Friday, December 23, 2011

God's Hopeful Future (Isaiah 9:1-7): Practicing Righteousness

I believe that Christmas holds the promise of a better world. It sparks my imagination to wonder what a world reigned by peace, justice and righteousness would look like. In the Nativity scene, I see a rare moment where there are no boundaries between people, and no boundaries between people and the life-changing presence of God. It's pretty darn cool, if you ask me.

So, let's let the imagination fly. What would my world look like governed by righteousness? What would I look like governed by righteousness?

I think my anxiety would be lower, because my trust in God would be higher. Abraham's righteousness was in his trust of God's promises, so it stands to reason that righteousness would show up in faith.

Because my anxiety would be lower, I would be more open and welcoming to the people around me. My marriage would improve because I could honestly and thoughtfully communicate. My friends would feel valued by me in every conversation. My church would know my love for them. Strangers would feel like family, because I wouldn't fear anyone.

Because I would be more hospitable, I would naturally get more passionate for those on the margins, for those who do not experience hospitality by general society. In other words, I would be active in justice. My life would be community-oriented because my perspective would be like God's.

What would your life look like if governed by righteousness?

Thursday, December 22, 2011

God's Hopeful Future (Isaiah 9:1-7): Practicing Justice

"Let justice, therefore, be in your heart, that justice which comes by faith, for this alone finds glory with God." - Bernard of Clairvaux, Christmas Day Sermon, circa 1140 AD.

"The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice." - MLK

"Justice is what love looks like in public." - Cornel West

When I think of justice, I think of heroes that can be seen in movies and read about in books or comics. Now I was never really a comic book collector, preferring James Bond to Batman, but the iconic images of good fighting evil stick in my mind. In James Bond, Agent 007 is always in a struggle for justice; and justice always looks the same- the bad guy is defeated and James Bond walks away. See enough James Bond movies, 23 to be precise, and you get the impression that justice equals punishment against bad people. And so when God is described in the Bible as just, it only makes sense that we applies God's justice to punishment. But is that the Biblical perspective on justice?

I think God's justice goes farther than simple crime and punishment. I think God's justice goes to setting up a new way of being in the world. God's justice, as Cornel would say, is what love looks like in public. So justice happens when people are taken care of, when people are protected from harm. Certainly, punishing those who would dare to harm others is part of government's role in promoting justice, but that's not where it ends. Justice is far more about what we are creating than what we are destroying.

So how do we practice the kingdom of justice in our world today? When you look at your community and say, "I am responsible for doing my part to make this the best community it can be," you are taking an important step. Food pantries, HelpLink, Habitat and other programs are all about creating and fostering this kind of community. Helping a neighbor get transportation because they struggle driving in the winter is a way to promote justice. Checking in on someone who is lonely is a way to promote justice. Watching a neighbor's children so they can get to the job interview is promoting justice. Justice is doable, it just means taking our love and going public. May justice, as Bernard would say, be in our hearts this week.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

God's Hopeful Future (Isaiah 9:1-7): A New Kind of Peace

The first picture we get of Imperial Peace (my term from Sunday morning) is in 1 Samuel 11. Nahash, an Ammonite King, lays siege to an Israelite city called Jabesh. Now in those days, Israel was not united and would often encounter these sieges. Nahash offers piece to the people of Jabesh. They may have peace, as long as they gouge their own right eyes out and shame themselves before everyone. But, if they did this, they would have the protection of the Ammonites. Saul, the new king, unites his people by destroying Nahash.

In every day and age, there is a power that promises peace for a dreaded cost. Today, I believe, that empire is our own consumerism. It promises peace and meaning, if we ignore the slave labor used to make our products or the relationships (including families) that get wrecked by the endless pursuit of more stuff.

In Hebrews 2, we find that there is a similar power behind all of these forces- the fear of death. And it is that power that Jesus came to confront. And so we will look, for the remainder of the week, at peace, righteousness and justice, the three aspects of Christ's counter-kingdom.

Peace is a word thrown around a lot. And I think most people are for peace, generally, unless there is some profit behind war. But in our lives, we yearn for peace, at least that's what I hear as I talk to people about our current season. Yet I think we chase after a lesser form of peace.

Sometimes we define peace as being conflict-free. This works as a definition, but conflict is a natural and necessary part of relationships. To not have conflict is to not have relationships. And nobody wants that.

I think what we truly yearn for is peace that is deeper than being conflict-free. I think true peace, shalom, wholeness, is handling conflict in a different and better way. Forgiveness, we find in the Bible, is the pathway to peace.

Christmastime is a season where family and friends get together, and often there is some underlying conflict between family members. Allow this to be a season of reconciliation and forgiveness. Dare to forgive someone near you. May you experience the peace of Christ this week and always.

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

God's Hopeful Future (Isaiah 9:1-7): A Series Gone Horribly Awry

Sometimes, a sermon series grows a life of its own and gets beyond my control. Most of the time, I believe this to be the work of the Spirit. Sometimes, it is human failure of focus that God uses despite my best efforts. Advent is usually (I note the irony that I have only been a pastor for three Advents) a controlled burn for me toward Christmas Eve. My series is set, and I hold back until a Christ-drenched lightpalooza on Christmas Eve. Even weirder is that this series was set since July or August of this summer. It started innocently enough, with the claim that Jesus is the exact representation of God's being (Hebrews 1:3). But somewhere in the intervening weeks, something went... weird.

I can cast the blame a few directions. Much of what I said in this series was inspired by a life-clarifying book called "Simply Jesus" by NT Wright. His work on locating Jesus in a culture and context (both then and now) is insanely good and I found myself amening (if that can be a verb) 99% of the book. I can blame the Saturday Morning Men's Bible study, since our meticulous study of Luke has cast a light on Jesus' care for the marginalized and excluded. What is good news for us on the outside looking in? I can blame the work I have done with HelpLink in recent months, for reinforcing the point above and forcing me outside my comfort zone to wonder how the Kingdom of God interacts with the kingdoms of our planet (and it does... more than many Christians give credit. I have seen the Spirit at work in government agencies, non-profits and churches alike. While we as the Church are signposts of the Kingdom, God's activity is too big to limit to only us).

And so, what happened Sunday morning, is that I said exactly what I didn't think I would say on the Sunday before Christmas - there is something wrong with the way things are. The fear of death has empowered empires from Rome to modern consumerism to crush the soul of the world. And with the birth of a child, these empires react and rage. And yet, in the birth of this child, the empires are brought to their knees by a Kingdom of heaven. And now that Kingdom is unleashed, shaping a new kind of world organized by peace, justice and righteousness. I realized that Jesus never waged war on the Romans or any other empire because it isn't about the government or the powerful people. It's about the forces that are at work within every human being to either be life-giving or life-denying. The Bible is full of stories of God's people being life-denying and "the outsiders" becoming life-giving. I don't understand it all.

So here I sat at home, realizing that the series wrapped up and went horribly awry. I have my blame in order, I have my conclusion, but I do not sit at ease.

Welcome to Advent. This is the season that God took the script and made it go horribly awry. Confusing expectations, re-shaping our understanding of the Biblical story and generally making a mess, Jesus enters the world. Christmas may be about comfort and joy, but Advent is about waiting, wondering and being not-at-ease. It is a time to confront our (oft-too-small) images of God and watch them get transformed and blown up a little. If the reward at the end of the journey is a day to celebrate our union with Christ, I pay the price gladly. May your script go horribly awry as we prepare for Christmas joy.

Saturday, December 17, 2011

God is Self-Giving (Hebrews 2): A New Kind of Joy

The weeks leading up to and following Christmas are all about joy, right? If we were to believe the rampant commercialization of Christmas, we would believe that this season is all about joy- mostly the joy of spending money and receiving gifts, then returning those gifts for what you really want. Even McDonald's has started marketing their premium coffee beverages as "My Comfort and Joy" (stealing from "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen," my favorite Christmas carol).

This would a recent development in Christianity, if indeed the shift to "a season of joy" is Christian (it probably isn't). Most of our history, this season has emphasized the "not yet" part of God's plan. That is, this is a time to recognize that God's plan is not completely finished yet. While Jesus did say "It is finished" on the cross, there is another "It is finished" to come (Revelation 21:6). Advent, or the season before Christmas, is when we recognize this fact. And anyone who is looking at an empty chair this season already knows that longing. Many of us, however, eat and spend our way into oblivion, trying not to think about such things.

Jesus embodied a couple things. One is the joy of the Lord- "For the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of God" (Hebrews 12:2). Jesus also embodied suffering and longing (Hebrews 2:14-18). For a long time, we have separated those things. Joy and suffering do not stand by one another in popular understanding. Yet in Jesus, there was a certain level of joy that existed in the midst of suffering.

Sometime, sit down and read the parables. Many of them are quite bizarre, and I think Jesus winks a little during them. Parables often poke fun at the powerful and lift up crazy situations. These parables often tell profound truths with a little humor attached to them. I also notice that people in helping professions can have the best sense of humor. Sit down and talk with a funeral director sometime. Great people with tremendous joy, despite being surrounded by suffering. For some of us, joy seems like an optional extra. For people who stand with others in times of suffering, joy is a survival trait. That kind of joy, I believe, can only come from God (after all, joy is one of the many fruits of the Spirit). And as it comes from the Spirit, I believe it comes in unexpected times when we stretch our faith and capacity. So as we creep (or rush) closer to Christmas, I would encourage you to stretch out a little and find the unexpected joy of Jesus. Here's to joy!

Thursday, December 15, 2011

God is Self-Giving (Hebrews 2): Trojan Horse

One of the most famous stories in all of mythology is the story of the Trojan Horse. The Greeks are invading Troy but are unable to get past the walls around the city. And so they hide within a large horse statue and present the horse as a retreat present, a kind of prize from the loser to the winner. But when the Trojans go to sleep, the Greeks slip out and destroy the city. It's a famous story that has spawned parodies and battle strategies across the world. And yet, the whole plan seemed so fragile. What would happen if the Trojans rejected the gift and burned the large wooden horse? The entire thing would be ruined.

The New Testament uses a fair amount of battle images. I don't see my life as a battle, nor do I consider myself a spiritual warrior. I don't think the New Testament is primarily a war manual, but a creation manual. However, I do believe that there is a purpose to the scattering of battle images in the New Testament. Jesus, in particular, wages a particular war in His earthly life. Who is the enemy? Hebrews 2:15-16 tells us that it is against the devil, who holds the power of death. Truly, the battle is an anti-death one.

Becoming human would seem like a poor way to wage this battle. Much like hiding in a wooden horse might make you a bit vulnerable, so also becoming a human being would seem like an unnecessary vulnerability. After all, God doesn't die. People do all the time. So why would Jesus become a human and enter the arena at a disadvantage?

As best as I can tell from Hebrews 2, Jesus is far more concerned about helping people than being comfortable. Jesus volunteered for suffering and temptation so that He would stand next to people suffering and tempted.

In the season of giving, I take from this the Philippians 2 attitude of Jesus. May we all be shaped not only by Jesus' vulnerability in coming to face death on death's terms, but also may we model Jesus' vulnerability in giving of ourselves this season.

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

God is Self-Giving (Hebrews 2): One old guy you should definitely know

The Church has existed for 2000 years, twice that if you trace our heritage to Abraham. And that history is peppered with sinners and saints who have amazing (and horrifying) things in the name of Jesus. Some of them are worth knowing. Athanasius is one of those guys. Frankly, we celebrate Christmas because of him. Christmas was not a holiday recognized right away by the Church. In fact, it took a few hundred years to be recognized. Easter, by contrast, was celebrated almost immediately (in the context of Passover celebrations and as a part of regular worship). Today, we couldn't imagine a church year without Christmas. When our country was founded, several Christian churches banned the celebration of Christmas. And people talk about a war on Christmas now! But that's a topic for another day, let's focus on Athanasius a little bit.

Athanasius wrote a book called "On the Incarnation of the Word." It's a good read, although it struggles from issues of translation (like any translated book would). In it, Athanasius takes us on a deeper understanding of our salvation from the Christmas story. The Incarnation, God taking on human skin and bones, is a necessary part of the salvation story- not only because this makes Jesus a better sacrifice, but because God loves creation and entering creation was necessary to save it.

"He became what we are that he might make us what he is."
Athanasius

What do you think? Why was it important for Jesus to be fully human and fully divine?

Friday, December 9, 2011

God Never Gives Up (Hosea 11): The Dramatic Story

The Exodus is a dramatic story. It involves an oppressive empire, a small group of people standing up against that power, some dramatic miracles and eventually freedom. The story of the Exodus is the story of a people, a hero, a villain, and ultimate purpose. It is the kind of story that Star Wars and Lord of the Rings pattern themselves after. The Exodus story itself is told within a pattern that stretches to our earliest storytelling forms (the hero's journey). The drama and power of the Exodus story is why the 10 Commandments are played every year on TV, and why we care if the film gets the story right.

When Matthew 2 quotes Hosea 11, I believe Matthew is trying to show us that Jesus fits squarely into a dramatic story of Exodus, temptation, wilderness and inheritance. Allow me to draw out those comparisons once more.

Israel's Exodus:
Context of suffering (slavery and mass murder)
Mighty miracles (plagues)
Pass through the waters (Red Sea)
Encounter with God (Mt. Sinai)
Enter wilderness (temptation)
Failure to succeed against temptation
Get to edge of inheritance (Jordan River)
Exodus Generation (including Moses) not allowed to enter the inheritance

Jesus' Exodus
Context of suffering (Roman occupation and mass murder- King Herod)
Mighty miracles (Star, Angels, Virgin Birth, etc.)
Pass through the waters (Baptism)
Encounter with God (at the Baptism)
Enter wilderness (temptation)
Success against temptation
Gets to edge of the inheritance (Gethsemane and the cross)
Passes through the waters (a symbol for death- Romans 6:4) again
Enters the inheritance and becomes heir of all things (Hebrews 1)

While there are several parallels between the Exodus of Jesus and the life of the Church, I will not necessarily draw them here. I don't because, realistically, we do not have our own Exodus. We are united to Christ. In passing through the waters of baptism, we are united with Christ in faith because of Jesus and His work. When we pass through temptation and fail, we are not disbarred from the inheritance of Christ, because we are in Christ. While the comparisons of the two Exodus' may look nifty and may seem academic, this is the foundation of grace.

"There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." - Romans 8:1

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Hosea 11 (God Never Gives Up): Whose Plans?

Hosea 11:7 "Even if they call to the Most High, He will by no means exalt them."

Israel was a unique place in the world because it had the Temple. At the Temple, heaven and earth were brought together in one place. The structure of the Temple was a journey through the moments of creation as well as deeper into the mystery of God. At the end of the Temple, there was only darkness and God (much like things were at the beginning). Jerusalem was the center of the world, which explains why even modern maps have Jerusalem at the middle. The Temple was a truly unique place.

Sadly, having the Temple within their boundaries gave Israel an unfounded sense of control over God. As long as they had the Temple, they felt like they could do anything and received God's blessing. Hosea, along with several prophets, denied this false belief.

Sometimes, we as Christians get the same impression; that is, that God exists for us rather than us for God. A journey of discernment sometimes gets replaced with a magical sense that God is just going to bless our plans.

The prophet still speaks to us today. May we always be mindful of how God is at work and follow God in God's plans, rather than have God rubber-stamp our plans.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

God Never Gives Up (Hosea 11): Running from the Good

Hosea 11:1 begins with a beautiful statement of God's parental love toward humanity.

And it is directly followed up with a heart-wrenching declaration of humanity's flight from God's love.

"But the more I called Israel,
the further they went from me.
They sacrificed to the Ba'als
and they burned incense to images" (Hebrews 11:2)

For a little perspective- Ba'al is not just the name of another god, it's also an ancient word for "husband" (yes, heavily patriarchal, but run with me on this). If you were to change the names around, this could be the plot of a romantic comedy. "Hopeless romantic Billy loves Ursala, but she loves Randy, the bad boy down the street." Except this is hardly a comedy. This story gets more and more tragic.

The Ba'als do not make good boyfriends. Ba'alist worship encouraged self-mutilation (see 1 Kings 18) and sex trafficking (Ba'alist worship involved heavy prostitution and often that was forced onto slaves). Whereas God is the one who lifts the yoke and leads with kindness (Hosea 11:3-4), Ba'al is a merciless god who leads with coercion and violence. So... what is so tempting about Ba'al? Why keep running back?

According to Thomas Hobbes, life is "nasty, brutish and short." We become conditioned, even traumatized, by the harshness of the world, and eventually we allow it to define us. And Ba'al offers a single narrative to explain it all, "you're not doing enough." You don't visit the temple enough, you don't give enough, you don't inflict enough pain on yourself. If you would only put a heavier yoke of suffering on, you would experience blessing.

God frees from the yoke and leads us with cords of kindness into a great mystery. In this mystery, joy can even break forth in harsh times and can bring us peace. If you find yourself running back into the arms of a cruel master this morning, this word is for you:

"Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom" (2 Corinthians 3:17).

Friday, December 2, 2011

Jesus is the Perfect Picture of God: The Kingdom is Now

"After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven." - Hebrews 1:3

"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me" - Jesus, Matthew 28:18

Check out this story here from NPR. In it, Julio Diaz gets mugged. Instead of handing over his money and calling the police, he invites his would-be mugger to lunch. He spends time with this guy and hears his story. In this story, there are two kingdoms at work.

One is the kingdom of the air (Ephesians 2:2)- a satanic system strips a young man of resources and dignity. And so he acts out of despair in that system and puts himself in jeopardy to get a little money. There's nothing the prince of the air likes more than despair and isolation. When people feel alone and desperate, the short term gain often takes precedence over the long-term reality.

Then there's the Kingdom of Heaven. A moment of clarity, a moment of recognizing that while this young man has been traumatized by the prince of the air, he is not the prince of the air. He's a human being. And so Julio invites his mugger to dinner and talks to him. And, in that moment of clarity, the Kingdom breaks in to both people's lives. The mugger gives up his knife, the tool of the prince of the air. Who knows what will come of this story? All I know is that the King is on the throne, and the King is at work.

I think it's horrible that stories like this even have to exist. I think it's tragic that systems are in place that perpetuate poverty and minimize hope. I think it's tragic that human brokenness, within systemic brokenness, live out of despair rather than hope. But I think that we have given the prince of the air too much credit. I think we have allowed ourselves to think that the prince of the air has complete control until Jesus returns. Alas, this is not true. The King is on the throne. And the King is higher than the prince. While the prince of the air has power, the King has more. I think what we witness today in a world seemingly bent on destruction is not that the prince of the air is winning. And we assume that people who make poor choices active agents of the kingdom of the air, and we are the kingdom of Heaven out to crush our human opponents.

I want us to consider another perspective. I want us to remember that our struggle is not against flesh, it is against powers and principalities, or systems (Ephesians 6:12). Our struggle goes deeper than "good guys" versus "bad guys." And, it's our struggle. The King is on the throne and has appointed servants to carry out the King's work. That's us. We shouldn't be asking why someone would be so "bad" as to mug somebody. We should be asking why the Church isn't caring for a teenage boy on the streets of New York City. This is our work, this is what grace prepares us for (Ephesians 2:8-10). So when these stories arise, I get reflective and ask "How am I, Christ's ambassador of reconciliation, working to make stories of compassion the norm until stories of poverty don't exist anymore?" Tough calls, to be sure, but worthwhile ones.

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Jesus is the Perfect Picture of God: Prophets, Jesus and You

"In the past, God spoke to us by the prophets, but in these last days, God has spoken to us through the Son" (my paraphrase of Hebrews 1:1).

The Old Testament Scriptures were divided into three sections. The Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. The Law was Genesis-Deuteronomy and the Writings were Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Solomon and Ecclesiastes. Everything else fit under the prophets. Even books like Judges and Ruth were considered prophetic books by many Orthodox Jews. Still are, in fact. So when the book of Hebrews speaks of the prophets, the author is hinting at far more than the scary books in the back of the Old Testament.

But God, according to this verse, speaks through the Son (Jesus) now. So what is to be said of the prophets. Many different movements are trying to resurrect the idea of the prophet. Charismatic groups speak of prophecy as an active spiritual gift, telling about the future or a truth no one else could know. Social justice Christians speak of prophets as people who actively work against the status quo. Liberation theologians take that one step further and say that prophets are the ones who challenge any system, including the Church, that keeps people in oppression. And to some extent, all of those groups are right.

But if we read Hebrews 1:1 carefully, the prophets seem to be of the past, what Hebrews calls "obsolete" (Hebrews 8:13). Can that be right? Should we abandon the prophetic voice today?

Yes and no. On the one hand, we can get rid of the notion that prophets have to always be right in every circumstance. While a person claiming to speak prophetically against the systems that oppress (I lean more toward the social justice Christian voice) should be careful to speak the truth, one who occasionally messes up need not be stoned (Deuteronomy 13:5). However, we (the Church) are still called to have a prophetic voice. But that voice comes from Jesus, it comes from testifying about Jesus and about what Christ's Kingdom entails (Revelation 19:10). Any place where the Kingdom shares a border with the powers and principalities or systems of a destructive world is a place for prophecy. To speak Christ's love into hate is prophecy. To embody freedom for the captive (Luke 4), feed the hungry and care for the powerless (James) is prophecy. And that is not a call for a few people. A few people will be extreme- they will be gifted for the prophet's work. But anyone who testifies to Jesus is a prophet. And that is the calling of the Church. May we all be led to use our prophetic voice in Christ today and this week.

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Jesus is the Perfect Picture of God: Been There All Along

One question that came up as people began to think about Jesus and interpret His life is: "If Jesus is divine, where has He been this whole time?" So where was He?

Hebrews is one of my favorite books of the New Testament because it takes the life of Jesus and the story of God (from the Old Testament) and adds a ton of depth to it all. This is also why Hebrews can be a difficult book to read- it presumes a pretty deep knowledge of the Old Testament.

In the opening verses, the author of Hebrews lays it all out on the table- the Son has existed since eternity past. The Son was there at creation (vs 2), and the Son has sustained the entire world through His word (vs 3). In other words, long before Jesus was born, the Son of God has been at God's work, preparing this world for the completion of God's plan.

I can apply this not only to the cosmos, but also to my personal life. I don't always acknowledge Jesus and the presence of Jesus in my life. I try, especially in joyful times, to celebrate what Jesus has been up to. But when I don't see Jesus walking the halls and I don't see His face directly, it requires more intentionality. But even when I don't acknowledge Jesus, He is always at work and is bringing heaven and earth together.

How has Jesus been at work in your life recently?

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Jesus is the Perfect Image of God: The Gospel Itself

So you're walking around in the year 14 AD in Jerusalem. It's a normal day. Caesar Augustus is king over all of the Roman Empire, which includes Israel. Suddenly, trumpets blast and everyone is called to attention. A royal announcement is about to be made. The messenger stands in a high place and shouts "The Gospel (Good News) According to Rome! There is a new Caesar, Tiberiuus Augustus! Long life to Caesar, and to Rome!" You have just heard a gospel message. Gospel, in the days of Jesus, was a technical term meaning that either a new heir was born or a new king was crowned. I think the Gospel writers were very particular when they chose the term "Gospel" to describe Jesus. The Gospel itself is a coronation story. Hebrews 1:1-3, our passage from Sunday, describes Jesus in a coronation process. He was not born a king, He did not live a king, but was raised to kingship because of the cross and resurrection (making purification for sins).

That's not the Gospel I so often hear, frankly, and that's a little disturbing. The themes are familiar, forgiveness and purification for sin. But the kingdom part is usually used as a synonym for Church-related stuff. Usually, the Gospel message is that of an evacuation from a disaster area. That is, things are so bad that we need to escape to a "heaven above" to get out of this irredeemable creation. So we get our forgiveness, which is our ticket of entrance, and we get out of Dodge before the real disaster begins.

That's not good news. At least it isn't Gospel good news. That's bad news. If we are waiting for the eradication of the material universe for an eternal existence in heaven, we are looking at the failure of the Creator to sustain material creation. That doesn't sit well with me.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ, however, is that there is a new king in this world. A conquering king, if you will, although his "weapons" are love, compassion and service. There is a man in heaven, who sits on the throne, and His name is Jesus. It is this moment of Jesus' coronation that Isaiah gets so excited about in chapter 9 (click Isaiah for the passage I'm talking about).

This Gospel screams good news. This Gospel is hope, this Gospel is motivation and energy. This Gospel rings true, and I hope it rings true for you as well.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Never Give Up: I need your voice

One of my favorite thinkers, Cornel West, was speaking and a phrase stuck out to me: "I need your voice." Sometimes, as a pastor and a frequent public speaker, I treat the space I inhabit as though it were in need of more of my voice. It is one thing to walk into a situation and believe that my voice is the one that will bring healing, it is another to walk into a situation and believe healing will occur when I can hear your voice.

The truth is, we need each others' voices. One thing that strikes me about Luke 18 is that the widow's voice goes so unheard until the twist ending to the parable. She is on the margins of her society, and her pleas have fallen on deaf ears. She is unheard in a community that is supposed to be oriented toward helping the powerless (Exodus 22:22). Yet, the judge hears her because of her incessant begging.

The parable is one of prayer. If an unjust judge would hear a powerless widow, whose only strength is her persistence and voice, then won't God hear us in our prayers? But we can't pray alone. We need each others' voices. We need voices that will pray when we lack the words, when we lack the ideas, when we lack the faith. We need people to pray for us, not just in the simple platitudes of "I'll pray for you," but in the real moments of our brokenness when we tremble to lift a single word.

I need your voice. We all do. There is no way we can go about the work of God without needing the prayers of one another. Sometime in churches we give out the message (intentionally or otherwise) that there are two kinds of people: people who do God's work and people who pray for people who do God's work. This is not the case. We are all called to be both kinds of people. How could we pray for God's work without wanting to get involved? How could we be involved and never pray? Indeed, prayer calls us to action; action calls us to prayer. And we need to do both together.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving. May it be a time of togetherness for you.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

God is Holy and Merciful: The pointof it all

I was traveling on Saturday and was unable to post, but I don't feel like I can simply walk away without talking about the third aspect to confession- transformation and re-commitment. After all, this may be the point of confession.

I have viewed, in the past, confession (to God) as repairing a broken relationship. But the more I think about it, my former view of confession can lead in a pretty scary direction; that is, that my relationship with God is ultimately on me. In this view, the death of Jesus is the key that I need to open the door. It is of no surprise, then, that confession became a source of power for religious authority and fear in the hearts of Christians everywhere. But is that what confession is about?

I lean heavily on last week's post about identity. If my identity is truly that I am claimed and united to God through Jesus, and if I believe Paul that nothing can sever that connection, then is it possible that our confession is what is necessary to set our relationship with God right again? I believe so. I believe that our unity with Christ doesn't change, despite our actions.

So confession, then, is something different. I believe that confession is about transformation and becoming more like Christ. If we don't go back and get honest about our pains and afflictions, our disobedience and our "junk," it won't get healed.

Imagine going to the dentist. I know, it's painful for me too. But imagine going and having the dentist ask you "Have you been brushing and flossing?" You lie and say "All the time." The dentist turns and says "Okay, see you next year." Would that be effective? No, the dentist would take a look anyway and catch your dishonesty. And then will come the cleaning. The same thing works with confession. God knows our junk, and remains united to us anyway. Our honesty opens us to healing.

Healing is our eventual transformation. At the dentist, our teeth are cleaned and we are given a lesson on the importance of oral hygiene. Before God, we are forgiven and God (though the Holy Spirit) begins to shape and teach us a new and better way of being. May we all seek that way as we go about our lives.

Friday, November 18, 2011

God is Holy and Merciful (2 Chronicles 6): Hearing Who I Am... Again

It is amazing to me how often the Bible repeats itself. Kings and Chronicles are two perspectives on the same stories, the crucifixion shows up in four books of the Bible, and the 10 Commandments show up in two places. It seems as though we human beings need a constant reminder of some things. One of the things we need constant reminder of is our identity.

Most of our learned identity is through two words: "Good" and "Bad." No matter what the identity is, you can be "good" or "bad" at it. I'm a good student, a bad auto mechanic, a pretty good kayaker, a pretty bad basketball player. We can be good citizens, bad consumers, I think we all get the point. Our identity is wrapped up in good and bad. That includes Christian. We think of ourselves as good Christians and bad Christians, and develop a set of criteria to judge whether or not we (or others) are good Christians or not.

Take a moment and do a Bible search for the phrase "Good Christian." Don't worry, I'll wait. If you want to speed up the process, just click this link for the results of a Bible Gateway search for "Good Christian."

Fascinating, eh? Something we worry about so much is not at all on the Bible's radar. In fact, when Jesus is called "good," His response is that only God is good (Mark 10:18). So why are we so fired up about good and bad?

God has other words to describe us: "God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved" (Colossians 3:12), "A chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God" (1 Peter 2:9), and others fit into a similar vein. Take this opportunity to reread 2 Chronicles 6. Over and over again, Solomon refers to Israel as "Your people;" that is, God's people. You are God's. You are not defined by your actions, you are defined by God. So when we get honest and declare before God the comfortable and uncomfortable truth, we are not forgiven because of how sorry we feel or how earnestly we want to "do better." We are forgiven because we are God's. And in that, I rest today.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

God is Holy and Merciful: The Importance of Being Honest

Being honest is hard. Well, sometimes. I am a mostly honest person, I think. I tell the truth to a reasonable degree. But the kind of honesty involved in confession is not just about giving a truthful answer when asked a question, it's about digging deeper and asking the real questions. In 2 Chronicles 6:29, Solomon describes this deep truth-telling: "each one aware of his afflictions and pains, and spreading out his hands toward this temple."

That kind of truth-telling is so hard. I could blame the dog-eat-dog world out there, or the society gluttonous on private information, or a myriad of things. But the truth is, I'm just scared sometimes. I shudder at the idea that I wouldn't look good, and tremble to think that my swirling mass of doubts and insecurities could possibly be known to the world.

And those things keep me trapped exactly where I am today. I can feel it in every aspect of my life that is changing. I can feel it when I have a conversation about HelpLink and poverty reduction in our county (Come on, Andy, you aren't qualified to be doing this). I can feel it in the midst of trying to become a better leader, pastor, husband, friend (Think of how many times you have screwed up already). And to be honest, sometimes knowledge is incriminating. When I learn that my way of being is harmful to others, I secretly wish that I could go back to before I knew anything. At least then I wouldn't be faced with the harsh prospect of change. I don't want to be aware of my afflictions and pains, sometimes. I mean, I do, but the ramifications are recognizing the impact of what I do and then trying to change.

If being honest is hard, change is even harder, but that's for another day. For today, I want to just note that when I say "be honest," this is not coming from a place of mastery. I don't come as a confession expert. I have taken some risks, yes, but I am also on the journey of becoming more and more honest myself. And it seems like every time I find a place of affliction, another one crops up. But I also believe that God is near and that I can walk this path, relying not on my strength but God's.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

God is Holy and Merciful: Kneeling Up Front

2 Chronicles 6 details the dedication of the Temple, a proud and glorious moment for Israel, who has struggled with obedience and is short on proud and glorious moments. Yet, even in this great moment, there are things that Solomon does which just baffle the mind. In proud moments, we like to think of ourselves as standing strong. You never see a State of the Union address delivered kneeling down. In fact, our current president continues to take criticism for bowing to other world leaders (years ago). Kneeling is not a good sign, now or ever. Yet this is the posture Solomon chooses.

If I believe that Solomon was the wisest man to ever live (behind Jesus), then he must have had his reasons. And indeed, I believe that a lot of leadership comes from the posture of kneeling, even kneeling up front. Leaders are supposed to be strong and impenetrable. In the movie U-571, when a new submarine captain admits he doesn't know the right answer, only to be chided by his second-in-command for looking weak. We always need the right answer, and we need to always stand on our own two feet. This is to our detriment, I think. Solomon isn't afraid to kneel up front.

Leaders are people who have influence over others, whether that influence be in the context of family, church, community or business. If you have such influence, I would invite you to kneel more often. Remember that we are not kings and queens with our own little monarchies, but stewards of a great gift God has given us. And let that be known, let it be known that you are seeking after Christ and His Kingdom, let it be known that you are seeking to align your life in God's ways, and let it be known through your humility. Dictators use God's will as a hammer to their opponents, servants seek God's will as a corrective to their own. May we all find ways to humbly kneel up front this day.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

God is Holy and Merciful: Does God really dwell with us?

One of the central features of Biblical spirituality is that God would dare to dwell with us. If we don't have God-with-us, we don't have much of a faith story to tell. In fact, all we would have is a set of morals and virtues to compete with other sets of morals and virtues. But we have far more than a moral guideline for right living; we have the audacity to claim a God who is close.

The Bible begins with God walking with the people in the Garden of Eden. It transitions next into the people fleeing from the Garden and the dance begins. God draws near at different times. Enoch, a character in early Genesis, is said to have walked with God. Noah walked with God. But God does not seek to walk one-on-one with us, God seeks to walk with us in community.

And so Abraham is called and his family walks with God to the Promised Land. They get detoured, and time turns the family into a nation in bondage. God calls Israel out of Egypt to walk with a pillar of fire and a cloud of smoke to the Promised Land. During that forty-year walk, they build a tent for God as a resting place. When they cross into the Promised Land, they build a permanent building in the Temple. And when it was completed, the people of Israel couldn't imagine it getting any better than that. A Temple where the nearness of God could be experienced was quite amazing. How could you get better than that?

God was not finished, though. Soon, God would dwell not in a beyond-belief building, but in a manger. Advent is only a couple weeks away, the time where we celebrate that the God of the universe would be fully present in Jesus Christ. If Solomon found it hard to believe that God could be confined to a building, imagine how he would respond if he knew that God would walk around as a person!

But that's enough from me, how about you- what does it mean to you that God would dwell with us?

Friday, November 11, 2011

God is Generous: Eat and Have Left Over

In 2 Kings 4:38-44, the passage ends with incredible hope. What started in famine, ends in abundance. It is a great pair of stories. And then there is the mysterious end where there is leftover food. Leftovers are common in the Bossardet home, especially as we approach Thanksgiving. We have tons of food leftover, which promptly goes into the refrigerator and feeds us for the next week and a half.

But what do you do with leftovers in the desert? What do you do when you don't really have food storage? Bread can last a little while, but the prophets were constantly on the move- where would they store it?

The reality that in the ancient world, as well as the developing world, only the wealthy can afford to store food. Jesus tells a parable about a man who builds huge barns for himself to save for the future (only to find that he is going to die that night in a tragic irony). The rest can only take enough for the journey. The prophets' meeting was almost over, and they had a ton of leftover food. What to make of this leftover food?

It's for the journey. God's people are always to be equipped for a journey. Beyond comfort zones and corner offices (I have both), the Christian path is a process that will take us to our real-life neighbors and to the ends of the earth. The leftover bread was walkin' food, and a sign that the promise of Jesus is true: that He will be with us, even to the end of the earth.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

God is Generous: "Give it to the people"

In 2 Kings 4:38-44, there is famine and scarcity in the land. Famine and scarcity lead in one direction -> despair, which is the ultimate collapse of being and overpowering helplessness. The answer to despair is to build a sense of normalcy, in whatever way possible. Despair is powerful because it is kept in the dark. People are uncomfortable with despair. It is depressing, and scary, and sometimes we treat despair like it is contagious. And so the depressed are sometimes isolated by friends and family alike, which is only exacerbated by the isolation caused by depression/despair. Indeed, despair leaves us in the most vulnerable place- alone.

To counteract despair, societies develop values within cultural framework. Some cultures develop rituals to deal with despair, and some cultures try to hide despair. Sadly, the culture of middle-class America is in the latter camp, and it is the culture in which I live and move and have my being. We compensate for despair by promoting safety and security. If you can afford it, your house can be isolated from your neighbors and their messes. You can install attached garages and door openers so that you can move successfully from your car to your home without the risk of talking to someone else. If you are in a hurry, you can check yourself out at Meijer so that you won't have to deal with the person behind the counter. We can sanitize almost anything, and we can find dozens of products to enhance our safety and security.

Here's the problem. Safety and security don't exist. They are perceptions, but nothing more. They are impossible dreams, illusions that break down to the harsh scrutiny of reality. Chasing the dream of being fully safe and fully secure is meaningless because it will never happen. Isaiah 55:1-3 says this:

1 “Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost.
2 Why spend money on what is not bread,
and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.
3 Give ear and come to me;
hear me, that your soul may live."

"Why spend... your labor on what does not satisfy?" asks the prophet. In 2 Kings 4:38-44, Elisha offers one solution to the idol of safety and security: "Give it to the people." Generosity is a deep part of the Christian tradition, an act that reflects the creative and sustaining power of God. And so I would invite you to consider generosity as part of your spiritual life- being generous with our time, our money, our home and our energy.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

God is Generous: On Being a Prophet

The two stories found in 2 Kings 4:38-44 center on the prophets as main characters, with servants of the prophets acting in as characters as well. Prophets are some of the main characters of the Old Testament, people filled with the Holy Spirit who lived radically different from the culture (even the God-following culture). Today, people use the term "prophet" to gain power or credibility (especially in cult circles) or as a way to denote that the speaker is saying a fundamental and unpopular truth. Mostly, the prophet is considered a special role in the Church, and one that only a few select people are called to.

And this is partially true, but only partially. Jesus embodied the three great offices of Israel (prophet, priest and king) completely. And we, as Christians, now share in the royal, priestly and prophetic call of Jesus Christ. I refer you to the Heidelberg Catechism's definition of a Christian:

Question 32. But why are you called a Christian?
Answer. Because by faith I am a member of Christ and so I share in his anointing. I am anointed to
confess his name, to present myself to him as a living sacrifice of thanks, to strive with a good conscience
against sin and the devil in this life, and afterward to reign with Christ over all creation for all eternity.

I share in the anointing of Jesus- which means that I am meant to be a prophet as well. But what is a prophet?

A prophet is someone who speaks and lives the truth, which is the character, heart and purpose of God. It goes beyond being honest, it goes into living out God's character and power in your world. In a world of famine, we speak of plenty, for example. Human nature, however, defies truth and prefers lies. We deceive ourselves and others, putting on masks (look to the sections on "Don't Just Do Something, Stand There") and taking the world at face value. God, however, looks beneath face value and embraces the world at the deepest levels.

To be a prophet is to be deep; not just deep in yourself, but deep in who God is and what God wants for your life. What do you think God wants for your life?

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

God is Generous: Famine

On Sunday, we explored the way we view the world- famine and scarcity or abundance (in God's view). I want to explore abundance through God's eyes, breaking away from the middle class view of abundance that equals safety and security for me and mine, but I will save that for later. Our passage opens us with famine, and so that is where we ought to begin.

Famine is a complicated subject in the Bible, because many famines (including probably this one) were the result of the people's disobedience to God. Nowadays, internet personalities and pundits claim that every major natural disaster is a result of some specific group or another. Interestingly, no one ever stands up and says about a hurricane, "Yep, that was me, sorry everyone." It's usually the others' sins that produce disaster. My sins produce nothing more than an interesting story to tell later. And so we have shrunk back from the connection between God and natural events. However, that shrinking back will inevitably remove from our minds the Biblical witness.

We are co-creators with God. When God created people, we were given stewardship over the land. It was our job to tend to the garden and tame the wilderness, to care for the animal species on the planet. When we messed up that stewardship, God did not take back that responsibility and power. What God did, in Genesis 3, was to say that it would get harder for us to do that which we were created to do- take care of creation. Famine usually happened when God's people turned away from the source and tried to "do it on their own." And so they created a world without God- a world of famine. Interestingly, our heavily commercialized world is seeing a dramatic increase in famine. The Sahara Desert, for example, is growing about 30 miles per year to the south. This is unprecedented growth. Desert growth contributes to poverty, mass migrations (into slums) and even wars. Many people believe that the liquid which will begin WW3 will not be oil, but water. We are living in a world of increasing famine, and we as the people of God have to stand up and say "we're sorry, we did this." It is the people of God who are given first responsibility to the land.

Think of this on a small scale- our own family lives. How many of us live in a land of famine? Not enough time, not enough energy, not enough intimacy in our relationships? And how often do we contribute to the famine by adjusting to it rather than taking our God-given power to change it?

So let me ask you- what would it take to reverse a famine? Are we ready and willing to do what it takes?

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Meeting with God: Your Will Be Done on Earth as it is in Heaven

Here's a great story I once heard/read from Peter Rollins:

A novice passes through a town on his way to prayer. He meets a couple and they beg him to bring their barrenness before God. The novice asks God to give them a child, but God tells him this is not their destiny.

A few years later, the novice stops by the couple’s house. They introduce him to their three children. They explain that after he left, another devout man stopped by and prayed for them. Shortly thereafter, they conceived their firstborn.

The novice brings his confusion to God, who remembers and laughs.

“That sounds like the work of a saint,” God says, “because they have the power to change destiny.”

When I first heard this story, my Reformed theology alarm went up and I thought, "Change destiny? Are you serious?" But as I thought more and more about this story, and it worked its way through my delicate filters and into my heart, it began to work some changes. I think about this story in the light of "your will be done on earth as it is in heaven," and it reminds me that there is a gap between the way God intends for the world to be and the way the world currently is. That gap is where injustice and emotional scars live, where disobedience meets insecurity, that gap is sin. And, left unchecked, what would the end of the world look like? What would your life look like if nothing changed from here to eternity? I don't know about you, but a destiny where nothing changes is worrisome. Transformation is where I find life and celebration, stagnation is where I find frustration and cynicism. But God changes destiny. God enters into the world, through Jesus and the Holy Spirit, and creates a brand new future.

So, as one of my favorite teachers would ask, what is your destiny?

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Meeting With God: Your Kingdom Come

Why did Jesus come to earth? If you are a good Protestant like me, you answer the question something like this: "Jesus came so that He would die on a cross to forgive our sins." True. If we read the Gospels carefully, we find that the Gospels really focus on the crucifixion. Paul can't escape the importance of the cross in his letters. I will not diminish the importance of the death and resurrection of Jesus, nor will I minimize the importance of forgiveness. What I would like to do is frame forgiveness in a greater context- the Kingdom.

Mark 1:35-45 gives us a framework of what Jesus came to do. Jesus is healing tons of people, but tells His disciples that He has come to preach. The content of Jesus' preaching was, at the core, a declaration that the Kingdom of God has come (Mark 1:14). The desired response- repentance, which opens a pathway to transformation. Forgiveness is key in the Kingdom and in repentance, for it is the promise of forgiveness that acts as the siren song to a broken heart. But "me and Jesus" forgiveness shrinks the Kingdom to a one-on-one transaction. What is interesting about the Mark passage is that Jesus leaves from saying that and is face-to-face with a leper. Jesus touches the leper and is declared unclean- meaning He can't go into the villages to preach for a week. Jesus' ministry is more than spoken word, it is spoken word matched with action.

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19)

This passage is Jesus' introduction in Luke, and is a fitting description for the Kingdom. Good news to the poor, freedom for the prisoner, recovery of sight for the blind, release of the oppressed, and the year of the Lord's favor are all elements of the Kingdom. Jesus repeats this way of thinking in a discourse right before the crucifixion (Matthew 25:31-46).

In my former way of thinking, salvation was that I was saved "from" something and the rest of my life was convincing others to join the path. But as I am increasingly confronted with Jesus, I am realizing more and more that I have been saved "from" something and "to" something- the good works prepared for God's people (Ephesians 2:8-10). What have you been saved from? What have you been saved to?

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Meeting with God: Our Father in Heaven, Hallowed be Your Name

Question 120. Why has Christ commanded us to address God: "Our Father"?
Answer. That at the very beginning of our prayer he may awaken in us the childlike reverence and trust
toward God which should be basic to our prayer, which is that God has become our Father through Christ
and will much less deny us what we ask in faith than our human fathers and mothers will refuse us earthly
things.
- Heidelberg Catechism

I like the word basic in that question and answer. Basic can sometimes mean simple or easy. Other times, basic can mean foundational. I think this use of basic might be the latter. After all, our adoption into the family of God through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus is mysterious and complex, defying simple explanation and metaphor. It is also true that our adoption into the family of God is foundational to our relationship with God.

Family is inescapable. As I sit and write this, people are talking in the coffee shop about their associations and business relationships, which appear and dissolve all the time. Contracts are made and contracts expire. Friendships grow distant and cutoff. But there's something about family that leaves a permanent impact and remains despite the challenges.

Family is vulnerable. Nobody knows you like family. Nothing is as nerve-wracking as the first time one brings a boyfriend/girlfriend to meet the family. Family has all the embarrassing photos and the awkward stories. Family knows all of our growing pains and temper tantrums. And yet, when done right, family has the grace to embrace all of the ups and downs and holds together.

Family is human. There is something fundamentally human about families, a mix of love and brokenness. People emerge from families with tremendous strength and scars as well. That's why the Lord's Prayer includes the "in Heaven" clause. God does family differently. God, as the Divine Parent, nurtures and cares in ways both similar and dissimilar to human parents. Radically different is that God does not mess up. God does not abuse. God does not neglect. God does care. Radically similar (yet higher) is that God does instruct. God does earnestly seek our growth and maturity. God wants the best for the family.

Today I celebrate not only the family I emerged from but also the family of God that I have been emerging into as well. May our prayers enter into the embrace of the Father in heaven, hallowed be God's name.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Don't Just Do Something, Stand There: A Future Without Me

"Anxiety is a result of envisioning the future without me." - Sarah Young, Jesus Calling

I don't know about you, but this quote hits me right between the eyes, and it speaks directly into the story of 1 Samuel 3. Eli was promised in the previous chapter a world without him. In fact, even the future he found in his family would be taken away. This anxiety must have greatly disturbed Eli, and drove him into a place of resignation and apathy. Samuel, on the other hand, represents a non-anxious world. He becomes more well-known, and God blesses Samuel. None of his words fall to the ground, which means that all of Samuel's words are infused with meaning and hope.

I find myself in the shoes of Eli sometimes. A lot, in fact. One of the processes I have been undertaking in the past several months is to ask the painful question: "What am I really afraid of?" If my worst fears come true, what will happen?

Answer: I'm alone. I'm in a world without me; or perhaps better put, a world with only me. That's a scary thought. And the fear of being in a world without me drives some of my actions. I get apathetic when I should be fired up, I resign myself to a lesser way of being because I am afraid that to risk a better way of being will lead to isolation. One of my favorite groups, The Bravery, has a song called "Believe." In that song, these lyrics haunt me:

I am hiding from some beast
But the beast was always here
Watching without eyes
Because the beast is just my fear
That I am just nothing
Now its just what I've become
What am I waiting for
Its already done...

Fear is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If I fear isolation, I will not risk vulnerability and the possibility of being abandoned, which will lead to my isolation. "The beast is just my fear that I am just nothing, now it's just what I've become..." is a perfect description of the power of fear.

But in Jesus Christ, there is a perfect love that drives out fear (1 John 4). In Jesus Christ, there is the promise that we will never be in a world without us (John 14). In Jesus Christ, there is strength for today and hope for tomorrow. So how is that love going to drive out our anxiety and fear?

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Don't Just Do Something, Stand There: Laying in front of the Ark

Frankly, no image from this passage strikes me just the way Samuel laying in front of the ark does. What did you want most when you were 10 or 12? If you are anything like me, you craved comfort. Knowing your parent or guardian was right around the corner, being safe from all the sounds a house can make, and one's favorite blanket (maybe I'm channeling Linus from Peanuts fame). Somehow, I think Samuel craved the same things. And to be honest, what more comforting place could there be than the place where God is?

There is a danger in approaching this side of spirituality, the side of finding refuge in God. That danger is that our emotions can sometimes control our sense of spirituality. If we don't "feel it," then we are in a bad spiritual place or disobedient. When we do "feel it," then we are in a perfect place beyond reproach. And so we become dependent on our feelings to dictate our spiritual health. Emotions are important in spirituality, but not as a controlling force. To be honest, if I only laid down before the ark (took time to be with God and God alone) only when I felt like it, I wouldn't do it very often. And if I gauged my "quiet time" on my emotional satisfaction afterward, I would be a horrible Christian. I might be anyway, but it won't be my emotions that tell me that.

All in all, laying in front of the ark and desiring closeness with God is not about emotional highs and satisfaction, it is about a lifestyle of nearness with God. And if a 10 year old can cultivate that kind of nearness with God, I think I can too.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Don't Just Do Something, Stand There: Open Them Doors!

There is a ton of contrast in 1 Samuel 3. One of my new favorites is the light in the tabernacle. The tabernacle was designed that the room where the ark was would be completely sealed off- it would be dark. It was meant to be dark, with only a small lamp to light the room. This was the lamp of God that was going out. That lamp was a symbol- Israel's faith was about to go out and it would be replaced by total darkness. It was on the eve of the end that Samuel went to sleep in the Holy of Holies (or the Holiest Place). But while sleeping, Samuel is called by God and everything begins to change. A new day is born, and hope has been reborn. And so Samuel throws the doors open to the tabernacle, flooding it with light.


The opening of the doors has a couple meanings. The first meaning is that light has now re-entered the tabernacle. God has "come back" in a pretty big way.

But the other meaning, the one that tugs at my heart, is that now the Word of God can explode out and into the world like a rushing wind. It calls to mind this prophecy of Isaiah 2:
In the last days

the mountain of the LORD’s temple will be established
as chief among the mountains;
it will be raised above the hills,
and all nations will stream to it.

3 Many peoples will come and say,

“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
to the house of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us his ways,
so that we may walk in his paths.”
The law will go out from Zion,
the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
4 He will judge between the nations
and will settle disputes for many peoples.
They will beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
nor will they train for war anymore.

5 Come, O house of Jacob,
let us walk in the light of the LORD.

The light is meant to go out. The Word is meant to travel. God's presence is for the sake of the world. It is not contained in cathedrals or house churches, chapels or coffee shops. The light is meant for every dark place, beyond the comfortable and into the tragic, beyond the easy and into the complicated, beyond the safe and into the adventure. You are the tabernacle now. The Kingdom of God is in you now. Open them doors, and unleash a wild and crazy Kingdom of God on the world.

Friday, October 21, 2011

The LORD your God, the LORD is One: It's a process

I have a longstanding relationship with patience. It is not a healthy one. Patience is always nagging me, and I'm always telling patience to stop talking. If we were two people in a relationship, we'd need counseling. However, Deuteronomy 6:4-9 calls me to reconcile my broken relationship with patience. Following God, it seems, is a process. In waking, sleeping, traveling, staying home, having a family, on my doors and gates, faith is a process that is fairly consuming. This means, if I am truly to believe it, that I am on a pathway that leads closer and closer to God. Perhaps nobody reading this today struggles with shame, but I do. When I make mistakes, I think to myself "Why can't I be better than this!?!" Believe me, it's not helpful. I see my mistakes and disobedience as completely bad and as things that lead me farther from God. But are they? If it is true that my errors lead me away from God, then I am usually one step forward, two steps back. I'm farther from God than when I first began! But if my sin, my errors and my mistakes can be used to draw me closer to God, then everything's different. Then I can celebrate my learning, I can celebrate God calling me to a higher place- a better place. I can celebrate that God draws near to me in those times and, through the Holy Spirit, speaks clearly into my life at those times. Christians over the centuries have practiced various kinds of confession- and sometimes confession leads us to the guilty places and makes us feel that we are drifting farther and farther from God. Imagine if confession looked like this, "God, today I celebrate that in spite of my impatience, you teach me that you have a plan and that to you a day is a thousand years. Thank you for the grace to make this mistake and the encouragement to live life differently." This still takes our disobedience seriously- since we recognize that there is a cost to disobedience. And it takes forgiveness seriously- since we recognize that God is more interested in our growth than our guilt. What do you think?

Thursday, October 20, 2011

The LORD our God, the LORD is One: There's an app for that

Confession: I have an app for everything. Apps, or smartphone applications, have recently become the thing that has overcome my life. Now, many of them are good. I recently paid a bill the moment I remembered it from my Huntington app. I can add stuff to my calendar even when away from my computer. I even have swap meets with other iPhone users (some of whom read this blog regularly... you know who you are) where we compare the newest and greatest apps. As for me, I mostly get the free ones, but there are so many good free ones! I have 500 Bible translations in one app, a devotional, three or four news sources (everything from ABC to BBC) a few games, and social networking apps. My current favorite app is TED- which provides great ideas and new thoughts. It's fun. The fact is, there is an app for just about everything. In the four months I have owned an iPhone, apps have affected most aspects of my life. Even as I write this, I am texting on my phone and it is providing me live updates to my social networking (not that I am a huge fan of the live updates... but that's another conversation). And the weird part is, I am usually very excited when a new app comes along that fits into my life and makes it easier. Then I come back to Deuteronomy 6:4-9. Sometimes I wonder if I don't treat God as my iPhone, finding new ways that God can fit into my life. And then God is my newest and favorite app. But as I read Deuteronomy 6, I find that God does not fit into my life, but I fit into God's life. And how cool is that! Seriously! My life is one small existence, the Bible emphasizes that my life is like the morning dew. But God's life is an epic life of creation and redemption, of reconciliation and justice, of holiness and awe-inspiring intimacy. And although God is perfectly content in the Trinity, and is perfectly capable of running the universe without us, God invites us into that life. God invites us beyond ourselves and into something eternal. And so what would my life look like in God's? Now is as good a time as any to reference Robert Webber, author of "The Divine Embrace: Recovering the Passionate Spiritual Life." He has a whole chapter on our life in God's life, and he connects the life-in-God to a disciplined life. And at first, that could be off-putting. Isn't a disciplined life just another way of saying "you have to earn your place with God?" He argues it isn't. After all, we are all fairly disciplined people. We are just disciplined to the life we are currently living. Every day we live out promises that we have made, consciously or unconsciously, of who we are going to be. Transformation, therefore, is changing to promises and disciplines that we live by. It is not simply adding tasks to our day, it is slowly, subtly and powerfully changing the kind of person that we are. How is your life lived in God's?

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

The LORD our God, the LORD is One: My Greatest Treasure

This will be another confession post. On Sunday morning, I preached on the shema (Deuteronomy 6:4-9) and I described God as our greatest treasure, worthy of our heart, soul and strength. And as the sermon sat (and continues to sit) in my belly, I am stuck on that word treasure. I will confess that it occupied much of my run yesterday afternoon- I sang songs from childhood about treasuring God. And yet, something about that phrase "treasure" rings hollow. It's not that I don't believe that God is our greatest treasure- I do. I just examine my life and wonder what it would mean to treasure God. You see, when I think of the word "treasure," I imagine a child opening that one gift they really, really wanted on Christmas morning. I was totally that kid. I'd go nuts, jumping up and down excited for the one toy I really wanted. Here's what is also true- my "treasured" gifts were given to Goodwill or sold in a garage sale long ago. My jumping up and down was always a precursor to the inevitable disappointment when all the gifts were given and opened, and there were no more treasures for me. Perhaps I need to re-think treasure. When I think of treasure today, I really think of people. I think of my wife, whom I treasure. I think of my family and friends, whom I treasure. I don't jump up and down, per say, when I think of them. I think of our history, of the difficulties we have overcome, of our great moments together. And what I think of most is that they are never too far away- either a phone call or a walk home. And if that is truly treasure, then God is my greatest treasure. When I am really excited, I share my joy with God. I occasionally dance- but not in public. When I am grateful, God shares in that moment with me too. When I am frustrated, you better believe that God hears about it. When I am disappointed and burned out, God is the refuge I collapse into. Now certainly, I do not do these things perfectly all the time. But when I can go to God with anything, I know that God is my greatest treasure, beyond any material or spiritual blessing God could give me.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

The Lord our God, the Lord is One: Love and Times of Recession

It is no secret that times are tough for a lot of people. My situation is unlike that of many people. Whereas 2008 marked severe disruption in people's careers and livelihoods, 2009 marked the beginning of my career. Thus, I have been insulated from the harsh reality that a lot of people have now experienced (and are continuing to experience). I can pay my bills, put some money away in savings, and I view significant drops in my retirement account with a certain amount of *shrug*. After all, I probably won't draw on that until after 2050. We will probably be ruled by the apes by then, and I won't need to worry about it. But I know that my experience is a limited one. For many, as exemplified by Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party, these times are ruled by bitterness and cynicism rather than hope and trust. I will admit my own cynicism contributes as well. The bitterness and cynicism has been amplified by the fact that people are busier. Being laid off or unemployed is hard work. Navigating a support system, finding new and meaningful work, handling the stress and pressure is a full-time endeavor. For those who are still working, and trying to do twice the work as before, life is becoming busier and busier. Doing what we love, frankly, is becoming a luxury. And when we give up the things we love to support the people we love, we add just a little more bitterness and resentment to the pot. Movements begin to give people a united cause- blame. Children absorb this bitterness and resentment, leading to bullying (a different form of blame) and a rise in child/teen suicides. It should shock and disgust us that children are even aware of suicide- but now it's just a headline, like all the other suffering. And we get more bitter, and we blame more. And in the middle of all of this, the clarion call echos from Scripture- love the LORD your God with all your heart, soul and strength. What if our heart is broken, our soul is crushed and our strength is running out? Does God possibly want this busted offering? This would be a good place for me to turn on my "pump up" music and encourage us to follow the words of Nike and "just do it." But the reality of life is that you're told every day to "just do it." The God of the Bible doesn't seem to me to shrug off difficult circumstances and say "buck up and do it." Instead, the God of the Bible comes to us in our brokenness and our bitterness, our resentment and our resignation, and seeks to be our refuge. Sometimes, loving God with heart, soul and strength is found in service; other times, however, loving God with heart, soul and strength means collapsing into God. In all things, as it says on the door of a chapel in Stauton Harold (England), it means "to have done the best things in the worst times."

Friday, October 14, 2011

The God of the Spirits of all Humankind- the Holy Spirit and spiritual gifts

When I was a young(er) Christian, I was introduced to the idea of spiritual gifts. I was so excited- God, through the Spirit, gave me a gift that uniquely fit me. Given my battles with accepting uniqueness (see yesterday's post), it was neat to know that I could grab my spiritual gift and charge into the life God had for me. And so I took "the test." For those who don't know, there are multiple tests out there to see what one's spiritual gifting might be. And I took mine and found my top 3 spiritual gifts. And guess what? Nothing happened. I think that there are many people who learned a lot about themselves and about God through spiritual gift tests. But there is a reason I have never pushed for them in our church- I don't necessarily think they reflect the Biblical reality of the Holy Spirit. When I read back over Joshua's story in Numbers 27, God lifts Joshua up because the Spirit is in him. Everything else- the leadership, the authority, the blessing of Moses, comes later. God does not lift Joshua up because he is a leader, God makes Joshua a leader because God chose him to be a leader. I think that we find our spiritual gifting not through standardized tests, but through participation in God's mission. It is when we take our steps of faith and commit ourselves to God's purposes for the world that we find our gifting. And our gifting is not permanent. Indeed, there is nowhere that indicates that God gives gifts once for all. In fact, they seem to be given in the moment. Some gifts may hold on, but others happen because the Spirit is doing something that we are unable to do. This tells me something. One, it tells me that God created a Church because of the mission, not created a mission for the Church. God raises up leaders, raises up disciples, raises up a community because God has a plan for this earth that is greater than the track we are currently following. God did not call a group and then give us busy work. And so when we are actively engaged in the mission, God equips us as we walk. One of my favorite Cornel West quotes describes faith as taking a step onto nothing, hoping to land on something. That "nothing" is the mission, the mystery of how we are going to do greater things than Jesus Christ. The second thing this passage tells me is that I ought to be pushing myself to take risks. After all, if I am fully capable with my natural skills to do everything I am currently doing, then what do I need God for? So why do you need spiritual gifting today? What is God calling you to do that is beyond your current skills? In that, you may just find your spiritual gift.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

The God of the Spirits of all Humankind- Embracing Uniqueness

One of the best conversations I ever had went something like this... Me: "Is that something loose coming off your truck?" Dude: "No, it's tied down, why?" Me: "We are in (unnamed town near my hometown of Holland, known as hillbilly country). I don't want to pull over the car and hear dueling banjos." Dude (while laughing): "There are days I am surprised you are going to be a pastor. And I love it." I look back on that conversation with some pride. In the dude's mind, a pastor represented certain traits and tendencies. Controlling, judgmental attitudes and a refusal to walk alongside people are among the traits that were expected among clergy. And there are plenty of examples to reinforce that attitude. And I have had to work through all of those things. I can be pretty judgmental, and the anger that comes from that is not among my more attractive features. However, God has given me victory over some of those things in my life and I have been able to drop some of my former judgments and love people. But what got me was not a pride of "I'm better than others," but a celebration of my uniqueness. I like to think that I have embraced uniqueness as a pastor. I'm never in a suit unless at an official function. But I'm also not cool. I'm not an athlete, I'm not really handy around anything, I'm not a good artist or musician, there's a lot of things that I am not. I try not to focus on those things, but the sin of envy creeps in and I wish I could be one of those things. And then I feel guilty for feeling that way, and then I envy people who seemingly don't feel that way. I imagine by this point you can understand the vicious cycle this can present in me. But then I reflect on the God of the spirits of all humankind, and I can embrace my uniqueness more. I am not defined by the things I am not- I am defined by the God who created me, loves me, sustains me and fills me. I am gifted to live out my purpose in God. And while I have thought about what my purpose is, I think it comes down to this: I am created for good conversations with people. I am uniquely created to do this. I am interested in so many things that I can engage in conversation about just about anything. I feel alive when I'm sitting with someone and hearing their heart or their story. I am motivated when great conversations turn into action beyond my imagination. I am willing to look ridiculous if it means that I can build a bridge with another person (just ask anyone who witnessed me play soccer in Kenya- and who witnessed my limping the next day). On my worst days, I wish I could be you. On my best days, I am having good, if not great, conversations where I can share the God of the spirits of all humankind. What's your purpose? Have you embraced your uniqueness in the body of Christ?

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

The God of the Spirits of all Humankind- A Life of Significance

I want my life to be significant. That desire is hardwired into what it means to be a human. Marshall Rosenberg pioneered Nonviolent Communication in the 1960's, which focuses on communication as expression of needs. He listed the need to give life to another human being as one of the most significant human needs. In other words, we all experience the fundamental need to make a significant impact. When I was in Kenya almost a year ago, I talked to people raised in a completely different culture as ours who wanted to have lives of significance. They were young men and women who desired education and training in order to come back to their village and make it a better place. They would not have become rich, at least by our standards. And while they may have been tempted by material possessions, their hearts were on fire for their community. The same fire burns in the hearts of all people. And God nurtures that need with the Holy Spirit. By the Spirit, people are gifted and encouraged to go out and continue the work of Jesus Christ- a life of significance. The problem is that the word "significance" is married in our culture to economic thinking. We use words like "invest" to talk about mentoring. This, by itself, is not bad however, significance can easily be seen in the realm of scale and scope. In other words, significance is celebrity. Significance is being on the New York Times bestseller list. Significance is being heard by thousands of followers online and selling out conference centers. Significance is awards and accolades, the suitable reward for hard work. I think we can only move forward if we take an understanding of significance that is closer to the life of Jesus. One author explains this significance in the "For all, for one" rule. Think for yourself about what should be true for all people, and then help one person with that. All children should have a safe place to be a kid (Mark 9:42), a Kids Hope mentor helps one kid have that space. All people should be growing in their faith and living lives more like Jesus (Matthew 28:20)- Jan starts groups with three people at a time. There should be no poor among us (Deuteronomy 15:4), our Saturday morning Men's Bible Study helps one family at a time. To me, these are stories of significance. They may not be turned into a blockbuster movie, but they embody the truth of God's Word in our world.

Friday, October 7, 2011

I am the God who Brought You- Into the Thick Darkness

Frankly, I am not a dark person. There's a reason most movie monsters come out in the dark, and why haunted houses are always dark, and why we spent so much time on creating lights. Dark is not fun. And then we come to the end of the 10 Words (or commandments) story in Exodus, and God shows up in the middle of thick darkness, and even invites Moses into it. Personally, I would ask for a little "let there be light" so that I could see in the thick darkness. Or maybe I would quote 1 John 1:5 and say that in God there is no darkness at all. On my worst days, I might want to even go and get a flashlight. Either way, at the end of my excuses, Bible quoting and fear, I am still on the outside and not where God is. To be frank, I think we have the whole "God thing" way too figured out. Following God is so tame and nice that it involves no risk and mystery. The only mystery are the Bible verses that make us panic before we silently decide never to read them again- I'm looking at you, Lamentations. There we go, mystery solved. We can move on. I feel somewhat empty by this understanding of following God. It's boring. After all, we never tell stories of boring things. You will never hear me tell a story of the time I drank that glass of water and it tasted just like water. You'd be bored by that story. But when following God, we seem perfectly content to be bored and boring. Instead, I wonder what would happen if we followed the God who invited us into mystery, into being called beyond what our spiritual gifts inventory would tell us to do, beyond the social groups we are "planted" in and into the lives of the marginalized around us. What is the mystery you might be called into today?

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

I am the God who brought you: Wrestling the "Thou Shalt Nots"

"God said it. I believe it. That settles it." Thus is a bumper sticker available for purchase. Before you click the link, please wait. Because there are some deeply troubling aspects to this theology. For one, it presupposes that God does not want us to think. It wants us to pick up the Word, and do exactly what it says, and we'll be fine. Now, obedience to God is incredibly important. However, that way of viewing the Bible also leads to a moralist God. This God does not want to be known, engaged, or united with. This God wants "nice people." The 10 Words are an important part of the Old Testament, and for many good reasons. On Sunday, I said that they begin to paint a picture of the world God is creating. We, in obeying these words, show the world a snapshot of the Kingdom- in fact, a snapshot of Jesus Christ. But why stop at just picking them up and doing them? After all, there is a neat conversation that could be had if we only read a little more closely. The 10 Words are mostly negative commands. But what are we supposed to do instead? If we are not misusing the name of the Lord, how do we appropriately use the name of the Lord? The 10 Words are the beginning to a conversation- Who is God? Who are we to be? The 10 Words are mostly limits, lines that ought not be crossed. I have not killed anyone, but what would it mean to value all life? On Sunday, the bulletin included a worksheet for continued thought, and one of the questions asked you to take one of the "commandments" and state it positively and in your own words. In the comments, I would invite you to share what you learned and how you what you discovered about God in the "Thou Shalt Not's."

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

I am the God who Brought You: Is Salvation Real?

The question above may seem strange, coming from a pastor, but allow me to explain the sentiment behind the question: "Is salvation real?" I see a lot of resignation in Christianity. I see resignation in our personal lives, and I see resignation in how Christians interact with the world. The resignation seems to be that true transformation is not possible, and therefore salvation is a strictly future reality. Nothing could be farther from the truth. When God delivered the Israelites to Sinai and gave them the Ten Words, God was creating something new, this much I said on Sunday. And this new thing was meant to make a difference. It was supposed to model a completely new way of living, and God was going to lead them along. The world was supposed to be different because of them. As we know, the people broke faith and did not do what they were called to do. God then sent Jesus into the world, who did do it, made a tremendous difference, and passed His mission and His Spirit on to the Church to continue His work. And yet... there is tremendous resignation that things are going to stay the way they are forever, until the end of all things has come and past, and so our primary job is to wait. That, and get other people to wait with us. Here is an example. In the book of Acts, when the Holy Spirit came, people were healed, the poor were taken care of, boundaries of language were removed and people experienced God. Today, I most often hear the movement of the Spirit associated with a great emotional experience related to a super-charged worship service. So, it salvation real? Are we meant to experience transformation in this life? Is that transformation meant to change the world? Check out this video from TED. This guy organized a day of peace that even the Taliban honored (there was a 70% reduction in violence on this day). Then let's have a conversation about the possibility of transformation and how salvation is real and experienced. http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/jeremy_gilley_one_day_of_peace.html

Saturday, October 1, 2011

I AM who I AM: Where God starts

The Exodus event, for middle-class white American Christians, is a neat Bible story that acts as a metaphor for Christians to be delivered from sin and delivered to Heaven. However, there is a lot of Christianity that leans heavily on the Exodus story as an organizing story that shapes who God truly is- a liberator, a rescuer in the here and now. Recently, there has been a lot of controversy around the topic of Liberation Theology. Mostly, Liberation Theology has been linked to Marxism and been treated as heresy at best or blasphemy at worst. And while certainly there are Liberation Theologians who have gone outside the realm of orthodoxy (i.e. one liberation theologian I have read could not accept the deity of Jesus), there is a lot we can learn from Liberation Theologians (if we are careful listeners, there are a lot of people we can learn from, but that's another subject for another day). The reality is that God begins among the poor and downtrodden in society. Exodus begins with an oppressed, suffering people who are liberated into a new way of being. Exodus 3 makes it clear that God is starting at the bottom of the social pole. And God performs a very physical and spiritual liberation for the people. This motif continues when God instructs the people to be EXTREMELY careful how they treat the poor. Deuteronomy 15:4 says that in Israel, "There shall be no poor among you." In other words, if the people of God are doing what they ought to do, there will be no need to rescue the poor from the hands of the people of God. And yet, the people of God oppressed the poor (Isaiah 58) and became the Egypt they were liberated from. And so God stepped in and liberated the poor from Israel in exile. And then Jesus came with words taken right from Isaiah: 18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19) Today, it is well known that the poorest countries observe a vibrant (even growing) Church, while the richest countries observe a Church bloated on million-dollar buildings and tax breaks. The Church has lost a lot of its influence, unless you turn to the poorer areas, where revival is happening and people are experiencing what Jesus said when He said: "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the Kingdom of Heaven" (Luke 6:20). What do we do with this knowledge? I am not sure. I am still wrestling with the Kingdom and how God works in the world. That's what I have you here for, to comment and to grow with me. All I know is that if my/our ministries ignore the poor, we are practicing fake Christianity (James 2:5).

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

I AM who I AM: What is God's name?

So a child walks up to you after church and asks you: "What is God's name?" What do you say? "God" was the answer I most typically got. And that worked for me. It probably works for you, too. However, God does have a name, we just don't get to use it too often. Page through the Old Testament, and you will see the Lord and the LORD. Lord is a title that goes back through the centuries. LORD, however, is a coding for the name of God. The name of the Lord is inscribed in the Old Testament as YHWH. However, Jews never pronounce this name, instead saying "Adonai" (meaning lord or Lord, hence the translation of LORD in most English Bibles) or "Hashem" (meaning "The Name," as in "call upon The Name of the Lord"). In Jewish tradition, even around the time of Jesus, to pronounce the actual name of God (except in some circumstances) was equivalent to blasphemy. The Bible itself is a little more ambivalent on using the divine name. The biggest warning we get is to not use the name of the Lord in vain, which is one of the 10 commandments. What's the point? It is awesome that God lets us know God's name. In the ancient world, it was only the high priests and powerful who knew the "secret" names of the gods, and we don't know them today because the priests have all died out. But God does not save His own name for only a few- God desires the name-by-name connection with all. Thinking about this changes the way I think about prayer, and I hope it helps you as well.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

"I AM who I AM" - God as present.

http://pubtheologian.wordpress.com/2010/09/30/the-divine-present/ We are people of the past. We never experience the right now, only the past. Sitting in Kenya, we watched the stars every night. Those stars were millions of years old, and we were only seeing them now. We watch "live TV," knowing that there is a delay of a few minutes between the event and the moment we see them. God is not stuck seconds or years in the past. God is present. Check out the link above to read a commentary from JTS posted by a friend of mine- Bryan Berghoef (pastor at Watershed in TC). Comment below.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

A New Direction for "A Moment With Andy"

Let's be honest. On Sunday morning, I speak for 20-30 minutes on a Scriptural passage and barely can scratch the surface. Many times, people come to me with things they've heard while reading that I couldn't touch on. So... to keep the learning going, "A Moment With Andy" will now focus on other aspects (or "going deeper") on things I couldn't touch on in the morning service because of other constraints (sometimes, something is really powerful but must wait because it isn't part of the thrust of the message). As we experience on a regular basis, Scripture is deep and the aspects of God and humanity that are contained in Scripture are multiplied. Hopefully, this blog will offer an opportunity to readers and church members alike additional insight into our passages on Sunday morning. We are going to try it out, starting next week with Moses and the burning bush - "The God who is."

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

John 6:25-29

The work of God is this: to believe in the One He has sent." - John 6:29 As I write this, I am listening to the song "Expectations" by Caedmon's Call. It describes someone going to a church worship gathering for the first time, expecting to find Jesus and to be made whole. What they find, according to the song, is "An expensive ad for something cheap." Jesus isn't cheap. Grace isn't cheap. The Kingdom isn't cheap. The Kingdom of God is abundant and whole, filling and challenging, a hospital for the sick and sacred. So why would someone walk away with the idea that a church is an expensive ad for something cheap? Here's a couple theories. And they come from believing in the One God sent. 1) Human beings have a struggle trusting in God, believing in the words of Jesus. While we want to believe that the Kingdom God's salvation effort received by faith, we kinda want a backup plan. We want signs, just like the people in John 6 wanted more bread- you know, just to make sure Jesus wasn't using smoke and mirrors the first time. We also have a backup plan of works. There is a line in "Expectations" that talks about a man dressing up on Sunday to blend in so that he won't be "found out." Do we trust that God will accept us as we are? And if we do truly trust in that, what is the fear in vulnerability? Trust is a difficult thing. 2) We equate belief with our brains, when belief in Jesus exercises itself in obedience. In the Kingdom (ushered in by Jesus), we see a new way of living. Jesus commands us to live that way, not to gain access to the Kingdom, but as a result of drawing near to the Kingdom. The problem is, living a Jesus way of life doesn't make sense. Loving your enemies and praying for the people who persecute you is not logical. Another song just came onto my iPod- "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley. The chorus asks "Does that make me crazy?" Loving your enemies makes you crazy. There's the trust. Do you trust that this alternate way of living might actually be a better way of living? Tough questions, I know. But here's the good news- you don't need to worry about being obedient yesterday, or tomorrow, only today.

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

John 6:1-24

Jesus' ministry is often a series of events creating tension and release.

For the people of Jesus' day, it is often a series of events creating hope and disappointment.

Jesus performs a tremendous miracle, transforming scarcity to abundance. This is no small thing.

Then Jesus, sensing the will of the crowd to make Him king, disappears. He even leaves the disciples, who just decide to take off because of His disappearance. Jesus goes up into a mountain, just to be alone. What Jesus is doing there, we don't know. But one thing is for sure- that was a disappointing end for the people and the disciples.

Sometimes, we can't be sure what God is up to or why. Sometimes, we as Christians have to face our disappointment. It's never fun, it isn't romantic, and it just plain hurts sometimes. Even the disciples could be seen as giving up.

However, Jesus approaches us in the storms of disappointment and frustration. Notice that in this story, Jesus does not rebuke the wind and the waves, but gets in the boat with the disciples and sits with them until they get to the other shore (it is pretty immediate). The only thing Jesus tells the disciples is to not be afraid.

Sometimes, Jesus gets us immediately through the storms. Other times, Jesus sits in the boat and reminds us to not be afraid. Either way, I am grateful that Jesus joins me in my frustration and disappointment.

Friday, August 26, 2011

John 5:31-47

What is the source of life?

One would think that, given the healing Jesus just performed, the answer would be obvious. And given what we know about Jesus' death and resurrection, we would be better equipped for the answer than the people of Jesus' day. Yet, when I carefully examine my life, I wonder what the source is.

Sometimes, it is myself. I place a lot of trust in my ability to work and produce the means for life. I am conscious about my health (moreso than I once was), and do everything from regular chiropractic care to watching how I eat to exercising 4-6 days per week. I place a lot of trust in my strength. Sometimes, though, my strength fails me. At seemingly random times, my muscles will not do as they are intended.

My trust flows out into money. We place a lot of trust in money. We even call them "trusts" sometimes. Our money buys the necessities of life- food, shelter, clothes, etc. And I spend devotional time with my money- checking accounts, meditating on how to better use the money I have. It's a spiritual experience.

Jesus is the true source of life. Jesus, far more than health or money or relationships, is the One in whom I live and move and have my being. It is possible to master Biblical knowledge and not know Jesus. It is possible to be in top physical shape and not know Jesus. It is possible to be filthy rich and not know Jesus. However, it is not possible to live or have the abundant life without Jesus desiring it for me. So today, as I move toward the weekend, my hope is that I will continue to take strides toward Jesus.