Pastoral Prayer for Lent 2 (Luke 13:31-35--Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how I have longed to gather you under my wings...)

Holy God--

Your son taught us to be holy, as you are holy.  He said that if we would hold onto our lives, we would lose them, but if we would lay down our lives for for you and for th esake of the Gospel, we would find them.  We have often felt your spirit moving within us to give our all, and we have sometimes answered that call as best as we can.  Our feet are made of clay and the voices that draw us away are many.  As the old hymn says, we are prone to wander.  Yet you keep calling--you tell us that your goal is to make us perfect in our love.

When we hide from you, as Adam hid from you in the garden, we ask you to come looking for us, as you did him.  Let us hear your voice.  O holy and loving God, let all our repenting be about nothing more than running into your arms.  May we never feel shamed or cajoled, bullied, manipulated or coerced.  For your call to be holy is always a call to come in from the rain, to come away from ways of living that destroy us.  Help us to find ourselves, to be made safe from the storms of this life, under the shelter of your wings.

We offer our all, as you have offered all of yourself to us.  We give our money because it is not ours but yours, and you have made us stewards.  We thank you for your provision and give back the portion you commanded in thanksgiving.  We offer you those who we love who are hurting--may your love overshadow them, comfort and heal them.  we offer our land and this community.  Help us to run to you and to find ourselves under the loving care of your Lordship.

Amen.

Pastoral Prayer for the First Sunday of Lent

Holy God,

We remember this day a time when your Son went away to be alone in the wilderness, to fast and pray, to be alone with you.  He took time out of his life to confront those things that were a temptation to him.  He confronted the devil.  Help us, through these forty days and always, never to run from those things within us that make us afraid, those places where the unknown and uncomfortable dwell, the broken places of unforgiveness and misdirected motives, of insecurity, of rage, of loneliness and hopelessness.  We will do anything to hide from ourselves.  We will invite any distraction.  We will fill our lives with noise and people and a thousand excuses.  But the demons still whisper to us and the wilderness cannot be contained.  Give us the courage to finally face it, to face ourselves, to have the guts not to run away from whatever we’ve been running from for so long.

We thank you that when we go to the wilderness, we don’t go alone.  We go with you.  We go together.  And because you are there, it is you who give us comfort.  You are the one who makes our hearts perfect.  So we present ourselves to you.  We want to give ourselves completely, but maybe we’re not quite ready for that yet.  So take what we can give today, and grace us to give it all.  Grace us to have a perfect heart totally given in love to you.

Amen.

Throwing a Party

I was distracting during prayer worrying about church finances and thinking about Stewardship matters when I read the Old Testament lectionary text for the week, Deuteronomy 26:1-11.  It tells us exactly what to do when we give.

1. Give the firstfruit of your harvest (in case you are not a farmer, that means to give to the Lord before you pay your bills or buy anything for yourself).

2. Give it to the priest (I give to the church before I give anywhere else, and I think this is the proper way to give).

3. Say the following: "A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous. When Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us, we cried to the Lord, the God of our ancestors; the Lord hear our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression.  The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; and he brought us into this place and fave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O Lord have given me."

Why are we taught to give this speech (or at least something similar as a prayer of our heart)?  Because we need to stop poor-mouthing and feeling sorry for ourselves that we don't have a house like someone on the Real Housewives and carry around a wad of benjamins like Tony Soprano.  This speech teaches us to say to God, "I came from absolutely nothing and my people were absolute nobodies.  And now, look at the amazing blessing I have!"

4. Throw a party.  "Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house."  Enjoy what God has given you.  He gave it to you so that you can enjoy it.  If you're anxious or feel guilty about it, then your wasting the gift God wanted you to have for your enjoyment (and the enjoyment of those around you).  Just don't forget where it came from.

I must say that we could use some help with our view of money.  We are pretty miserable and anxious and we gripe like crazy about how bad times are and how the government is robbing us blind and how we can barely survive.  All the while we live in the richest nation on earth and have multiple cars and the latest phones, computers, and multitude other gadgets and gizmos to keep us constantly distracted.

It's time to get grateful, get generous, get real, get happy, and throw a party.

After the Wars

Last night's State of the Union address dealt with many issues that are at the forefront of the American consciousness.  Perhaps the biggest announcement that has gotten the least attention was that the war in Afghanistan would draw to a close by the end of 2014.

Americans have been deeply divided about the Iraq War, perhaps slightly less so about Afghanistan.  We have argued about whether we should go to war, how we should proceed, what we expect to accomplish, and how long we should stay.  However we feel about the role of war and our nation's role in the world, it seems to me that nearly all Americans are war-weary and will be relieved when these wars are finally done with.

It will be over 13 years of non-stop war when it's all through.  I was 25 when it started and I'm 38 now.  I was just young enough that I could have gone to war, though seminary and a young family made me choose not to enlist.  Kids who were toddlers on 9/11/2001 are serving in combat even as I write.

Most of the talk of the cost of war seems to focus on money--budget cuts, the deficit, etc.  There's not much I can do about that.  But I'm more concerned about a cost of war that I'm hearing discussed more and more in private conversations.  That cost is the cost that veterans have paid with the damage that has been done to their souls.

More soldiers are dying from suicide in our Armed Forces than from combat.  Divorce is skyrocketing. PTSD is rampant.  Even healthy vets are struggling to know how to re-assimilate.  

I grew up a child of the Vietnam era generation.  I can remember that society knew that folks in Vietnam had been damaged by that war.  But I don't know that our society did a whole lot about it.  Maybe they just didn't know what to do.  I certainly don't remember churches having a special calling to serve damaged Vietnam vets.

The VA can only do so much.

I really don't know what to do about it.  But I feel that the Church is called to offer hope and healing to a whole generation of beloved, proud, and hurting people.  I just can't believe that the Church can know that so many are hurting so deeply and not respond somehow.  I just don't know how to respond or what we might do.  There must be some churches doing something that's working--I'd love to hear about them.

Any ideas?

On the Pope's Resignation

Anyone who understands the magnitude of the decision of Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger) to resign the papacy is shocked at the news.  The last time this happened was over 600 years ago, and was done during a time when a split in the papacy created more than one pope and threatened the very fabric of the Church.  Every pope has faced difficult times because all times are difficult.  All of them have faced the struggles of declining health because they have all remained pope until they died.  No one knows why Benedict has chosen to step down beyond his statement that the challenges the Church faces right now requires a pope to be mentally and physically strong enough to lead and he is fast declining.

We might speculate that Benedict XVI recognized that his role as the head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith before the papacy has made it difficult to deal with the worldwide pedophile priest scandal.  We might also speculate that recent struggles in the Vatican have been administrative and financial, and truly require a pope to be more than simply a spiritual leader.  We might speculate that the  pope has a serious health concern that he knows will debilitate him soon and is wise enough to step aside and help the transition before he becomes completely unable to offer quality leadership.  All of these are speculations, and should probably be set aside.  I'm praying for him today.

The end of Benedict XVI's papacy is a stark contrast to his more beloved and more influential predecessor, John Paul II, who was celebrated for his bravery in leading the Church despite terrible Parkinson's Disease right up until his death.  His suffering was seen as an expression of spiritual leadership derived from the example of Christ, who served all of us in the way he suffered and the way he died.

At the same time, I would like to think that the resignation of Benedict XVI may also serve as an example of Christlike spiritual leadership.  It's extraordinarily rare for anyone to voluntarily give up leadership.  Anyone who attains worldly power is likely to find his or her identity connected to their position of power and prestige.  We do this in the smallest and most absurd ways.  Few of us get a job where we are told we are the "vicar of Christ" and successor to Peter, that everything we say from the holy chair must be true, that we have been blessed with an ontological transformation, that a billion people adore and trust us, that the whole world knows our name and is influenced in one way or another by our leadership.  It's hard for a guy who opens a grocery store to hang it up when the time comes.  It's hard for local politicians, small church pastors, middle managers, soldiers, just about everybody, to imagine no longer being what they've been and trying to figure out who they are without the job that defined them for so long.  And none of the rest of us had our name changed and put in a history book forever.

Leadership in the Kingdom is about the people.  Power is the power to serve.  We are entrusted with power for a purpose that has nothing to do with us.  When we think that the office that gives us that power is who we are, we are deluded.  We're dangerous.  For whatever reason Benedict XVI chose to step down, I hope we will learn from him.  I hope we will understand that when we are given power, it is not for ourselves or about ourselves.  It is the capacity to do good and to serve.  When our capacity to exercise power can no longer be effective for the sake of others, we should give it up quickly and easily.  If we never forget this, than we will never find our identity through a position or power and we will find it easy to give it up when it's time--the same motivation to accept power and position for the purpose of self-sacrificial service leads one to give it up out of self-sacrificial service.

Pastoral Prayer for Transfiguration Sunday

Lord Jesus Christ, you took three disciples up a mountain to see something they were not prepared to see, something no one was prepared to see.  They saw you not only as a Rabbi, but as the exalted Lord of the Universe.  We don’t know that we’re ready to see you in all your glory, either.  We’re pretty sure that we would be confused or afraid to see you as anything besides the safe portrait we have of you that hung on our Sunday School wall.  Help us to see more.  The disciples were not ready for you to come down the mountain and face the cross, either.  And we most certainly are not ready to accept a Gospel of suffering love, a vision of humble glory.  Show us what we can handle.  Show us a bit more.  Change us a little more into your likeness.  Amen.

What Should I Give/Take Up for Lent?

Lent is about taking a season of each year to focus on our relationship with Christ in a special way.  It allows us some time out of each year to stop and take a look at ourselves, to see how we may have strayed, and to take stock of our hearts in an intentional manner.

Many people will take these forty days as a time to give something up--to deny themselves something they would otherwise enjoy.  This is a good practice.

An important caveat: Christianity is not primarily a matter of those things we do not do.  Following Christ is not a matter of avoiding bad things.  Being a Christian is much more defined as a positive thing--Discipleship is about following Jesus, doing the things Jesus did and obeying the things he told us to do.  I find it a real shame that Christians are often known for what they are against rather than what they are for.

At the same time, to follow Jesus means that we must deny ourselves those things that will impede our ability to follow him fully.  When I was an athlete in high school, there were many things I did not eat so that my body would be able to do what I wanted it to do on a basketball court or a running track.  This was never a matter of thinking that ice cream or soft drinks were a bad thing or a moral wrong.  They just were not things I could put in my body if I wanted my body to perform properly.

If we want to follow Jesus, there are things we will have to say no to.  Even good things.  Giving something up for Lent is good practice.  It gives us the experience of telling ourselves "no."  Food is a good thing.  And yet, Jesus went without food for forty days.  When the opportunity came that he was tempted to say yes to earthly glory and misuse of his miraculous power for personal benefit, his soul was prepared to say no because he had said no to his most basic craving for forty days.

John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, made a regular practice of fasting for his entire life.  He fasted every Friday.  He would skip the evening meal on Thursday and resume eating on Friday evening.  He taught that a weekly self-denial of food helped him to be disciplined the rest of the week.  It trained him to recognize that his true sustenance came from God, not food.  Fasting helps us to recognize how dependent we are, how we are constantly in need of something outside of ourselves to survive.  It breaks down our pride and sense of self-sufficiency.  When we use this realization as a means of spiritual discipline, it helps us to approach God in humility.

Another caveat--Fasting is not designed to be a matter of spiritual heroics.  Long fasts are counter-productive.  They make us proud of our ability to be ascetic masters.  They cause us to look down on others who are not as disciplined.  They can damage our health.  Children should never fast for this reason.

Many people modify the practice of fasting during Lent.  They recognize that there are many things we might deny ourselves to great spiritual benefit without giving up food entirely, even for short periods of time.  Some people give up rich foods, such as chocolate or other sweets.  Once again, giving up even certain kinds of foods, even when we never allow ourselves to be truly hungry, serves the purpose of realizing how difficult it can be to deny ourselves anything.  It causes us to recognize our need of God's grace in order to have self-control.  It is an opportunity learn how to overcome temptation by leaning on God.  If we use it as a means of weight loss or other health concern, we have turned it into a vanity and lost the spiritual benefit.

Many people recognize that there is more in life to be consumed than food, that we have many things in our lives that are not necessarily harmful that might otherwise distract us from our relationship with God.  Some people give up television, social media, or other forms of noise and static.  This practice can be very fruitful if we fill our newly found time with conversation with God and if we fill up the silence created by shutting out some noise with attention to the voice of God.  Again, if these forms of self-denial serve no positive purpose in our discipleship, then they can serve as nothing more than behavior modification and time management exercises at best, and opportunity for spiritual pride at worst.

Lent can be a time to give up certain foibles and habits, too.  Forty days is a good amount of time to give up smoking for a person who finds smoking an impediment to discipleship.  Many people observe an alcohol-free Lent.  Christians disagree on the role of alcohol in Christian discipleship.  Some think serious Christians should abstain from alcohol completely, while others think that responsible alcohol use is permissible and even beneficial for a Christian.  Giving up alcohol for Lent can serve as a way to focus on spiritual disciplines.  It can also help us recognize if alcohol has too much of a role in our lives, because no Christian should depend on alcohol so much that setting it aside for forty days should be a problem.  If a person is unable to observe an alcohol-free Lent, perhaps that person should take this realization as a moment of clarity and an opportunity to address the problem.

Some people give up swearing, gossiping, yelling at their kids, gambling, or other bad habits.  In these circumstances, they know that they would be better never doing the things they choose to give up for a short time.  Lent gives opportunity to address a problem, and it gives a manageable time period to get out of the rhythm of doing something so that a more permanent change might follow.  It's helpful to say, "I don't know that I can completely stop doing [fill-in-the-blank], but I think, with God's help, I can quit for forty days." After forty days, maybe the person will find it easier to give the bad habit up for good.  If not, the experience of struggling with it will still have spiritual benefit.

It's very important that when we give something up for Lent, we do so in order to grow spiritually.  For this reason, the things we add for Lent are more important than the things we take away.  We should focus more on the prayer, scripture reading, additional worship services, covenant groups, or other means of listening to God to which we might avail ourselves.  The things we take away serve the things we add, not the other way around.

The process of prayerfully choosing a Lenten discipline is in itself a Lenten discipline.  When we begin to think about what we should do to draw closer to God, or what we should set aside in order to grow closer to God, we have begun to carefully take stock of things in our lives we value and things that have crept in that we do not need.

Here are some resources to help you:

An article on the UMC's alcohol free Lent initiative from last year: http://www.umc.org/site/apps/nlnet/content3.aspx?c=lwL4KnN1LtH&b=2789393&ct=11631509

A wonderful online guide for daily prayer:
http://commonprayer.net/

John Wesley on fasting:
http://www.biblebb.com/files/jw-001fasting.htm

May we all observe a fruitful Lent!

Lent and the Love of God (Lifelines front page article)

Lent and the Love of God

A number of years ago, I served a church in which the teenagers would host a Valentine’s dinner on Valentine’s Day for the older adults as a fundraiser.  One year, Valentine’s Day fell on a Ash Wednesday.  We decided to go ahead with both the supper and our Ash Wednesday service.  I will never forget all the smiling faces under ash-smudged foreheads, among the muted lighting, red balloons, carnations, and spaghetti.  The somber mood of the Ash Wednesday service was a stark contrast to the affectionate and joyous mood of the Valentine’s Supper.

There was a message there for anyone who would look for it--Valentine’s is a day of love.  So is Ash Wednesday.  God’s love is about the kind of love we celebrate on Valentine’s Day, but it’s also about the way that affection and romance are connected to the deeper loves of covenant, loyalty, and self-sacrificial service.

This year, like the year of my ashy Valentine’s supper, Lent comes extremely early.  We will throw a pancake supper party on Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday), the last day before Lent, February 12, in the Fellowship Hall at 6:00 pm (thanks to the men for flipping pancakes!).  We will begin our Lenten discipline together on Ash Wednesday, February 13, with a service of the imposition of ashes at 6pm.  The entire community is invited--children, youth, and folks from outside our church, especially.  

Throughout Lent, we will host lunches at noon each Tuesday.  This years speakers will be Dr. Karl Stegall, pastor emeritus of Montgomery First UMC and director of the Stegall Seminary Scholarship Foundation (Feb. 19), Rev. Ashley Davis, pastor of Trinity and Wallsboro UMC in the Wetumpka area (Feb. 26), Dr. John Ed Mathison, pastor emeritus of Frazer UMC and president of John Ed Mathison Ministries (Mar. 5), Rev. Dan Morris, Superintendent of the Dothan District (Mar. 12), Dr. Jim Graham, pastor of Coosada Baptist Church (Mar. 19), and Dr. Rob Couch, pastor of Prattville First UMC (Mar. 26).

Let these opportunities be part of a season of faith in which you focus on your relationship with God in an intentional and special way.  On Valentine’s Day we set a day apart in our calendar to remember and renew our affection for those with whom we are in love.  Use this Lent to push aside distractions and fall in love with Jesus afresh.

Be blessed,

Nathan

Spring Cleaning for the Soul (written to appear in the Millbrook Independent)

Millbrook has recently been awash in Mardi Gras festivities.  Our community was blessed to have over 11,000 attendees at the Mardi Gras parade.  The village green was packed with good family fun, rides, food, and community spirit.  Our church had over 300 runners for our Mardi Gras run for youth missions.  Mardi Gras in Millbrook has very carefully been maintained as a family-friendly, fun celebration.

Unfortunately, certain excesses in other Mardi Gras celebrations have caused the festival to get a bad name.  Mardi Gras is primarily a religious festival.  It means “Fat Tuesday,” and ought to be celebrated on the tuesday before Ash Wednesday.  This year, Mardi Gras is February 12 and Ash Wednesday is February 13.  The day is designed to be a day to clean out the cupboards and enjoy some gaiety in anticipation of the Lenten fast.  

Lent encompasses the forty days (not counting Sundays) between Ash Wednesday and Easter.  One way to think of the purpose of Lent is to think of it as spring cleaning for the soul.  We clean our homes every day, but once a year we open the windows, vacuum under the couch, and scrub all the corners we ignore the rest of the year.  Of course, we should always be self-reflective, repentant, and focused on spiritual disciplines.  But Lent provides us a time to recommit, to look at the man in the mirror, and to take stock of our lives and motives in an intentional way.  It gives us an opportunity to emphasize our relationship to God, to have an annual retreat of the heart alone in the wilderness with Jesus.

Mardi Gras tells us that there are times for celebration and rejoicing, laughter and dancing, even responsible revelry, dressing up in bright colors and celebrating the gifts of the good life God has given us.  But Mardi Gras is followed immediately by Lent, a reminder that there are also times to confront ourselves and be willing to be courageously honest, to change direction when needed and get alone with our God to allow our hearts to be renewed.

As you clean out the cupboards, as you clean out the cobwebs, take time to allow your heart to be cleaned out, too.

Pastoral Prayer based on Lk 4:21-30 (God's love for outsiders)

Holy God:

we give thank that through your great love you have accepted us, you have called us your own, you have made us family with you and one another.  We are so blessed to know what it means to be adopted, to receive love beyond our deserving.

Forgive us when we are tempted to put limits on your grace towards us, your grace towards others.  Forgive us when we are tempted to have people or even groups of people who we wish you wouldn’t love quite so much.  Each of us have a dark place in our heart, a place that catagorizes people.  we are all tempted to think of those who are inside our circle and those who are outside our circle.  We are more likely to care for the concerns of those we think are like us, those who are on our side.

But you have shown us repeatedly that there are no outsiders in your kingdom.  You’ve kissed the leper clean.  In every time and every place, the lepers have taken different form--sinners of various kinds, people of different social class, enemies near and far.  You keep on making us uncomfortable by loving the wrong people.  You make us even more uncomfortable by calling us to love them, too.

Stretch us. make us uncomfortable.  Teach us to love beyond our loving.  Teach us to make your love true, to put hands and feet to your love for the outsider.   

Today, we do as you taught us.  We love the unlovable.  We pray for our enemies.  And we rejoice, because it is in loving the outsider that we were brought in from the cold.  And it is because someone prayed for your enemies that you destroyed the enmity we once had with you.

Amen.

Thoughts on Revelation (pt. 2) The Rapture

One person in my Bible Study was so surprised to hear that I do not believe in the Rapture that she asked me if I believed Jesus was coming again.  I understand the feeling.  I quite clearly remember as late as my sophomore year of high school reading that someone taught that there would be no rapture and thinking that the person was a heretic.  Evangelical culture has become so diffused with Rapture theology that the entire Bible has been read through a Dispensationalist lens, so doubting the Rapture feels like doubting the Bible.  My opposition to the doctrine of the Rapture comes from the Bible.  It also comes from the teaching of the Church concerning how the Bible should be read.

First off, a conversation about Rapture is actually out-of-place in a conversation about Revelation.  Nothing in Revelation even suggests a Rapture.  When Revelation is assumed to be a description of an end-times scenario, then a Rapture must be inserted within the time-line at some point in the text.  Even those who believe the entire point of Revelation is to reveal the events of the end-times agree that Revelation implies a Rapture but does not describe it.

These teachers believe that Revelation describes a persecution/tribulation that will come after the Rapture takes place.  They say that the Rapture is described in 1 Thess. 4, which is the very first book of the New Testament written.  Paul wrote it to a group of Gentiles who were unfamiliar with the doctrine of the resurrection and yet had embraced Paul's idea that Jesus would return during their lifetimes.  They were concerned that their loved ones who had died before the Lord's return had missed the opportunity to live in a world renewed in the presence of the Christ.  Paul's point is to give hope: "I do not wish for you to grieve as those who have no hope."  He teaches them that their loved ones will be resurrected first, and then the bodies of "we who are alive and remain" will be renewed.  The point is about bodily resurrection, not rapture.  He then says that we will all meet Jesus in the air, but the terminology that he uses is that of a welcoming party going outside the city to escort a king into a city he is visiting.  The point is that we usher in the Lord upon his return to earth, not that he takes us up to heaven to abandon the earth.

Rapture theology has also cited texts in which Jesus speaks of judgment and describes two in a field, or two in a bed, or two threshing, and one is left behind.  It's important to recognize that this is common language of judgment and true to the lived experience of anyone who has had survival guilt when they were left behind after something terrible happened.  Also, in all judgment passages in the Old Testament, it is those who are left behind who are the righteous.  To be "taken" is to be taken in judgment.

There are many eschatological texts, but no others (as far as I can remember) have even been understood to directly describe rapture.  Pretty weak foundation on the Bible side.

The Church has given us a Creed that teaches us what limits all true Christians have recognized within the broad world of Christian teaching.  The Apostles Creed says nothing about a rapture.  It does teach about eschatology.  It says that we believe that Jesus will come again to judge the quick (living) and the dead.  It does not specify when or how.  It also says that we believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.  While rapture teaching and affirmation of the resurrection of the body are not incompatible necessarily, rapture teaching is incompatible with Paul's teaching on the fruits of resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15.

Generally speaking, those who do not believe in the rapture should not consider those who do to be heretics just because they believe in the rapture.  At the same time, those who do believe in the rapture should understand that those who do not believe in the rapture are not heretics either.  In fact, they are still in the majority among Christians around the world.  And they are in the overwhelming majority among Christians throughout history, because no one ever taught the doctrine of the rapture until Nelson Darby in the 1870s.  That means that of every Christian who shaped Christian belief from the time of the apostles, through Irenaeus, Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Wesley, until just over a century ago, not a single one of them ever read the Bible and dreamed of anything like a rapture.  And no good, solid, thoughtful theologian since has taught rapture, either.  There have been plenty of good preachers who happen to write books who have believed in the rapture, but no true theologian has (to my knowledge).  The burden is upon the rapture teachers.

Here's why it matters: When we read texts that are not about the specifics of the end of the world and make them about something they are not, we are distracted from the salvific message they hold.  We are also let off the hook from the claim they make upon us.  It's easier to make charts of the end of the world than it is to take seriously the call to faithfulness in the midst of tribulation that Revelation calls every Christian in every time and place to answer.

Here's another reason why it matters: God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whosoever believes in Him might not perish but have everlasting life.  When God saw a sinful world, he remembered the rainbow and ran into his world out of love.  He joined with its suffering.  He had made a good world and he showed that he would not give up on it until it was made good again.  The rapture says that God will yank his people out of a world he will let descend into chaos and destruction.  We are the salt of the earth, the light of the world.  We follow a Savior who ran toward a suffering world.  Like the heros who ran into burning buildings on 9/11, we run into a hurting world, not away from it.  All vestiges of my belief in the rapture went away the day I heard Tony Campolo say that if we were true disciples of Jesus Christ, and we were offered the opportunity to fly into the sky while the world plunged into uncontrolled destruction, we would say, "No thanks.  I'll stay right where I am.  It looks like the world is going to need a few Christians."