Preview(S): Transformed...Christianity has a drinking problem

Airplane! 

When I was a teenager this movie was the funniest thing I had ever seen.  IF you somehow have made it this far in life and never saw the movie "Airplane" you really need to go check on Amazon (you can't get it on Netflix) and watch this disaster movie spoof.  In the movie a disgraced and broken pilot, Ted Striker, is called on to safely land a jet full of hilarious characters when the whole crew falls victim to incapacitating food poisoning (Full disclosure: some of the jokes are altogether inappropriate and not at all fit for children...but still funny). One recurring joke has to do with the drinking problem Ted developed after losing his confidence in his ability to pilot a plane. While in real life drinking problems are horrible, life altering tragedies, this movie is a comedy so Ted's drinking problem is a literal drinking problem.  He can't seem to get a glass properly to his mouth and perpetually spills whatever he is trying to drink.  In fact this movie is really just one huge vehicle for a cargo load full of puns.  

An aside:  Like I said earlier,  in real life having a drinking problem, which is to say alcoholism, is life rending tragedy in which an individual has become addicted to both the chemical affects of alcohol as well as the psychological affects of being drunk.  

According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism about 6.2% of adult Americans suffer from alcoholism.  I have had any number of friends over the years either suffering from active addiction or living in a state of recovery successfully.  The difference between the two always broke down to one simple element: help.  Let me just say, if you are reading this now and know that you yourself have a drinking problem please know that there is no shame in getting help...every sober addict I know got help. 

OK:  Before I jumped into a different kind of discussion about having a drinking problem I felt like we needed that thought on the table, but now back to the question of "when is a 'drinking problem' really actually a drinking problem?"  By that, I mean is it possible to have a literal drinking problem?

Lets take this lady for instance.  In case you don't know this person her name is Jane Whaley and she is the leader of the Word of Faith Fellowship in Spindale NC.   I say leader because I would not besmirch the words "pastor" or "minister" by placing them in the same sentence as her name.  Oh I know, she looks like a sweet old grandma, but don't let the looks fool you...there are horns under that hairdo.  Mrs. Whaley's church is a flat out cult.  She enforces her will over her followers with an iron fist, controlling every element of their lives from when they have children to who they can marry. Followers who deviate from her will are publicly shamed and often ritually beaten and whipped and live in near poverty. Whaley, on the other hand, is astoundingly rich and despite being investigated by the North Carolina District 25 DA (a case in which it was revealed that two attorneys from the DA were hiding evidence because they were secretly followers) she is still leading her pseudo-congregation. So, one might ask, "What in the world are her followers thinking?!"  

It's simple: they have drinking problems.  Not funny, Ted Striker, throw the glass of water at your own face problems.  Not tragic alcoholism, drink till you black out problems.  NO.  They have a problem identifying what is, or is not, good to drink.  It's not surprising really.  Take diet soda for instance. If you read the ingredients, there can be little doubt that not much in that can of pop is actual food.  In fact the ingredients read more like a science experiment.  Scientists tell us that while the ingredients are not actually a health hazard (it no longer causes cancer) there are a lot of things wrong with it.  The highly sweet nature of the artificial sweetener can trick you body into producing insulin which in turn triggers fat storage (Yep, diet soda can make you fat).  It can also dull your taste buds to actual sweetener making you more likely to eat more sugary foods more often without really realizing it.  Diet sodas are murder on your tooth enamel and can produce migraine headaches in some people. So, why do folks drink them?  Because your brain is programmed to crave sweet and fatty foods.  Drinking a replacement that tastes good, even if does not DO good, satisfies without the side effects of consuming calories (though the jury is out on whether or not it helps lose weight).  

Personally my rule is eat nothing you can't pronounce and that includes things like  Acesulfame K,  potassium benzoate, and phosphoric acid... three common chemicals in most diet drinks. Humans though have this issue with choosing things that look and taste like what they imagine "good" is without really testing the merits or virtues of the "good" thing, like the aforementioned Mrs. Whaley. Of course, we may wonder why folks would drink the drink if it included getting publicly flogged as part of your religion so let's look at another "Diet religion drink".  

I hate to make him the designated "bad Christian leader" poster-boy but he just goes out of his way to be exactly that.  Dear sweet Joel Osteen, I really think, has not set out to do any actual harm.  His intentions are well meaning enough but his message is about a million miles off course.  He has a good hair, a lovely wife, and of course gleaming pearly white teeth but all of that does not make for a health theology.  Of all the celebrity preachers out there his message is probably the most diet-soda-ee of them all.  It's 90% artificial flavoring and fillers and 10% Biblical truth. 

I am sure that those hundreds of thousands of Christians living in

abject poverty around the world, lacking even the most basic of necessities like water, would be very surprised to hear Osteen say that all a believer needs to do to become amazingly rich and prosperous is just believe really hard that God wants it for you and speak that truth into being.   By the way, in the Bible believing hard in something and then speaking it into being was talked about...at length.  Of course our Biblical authors were talking about witchcraft and sorcery and suggested gentle correctives for individuals who practiced that sort of thing...like execution.  I'm not suggesting that we burn Joel Osteen at the stake, just don't drink the diet soda...it really does nothing good for you. 

God has been addressing the basic needs of his people from the very day of their creation.  Take for instance in the wilderness as the Israelites wandered about needing basic supplies and God provided:

Exodus 17:5-7 The LORD said to Moses, "Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink." Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled and tested the LORD, saying, "Is the LORD among us or not?"

People needed water, and God provided.  You may note it was a spring of water for people dying of thirst, not a fountain of champagne for folks who squeezed their eyes real tight, made a wish, and said the magic words of faith.  God provided for his people in a moment of dire need.  

An Aside: Take a knee, we need to pause. Oh my goodness, two asides in one Bible study...can it be? Yep.  I need to pause the program for a moment and talk about a little thing called the "Hand of God".  Back in the wilderness you may notice the Hand of God reached down to rescue the folks who were dying of thirst by providing them with water.  You may also have noticed that earlier I mentioned the hundreds of thousands of Christians world-wide who are also in dire need of clean water. You may ask then, how exactly has the Hand of God not reached out to those folks too?  Good question and I am glad you asked. The answer is that it has, and it continues to do so, and it is about to do so even more.  And since God has declared that we are part of the body of Christ, and since the body of Christ includes the "Hand of God" that means WE are the hand of God in this situation. If you want to do your part and be the staff that strikes the stone in the Horeb of our world's poor click the link here and go, read, and donate.  

OK, back to our regularly scheduled Bible Study. The Psalmist warns against resisting the good drink of salvation that God offers when he writes:

Psalm 95:7-9 For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. O that today you would listen to his voice! Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your ancestors tested me, and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.

Humans are strange creatures.  We resist God's life giving water of grace, mercy, love and forgiveness and guzzle down this world's swill of comfort, money, power, sex, greed, and anger.  How is it that we all have such a hard time recognizing what is good to drink and what is bad for our spiritual health?  I suppose all of those things in the world's drink sound like they might taste good for a moment but we never pause to think of all the damage they do once they get in our system. 

God wants us to drink not only good things, but the best things. Jesus says to a Samaritan woman:

John 4:9-14:   The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water."  The woman said to him, "Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?  Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?"  Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,  but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life."

His water is more than healthy, it is life itself.  Not only is it the source of life, it is the source of life eternal.  This is no ordinary Smartwater. This is the smartest water.  So why do we dumb humans reach for the diet-truth when we have the real truth?  I suppose the answer is simply that we forget that not everything that tastes good IS good.  There is only one truth, although the world is full of diet-truths that claim to be just as sweet but with only half the conviction.  In the end all of this world's truths leave us in the same place we were before we drank them: thirsty.  Jesus' water fills us up and satisfies us in a way that this world's truth simply cannot.  It lasts with us.  It does not run out or poison our system with additives.  It is the very source of health.  

So, ask yourself.  When you feel thirsty...not for an actual drink but for something for your parched soul.  What do you reach for?  This world's empty, but tasty, promises?  Or will you allow God to provide the life giving grace, mercy and love that only He can offer even if it isn't Osteen saccharine sweet?