We can choose to have a vibrant relationship with God – Relationships: God, Part 6

There is a very real sense in which our relationship with our Trinitarian God is connected to the choices we make in life. That is true for all relationships.  The quality of the relationship is connected to the choices we make.  For example, we grow a closer relationship with God when we choose to follow his way of life.  This is quite like the Old Testament covenant God had with Israel.  Now God has a new covenant with his church.  Thus, just as he did with Ancient Israel, God now is in relationship with both individual Christians and the collective called the church. It is very important that we nurture both an individual relationship with God and a corporate one.  This is why it is a fallacy that an individual person can have a relationship with God totally disconnected from any other people.  God always desires that individual to connect with others who also have relationships with him, so they can partner together to advance his Kingdom, actively loving their neighbors and encouraging one another in their discipleship to Jesus.  We see this reflected in the Trinitarian concept of God.  God is a three in one, relating in a loving way totally unified as Father, Son and Spirit.

So you and I strive to grow our relationship with God certainly by reading the Bible, and by spending time alone with God, listening for him to speak, through his word, and in many other ways.  God speaks through his Spirit, through nature, through his church. 

When you are with friends, whether in person, on the phone or texting, what is one of the first questions you ask them?  “How are you doing?”  A couple years ago I had the realization that when I spent time with God, I primarily focused on me.  There is a verse in 1st Peter than says, “Cast all your cares on him, because he cares for you.”  So we can get used to the idea that when we spend time with God, we do the complaining, the crying, the longing, the asking.  Imagine how that would work in any other relationship. Maybe you have a friend like that, one is a talker, but not so much of listener.  You know that person, right?  Annoying.  You have to work hard to stay interested.  The crazy thing is that when you lose interest and start checking your phone, or looking away, or stop paying attention, all while they are still talking nonstop, they eventually notice that you are not paying attention, and they confront you.  “Hey…are you listening to me?”  How bold of them, right?  They give no indication that they are aware of how annoying they are by droning on and on.  They don’t ask you how you are doing.  Or if they do, they barely listen for an answer, because they are so eager to talk.  They are focused, not on you, but on them.  It seems to me that I can be that way with God.  So I would recommend that you ask God, “How are you doing, Lord?” and then listen.  It might be quiet.  Learn to listen by practicing it.  What helps me when my mind wanders, which is often does, is to say a word or phrase that helps you return to listening.  Pick a word that is based in Scripture. 

I also encourage you to learn about listening to God.  Dallas Willard’s book, Hearing God, is a good one.  Martin Laird has a three-part series of small books that are helpful (Into the Silent Land, An Ocean of Light, A Sunlit Absence).  Place yourself together with other people to listen to God together.  Talk to other people about your relationship with God.  This is why I have a monthly appointment with a spiritual director.  I encourage you to do the same.  This is not a counselor or therapist, but a person who is trained to help you listen to God.

Listening to God and learning to grow your relationship with God takes practice, and that means working on it.  I also recommend books by Henri Nouwen.  Now is the time to make a change in your schedule, in your habits, to make working on your relationship with God a priority.

God wants to do a great work within you and through you.  His relationship with you is one that is deep and connected to others.  Let me conclude with a passage that has become so meaningful to me, Ephesians 3:14-19,

“I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” 

Photo by Donald Giannatti on Unsplash

You can have a relationship with the Holy Spirit – Relationships: God, Part 5

In the previous posts, here and here, we’ve been talking about how we have a relationship with God, expressed in the three persons of the Trinity. So how do we have a relationship with God the Spirit?

We read about the arrival of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2, and the rest of the New Testament is all about the new relationship that humans can have with God, through the Spirit.  In fact, Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 3 and 6 that we are the temple of the Spirit, God lives in us.  In the previous blog series, we talked about how the Fruit of the Spirit is how God the Spirit works in us so that his life is being grow within ours.  His fruit, love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and self-control, flow out of us.  That’s quite a relationship.  God the Spirit at work in us. 

We also read about something called the filling of the Spirit, and that we can quench the Spirit, which we will see in the Scripture passages below.  When we place our faith in Jesus, the Spirit enters our lives.  But that doesn’t mean we are suddenly transformed into perfect beings.  Our evangelical forefather John Wesley taught that a Christian could be perfected, and because Wesley was a far smarter man than me, I don’t think Wesley was off his rocker.  But as I look around the world and in my own heart and mind, I think there is a better way to understand the biblical passages on which Wesley based his teaching. 

Our goal is to become more like Jesus, to live like he lived, or to put it another way, to live like he would live if he were us.  Some have called it the pursuit of holiness.  This pursuit of becoming like Jesus is directly connected to God the Spirit.  We are in a relationship with God the Spirit who lives in us.  But when we choose to rebel against or be apathetic about that relationship, we are not allowing the Spirit to fill us, and we can grieve the Spirit. 

Paul wrote about this in Ephesians 4:29-5:2 “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

Instead of grieving the Spirit, we pursue the filling of the Spirit, which Paul goes on to write about just a few verses later in Ephesians 5:16-20, “Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Photo by Joshua Eckstein on Unsplash

You can have a relationship with Jesus – Relationships: God, Part 4

In the New Testament we meet God the Son, Jesus.  Jesus is unique in the persons of the Trinity because of something called incarnation.  Incarnation refers to the idea that Jesus came in the flesh.  Jesus took on a human body.  For 33 years he lived as a human.  When you think about your relationship with God, what does it mean that God became human?  What I’m getting at is this: if Jesus took on a body, his body located him at a certain time and place.  Just like us. 

We Christians believe that we humans are hybrid creatures, with a soul/spirit and a body.  We have an immaterial part and a material part.  Our physical body is seamlessly merged with a spiritual part.  That is quite similar to what happened when, through the Holy Spirit, God joined the spiritual Christ who is the second person of the Trinity, with a physical human body in the woman of a young Israelite virgin named Mary.  That baby did not have a human soul.  It only had a human body.  It was a human body joined with the spirit of Christ.  After the baby was born, his human parents, Mary and Joseph, gave him the name Jesus.

It is wonderful to read the Gospels, the four books of the Bible that describe the life of Jesus: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. In those four accounts of Jesus’ life, we get to see what God is like.  If you want to know what God is like, just read the Gospels.  Jesus is God.  He said that he and the father are one.  The New Testament writers affirm it.  If God seems mysterious to you, then immerse yourself in the Gospels.  I think this is why many Christians are so enamored by dramatizations of the life of Jesus, like the TV show The Chosen, because they gives us an idea of what Jesus might have been like.  My Old Testament professor Dave Dorsey once said that if God walked into the room, he would be so gracious, it would take your breath away.  Imagine that.  And the disciples and friends of Jesus got to be in actual walking and talking relationship with him!  I’m jealous of that.  I wish Jesus would show up in my life so I could talk with him.  But he said in John 14-16 that it is better for us that he left, because he was sending someone to take his place. 

So can we have relationship with Jesus?  Certainly, yes! Jesus himself talked about it quite frequently, that entering into a relationship with him is vital if we want to experience both eternal life and abundant life. To enter into a relationship with him, we first believe in him, which we will learn about in our forthcoming blog series on the Gospel of John. John frequently describes Jesus as saying, “Believe”. But that belief is tied to action, which is why Jesus called his disciples (and us) to follow him. We have a relationship with Jesus when we believe and follow.

But also remember that  Jesus died and was resurrected with a new spiritual body.  Then he ascended to heaven, and Acts 1 tells us that the disciples watched him leave.  While they must have been sad, Luke tells us in Luke 24:50-53 that they praised God at that time.  I’m not sure I totally understand that, except that something happened a short while later.  Jesus kept his promise.  He sent the Spirit.

In the next post we’ll survey what it means to be in relationship with God the Spirit.

Photo by Gift Habeshaw on Unsplash

You can have a relationship with God – Relationships: God, Part 3

What does it mean for you and I to have a relationship with God the Father (or Mother if you prefer, see here and here, or perhaps you view the Lord as the Almighty one)?  In the Old Testament God the Father is the person of Trinity we most often read about.  God the Spirit shows up for sure, such as we saw in our recent study in the book of Ezekiel, such as here.  Does Jesus show up in the Old Testament?  There’s lot of debate about this, with Christians trying to make a case for some angels to be Jesus, and with Jewish scholars responding, “No way.”  I think it is best to say we don’t know if Jesus shows up in the Old Testament.  The point to focus on is that when you read OT historical books that tell the stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, David, Solomon and others, the stories depict those people as having an individual relationship with God. When you read the psalms, you read very relational poems, songs and prayers expressing the psalmist’s individual relationship with God, often specifically referred to as God the Father. When you read the prophets, the prophets also interact with God the Father.

God is also very emotional, relationally-speaking, to both the individual and to the whole nation corporately.  He expresses his hurt when the people turn away from him.  And he is overjoyed when they return or when they just stay in close relationship with them. I find it particularly appealing that we can have a relationship with God that is real and alive. He is not cold, unfeeling, and distant. Instead God is emotional, interactive and feeling.

One major concept of relationship in the Old Testament is the concept of covenant.  God has a relational agreement with his people, a corporate relationship with the entire nation of Israel. When they are walking in the wilderness in the Exodus, God appears to them in the pillar of cloud by day, in the pillar of fire by night, and in some other pretty amazing manifestations, such as his presence in the tabernacle and temple. The Old Testament Law, which we studied a few years ago when we worked our way through Deuteronomy, is a relational agreement between God and Israel.  If they abide by the terms of the covenant, God says he will bless them, protect them and provide for them.  But if they do not abide by the covenant, God say he will not bless, protect and provide.  Throughout the history of the ancient nation of Israel, we see all of the above.  Actually, the people would spend a lot more time turning away from God.

In the New Testament, Jesus shows us what it can be like to have a vibrant relationship with God, as he often spends time alone in prayer with God.  This is a reflection of what we read in the earliest description of God’s relationship with humanity, God walking and talking with Adam and Eve in the garden.  For Christians then, it is quite appropriate to grow a relationship with God, and one of the primary ways of doing so is prayer.  At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I will mention Brother Lawrence and his concept of having a conversation with God all the time. He called it The Practice of the Presence of God.  You can read his short book of that same title here.  I urge you to do so.  My guess is that many of us have sparse communication with God.   Given the psalms, which are also almost exclusively individual expressions of prayer and worship to God, it is also quite appropriate to express our relationship with God in song.  But by far, the New Testament presents relationship with God in a radical new way that is a striking departure from the Old Testament.  We’ll explore that in the next post.

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Some difficulties of having a relationship with God – Relationships: God, Part 2

In one of the premarital counseling workbooks that Michelle and I use with engaged couples, the authors ask a question at the end of nearly every chapter.  Whether they are talking about love or finances or in-laws or communication, they ask the same question: “How will the presence of Jesus help you in this area of your marriage?”  Their point is that a relationship with Jesus is primary and empowering to all other relationships.   

So how is it going in your relationship with Jesus?  It is hot, cold, lukewarm?  Jesus once said to the church of Laodicea, as we read in the New Testament book of Revelation, chapter 3, “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.”  What is the temperature of your relationship with Jesus?  Let’s talk about how we can move toward a vibrant relationship with him. 

I’ve already asked some questions that maybe we don’t talk a whole lot about.  But there are more.  What is God?  If we are to have a relationship with him, what is God? 

God is spirit, and that means he is invisible.  But that raises more questions.  How do you have a relationship with a being that you cannot see? 

Is our relationship with God just in our imagination?  In our minds?  Is it something we make up to make us feel better?  Is belief in God “the opiate of the masses”?

Or is it a real living and breathing relationship with a real being? 

Another question, is it me and God in relationship?  In other words, can I have an individual relationship with him? Does God have unique relationships with individual persons?

And is God a him?  Some people call God a her.  The biblical writers all use the masculine pronouns for God, but that does not mean that God has a gender and that he has a specifically masculine gender.  You will hear people make impassioned arguments for the importance of God as a male.  He is father, they say, not mother.  He is king, they say, not queen.

But those same people admit that God is not a human or animal that has biological gender.  God is spirit.  Yes, God has tendencies that are typically considered male.  But God also has tendencies that are typically considered female.  Furthermore God as spirit has tendencies that surpass biological gender. 

There a few times when the biblical writers says that part of what it means to be in relationship with God is best understood by the metaphor of a mother-child relationship.  God is “Like a bear robbed of her cubs.” (Hosea 13:8)  Or “As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you” God says in Isaiah 66:13.  Finally God says that “like a woman in childbirth, I cry out, I gasp and pant.” (Isaiah 42:14)

In Matthew 23:37, Jesus himself declares that he has motherly thoughts.  “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.” 

Additionally, from the very beginning, both human genders are described as made in the image of God: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:27) Are you female? You are made in God’s image. Are you male? You are made in God’s image.

Thinking about God as parent might be difficult for some because perhaps you have a difficult relationship with one of your human parents.  Maybe one or both of your parents has mistreated you.  No parent is perfect, and often people transfer the negative parts of their parents onto God.  That is understandable.  If you do that, you are doing something that is normal, but that doesn’t mean God is like your flawed earthly parents, at least in their flaws.  What we should strive for is to have an honest evaluation of our conception of God.  Ask yourself, Am I conferring negative flaws onto God?  If so, we should get to know who God truly is.  God does not have the flaws our parents have, even if it seems like he does.

God is perfectly loving.  Even when it seems God is distant and far away, he remains perfectly loving. 

But we need to remember that God is a Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and we have a relationship with all three persons of the Trinity.  The concept of Trinity certainly has some mystery to it.  How can God be both one and three?  Do I have a relationship with one God or with three?  Thinking in relational terms, it sure seems like we Christians have three distinct relationships, one with each person of our Trinitarian God. But as we read in Deuteronomy 6, “the Lord is one.” While it might seem that we have individual relationships with three Gods, we have one relationships with one God.

In the next post, we’ll talk more about how we have a relationship with one God who has three persons. For now, I want to conclude this post by mentioning that each of the three persons of the one God have aspects that can feel difficult to relate to. For example, the person of God the Father is the Lord in Heaven.  Because of that he can feel distant sometimes. But we pray to him, sing to him, and generally think of him as God.  That’s why we’re thankful for Jesus who is God in the flesh.  We can identify with him, because he took on a human body.  It can feel easier to have a relationship with Jesus because we can read stories about him in the Bible.  But we have to admit that he ascended to heaven, and he is not here anymore.  He said that was a good thing, but we sometimes disagree with him and wish he was still here.  Lastly there is God the Holy Spirit, who is God in us.  He lives in us.  So we can also identify with him, because, of the three persons of the Trinity, the Spirit is the one with us.  But the Spirit is also, well, spirit, and not human, so it can sometimes feel that a relationship with the Spirit is mysterious. 

And none of that answers my original question: do we have a relationship with one God or three?  Let’s talk about our relationship with each person of the Trinity individually first, and we begin that in the next post.

God only speaks through the Bible? – Relationships: God, Part 1

Usually once or twice each year, I teach a course as an adjunct professor for Lancaster Bible College. This fall I’m teaching a theology course that I have never taught before. To prepare I’ve been reading the textbooks, and the first book got under my skin.  I have no problem with about two-thirds of the book.  But that other third?  I am very concerned with that. 

The book is about ideas that the author believes are false and potentially destructive to Christians.  All the ideas sound good, but when you examine them closely, he believes there is a danger in them.  The danger is that believing these ideas could hurt Christians emotionally and spiritually.  Like I said, for the most part, I agreed with him. 

But not always.  He wrote a couple chapters about one particular issue, and I disagreed with his point of view on that issue.  While his intent was to be helpful and biblical, I think he missed the boat.  The issue that he said was destructive is that idea that God speaks inwardly to people. 

The author believes that God only speaks through his word.  If you want to hear from God, the only option you have is to read and study the Bible.  Many Christians, teachers and preachers, however, say that we can and should listen for God inwardly, whether in thoughts or in feelings, and we can hear God speaking in those ways. This author said, “Nope.  If you hear something inwardly, that’s not God, that’s you.  Your mind.  Your feelings.  The only way to hear from God is through the written word in the Bible.” 

There is no doubt that God speaks through the Bible.   One of the most important aspects of our evangelical Protestant heritage is a high view of Scripture.  We believe the Bible is the inspired word of God.  We believe the Bible is inspired by God because the apostles themselves taught that God inspired Scripture.  Here are a few examples of their teaching.

The Apostle Peter wrote in 2 Peter 1:21, “For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

In 2 Timothy 3:16, the Apostle Paul writes, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

When Peter and Paul refer to inspiration (“carried along by the Spirit” or “God-breathed,” they are not referring to dictation.  Instead, God works along with the human author.  God’s Spirit inspired humans in the process of writing the various history books and letters and poems and wisdom sayings and parables and prophecies that are all part of the library we call the Bible. 

We live in a day and age and culture when we can access God’s word easier than ever before.  We have wonderful tools to help us understand it.  There were times in the history of the world, when accessing the written word of God was next to impossible for most people.  There are still some places in the world today where it remains very difficult.  Praise God for organizations that, for decades, have been bringing the written word of God to those who do not have it.  Organizations like Wycliffe Bible Translators.  It is very possible, Wycliffe reports, especially because of computing capabilities, that at least some of the word of God will be available to every person on the planet in the coming years.  That is a joyous bit of news because we believe, as the Bible says, that God does speak through his word.  The word of God is living and active. God’s word changes lives. We can hear God speak through the written word. But is that the only way God speaks?

Must people wait until they have the Bible in their language to hear God speak? Or to put it another way, is our relationship with God exclusively a relationship with God as presented in the written word?  Do we only access God through words in a book? Or can we hear God speak in other ways?  Can we have a relationship with God beyond a relationship with the Bible? I think we can. In fact, I think the Bible say so.

Today we are starting a five-week blog series on relationships.  This series is a natural next step from our previous series on the Fruit of the Spirit.  As we walk in step with the Spirit, he grows his fruit in our lives, and those qualities are primarily effective in our relationships.

So while we begin by studying our relationship with God.  In the coming weeks we’ll talk about relationships in the home, in a church family, in the community (places like work, school and friendships), and finally our relationship with the world.  God created us for relationship. In the earliest description of God’s creation, Genesis 2:18, God says, “It is not good for the man to be alone.”  So we will be studying what God’s word has to say about relationships. 

There is a sense in which this blog series over the next five weeks will be Relationships 101.  I highly doubt that I will be able to say anything you haven’t heard before.  But that’s to be expected.  Relationships are the stuff of life, and we talk about them constantly.  When it comes to relationships, there is nothing new under the sun.  That doesn’t mean, however, that we remember it all, or that we have it mastered.  We need to be reminded, over and over and over again, about healthy, godly, loving relationships.  We forget so fast.  Or we get stuck in selfish ways of thinking and relating.  Our relationships are often not what we want them to be.  Relationships sometimes take on adjectives describing how unhealthy they’ve become.  A dysfunctional relationship.  A broken relationship.  “They have a codependent relationship.”  Or we just say, “Their relationship is messed up, screwed up or jacked up.” 

I suspect you know what I mean because you have one or two or three or more of those relationships in your life.  Maybe in your family.  Every single family has them.  Every single church has them.  How, then, can we have healthy relationships?

It starts with God. 

In the next post we’ll begin talking about how to have a vibrant relationship with God.

Photo by Rod Long on Unsplash

Relationships: Series Preview

Who are your closest relationships?  Think about the top five to ten people who are your best friends.  When I mention the category “friends,” that list could also include family members.  Sometimes we have the distinct pleasure of being friends with our family.  Michelle and I have thoroughly enjoyed the transition from being parents of four young children to being parents who are friends with their four adult children and their spouses.  I’m also thankful for my parents and siblings.  On a recent day trip to an extended family member’s funeral, I traveled to the funeral with my brother and sister, and I traveled home with my parents.  It was wonderful. 

I am also quite thankful for my long-time friends, such as my friend, Chris, as we have been accountability partners since our days together in the college dorm 30 years ago.  Believe it or not, Chris and his wife have three boys and a girl, just like Michelle and me, and in the same order.  Chris and I continue to meet up for lunch every couple months or so to talk about our relationships and pray together.  We also text or call quite a bit in between those face-to-face meetings.

As we near the mark of 20 years in pastoral ministry, I’m also thankful for our Faith Church family.  We’ve been so blessed to be a part of this church family, with relationships at a variety of levels of closeness. Michelle and I are especially thankful for a group of church friends that one of the group dubbed the “Fire Friends” because we often gather at each others’ homes around a campfire to talk and laugh and cry.

The reality, though, is that whether family, friends or church family, not all relationships are so good.  In fact, my guess is that you could make a list of 5-10 broken or difficult relationships in your life.  Those broken relationships are probably in your family, with (former) friends, and in the church family.  I can make a brokenness list too. As a result, relationships tend to be our greatest source of joy and pain. 

That’s why this coming week we’re starting a five-week topical series on relationships. We’ll be seeking what God’s word has to say about our relationship with God, family, church family, our community and the world, in that order. Our hope and prayer is to build healthy relationships.

Photo by Kimson Doan on Unsplash

Throwing light on the shadow side of lawn care – Current Events: A Theology of Lawn Care, Part 5

When I refer to the shadow side of the Great American Lawn, I don’t mean the grass that is growing in the shade of a tree.  When I say “shadow side,” I’m referring to the possibility that lawns of grass might not always be a good thing.  Who gets to decide that freshly clipped grass lawns is a cultural good?  A New York man mows an American Flag on his lawn, and he says, “You can look at it, and it makes you feel good.”  Why?

What if a wild, over-grown lawn makes other cultures around the world feel good? 

Michael Pollan says, “The irony of the American Lawn is that it is so exposed, that nobody spends any time there.”  Pollan is referring to the front yard.  It’s in the front where people drive by.  So it’s unlikely that a person will sunbathe there, or sit and read a book or have a campfire.  Why?  It’s busier, noisier, and people happening by can look at you.  Generally-speaking we prefer peace and quiet, and we don’t want to be looked at, like we’re in a zoo. So what do we do?  We spend most of our time in the back yard.  But we still mow and landscape our front lawn.  We still invest resources in making a perfect front lawn.  Just because we spend the vast majority of our time out back, that doesn’t mean we let the front lawn go to pot, right? As a result, Pollan says, “The front law is purely a symbol.”  Our front lawns are status symbols.  Statements about who we are.  Can lawns, therefore, become idols? 

They certainly can become idols, if we let them. Anything that we give worship to, anything we give inordinate amounts of time and money can become idols.  Do you spend too much time, too much money on your lawn?  The Scriptures don’t say anything about how much time and money is appropriate for lawn care and landscaping.  When do you cross a line from healthy co-creative artistry (which we talked about in previous posts in this series here and here) into unhealthy obsession?  I can’t say.  Instead I would encourage you to talk about it with other Christians who have a different approach to lawns, ones that don’t spend as much time on their lawn as you do.  Ask them to explain their rationale.  Start to question why other cultures have a different approach to lawns.  Is the American culture the only right way?  Of course not.  Perhaps a different culture might have a better way?

“We forget,” Pollan says, “Grass lawns are a very unnatural landscape.”  We call them natural because they are made of nature.  They are not brick, sidewalk, parking lot, building.  They are green.  But they are actually unnatural because left to themselves, they will never become lawns.  Pollan says that our lawns are “more natural than asphalt, but that’s about it.” 

Another theological consideration is that lawns can be about power and the domination of creation.  And yet, our domination of creation just might be having the ironic counter effect of destroying creation.  Lawn care can require the use of water for something that is most often unused space, while so many places in the world suffer drought.  The spreading of pesticides and fertilizer has been linked to cancer.  The greenhouse gases from our mowers and equipment affect the environment.   

Are there alternatives?  Can we legally have something other than lawns?  What would happen if we just stopped mowing (which is an illegal alternative in most places)?  We know.  We would be fined and jailed.

Are there other options for those who feel compelled to have something other than lawns? Make front yard produce gardens.  Plenty of Amish here in Lancaster County do it.  It might look very different from your neighbors, but it could be done in a very appealing beautiful way.  Some of the Amish front-yard gardens I run by are very attractive.  If you have a home-owners association, please check with them first! 

Another option would be to consider using landscaping that does not require water.  This to can be a practice of artist creativity to glorify God.  Also imagine the time and money you’d recapture that wouldn’t be spent on lawns.  In 2022 Faith Church budgeted $4200 for lawn maintenance.  That doesn’t include all the volunteer landscape work that is given to the church each year.  That’s $4200 to maintain lawns that are rarely used.

Hear me clearly on this.  I am not saying that it is wrong to have lawns.  I’m saying that we would do well to consider every aspect of our lives theologically, from God’s perspective.  Let’s not just assume that a part of our lives, like our lawn, is just a neutral part of life because everyone else has one.  Perhaps God is calling us to something different, something that would be more in line with his heart and the mission of his Kingdom.

After reading this five-part series on a theology of lawn care, perhaps you need to take better care of your lawn. Or perhaps you need to scale back. I urge you to apply the principles we studied to your perspective on lawn care.

Your lawn matters to your community – Current Events: A Theology of Lawn Care, Part 4

A second way that The Great American Lawn is theologically instructive for Christians is related to community.  While a property owner does have individual say over the state of their lawn, they are also part of a community.  We Christians are right to see ourselves as part of a community.  In 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12, Paul says this about Christians and community:

“Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.”

Also in 2 Corinthians 2:15, Paul writes: “For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing.” 

The way we live is the aroma of Jesus to others. Therefore, how we handle our lawn gives others an impression of Jesus.  We don’t necessarily need to have a mini-Longwood Gardens around our house, but we would do well to at least consider what would be respectable to our neighbors.

Michael Pollan remarks, “Your front yard belongs to the community as much as it does to you.  The conceit of the American suburb is that we’re all in a great park together.  That’s what America is.  [One great big park.]  The front lawn symbolizes that continuity.  [Our piece of the park.]

There is a togetherness about lawns.  Our lawn connects us to our community. “How well you take care of your lawn,” Pollan says, “is your expression of solidarity with your neighbors.  It’s a gesture toward your neighbors as much as it is to you.”

Did you ever feel that way about your neighbor’s lawn?  That it affects you?  As I was researching this a few weeks ago, I thought about a nearby property with a lawn with grass that had not been mowed in weeks, and the grass was now about two feet high.  Driving by, you cannot miss it. The overgrown is a blight on the community.  I imagine that it must feel awful to be that person’s neighbors. They must hate it. 

I wonder if it affects their home values if they want to sell?  Could it be a justice issue in that regard?  I have wondered if the neighbors have even been so affected by that overgrown lawn that they themselves have been tempted to mow it.  Or maybe they have called the Township office to complain?  Then I thought, “Is that high grass in violation of a Township ordinance?”

So I contacted East Lampeter Township to learn more. The Zoning Officer pointed me to Nuisances Ordinance No. 280. Section (e) enacted in 2009, says that no person may “[permit or allow] the growth or any grass or weeds or other vegetation not edible or planted for some useful or ornamental purpose, to exceed a height of six inches, to throw off any unpleasant or noxious odor or to produce pollen”.

So what happens if someone violates this?  The Ordinance goes on to say that the Zoning Officer or his assistants will serve written notice, either personally or by certified or by first class mail, asking them to remove the nuisance.  If the person does not comply within 15 days after receipt of the notice, or request a hearing within such time before the Board of Supervisors, the Supervisors may remove or arrange for removal of the nuisance, and charge the person for the cost of removal and a penalty of 25%.  If the person persists in not paying the fine, the Township will bring the matter before the District Magistrate or Justice which will result in a fine of $300.  If the person does not pay that fine, they can be sent to Lancaster County Prison for 30 days.  Of course, as you can imagine, things can escalate from there.

Think about that.  Our local community has an enforceable ordinance that requires you to cut your grass. I asked the Zoning Officer how often they’ve had to enforce the ordinance.  He said that in his 17 years, the Township has had to get the grass cut and then lien the property owner if they don’t pay.  Most of the time, though, the people themselves receive the violation notice and then cut the grass themselves.  In his 17 years, violations have never resulted in people going to jail.  But it could.  Think about that.  A person could be jailed for not mowing their lawn.

What we see then is that your lawn has quite a significant connection to community, especially when viewed from a Christian perspective.  We Christians should be law-abiding and community-oriented, when the following of laws is in line with God’s heart, which it almost always is, especially in a community and country like ours that is based on the principle of justice for all.  Of course, we know that doesn’t mean all always receive justice.  Therefore we are right to call laws into question if we have reason to believe they are unjust.  So are there ways in which The Great American Lawn, and the cultural apparatus the sustains it, like East Lampeter Township’s Nuisance Ordinance No. 280. might be unjust or not in line with God’s heart? Think about that, pursue justice, and what it might mean for you to view your lawn as part of the community park.

In the next post we move to the shadow side of lawn care, and I’m not talking about the part of your lawn that is under a tree.

Photo by Tom Rumble on Unsplash

Your lawn as co-creative art – Current Events: A Theology of Lawn Care, Part 3

How does God think about lawns and lawn care? First of all, we start in Genesis.  Page 1 of the Bible. In Genesis chapter 1, God creates the cosmos, including the earth, and in verse 11 we read, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants, etc.  The land produced this, and God saw that it was good.”  God declares that his creation is good.  Furthermore, as the creation story progresses, God creates animals that dwell on the land, nourished by the vegetation growing on the land.   And God declares land-dwelling animals to be good also. 

Finally in verses 26-27, God creates humankind, and notice how when God creates us he declares that we are unique from the rest of his creation.  How so?  God says, “’Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

We are created in God’s image.  As image-bearers we are unique in all creation.  So what does it mean to bear the image of God?  It is a bit mysterious, and theologians and bible scholars through the ages have debated its meaning.  So I am not going to claim that I have it figured out.  Clearly, when we bear the image of God, we should not think that we are equal to God.  Image-bearers likely refers to our human ability to reason, to choose, and that we are not nearly as driven by instincts as are animals.  For our purposes today, as image-bearers, God gives us at least limited ability to co-create with him.  We see God refer to this in the next verse, Genesis 1:28:

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

Over the years, this passage has been used incorrectly to suggest that humans can treat creation with disrespect, because, God says we’re in charge and we should subdue it, right?”  Instead, God’s desire for us as image-bearers is to co-create with him in a caring way.  When God create the world, he saw that it was good.  We would do well, then to continue treating creation so that it continues to be good.  Christians should be leading the way for environmental concerns.  This God-given desire for caring co-creation has wonderful applications to our lawns. 

Our lawns can be a source of creative work.  Some wonderfully beautiful work has been done in the area of landscape art.  You may take pride in their work you do to care for your lawn.  It is appropriate, even, to view it as a work of caring co-creative artwork, that you enjoy as an act of worship to God. 

As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 10:31, “Whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God.” Care for your lawn to the glory of God as one who is co-creating with him.

Photo by Gus Ruballo on Unsplash