DOUGLAS KLEVEN
A few religious sermons (Letters to my congregation)
What To Do When Hell Freezes Over
And lastly, those who went to the Larsen art show last week noticed that I didn't show up. Neither did my unfinished piece of art, which means no one had a chance to win that Texas Roadhouse gift certificate I promised (note to attendees: this Saturday at 7 p.m. I will email you a photo of my unfinished masterpiece and the first person to correctly guess what it is will win the card.) Now, if some of you mercifully assumed that I was out visiting widows or strengthening the weak, you are mistaken. I was up to no good, down in my basement, wallpapering my office with newspaper. I've always wanted to cover my office walls with newspaper and I finally found the time to do it; unfortunately, I found the time at the wrong time. I was supposed to be supporting Chelsie Larsen's art show and giving away a gift card, which brings up an important question: what should you do when I fail you?
For any readers who I haven't already let down, I promise you that it's only because you haven't spent enough time with me. Stick around long enough and eventually you too will be disappointed. Unlucky for you, I am fallible. Lucky for me, no truths hinge upon my infallibility. If life has meaning and purpose, it doesn't derive that meaning or purpose from my behavior. It's not like there's some aberrant Editor out there in the time-space continuum who is standing around waiting to see if I'll follow through with my pledges. If I do, then he'll fold the continuum in such a way that in 1820 a farm boy will have received a revelation from God; but if not, then the continuum remains unfolded and no such revelation is received. Either there is a God or there is not. Either he calls prophets in the modern era or he doesn't. Nothing I do today can possibly impact those immortal facts. But what are we to do then with the "by their fruits ye shall know them" line, you might wonder? Good question. In that statement, note the pronouns "their" and "them". Christ begins the parable by singling out individual trees "every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth corrupt fruit", then closes the parable with the phrase, "Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them."
Comrades, the truth is often muddled by the moves of individual actors, but it always emerges when the behavior of individuals is applied to everyone, in aggregate. So if a rouge mafioso were to use his cut of the take to pay off the hospital bills of immigrants or send disabled children to summer camp, we could not point to his behavior and conclude that his syndicate was patterned after the holy order of God. We could not do that because we know mafiosos by their disgusting fruits. Similarly, when a bishop somewhere is sent to jail for tax fraud, we have not proven that millions of believers the world over have been defrauded. For every scheming bishop, I can produce tens of thousands of Anna Hammaris. For every adulterous Stake President, I can name hundreds of thousands of Elsie Allens, Mary Clarks, Ezra Saldañas, Sam Robertses, Alan Downings, Eleanor Stocks, Chad Grows, Susan McCarlies, Kenny Atkinses, Rebecca Weavers, Kate Windsors, Tipton Atwoods, Ann Purveses, Steve Bonses and Katy Barillases. Our neighborhood ratios wreak havoc on our critics' logic, so do the ratios of every other Ward I've ever lived in.
Now, for those of you still reading, all of that was just set up so that I could make one claim about truth: it exists, and it exists independent of you. Truth is not manufactured by Burger King. You cannot have it your way. Progressive lets you name your Price. Only liars let you name your truth. If the truth were that I needed to grab a spear, rush the gates of Hell and make war with my enemies on the other side of yonder fiery lake; but just as I approached the lake, the weather turned and the lake froze, the truth would require me to put on a pair of skates and keep up the charge. Although the weather in Hell may turn, its nature never will.
Friends, my promise to you is twofold: my eyes "see through a glass, darkly", so beware. But fortunately for you, somewhere in the universe is a being whose clear eye sees deeper, penetrates all and cannot be fooled by nuance. That being, today, is trying to get your attention. Give Him your ear and He will heal your sight.
For any readers who I haven't already let down, I promise you that it's only because you haven't spent enough time with me. Stick around long enough and eventually you too will be disappointed. Unlucky for you, I am fallible. Lucky for me, no truths hinge upon my infallibility. If life has meaning and purpose, it doesn't derive that meaning or purpose from my behavior. It's not like there's some aberrant Editor out there in the time-space continuum who is standing around waiting to see if I'll follow through with my pledges. If I do, then he'll fold the continuum in such a way that in 1820 a farm boy will have received a revelation from God; but if not, then the continuum remains unfolded and no such revelation is received. Either there is a God or there is not. Either he calls prophets in the modern era or he doesn't. Nothing I do today can possibly impact those immortal facts. But what are we to do then with the "by their fruits ye shall know them" line, you might wonder? Good question. In that statement, note the pronouns "their" and "them". Christ begins the parable by singling out individual trees "every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth corrupt fruit", then closes the parable with the phrase, "Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them."
Comrades, the truth is often muddled by the moves of individual actors, but it always emerges when the behavior of individuals is applied to everyone, in aggregate. So if a rouge mafioso were to use his cut of the take to pay off the hospital bills of immigrants or send disabled children to summer camp, we could not point to his behavior and conclude that his syndicate was patterned after the holy order of God. We could not do that because we know mafiosos by their disgusting fruits. Similarly, when a bishop somewhere is sent to jail for tax fraud, we have not proven that millions of believers the world over have been defrauded. For every scheming bishop, I can produce tens of thousands of Anna Hammaris. For every adulterous Stake President, I can name hundreds of thousands of Elsie Allens, Mary Clarks, Ezra Saldañas, Sam Robertses, Alan Downings, Eleanor Stocks, Chad Grows, Susan McCarlies, Kenny Atkinses, Rebecca Weavers, Kate Windsors, Tipton Atwoods, Ann Purveses, Steve Bonses and Katy Barillases. Our neighborhood ratios wreak havoc on our critics' logic, so do the ratios of every other Ward I've ever lived in.
Now, for those of you still reading, all of that was just set up so that I could make one claim about truth: it exists, and it exists independent of you. Truth is not manufactured by Burger King. You cannot have it your way. Progressive lets you name your Price. Only liars let you name your truth. If the truth were that I needed to grab a spear, rush the gates of Hell and make war with my enemies on the other side of yonder fiery lake; but just as I approached the lake, the weather turned and the lake froze, the truth would require me to put on a pair of skates and keep up the charge. Although the weather in Hell may turn, its nature never will.
Friends, my promise to you is twofold: my eyes "see through a glass, darkly", so beware. But fortunately for you, somewhere in the universe is a being whose clear eye sees deeper, penetrates all and cannot be fooled by nuance. That being, today, is trying to get your attention. Give Him your ear and He will heal your sight.
A Question
Lastly, before the temperature cools we are going to put a Ron Woods' suggestion into practice and hold an unheard-of-in-the-non-singles-ward-scene break-the-fast meal in the pavilion on October 3. Bring a soup if you have one, bring some rolls if you don't have any soup and bring a dessert if you really want to shatter that fast.
Which reminds me of a question Isaiah's contemporaries asked of God, "Wherefore have we fasted and thou seest not? Wherefore have we afflicted our souls, and thou takest no knowledge?" Just when you thought that no one understood you, you learn that for thousands of years intentionally going hungry has not been popular. But before you decide to disregard fasting as meaningless hunger, read slowly God's explanation as to why these ancient fasters always came up empty, "Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact all your labours. Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness".
This particular exchange between God and the complaining multitude is specific to fasting, but the controversy is universal. Every single individual who's moved from belief to disbelief has wondered, "Why do l get nothing out of this?" If you've ever found yourself pondering a similar question, note God's response:
'Is it such a fast that I have chosen?"
Let that rhetorical fill your eardrum for a minute (maybe I'll modernize it for you), "You call that fasting?" Either way you read it, once the question resonates, check out the rest of the interrogatory, "A day for man to afflict his soul? Is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord?"
What a great question. "Wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord?"
How often do we distort true principles, apply a corruption of truth to our lives and then blame God when our doomed invention implodes. How often do we shovel sand into our gas tanks and then shake our fists at heaven when the engine won't start? On the surface it sounds like a problem with a simple solution: don't shovel sand into your gas tank. But unfortunately, the difference between sand and gasoline isn't always obvious. If it were, most of our mechanics would have gone bankrupt long ago.
So on October 10th we'll all get another chance to see if there's anything to this hunger game we play once a month. God described its purpose, "to deal the bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to the house? When thou seest the naked, that thou not hidest thyself from thine own flesh?" So, those are the results the fast is supposed to produce; whether it does or not is a question we'll resolve on the 10th, until then here are some more questions to consider: "is not this the fast that l have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?"
Which reminds me of a question Isaiah's contemporaries asked of God, "Wherefore have we fasted and thou seest not? Wherefore have we afflicted our souls, and thou takest no knowledge?" Just when you thought that no one understood you, you learn that for thousands of years intentionally going hungry has not been popular. But before you decide to disregard fasting as meaningless hunger, read slowly God's explanation as to why these ancient fasters always came up empty, "Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact all your labours. Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness".
This particular exchange between God and the complaining multitude is specific to fasting, but the controversy is universal. Every single individual who's moved from belief to disbelief has wondered, "Why do l get nothing out of this?" If you've ever found yourself pondering a similar question, note God's response:
'Is it such a fast that I have chosen?"
Let that rhetorical fill your eardrum for a minute (maybe I'll modernize it for you), "You call that fasting?" Either way you read it, once the question resonates, check out the rest of the interrogatory, "A day for man to afflict his soul? Is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord?"
What a great question. "Wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord?"
How often do we distort true principles, apply a corruption of truth to our lives and then blame God when our doomed invention implodes. How often do we shovel sand into our gas tanks and then shake our fists at heaven when the engine won't start? On the surface it sounds like a problem with a simple solution: don't shovel sand into your gas tank. But unfortunately, the difference between sand and gasoline isn't always obvious. If it were, most of our mechanics would have gone bankrupt long ago.
So on October 10th we'll all get another chance to see if there's anything to this hunger game we play once a month. God described its purpose, "to deal the bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to the house? When thou seest the naked, that thou not hidest thyself from thine own flesh?" So, those are the results the fast is supposed to produce; whether it does or not is a question we'll resolve on the 10th, until then here are some more questions to consider: "is not this the fast that l have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?"
A Lily To Consider
And now a word from our sponsor...
Dengue Fever
I once had dengue fever. It was a good time, except for the part when I came down with the fever and then all the way through until the fever broke. That was not a good time. But other than that, it was a great time. I highly recommend it to nobody.
A mosquito gave me that fever. Not sure which one because my house was full of them. My house was full of mosquitos because half of the rear wall of the house wasn't really a wall, but rather a grating that opened up to a porch enclosed by a six foot wall. The grating was installed because the home was built in a city with only one season: really hot summer.
I could have avoided the whole experience with that fever though. All I needed to do was not live in a house with two-inch spaces in the rear wall, in a city full of mosquitos, in a country on the equator. All I needed to do to prevent contracting that fever was to stay out of Colombia. And all I needed to do to stay out of Colombia was to say "No thanks" to President Hinckley. All I needed to do was take a stand against inconvenience and uncertainty. It turns out that it's really easy to not contract dengue fever. And with that said, I'll leave you with this passage from Mathew 6:
"No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?"
"Why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these."
Dengue Fever
I once had dengue fever. It was a good time, except for the part when I came down with the fever and then all the way through until the fever broke. That was not a good time. But other than that, it was a great time. I highly recommend it to nobody.
A mosquito gave me that fever. Not sure which one because my house was full of them. My house was full of mosquitos because half of the rear wall of the house wasn't really a wall, but rather a grating that opened up to a porch enclosed by a six foot wall. The grating was installed because the home was built in a city with only one season: really hot summer.
I could have avoided the whole experience with that fever though. All I needed to do was not live in a house with two-inch spaces in the rear wall, in a city full of mosquitos, in a country on the equator. All I needed to do to prevent contracting that fever was to stay out of Colombia. And all I needed to do to stay out of Colombia was to say "No thanks" to President Hinckley. All I needed to do was take a stand against inconvenience and uncertainty. It turns out that it's really easy to not contract dengue fever. And with that said, I'll leave you with this passage from Mathew 6:
"No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?"
"Why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these."