Park Avenue church of Christ » Tank
God withheld many abilities from me, but some He granted. All of us can say that, can’t we? Oh, I’ll concede that there are those irritating few who seen to be able to do everything, but they’re so few and far between that they need not now divert us. Most of us are good at some things but not so good at others. To ignore this reality is to court frustration. If you’re short, slow, and uncoordinated, it is unlikely that a career in the N.B.A. beckons. But you might well be a super star at some other undertaking. This doesn’t mean that one shouldn’t pursue his dreams with all his energy, but simply that one should make every effort to discern what his strengths are. This is especially important for the Christian, isn’t it? If God gave us some abilities but not others, isn’t it prudent to conclude that He desires us to serve Him by doing those things that He’s equipped us to do and not those that He hasn’t? If we ignore the distinction, isn’t that tantamount to telling God that He got it wrong?
And once we’ve determined what we’re capable of and what we’re not, what motivates us to make the most of what we’ve got? For many it’s a desire for money, of course. For aspiring tower-builders at Babel it was a desire to “make a name.” Many have followed that example. I suggest that a nobler motivation is the satisfaction that comes from a job well done. For the Christian it gets even better. We can share with our Lord the pleasure that comes form knowing that with our efforts God himself is pleased.
Using those talents with which God has blessed us, be they spectacular or mundane, may not make us rich. It may not elicit the praise, or even the acknowledgment, of men. But what of it? If with our efforts God is pleased, what else matters? And if, by chance, money or praise should come our way, let us hasten to give God the credit, for we know full well that every blessing come from Him.
Have you ever observed that, as to any matter of significance, it is almost always easy to know what to do but hardly ever easy to do it? Thousands of books have been written on losing weight, but all one needs to know is “exercise more and eat less.” This does not mean that it is easy to lose weight, but it is easy to know how to. Want to make better grades? Study harder. Want more money? Work harder. You don’t have to be a genius to figure this stuff out, but you may need a bit of character to carry it out. “Ay, there’s the rub.” Character has always been in shorter supply than brains.
Nor must one posses a graduate degree in theology to know how God would have him live. The Bible tells us what God expects of us. Knowing is the easy part. Doing is tougher. It has always been thus. The problem that Adam and Eve experienced in the garden did not result from ignorance. God had told them what to do and what not to. But Adam and Eve had an attitude problem. “Who is God to tell us what to do?” they asked. Well, the answer is that God is the One who created them and gave them the world, and each other. You would think that they could have seen the wisdom of doing it God’s way. And wouldn’t they feel obliged, if only out of gratitude, to do it His way? Well, they didn’t. And man doesn’t.
There are plenty of problems in the world. Drugs. Hunger. Poverty. hatred. War. And the Tennessee General Assembly is not going to solve them. Nor will Congress. Nor the United Nations. In fact, the problems aren’t going to be solved. And the reason that they are not is that the sin of Adam and Eve persists, “Who does God think He is?” did not die in Eden. The created have still not learned that they ought to do it the Creator’s way.
That’s the bad news. The good news is that the Creator entered history as Jesus of Nazareth. And that Jesus rescued a world gone wrong. And what does it mean? It means that individual men and women can do, if they will, what the world has always refused to do. They can do it the Creator’s way. And if they do, all their problems can be dealt with. Unhappiness. Disappointment. Pain. Suffering. Betrayal. Sin. And even death itself. All problems. Every single one.
Whatever Happened to Nice?
I’m standing in line to pick up a prescription at the drug store, and a “lady” old enough to know better walks in front of me as if I am not there and verbally abuses the pharmacist, demanding to see the manager. She then marches off in a huff, loudly proclaiming to all who would hear, as well as to those of us who would just as soon not, how shabbily she’s been treated. Have you ever noticed that those most eager to assert their rights are those most oblivious to the rights of others?
Pat and I are at the yogurt store, and this guy in front of us is berating the young man behind the counter because he hasn’t assembled the sundae exactly right. Pat’s giving me one of those “don’t say anything” looks, and I’m chanting, mantra-like, “vengeance is mine (not Tank’s) sayeth the Lord.”
I’m at the laundry, and this “lady” is ranting and raving, eyes bulging, veins popping, frothing at the mouth, because all her dry cleaning hasn’t shown up at the appointed hour. You’d have thought that someone had kidnapped her children (for whom I utter a brief prayer).
These are not isolated instances. It seems as if every time I go to a restaurant someone is making a special effort to make life difficult for a waiter or waitress.
Whenever I encounter such unpleasantness, I think, “I hope he, or she, isn’t a Christian.” Which isn’t what I mean, of course, for I would that all were Christians. It’s just that I hope that a Christian wouldn’t act like that. But do we? I’ve had Christian friends tell me, “I gave them a piece of my mind,” “I told them that I wouldn’t put up with that,” “I demanded to see their supervisor,” and the like. I don’t say a thing, but I have to bite my tongue, because I’m thinking, “And do you think God would approve of that?”
“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven.” Would one, admittedly undramatic, way of doing this be to simply act courteously in a society that has obviously chosen to do it the other way?
But won’t this mean that people will take advantage of us? Won’t they push us around? Well, perhaps. But Jesus permitted that, didn’t he? And what if He had not?
“Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind” (John Donne, Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, Meditation XVII (1642)).
When I learned that Senator Kennedy had brain cancer that would probably take his life, I prayed for him. I prayed that God would use the power that is His alone to strike down the dread malady that beset the senator, if that were consistent with God’s will. I prayed that, barring that, God would grant the senator peace. Since Senator Kennedy’s demise, I have prayed that God comfort the senator’s family and friends in their bereavement. I don’t consider those prayers remarkable, but some evidently do. Some wonder why I have offered them. I am astonished that they are astonished.
I am a Christian. I am a capitalist. I am a conservative, though I confess to more than a little confusion as to what the word now means, for some high-profile politicos who apply it to themselves embrace principles and promote policies diametrically opposed to all that I have ever understood the word to mean.
Given all this, it is hardly surprising that Senator Kennedy and I would have agreed on very little. Were his principles my principles? No. Did I embrace his values? No. Did I consider sound those policies he espoused? No. Was I a fan, and admirer a supporter? No. But what of it? Does any of all of this matter? Does any or all of this mean that I cannot sympathize with one who must confront a terminal illness? Does any or all of it mean that I am unmoved by the sorrow that his family and friends now experience? God forbid!
I have heard friends rejoice at the news of Senator Kennedy’s death. I have heard them make jokes about it. This saddens me beyond words. Can anything be more unbecoming, more inappropriate, for the Christian?
Sometimes in our zeal to oppose public figures who embrace principles and champion policies that we consider at odds with Christian values, we appear to those who do not know our hearts as “haters.” For those who acknowledge as Savior and Lord history’s ultimate manifestation of love, there is never any reason for that.
by Tank Tankersley,
Please pardon my immodesty in observing that I have something in common with the apostle Paul, that “super Christian”. Like him I am well aware that of sinners “I am chief” (1 Timothy 1:15). It’s best to stipulate this right off the bat, lest my remarks be deemed unduly harsh.
A high-profile sports figure admits to breaking God’s seventh commandment, but is unlikely to put it quite like that, for high-profile sports figures seldom reckon with God. Such a revelation hardly shocks anybody, for we’ve grown sadly accustomed to well-known sports figures providing compelling examples of how not to live.
Such conduct is hardly limited to sports figures, of course. It occurs in business, and in education, and in the arts, and … And then there are the politicians, compared to whom representatives of virtually every other endeavor shine as exemplars of righteousness. But forgive me, for I but state the obvious.
It is also true that those of us not in the public eye regularly disappoint God. Sin is not monopolized by celebrities. But when the common man sins, he does not as a rule call a press conference to explain it away, and it is this “explaining away” that I now consider.
“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us” (1 John 1:8-10). Sin can be forgiven. God will forgive, and we sinners ought to forgive other sinners, “for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). The “all” encompasses you and me. But before sin can be forgiven, it must be acknowledged, and it seldom is at the press conference. Every time someone of note is caught in the wrong bed, or with his hand in the cash drawer, or engaging in sundry other types of sinful behavior, I begin to watch for the inevitable explanations and justifications that will follow, and the words “mistake,” “indiscretion,” and “error in judgment” will always figure prominently therein. These words do not qualify as an acknowledgment of sin. A mistake is forgetting to set your alarm clock. An indiscretion is putting all your money in the stock market just before it heads south. An error in judgment is choosing the wrong club and paying for it with a double bogey. None of these offends God. Sin does.
David, when rebuked for his adultery and murder by Nathan, said, “I have sinned against the Lord” (2 Samuel 12:13). I have never heard those words uttered at a press conference called by “someone important” who’s been caught. I do not expect to.
Enough of this nambpamby, wishy-washy “mistake, indiscretion, and error in judgment” trip. Those are weasel words, words that no real man acknowledging sin would use. But real men are seldom to be found amongst our sports heroes, movie stars, business magnates, pliticians, and the like. We would like to find some, of course. We search oh so longinglly, yet mostly in vain.
I always look forward to the Fourth of July. It means good food and good times shared with people I care about.
Expressing one’s patriotism is the thing to do on the Fourth! And I have no trouble doing so. I’m glad to live in a country that grants me the freedoms that this one does and I acknowledge an inestimable debt to those who have sacrificed, some ultimately, to preserve the freedoms I hold so dear. I root enthusiastically for our Olympians. I get as riled as most when I hear the U.S.A. unjustly maligned. My response to such is this: How many people are doing everything they can to get into this country, preferring it above all others? How many people are doing everything they can to get out of it, preferring to live else where? I rest! And finally, I’m a Viet Vet! Convinced? I hope so, for I don’t want to be misunderstood as to what follows.
I get a little nervous at the linking of God and country. There are all sorts of “good Americans” who are not “God’s people” in any way. And, of course, there are believing English, Russians Japanese, and such. Don’t we share something with them that is far more significant than a mere common citizenship?
And though there is much in our country that is good by virtue of the influence of Christian values, this country can by no stretch of the imagination be accurately described as “Christian”. A quick look around should convince you of that.
One can be both a “good American” and a Christian, but they are entirely separate things, the latter being of infinitely greater significance than the former. God is God. He is not the representative of any particular nation, not even such a wonderful one as ours. We Christians would do well to remember it, even on the Fourth!
I remember it as if it were yesterday. I’m certain that I can locate the room at Sherwood Junior High where the revelation occurred, and perhaps the precise location of the desk in which I sat. It was in my seventh grade music class. Miss Nashua announced that we would listen to classical music. And the class groaned! I may have been amongst the groaners. If so, I recant of that. For when she placed that needle on the record and the strains to Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker filled the room my life changed for the better. My first reaction was, “Wow!” My second followed fast upon the first: “How come nobody ever told me about this?” Someone would have sooner or later, I suppose, but Miss Nashua did it. She gets the credit. And I am grateful. And then there was Miss Britton, who taught me that the end of a line of poetry is of no consequence if not followed by punctuation. Reading to the punctuation is the way to do it. And coach Irvine, who taught me how to make the pivot as second without getting creamed by the runner coming from first.
Oh, additional information would subsequently be imparted. In my business courses there was some stuff about debits and credits, and stocks and bonds, and such, and in law school they went on and on about contracts, and property, and torts, and the like. But it was those big three that really mattered – music, poetry, and baseball. Those three alone will suffice to make a man happy, if he has his wits about him.
But, alas, happy in only a most superficial sense. We long for something deeper, something that not even Shakespeare, and Beethoven, and the World Series can provide. We long for the assurance that we, the created, are in tune with what the creator desires for us and that we’ll stay in tune, not for a day, or a year, or even a lifetime, but for all eternity. That assurance trumps all Ph.D. programs born and unborn. Where are they who can teach us how to claim that?
God has provided. He has blessed us with you, our teachers. So early on you taught us that God is love, a simple spiritual truth, but a profound one. Later you would take us from milk to meat. You would teach us how to discern God’s will for our lives, and how to yield to it. You would stress the importance of resisting the myriad temptations that Satan would throw at us, but hasten to assure us that God would forgive when our feet turned to clay. You would teach of to thank God for our many, many blessings, but to know, in times of sorrow, that “His grace is sufficient.” You would encourage us to look at others, as best we are able, through God’s eyes, not the world’s. You would help us in our clumsy efforts to tell others of Jesus. And you would teach us that as wonderful as this world is, something far better awaits. and because of all you taught us we would come to grasp, albeit most imperfectly, some of what He did when God made us in His image and to understand, if only vaguely, how much God must have loved us to send His son to die to bring us back to Him. “Thanks” seems such paltry recompense for all that you have taught us. There is only one way to repay. We can teach others as you have taught us. That, we know, would please you.
All too often we take you for granted. I suppose that we imagine that you just “show up” on Sunday, and on Wednesdays, and at other times. If we’d think about it we’d know better. We’d know that you read, and pray, and prepare in so many different ways to help us to learn what God would have us know, and think, and say, and do. We’d know that to find the time to do all this you sometimes sacrifice doing some things that you’d like to do.
Oh, we thank you from time to time, usually quite perfunctorily, I hereby thank you officially, but acknowledge most readily that it’s not nearly enough.
We thank God, too, for filling your hearts with the desire to tell us of Him. You’re in the best possible company. When God moved to reclaim us after we’d rejected Him. He chose to enter history as a teacher. Throughout the New Testamaent we read that “Jesus taught.” And how He taught! Like no one else, before or since. He was, and is, so much more than a teacher, of course. And what he was, and is, is what the world most needs to hear. And how can it hear without his teachers? Don’t ever, ever imagine that what you do is “no big deal.” Ultimately, it is the biggest deal of all.
(reprint, November, 2001)