Wednesday, June 30, 2010

MOVED

This blog has moved to Evangelical Monk

Come and visit some time.

Thanks

Friday, June 18, 2010

Being Single - Concluding Thoughts

As I was doing some sitting and reflecting on concluding these posts of singleness and marriage, a conversation with my friend who pastors in the St. Louis area came to mind. He noted how he was with a group of servants and the closeness and intimacy that existed for that time with them. He also noted that the intimacy then was equal to the intimacy he has with his wife. Then he nailed it for me when he noted that sex does not always and necessarily follow the trail of intimacy.

I then came across an article about the fallen Indiana congressman who recently resigned following the disclosure of an affair with a staffer. Souder placed the blame, a portion, on the job and the loneliness of the job, “Loneliness doesn't mean being alone as much as it means being around hundreds of people but not really knowing them. It's a job that results in hundreds, even thousands of friends, but not much closeness.” Souder went on to acknowledge that the blame rested, ultimately, on him and sin - his failure to subordinate his will to the Spirit.

The common ingredient in both situations is relationship. But the difference between the two is having an understanding about what intimacy is all about and being confused about intimacy and tying intimacy all up with sex.

Isn’t what this life is all about, the why God created us, to be in relationship - a flourishing and mutually beneficial relationship? I suppose it may be argued Souder could have worked on and had a better relationship with his wife, but somehow that seems, to me, to also likely have fallen short because he still would have spent so much time in that space of loneliness mired in the confusion.

Maybe the better answer may be to come to that place where we realize we need each other, in community. Married people need to be in relationship with single persons, single persons need to be in relationship with each other, and we need to be intentional about it. Lauren Winner in her book Real Sex: The Naked Truth about Chastity suggests, “Relationships require that married people must invite single people into their lives, and vice versa. This means not just invitingyour friends over for dinner; it means going grocery shopping together and taking vacations together. It might even mean — as it does for Christians who create ‘intentional communities’ in houses or neighborhoods — married couples or families with kids living with unmarried folks.”

Supporting single people is more than making sure their social needs are met, rather condescending there isn’t it, but it’s all about recognizing that singles, and married people are part of the community. To be a faithful follower of Jesus means doing life together. It’s about coming to that place where we can honestly say that sexual relationship, within marriage, is not the height of pleasure and intimacy; rather it’s about tasting the reality of the emerging Kingdom and being in intimate relationship that will be fully ours down the road. As my pastor friend said, “When we stand face to face with our Lord and Savior on that great and glorious day, looking around us to see our brothers and sisters together, children, parents, and those that the Lord gave us to reach, how intimate will that be!!! “ How glorious that we can have the foretaste of that now as the Kingdom emerges around us and through us.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

ViralHope

Great read. For what it's worth, highly recommended.

JR Woodward, who I think it would be appropriate to label a missional thinker gathered a number of blog responses to his request for a summary of the Good News as if the contributor's local newspaper were to publish the summary. The result is this text of 50 responses. Those responses are neatly wrapped with a foreword by Scot McKnight and a conclusion by Chris Backert.

On one level it is quite possible to begin to feel a level of despair as the 50 entries all seem to indicate the world is in poor condition (and not getting all that much better). But the aim and strength of the text is how it contrasts that potential despair with the hope of the Good News for that community.

However ViralHope does not merely proclaim the Good News, or proclaim that the Kingdom is emerging here and now. Rather, the 50 snapshots show that this Kingdom is indeed here, something real, taking root and spreading. Despite unevenness due to the 50 independent entries, there is a powerful consistency in emphasis on not merely doing church - the faithful community led by Jesus - but being the church by a very real and physical presence in embodying the Good News for each of the local communities seeking to meet the needs of those particular communities. Fascinating as the book is really a compliation of blog responses to a question - a new medium of contact and communication? The variety of responses displays both the importance of engaging in conversation and active listening for creation of a rich dialogue that begs to be continued.

2010 publication by Ecclesia Press (the link will take you to the web site and more information about the text).

Friday, June 11, 2010

Being Single, Being Whole - Part 3

I guess the million dollar question is why do we seem to have such a drive toward marriage? There are indications that it is the script written from tradition - be it the normal for our culture or for some mix of economic, emotional, spiritual and religious reasons (as well as legal reasons when you include the same-sex union issue or unfortunately there are a number who seek marriage for immigration purposes).

To me it tends to boil down to an old fashioned term - kinship. That is, singles seek marriage (or in our day, co-habitation but the issue is not that different in the sense I'm using) in order to reach a fuller sense of self and gain intimacy, companionship and/or family (through children whether naturally or by adoption). David Matzko-McCarthy, in his text Sex and Love in the Home recites the standard script for most people, "two people meet, and they fall in love. Their love sticks so that they see marriage as the logical and inevitable next step. This story continues to be the predominant narrative of marital connection.”

By now it should be apparent I'm aiming at breaking down this drive as it seems a part of the fuel for this drive is this belief we become more complete, or fully whole (at least as much as is possible on this side of things) through marriage. From the earlier blog post, we can recall the observations from Focus on the Family, and theologian Stanley Grenz. And of course, the argument is hard to deflect - that if we accept the view humanity was created for relationship, then why not pursue marriage as the greatest form of relationship we can have. Seriously, if we walk around saying my BFF is Jesus, Lord of all so why do I need a marriage (again you can include within that term, co-habitation), you will likely be getting some looks that aren't what we would be able to mistake as looks of admiration.

But the bottom line is that absent a marriage, for that intimacy and companionship, if not family, we feel like we are missing out on the good things available on earth. While I am confident my pastor (who is a fantastic pastor) did not intend to slight singles at all, I am just as confident that when he made the statement perhaps marriage is the greatest form of relationship, I suspect there were quite a few people who would have nodded in agreement, and put their arms around their spouse/significant other or squeezed his/her hand or something like that.

Recall the observation by Rodney Clapp in the prior post, the normal single will sooner or later marry. In the RELEVANT Undergraduate College Guide, we find this observation, “People in The Couples Culture hate being single. They hate being alone and feel as if their happiness is defined by true love." Even when you look at the world, this can be seen as true. There was that wildly popular book by Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love (to be made into a film with Julia Roberts per the rumor mills), who despite swearing off marriage, went in search of love and ultimately returned to that state of being as the source of full self-actualization and happiness (that is her sequel called Committed).

Yet I have this intuitive sense there is something a little off here. We have exalted the marriage/co-habitation relationship as the ideal, but as someone involved in a divorce recovery ministry, there seems to be a serious problem as roughly half of those marriages end in divorce (and I suspect the statistics for co-habitation are no better if not higher in terms of ultimate separation). Let me finish the observation by Matzko-McCarthy here, “when romance is the linchpin of a relationship or marriage, then the couple, after the first wave of passion is gone, will have to work a great deal in order to conjure up passion or spontaneity. The romance is likely to die because one or both partners will become tired of working to restore what is supposed to be spontaneous passion.”

Lauren Winner offers up a most telling illustration in her text Real Sex: The Naked Truth about Chastity. She relates her experience when she brought a group of college students to a convent. After observing a variety of activities, the students met with a sister, and she invited questions. Inevitably, the question came out what was up with the no sex thing. Sister Margaret responded, “I know giving up sex is a very particular renunciation. But I think we have an easier time of it here together in our community than you unmarried young people do out there, alone, in the world.” Sister Margaret spoke with great insight.

As believers are we not to understand this life, this emerging Kingdom, as not merely something for which we gain an individual gold star of merit, but that it is truly corporate as God’s mission of reconciliation is a community project. Maybe we together can take what Sister Margaret is getting at, that as a community we care about singleness and marriage, that we be transparent in the struggles that exist and will inevitably arise, that we ask for help, that we remove the barrier to sharing our selves, that we consider the new normal of confession and restoration and refuse judgment. Maybe we can begin a conversation about the stories in our Scripture about love, faith, hope (break down that 1 Corinthians 13:4 verse) and as a community share those stories, grow and learn about embodying those stories as present day realities within our current story.

That such a community came to be shortly after the Cross may be seen in the So-Called Letter to Diognetus, dated from the 2nd Century or earlier, as translated in the Early Church Fathers at 216-17, “for Christians cannot be distinguished from the rest of the human race by country or language or customs.... Yet although they live in Greek and barbarian cities alike, as each man’s lot has been cast, and follow the customs of the country in clothing and food and other matters of daily living, at the same time they give proof of the remarkable and admittedly extraordinary constitution of their own commonwealth. They live in their own countries but as aliens.... They marry, like everyone else and they begat children, but they do not cast out their offspring [note that infanticide, particularly as to female infants was supposedly practiced]. They share their board with each other, but not their marriage bed. It is true that they are in the flesh, but they do not live according to the flesh.”

That such communities exist and can exist within our secular system may be seen in a number of examples. Of course, no community has it down pat and I suspect there are difficulties from time to time but the effort, if anything I have said has any merit to it, must be continued. One such community may be seen in the work of Donald B. Kraybill and others in Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy – a snapshot of how a community that practiced the idea of forgiveness in its recitation of the Lord’s Prayer came to embody that practice in facing unbelievable tragedy – the slaughter of 5 of the innocent children of that community.

We see such a community in this observation by Fumitaka Matsuoka (reflecting on the heroic stance of a Japanese-American community in California following the devastation to life and property and indeed the atrocity of the internment camps in this country during World War II) in his essay “Creating Community Amidst the Memories of Historic Injustices” in Realizing the America of Our Hearts at 39, “the incarnation of Christian faith is both deeply personal and deeply public at the same time. Japanese-American Christians remind us of a key that does bind the people of the Rashomon effect together. What manner of people are they? Refusing to flinch in the face of the painful and unjust experiences of incarceration, attacking the unjust system that had bound them, they reach out to those who betrayed their trust and inflicted injustice to them, offering to build together a new society.”

Maybe what Jesus was talking about when he answered the question about marriage in the Kingdom was that the reality He was pointing to, and which is emerging even as we read this, stands beyond and transcends worldly preoccupation with marriage, intimacy and such things.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Going Deeper - Singleness and Joy - Part 2

From the last 2 blogs you may have a sense of the views I’m raising here. First and foremost, that singleness is a valid state of being for believers, and marriage, in and of itself, while equally valid, is not an ideal Christians should seek or hope to attain for any sense of wholeness or becoming complete. In the post prior to that I talked about having a sense of joy.

For the Israelites marriage and having a family were essential, as a command from the “be fruitful and multiply” verse, as the means of salvation and I’m sure for reasons of economic and societal survival due to the agricultural culture. The Old Testament is filled with stories of barrenness and the shame associated with that – we can read about Sarah and Hannah for example. As well the Israelites held firmly to the belief that salvation was available to those who were descendants of Abraham, literally. While we do see exceptions, Rahab and Ruth, those are more the rarer instances, as when we compare and contrast the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:9).

Jesus shattered that ancient conception of the path for salvation. As well, we are told that marriage is not to be an aspect of the future Kingdom (Matthew 22:30). To avoid the foolishness of the Corinthians, Jesus did not mean or imply that marriage as a state of being was no longer to be valid, rather that the exclusivity of marriage and family no longer existed as the controlling paradigm for salvation and Kingdom living.

Is it possible that God created male and female for the purpose of establishing His community, to be composed of single persons and married couples who as a community began the journey toward resolving and reconciling the fundamental incompleteness of humanity? The fundamental drive for this reconciliation was not intended to be our sexual differences, and resolving that difference through the state of being in marriage, rather the drive is the resolution of the relational separation that existed from the time of Eden.

Yet within the community of faith, the paradigm of marriage as the ideal state remains. Rodney Clapp in his Families at the Crossroads observed, “They [our churches] see singles as peripheral to the core of central members who belong to families. They assume that the normal single will sooner or later marry and start a family.” The parachurch organization Focus on the Family on its website suggests, “Genesis tells us that shortly after the creation of the first man, God acknowledged Adam’s incompleteness. God then created Eve as Adam’s partner, his completer, and blessed their union.” Stanley Grenz likewise notes that God saw Adam alone as not good, that Adam was "fundamentally incomplete", and created Eve to deliver Adam from his solitude (Sexual Ethics).

Part 3 will look at the confusion of love with romance, and the substitution of emotional joy for Kingdom joy. For now, hopefully we can affirm singleness as equally valid a pursuit as marriage. Stanley Hauerwas rightly notes, “Both singleness and marriage are necessary symbolic institutions for the constitution of the church’s life as the historic institution that witnesses to God’s Kingdom,” in A Community of Character. Eastern Orthodox theologian Paul Evdokimov relates singleness to a sense of joy, in his Sacraments of Love, “A single man can see opening up before him one of two paths, as he finds himself from the perspective of celibacy in the world. For the time being he accepts the situation cheerfully, with joy, he views it as the task limited to today, as the present and full value of his life.” (I think we can read Evdokimov in a non-gender specific manner and affirm his observation)

Is it possible to break the stranglehold and mis-notion of what normal should look like to begin approaching singleness and marriage in a more Scriptural sense, as articulated by Hauerwas?

Monday, June 7, 2010

Going Deeper - Being Single, Being Whole - Part 1

Another great sermon from Matthew this past Sunday and he tackled a controversial topic, for some, as to that word in Ephesians 5:22 - submit. While the sermon was remarkably well-considered, and was not intended or designed, as far as I could see, to consider the question of marriage and singleness as proper states of being, the context seemed to suggest joy and fulfillment were the gifts to be enjoyed once in that state of being. So I think the sermon was indeed intended and designed to speak to the question of forming and maintaining that state of joy, nevertheless, the take away for me was in the beginning (and which colored all that followed), that was the line that perhaps marriage is the greatest single form of human relationship God allows us to enter into. While the church has a lot of married people and families, it seems to me to be a little close to staking out a larger claim for the state of marriage than may be accurate.

I get that the intent was not to put any hurting on singleness but I have this sense that there were some who may not have gotten past that statement – particularly those who are in the midst of a divorce or recently have emerged from, sadly more often than not, that battle zone, as well as sending a message to those who aren’t married yet, for whatever reason (Albert Mohler’s views notwithstanding), that there is a need for speed here into order to get into that greatest form of human relationship possible on this side of Heaven.

Maybe it is personal. After my divorce, the sense of loss was significant. After about 10 years of being involved with a divorce recovery ministry, I am aware I’m not alone in that feeling of loss and in the recognition there is a huge desire to fill that loss sooner rather than later. So something that seems to suggest marriage is the standard or ideal state of being on this side of things just seems, for me, a little farther down the road than I care to travel nor do I want people to travel, as once a wrong turn is taken, you have to spend some time backtracking, so why go down the road if you don’t have to?

I have this sense of wrongness in telling someone in this pit of pending divorce or who is divorced to slow down this need, whether conscious or subconscious , when all we have heard otherwise up to that point in time is how wholeness and fulfillment and such are found in the ideal state of marriage. My thinking is that we need to better understand that the season of singleness we may find ourselves in not just a place where we bide some time until we can enter, or for some of us re-enter, that state of bliss. Indeed for some it is a call – that’s how I read Matthew 19:12, “Some people are unable to marry because of birth defects or because of what someone has done to their bodies. Others stay single for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Anyone who can accept this teaching should do so." (CEV) While for some to ignore or avoid hearing the call, it’s not, of course, the end of the world but it does make life that much more difficult at times.

So marriage is not the ideal state of being for us on this side of things. Now, in no way is anything here to be understood as suggesting singleness should be elevated to that exalted spot – it should not. Rather, marriage and singleness are two viable and equally valid options open to God’s people while we are in the process of becoming all that God desires us to be. For those of us who are not married, or no longer married, this is not an occasion to do a Jeremiah and lament how awful this state is, and become rattled over the seemingly deafening silence in answers to the fervent prayers to be lifted from this dreaded state – even if we enjoyed the time for a while, please God let me back into the land of the living, give me the good life and let me be married. My take is God isn’t ignoring those prayers but maybe we are not listening as well as we could be, and even if our listening gear is active, the message coming back isn’t what we are waiting to hear.

We need to see singleness as a valid and blessed state of being and learn to be content and comfortable if that is where we are at until He tells us something different and be at that point of submitting and finding joy in the truth that this is where He wants me at - maybe for a long long time. Just like we can say to people, waiting for the Lord to speak is a wise act of submission and obedience, say in life decisions, college or schooling, career choice, joining a fellowship, whatever but we many times tell each other bide your time on so many other things and we can be okay with that, biding our time in regard to singleness is no less valid an option and singleness is not less blessed and valued than the state of marriage.

Next time a little more on the state of singleness as valid and a state of joy.

Friday, June 4, 2010

Obedience, Joy and Good Works - part 1

A lyric from one of my favorite singers, Michael Card, goes, "There is a joy in the journey. There's a light we can love on the way. There is a wonder and wildness to life. And freedom for those who obey." For many I suppose that first line catches them as there is joy in the journey with Christ. But for some reason that last line caught me. Is there really freedom, if not joy, in obedience?

I've gone on record for the view that our stance as believers is faithful witness or better yet listening and obedient. Yet that seems just so far away from happiness and freedom - those two seem to be tied to each other. And therein lays the tension and the mystery.

In group we are studying the parables and are in the midst of the Parable of the Lost Son, and the study guide seemingly had a misprint as it labeled the parable that of the Lost Sons - great insight provided. The video seemed to focus on the older brother - the seemingly obedient one. Now we can’t ignore the younger brother of course as that sets up the stance that joy and freedom aren't really found in having money and the ability to do as we please with that money. Now to that older brother who was obedient and loyal to the father - seems rather clear from the parable he wasn't in the midst of joy either whether the younger brother was there or not.

It seems to me that we are still living out this tension today. On one side we have a culture that seems to glorify freedom and self-actualization. On the other side are those who argue for following the rules, if you will, laid out in Scripture. Many would say being obedient to a set of rules is surely opposed to any understanding of freedom, and if you get down to it, self-actualization without relationship seems pretty barren. Somehow, being in relationship includes release of some freedom – sort of like the kenosis of Jesus (Philippians 2:7 NRSV). I’m not sure either of those camps have freedom, let alone joy and happiness.

What if we came to understood joy as less of an emotional response to circumstances, and more of a state of being or a place we enter into. What if we understood joy as the result of being where God is at work and we have the unbelievable ability to be a witness to that activity or be actually a part of it. Joy as an emotional response seems to be fleeting and in many ways out of our control (of course we should already be aware of that, Job 20:4 – The Message, “Godless joy is only momentary”). Joy as a state of being or place we enter into is actually a foretaste of that which will not be temporary and indeed will characterize our existence (joy is found in communion with the Trinity, 1 John 1:3 – The Message, “this experience of communion with the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ. Our motive for writing is simply this: We want you to enjoy this, too. Your joy will double our joy!”).

Next time some more on obedience and joy.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Violence within the Christian Community

I have heard it said that John 3:16 is the most well-known verse of the Christian Scriptures. While leaving for another day the question of what this says about our evangelistic aims and successes, maybe there is another verse that deserves to be brought to the forefront. In all of the Synoptics, there is a verse that Jesus offered up as the greatest commandment – love the Lord your God and love your neighbor (Matthew 22:36-39, Mark 12:28-31 and Luke 10:27). Eugene Peterson in The Message presents a rather explicit foretaste and the promise, “Do what is fair and just to your neighbor, be compassionate and loyal in your love, And don't take yourself too seriously— take God seriously,” Micah 6:8 and “Because a loveless world," said Jesus, "is a sightless world. If anyone loves me, he will carefully keep my word and my Father will love him—we'll move right into the neighborhood! Not loving me means not keeping my words,” John 14:23.

Yet even within the Christian community, we engage in violence toward each other. Of course I am not suggesting physical violence, the most common understanding of violence. Rather, we practice violence in our speech. Violence includes unjust exercise of power. How many of us have heard that little ditty in our youth, sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me? Despite the well-meaning intent of our parents, to the contrary words have the power to outlast physical injury often times and may inflict deep mental, emotional and spiritual violence on the receiver of those harsh words.

Within the public square, we as a culture seem to have adopted this posture. While we may decry the violence of political smearing, the fact of political smear tactics seems more and more embedded in our world – possibly because while we may abhor its use it must be seen as having an effectiveness we don’t really care to consider. Otherwise why does it still exist, and exist so prominently?

In traveling through the blogosphere I have seen instances of violence, within this specific context, among the brothers and sisters. We are all familiar with the Brian McLaren bit about fundamentalists when he was putting out some notice to get some attention for his new book, and his later admission that the effort was designed to gain some space – but as one blogger noted, after using such a nuclear device, not much room left afterwards for any dialogue. In another controversial post, Professor Rah suggested the emergent movement was for whites only. Several responses, not in the main but there were some, sought to question his journalistic integrity rather than address the issues being raised (and in that post attacking Rah, no effort was made, in my view, to consider that even if the alleged facts being presented within the context of the smear were true that such facts did not detract from the story or its validity). Lest it be seen as pointing a finger at emergents, those on the right have no claim to innocence either (I don’t need to catalogue the Limbaugh rants and others along similar lines.) To maybe a lesser degree, recently on the Scot McKnight blog on the controversial issue of mega-churches, in response to one posting about mega-spending by a mega-church (a bowling alley within the confines of the church!), Mr. McKnight himself apparently a little irked fired back asking whether it was wrong for God to ask Israel to spend lavishly on the temple. Of course, I suspect after firing the shot off, some cooler reflection would have brought to mind that the 2 are simply and vastly different, one for God’s glory and one a mall. Rather than cause some reflection on the validity of the criticism, the shot seemed more designed to shut down that line of the topic.

I suspect many of us would have to admit the cultural insensitivity may be expected – not excusable but rightly or wrongly such is proving to be the case in the mundane of the everyday. On the other hand, I have a sense that when it seems to carry over to those who are more well-known and respected as leading voices, voices that whether we agree or disagree are voices that demand reflection, violence which shuts down dialogue, falls short of the life of Jesus who eschewed violence, as well as falling short of the great commandment. To be critical without grace seems to be simply violent and a abusive act of power, to speak with grace seems to be what just and compassionate are all about and an act that opens the eyes and opens the neighborhood of discussion to Jesus.

Monday, May 24, 2010

Salvation

"How does God decide who receives the gracious gift of salvation?" That provocative question was raised in a blog posting over at Jesus Creed.

David answered this question later in his post when he acknowledged "The final judgment is God's prerogative alone." To speculate on the parameters, in my view, threatens to do violence to others and undermines the mission of the Church. The aim may be better spent in seeking to discern what drives humans to seek to distill a formula for salvation. Maybe the "solution" is to direct the focus of the community of faith toward recognizing the centrality of Jesus for living the time in-between, and moving forward in that relationship - with the focus on listening and obedience to His voice, if you will.

I suppose we humans have this bent that we can solve all mysteries given a little time and space, and if we can’t that means the mystery isn’t real or truth or as some of the new atheists like to label believers, taken over by the mythology called Christianity. To me, it’s like all the excitement about the scientists who are claiming to have created life (A Step to Artificial Life). I have this feeling that science will never be able to “create” life. Rather, the best science can do is to modify that which is already alive. From what I can tell, other than God, no one has been able to create something from nothing (the whole ex nihilio idea). Life is a mystery to those scientists and it just isn’t something that they can, or will down the road, be able to resolve.

"We are chosen to bring the Gospel, in all its fullness, into all of creation" and "We, the Church, have been elected for mission" (2 more quotes from that post) fits into this critique of seeking to render a formula - or to be more accurate and charitable, a significant risk of reducing the Gospel to a formula which is just as offensive and violent. The recent impulse of mission-mindedness seems to be a necessary corrective for living in the here and now and for accomplishing that bringing of the Gospel into all of creation, but it’s the how and in what ways that is the real crunching question. My thoughts have been pretty well set out before, but I am afraid that as we move into this mission mindset we will fall into the temptation to make it a program as well and convert the active and on-going listening and obeying into heard it and here’s what we need to do.

I’m not suggesting that good works aren’t important if you will or that programs are anathema but at best the identification of good works is a secondary consideration. Rather, that we are in serious need of listening to the voice and being obedient to that voice for the season for doing what we are doing for that reason as opposed to trying to solve the mystery and distilling a reasonable (how about that for a dangerous place to be – debating what is reasonable and rational) answer to that mystery, bottling it up and moving it into the market place of ideas.

Sunday, May 9, 2010

On Being a Community of Grace on the Island of Misfit Toys

A while ago I asked the question, “If small groups are the answer, what is the question?” I was reading the latest text by Miroslav Volf, Against the Tide: Love in a Time of Petty Dreams and Persisting Enmities (a great read), when I came to his essay, “Negative Externality.” The line that caught me was, “Jesus’ ministry, of which the treatment of children is a paradigmatic case, presupposes that persons belong to a community of grace in which others’ fragility and even rowdiness are opportunities of service” (at 64).

What stopped me to think was the idea that Volf seems to be suggesting that we, who belong to that community of grace (and would that not be all who are people of faith broken down into relatively manageable units we call church?) will be provided opportunities to serve people who are fragile or rowdy, or worse fragile and rowdy. Thinking about that, what is more frightening is that Volf seems to be implying that there even may be people in that same community who themselves are fragile and/or rowdy. Is that a community I want to be in? or more frightening yet, what if I am someone who gets identified as fragile and/or rowdy? Thinking a little more, if those who are overtly fragile and/or rowdy are removed, gently of course (Donald Miller raised that provocative question in his blog), would it be a better community? At what point does that community lose its standing as a community of grace? Then again, aren’t we all in some way fragile and/or rowdy?

Even though we are approaching summer and thoughts of the Christmas season are far away, I remember that classic animation, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, and the image that keeps coming up is the island of misfit toys. If the question now features those in our community of grace who are fragile and/or rowdy (which includes those who are uncomfortable, shy or less than friendly), are small groups still the answer (be it the best answer or the sole answer)? Let us hope and pray that our communities of grace are not like Santa in the Rudolph animation who is unaware of that island or worse has forgotten it exists.

Friday, May 7, 2010

Function and Worth

A dear friend of mine and I were talking about a sermon he was preparing and a critique he received was that he seemed to be making Jesus out as somehow lesser than the Father - part of his references were to Jesus being obedient to the Father. For me the narrative in John 8 comes to mind, “I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me.” (John 8:28b ESV) So for some who hear this verse their thought is that “see Jesus is less than God because He can only do what He was told by God” or for the more literal minded among us, their thought is “heresy for a pastor to imply Jesus is less than God.” For the few who read this blog you know that I'm really firm on the idea that obedience is the good work as opposed to saying hey we are being faithful, look at all the good works we've done.

I know there are a lot of theological arguments that can be raised here, like immanent trinity and economic trinity, and Rahner's argument that there is no difference, and such things, but to me the crux of the matter really is all about how we impose our value system on others and on God.

But I have to ask, why does function have anything to do with essence? We have been steeped in a cultural code that our function is a reflection of our worth. Back in the day, ideas like housework is a women's job (okay please don't throw that stuff at me) and such things, but the idea behind that phrase was how we men had the mis-notion that such labor was simply not something men were designed to do because we had a more important role to fill, or how moving up in the world meant we were making enough money so you could hire a maid to do the menial chores. Or, the statement on the immigration issue that goes something like if we seal off the borders, who will do the labor intensive work of harvesting as we won't have any migrants to do that anymore. I'm sure we all can come up with instances where we judge a person by their function or lack thereof.

I began this thinking about my one friend who is a pastor, and at the end I am thinking of my other friend who is a pastor. He gave up a lucrative career and business (I’m thinking he could have likely afforded a maid) and gave it all up and now pastors in East St. Louis. Some may say foolish and he stepped down to do a "good" thing, but I think the real question is how could he have done anything other than obey? Likewise my other friend stepped out of a lucrative career to pastor young people. For both of my pastor friends, thinking it is likely Jesus is saying they stepped up.

So, what does function have to do with worth?

Friday, April 30, 2010

That Sin Thing - Jennifer Knapp

I have been following some great discussions about sin, and in particular, the sin of homosexuality. Now if there is an explosive hot button issue that seems to be it. David Fitch has been blogging on a missional approach to the GLBT circumstance as a third way to the Neo-Reformed and the emerging strands of doing church. I have been contrasting that with the discussion about Jennifer Knapp (Jesus Creed here and here and here) and her recent announcement that she has been involved in a lesbian relationship for a number of years. Now I’m not a fan of hers, though her rendition with Mac Powell of Sing Alleluia was particularly powerful, I have been somewhat repulsed by the violent response to her coming out.

At first the idea was how about looking at this matter based on that old adage, “hate the sin, and love the sinner.” That strikes me as somewhat arrogant and condescending, and ultimately just plain wrong. For many of us (actually make that all of us) our identities are so intertwined with our particular brand of sinfulness that such parsing calls for some mighty fine distinctions and therefore results in too slippery of a slope to be walking on for any length of time.

Another way of looking at the situation is to come to grips with the idea that there are grades of sinfulness – some worse and some not quite so horrible (well, okay another fine distinction to be made) and here I’m thinking of those folks who like to make much of the OT admonitions that homosexuality is an abomination (which falls somewhere along the lines of something wicked, something detestable, something shameful – hmmm, thinking there are some things people do to each other that are pretty wicked, detestable and downright shameful other than being in an active homosexual relationship - reading Genesis 18, the fuller passage lists other abominations including lying with your neighbor's wife).

Take this little test and see how you come out on the other end - we want justice done, that’s pretty much conceded as truth, we want the wrath of God to come upon those we deem as evil and sinful people, in other words we want God to correct all that's wrong with our world by getting rid of those people, and we want God to punish those sinners – okay maybe not lightning bolts but we do want God to do something to stop the unrighteous from their dominance. Boom just happened. Anybody still here reading this blog?

As well there is truth to what Jesus said to the Pharisees in the story of the woman caught in adultery, “Let him who is without sin among you, be the first to throw a stone at her.” (John 8:7 ESV) Francis Chan in his book, Crazy Love, suggested another little test on understanding our sin status. He suggested we take the well known 1 Corinthians 13:4 passage and insert our name for the word love, and see how we fare. I did that and I’m not ready to discuss that one. But that posture seems to imply that either we overlook the sin or that we need to be affirming but somehow I have this sense that overlooking or affirming our various and particular sins isn’t what the Kingdom is all about.

I am haunted by the idea that prior to becoming missional; we need to be in a position to confront our sins, which requires involvement in a nurturing community, and from that base move out into the world. Anything short of that, it seems to me, falls back into worldly posturing. The lines from Yancey’s What’s So Amazing about Grace, quoting Gordon MacDonald, “You need not be a Christian to build houses, feed the hungry, or heal the sick. There is only one thing the world cannot do. It cannot offer grace,” read in conjunction with Matthew 7:21 (the rendition by Peterson’s The Message is particularly convicting), "Knowing the correct password—saying 'Master, Master,' for instance— isn't going to get you anywhere with me. What is required is serious obedience—doing what my Father wills. I can see it now—at the Final Judgment thousands strutting up to me and saying, 'Master, we preached the Message, we bashed the demons, our God-sponsored projects had everyone talking.' And do you know what I am going to say? 'You missed the boat. All you did was use me to make yourselves important. You don't impress me one bit. You're out of here.'), points out the danger inherent in embarking on a program of performing good works and actually anything less than obedience – which seems to rule out a posture of overlooking or affirming.

Hmm, certainly can’t condemn, but can’t overlook or affirm. What’s a believer to do?

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Going Deeper Loving and Being Loved

If small groups are the answer, what is the question?

In another of his powerful sermons, Matthew pointed us to John 13:34, "You must love each other, just as I have loved you." (CEV). Matthew then directed us to take a step deeper by asking who are these "each others." Paul enfleshes that commandment of Jesus in Galatians 6:10, "Every time we get a chance, let us work for the benefit of all starting with the people closest to us in the community of faith." (The Message)

Maybe, just maybe, we can cast a wider look at things, like

(1) Is the church the means by which God displays His love? Philip Yancey asked the question, "How can we sense God's love now that Jesus has ascended to the Father?" and suggests, "One New Testament answer centers around the 'body of Christ.' When Jesus left, He turned over His mission to flawed and bumbling men and women…. leaving the tasks of arms, legs, ears, eyes and voice to the erratic disciples - and to you and me," (from Grace Notes) and

(2) Is not the desire of the church to bring people into the Kingdom? David Fitch observes, “Each visitor, each person becoming part of the church community, needs to be nurtured into life in the Kingdom," and

(3) How are ways one is nurtured into the Kingdom? Nurturing leads new Christians to visualize what God desires them to become and/or nurturing involves modeling the Christian disciplines - in prayer, humbling one’s self, engaging worship, Bible study, and reflecting on God's work in their lives through meditation and community.

(4) Are there some people who will be resistant or hesitant to join small groups due to some concern or fear or previous poor experience or just shy or simply not comfortable, and their question may be is it safe? Very likely.

After asking these questions, do we come up with the same answer?

Somewhat tongue in cheek – maybe a group for those who aren’t sure they want to be in a group? Or as Donald Miller asked in his blog, do we ask people to leave? Or even if we don't ask them to leave, by seeking to force them into the mold aren't we doing the same thing anyways? Maybe a better way is for the "pastors and leaders to take regular time to sit, have coffee, and listen and call people into this life of allowing Jesus to reign in our lives and the life of our church, and to discern the marvelous things He is doing in and around us that we can participate in" (another great thought from David Fitch there). Isn't this what Paul was talking about in Galatians 6:10?

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Going Deeper - Serving and Eating Books

Is anyone hungry?

In a remarkable vision, the Old Testament prophet, Ezekiel was told to eat a very particular item. In the 3rd chapter of his text, we read: " 1The LORD said, "Ezekiel, son of man, after you eat this scroll, go speak to the people of Israel." 2-3He handed me the scroll and said, "Eat this and fill up on it." So I ate the scroll, and it tasted sweet as honey." (CEV)

Scott introduced many of us to a new word, a very powerful and image-invoking Greek term, perichoresis, or as he translated it, the "divine dance." This divine dance, understood theologically, is not just a continual circling and experience of the joy of the dance. Rather, the divine dance is a special dance displaying the unique relationship between the Father, the Son and the Spirit, their mutual indwelling, their mutual intimacy, their mutual sharing and sustenance of each other.

For some of us, the purpose of the Cross wasn't simply to give us that ticket to Heaven, as true and powerful as that is. Rather, the purpose of the Cross was to issue an invitation to the world to join in the divine dance of the Father, the Son and the Spirit. The Father knew we were not able to keep the covenant. The Old Testament is filled with stories of such an invitation being given time and again but never accepted (sort of what I tried to talk about when I looked at the idea of covenant – we humans simply have a awfully hard time keeping covenant), and sent His Son in the fullness of time to be the one-time eternal grace-enabled invitation to the dance.

Scott spoke about serving as an activity that flows from the very nature of God. Going deeper, when we join in with the divine dance, while not fully now but in the process of being ultimately fully realized, we are able to partake in that indwelling, intimacy, sharing and sustenance that is the characteristic of the divine dance of the Father, Son and Spirit – that eternal and powerful flow comprising the nature of God.

We, as with Ezekiel and his eating of the scroll, are able to be feed by that flow of the divine nature. Jesus told us what is a part of that flow, “the Son of Man came to serve, not be served,” Matthew 20:28 (The Message). Let us be Ezekiels.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Going Deeper: The Marathon Man and the Church

Unless you are older than say about 40 years you may not have seen a classic drama movie starring a young Dustin Hoffman and Lawrence Olivier. In a famous scene, Olivier, portraying a Nazi war criminal who is attempting to retrieve his diamonds, suspecting any effort to get them from the safety deposit box is a trap and that Hoffman has information about any surveillance, tortures Hoffman by drilling a tooth after a tooth all the while asking him "is it safe?"

Matthew's sermon Sunday (4/11) dealt with the serious need for church to be a place where one knows and is known and ultimately a place where no one stands alone. But for many, the question being asked of Hoffman by Olivier becomes the question to be asked before we can come to the conclusion church is a place where no one stands alone. Is it safe? If church is safe, how did it become that way? If it isn't, how can it be a place where no one stands alone, let alone be a place where Jesus is Lord?

Finding a place of real safety seems so difficult. For the unchurched, church, any church, is a new experience (at least hopefully somewhat different than childhood Sunday School classes – usually less than wonderful memories) with new people and with a new social ethic, and for those who have left a church due to a bad experience at another church, feelings of safety will be under heavy guard.

For much of the last decade, the church has taken a number of blistering attacks, some well founded, as places captive to the consumerist culture of America, or as attractive/entertainment centers, so-called “seeker churches.” Underlying both types of churches may be a works righteousness mentality, that is we need to become sinless or be moving on down (or is it up?) that particular road (as impossible as that is).

Newer forms of “church” are the social justice/activist strands, many of which may be considered as emerging, and missional churches. Much merit seems to be resting with those strands, particularly missional, but at first glance, as youthful forms of church, efforts may need to be directed to prevent them from becoming clubs which means some may not fit in.

Henri Nouwen gives pause for some thought as we consider that question, is it safe, “I wonder more and more if the first thing shouldn’t be to know people by name, to eat and drink with them, to listen to their stories and tell your own and to let them know with words, handshakes and hugs that you do not simply like them, but truly love them.” (Gracias: A Latin American Journal).

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Is this what He died for? The gay man and the Samaritan.

Let us re-imagine the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). The landscape is a land divided and Jesus is hard to find. The priest is now a pastor in a well-known, orthodox church nearby. The Levite has become a CEO of a large and also well-known parachurch organization specializing in helping the widow and the orphan. The man riding on the bicycle is the person who sits next to you in the pew on Sundays, but he sings loudly, more often than not off key, and he raises his hands during prayer, and more than once you have heard him pray, forgive me Lord for I am a sinner (of course none of these identities are intended, explicitly or implicitly, to be reflective of any one or any group, and may be more reflective of the various logs in my eye).

As you are walking down a quiet street in your town you come across a man, lying on the side of the road, bloody and beaten, groaning, and you see a sign on him, "This man is gay, and the judgment of God has fallen on him." As you watch, you see the pastor walking down the street. He sees the man, and kneels by him. "Son, you are in pain and dying. Confess your sin, and repent, and let Jesus take away your sin." The gay man raises slightly, gasps, and says, softly yet clearly, "No!" The pastor rises and walks away, muttering, "Lord have mercy on his soul."

Next you see the CEO come by. He kneels and says "Son, you are in pain, let me help you, and after you are healed, let me get you into a program useful for ex-gays." The gay man raises slightly, gasps, and says, softly yet clearly, "No!" The CEO rises and walks away, muttering, "Lord, have mercy on his soul."

There comes down the street your neighbor from church - the one who sings off key, raises his hands during prayer, and who prays forgive me for I am a sinner. As you watch, your neighbor bends over to help the man, and a Cross on his chain falls out of his shirt. The gay man rises slightly and sees the Cross. "Do you want me to confess and repent?" "No," you hear your neighbor say. "Well, will you help me only if I go to a program to decovert?" he asks. "No," you hear your neighbor say. "Well, what is your condition?" he demands.

"I want to help you, and I will take you the hospital. I will visit you while you recover. When you are out I will take you to my house while you rehabilitate. We will share meals and I will introduce you to my friends," you neighbor answers. "Ah, then you will try to convert me!" the gay man responds, "no thanks."

"Well," your neighbor says, "I admit I am not supportive of your life style, but you are welcome at my table, and to join with me and my friends. We love to tell stories when we meet. We talk about a man who came, was crucified, and rose again. A man who ate with sinners. A man who didn't ask about your sin but welcomed all to drink of the living water. We all get thirsty but I can ask of you nothing more."

As you watch you see your neighbor pick up the gay man and carry him to the hospital
___________

Is this what He died for? He died for you and me, dead in our sins, to restore us to love God and to love our neighbor, regardless. The hope that sustains and is eternal is here today, Easter Sunday. Be Blessed.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Going Deeper Living in the Paradise

In another wonderful sermon this past Sunday, Matthew recounted for us that powerful image of Jesus on the Cross. As our Lord heard the thief denounce the doubting thief, and ask Jesus to remember him when He came into His Kingdom, the Lord assures him that this day, the thief would be with Jesus. Notice the timing of all of this. Jesus had not yet risen, that is Easter, this was what we call Good Friday. This was the blackest of days, the day it seemed like all that is evil and all that is wrong triumphed. Yet, on that day, the thief was promised Paradise - not in a few days or in the future, but the Greek clearly translates the response as being today. Is it possible the Kingdom has come? Yes. Recall when Jesus was being accused of casting out demons through the power of Satan? In Luke 11:20, Jesus tells His accusers that "but if it is by the finger of God that I cast out the demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you."

The response by Jesus points us to a new reality - one that has not existed on earth since the days of the cherubim with the flaming sword guarding the entrance to Eden. At that time, due to the Fall, we, all of humanity, became alienated from our Creator. That separation was not going to be healed without a death and a starting over - indeed the history of the Israelites showed that in our version of the salvation drama, there was no salvation merely drama. The thief displayed faith, and that faith was not simply an attitude or an intellectual acknowledging Jesus is the Christ, but the faith of the thief was his realizing that something remarkable was happening with the crucifixion of this man who was the Son of God - that is the death to self and yes to Jesus the Christ.

Yes to the tearing of the curtain and the restoration of the primal relationship. Yes to the realization that the Kingdom had begun, and God was opening wide to all those who say yes in faith to join Him in His mission of reconciling the world to Himself. Yes to the truth that we have no role in the salvation drama developing, that no amount of good works would ever be sufficient to gain entry, nor that any amount of good works after the emergence of this new Kingdom would be enough to maintain our place within this drama as salvation is a freely given gift and not the result of a mutual contract with any quid pro quo - the thief could do neither.

So, for us who remain in the meantime, what are we to do? Let us consider coming to an understanding that we have been called to join in His mission of reconciling the world to Himself, and part of that may very well be living out Micah 6:8, living missionally as led as He extends out His Kingdom until it is fully realized with the return of the Son.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

GOING DEEPER WITH FORGIVENESS

As we approach Easter, Matthew's sermon last Sunday pointed us directly to that ultimate act of forgiveness, the Cross of Christ. In order to go a little bit deeper, maybe looking at the place of forgiveness for people who have come to faith in Christ will be helpful. Somehow it seems like we believers in this post modern culture have forgotten the necessity of forgiveness as a Christian practice.

Today when we talk about forgiveness it seems so much is focused on the therapeutic value of forgiveness – how forgiveness does great things like lower blood pressure, acts as an antidote to bitterness and resentment, or how forgiveness, along with prayer, helps us heal quicker. But all this really translates to nothing more than the drive to make us feel better about ourselves – we forgive because it benefits us – it is something we do for ourselves only.

Now I am not saying forgiveness isn’t all of those things, and that forgiveness should not be something we do because it is of personal benefit, but that seems to me to be missing the mark. This type of forgiveness can be done by the world very well thank you and if we limit ourselves to this type of forgiveness only, we really aren't being that salt and light. To go a little deeper means we have to see forgiveness through the eyes of Jesus. I have this sense that Jesus didn’t give out forgiveness because of the health benefits, whether physical, mental or spiritual, He would get. As Matthew noted in his sermon, the very first words Jesus uttered from the Cross were “forgive them Father.” Rather obvious no benefits were coming.

In my little rant (Frustration at the Intersection) I talk about what the Atonement really means. The Cross wasn’t simply about Jesus taking the wrath of the Father for the sins of humanity, though surely that was an essential part of the Cross. Rather, I see the Cross as being the only means of restoring fallen, and worsening, humanity to righteousness – or right relationship with the Trinity. So being in right relationship means we are now given the gift of participating in the divine life of the Trinity, and that includes being able to join in the mission of God in His redemption and reconciling the world to Himself, in His way and in His time. Being a people who forgive, and forgive freely as a gift to be given out, means we get to become that alternative society within society, and that we are able to empty ourselves of ourselves so that the Spirit may dwell more fully and we become receptive to the mission of God.

Pope Benedict invoked one of the most powerful images of forgiveness in the NT. In his rebuke of the Irish bishops and their terrible handling of the priest abuses, he recalled the image of Jesus writing in the sand before the woman caught in adultery. Let the one without sin cast that first stone. It struck me in that reading that the opposite of forgiveness is judgmentalism.

In the divorce support ministry, sometimes people will ask how I know I have forgiven. My sense of forgiveness is that it is real when we realize the person we are in the process of forgiving, may not only join with us in that mission of God in the here and now, but that person may very well be with us in the New Jerusalem for all eternity.

Saturday, March 20, 2010

FRUSTRATION AT THE INTERSECTION OF THEOLOGY, ORTHODOXY AND MISSIONAL

At times the frustration level is high. An admission, I enjoy theology a great deal. Maybe that is something God had in mind when He called me over a decade ago in my middle years. I have this sense that if we are to be a people living for and by Jesus, on the ground, that is in the concreteness of living in this world every day, we must come to an understanding of what it means to be a community, not merely of people who do good things, but an enfleshed community of followers of Jesus.

My frustration is with, at times, the over-intellectualizing of the Gospel, and part and parcel of the Gospel is coming to an understanding of theology and orthodoxy, that is the study of God and the formation of right thinking about God. As for my frustration for instance, I was browsing a theological blog, the post was about the atonement, the meaning of the Cross, and a line I read in one of the responses suggested using an Augustinian realist anthropology when considering the question of Jesus' solidarity with humans. Respectfully but what?

But countering that frustration is a seemingly adamant refusal and lack of understanding of theology and resulting orthodoxy. On that same blog, the Augustinian reference was an effort to respond to another posting to the effect that if Jesus is now alive in Heaven, His death was just an illusion and there never was a real sacrifice. That response went on to urge a view that the atonement makes sense only if we think of Jesus more as a human and less as immortal God. Respectfully but what?

My sense is that if we understand our calling as living, and learning to live, out the Gospel message that was and is Jesus, and proclaimed by Jesus, not only on Sundays but every day in the world, we, both individually but more importantly as the church, must enflesh that Gospel. That generates both social and justice impulses in the culture we find ourselves in (Micah 6:8, CEV with my amplifications, "The Lord has told us what is right and what He demands: see that justice is done, that is do justice not demand justice for me, let mercy be your first concern, that is for others and not solely a cry out for mercy for me, and humbly obey your God"). The mission of God is an attribute of God - not just an activity of the church. In Jesus that mission became a living concrete reality that we have been invited in join in.

That does mean that while I may not quite grasp that Augustinian realist anthropology, I do get that the Jesus I worship is the Son of God who is both/and fully God as well as fully human, who died a real death and who was raised from the dead. I don't want to suggest we listen to lectures and read and study heavy duty texts but we must do theology sufficiently, and within a missional context, so His life, sacrificial death and resurrection become not merely historical events in a book we call the Bible, but are living realities we need to come to understand (that is, do theology), however dimly as we are able to on this side, but an understanding that is profoundly necessary to live embodied lives.

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Missional and Inclusivity

I was reading the comments to a blog post on Reclaiming the Mission about a missional understanding of inclusivity. The points made in the main post were pretty well thought out and the conclusion was powerful - regarding forming a posture of inclusion, as opposed to developing a concept of inclusion. Does away with my concern for the inherent tendency, in my view, of over-intellectualizing theology (we are all theologians, and therefore theology - the study of God and the Gospel - should not be performed on a stage by trained seminarians with the audience being "entertained" and/or "enlightened" but theology is concrete performance involving all the people in the theater).

One of the comments spoke of the Pharisees, arguably practitioners of harsh exclusivity (sort of the forerunner to the current day form of "conservative evangelicals" - btw, seriously dislike the combination of those terms as it seems to me more of a statement of one's political views than a general label for one's understanding of Jesus, but that is for another day). Back to the comment, if missional is about a posture of inclusion, and I take that to mean that all are welcome to the table, then entry to the table means joining a community of believers whose practices consist of engaging in the continual formation of not only a lived but a living theology, but also a continued formation in the practice of that very posture

As a missional believer, then should I understand the comment by Jesus as not simply woe to you Pharisee, rather, it may be understood as woe to you Pharisee if you continue to be blind. Come to the table, join the community of faith, and be formed all the while growing in and resting in the new relationship with your God. The inclusivity is not simply saying all are welcome and we don't care what you did or are doing now, rather the inclusivity is an invitation to join in the lived and living out of being with God and being shaped by, and being formed to respond to, His call in His work of reconciling the creation to Himself.

Monday, March 8, 2010

Going Deeper - Great Risks

Thanks to Rev. Jordan for his sermon this past Sunday. He had me doing a continuous amen! As I sought to do for last week's sermon, I hope to go a step deeper and do some thinking about how to make the discipline part of everyday life and not just a Sunday worship thing, or for that matter, a practice that comes out only in times of crisis.

If I understood Rev. Jordan correctly, if our purpose is to please God, and surely that is a primary purpose, the how we please God is by walking in faith - and that means walking in faith even when it is of great risk to us. Now I suppose that idea of great risk does not necessarily or solely translate to life-threatening or dire circumstances (obviously for us here in NA, but acknowledging quite a different situation for many others outside of NA). For us, great risk may lie in the direction of being considered foolish by the world's standards or by other believers who see Christians as being bound by the standards of the world (though not all but some).

I am not certain walking by faith means keeping our eyes on doing what is "right" and performing good works and working hard to accomplish great, or even just good, things for the Kingdom - as righteous as that appears at first blush, or even by being better people (by that I mean sinning less). I am not convinced our great God is concerned about efficiency, effectiveness, and frankly, about us transforming the world (my thinking is that has been already accomplished at Calgary) and quite frankly I'm not sure I would want to live in a world that was transformed in the manner I thought best, however sincerely I prayed about it.

Maybe just maybe our awesome God is more concerned about a people who listen to His voice (John 10:4). Eugene Peterson in the Message says it rather bluntly in Matthew 7:23-23, "knowing the correct passwork- saying Master, Master, for instance - isn't going to get you anywhere with me. What is required is serious obedience - doing what my Father wills."

And I have this sense that God will ask us to do things that make no sense to those who calculate the effectiveness of their actions or how absurd and ill-fitting the request may be - whether in terms of the economics, the outreach numbers and such things or will ask us to do things we think are impossible - like Rev Jordan being on the other end of middle age and being told to go back to school - but He is remaking His world (God is reconciling the world to Himself - again Peterson says it well in his The Message, God put the world square with himself through the Messiah.... God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God's work of making things right between them, in 2 Cor 5:17-22) and He is looking for people to join Him in that journey - regardless of how crazy or impossible the command.

So walking by faith - obeying the voice - means entering by faith into that world where it is His voice that we hear and obey, where we with fear and trepidation work out our salvation for it is God who is at work in us for His great pleasure (Phil 2:12-13 in the ESV). But a big note of caution, listening is not a solo enterprise either.

Monday, March 1, 2010

Going Deeper in Pray (2/28/2010)

Another great sermon from Matthew (2/28) on great prayer. The 4 points about prayer are awesome and clearly direct our focus when praying. What I hope to do is to maybe take a step deeper into the topics as they come, and reflect a little on how to make the discipline a part of everyday life. For isn’t that the real issue, making what we learn something that spreads out from Sunday morning worship to the rest of our lives. To do that I will raise up a question, think about that question and toss out a thought about a way of life. Hoping for some push back on all of that down the road.

That first question – why pray at all? I have heard it said that God knows what is going on right now, and God knows what is coming down the road – unless you are an open theist but that’s a topic for another day – so what use is prayer. For some of us the answer is pretty prompt and succinct. We need to pray because the Word commands us to pray and we don’t need more than that to engage in the practice. I surely am not in a position to deny that truth. I think, however, it may be something to consider both for evangelizing down the road but also just maybe thinking about that question will make us go a little deeper into prayer and what it does to us. As well a final caveat, no way are these thoughts exhaustive, but simply an idea that may need to be filled out, and again hoping for some push back and growing.

Here goes.

My thinking goes prayer isn’t about asking God to do us a favor – now that may sound a little harsh in one sense, but somehow approaching God in this way seems like we are acting as though God were some sort of magic talisman so if we get the combination right, our wishes come true. However, I do recognize that prayers for supplication have occurred and have been answered (a great story of a prayer for supplication is with Hezekiah and what seemed to be a final illness and Hannah’s prayer for release from her barrenness).

My thinking is that prayer isn’t about reciting a formula. Repeating a formula week after week really gets us nowhere, and somehow I have this feeling God finds it boring and maybe a little offensive to hear unfelt recitations of praise week after week (here we can think of praying the Lord’s Prayer, the 23rd Psalm or the Nicene Creed). However, I do think there is a certain power arising from a liturgical practice, or if you will, engaging in some spiritual disciplines.

My thinking is that prayer isn’t about looking pious or more Christian. Here, the first picture popping up is the Gospel narrative about the Pharisee praying and the tax collector beating his breast, and asking for forgiveness.

So why pray?

Maybe prayer is about being in conversation and being in relationship. There is something more about prayer than supplication, recitation and being pious, though prayer does, at times, involve all 3 of those things. But if I understand Paul correctly, and his admonition that we are to be in prayer constantly, then engaging in continual supplication, or performed a mindless recitation, just doesn’t seem to really fit or be something we would do unceasingly. Though we all know someone who does in fact do that (and as I make that statement I am intentionally avoiding any room with mirrors).

Maybe prayer is about becoming empty. Maybe prayer is about giving up the fears we have to God, so prayers of supplication are vital, but we are not necessarily praying to get the right answer or get God to do us that favor. Maybe prayer is about offering up praise, about acknowledging He is God and we are not but not stopping there (though I do think there is that powerful need to be trained and that has a lot to do with prayer but that is for another day). Going deeper, maybe by emptying ourselves of our fears, and acknowledging He is God, we become receptive. By pushing out beyond ourselves, there is now room for the Holy Spirit to speak to us – because being in conversation means being open to the other and engaging in a series of listening and speaking. Maybe God is seeking our conversations - wanting for us to be in constant relationship. Maybe that is why we need to be in prayer.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Doing Church

Philip Yancey quotes a Paul Tournier, a Swiss physician and pastoral counselor, who observed, "there are two things we cannot do alone, one is being married and the other is to be a Christian." While acknowledging that this is not necessarily the same as doing church, I get the feeling that Tournier was indeed suggesting being the body is essential to being Christian. Yet, gaining a great deal of currency today is the significant and often severe criticizing of the church - with the target aimed at so-called megachurches, but including within the firing line the idea of an institution known as church, a church that appears politicized, and churches that just do worship wrongly (e.g., entertainment versus worship/discipleship/teaching). I was browsing at a Borders and came across a new text by Philip Gulley called 'If The Church Were Christian.' Like right between the eyes there.

Now far be it that I deny that church as we do it here in the US is perfect, or rather, as perfect is really not even on the table of possibility, I will not take the position that the way we do church, while varied, nevertheless could stand some criticism and improvements along the way - I mean if we view salvation as an on-going process, why shouldn't the body of Christ also be seen as something that must also be in process until He returns? Now that will be a time of perfection, and I think finally realizing what is identified as the holy catholic and apostolic church in the Creed. Criticism isn't something all that new. Bonhoeffer made a great statement about church - now I think if you want to talk about seriously flawed, he had to deal with some really outrageous stuff, but he observed, "we must allow ourselves to be interrupted by God. God will be constantly crossing our paths and canceling our plans... sending us people with claims and petitions. it is a strange fact that Christians and even ministeries frequently consider their work so important and urgent that they allow nothing to disturb them."

I guess for me the key item here is whether church is necessary - or can we be the Christians without it? To look at the Word seems to put that question to rest rather quickly (Matthew 16 seems to me rather explicit on the point and the Acts history seems to strongly suggest weekly meetings/gatherings was the rule). Looking at Yancey again, he suggests, "how can we sense God's love now that Jesus has ascended to the Father? One New Testament answer centers around the 'body of Christ,' a mysterious phrase used more than 30 times. Paul especially settled on that phrase as a summary image of the church. When Jesus left, He turned over His mission to flawed and bumbling men and women. He assumed the role of the head of the church, leaving the tasks of arms, legs, ears, eyes and voice to the erratic disciples - and to you and me."

Maybe the next time we look to offer up a critique, we might ask whether there is another way, and a way that can be said to rest on the Word, but beyond that, is this other way able to avoid the flawed and bumbling that is sure to follow. Maybe the question to be asked isn't whether doing church as we do church is right or wrong, but whether we have eyes to see and ears that are listening to know when we are being flawed and bumbling and maybe we can as a community hear the Spirit talking to us so the Spirit can guide us on to a straighter path?

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Walking and Good Works -

A little late in coming but here goes.

What if we didn’t really concern ourselves with the idea of what we were going to be doing was a good work or not? What if we took the position that we are going to walk as the Holy Spirit directs us? Now that does raise the question of discerning the voice of the Holy Spirit as opposed to what our internal voice wants us to do – that I will get to in a minute. Here’s what I’m thinking. If we walk as the Holy Spirit directs us, isn’t it entirely accurate to view the results coming off of that walk as a good work. Otherwise how are we able to avoid missing the boat?

Ever since I first read this comment, it has stuck with me, and frankly, sort of haunts me as well. Philip Yancey, in What's So Amazing About Grace at 15, recounts a conversation with Gordon MacDonald, pastor and former spiritual advisor to President Bill Clinton, wherein MacDonald observed: "The world can do almost anything as well as or better than the church. You need not be a Christian to build houses, feed the poor or heal the sick. There is only thing the world cannot do. It cannot offer grace."

Now I’m not suggesting that grace alone is a sufficient guide – though certainly it is a factor that goes into the whole mix, but I am thinking about discerning by community, and in particular a community that spends time in prayer, in listening to each other, hearing the voices that are recognized, again a community thing, in the study of Scripture, that is populated by people who have and will submit to each other, die to ourselves?, and seek out a common agreement. I’m not saying going solo isn’t the right thing, as I am sure the Holy Spirit will call, when He determines, on a single person to walk in obedience, and the splendor of the Triune God will shine through the walk of that one person, but thinking on a general basis, and on a more corporate basis, the church walks as a community, like a body – recalling Paul’s powerful metaphor – to focus on the walk and not the “good work.”

Just some random thoughts generated by Mike’s sermon. God Bless.