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Lessons on Grudge-Holding
by Pastor George Van Alstine

The other day I was at an event featuring LA County Sheriff Lee Baca as the keynote speaker. In informal conversation before the Sheriff arrived, I found myself taking a very petty swipe at him for something he did more than ten years ago.

Here’s the story. I had served two four-year terms on the Pasadena School Board, and I was running for a third. I was opposed by two relatively unknown candidates, and I felt quite secure. There was a runoff, and suddenly I realized that Tommie McMullins had growing support and that the election would be close. Near the end, a surprise mailing came out in support of Tommie, and it included an endorsement by Sheriff Lee Baca. This was shocking, as Baca had just been sworn into office three months earlier, in December, 1998. He hadn’t had a chance to become acquainted with either me or Tommie, and he didn’t know anything about the needs of the Pasadena Schools. He must have taken somebody’s advice (I think I know who) that this would be a politically wise thing to do. Of course, I lost the election by a whisker.

Now, Sheriff Baca has had a good career in office. I think he has done a lot to professionalize and humanize the Department. But every time I see his picture or hear his name, my first thought is about how he impacted my election. You can see that I don’t hold a grudge!

At least, my grudge against the Sheriff has some basis in fact. I hold lots of other grudges without any memory of what precipitated them. This doesn’t happen with people near me, with whom I have continual contacts. Rather, this phenomenon is reserved for people I hardly know, or haven’t even met at all. There are certain celebrities, public figures, politicians and world leaders: I know I have something against them, but I can’t remember what. At one time, I must have read something about them, maybe saw a picture of them with someone who was already on my grudge list. This left a negative impression that comes up every time they are brought to my attention.

I suppose this is part of a necessary protective device I share with all humans. I can’t start from zero every time I encounter a person, as if I had no previous knowledge or experience of them. A certain set of expectations comes into my mind based on previous meetings or based on their reputation. This establishes either trust or distrust, which can often keep me from becoming too vulnerable to the wrong people. I probably share this, not only with all humans, but also with wild animals, who regularly have to make fight-or-flight decisions that can determine their survival.

However, it’s not hard to see how easily this can slide over into prejudice. Prejudice is, literally, “pre-judging.” Based on certain bits of information, such as race, or gender, or physical handicap, we put a person into a box in our mind, labeled “OK” or “Not OK.” It’s hard for them to ever escape the box we put them into. In a sense, prejudice causes us to start our relationships with certain people already holding a grudge against them.

I’m encouraged to know that the Apostle Paul had a problem with grudge-holding. He had some difficulty with Mark, who later in life wrote one of the four Gospels. Mark was a young man when he enthusiastically followed Paul and Barnabas into the worldwide ministry adventure (Acts 12:12, 25). But he was probably too young, as he turned back at a crucial point in their first missionary journey. This stuck in Paul’s craw, and a couple of years later, he refused to take Mark along on his second missionary journey (Acts 15:36-41). Ten years later, when Paul wrote his letter to the Colossian church, Mark was with him as an assistant. However, Paul referred to him, not as “my beloved Mark,” but as “Mark the cousin of Barnabas” (Colossians 4:10). This may indicate that Paul still kept Mark some distance away emotionally—maybe a little grudge-hangover.

But if he had some inclination to hold personal grudges, Paul confronted and overcame any tendency toward prejudice. He turned from being zealously committed to the purity of his Jewish race and religion, to being the leader in embracing Gentiles into the early church. He had been brought up to see Gentiles as “sinners,” as “others” or “aliens” to God’s true people. He traded in his natural fight-or-flight response for an all-welcoming embrace into the fellowship of faith. That’s overcoming prejudice!

Lifted Up, But Not All the Way
by Pastor George Van Alstine

Jesus taught this surprising truth:

“All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.” (Matthew 23:12)

The same principle is behind many of his other radical ideas, such as turning the other cheek when a person hits you, and needing to become like a little child to enter God’s Kingdom. Jesus’ disciples echoed in their own writings what they learned from him:

“Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you.” (James 4:10)
“Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time.” (1Peter 5:6)

God seems to be giving his followers a guarantee that he will always bring us out on top if we humbly trust him.

Jesus dramatized this in his own life. The Apostle Paul wrote of Jesus’ time on earth:

“He humbled himself, and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of the Father.” (Philippians 2:8-11)

But Jesus’ journey to exaltation should be a very important lesson for us. In the Gospel of John, Jesus talks about his “glorification” with a double meaning, referring to his ultimate majesty, but also to his temporary ignominy and defeat on the cross:

“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. . . . And I, when I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” (John 12:23, 32)

John comments:

“He said this to indicate what kind of death he was to die.” (v. 33)

They would “lift him up” on the cross, which would seem to be an awful tragedy. Yet, this lifting up would elevate him as an opportunity for all to see and be “drawn” to him for salvation.

In a sense, we could say that the exaltation on the cross was the first stop on Jesus’ journey to his complete exaltation in victory and majesty.

By analogy, you may be called by God to extreme and unmistakable suffering – your cross. You ask, Why? Did God not promise me exaltation if I follow him? Yes, just as he promise exaltation to Jesus. And as was true for him, the first stop of your exaltation may be suffering, public and open suffering that all can see. Does this mean the shattering of your dream, the failure of your faith? No, your being lifted up may be used by God to draw people to him. This may be the high point of your life, your moment of glory, what you were created for.

God has promised to exalt you, but your exaltation may have two stages, as Jesus’ did. There may be a stop on the way to your ultimate glory, a stop a little higher than the earth – about cross-high!

Our Faith Make Us Want to Live
by Pastor George Van Alstine

John Swanson called my attention to an article by USA Today columnist Oliver Thomas, entitled “Why Do We Need Religion?” In it Thomas reviews three very powerful functions of religion in our lives:

• (1) Worship – Our acknowledgment of a Higher Power than ourselves.
• (2) Community – Our need to belong to a unified extended family, fellowship.
• (3) Service – Our opportunity to make a positive difference in our world through good works.

All of these are very important, says Thomas, but the major effect of religion is even more strategic and critical—IT MAKES US WANT TO LIVE!

Thomas reminds readers of the pioneering work of Victor Frankl. An Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist, Frankl lived through the Holocaust, spending two years in concentration camps, where his wife and his parents were murdered. This traumatic experience profoundly affected his writings and his work as a therapist until his death in 1997. He observed that those who survived that awful experience were not necessarily the youngest, or the strongest, or the smartest. They were the individuals who had found meaning in their lives. This included not only those who were sincerely religious, but also people who found meaning in other ways: by sharing their meager rations with someone weaker, by determining to find dignity and grace in the face of suffering, or by developing challenging mind games that could give them a sense of accomplishment. These are the people who had a reason to live another day.

In his best-selling book Man’s Search for Meaning, Victor Frankl wrote: “Man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord’s Prayer or the Shema Ysrael on his lips.”

All of the above refers to the power of religion in general—of all religions, whether advanced or primitive. As Christians, we believe that all these things are true as well of our faith, which is based on the coming of God’s Son into the world to dramatize God’s love for us and to demonstrate the meaning our lives have from his perspective. All the functions of religion – Worship, Community, Service and Meaning – are aspects of our experience as Christians, magnified, we believe, by the presence of the Holy Spirit in us and among us.

How difficult it must be to be a survivor in life without the multidimensional support of our faith!

Preemptive Humility
by Pastor George Van Alstine

One of Jesus’ pivotal teachings is expressed in Matthew 23:12, Luke 14:11, and Luke 18:14—“All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.” Years later, when the Apostle James wrote his letter of advice for Christian living, he put it this way – “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.” (James 4:10).

We’ve really got quite a bit to be humble about. We’re very tiny creatures in the expanse of the universe, and the span of our lives is like a blip in the billions of years since time began. Given such a little time and space in which to exist, we’ve made a mess of even that opportunity, often leaving more of a negative than positive impact on people, history, and our environment. So humility ought to come naturally to us.

But the truth is, we spend much of our time and energy in an attempt to find something to be proud about. We huff and puff and try to make ourselves bigger. Yet with all our efforts, we can at most become a bigger speck; but still a speck. When you look at it from this point of view, human pride is kind of like a sad cartoon.

Over the span of a person’s life, there are many humiliating experiences. These are actually moments when prideful illusions are stripped away and reality is exposed. Humiliations do not bring us down from who we truly are; they reveal the truth behind the prideful smoke-and-mirrors we have created.

So Jesus’ teaching about humility is really Gospel – Good News. It’s the good news that we don’t have to work so hard at building up a portfolio that gives us value. If we are honest about how small and weak and insignificant we are, God will give us value! He will “exalt” us. Ironically, that which we are seeking can only be found when we give up the search.

James’ way of putting this is an exhortation—“Humble yourselves before the Lord.” James is encouraging us to make a preemptive strike on our pride, to humble ourselves before life’s cruelties drive us into humiliation. From his experience, he has learned that it’s always better to be humble voluntarily than by force.

These same words are used in an ancient hymn about Jesus’ act of coming to earth and entering human flesh:

“He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross.

Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name…”

The hymn goes on to show that every human will ultimately learn humility, whether voluntarily (by becoming Jesus’ followers in this life) or involuntarily (by bowing on the final Judgment Day):

“…so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth…”

Humbling yourself before him now is a lot more pleasant than being humbled before him in that day will be.

Exclusive Contracts
by Pastor George Van Alstine

Since we’re only twenty minutes from Hollywood, the movie business is automatically part of our world. Just about any day in Pasadena and Altadena, you’re likely to drive by a movie location in action. Of course, they love picturesque old mansions and traditional Gothic-style churches. But they’re also looking for average houses and places that look like Main Street USA.

Over the years, we’ve had lots of location managers for production companies stop into the church to ask about possible use for a movie shoot. As long as I’ve been here, however, these contacts have never panned out; the most return we’ve ever seen is a few dollars from rental of parking lot spaces.

Last year, some ACCC parents thought we were missing a great fund-raising opportunity. They put us into contact with an experienced agent by the name of Joseph Darrell. We arranged a meeting with some ABC Deacons and some ACCC Board members, and Joe sold us. We decided we had nothing to lose, so we contracted with his agency to represent us. He took about a thousand pictures around the property and put them all on line. It’s been about a year now, and the results have been nil, nada, not even a nibble.

Meanwhile, people still occasionally walk in off the street. This morning, a guy named Bob said he was a location man for a small movie that was using a large house on Mendocino Street for its primary location. They needed a commercial-looking space for some office scenes. He looked around the church basement and took a bunch of pictures. He thought this might work.

I told Bob we’d like to work with him, but he’d have to deal with our agent, because we had an exclusive contract with him. He asked the agent’s name, and when I told him, he said, “Oh, Joe’s a good guy; I like working with him.” But then he added: “Of course, you’ll have to pay him his percentage, when otherwise we could give the church all the money. It’s good to have an agent, but you should never sign an exclusive contract.”

I guess every business is different. In Bob’s world, agents want exclusive contracts, but it’s in their clients’ interests to avoid them. I thought about his advice: “You should never sign an exclusive contract.”

Some people try to deal with God this way. They’d like to sign a contract with him—for his blessings, for health and wealth, for protection from all life’s dangers, for after-life security. But they don’t want the contract to be exclusive. They don’t want to accept God’s lordship over their lives; they don’t want to submit to his will; they don’t want to give up their self-indulgent lifestyle. And they want to keep some other “godlets” around just in case. They may want to mess with Astrology, or Kabala, or various superstitions. It never hurts to have a little good luck on the side to supplement God’s grace.

There’s something within our willful spirits that tell us, “You should never sign an exclusive contract.” But the truth is, God never makes a contract that isn’t exclusive! This is the meaning of that declaration repeated often in the Old Testament: “I am a jealous God.” You might paraphrase this “I am an exclusive God.” He seems to be saying “I won’t share the affections of my people with anyone or anything.” Much of the unhappiness believers experience comes from their unwillingness to accept the fact that God’s contract with them is exclusive.

Bob may be right about the film-location business, but his advice just doesn’t translate into the spiritual realm. All God’s contracts are exclusive.