In the Spring...

"In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king's men and the whole Isrealite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem..." -2 Samuel 11:1

This is the precursor to King David's great sin--his adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband, Uriah. The entire passage is prefaced with this thought: the simple fact that David was not where he was supposed to be. He begins the entire story with neglecting his duties, being lazy and abusing his power. How could things NOT go wrong?

Most great sins, I would argue, start this way. One bad decision deserves another afterall. Abraham let his wife get pawned off on a king not once... but TWICE, because he made the mistake of going into foreign lands and then lying about the relationship he had with Sarah; calling her his sister. Why did this happen? Because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time: Egypt, the anti-promised land.

But the opposite is also true. Take Samuel himself as an example. Right place at the right time with the right attitude. And so it goes throughout Scripture. Things do not start big. They progress, they escalate. Sins and victories both. They stack on top of each other. Make sure you are in the right place doing the right thing-- or you are going to get sucked down.

A Discrepancy

While watching a movie the other day with my roommates one of them started to fall asleep. He was the only one of us that had not yet seen it, and we probably would not have been watching it in the first place if not for him. Knowing that I probably would have wanted him to wake me up and whispered rather loudly: "Hey, I don't know if I should let you fall asleep or wake you up so you can watch the movie. Do you still want to watch it?" He promptly woke up and presumably remained awake for the remainder of the film.

This got me thinking though: almost every Friday at our school we have a specially guest lecture, debate, presentation or exhortation. We are required to be there to listen and the dean keeps attendance. But the weekly event, named "Disputatio" (Latin for a discussion or debate) by the facailty, has been dubbed "Naputatio" by the student body. Funny? Yes. True? Also yes. By the end of the week, most of the students are running on far too little sleep, and many of them (me included on occasion) fall asleep during these lectures.

It was at this point that I realized a bit of a problem: why are we ok with this? Why are we paying thousands of dollars to be here and listen to wise men and gain their wisdom only to fall asleep when they are trying to teach us. But buy a 20 dollar movie and you will do your best to keep your friends awake for the entire thing so that they won't miss a punchline. There is something very wrong with this picture.

Maybe we should start poking our neighbors in the ribs during lecture...

Learning to Keep Our Mouths Shut

I will readily admit that I do not do this enough myself, but I am changing that. And I thought I would just let everyone know a little bit about cultural differences, false assumptions and how they can both lead to miscommunication and hurt feelings.

First off, I'd like to clarify something with all my American readers: people from other countries like being from other countries. No, by and large, they do not want to be Americans. I am specifically talking about Canadians here. They are very content in their Canadianness, and do not need to be convinced otherwise. Telling a Canadian that they are practically an American for whatever reason is rather offensive.

One thing that we should remember is that our bias is showing. Often I speak out of ignorance, because I never bothered to learn about a different culture or event, etc. Only afterward do I realize that what I said was just because I am an American and should have known better. We need to keep this firmly in mind: as Americans, we are kind of oafish, and much of this comes from the vocal seculars and from our leaders. A good picture of this is Israel and their decline throughout the last half of the Old Testament. If the king was bad, the nation as a whole started to decay rapidly. This seems to be true of any nation, just look at Nero or Constantine. I know that those are extreme examples, but the point remains the same.

As Americans, we ought to realize that we often have a negative stigma, and come off a certain way to people of other nationalities. As Christians, we should be fighting that. We should be like the faithful few in Israel and be kind and considerate hosts and helpers. We should be looking for opportunities to display our better qualities.

I was at a wedding a few days ago, a Irish/French/American wedding, with a French and an American pastor officiating. And during the toasts at the reception, both pastors gave a brief toast. The American pastor's was quickly forgotten when the French pastor stood up and gave his blessing:

"The Irish are known for their loyalty, the French are known for their love of life, and Americans are known for their generosity. May you both be blessed with all three."

I chewed on his words for a long while. "Americans? Generous? Could it be?" But it's true, American CHRISTIANS are some of the most open-hearted, generous people I have ever met. May this truly be said of more of us. May we let our generosity speak more often than our mouths do.

Caveat

That is unless not saying something will cause irreparable damage to another person. Like... lying.

I have this feeling that there needs to be a deep exegetical discussion on what exactly "wise speech" is. Do not have time now.

I'll touch on this again, I am quite sure.