Neighborhood Alliance Church

Since Monday, the news media have been filled with the horror of the mass-murder and suicide at Virginia Tech. The question so many are asking is: Why? This made me think of some profound words written by Dallas Willard in his book, The Spirit of the Disciplines. He described a mass-murder that took place in Wilmington, California in 1983. Afterward, a woman from that community asked: “Why? That’s what everyone wants to know. Why did something like this happen?”

Willard says, “Our ‘Why?’ in the face of evil . . . signals a lack of insight—willing or unwilling—into the forces that inhabit the normal human personality and thereby move or condition the usual course of human events. Above all, it shows a failure to understand that the immediate support of the evils universally deplored lies in the simple readiness of ‘decent’ individuals to harm others or allow harm to come to others when the conditions are ‘right.’. . . The level of this deadly ‘readiness’ to do evil in all of its forms is variable from individual to individual, but it is very high in almost everyone. . . . Once we see what people are prepared to do, the wonder ceases to be that they occasionally do gross evils and becomes that they do not do them more often. . . . What individuals are ready to do, what sits in them ready to burst forth, goes far to explain why people do the ghastly things they do. They are set to do them.”

Do Willard’s words seem overly harsh? If so, maybe we’ve taken the reality of human sin too lightly. Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful beyond all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” And Romans 3 assures us, “All have turned away, they have together become worthless. . . . Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways.”

What we call “civilization” may fool us into thinking that most people have good hearts. But civilization is a thin veneer. We look at outward appearances. God looks at the heart. People—all of us—need the Lord!

NAC began on Easter 1986. So this Easter we will celebrate the 21st birthday of this church. In a world where the antichrist spirit fights to destroy the church, let’s thank God that he has preserved us.

In my Scripture reading this morning (Psalm 46), I saw again how David knew God as his “fortress.” In fact, the Psalms refer to God as “fortress” 16 times. David used many other picture-words to describe the safety and protection he had found in God—words such as Rock, Stronghold, Shield and Strong Tower.

In Psalm 46, David poetically describes some of the things that can terrify us. Within its 11 verses, we see the earth giving way, mountains falling into the sea, nations in an uproar and wars desolating the earth. Living in this world, we Christians—collectively (in the church) and individually—face many forces that threaten to ruin us.

As we celebrate the 21st birthday of NAC, let’s thank God for the fact that the Lord Almighty has been—and is—with us, and that the God of Jacob has been—and is—our refuge.

And as we look back on God’s faithfulness as a fortress, let’s continue remaining in and counting on him as our fortress so that we can face the unknown future with courage. The Lord is the stronghold of our lives, individually and collectively. Of whom, then, shall we be afraid? (Psalm 27:1b).

Sharon and I have just enjoyed a week’s vacation. We drove across Snoqualmie Pass, through central and eastern Washington to reach Pomeroy, where one of my sisters now lives. As we drove through “wheat country,” we saw several groves of wind turbines—those tall white windmills now being used to generate electrical power. After returning home, I did a bit of research on these intriguing machines.

Why do those wind turbines fascinate me? Maybe it’s because they remind me of our lives as Christians. For example, the turbines have no power of their own. They are completely dependent on the movement of the wind through their gigantic blades. Without wind they produce nothing. How like us! Apart from the moving of the Spirit of Christ in us, we can produce nothing of spiritual value (and by the way, the Greek word for “spirit” can also be translated as “wind”).

Each wind turbine we saw had three blades attached to a generator located at the top of a tower. The whole top apparatus was made to swivel and align itself with the wind when it shifted. The wind will not adjust itself to the turbine. Instead, the turbine must adjust to the wind. This reminded me that we need to “keep in step with the Spirit” (Gal. 5:25). When the Spirit of God slows down, speeds up, turns or stops, we need to be sensitive enough to him to change our course accordingly.

The wind turbine tower is a tube—large enough in diameter to enclose a ladder by which maintenance people can climb up to service the generator. Part of the power from each wind turbine is used to light the interior of the tower and to run the computer that monitors and controls it. But the strength of the wind generates not only enough power for each turbine’s own needs, it also produces surplus power that is sent into an electrical grid to supply power to many others. In a similar way, the Spirit of Christ in us supplies not only our own personal needs but also empowers us to help meet the needs of others.

Although we could not see this from just driving by the wind turbines, I learned later that the wind grows stronger at higher elevations. So the higher the tower, the greater the power. Again—how like our Christian lives. As we draw near to God, the more the power of his Spirit will be available to flow through our lives. “Come near to God and he will come near to you” (James 4:8).

After installing a wind turbine, the manufacturer could say: “You will receive power when the wind blows on you.” That’s much like what Jesus actually did say about his followers: “… you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

God willing, on March 4 we will celebrate Communion in that “new-old” way we spoke about last Sunday. The point is not merely change for the sake of novelty. Instead, as we lift our observance of the Lord’s Supper out of the rut of tradition, let’s listen for a fresh hearing of the Spirit’s quiet voice.

Originally, the bread and the cup were part of a real meal. That’s reflected in Paul’s words to the Corinthian believers: “For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (I Cor. 11:23-26).

We will eat our meal on Sunday after breaking bread and before drinking from the cup. So the meal, enclosed by those powerful reminders, should stir us to recall that Jesus laid down his very life for each member of his body, the church. The Corinthians, when they ate the meal, should have seen the life application. But they missed it. Their self-centered actions showed a disconnect between Jesus’ self-giving love for members of his body and their own call to self-giving love for fellow-members of that same body.

As we share the Communion meal this Sunday, let the bread and the cup remind you that you are sitting beside and across from other members of Christ’s body. Let them remind you that Jesus loved (and still loves) them enough to be beaten, to be broken and to bleed for them. And then, reminded of their value in his sight, listen and speak in self-giving ways that will encourage them and build them up.

Let’s not waste this change in the outward form of how we celebrate Communion. The way we do it–even the new way–will have spiritual value only as we direct our hearts to love the other members of Christ’s body with his own kind of self-sacrificing love. Don’t just eat to eliminate those hunger pangs. Eat and listen and talk–perhaps even pray for those at your table–as a body-member who is there to build other body-members up in Christ.