The Golden Fortress (A Parable) by John Monday

There was once a band of artisans, craftsmen, and philosophers who lived together in peace and joy with their King.  One day their King told them about the many principalities where greed and selfishness ruled in the hearts of men.  The good citizens were aghast at the thought of such depravity.

The King explained that, while the many peoples had once been a part of a single kingdom, most had completely forgotten their origins, or the memory had become so distant and remote that it was considered no more than a myth.  As they sat at the King’s feet, he told them that he was going to reconcile the principalities and that they were to be his emissaries.

As the King prepared to send his subjects to the distant lands, he gave them a new name.  He said, “You are to go to the principalities of the world and give your knowledge, your skill, your love, and even your life to the people.  While you are to serve everywhere and live together with the people of every land, you are citizens of this Kingdom and will never call any other place home.  For that reason you will be called Nomad, a traveler far from home, with goodwill toward all and malice toward none.”  And the Nomads began their journey.

After many days, they began to see an endless line of people leaving a city.  The fleeing people were poor, dirty, and increasingly afraid.  One group stopped the Nomads and told them to turn and flee, that the city was filled with death.  The Nomads continued, undaunted. 

On their first view of the city wall, some began to falter.  The city was big, ominous, and intimidating.  The walls they saw before them were dark and dirty, crudely built by clumsy hands, nothing like the shining and beautiful city of their King. 

When they entered the city, death was everywhere.  A plague had struck the city, and bodies were piled in the streets.  The citizens didn’t understand how the plague started, how it spread, or how to stop it.  They had become so scared that parents would abandon their own children at the first symptom of the plague.  Those who were able left the city, while the rest suffered.

Remembering the words of their King, the Nomads entered.  They cared for the sick, buried the dead, and loved the city in the name of their King.  Soon enough, the plague began to abate, and the prince of the city lauded the Nomads, their selfless sacrifice, and all they had done in service to his people.  The Nomads explained their purpose, and many in the city began to follow the Nomad way. 

As the Nomads continued to spread, they never found a city with the beauty, culture, or intellect of their home.  Many cities welcomed them, many rejected them.  Some gave them responsibility, and others made them slaves.  While the Nomads served everywhere they went, they always longed for their home and an escape from the crassness of the people they encountered.

After many years, they found a city that offered incredible freedom and autonomy.  They were welcomed as advisors but soon became leaders.  They began to rebuild the city according to the fading memory of their true Kingdom.  The bricks they cut for the city walls were finer than any they’d encountered since leaving the presence of the King.  The walls were so purely refined that the city itself began to look like a golden crown on the top of a mountain.

Soon there were few in the city that didn’t call themselves Nomads.  Many Nomads who had dispersed to the corners of the Earth began to reassemble in this city.  While the Nomads always welcomed people into their city, those that did not adopt the Nomad way, or found themselves unable to rise to the level of the Nomad craftsmen, or speak the peculiar jargon of the Nomad philosophers, quietly fell out of grace, felt out of place, and left the city.

Villages of tents sprang up around the city filled with those that were not capable of living the Nomadic way.  The Nomads would lower the bridge from their gleaming walls and send ministers to the villages daily.  They committed resources and continued to invite all those capable of upholding the Nomad way to live in the city.

Their city became their refuge and their protection.  Inside the walls, their children were safe from the influences of the tent people.  The creations of their hands were not corrupted by the untrained and untalented, and they were able to keep the ways of the Nomad pure and undefiled by those outside their walls.

One day as they lowered the gate, they saw a great procession on the horizon.  So vast was the approaching army that their dust obscured the sun.  At long last when they saw the true King approaching their walls, their gates were thrown open, and soldiers were sent out to clear the tents from the path of the King.

The King entered the city to the shouts of the citizens, but they slowly began to realize that there was no celebration.  They looked up to see a silently weeping King standing in their midst.  The Prince of the city asked the King why he was crying, and he said, “I’m searching for my people!”  The prince, terrified at his words, fell at his feet and said, “Oh King! It’s us, the Nomads you sent away.  We’ve kept pure your truths and protected your ways in the midst of ignorant and barbaric people.”

The King turned and said, “I sent a people to bring the good news of reconciliation to the poor and sick, the clumsy and the ignorant, the frightened and the homeless.  To give their lives in service and love.” 

“My people are there,” he said as he pointed to the tent villages surrounding the city.  The King turned, left the city of the Nomads, and gathered a new people from the tents and villages.  His army swelled as he left the plains of the great Nomad city, never to return again.

John Monday

Smile Awhile by Todd Chobotar

Question: What should you do when a complete stranger gives you a big grin?

Answer:  Grin back.  It may be a psychology student studying you.

What causes some people to smile more than others?  Researches aren’t entirely sure.  But a group of psychology students in England are on the case.  The students recently conducted a nationwide smile study targeting fourteen cities in the United Kingdom.*

Here’s how they did it.  The students grinned from ear-to-ear at 100 randomly chosen strangers on the street in each city.  They then watched to see how many grinned back.  Here are the results for five of the fourteen cities they studied:

Bristol              70% of the people smiled back

Glasgow          68%

Exeter              54%

London            18%

Edinburgh        4%

The students made an interesting observation.  The smaller the city, the more smiles they received.  As a small town boy raised in the American Midwest, I can identify with these results.  In my experience, small towns are often friendly places. But it’s not just the size of towns that seems to affect people. Age may play into it as well. A while back I recall reading of a study that claimed a child smiles, on average, about 400 times a day, while an adult averages about 15 smiles a day.

Reading the results of these two studies got me thinking and asking some questions of myself.  How often do I smile at complete strangers? Or my family and friends? How often do I smile at work?  How often do I smile period?

British poet Joseph Addison once said, “What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity.”  Beautiful statement.  Since I live in Florida—the sunshine state—I know the wonderful effects of sunshine on both flowers and people.  Sunshine brightens the day.  Brings warmth.  Gives hope after storms.  Smiles do much of the same.  A welcoming smile can brighten the day, bringing warmth and hope when it is needed most.  Smiles speak in a universal tongue that all can understand.  The world is filled with many different languages, yet we all smile in the same language.

The wonderful thing about sharing a smile is its positive effect on both giver and receiver.  Time after time I’ve heard stories of folks who try to cheer others with a smile only to discover their spirits have been lifted as well.  Smiles are power mood elevators.  They are also highly attractive.  Without doubt, a smile is the cheapest way to change your looks.  It’s an instant face-lift better than any cosmetic surgeon could provide.

On top of those benefits, a friend once told me that smiling is one of the three best things you can do with your lips.  The others are kissing and eating ice cream (I’ll let you decide what order those three belong in).

Perhaps it comes as no surprise that the ancient scriptures have a few things to say about smiles.  King David saw God’s smile as a blessing:

“Let the smile of your face shine on us, Lord.” (Psalm 4:6 NLT)

King Solomon offered wisdom on the effects of a smile:

“A friendly smile makes you happy, and good news makes you feel strong.”  (Proverbs 15:30 CEV)

Even the Apostle Paul shared a few thoughts on the subject:

“And work with a smile on your face, always keeping in mind that no matter who happens to be giving the orders, you’re really serving God.”  (Ephesians 6:7 MSG)

Let’s take the topic down to a more personal level.  On a scale of one to ten, how much would you say you smile?  Are you an “8” with plenty of smiles to share?  Maybe a “5” with smiles only when you care?  Or even a “2” with barely a smile to spare?  If you feel you’ve lost your smile today, don’t worry.  It’s never far away.  It’s ready to expose right under your nose.  Why not consider sharing a smile with someone who needs it today?  The next time you pass a complete stranger, flash ‘em your best smile.  It may be a psychology student studying you.  Or it may just be someone who needs a little sunshine streamed into their life today.

“May the Lord smile on you and be gracious to you.  May the Lord show you his favor and give you his peace.”  Numbers 6:25-26 NLT

Question: How many times a day do you think you smile? What might help you to smile more?

* “Surly Londoners at Bottom of UK ‘Grin League’”, Reuters News Service, February 25, 2003.

Guest Blogger and Member of FHC, Todd Chobotar

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God's Ultimate Purpose in Stories by Bill Crofton

As he drew near to Egypt, he said to his wife, Sarai, “Look.  we both know that you’re a beautiful woman.  When the Egyptians see you they’re going to say, Aha! That’s his wife! And kill me.  But they’ll let you live.  Do me a favor:  tell them you’re my sister.  Because of you, they’ll welcome me and let me live.”

When Abram arrived in Egypt, the Egyptians took one look and saw that his wife was stunningly beautiful.  Pharaoh’s princes raved over her to Pharaoh.  She was taken to live with Pharaoh.

Because of her, Abram got along very well: he accumulated sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, men and women servants, and camels.  But God hit Pharaoh hard because of Abram’s wife, Sarai; everybody in the palace got seriously sick.

Pharaoh called for Abram, “What’s this that you’ve done to me?  Why didn’t you tell me that she’s your wife?  Why did you say, ‘She’s my sister’ so that I’d take her as my wife?  Here’s your wife back—take her and get out!”

Pharaoh ordered his men to get Abram out of the country.  They sent him and his wife and everything he owned on their way.”  (Genesis 12:11-20, The Message)

At the Egyptian border, Abraham realized he has a problem.  In his mind, a lie is the solution.  Ever been there?  Strictly speaking, Abraham was simply being “economical” with the truth, correct?  Sarah was his half-sister, as he points out when repeating this deception again later in Genesis 20:12.  (The Hebrew language uses words equivalent to brother and sister more loosely than English does.) 

Giving the impression that the lovely Sarah is unattached will mean someone gets attached to her.  At the time, perhaps it was acceptable for Abraham to take action to keep the family alive through the famine, but was this the point at which Abraham needed to trust God? Did he have any right to risk Sarah in order to safeguard his own skin? Should Sarah have refused to cooperate; could she not see where all this would lead?

The lovely and astonishing beautiful Sarah is duly taken into Pharaoh’s household—in other words, into his harem.  Genesis delicately refrains from telling us what happened there; maybe the epidemic intervened before anything happened to Sarah.  Nor does it tell us how Pharaoh managed to put two and two together.

Genesis makes no comment on the rights and wrongs of Abraham’s action, and there are several possible implications.

One is that Genesis doesn’t think the question of when Abraham went wrong is the important one.  I know that could seem odd to our Western mindsets because of assumptions we make about the Bible’s purpose.  Don’t we often think the Bible exists to tell us how to live, that its stories provide illustrations of the right and wrong kind of life, and that in order for them to function this way, they need to pass explicit judgments on what happens?   Okay, that was a long question.  But don’t we?

What if, Genesis does not tell us its stories mainly or simply to give us good and bad examples?  What if it’s mainly about God?  Is that too hard to conceive?  Could it be about a purpose God is pursuing in the world, and now pursuing through Abraham & Sarah?  Stories about Abraham and Sarah are there not so much to tell us about them, but to tell us how God relates to them in fulfilling that purpose.

One way or another, this story tells us how they got into a mess; its significance then lies in the fact that God got them OUT OF IT, right?  They had an experience a bit like Adam and Eve’s when the weird creature showed up in the garden, or like Noah’s when the fruit of the vine turned out to make something happen that he had not bargained for (or maybe he did).  These things happen.  Life happens, right?  The GOOD NEWS is that God does NOT abandon them.

I have to tell you, coming to the Old Testament book of Genesis this time, at this time in my life, trying hard to lay aside my previous biases, understandings, and possible narrow prejudices has been difficult . . . but a “wee” bit more exciting.

Bill Crofton

Which White? by Andy McDonald

Depending on your perspective, our lives are either blessed or plagued by paradox. Life would seem much more comfortable if every situation, every thought, every belief was an “either or.” How convenient would it be if all of life was either black or white? It would make it so much easier to line ourselves, and everyone else, up behind one of those two options.  But that isn’t reality.  The reality we face is a seemingly infinite variety of shades between pure white and the blackest black. In my office is a piece of art I created by collecting paint samples of the color white.  These are literal samples all the same shape and size and all “white.” They are mounted on a black background, and matted and framed with the title, “which white.”  In person, it is easy to see that each sample, were it alone, would simply be called “white,” but beside the other “whites,” we notice a slight blue, green, pink, gray, buff, etc. Each one is white in contrast to black, but how dull would the white need to be to no longer be called white?  How gray would a black need to become for it not to be thought black?

This would not be troubling in the least if it only concerned color. The truth is, so much of life doesn’t fit so well in the “either/or” and may best be managed by the “both/and.” All the variations of white are still white, and all the variations of black are still black, with a huge undecided bunch of gray in the middle!

In the church, I think this speaks to our giant task of preserving the core and stimulating progress. There seems to be an undying tension between those bent on stimulating progress and those dedicated to preserving the core. But at its very best, it’s most healthy state is this careful preservation of the core and simultaneous stimulating of progress. 

At the most simple level of church life and number of members, the tension exists. There are those who wish to grow.  Their campaign is that we are commissioned to make disciples of Jesus, and that means new people, while the preservers of the core may voice concern that we need to simply do a better job of making the members already with us more faithful to the core.  Fears will be voiced by the preservers that, if we grow, all those new people will make it not “feel the same” (We won’t know everybody!), while the progress stimulators will fear that, without progress, we will die. “If you aren’t growing, you’re dying” is one of their mantras.

Here’s what might need to be done.  All the “Preservers of the Core” acknowledge that preservation of what is does not equal faithfulness to God’s commission for us to be loving people into a lifelong friendship with God. And all the “Stimulators of Progress” acknowledge that all progress must be true to our core. Progress for progress sake—more people present who are not moving into a lifelong friendship with God—isn’t progress at all.

Like our nation, we must recognize the need for BOTH: “We hold these truths to be self-evident” AND “I have a dream.” Florida Hospital Church, to be the faithful church that God calls us to be, must not hunker down to only preserve, nor rush headlong for progress that isn’t.  Instead, we must do the hard, difficult, unifying work of holding the core and changing the practice.

What we do and who we are as a church family is too important to capitulate to either/or. We must be willing to set aside personal preferences, be willing to participate in creative destruction, and be willing to share in the pain and loss to do whatever it takes to be faithful in partnering with God to build a church that honors him.

Will we make mistakes along the way? Yes. But we cannot be content worshipping at church each week at the juncture of three zip codes where more than 25,000 people live that claim no relationship with Jesus. We can make a difference.  Whether your bent is to preserve the core or your bent is to stimulate progress, the answer isn’t either/or, but BOTH/AND! Together we can hold the core and change the practice.

Andy McDonald