christian Soldiers, and also a time to be those soldiers.

There was a powerful article in the Spring 1999 issue of Leadership magazine, which is a wonderful resource for Christian pastors. Terry Mattingly points out that as little as two years ago, out-and-out slavery was happening in the Sudan; Christians were being bought and sold there into actual bondage, for as little as $15. Let me say again: this was two years ago, not back in the mid-1800s. The Khartoum regime, he reported, was bombing, starving, massacring, raping, torturing, and kidnapping Christians, animists, and Muslims, and selling them into slavery.

So what should be the response of other Christians when they hear this? After a week of study where we decide there are arenas of service we should not intrude into, is this another one? Is this God's problem to resolve in His own good time and in His own mysterious way?

I'm so thankful that Jesse Sage and his Boston group, American Anti-Slavery Group, don't think so. They're invading this hellish territory and literally buying the freedom of some of these enslaved men and women. With slave inflation — that's right; the price of a slave here in 2002 has leaped to $50, or even $75 — Jesse and his devout friends are budgeting $100 per rescue.

We shared an anecdote once by Sister Helen Prejean, the Catholic nun who wrote the best-seller, Dead Man Walking. She describes her endeavors to serve as God's ambassador to people on Death Row, and also how she had been called by heaven to work with the down-and-out, the slum survivors in Louisiana. The crack mothers, the parents who have lost children to violent crime and drug lords. And as a child, she used to pray: "God, please bless all those poor, hurting, homeless people." Now she writes how she learned that God had left some of these tasks to her. She was indeed to be "God's little helper," doing what she could, blessing those she could reach with her own two hands.

Back to Genesis, where some of these misplaced "helper" stories happen. In chapter 16, Abraham makes the mistake of trying to "help" God produce an heir for himself. Bad move. But in chapter 13, when pagan tribes capture his nephew and family, Abraham picks up swords and spears and 318 fellow warriors and achieves a great rescue. And that's a good move. That was the right kind of activism, because God had called him to battle.

If you haven't read the thrilling story of Gideon in a while, browse through Judges chapter 7. You'll recall that God deliberately cut his army down, down, down, from 32,000 men to a meager 300. God wanted to make sure these fighting men, and all Israel, understood that the battle was in God's hands and that the credit for the victory would be His. He wanted them to keep trusting Him, and not moving ahead on their own. However, there did come a time when those 300 men were told to blow those trumpets and wave their torches and shout triumphantly: "For the Lord and for Gideon!" So there was a time to trust God, and there was a time to trust God fighting!

And really, friend, it's the same for us. There are times when we should "stand still and see the deliverance of the Lord." And as we discussed yesterday, our salvation is earned entirely by Jesus' wonderful work on the Cross, and there's nothing we can add to His heroic achievement.

And yet the Bible is filled with other things that we can do, as participants in salvation. The Apostle Peter tells us we must resist the devil, and flee from him. That's something we can do. We're invited to worship together, pray for one another. On our Sunday radio broadcast, it's a regular theme by Pastor Morris Venden that a person who's seeking to know God can do one thing: he or she can put themselves where they're likely to meet Him. In church. In front of their open Bibles. On their knees in prayer. In their workplaces and homes and neighborhood, across the backyard fences, sharing their friendship with Jesus with others. In these arenas of service, friend, all of us are commissioned to truly be "God's little helpers."

Here in 2002 there are still slaves in our broken-down world. Spiritual slaves . . . and real slaves. And God's rescue army, His liberation force, does include real people, just like you and me.