According to the Promise

That Awful Thing I Left....

2008-03-15T18:39:00.003-04:00

Just pondering a phenomenon I've noticed--it seems that we humans like to justify our decisions by demonizing whatever we leave behind.

For instance, in the Church of Christ I've noticed that often those who rail against "denominations" the most are those who left other churches. They were converted to the Church of Christ, and thus admitting that the group they left was also a Christian group seems as if it would invalidate their Christianity, their walk, their commitment to Christ. At least that's the way it seems from here.

Similarly, those who leave the Church of Christ for other churches (or no church) often exaggerate our faults to the point that they seem to see no good in us. Again, if we can be seen as honestly trying to serve Christ, their decision to leave would seem to be invalidated.

There are other examples of this. A person who converts to Christ from a life of hedonism will often villainize whatever was associated with their previous life, whether a style of music or an activity of some sort that accompanied their indulgence, even if the activity itself was innocent.

Often a casualty of this war is truth. The facts are frequently presented in a way that makes things worse than they are and any mitigating circumstance or virtuous characteristic is buried. The Church of Christ is portrayed as being monolithically graceless. That other church is said to not care what the Bible says. That song is summed up with an ironic line that is taken to mean the opposite of what was intended.

I believe that truth matters and should not be manipulated for the benefit of whatever point we wish to prove.

Perhaps I would be more understanding if I hadn't grown up in the same organization I remain a member of. I have changed, however, quite a bit. And it is a struggle for me to not demonize those who believe things I have left behind, those who believe that we are the sole equivalent of the first century church, for instance, or that singing to musical accompaniment will damn your soul.

I am as prone to this as anyone.

Unreasoned Anger

2008-03-10T18:13:00.005-04:00

Getting back on medication has been more difficult than I expected. I don't know what's going on exactly, but Friday my blood sugar soared higher than it has ever been and stayed up there through Sunday.

Sunday was my worst day, actually. And I went to church like that. Problem was, the high blood sugar was tearing me apart; I felt as if I was having a day-long panic attack. The result was an unreasonable, unreasoned anger.

I sat silently through Bible class, seething. The teacher was going through Revelation and dismantling everything I had taught this same class a couple of years ago. All that hard work! Then the singing--good grief were we listening to anything we were singing. This was all by rote! We might as well have been reciting Latin. And the preaching! Was there any gospel here? Hey, I know the hidden agenda! We're right; you're wrong. Convert to us!

But you see, the problem wasn't with the teacher, the song leader, the congregation, or the preacher. The problem was with me. I was, for physical reasons, predisposed to take offense at absolutely everything.

I think I broke through a little later in the day when I found myself in the middle of some people who were enjoying themselves too much for me to remain grumpy in their midst. As to my predisposition...problem is, I don't think this is the first time I've been like this. And I don't think I've always had an excuse.

More On Living

2008-03-05T17:27:00.002-05:00

I got back from the doctor a little while ago. He said, "Look, you're 42 years old (I guess he looked at the chart wrong; I'm 45) but if you don't start paying attention to your health, you're not going to live much longer. You're a diabetic. You have to take that seriously."

And he hit on one of my major problems with life. I don't think things through; I react to whatever situation I'm in. I try to avoid trouble, avoid conflict. I don't want to put anyone out, so I drift.

That's not what life's about, or a least that's not what living's about. I'm making a resolution--I'm going to start living. I've spent the last year and a half plus preparing for it, and most of my previous 44 years ignoring it. Even in preparing, though, I goofed things up. I ignored my diabetes. Got out of control, lost around 60 pounds (that was needed, but not like that) because I was becoming unhealthy.

I wonder if we don't do this with our lives all the time and not realize it. Do we stop paying attention to our spiritual selves, to the us that lives inside and exists all around. Do we retreat into a concentration on this or that, beneficial things all, to the point that we lose ourselves?

I wonder.

Living Between The Trees

2008-03-04T18:25:00.001-05:00

I recently watched one of Rob Bell’s Nooma videos in which he mentioned that we are, in this life, "living between the trees," that is the tree in the midst of the Garden and the tree in Revelation. He emphasized that we are living—not simply waiting for the great beyond.

I think this is a wonderful, beneficial concept. Christianity is about what we do now. Now, this life, is the time to begin living, to begin getting all we get out of what we have been given and what we continually receive. Jesus, Paul, James, all emphasized the idea that serving God is doing good to others.

Yet doing good is too often looked at as a minor. Heaven’s the major. Pulling people out of Hell is the major. Warning everyone around us of the fire that God is holding them over, making them feel the flames lick their feet, scaring them sleepless, guilting them into turning so they won’t burn….

Misses the point.

Doing good—living good (yes good, not well) is the point. This is what holiness is about—not obeying some arbitrary list of dos and don’ts, but living out a life that honors God in every way possible. Secular, sacred, whatever. There is no wall other than the one we have created.

The key then, the whole point of living here, living between the trees, is honoring the One who created us by living, by taking what He gave us and spreading it through the Earth like salt and light rather than hiding it under the bushel of puritanical separatism.
Living. That’s it. There’s so much to this.

Ah, but if living for God was seen as a natural way to live, not something that required special clothes and special language and special manners, but something hopeful, something proactive, something that continually lifted us and everything and everyone around us to a higher plane. If only we saw mediocrity as an offense to God on the level of what we think of as "sin". If only we decided that living timidly, afraid that if we did THIS or THAT people would think of us as like, like, like…that sinner kneeling there in the corner.

If only we realized that improving everything and everyone around us, intellectually, aesthetically, healthily, and, yes, spiritually, honors the One True God who made it all, sustains us all, and entrusted his creation with his creation.

If only we really lived between the trees.

Leap Day

2008-02-29T20:26:00.002-05:00

I go on this rant every four years.

Today is February 29. Or so they tell us; I call it March 1. Who wants an extra day in February, an extra day of gloom, an extra day of winter?

We had cold rain here today. Wouldn't you rather have an extra day in, say, April, when the sun is shining and the flowers and trees are growing? Leap day should be April 31 or May 32. A

lso, if we're going to have an extra day, shouldn't we make it worthwhile? Make it some special day, a holiday to observe something or someone who doesn't quite make the annual cut. Say, Daniel Boone Day or Hester Prynne Day. Or better still, make it a do-nothing day. A day of rest. A sabbath. Make it illegal for any business to be open unless the business is vital for human survival, like an ambulance station, a fire house, or a chocolate shop.

We all need a day off. With pay.

But just an extra day tacked on at the end of February, postponing March, postponing Spring? Who needs it?

Thank you for your support.

Are We Too Worldly?

2008-02-27T14:35:00.004-05:00

This question was brought up this week on a discussion board I'm a part of. After some discussion, here's what I wrote:

When I was growing up, being "worldly" meant...

dancing

drinking

gambling

mixed swimming

putting pictures of Jesus in the church building

worshipping with instruments

attending a denomination

wearing shorts

Previous generations had added:

playing cards

watching movies

And some I've heard recently would add:

watching television

listening to "secular" music

We like making rules. Problem is, our rules are simply that--our rules. And the world sees that.

The world sees us condemning them not for treating the poor badly or becoming power-hungry--things Jesus condemned the "world" for, but instead for a list of superficial "sins" that basically serve to create an artificial wall between us and them. This wall is built out of bricks of our choosing, bricks that best define the differences.

The question is, is this really how the differences should be defined?Who did Jesus consider the world? Who were the people who rejected him?

The powerful religious leaders.

The government officials who wanted to hold on to power

The selfish

The money hungry

And yet Jesus hung with tax collectors and prostitutes. He was accused of drunkenness because of his association. Did he approve of prostitution? Of course not! But these are the people he ate with.

He not only taught righteousness, he brought a personal life of righteousness into the midst of society's outcast.I

'm not very good at this. I don't hang around in bars. Who knows; maybe I should. I don't seek out the dregs of society and eat with them. Maybe I should. I prefer the company of the influential, the powerful, the type of people who Jesus condemned and who, in turn, condemned him.

What did Jesus mean when he talked about His disciples being in the world but not of the world? How could they live among the hurting, the outcast, the wretched, without sharing in the system that created these conditions? How could they--and we--show compassion for the multitudes and not simply preach at them and tell them they're going to Hell if they don't repent?

What types of people did Jesus use the threat of Hell on? The weak or the powerful?

Today I read an argument that when Paul wrote the book of Romans, he purposefully used words that tweaked the Roman government and exposed Caeser-worship as the false system it was. Just as Jesus stood up to the powerful elite of his day, so Paul stood up to the elite of his day.

Unfortunately, too often we tend to stand up to the powerless and side with the elite. When we oppose the world, what are we opposing? Exploitation? Poverty? Pain? Suffering? Greed?

Or are we opposing a list of superficial symptoms caused by the lack of the fruit of the Spirit in society. Is it possible that if we demonstrated the fruit of the Spirit while avoiding the works of the flesh, then we could transform society in a way that showed people Christ, not just us?

Here is Paul's list:

Galatians 5:19

The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.

There is the test.

But Will Change Come?

2008-02-24T20:38:00.002-05:00

I'm at a loss.

I just finished "Everything Must Change", and I am a bit surprised at my emotional reaction. This affected me in my gut.

I live here in one of the poorest counties in one of the poorest states in the union. I see a hoplessness that has become so ingrained that the idea that things could get significantly better seems like a joke. As I go into schools I see young adolescents who have traded in any thoughts of the future for micro-materialism. For the moments, their i-pods, their games, their cell phones bring them a sense of satisfaction that often seems to accompany the idea that there is nothing more. There's no future, no pride except in their lower-than-thou status. There seems to be something inside that is bothered by the way others feel, but it's quickly covered over and replaced by a smirk.

Will change come? I wish I could be as confident as McLaren that it will, but I don't know. I've lived in this community too long, I guess. I've seen too much false hope. I don't know what the answer is.

But something in this book touches whatever buried hope I still have for this community. Maybe it's the realization that there are those out there who seem to get it. I don't know.

Reality is....

2008-02-18T14:27:00.003-05:00

that things don't always work out. You're life won't turn out exactly as you planned. Wanting something bad enough doesn't mean you'll get it. Believing and clicking your heels together three times just ain't enough.

A faith that's built on wish-fulfillment will fail. A faith that's dependent on pixie-dust promises and everything being for the best will disappoint. Our walk with God needs to be deeper, or else when the tide comes in we'll let go, drift off with the waves, and be lost in the storm.

I'm seeing the sun peek through the clouds occasionally now. So far, the clouds keep closing back together and the rain and thunder begin again, but it looks as if maybe, finally, the sky will will soon clear.

I don't know. I've thought this before, but disappointment always comes.

Currently Reading: Everything Must Change

2008-02-16T22:49:00.006-05:00

I've just begun. Before I began reading, I was worried that I wouldn't be able to, right at this moment, fully take this in because of my own concerns about the hopelessness I'm seeing around me, here in this poor, rural corner of West Virginia. I wanted to read this, though, and decided that perhaps looking at the global perspective would help me cope with the local situation.

So far, I think it will. I can see the threads, the connections, the human condition, the positions of power and dependence, of need and want, of manipulation and freedom, all seem universal. We'll see how deep this connection goes.

Even if the connection doesn't go all the way through, seeing what's happened on a greater scale sometimes can give reason for hope, or at least a hint of how hope can be seen. I'm looking forward to reading further in.

unChristian: Some Thoughts of My Own

2008-02-11T11:33:00.000-05:00

Just riffing a bit...

Christianity has largely become a tool, something people use to further their agendas. This is not how it should be. Jesus' name is used to promote ideas that prop up wealthy, corporate interests. He is turned into a petty politician.

And people turn away.

Christianity is used as a weapon. We beat down those whose sins are "worse" than our own. We tell people to repent, to turn or burn, to become like us. We forget to show how Christ lived and instead focus on salvation from Hell while forgetting the idea of salvation in this life.

And people turn away.

We are smug. Sure of ourselves. People don't like us because they are enemies of God! We treat hurting people the way that Jesus treated the self-righteous and treat the self-righteous as our bosom friends. If there's a problem, it's not with us. It's not with our message or our method. The only problem is with those who won't listen to us, with the ones we're preaching at. They don't listen because they're of their father the devil!

And people turn away.

God have mercy on us.

Brian McLaren Quote From unChristian

2008-02-09T17:39:00.000-05:00

I will be making several posts about the book in the next few days.

Each of the chapters ends with "Changing the Perception", reactions from various voices to the subject matter. This one follows the chapter on the perception by the young that Christians are too political. I think McLaren nails it.

"From a vantage point further in the future, I think that an honest diagnosis will tell the truth about the pivotal role the Religious Right has played in these depressing statistics. In the aftermath of the Religious Right's ascendancy, it is not an accident that "antihomosexual" is the number one
perception of Christians in America these days, followed closely by "judgmental" and "hypocritical" and "insensitive." Young people today could, if we had taken a wiser path for the last few decades, think "antipoverty" or "pro-environment" or "pro-fidelity" or "antiviolence" when they hear "Christian" or "evangelical. But because of the path influential people have taken over the last thirty years or so, what young people think of the Religious Right is what they think about evangelicals and even Christians in general.

"That's why some of us believe that leaders in the Religious Right have, in a classic case of gaining the world and losing the soul, successfully gained political clout but helped lose our next generation."

Currently Reading "unChristian"

2008-02-08T21:05:00.000-05:00

This is the reason I haven't blogged in the last week or so. I've been reading this slowly and turning it over in my mind. When I finish (probably tonight or tomorrow), I'll write more about it.

The authors are saying things I've said frequently. I wasn't too surprised with the results of the study. We need to stop trying so hard to defend Jesus and try a little harder to be Jesus.

More on this soon.

Unplugging Our Ears

2008-02-02T08:44:00.000-05:00

God speaks when He wants and through whomever or whatever he wants. We have little problem recognizing his voice through the lone stars in the early morning sky, rising above a thin, red line announcing the sunset, or through the beauty of the rolling mountains ahead of us to the horizon as we make the crest of the last high ridge, or through the unbelievable expanse of canyon before us as we emerge from the Arizona pines and confront the eternity that is the Grand Canyon, but....

Isn't his voice also heard when we see wonderful things that man has created? Not only in some beautiful painting by one of the masters that speaks more than the mere canvas and paint themselves possibly can, but artistic beauty wherever we see it, whether in some sketch done by a practiced artist or a child, in a grand building designed by some great architect or a small, homey cabin. God speaks to us through the grand things and through the small. Through the perfect and the imperfect.

Sometimes he even uses words, as the saying goes. But too often, we plug our ears. We construct an artificial sacred/secular divide that keeps us from hearing the voice of God in and through the words of our concerned neighbor, who isn't even a Christian, through the self-serving voice of a politician from the other party, who momentarily grasps some bit of eternity, even in the lyrics of some secular rock song coming through our radios or some Hollywood movie searching for a way to relate.

We plug our ears, because we can't believe that God would speak to us like that, but God still speaks, whether we hear or not. He still speaks, even though we warn our neighbors not to listen and condemn our brothers for hearing him in the wrong voices in the wrong places.

God still speaks, wanting to get through to us, wanting to explode our lives, our world, our universe.

Will we unplug our ears?

A Bit Extreme Perhaps...

2008-01-31T19:08:00.001-05:00

Still trying to work with the teen class last night, I asked them (near the end of class--this will have to be continued) to begin brainstorming about what they think that we, as Christians, should be all about, and what they could do specifically to make this more our identity.

A little background: a few weeks back we had our chruch planning session. The teens, with another teacher, left, went downstairs, and had no part in this session. They make up nearly half of the congregation, yet they neither feel as if they have a say or really want much of a part in the overall communal life of the church. I don't have as much of a voice as I did at one time, but I still teach them regularly, and would like to see this change. I talked with the adults a week before, and many of them said that they would welcome input from the teens if I could get them to give input.

Last night's discussion started after reading Jesus' Luke 4 introduction in which he quoted the passage from Isaiah that summed up his ministry and asking the class if they could help come up with something similar that defined us.

The first suggestion involved participation in worship. This was fine, and is an area where many have been prodding them, but I wanted to get more personal. The next suggestion gave me an opening.

A young man suggested that they could help make the building look more presentable, help in projects such as cleaning up and planting flowers. I thanked him and said these were good suggestions, categorized them as "service", and then asked for other ideas about service. Were there, perhaps, ways that we could get involved in people's lives, in serving each other--particularly the older membes of the congregation--directly? I asked them, "If one of the older members of the congregation needed some help, would we know that they needed help?"

Sad to say, the obvious answer was no. There is too little cross-communication.

That's when I made the extreme suggestion.

"I'm not saying that you have to do this," I said, "and don't worry; I'm not going to go upstairs and present this tonight. I just wondered if you would feel comfortable if we could say to the adults, 'The youth need opportunities to serve, and would like for you to look around and find ways that they could help you. We need to serve each other, to help each other, in order to be like Jesus. By finding some way for them to help you out, you will be helping them, so we'd like you to come up with things you need done. We [I realized I wasn't including myself enough and tried to here] want to help you in any way we can."

Then I asked again, "Would you be comfortable making this kind of statement?"

There was a bit of silence. A couple of okays that didn't sound too enthusiastic. Then one girl said, "I don't think so. What if they take advantage of us? What if they just use us to get their house cleaned"

We ran out of time right then. We'll see what happens next week.

I don't know if this will go anywhere. As I said, I don't have the influence I once did, and I'm afraid that the others working with the youth might not go along with this. This may end up being nothing.

But I have some things to say next class.

Praying for Faith

2008-01-30T09:28:00.000-05:00

"I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!" --Mark 9:24

It seems like a contradiction. I find myself praying by rote, talking to God in a way that seems to say that, somewhere inside, I don't think he's there. As I catch myself, I pray something like this, something about needing more faith, more of an awareness of His reality. And in doing this, my prayer and my faith deepen--not in some miraculous way, but simply because in order to pray like this, I have to go deeper. I have to reach down to where my real faith lives.

I find myself wandering into my own internal unbelief much too often now. Little puddle that I step in, dark hollows that I wander into where I lose sight of God. Places that allow me to wonder what's real and what isn't. I don't feel a drift toward real atheism when I do this--If I didn't believe in God, I don't know what I would believe in, there's too much to us humans, too much to this world to submit to matter and chance. I do feel myself drifting into uncertainty, often caused by isolation.

I am forced to admit that belief is as much emotional as it is rational. Yet the emotional aspect doesn't make the belief any less real.

Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.

Opening Up

2008-01-27T20:44:00.000-05:00

Last week, I overheard the following conversation between a 10-year-old, an 8-year-old, and a 16-year old:

8-year-old: I have to go to my basketball game in a few minutes.

16-year-old: I never played any sports.

10-year-old: Me neither. I'm too cool to play sports.

8: Yes you did play sports...

10: I don't anymore though. I'm too cool. I only play in gym class.

16: I never even played in gym.

10: I usually don't either. I pretend I'm sick so I don't have to play.

This went on in a similar vein for several minutes. The 10-year-old was taking a cue from the teen about what was and wasn't cool, and was discovering that the less you do, the less you expose yourself, the more cool you are.

I've seen this problem among teens for years, and at times a little of it lingers into adulthood.

I was thinking about this as we were worshipping this morning. Sometimes our worship services are spiritual and inspiring; other times they're insipid. Drab. This morning, I was personally wavering between the two moods. I'd sing enthusiastically for a few minutes, then I would hear my voice dropping down, my words falling toward the floor.

It was hard for me to stay connected. It was hard for me to open up to what was going on, to open myself up to God and unabashedly worship Him.

I admit that sometimes it's hard for me to expose myself, even in worship. Sometimes I feel that opening up to God and letting Him flow through me is, well, if not uncool, at least a bit anti-intellectual. I'm too cynical, too thought-conscious. I used to be able to just get into things emotionally and spiritually much more than I seem to be able to now.

Maybe I'm just tired. Maybe I need renewal.

Exchanging Family Members for the Sake of Peace

2008-01-23T17:26:00.000-05:00

In 1600, after a long period of war among various shoguns, the victorious Tokugawa Ieyasu established a shogunate that would rule Japan until the latter half of the 19th century. Under the Tokugawa shogunate, an enforced peace settled across the country, sort of a Japanese Pax Romana.

One of the methods Tokugawa used to establish peace seemed particularly inventive. In the Japanese society, where (like other societies of that time--including the one taking hold in America) extended families lived together and foged strong identities, Tokugawa forced clans which would otherwise be warring to exchange family members. A family would send a son or daughter to their neighbor and receive an aunt or uncle in return, and the exchanged persons would settle in as members of their new families. This was a way of saying, "I am establishing a lasting peace; you're family is mine; mine is yours. With my loved one residing with you and being nourished and supported by you, you know I will not attack, and I know you will not attack me."

I wonder if similar methods might not lead to a lasting peace among churches. Maybe it's happening already. As we intermarry and discover each other, our families become intertwined. How can we consign the other group to Hell if your son, our daughter, our neice, our nephew, is one of them now, just as he or she remains one of us.

If Christianity is all about what we've come to think of as "doctrine", of course this doesn't work. If we are defined by what we do, by our procedures and forms, then we will simply write off the family member as lost. But if Christianity is primarily relational, this stands a chance.

The next step to this is to intenionally exchange family members. Visit, fellowship, worship, move in spiritually with the neighbor we once warred with.

The idea may sound radical. To some it will even sound like heresy. But if we realize we are all really one family, it almost sounds natural.

On Winter Afternoons

2008-01-16T21:55:00.000-05:00

I hate winter. The cold, the darkness, the glimpse of absolute isolation I see inside every frozen puddle, the cold desolation that grabs the heart, the lungs, the spirit....

I think of Emily Dickinson again:

There's a certain slant of light,

On winter afternoons

That oppresses, like the weight

Of cathedral tunes.

Heavenly hurt it gives us;

We can find no scar,

But internal difference

Where the meanings, are.

None may teach it anything,

'T is the seal, despair,

An imperial affliction

Sent us of the air.

When it comes, the landscape listens,

Shadows hold their breath;

When it goes, 't is like the distance

On the look of death.

I have suspicions that if I really tried, I could be diagnosed with Seasonal Affective Disorder. I'm not really there, though. Not quite. I just find this season depressing. There's a hint in the cold, short days that perhaps death wins in the end. Spring is there, somewhere ahead, but on days like this, it's hard to believe it's real.

I hate winter.

Saving Rural Churches

2008-01-12T21:59:00.000-05:00

I have been intending to write something about rural churches for a few days, but what I'm going to write now will be very different from what I intended. It will be much less hopeful. The reason is that I just read the Christian Chronicle study of growth among Churches of Christ in the U.S.

Membership in our fellowship in West Virginia, the state where I live, has declined 31.7% since 1980. That is by far the highest percentage decline for any state. And unless I misread the numbers, our small state has lost more members--I'm talking raw numbers--than any state other than Bible-belt Oklahoma.

The reason is obvious. We're, I believe, the most rural state in the union, and our population is aging ridiculously fast. Our educational system is failing, particularly in the most rural areas, there are few jobs that pay a living wage, and people are leaving the state in herds. Or at least they have been--that's slowed down a bit lately because so many of the young have already gone.

But we're still here. Our rural, small churches still exist. These are churches that defy stereotype. We're not a bunch of backwoods, redneck, ultra-conservatives. There are many bright people among us, and there are, believe it or not, many churches with progressive tendencies back in the woods. Sometimes living in shrinking communities with common values that are drying up quickly causes those who share these values to band together--even if their doctrinal stances or names over the door differ. This has caused some openness as far as the critical area of accepting others goes.

I guess I missed the Christian Chronicle article about rural churches earlier this year. It's been such a year that missing things is easy. I'll go back and look at it. Much of what I've read about rural churches has either been shallow and full of platitudes or somewhat condescending. I get the idea that most are dismissing us completely. Our numbers aren't worth worrying about.

That's the big problem, I think. We need help. We need support, awareness of our existence, at least, and our needs, even. It would be nice if larger or at least mid-sized congregations would reach out to us. Progressive congregations, especially (the ultras send us their free papers and videos telling us who to mark and what doctrines to avoid already).

We're here, and we're not dead yet.

Human Debris

2008-01-10T19:12:00.000-05:00

I was warned about this class. Before my first day as a substitute teacher, I met a couple of people who refused assignments at this particular school because the students were completely out of control. They zeroed in on one particular seventh grade class that, they said, had no respect for anyone.

But this was the school that I graduated from, and when I went to school, sure there were students who didn't care, but there were others who had high ambitions and who have since realized them. There were a high number of intelligent, motivated students who wanted to better themselves.

Also, I understood the rural, lower socioeconomic conditions of the area. I mean, this is my home. I know how others outside perceive us, how they have such low expectations for us. One state official recently called students in our county a bunch of "four-wheel-riding, dope-smoking, alcoholic rednecks". I assumed that those who had been telling me about this class shared this prejudice.

Then I encountered the class first-hand. My first experience included a group of students whose only means of communication seemed to be to mock, a defiant student who acted as if he was going to stab me in the throat with a pen, and several who refused to do any work. My second include a whole class (except for one student) refusing to even pretend to work. When I suggested that I knew their regular teacher didn't let them sit and do nothing, they laughed and insisted that he did.

My third, this week, involved more extended mocking and open defiance of me and one of their regular teachers. On this day, a new class, a group of sixth-graders, also was openly defiant and disrespectful. After class, a regular teacher said of two of the girls in this class, "they're not nice people."

I couldn't imagine saying that about sixth graders. Eleven year olds. Yet she was right. Something has already come into these students lives that has drained them of any hope or desire for a decent life. They come from broken families and often are raised in homes in which the parents openly abuse drugs and cook meth. I know kids in the same situation. They have been abused, physically and/or emotionally. They have been taught that they have no worth, no hope, no future but the one they see around them. And they have begun to embrace the idea.

They are human debris.

I don't know what to do about this. I have to admit that I dread going into these classrooms. When I get the call out in the morning, I silently hope I'm being called to a different school or a younger grade. As my certification is processed, I don't know that I'll seek employment in this school, even though I know that being in the classroom regularly, being able to establish rules, procedures, etc., would make things less difficult. Those who have been in the school regularly still speak of the difficulty.

What's happened since I was in school? To a large extent, rural communities have been tossed aside. There are fewer jobs available that pay enough to live on, and few people care. The divide between the affluent and the poor has reached Grand Canyon proportions, and few on either side seem to care anymore.

The school system has deteriorated as well. While I was still in school, a lady from this district sued the state over school funding, saying the county schools had failed because they were underfunded. In 1983, I think, a judge agreed and called our schools woefully inadequate. He also said that the state had to do something to fix the problem.

They never did. One two-term governor, who took office not long after this, admitted that he never considered this court decision when creating policy.

In recent years, the state took over the school system, consolidated the county high schools (even though we live in such a spread-out area that some students have to travel an hour and a half to get to school), and turned the old high schools into elementary/middle schools. This was done with little input from the community and no real effort to get community support. We are treated as a third-world possession with little resources. We are debris. The quote I mentioned above was actually from the man in charge of evaluating the effort to get our schools back on track.

So what do we do? I have no idea. We don't even make the social justice maps, usually. We're a forgotten area, a wasteland, a people who have been given up as lost.

We are human debris.

And there has to be an answer.

Finding Patterns

2008-01-07T17:28:00.001-05:00

I've been criticized before for saying that things, when left in human hands, tend toward organization. Others insist the result is atrophy, but I differ. Decay comes when things are left alone; when things are left to us humans, too much organization results.

In particular, we are good at finding patterns, often whether they exist or not.

There's something about a pattern, a system, a scheme that gives us comfort. If ideas or images make too little sense to us, we organize them in ways that we can relate to.

A familiar example of this is the Lincoln-Kennedy comparison that takes the year of election, the names of secretaries, etc. and creates an eerie parallel between the two assassinated leaders. In truth, such a comparison could be made between any two leaders picked at random, but our desire to make sense of the senseless causes us to try to find some cosmic scheme behind it all.

Another example is our ability to see faces in nearly any image. I remember, when I was small, staring at panelling and becoming convinced that evil, demonic faces stared back at me. Even today, when I stare at any image long enough, I begin to see faces. My current computer wallpaper is an image of El Capitan in the snow. As I stare at it, I see the face of a wizard with beard and cap profiled in the rock, a gnomish face outlined in snow, a helmeted soldier clinging to the side...

All patterns I have created from my own mind.

We do the same with the Bible. We string together unrelated verses to create an image of a church that--surprise!--matches exactly the one in which we have found comfort. We decide that the way we do worship fits the Biblical pattern exactly, even though such a pattern can only be seen with much squinting.

All that might be amusing, but then we condemn others for seeing a different pattern, a different series of faces in the rock.

Perhaps we should look less after out own comfort and trust God to take care of it all more. Perhaps we should, at the very least, recognize how our human tendencies affect the way we read the Bible and help create the patterns we see.

But it seems this takes us too far out of our comfort zone.

Jeopardy Update

2008-01-05T12:55:00.001-05:00

I noticed that back in January I wrote about taking the Jeopardy test. Turns out I passed it and was invited to interviews/tryouts in Pittsburgh on December 7. Unfortunately, Dec. 7 was also the day of the capstone presentations for my Master's.

Oh well. I'll try again this year.

Much Madness

2008-01-05T10:35:00.001-05:00

I've been using that as my signature on a couple of message boards lately, possibly because of the chaos that seems to be swirling everywhere I go. I originally was going to use the whole first line from Emily Dickinson: "Much madness is divinest sense, to a discerning eye," but I at last abbreviated the phrase in the extreme. It seems appropriate.

The Dickinson poem is one of the few I can quote from memory, but to preserve the dash in its proper place (always an important thing with Emily), I'll cut-and-paste it here:

MUCH madness is divinest sense
To a discerning eye;
Much sense the starkest madness.
’T is the majority
In this, as all, prevails. 5
Assent, and you are sane;
Demur,—you ’re straightway dangerous,
And handled with a chain.

I seem to be in a constant position of having others consider my sense madness while I often reciprocate. To me, much of the reason I hear is nonsense.

I seem to live in a whirlwind of statements about the way the world should be that end up being, essentially, "conform to me." Want to know how to do church? Watch me. Want unity? Conform to us and separate from everyone else. Want to know who to vote for? Follow my lead. What to oppose, what to support, who's worth our time and who isn't? Just keep watching.

But the reasons, the logic, seem to be materialistic. And when I counter with my ideas, I am told they're nonsense.

Maybe I'm the one living in madness. Who knows? To me, you help the poor by helping them, not by telling them they need to be affluent. To me, any doctrine that causes real harm to people by doing things such as telling them to divorce their current spouse and leave their family is not of God. To me, Christianity's about living our lives in a way that helps others.

And yet those who oppose me would characterize all this in a completely different way. What's madness? What's sense?

One of the things I've heard lately that bothers me the most is the suggestion that nothing in the Bible should be considered culturally. This is sheer nonsense, and leads us to do things that cause harm when the intent of the passages we are using was to free people from cultural restrictions.

The Holy Spirit didn't just ignore the culture that Paul was writing to, and God gives us credit for having enough brains rolling around in our heads to keep out the heebeejeebees. You don't have to throw out all common sense when you become a Christian.

I tend to think things are more simple than we make them.

But maybe I'm the one who's mad.

Sorry to vent. Sometimes I feel like finding a large, empty desert and traveling to the center so I can get lost in the calm nothingness. And maybe scream, I don't know.

Again, sorry. I needed to vent.

Fear? Lack of Faith? Realism?

2008-01-03T20:17:00.001-05:00

(I took this down because it was too depressing and self-indulgent, then I read a message board post that was much more depressing and decided to restore this post.)

I'm too old for this, and I keep thinking that when I was young I had more faith. The problem is, I guess, that too often I was confident that things would turn out all right and they didn't. I don't know; maybe I was just sitting back and waiting when I should have been more aggressive.

Here I am at 45, on the edge of achieving something that I've been after for two decades.

The degree is there, but still I have to wait. For the college to get their records together. For my letters of recommendation to come. I just have to wait.

Too many times in the past I have waited and waited and waited...this time, I know this is coming. I thank God that he is finally giving what I ask. But still, I'm afraid. I've been close before, and something has gone wrong. People I've counted on haven't come through. Money's run out. A job has taken a bad turn.

I'm too fearful without real cause. Well, any real cause but the past.

I've always felt like a character in a Tolstoy story I read back when I was a teen, "God Sees the Truth, But Waits". In the story, a man is framed for murder, spends his life in prison, is finally cleared but dies before word of his release reaches him.

That's how I've felt, that I will finally be able to achieve what I've wanted--too late.

It should comfort me that the man from the story is able to forgive the man who frames him and achieve a sort of reconciliation with him, but honestly, it doesn't.

I'm still afraid. I need more faith.

Still struggling to figure out what to teach

2008-01-02T14:09:00.001-05:00

The teens I teach in Bible class have so little foundation, sometimes it's tough to find the prime thing, the important concept that they can build on, and get this through to them in such a way that they will understand and internalize it. I've talked about transformation so much, about being real, about treating each other they way we should, about following Christ in a way that means living out the ideals and principles of his life in ours.

Yet I don't really feel it's taking.

I'm still not sure what I'm going to teach tonight. I want to dive into the gospels and find practical application, but I feel as it the basic foundation is so lacking that note even this will work.

What do you do with unchurched teens living in a world with values that seem so askew?

Unity (again)

2008-01-01T18:04:00.001-05:00

Under the ruins of a walled city

Crumbling towers and beams of yellow light

No flags of truce, no cries of pity

The siege guns had been pounding all through the night

It took a day to build the city

We walked through its streets in the afternoon

As I returned across the field's I'd known

I recognized the walls that I once made

I had to stop in my tracks for fear

Of walking on the mines I'd laid --Sting, "Fortress Around Your Heart"

I'm not sure I know what unity really looks like. I'm trying to learn, but sometimes I still don't get it.

We've made some steps where I live. We have some limited participation with other churches. They visit us, and we reciprocate a little. As a congregation, we're all over the place. I'm on the far end, I guess. Some would prefer we didn't fellowship other churches (meaning other denominations, although those who object would not use the word "other", some are fine with it as long as we're trying to convert them. I'm not sure how honest that idea is. Some are willing to openly fellowship.

But what does it all mean? How together should we be? How together are we willing to be? What's the practical result--that we remove identifying signs? That we act as a group of house churches, each with a different focus?

I dont' think we need to give up our individuality, either in personality or in what we've come to think of as doctrine (although I think real doctrine is much more basic). But I also don't think we need to ask others to conform to us.

I've noticed that a few (a minority) would like us to conform to them as well. They use loaded (and inaccurate) terms such as "cult", "Campbellite", and "baptismal regeneration" when talking to us. They would prefer we stay away, I guess.

It gets a little frustrating that we've taken so long to get ready to join the body of Christ at large and some there distrust us and don't want us.

I know we laid the mines, but I also know that there has to be a real longing for peace on all our parts. That's the bond that keeps the unity created by the Spirit, Paul said.

2007

2007-12-31T17:58:00.001-05:00

It was a year of poverty and poor health (resulting in a 50-60 pound weight loss, on the positive side), but for a purpose. I finally got the Master's degree I've been talking about for more than a decade, finally certified to teach (well, the papers are on the way), and at last feel as if I'm ready to come alive again.

It's been a long, rough road that has lasted for many years, but I can now see hope.

Trying to see the future from out here on the edge

2007-12-30T20:57:00.000-05:00

I'm not in the best position to forcast the future for the Church of Christ. I am a member of a rural congregation of less than 50 outside the Bible Belt. I'm not in Nashville or Abilene or Memphis or Lubbock. I read a bit, and try to keep up, but it's not like being there.

So what I'm about to write is foolish, but here goes.

I'm feeling more positive about our future today than usual. Some of the more extreme positions seem futile when I encounter them, and the segment of our fellowship that would like to turn back the calendar a half century cannot succeed.

One reason is that the KJV no longer holds sway. Nothing wrong with the KJV, particularly if you're a 17th century Englishman, but the popularity of newer translation these past thirty years, particularly the NIV, has caused people to be able to understand the flow and the context of these verses they have spent their lives memorizing more clearly. And I think that bodes well for progress.

Our fellowship is structured in a way that allows progress and, at least theoretically, encourages independent thought. Although there are a few who would like to set themselves up as Church of Christ popes (such as the man looking for "1,000 faithful men" who would then set this group of bishops up over multiple congregations to check on these churches soundness), I don't think that most of our fellowship will stand for it.

One problem I see is that some of our more progressive congregations are having less to do with other Churches of Christ, perhaps in an effort to show others that they're not like the churches that people have heard about. An unfortunate effect of this is that middle-of-the-road congregations are losing influences from the progressive side all the while the "Then and Now" crowd attempts to proseletyze.

The future will be interesting. I see the far right losing influence quickly. I hope I'm right.

Recommitment?

2007-12-29T17:54:00.000-05:00

I think one reason that our yearly recommitment as a church has yeilded mixed results is that we're not always willing to look at ourselves. Sometimes we do, and sometimes we seem to make a point of it, but frequently the end result is that we look at ourselves and decide that we're not living up to the image of who we think we should be. We're not us enough.

I'm not even sure that's a bad thing, but the problem is that the us that we look at isn't the real us. The us we look at is a granite sculpture of who someone years ago decided we should be.

It's time to transform the image.

If we are to be in Christ's image, maybe we should be more honest about His priorities and be concerned about them and not about our own priorities. Being more Christ-like is not synonomous with door-knocking or sending out correspondence courses or whatever other outdated program we want to name. Being better Christians isn't a matter of doing more of these things. It's a matter of being more like Christ.

But how do we recommit ourselves in a deeper way? Being humans, is there a way to get beyond the usual, beyond the things, the systems, the trappings and meet Christ in a way that transforms us from the inside?

New Year

2007-12-28T23:11:00.000-05:00

Things are changing so much for me now that it seems natural that a new year is coming. I see my life taking dramatic turns in the coming months. I have more hope now than I've had in a while. I wish I was experiencing this at a younger age.

But as the new year comes and I want to share new ideas, I still find myself being viewed in the same way by others. The change, the late-in-life emergence that I feel isn't coming across. Soon, though, it will.

I'll write more about our church making plans, and what direction these may go. I'm both hopeful and fearful in that area. We'll see. It may be time soon.

Yeah, I'm being cryptic, but few people read this anyway, so maybe I can be self-indulgent and use this to organize my thoughts a little.

Change is coming. Change must come. How can we be sure, though, that change follows a path that leads to a better way, a truer vision of God? How can our church become more like the one we claim and show who He is?

Can we change our world? Our little, local world certainly could use the help.

More later.

When Christ Walked

2007-12-27T21:26:00.000-05:00

and taught he focused on people and lives and what was inside. He didn't spend his time talking about procedures and lists and correctness.

He was here to draw us all to Him and to the Father.

Sometimes I think we try to draw others to us, but we haven't even been drawn by Him yet.

Working My Head Around An Image

2007-12-27T21:17:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking about something, and I've decided that I wished I could draw, because I keep coming up with images in my head rather than words.

The capacity of man to try to work God into something he can handle and manipulate has been coming into view more and more for me lately. I see it in the arguments here. I see it at church sometimes. I see it in my own life and my own history, patterns, and attempts at self-justification.I really think that the Bible is pointing us somewhere else. I think that instead of systems and schemes, this thing's meant to be about living.

Yet there are so many good, Godly people talking about systems and schemes that it makes me doubt my conviction. So often, I stay quiet. In the end, this is nothing profound. It's just another stab at simplicity. I've given up trying to talk people into this idea. I don't know; the people I know who've come to feel this way seem to have done so because of their own life experiences. Me, I'm just getting old and tired of fighting. Problem is, I'm tired of the tension we surround ourselves with as well.

Anyway, I'm finding myself reduced to images. While drifting to sleep a few weeks back (long day that began at 5 AM), I was thinking of this and a painting, maybe, or a mosaic came into my mind. Strips of interlocking pieces, creating a beautiful pattern, then seeming to break apart into jigsaw pieces that seemed to be the point rather than a dissolution.

As I was waking up, I thought of a cocoon, designed beautifully, designed for a specific purpose, with every part providing necessary protection and nourishment to what was inside, growing, changing. What emerged would be more beautiful, even, than the near-perfection it emerged from.

And then the butterfly that emerged would fly free, no longer attached to the tree or bush that had held it steady.

Being a good Church of Christ guy, I thought of this as being the Kingdom of Israel protecting, nourishing, preparing the Kingdom of Christ. And I thought that sometimes we try to crawl back into the cocoon.There are other thoughts, other interpretations, but I'll leave them be for the moment.

Just a couple of images that came into my dreaming mind.

Silent Night?

2007-12-25T19:33:00.000-05:00

Maybe it was a silent night. Sometimes that's what I'd like to think. God came down to bring us peace, and the world was wrapped in a moment of wonder that quieted nature and Heaven and brought calm into the heart of all mankind.

But I doubt it was like that at all. God came into a noisy world and lived in our mess and our chaos. The stable was apt. The smells, the noise, the natural state of disarray, all could have been a metaphor for the state we found ourselves in. Shepherds working in a field of sheep weren't likely a particularly clean, neat bunch either. I would imagine they were grubby, dirty, sweaty, smelly. And when the angels announced the coming of Emmanuel--God with us--whatever hope they had of a quiet night was shattered.

No, it wasn't a silent night. Jesus brought us peace, but he came into our cacophonous hubbub. He came into a world that had forgotten what peace was, a world that lived every day in a state of aimless noise.

We still live like that, don't we? We sing "Silent Night" while living out the chaos. We celebrate His birth with our own noise and grumbling and laughter.

But I wonder, is peace really silent? Shouldn't the coming of the creator into the world be a somewhat noisy event? Sure there is a state of wonder that leaves us speechless, but in the end, Jesus’ coming into the world was full of teaching and acting, and living. The momentary silence was overwhelmed by a lifetime of showing God to us all.

Super Bowl & Sunday Evening Services

2007-02-05T14:15:00.000-05:00

For the first time yesterday, we provided an alternative for people who wanted to watch the Super Bowl. My sister & Brother-in-law (they have a big-screen tv) hosted a Super Bowl party, and those who wanted to watch went there, and we had a short devotional before the game. We kept the building open and held regular Sunday Evening services for those who weren't interested.

Always before, we hadn't done this becausesome felt that doing something different on Super Bowl Sunday was putting football before God. I've always disagreed. When we take something optional, a remnant from a past culture that we have held on to, and make this a rigid, test-of-faith event, we are not honoring God. We are holding on to a building-centered view of Christianity and serving God that comes more from western tradition than it does from the Bible.

I would love to see us do as many other churches are doing now and have house meetings on Sunday nights. I think these informal devotions are more meaningful, and really get us to realize we are in the presence of God more than the regular rituals (and I know they're more than ritual, but sometimes we just go through the motions) often do. One argument that has been used against this--or against doing something other than our normal meeting on occasional Sundays--is that we have a sign with meeting times, and some visitor may drop by and find the building deserted. And in all fairness, this did happen once. However, I believe that if we are becoming slaves to our sign, we ought to take the sign down.

This stuff isn't nearly as radical as it sounds when I type it, I think.

One added note: for the Super Bowl Party, I fixed Reuben Dip. I mixed:

Corned Beef
Swiss Cheese
Sauerkraut
Sour Cream
Horseradish
Mayonaisse

in a bowl. The two keys are to make sure the Corned Beef doesn't clump and don't skimp on the horseradish.

This was a pretty good batch, but could have use a tad more horseradish.

Thoughts on the Holy Spirit and Human Logic

2007-02-01T10:50:00.000-05:00

While searching for some information on a blog I've posted a bit on, I found the following. This wasn't the original thread where this was posted--that thread doesn't exist any longer--but rather was a thread from four or five years ago where I quoted an older one. Here it is:

________________
This includes a post, a response to that post, and my response to the response.

I grew up aware of the influence of Locke on our fellowship, and in my younger days read and admired Locke. But as I read more and more of the Bible--and saw more of what was going on around me--I became more aware of the limitations of human wisdom. The fallibility of not only the logic of those around me, but of my own logic became more and more apparent. As I was exposed to more and more obvious fallacies in my own fellowship (for instance, a verse referring to "the four corners of the earth" put forward as proof that the Bible was scientifically advanced because Earth appeared to have corners from a certain point in space; arguments condemning newer versions of the Bible based not on their adherence to the Greek text but on their differences with the King James Version) I became more and more aware of a basic problem.

Human logic is imperfect. And as even the most intelligent among us with the best intentions finds their logic colored by their past experiences and prejudices, they are not even aware of often slip into the process. And btw, having read extensive 19th-century arguments on the justification of slavery, I am convinced this is not strictly a 20th century problem. But as I began to trust human logic less and less, I became more and more aware of the Bible's stance on this subject.

Quote 1 Corinthians 2: When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power. We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are to come to nothing. No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. However, as it is written: "No eye has seen, no ear has heard No mind has conceived What God has prepared for those who love him." but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God because they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment. "For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ. (NIV)

Okay, so that was a bit of a lengthy quote. What it says, though, is the key to this discussion, I believe. Are we guided by wisdom as we follow God? Yes, but not human wisdom! The wisdom that we have comes from the Spirit! Human wisdom is limited, because a human does not accept the things that come from the Spirit; he considers them foolishness.

This is the problem we have fallen into by relying too much on human logic and wisdom. This is why not may who were called "were wise by human standards". (1:26).And I believe this gets to the heart of the problems we have. We rely on our own wisdom, and our own power of discernment, and become convinced that the way we see logically is the correct way. We must, then, convert everyone else to our way of thinking. yet we do not realize that God said "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate." (1:19.) We forget that "God made foolish the wisdom of the world" (1:20). That our wisdom is not found in human logic, but simply in Christ Jesus (1:28).

Yet God's wisdom is available to us; He has given us His Spirit. Yet we often limit this wisdom to the written word, preferring to rely on our own logic and wisdom instead, saying that the wisdom God has available to us comes only through the Bible. Do we realize that the very act of reading is interpreting? Do we know that as long as we rely on our own logic to interpret what God had given us, we are turning back to human wisdom?

Sorry to go on at length. It's just that the thoughts I had when I first made the post (around 2 am) are in focus a little more clearly now than they were then.And I am convinced that we will not make progress toward "keeping the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" until we recognize that the Spirit is active and working among us and in us.

THE FOLLOWING IS A QUOTED RESPONSE TO THE PREVIOUS RESPONSE. PUTTING THIS IN CAPS IS EASIER THAN TRYING TO GET IT BACK IN IT'S ORIGINAL BOX

Marc, You correctly condemn "human wisdom". I don't quite follow how relying on the written Word, the Bible, somehow becomes "our own logic and wisdom instead". One can possibly read with the wrong intent, or a closed mind, but the Bible must be considered the single most reliable source of revelation. After all, the Bible claims to be the Word of God in so many places that I won't even bother to add a reference. Ironically, you condemn the act "convert[ing] everyone else to our way of thinking". Yet if one is a Christian, one should have the 'mind of Christ' (1 Cor. 2:16), and is commanded to "make disciples of all the world' (Matt. 28:19-20). So, if I have the "mind of Christ", then I should convert everyone else to my way of thinking! In fact, I'm commanded to! Second, while I agree that God's revelation is not strictly limited to His Word (Ps. 19), it would appear to be clear enough that the Word is the standard by which we may measure any other "revelation" (1 John 4:1). END OF QUOTE

I don't really disagree radically--I particularly agree with the statement you made in the last paragraph--it's just that I'm starting to question where I draw the line between the Word of God and Human wisdom. Too often in the past I have believed that only others "interpreted" the Bible, but that I read it for what it said. Yet I have come to admit that I, like everyone else, bring millenia of baggage with me when I sit down and read the Word.

As I said earlier, the very act of reading is interpreting. It helps me when I start with the literal realization of what reading is: my brain interpreting marks on paper into meanings that I have been taught. Reading is codebreaking--a word has meaning only in that that particular combination of letters has been assigned a certain meaning. Discerning that meaning is the first level of interpreting.

The next level of interpreting (and I'm making this up as I go along; I'm sure there are many levels I haven't considered) is when we take into consideration the context of what we are reading and the intent of the author. Then another level deals with what I referred to earlier, the often undetected prejudices ingrained in us by our environment.So how do we sort through these layers of interpretation and come up with the true meaning? Too often I have relied on my own wisdom. My mind has a very logical twist to it. I do well on logic tests. I love word problems. I like to figure things out. So my own bent has led me to rely on my own wisdom, on my own capacity to figure out what the scriptures really mean.

Yet my own background betrays me. Years of a certain way of thinking lead me in a certain direction, and, in spite of my best intentions, I subconsciously interpret the scripture to mean what makes sense to me.

I think this is what Paul's getting at here. He's writing to a group of people who are fighting among themselves and who are separating into factions. He tells them all to be of the same mind. How is this possible? How can these people from different backgrounds, these Jews and Greeks with different experiences be of the same mind? You have referred to the answer. They are to have the mind of Christ.

And how do they do that? Paul says they do not do this by relying on human logic--on human wisdom, but on wisdom that comes from the Spirit, who is the only one who "knows the thoughts of God."In no way do I want to downplay the revealed will of God through His word. I only want to try to yield more and more to the One True Interpreter of the Word of God.

Man, it is so hard for me to think this way
____________________________

I wrote this several years ago, but recent conversations have made me think about these things again. At first glance, my reference to Locke seems pretentious, but for those of us in the Church of Christ it is relevant. Our movement was born in the midst of enlightenment philosophy. 18th and 19th century deism comes from some of the same sources. Reading some of our early lights, such as Alexander Campbell, I see the same language and the same reasoning that I see when I read Jefferson.

And yet today, those among us who deny the current working of the Holy Spirit outside of the word unconsciously use the language of deism. "Providence" is credited with being the only way that God works apart from the Bible. Any direct action, any direct encounter with God outside of the written page is scoffed at.

This line of thinking has led us to put ourselves at the center of our religious universe. Everything proceeds from our mind, from our understanding.

I do not believe we can truly know God if we close our eyes to the reality of His Spirit working in us.

Like Kids Teaching Each Other Chess

2007-01-29T17:35:00.000-05:00

My seven-year-old nephew got a chess set for Christmas. Of course he had no idea how to play, but his nine-year-old cousin was willing to help.

"I know how to play," he said. "I watched an episode of Xiaolin Showdown where they played chess, so I can teach you."

And with that, they took the chess set into another room. A few minutes later, the younder nephew came back in dejected.

"He beat me," he said, "but we're goint to keep playing until I win a game."

I didn't have the courage to watch, but I did wonder what rules they were making up as they went along.

Sometimes that's what I feel like I'm doing when I'm trying to teach others about God or even when I'm writing here or on a discussion board. I'm like some kid trying to teach another kid a game I don't even know the rules to. I've seen this Christianity thing played out, and I've heard people try to explain it, but I get the feeling that I don't know half as much as I think I do.

So much depends on my realizing I don't know it all. God has shown us who He is. Jesus Christ walked this Earth and modeled God to us. But we want to know more and more. We want to know more about God than He's revealed.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to know more and more about God. However, when we find ourselves parsing scripture, creating rules, then saying that anyone who comes up with a different set of rules than we have is not an honest seeker of truth, then there's something wrong.

Time comes when we have to admit that maybe our priorities and God's priorities aren't the same. Maybe the reason we can't find the answers to all of our questions is that we're not asking questions that really lead us closer to God.

But we insist on finding the answers, and if they aren't laid out clearly enough, we will argue them into the scriptures. We set ourselves up as experts, when all the while we're more like my nephew who watched a cartoon about playing chess and decided that this qualifies us to teach others how to play.

God have mercy on our souls.

When God Doesn't Answer

2007-01-27T12:29:00.000-05:00

I had already talked about the problems of evil and about how we can't always understand what God is doing, but we can trust Him when he asked the question.

He is a 13-year-old who always seems to feel out of place. Bullies target him frequently, and those who should be defending him often join in. He is always willing to speak up and ask questions; he always wants to know more, but he has trouble saying the right thing sometimes. And I admit that much of my teaching time is spent trying to reign in his questions, trying to get him to wait a bit on this one or hold off until after class for that one. Trying to keep his questions from taking the class off-task.

But this question was directly relevant. I only wish I had a better answer.

"If I keep praying and praying for something, and God doesn't anwer me, does that mean that I'm a bad person?"

Well, telling him that he wasn't a bad person was easy enough. Trying to explain why God didn't answer his prayers in the way he wanted was tougher. Here was a kid who's life had become much harder than it should be. From where I stood, I could see many ways that God had blessed him, but I also remember being that age, and I still know the problem of soul-wrenching pleas to God that seem to go unanswered. And no easy answer came.

Waiting on God is hard. I am only now seeing some things I've been praying for for more than twenty years come into my life. And other requests that I have made so many times that I hate to even form the thought any more still seem distant. Maybe some of these will never be answered. I can trust God, I know, because I have seen prayers answered. I know that He's real in my life. He's present. He comforts me.

But how can you get a 13-year-old to see this?

And it's not only a problem the young have. I still have questions, doubts. There are times when God still seems distant, when my prayers don't seem to clear the ceiling. Others have these questions as well. I remember an older lady in a class I taught a year or two back who had lost a grown daughter saying that yes, the Bible says that God answers prayers, but sometimes it's hard to believe.

I can't pretend to have a grip on all of this. I don't understand, and I know I won't understand in this life. I can only thank God for what He has done for me, know He is real, and trust.

Faith Is difficult, at times. But this natural, organic Christian life that I'm searching for is all bound up in the idea of a faith that secures us and pulls it all together.

Is It Possible To Talk About the Cross Too Much?

2007-01-26T17:38:00.000-05:00

Normally, I'd say no. I mean, that's the easy answer. The cross is absolutely central to our walk. But lately I've come to wonder whether our emphasis of the cross leads to conversations reminiscent of the old joke with the punchline "it sure sounds like a squirrel, but I know the answer's "Jesus". (if you don't know the joke, sorry.)

To begin with, I've been in a couple of challenging conversations lately about our theology of the cross. While I'm not ready to give up on the substitutional atonement idea yet, I do recognize that there are differing opinions, and some people I respect very much, such as Jim McGuiggan, do not believe this.

But what really made me wonder if we talk about the cross more than we should was an event in my Wednesday night class.

We finished our discussion a little early, and I decided to do something with our remaining time that would lead into our next lesson. Now, I am currently taking three different methods-type classes while working on my masters in teaching, and yes, I do use my Bible class students as guinea pigs. I tried out an instructional strategy I had just learned. I asked the students to close their eyes for a couple of minutes and think about what they knew about the Holy Spirit. Then I handed out paper and crayons and asked them to draw the image they had just seen in their minds.

All but two of the students drew a crucifixion scene.

I have no explanation for this. The rest of the excercise is that after the lesson is taught, I will ask them to draw a second picture showing how they now view the Holy Spirit. I am interested in seeing what happens there.

But the idea that when asked to describe a concept they do not grasp, they reverted to drawing the cross (and nearly always three crosses, fwiw), says something. I'm not sure what.

It does make me think there's a lot they need to begin to understand and know, but it also makes me think we adults haven't been doing our jobs.

More to come on this, I'm sure.

From "Seeking a Lasting City"

2007-01-24T10:50:00.000-05:00

by Mark Love, Doug Foster and Randy Harris,

"First, the church is at its best when on the move and most prone to unfaithfulness when it loses its movement. When the church finds itself in the anxiety of change, it should at least find comfort that this is precisely the condition in which it regains movement. From this perspective, it is possible to see our current transition as birth pangs, not death throes. With regard to the church, changelessness is a sign of death, not faithfulness."

Jeopardy Online Test

2007-01-23T20:14:00.000-05:00

I just took the online contestant test, and it was much easier than I thought. Too easy, maybe. There were only a couple of questions that I just plain didn't know.

But after this, everything seems random. They choose people randmomly to go to the next phase, and as easy as the test was, there will be too many names in the hat.

Oh well.

8 Things

2007-01-22T20:55:00.000-05:00

A few weeks back, I listened to a lesson that said that if you're teaching teens, you need to know exactly what you want them to learn. Simple enough, it seems, so I thought I would make out a list, narrow it as much as possible, and present it to my class. I tried to come up with points that were broad enought to encompass anything I decided they should later on (sounds like cheating, doesnt it?).

After thinking about it a while, I came up with these:

1. God is Good.

2. Understand Grace.

3. Be Humble.

4. The Holy Spirit is Real and Working in Your Life.

5. Become Spiritual People.

6. Seek Truth.

7. Advance The Kingdom (Live out Holistic Christianity).

8. Love Each Other.

Okay, I thought, this should encompass everything. I was pretty confident I could include anything the kids came up with when I asked them if they could think of anything else.

Then our newest student, who was baptized only a couple of weeks ago, said, "Have no other gods before me."

And I realized that I'd missed the Greatest commandment. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, strength and mind.

Okay. Maybe that was important, too. So, we're working that one in.

Lesson one is underway. "God is Good" seems simple. At least until you start talking about why He permits suffering and the college student in the class brings up Augustine.

Who knows where we'll go next.

The Question That Lies Heavily Upon This Nation...

2007-01-22T17:37:00.000-05:00

24 or Heroes?

Not having one of those fancy Tidvro thingies, I will have to use an old-fashioned videocassette tape for one (while listening to my 8-tracks).

The logical thing is to watch 24, since it happens in real time. And what with the nuke last week, if I don't watch it now, who knows whether I will get another opportunity.

On the other hand, Christopher Eccleston,

briefly Dr. Who (and an excellent doctor, imho),is tonight's new hero, an invisible man.

I may take the chance and watch heroes live and 24 toward midnight. Seems appropriate.

Brokenness

2007-01-22T16:23:00.000-05:00

This has come up a couple of times recently, butI haven't felt terribly comfortable discussing the idea.

Is it necessary to be broken before we can be used by God? What does it mean to be broken? Will God take things away from us so that we will become useful to him?

I'm at a point right now where I'm starting to learn what this means. Whatever pride I've had, I have been forced to give up just so I could keep going. To some extent, it seems that doing this is keeping me from being used by God the way I could be.

Yet I wonder whether the problem isn't that I've thought too much about what my life should be like and how I can succeed, both in serving God and in my life in general. Now I'm being forced to take things as they come; maybe that's how I'll find God's will.

I'm coming to certain realizations a little late in life, but I'm still not sure what is of God and what isn't.

Evening and Morning

2007-01-22T16:19:00.000-05:00

Psalm 143

1 O LORD, hear my prayer,
listen to my cry for mercy;
in your faithfulness and righteousness
come to my relief.
2 Do not bring your servant into judgment,
for no one living is righteous before you.
3 The enemy pursues me,
he crushes me to the ground;
he makes me dwell in darkness
like those long dead.
4 So my spirit grows faint within me;
my heart within me is dismayed.

This is how I feel too often. Sometimes, I know, I’m not listening at all, and that is why my spirit grows faint. But sometimes, I try to listen. I cup my hand to my ear and try to hear his voice. I know he’s there, but I can’t simply create awareness.

5 I remember the days of long ago;
I meditate on all your works
and consider what your hands have done.
6 I spread out my hands to you;
my soul thirsts for you like a parched land.
Selah
7 Answer me quickly, O LORD;
my spirit fails.
Do not hide your face from me
or I will be like those who go down to the pit.

Not just those of long ago, me of long ago. I remember the times when I’ve had a vivid awareness of God’s presence. I remember the times when I’ve been as sure that he was beside me as I was that I was beside him. I even remember just how it felt to know that the Spirit of the Lord was in this place. But now, despair comes. Now he seems as far away as the past itself, and as inaccessible.

8 Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love,
for I have put my trust in you.
Show me the way I should go,
for to you I lift up my soul.
9 Rescue me from my enemies, O LORD,
for I hide myself in you.
10 Teach me to do your will,
for you are my God;
may your good Spirit
lead me on level ground.

It’s all about the morning. And I have yet to experience night without morning. That’s what keeps me going when I can’t sense his presence. I know intellectually that what I sense isn’t the final word, anyway. He is always there. He exists not just in my senses or in my emotions, but in all that is around me and in my soul. Not only does he always come in the morning, he himself is the morning.

11 For your name's sake, O LORD, preserve my life;
in your righteousness, bring me out of trouble.
12 In your unfailing love, silence my enemies;
destroy all my foes,
for I am your servant.

And the foes, I find, are inside me. They’re in my mind and in my heart. Lord, please destroy them. Make it so evening doesn’t overcome the memory of daylight. Morning, come quickly.

Listening

2007-01-22T16:17:00.000-05:00

We can still hear his voice. I don’t mean that he comes to us and whispers in our ears. I know there are people who believe they hear the audible voice of God, and I don’t want to put myself in their place, but me, I don’t hear God like that. Yet I believe God speaks to us.

Yes, of course he speaks through scriptures. He breathed those words and they are there for us to use to mold out lives and to help shape us into his likeness. But I do not believe that, when the Bible was complete, God looked down and said, “that’s enough.” Jesus came to complete the work of the prophets, but he did not come to limit God’s presence to 66 books. God still speaks.

Romans 8 tells us about the Holy Spirit living in us, guiding us, and giving us life. It also says, in verses 26 and 27, “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will.”

The Spirit helps us communicate with God. He knows what’s inside us and what’s inside God, and he helps us speak the same language.

But God is never silent. He is here, all around us. And he is constantly speaking to us. Nature is not impersonal. Life is not impersonal. God lives, and he directs our lives. How? That’s the question. Many years ago, I wrote something that I was, for a long, long time, afraid to show anyone. I called it “Still, Small Voice.”

They say there’s something in the wind--I don’t know.
I haven’t felt the earth shake
And I’m through staring at the sun--It’s just so
bright I cannot see my shadow

And then I hear your voice, your still small voice and turn around
I try to find your still small voice in this dark room
I just open one east window, and then the sound comes flowing
Drowning out a world of catcalls and disconcerting noise
Your still small voice.

I hear you whisper in the dawn, just when
The morning fog begins to break,
I believe it’s you because I’ve heard
A million wonders speak your name.

Talking about this sort of thing was frowned upon when I was growing up. Even the phrase “still, small voice” was considered a hallmark of emotionalism. Yes, God came to Elijah in the cave, but Elijah was a prophet. He was special.

I think we miss something if we think like that.

God was not in the powerful wind. He was not in the earthquake. He was not in the fire. He was in the stillness, the quiet. The NIV says God was in the “gentle whisper”.

The same goes in our lives. God can’t always be heard in the business of our constant doing. He can’t always be heard in the loud sermon or the fierce doctrinal debate. He can’t always be found in the militant condemnations or the apocalyptic interpretations. Sometimes, he seems to be just waiting for us to be quiet.

But quiet doesn’t come naturally to us. We want to show how much we understand. We want to convince the world that we are right. I believe that if we stopped worrying so much about us and our rightness we would understand that what draws people is the righteousness and the presence of God. But we talk so loud that we can’t hear him for the sound of our own voice.

God has a message for us in every day, every experience, every thought. We are to have the mind of Christ, to conform ourselves to him, to live by the Spirit. But we are self-sufficient and too often want nothing we have not earned. Experiences are for the weak-minded. Words and concrete knowledge will get us through.

Yet God is here, and he is speaking. Our place is to be quiet and listen.

God as a Child

2007-01-22T16:15:00.000-05:00

This is the first of three posts I'm moving here from another blog.

GOD AS A CHILD November 21, 2006, 12:22:18 AM

Bethlehem deepened the mystery of Who God Is, but only as a prelude to the ultimate revelation.

Because up to then, it was a mystery. God had communicated directly with a few individuals, most of whom (at least the ones we know of) had been citizens of a small country in the middle east. To most of humanity, he was still an unknown factor. His presence was evident, and he had spoken through his prophets in ways that revealed who he was, but he was still beyond comprehension.

That began to change in Bethlehem, thanks initially to one incomprehensible act.

We all know the story. Shepherds. A manger. Later, “wise men”. The young couple confronted with troubling, gut-wrenching news. Joseph must have been sickened when he heard, and Mary, how could she explain? Who would believe her? Many words have been written about the humble way God chose to come into this world, about how he should have been expected to come to royalty and wealth. But why? Why does this surprise us?

What’s a king? Ask Ozymandias. And if Shelley, from his human perspective understood that all glory eventually lies beneath dust and sand, why should God, from the center of eternity, find our conceits of power impressive? What belonged to God mattered, but what man had built would crumble. God came to the nation he had created, as he had promised. And as he came, he honored open hearts and humility.

And he became a baby.

A real, human baby. Not a glowing child with a halo, not an infant who, contrary to Christmas carols we sing, never cried, not some plastic doll, but a real human baby. Fully God. Fully human. The dichotomy’s ancient, and we have always struggled to understand. It is a situation we look at for a little while, then we turn away. It’s good for us that so few details about Jesus’ young life were written in scripture, because many of us would have a hard time handling the reality. How could a normal, small, troublesome baby be divine? How could he be perfect?

But he was.

Someone asked the other day what God’s FAQ would be when we get to Heaven. What questions would we all want to ask him? Many of the usual ones came up. What about suffering? What is baptism for the dead? How did they fit all of those animals into that boat? Where did Cain get his wife? How old is the Earth? Did Adam have a belly button? Me, I want to know about Jesus’ childhood. I want details. How did the creator of the universe learn to read and write? That’s such a contradiction. When did he start talking? Walking? What kinds of games did he play? Who were his friends? Did he catch colds? Did he have pimples? When did he start talking about his father? How aware was he of who he really was? What was the Word like as a human child?

Unimportant stuff, I guess, but I want to know it all. I want to understand what this incarnation thing was all about. I want to know how it all worked down to the nuts and bolts level.

God came to us. That’s amazing enough, but when we take it one step further to the idea that God became us, that spins all of my understanding into chaos. I know nothing. I understand nothing. What I think I know is so tiny, so insignificant, that it’s laughable. If I hold myself up as someone smart and learned, I am in God’s eyes the equivalent of a six-year-old who learns to add two and two and thinks he’s mastered quantum physics.

God became tiny, and in doing this incomprehensible thing, humbled the universe.

Wouldn’t it have been something to have seen him and to have heard his voice?

Active again

2007-01-22T16:10:00.000-05:00

Just a short note to say this blog is about to become active again. I'll likely be posting here in a different way, but this is about to become my main outlet. The discussion board that I've been posting regularly on for the last five or six years has become useless, for all intents and purposes, and there is little hope things will change soon.

I'll be writing more, and I hope to hear others' thoughts as well. Thanks.

Marc

Church Idolatry

2006-08-15T10:51:00.000-04:00

You saw no form of any kind the day the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire. Therefore watch yourselves very carefully, so that you do not become corrupt and make for yourselves an idol, an image of any shape, whether formed like a man or a woman, or like any animal on earth or any bird that flies in the air, 1or like any creature that moves along the ground or any fish in the waters below. 1And when you look up to the sky and see the sun, the moon and the stars—all the heavenly array—do not be enticed into bowing down to them and worshiping things the LORD your God has apportioned to all the nations under heaven. But as for you, the LORD took you and brought you out of the iron-smelting furnace, out of Egypt, to be the people of his inheritance, as you now are. (Deuteronomy 4:15-20)

As I write this, I’m not thinking about any church, any denomination, other than the one I am a member of. I know that the tendency when thinking of this subject is to think about the Catholic Church or some other high church organization, but what I’m thinking of doesn’t apply to them, really. It applies to us, and specifically to the way we think about ourselves.

Over the past week I have run into people defending the organization and existence of the Church of Christ (although they almost always fail to capitalize the first c—more on that in a minute). The idea seems to be that, in order to justify our existence, we need to prove that we are correct in God’s eyes. The problem is that this ventures toward idolatry, and a curious type of idolatry, even, in which we not only create the object of our veneration but we ourselves compose it.

We’re talking self-idolatry here.

Usually, when preachers talk about idolatry in our society, they talk about our attitudes toward money or possessions. While these may become practical items, they don’t become the objects of our actual worship. Our church organization, in a sense, does. We teach about it (isn’t teaching/preaching included in our acts of worship?) We preach about it. We talk about it at the communion table. I’ve even heard people pray and sing about it.

We look for patterns that prove what we do is correct. And when we find these patterns (which often are as elusive as the Bible Code, yet as convincing to us as that mythology is to its adherents), we proclaim them as gospel, and declare that anyone who doesn’t see this plain truth is not an honest seeker of God.

But what we’re seeking isn’t God; it’s ourselves.

Our trust is too often not just in God, but also in the church. This happens at the same time that we proclaim, “the church is us!” The problem, then, should become obvious.

We are trusting in ourselves.

Why do we do this? In part, I believe it’s the same reason that the people Moses spoke to tended to build idols and worship the things God created instead of the creator. We want something visible. We want to be able to see, to touch, to point out the borders of God’s kingdom. We serve an invisible God and a risen savior who has returned to the Father. We tend to lack trust in the invisible to the point that we are even afraid to say, “Yes, God did this,” because we fear we may be wrong. We need the physical! We need something to focus our worship on!

So we focus on the two physical objects he left us—The Bible and The Church.

We’re only talking about the church, here. We want to identify it definitely. We want to say, “Here it is. Come to us, do as we do, and be part of the kingdom.”

Yet Jesus said (in Luke 17),

Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, "The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the kingdom of God is within you."

It can be a little misleading to leave it at this. God’s people, we are told, are to be unified. We are to be together, to meet together, to help one another, to fellowship. But the borders of the kingdom are not determined physically, and they’re not determined by us.

We sometimes pay lip (or pen or computer) service to the idea of the spiritual kingdom without borders by refusing to capitalize the first “c” in church of Christ. But instead of this showing that we understand the spiritual nature of the kingdom, it really does two things: it shows that we don’t understand the basic rules of English capitalization (particularly when we write things such as “Upper Avenue church of Christ”, and it shows that we believe that we, as the only group with the right to not capitalize our name, believe that we are the One True Church.

And this becomes just one more sign of our church idolatry.

The passage I quoted at the beginning tells how we should not worship the stars and the nature that God created. Yet Psalms shows us that we can look at this beauty, see the One who created it, and worship Him.

In the same way, we should not give in to the temptation to worship the church, which is created, saved, and sustained by God, but should instead thank God for what He does in and through the church, and worship Him because of the church.

God’s the one who saves us. Grace through faith, so that we can’t boast.

After all, boasting, if taken to an extreme, can lead to self-idolatry.

Silence of the Scriptures (NT References)

2006-08-13T22:47:00.000-04:00

Funny how things go in cycles, but with the Church ofChrist/Christian Church unity efforts conversation has turned back to instrumental music, which we have discussed so much that there are permanent grooves worn in my computer screen and in my brain. It has been clear that this, and the principle behind our exclusion of it, has become a barrier to unity, not just with the Christian Church but with other professing Christians also. We have become a sect because of our refusal to compromise, because we believe that to do things differently than we are doing them is to go beyond scripture.

Behind all this is the idea that we view the silence of scripture as prohibitive. Many of the examples we use from this are ironically from the Old Testament, which we refuse to use in other ways in the same conversation. One striking thing about these examples are that the people involved (see Nadab & Abihu and Noah, of course) are given specific commands, and our arguments involve either the actual substitution of something else (strange fire) or the theoretical substitution (Oak Wood). These arguments, then, do not involve actual silence.

The same is true of the example often used in Hebrews 7&8. Jesus couldn't be a priest because he was from the wrong tribe, and the priestly tribe was specified. Again, not silence in the sense that we are using it. Not to mention that this is a strange place to argue from since the passage continues to tell about the change in covenant that changes the very nature of the Law.

Another passage sometimes used is 1 Corinthians 4:6--Do not go beyond what is written. The problem here is that, in context, Paul is telling the people not to make themselves judges, which is exactly what we've used this passage to do!

1So then, men ought to regard us as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the secret things of God. 2Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful. 3I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. 4My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. 5Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men's hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God.
6Now, brothers, I have applied these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, so that you may learn from us the meaning of the saying, "Do not go beyond what is written." Then you will not take pride in one man over against another. 7For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?

So this one seems to say the opposite of what we use it to say.

An even stronger indictment against this type of thinking is found in another verse sometimes used to say it is wrong to add things to what scripture tells us to do. This is Colossians 2:22-23, with the phrase that the KJV translates "will worship". Look at what it says in context:

20Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: 21"Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!"? 22These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings. 23Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.

Serious trouble here. Paul is warning us against adding prohibitive rules. So what do we use this verse to do? Add prohibitive rules.

One other that is sometimes used is the "in word or deed" verse from Colossians 3. Here it is in context.

15Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. 16Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. 17And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Are we seriously going to begin with this verse to try to prove that verse 16 means a capella only? It seems clear that a normal reading of this verse would show that the phrase has to do with our devotion to God, not our following detailed prescriptions (which I have yet to find) of how we are to worship.

Are there other New Testament passages that address the silence of scriptures? One that comes to mind for me is Galatians 5:

19The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. 25Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 26Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

If it's good, is it honors God, if it comes from the Spirit, there is no law against it. Interesting.

There are many other New Testament scriptures that give this same idea, the idea that what matters is doing good. This is the way that Jesus lived on Earth. He went about doing good every opportunity He had, and his opponents went about criticizing everything He did, saying that it was prohibited, even thought they didn't have scriptures to back up the prohibition.

Is this at all relevant, particularly when we consider the scriptural emphasis on love and unity? Is it possible that we are going beyond what is written by letting judgments on things not spoken of in the scriptures prevent our unity with other believers, something that would seem to be the fruit of the Spirit?

I believe it is.

Holy

2006-08-13T22:32:00.000-04:00

I am unclean.
In the year of my uncertainty I see you there
Sitting on your throne.

The edges of your pure, white robe
flow through the sin-filled blackness of the
deepest, secret corners of my life.

Exposing my humanity
in all its hidden shame.

I am undone.

(Holy, Holy, Holy. . . )

In the year of my despondency
When I am at my lowest, I see you there
Still on you throne.

With all the troubles facing me
When what I need is comfort,
Instead I'm unexpectedly
Confronted by your holiness.

I am unclean.

(Holy, Holy, Holy. . . )

I try to speak in my defense,
But find instead my unclean lips
Refuse to say a word in your presence.

I am undone.

(Holy, Holy, Holy. . . )

Oh, Father, touch my lips
With a hot coal from your altar,
Replace my empty failures
With a measure of your righteousness,

So I can stand
Before your throne.

(Holy, Holy, Holy. . . )

Even though your presence still
Exposes my unworthiness,
Through grace I can with confidence
Approach your holy throne,

My sins removed
By Jesus' blood.

(Holy, Holy, Holy.)

And suddenly,
I am your son.

Organic Baptism

2006-08-07T22:18:00.000-04:00

Galatians 3:26 You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. --NIV

If when we come to Christ, we become a part of His body and become wholly dependent on Him and on each other, then our concepts of our rites are, perhaps, too shallow. We separate them out and look at them apart from their context in the body, apart from the organic part they play in Christian life.

As a member of the Church of Christ, it is natural that the first thing I think of when I consider this is baptism.

To mix metaphors in a wholly irresponsible way...

If our relationship to God is an ecosystem, then we cannot remove one part of that system and examine it without considering its relationship to the other living things that it depends on to survive. We cannot put baptism on a dissecting table and discover what causes it to live. We must consider it as a part of the whole. If we do not evaluate its relationship to the larger organism of Christianity, we do not understand it.

Next metaphor: The way we talk about baptism reminds me of someone who picks up the Great American Novel and begins talking about the cover art or the typeface. We miss the greater meaning.

We treat baptism (Metaphor-Whiplash Warning) as a magic trick. We are concerned about the words and the purpose and the place. The way it looks and sounds and feels. The necessity of it all. And we argue and prove and altogether undervalue the part that Christ plays in the process. If we talk about Him, it is often to prove that He commands baptism or that Baptism is the only way to get into Him.

But we don't talk enough about what getting into Him means, and why baptism is such an evocative picture of Life In Christ as part of His body.

We put Him on and become one with all of His people. We are baptized into His death, and our lives become hidden in His. Our race, our station, our gender, they are no longer what gives us value. We belong to Him. We are part of His family, part of His body. We can call His father ours, and we have the full rights of children of God.

And as children of God, we are part of His body and we are dependent on and have an obligation to each other. We are joined. We are one. And it all goes back to our reenacting His death, burial, and resurrection. In doing this we die to our selfishness, our identity as a bootstrap-tugging individualist, and we become part of his body, the One Great Organic body of Christ.

It's a beautiful, wonderful thing, much greater, much more precious than our arguments make it appear.

God and Change

2006-06-17T22:27:00.000-04:00

Listening to Terry Rush online tonight, I heard him make the point that God doesn't grow old. God is timeless, so even though he has existed always, He doesn't become arthritic; He doesn't become set in His ways like we do.

As I grow older, change becomes more uncomfortable. I begin to think that the way things were done in my youth was the One Correct Way. God does not grow old. He remains just ahead of us, beckoning us into the future.

When I learn something new about God, that does not mean that God has changed. God Is. When I learn something new about God, that is not in itself a new thing, it is just that this is something I didn't realize before. God is perfect and changeless; I am inadequate. And He says, "Don't worry. I'll take care of you with My power."

We are afraid of change because we trust in ourselves too much. If we think we do not need to change, we should humble ourselves and become more aware of our imperfections.

Unity

2006-06-17T21:57:00.000-04:00

I haven't posted here since last November. I have more time now, so I'll probably be posting again semi-regularly. What I write may be more of a ramble than what I've done before, though.

Last weekend our group attended a youth rally just up the road at the church (Church of Christ) where I attanded most of my life. I've mentioned before that the church has opened up quite a bit in the last couple of decades. What happened tonight was astounding.

Tonight, they invited other churches in the area to come join them. The Methodist Church and the Church of God cancelled services tonight and came down. Two area Baptist churches also joined in. The Methodist preacher and the CofG preacher both led prayer, the Baptist preacher said a few words at the end of services, the speaker talked about unity and being together, and committing to keeping the unity going, to being as one as believers in Christ even if we didn't agree on everything. There was a lot of crying and hugging. The atmosphere was unbelievable.

When I was growing up, we were doing whatever we could to convince these people that if they didn't come join us, they would go to hell. This has been changing for some time, and tonight there was visible healing and repentence. All these people in this small community who had always known each other and loved each other, promising to no longer let denominational differences stand between them.

Amazing. Praise God.

Seeing this has encouraged me, and breathed a little more life into me. Yet I know that this will likely bring conflict and force people to make choices.

I can only pray about what will happen next for all of us.

God & Man, BC

2005-11-25T23:22:00.000-05:00

I can understand why some people doubt God’s existence because no one ever actually sees him. That’s the natural human way to think about God. If no one who can speak of it has actually seen something, and it can’t be measured by proven scientific methods, then odds are it doesn’t exist.

But I’m not convinced by this argument. This is a human way of thinking about material things, and we can’t apply materialistic thinking to spiritual ideas. Do we think God is just like us? Do we think that it would be natural for God to set up an office in Manhattan or Tokyo with branches all over the world and hold weekly news conferences telling us what he wants us to do next?

God isn’t like that. God doesn’t fit our preconceptions, and he’s certainly not the Supreme Executive Officer of the Universe.

He has communicated with us. This is foundational for us who believe. We know the history of God’s interaction with man. And we know what happened with Adam and Eve. Sometimes, though, we forget that God’s not the one who messed up the relationship. God didn’t just decide to walk away from us and not come visit anymore.

We are the ones who broke fellowship.

Even after Adam and Eve, God still communicated with men. We read that he talked directly with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Moses, for instance. But we don’t see that so much as evidence of his existence. Even if we had lived then, it would have been easy enough to dismiss their talk of The Voice Of God as ravings of schizophrenics. At least it would have been until the sky turned dark, the rivers turned to blood, the frogs came, and the firstborn died.

But God was always there, and he always made his presence known to those whose eyes were adjusted so they could see him. Even those who heard his voice often questioned him (think of Gideon and his fleece, for instance), and didn’t always come the first time he called (think Samuel). They didn’t even always willingly do what he told them (Balaam had to be put in his place by his donkey, and even then he didn’t remain God’s Faithful Servant).

They did recognize him, however, and they understood something about his nature. But how much did even those whom God revealed himself to most clearly really understand?

When God was forming his nation, Israel, he called Moses up on Sinai to receive the law that would tell this nation how to live. The story’s familiar. Something happened during this, however, that I overlooked for years. I knew all about how God had revealed his glory to Moses, and about how Moses’ face had shined so because he had been in God’s presence, but I missed the passage in Exodus 24 about the others who had seen God.

Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up and saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement made of sapphire, clear as the sky itself. But God did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites; they saw God, and they ate and drank. (verses 9-11)

Moses, Aaron, Nadab and Abihu saw God. How can this be? How can man see God and live? God is so much higher, so inexplicable, that surely it is beyond human experience to see him? I read this, and once again I realize that my understanding of who God is falls so far short that even using the word understanding seems improper.

If they saw God, then at least they must have been particularly holy people, and this experience must have made them lead pure, consecrated lives in his service. Right?

But the names are familiar, and not for the right reasons. At least we hold Aaron in high regard. He was the first priest under the Law of Moses. But what did he do immediately following his experience with God? Do the words “golden calf” ring a bell?

Amazing. Immediately after seeing the one holy God, Aaron creates an idol to placate the people. If standing in the presence of the creator of the universe doesn’t instill the proper fear and respect in your heart, then what will. How could Aaron have done this?

Then there are his sons, Nadab and Abihu. Their names have become synonymous with casual, rebellious sin. Their lack of respect in leading Israel’s worship caused God to strike them dead.

So what’s the lesson here? If seeing God with your own eyes isn’t enough to make you absolutely faithful to him, then what is? How can a person see his holiness, then turn away from him?

Maybe the answer has to do with the state of the heart. Think the difference between Judas and Peter, between Kings Saul and David.

Some truly comprehend who God is and give him their hearts, turning to him as the reason for existence, not even letting their own imperfections and out and out sin stop them from serving him (and in the end Aaron seems to fit here), some turn away and only live to satisfy their own desires, and when confronted with their own sinfulness, still can’t find it in their hearts to throw themselves and God’s feet.

In Psalm 19, the one that begins with “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge,” David reveals something about his relationship with God that gives us a clue about the difference the state of a person’s heart makes.

The law of the LORD is perfect,
reviving the soul.
The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy,
making wise the simple.
The precepts of the LORD are right,
giving joy to the heart.
The commands of the LORD are radiant,
giving light to the eyes.
The fear of the LORD is pure,
enduring forever.
The ordinances of the LORD are sure
and altogether righteous.
They are more precious than gold,
than much pure gold;
they are sweeter than honey,
than honey from the comb. (7-10)

For David, obeying God wasn’t a chore. It wasn’t something that he did out of fear or out of some bitter-tasting sense of duty. Obeying God was how David fed his soul And the food that God provided tasted as sweet as any physical food David had ever eaten.

We can memorize the Bible from front to back in seven different versions and write multiple commentaries on each verse, but if we don’t find God’s word sweet to the taste, all we do will not bring us one step closer to him. The most militant atheists comb over scriptures incessantly, searching for slip-ups, looking for details that make God seem petty or the writers seem dishonest. They take in all kinds of knowledge about God and his will for man, but because their hearts are set against God, the knowledge sours in their stomachs and produces bile.

David, on the other hand, hung on every word that came from God’s lips, and even heard his voice speaking in each sunrise. And David found God’s word joyful, radiant, precious, sweet.

I admit that at times I have read scripture and haven’t liked what I have seen. I haven’t understood the why of God, and because he didn’t fit my expectations, I began to grouse, and sometimes to doubt. The problem was with my heart and with my humanity. The problem is easier to diagnose than it is to cure. I must turn myself over to the great physician.

I am convinced that an open heart toward God will revive us continually, and the new life we experience when we belong to him will be sweeter than honey.

Unfathomable

2005-11-19T13:11:00.000-05:00

I would say that I don’t understand God, but that would imply that I have some hope of doing so in this life. God isn’t understandable. He is so far past our comprehension we can’t even adequately describe our lack of comprehension.

The standard comparison is that of an ant trying to understand a human, and that gives us a starting place. An ant, with its tiny brain, can’t understand what those big things that step on them and scatter their anthills are. They don’t even have the language to wonder. But there’s where we find the difference.

We can wonder about God. He made us so we would do this, even. He created us not as some insect that can only react, but as a being somehow in His image, a being that can think, that can question, that can worship, that can even in some small way create. God, who is, as Jesus said, spirit, created us with spirits that reach out for Him. He made us so it was hard for us to miss the fact that he exists (although we certainly try).

So we may be ants, but if so we are ants who are in awe of the giant who casts a shadow over us, but who we still can’t quite see or comprehend, even though this giant seems to be something like us.

Yes, I know where this illustration usually goes, but let’s not go there yet. Let’s think a bit more about God.

I don’t know how I picture God. I’ve heard people say, “I believe in God, but I don’t believe he’s some old man in the sky with a long white beard.” I’m not sure exactly what that’s supposed to mean, but I guess I agree. I don’t picture him like that.

If I picture God with a physical shape, I guess I see him with a square jaw and troubled eyes, watching what’s become of his creation, seeing kindness mixed with the misery that seems prevalent. Reaching out his hands, calling for us, waiting, reaching, and pulling on our hands.

But the shape itself isn’t something I’m comfortable with. When I think about him, I think more about existence than form. He is, and he holds everything there is in his arms, and puts a part of himself in all of it.

Back in my college world religions class, the professor said that a definition for God could be “ultimate reality”. This makes sense to me.

Sometimes when I picture God, I picture the universe, not because the universe is God, but because the universe is a sort of a revelation of the mind of God. I think of the universe, and I wonder why it exists. Why are the planets circling our sun? Why are there solar systems beyond our reach?

I can understand why there is beauty on earth, why there are mountains and canyons and waterfalls. I can even understand why there are wonders deep in the ocean. In my man-centered view of the universe, I look at these things and I think, “God put these here for us to enjoy.” I can even rationalize that he created the multi-colored and strange-shaped ocean dwelling creatures for us to someday discover, marvel at, and understand his glory a bit more.

And when we point the Hubble telescope into space and see galaxies emerging, I can think that God wanted us to eventually find these wonders and think, as I once heard a lady say, “God is still at work creating.”

But soon I realize that these are shallow explanations for all that is. I don’t doubt at all that there are beautiful, colorful galaxies and nebulas beyond what we will ever discover. And I am also sure that there have been marvelous explosions in the heavens that put an end to glories that existed without our ever seeing them. Why did these things exist? If all that God created he created for our benefit, then how do we account for what no man will even see?

And what about the creatures of the deep? Does the possibility of human wonder really account for why some of these bizarre animals exist, such as the jellyfish with twenty or thirty eyes and more stomachs than eyes, with each stomach attached to a tentacle that grabs its food, turns it to jelly, then absorbs it directly into a stomach? Or the awkwardly named Grammatostomias flagellibarba, a six-inch fish with a six-foot chin-barb (with a lure at the end to attract prey), which also features two rows of luminous violet organs along its sides?

The more we know about the universe, the less explicable it is. And the more inexplicable the universe seems, the more I realize that I cannot begin to comprehend who God is.

So when I stop and think about God, sometimes I become uncomfortable. Who is God, and what is this wondrous, monstrous universe he has created and placed us in? At times like these I picture him less a kindly grandfather and more something of an altogether different species.

This seems irreverent, using the word species when talking about God. Yet it may get to a truth that I don’t always consider. God created us in his image, yet he is not entirely like us. His thoughts are higher; his ways are unfathomable. Knowing that we are spirit and he is spirit only give us a hint about his identity, an hint that we can combine with what we know of his creation, and still not come up with enough information to begin to explain who he is.

Luckily, God didn’t leave us with only this information. After creating this universe, he introduced himself to us.

Real Life

2005-11-15T23:14:00.000-05:00

The thing that I’ve been most surprised to learn about Christianity is how it fits in naturally with real life. Christianity isn’t something separate, untouchable, inaccessible to the general public. We are to live holy lives, but Christianity itself exists out in the real world. It mixes in the crowds and rubs off on people everywhere, making this world saltier and brighter.

In other words, Christianity isn’t churchy.

I don’t say this to criticize church. We’ve developed our traditions for reasons. Everything we do now we do because it meant something to someone at some time. And much of it is still meaningful to many people. I’m not ready to throw it all out.

There’s been a lot of criticism of Stamps-Baxter type songs, for instance. I hear people say they were fine for a time when Christians were rural and poor, but in today’s urban, affluent Christian world, they have no place. I have a few problems with that.

First of all, believe it or not, some of us still live in rural areas. We haven’t all gone the way of the Studebakers and free meals on airplanes.

Second, if the Christian world as we know it is mostly affluent, that says something about Christianity. Jesus came to preach good news to the poor, and the have-nots flocked to him. James talked about how the poor were oppressed by the rich. Yet today, we identify more with the affluent than the oppressed.

But this is a digression. One that deserves to be followed elsewhere, perhaps, but one that leads us away from where I want to go now.

The third problem I have with this statement is that it both devalues the older among us and the traditions they have handed down to us. If we grow up in a loving congregation singing “I’ll Fly Away”, the song means something to us, and will cause us to feel warmth when we sing it. The words may not be completely relevant to where we are at a particular point, but the song itself, because of it’s association with nostalgic thoughts and happy times of spiritual formation, still holds much meaning.

It’s a part of our lives.

For those of us who grew up in a traditional worship environment, these types of gatherings are a part of our lives, and because of this they hold deep meaning. Some of us hold on to these traditions, even as we reach out and add new experiences. Sing “Holy, Holy, Holy,” and “When We All Get To Heaven,” and “Here I Am To Worship”. They all bring us closer to God. Use songbooks, printed sheets, PowerPoint, worship in a building, in the woods, on a mountaintop—all of it is good as long as it speaks to us where we are and makes us aware of the part God plays in our lives.

Because that’s the important part—the part God plays in our lives.

Growing up, I knew that Christianity was about more than worshipping in a building three times a week. When I was a teen we had a sign hanging over our baptistery that read “Enter Now To Worship God” and one hanging over our exit that said, “Leave Now To Serve Him”. And at the same time we talked about how what we did outside the building, the service we provided to God, was worship as well. We didn’t miss that point.

Yet I personally missed something. This wasn’t the fault of those who taught me; this was just a blind spot I developed. I came to think of Christianity as something that overlapped our daily lives, yet was distinctly something else. It existed on a parallel plane, a half-seen dimension. When we engaged in secular activities (although I wasn’t really familiar with the word “secular” at the time I was familiar with the concept), these were informed by our Christianity and our behavior in them was influenced by our Christianity, but they themselves weren’t part of it. They were earthly; Christianity was spiritual.

Not that Spiritual activities didn’t exist outside of the building; they did. But they were different activities. When you told someone about Christ or invited them to church, that was spiritual. When you ate or played games, that was secular. Door knocking was spiritual; bowling was secular.

I’ve come to believe there’s no such thing as “secular”. I think it’s all spiritual.

Was Jesus any less the Son of God when he ate and fished in his disciples than he was at other times? Was it any more amazing that God Himself walked the earth when he was preaching on the mountain than when he was napping in the boat?

Spiritual things are spiritual not because of the effort we put into them, but because of the presence of God. If He is there, the place is holy. Whether it’s a church building or a bowling alley.

This realization, something else that I’m sure came naturally to many people yet came slowly to me, made a real difference in the way I felt about God and about myself. I felt less guilty when I realized this. I no longer felt like I was less of a Christian because I didn’t like to knock doors or get into “spiritual” debates with people I disagreed with.

I tried those things, but I wasn’t very good at them.

I’ve knocked so many doors that the sight of curtains quickly closing brings a sinking sense of déjà vu. I dedicated a year and a half of my life to an overseas mission group, in part because I thought I would learn how to be a courageous evangelist who loved accosting strangers and asking them about the state of their souls.

It didn’t work. I remained hesitant. I never did get over the feeling that I was imposing on people, they would likely run the other way when they saw me coming.

The realization that Christianity is more than this, that Christianity is something that not only informs our daily lives but is our daily lives has brought new understanding to me in this area and more comfort about who God is and who He wants me to be. I appreciate those who have been called to be evangelists. I am happy that there are those who have no qualms about talking to the guy they bump into in the street about Christ.

But that ain’t me. And it never will be.

For years I thought this made me less of a Christian. Now I have begun to understand that God didn’t give me a certain set of gifts in order to make me feel guilty that I didn’t possess completely different gifts.

And I’ve learned something else. The fruit of an apple tree is an apple.

I’ve heard the apple tree example given teaching that the Bible says to bear fruit, and the fruit of a Christian is another Christian, so the only way we can please God is to constantly make disciples. Then one day as I was listening to this example it dawned on me that it was built on a faulty premise.

The fruit of an apple tree isn’t an apple tree; it is an apple. And an apple is a different thing than an apple tree, and has a different use. The primary reason for an apple tree’s existence is to produce apples, but the primary reason for an apple’s existence is to be eaten. Sure, we can get seeds from the apple that will produce more trees, but that’s not why we like apples. If that were the case, that would lead us to a pointless cycle of reproducing so we can reproduce.

We like apples because they taste good.

In the same way, when we produce fruit, we don’t produce fruit to grow replicas of ourselves, but we produce fruit because fruit tastes good. The fruit of the Spirit is. . .

Love.

Joy.

Peace.

Patience.

Kindness.

Goodness.

Faithfulness.

Gentleness.

Self-control.

Real life stuff.

Because Christianity is our real life. We serve God with our lives; we are His, and because He is with us, the mundane becomes sacred.

This idea, simple as it seems, has changed my whole view of what life is supposed to be. I believe that God created life for us to live. He didn’t mean for us to live in constant guilt that we weren’t either in a church service or knocking on someone’s door at that very moment, but instead to constantly bear the fruit of the Spirit as a natural outcome of the life we lead.

Against such there is no law.

Mystery

2005-11-13T21:55:00.000-05:00

I think there will be dogs in Heaven.

Cats too. And horses. And tigers. And salamanders.

While this doesn’t seem to be a particularly daring idea, not everyone agrees. I’ve been studying about heaven recently, trying to figure out just what the Bible teaches us it will be like, and I keep reading works by scholars who hedge on this. They’ll say something like, “there perhaps could be animals in heaven, but the Bible doesn’t really say this, so I am reluctant to say whether there will or there won’t be.”

I am just ignorant enough to be brave here and say what I believe. I think there will be animals in Heaven. After all, animals were present in Eden, even before man was. Animals were there with man from the beginning. They’re part of the grand scheme. So in my mind, I’m convinced that animals will be with us in the hereafter.

That’s about all I’ve become convinced of, though. The more I read about Heaven, the more I find that most of my preconceptions aren’t Biblical. But I still want to keep speculating about what Heaven will be like. If God doesn’t want us to dream about forever, why did he tease us with all of these little hints about a new Heaven and a new Earth and a renewed creation and the like.

As I’ve said before, I believe God wants us to use our imagination.

I think mystery is a gift from God. As children, we embrace this gift. We use the desire to know more, to experience more, to help us grow into adults. As we get older, though, we find that growth is sometimes uncomfortable, so we suppress our curiosity. The familiar is enough. Life becomes a hard thing; what we know is hard enough to deal with. And so we turn off our desire to know more, or at least we turn it down. Imagination becomes something we associate with childhood, something we outgrow.

And we miss out on some of God’s greatest blessings, because in the process of training ourselves not to look for the unfamiliar we become unable to see the unexpected.

I’ve always heard we use only a small portion of our brains. I’m not a scientist; I don’t know whether that’s true. It makes sense, though. We only use a small portion of our universe. There’s always something new out there, always a writer we’ve never read, an artist we’ve never seen, music we’ve never heard, an idea we’ve never considered. My biggest fear is stagnation. The status quo, no matter what it happens to be, becomes intolerable after a while. How can I go on in this small space where I live when God has created so much more and I have so little time to experience it all?

So I’m always reaching out, always searching. The search doesn’t always take me to comfortable places, but comfort is overrated. An explorer must be ready to go forward and leave his soft, familiar bed behind at a moment’s notice.

Take music, for example. I grew up listening to some country, but more rock and roll. As a child, I remember listening to the Beatles. Then as a teenager, I liked heavy, layered sounds. Bands that laid the music on to the point of excess. Then I came across new wave, and among that particular brand of access, I found a few bands that seemed to move Rock and Roll on to the next level. When the nineties came, and rock took on a depressive sound and was soon displaced by hip-hop, I lost interest and reverted to the music of my youth, only listening to new music by folkish singer-songwriter types. But now I find there are new bands and new sounds out there that are worth discovering. I’m even learning to appreciate some hip-hop, a development I thought would never happen.

Okay, maybe appreciate is too strong a word, but I’m getting there.

The new music I am listening to is making my life richer. I feel younger, more energetic.

Something similar has happened in my spiritual life. I have held on to many of the doctrines of my youth, as I find myself at times uncomfortable with the new Ideas I hear. But when I give in, examine the ideas, let new writers, many of whom are surprisingly deep thinkers, speak to me, my spiritual life is enriched. I am becoming younger. More spiritually energetic. I learn to appreciate new generations with new approaches. I learn that the way of thinking that I developed because of the era I grew up in is not the only way of thinking. I learn that my approaches were not deemed by God to be the only approaches.

There’s so much out there that God wants me to reach for. So many riches, both spiritually and physically.

God wants us to embrace mystery, because mystery teaches us to trust in something other than ourselves. Mystery keeps us reaching out, stepping out, walking forward. Mystery makes us take God’s hand, and not only trust him to walk us through the scary darkness, but even ask him to pull us into what we perceive as darkness. There we often discover His light already shining, illuminating things that were once mysteries, teaching us fresh truths, and leading us on toward deeper and deeper mysteries. Leading us on toward the life He created for us.

And because we desire mystery, we keep on walking toward him and walking with him. Mystery leads us to God.

We look behind us now, and see that the scary new ideas we were afraid of were merely child’s play. They were nothing but elementary math, one plus one. And we see that we stand now in an intermediate place, learning more, becoming used to new ideas, learning more about who God is and who he wants us to be. What we are learning excites us.

So the mysteries that lie ahead excite us even more. Life becomes an adventure. Boredom is vanquished, because we open our eyes to what is all around us.

Behold the horsemen and chariots of Israel.

Lightening Up

2005-11-13T21:26:00.000-05:00

If you think long enough about all of the misery in the world, you can get to the place where you think that laughter, joking, and happiness is a bad thing. If you really understood all of the misery around you, then how could you be happy? Shouldn’t we all dress in black and continually mourn the unfortunate around us? If we are to feel others’ pain, then it surely can’t be a good thing for us to enjoy ourselves like all’s right with the world?

This is a reasonable conclusion. We read the Bible, and we understand that joy isn’t the same thing as happiness, so we think that it’s a sin to be really happy. People who giggle and act silly are foolish and altogether too light-hearted.

Then we dig into the gospels, and we read that John says that Jesus’ first miracle was turning water into wine at a wedding party.

Yeah, but he just did that because his mother asked him. It’s not like he really approved of this sort of thing, was it?

Let’s go to the second chapter of John and find out.

On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus' mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine was gone, Jesus' mother said to him, "They have no more wine."

For a long time I don’t think that I realized that Jesus and his disciples had been invited to a wedding, and had joined in the celebration.. This seems a simple thing, but it means that Jesus, God in the flesh, the Man of Sorrows, along with his closest followers, went to parties. Or at least they went to this one. They didn’t sit around with their heads in their hands contemplating the fallen state of the universe; they got out there with the people and live life as it came.

A corollary to this: Jesus was the kind of guy you’d invite to your wedding.

Okay, I can see inviting Peter. He was probably a fun guy. Life-of-the-party type. Didn’t think too much about what he was going to say before hand, he just opened his mouth and let it fly.

And James and John had a pretty good business going, and their family was pretty well connected. Knew important people. Yeah, invite James and John.

But Jesus? I mean, would you really be able to loosen up and have fun if you invite the guy who never did anything wrong? Wouldn’t he make you nervous? Wouldn’t you feel like you’d really have to watch yourself, make sure you didn’t say anything wrong, do anything out of hand? Wouldn’t Jesus really drag your party down?

Apparently not.

Jesus came to the party, and the party went on, with people enjoying themselves so much that they ran out of wine.

Ah, now they’re going to get it. Jesus is going to stand up, wag his finger at them, and lecture them on the evils of over-indulgence. Tell them they should work on being serious people and stop treating life as if it were, well, a party.

Guess again.

After telling his mother not to push him (or at least that’s how I read it),

Jesus said to the servants, "Fill the jars with water"; so they filled them to the brim.

Then he told them, "Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet."

They did so, and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside and said, "Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now."

Umm. . . . Is this the same Jesus we think we know? Jesus of Nazareth? Jesus Christ? Enabling people to party and have a good time?

Not only is this the same Jesus, but John says, “This, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed in Cana of Galilee. He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him.”

Jesus introduced himself, his ministry, by turning water into wine at a wedding party.

Somehow I get the idea that he doesn’t want us to walk around in sackcloth and ashes.

This seems so contrary to the idea we have at times presented of who Jesus was and who we should be. We pull out the scripture about avoiding the very appearance of evil and take it to mean that we should avoid the very appearance of having a good time.

The two things aren’t the same. God created this life, and he created joy and fellowship and he created us for each other. He didn’t make us to live solitary, dark lives.

Jesus could walk among real people, take part in their lives, meet them where they were, and make them feel absolutely comfortable in his presence without sinning. He ate and drank with sinners, yet instead of this lowering him to their level, it lifted them up to his.

Sinners were comfortable around Jesus.

How about us? Are sinners comfortable around us? Do people invite us to their parties, to their wedding feasts, or would we drag them down and make them feel uncomfortable?

Sometimes I’m not sure that being like Jesus is exactly what we think it is.

Desperation

2005-11-13T21:18:00.000-05:00

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.

Thoreau wrote these words more than a century and a half ago, but he perfectly described current reality. Maybe the seed of our unrest had already been sown back then. Maybe nothing has ever really changed, and ever since we were kicked out of the garden, we have lived unfulfilled lives, desperately wanting something that we can’t quite see.

This is a fallen world. That is the only explanation for the emptiness of the lives most people lead.

Sometimes it all seems cruel. We are given early promises; we are told by our parents that we can do anything we want. Any kid in America can grow up to be President. Just follow your dreams and don’t give up.

But reality sets in, and we find out too often that the rest of the world doesn’t care about our dreams. And soon we begin to wonder if God even cares.

One night a few years ago, I was feeling particularly low. I was remembering all of the dreams I had once had, and the realization that they had all been crumpled up and thrown into the trash was hitting me hard. My head was low and my hope was gone.

I walked into my living room, turned on the television, and what played out before me made me reconsider the way I was feeling. The story of Father Damien was on. This was the priest who went to live with the lepers on Molokai, only to be rejected by the pitiful people who he desperately wanted to save. The movie graphically depicted the wretched life of these lepers who lived with no hope but the hope that death would one day end their suffering.

I watched as Father Damien developed leprosy himself, and as I watched, something occurred to me. This disease, this curse, brought a kind of joy and fulfillment to his life.

One of the greatest teachers I have ever sat before, the Irishman Jim McGuiggan used to tell this story. Because of him I have always thought of Father Damien as an example of the ultimate sacrifice, as a picture of what it means to be like Christ. He told how Father Damien had, up until that time, only been able to say “You lepers,” but now, as he stood before his congregation, he was finally able to identify with them completely. He was able to say “We lepers”.

To me, this had long been a picture of how God identified with us through Christ, but this particular night the story took on an additional meaning for me. It told me to open my eyes wider and see the joy that’s present when we view our world through the eyes of God.

Sometimes when we see the details of the suffering that’s common on this planet, joy is hard to find. Much has been said lately about the suffering in Africa. I turn on NPR and listen to people tell of the women whose husbands have died of AIDS, and whose poverty forces them to either nurse their babies or watch them die, even though they realize that in the very act of keeping their children alive, they may be passing on the virus that may kill them.

I hear another story of a rural area in Africa where the parents send their children to town to sleep in the streets at night, because if they keep them at home the roaming armies will come, take the children away, and force them to become soldiers themselves.

And I know of the overwhelming poverty in India, in China, in other parts of Asia, where starvation can be reality, and where the necessities of life as we think of them aren’t always a given.

I even think of what happens in our own country. I’ve driven through the Navajo reservation in the Southwest and seen the way we’ve allowed people to become marginalized and forgotten.

This leads me to think about where I live in rural West Virginia, where poverty has become an accepted way of life for many because the hard fight to have a better life more often than not proves fruitless. Too many people scratch and claw and borrow to try to live like they are told they should live, to aspire to the level of affluence that is constantly shoved at them by the media, to gain the possessions that they are told they must have. The reality soon becomes evident. There are fewer jobs here that pay a living wage than there are people who want these jobs. And the ratio isn’t pretty.

So many give up. As Thoreau said, “What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.”

The resignation and the poverty cycles through generation after generation, and poverty breeds misery. Apathy mixes with drugs and alcohol, and lives are destroyed. Children are born with no hope, and their young lives are filled with abuse.

And hope is hard to find.

I look for someone to blame. Surely the government can do something about this. Isn’t this whole cycle caused by our capitalistic system that values wealth more than it values people? Don’t all nations, whether they are governed by capitalism or socialism or whatever, end up falling into the same pattern? Has our global economy spawned a system of global abuse and neglect?

I search for a solution. The people of this earth should be able to get together and fix things. But soon I realize that what the Police said years ago was right, “There is no political solution.” We can elect Democrats, Republicans, Libertarian, Rosicrucians, it doesn’t matter. We live in a fallen world ruled by selfish motives.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t try to make things better. As Christians, we are called to do all we can to ease suffering, to help the poor, to spread the attitude of Christ by making this world a better place to live. I’m only saying that as long as Satan is the ruler of this Earth, these problems will exist. And even as we help everyone we can and try to lift people from the pit, we must realize that we are living knee-deep in mud. But lately I’ve come to believe something that’s hard to comprehend.

Joy can be found even down here in the mud.

God is here with us, and he makes himself known in our lives. If we focus on what is around us, on the misery, on the hopelessness, we will miss the hope of God and the way that he promised us that our aspirations are not without reason. He is the one who placed hope in our hearts. He is the one who makes us want to live a better life. And even though we will not escape suffering in this life, he gives us joy in the middle of our suffering.

The joy of God surrounds us.

Redemption

2005-11-05T02:07:00.000-05:00

Every day now, I search for redemption. Christ promised to redeem my life, and I have only lately come to a kind of understanding of what this means. All these things I have done that have kept me away from God, all these choices I have made that have kept me from being who I needed to be, he promised to take those and turn them into something positive that would give glory to God.

I don’t understand that, but I want to embrace it.

I want him to take my life and make it something worthwhile. I think about how he took Peter’s sometimes eager, sometimes wavering faith, and turned him into the vehicle to turn whole nations toward him. Looking at Peter’s whole story, I can see how God used who Simon Peter was as a foundation for who he became. The personality of the old Peter didn’t disappear, it was just shaped into a form that showed who he could have been all along.

The Peter who followed Jesus around was a poor shadow of the Peter of Pentecost and beyond. The new man was a mature, Spirit-filled version of the Peter who had been there all along.

And the fanatical, anti-Christian Paul certainly used the lessons he had learned while persecuting Christians to inform his ministry. And ministry seems such an inadequate word when we look at Paul. The zealous Pharisee found Christ and changed the world. All that had been used to fight against Christ was redeemed and was then used to proclaim the amazing truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

And remember John, who along with his brother James wanted to bring fire down from Heaven to kill those who rejected Christ? He spent some of his later years writing books about how loving God meant loving each other, to the point even of giving up our own lives.

There’s case after case like this. The men and women who walked with Jesus found their lives transformed and their whole Earthly journey redeemed, formed into something that spread the Light of God everywhere they went.

I want God to do this for me. I want to turn this mistake-filled, inadequate, lazy, procrastinating life I have lived into whatever he originally intended.

I pray hard now for redemption.

Rescue

2005-11-05T01:51:00.000-05:00

There’s a song that I wrote a few years ago that explains my cycles of doubt and faith in a way that I find it difficult to revisit. I find myself on the down side of the cycle much more often than I would like. Now, living on the up side, I can see that these times never last. But when in their grip, there is a different reality.

Surround me with your holiness, and let me see you even when
I seem submerged in loneliness, and all my days are crumbling in on me
crumbling in on me

It hasn’t been too long since I last felt this way. I can still remember just how it felt to think that I was completely isolated, no one to confide in, nowhere to go to find peace. These are the hardest times for me to see God. I know he’s there intellectually. I hadn’t really lose faith in Him, I had just lost faith in myself. I knew that if I could only catch a glimpse of his presence, I would have hope.

But that glimpse didn’t come. The loneliness filled my lungs and I began to drown. The hours passed, and it didn’t matter whether they passed quickly or slowly, because there was nothing better beyond the present, at least not in this life. I collapsed under the weight of my despair.

Lord give me refuge in the storm, when my small boat is torn apart
And I can’t hold on anymore, I know there’s safety where you are--oh please
won’t you rescue me.

There was always an awareness of my weakness. When I was younger, I thought I had constructed safety nets to keep the worst from happening to me, or, to continue the metaphor of the song, I thought that I would always have lifeboats handy that I could climb into and ride out any storm. But now that I was older, I had discovered that my hand-crafted lifeboats were inadequate. The waves came in, drenched me, and threatened to capsize my boat. It soon became clear that I couldn’t take care of myself. I needed divine help.

Yet I found that the help wasn’t there, at least not in the form I expected. So I continued to cry out.

Rescue me, Lord from this world
Rescue me, Lord from myself
I can’t live like this anymore
I’m reaching out, I need your help--oh please
won’t you rescue me.

The chorus told the truth. This disaster wasn’t just something that the world had thrown at me. I wasn’t a victim of some perfect storm thrown together by just the right circumstances. I had created this storm. I was a victim of my own hubris, of my own conceit. I had procrastinated myself into a hopeless position, because I believed that I could always find a way out.

Soon it became obvious that I wasn’t as smart as I thought I was. I could no longer come up with any answers. I searched until I was too tired to even think, but had no luck.

If I were to get out of the mess I created, I would need divine help. And I prayed that help would come soon, because I couldn’t live this way any longer.

Sometimes I feel I’m all alone, and I can’t even lift my voice
Broken abandoned and unknown, I feel like I’ve blown every choice I’ve made
every choice I’ve made

Problem was, the prayers wouldn’t come. I could only manage abbreviated cries and apologies. The God that I knew was there seemed inaccessible.

I kept trying to find solutions, and everything I tried turned out to be exactly the wrong thing. Looking back, I saw that I had been given opportunity after opportunity, and had turned my back on each one. Had I been given my last chance? Was God not going to waste any more time on me?

These became questions I was honestly asking. And these were scary questions.

I search for strength somewhere inside, but all I find is emptiness
Please take my hand before I die, Lord pull me from this hopelessness--oh please
won’t you rescue me.

The despair became absolute. I didn’t know what would happen next. The thought came into my head that the next logical thing to happen would be death. I expected to quit breathing in the middle of the night, or to have my heart stop at a stressful moment, or to lose focus and crash my car into an oncoming vehicle (I had been there), or maybe even to be diagnosed with untreatable cancer, which doctors would treat anyway, making my last days physically miserable.

This was when I realized that I had lapsed into textbook depression.

Rescue me, Lord from this world
Rescue me, Lord from myself
I can’t live like this anymore
I’m reaching out, I need your help--oh please
won’t you rescue me.

I don’t know how I recovered. It was like a switch had been thrown. I can only credit answered prayers and changed sleeping patterns, but I did recover.

I have been rescued, and it was none of my own doing.

Assurance

2005-11-03T00:40:00.000-05:00

The moment when death comes, when you are certain that there is no escape, how do you react?

My disposable subcompact was in the garage, and I had borrowed my mother’s 1972 Oldsmobile 88 with a 455 big block engine. Kathy Mattea sang a song about this car—one that included the lyrics, “You oughta watch yourself when you take that turn.”

No kidding.

This was during my brief time working as a sportswriter for our local newspaper. I was heading over to the far side of the county to cover a high school girls’ basketball game. The irony was that I was taking the long way because the more direct route was over a dangerous, winding road.

I hit the curve going what would have been a safe speed in my subcompact, and the car began sailing immediately. No way I could get back on my side of the road before I reached the other side of the road until the road straightened out. Lucky there was nothing coming toward me. Except that school bus.

The bus couldn’t have been coming as fast as it appeared to be coming, even returning home empty at the end of the day (which it thankfully was). And I’m sure that, in spite of the way it seemed to me, the driver must have made some effort to keep from hitting me, turned the wheels or hit the breaks or something.

All I can say for sure is that the bus suddenly slowed to super slow motion. As did my car. As did time itself. For a moment, I heard the Six Million-Dollar Man music in my head (or maybe it was just Carly Simon on the radio, suddenly singing “Jesse” very slowly).

The yellow of the bus kept coming at me. Directly. A full body block, as someone on one of the football teams I covered referred to it later. The yellow soon absolutely filled my windshield.

Forever.

Time didn’t stop. It couldn’t have. So I don’t know how many memories ran through my mind in such a short time. I saw all I had done before, and realized how far short I had come of what should have been. I felt a moment’s sadness, then. . . .

I prayed. Not for deliverance. Not for salvation. I whispered a prayer of thanksgiving.

“God, thank you for the life you’ve given me. Thank you for all you’ve let me do, for all you’ve brought into my life. I’m sorry I didn’t do more with what you gave me. But I understand that it will be all right.”

I had never in my life experienced peace like I did that moment, and haven’t since. The wave that swept over me calmed me, and told me unquestionably that what was coming next would be all I had hoped for. I was sure I was going to be with God.

Of course the end of the story is anti-climatic. Believe it or not, I didn’t die. I’m not a ghost, channeling these words. A minute later I was crawling out of the car and being put first in a police cruiser, then in an ambulance.

The bus driver was fine. No major injuries. I was bruised up, but after a night in the hospital, they sent me home. They didn’t discover my major internal injury until I collapsed in pain several months later, but that’s another story.

This one ended with me back covering sports, and having the strange experience of people walk up to me and say, “I’m surprised to see you here; I thought you were dead.”

Me too.

I did take something away from the experience, something that will stay with me until I die. An experiential assurance that when death comes, all will be right.

I feel guilty for feeling like this. I’ve been taught to trust logic and facts and reason. I’ve read about how near death experiences are caused by the way the brain reacts when life is ending. Even the tunnel and the light are a chemically caused illusion, they say.

I don’t know. I wasn’t physically near death; I was only convinced I was about to die. The calm that overwhelmed me may have been my brain reacting to ultimate stress, I guess, but I don’t think so.

Should I trust such a subjective experience? Can’t subjectivity lead down the path to delusion?

If it weren’t for the other aspects of my faith, I would agree. But my faith isn’t built on this single experience; this experience merely complements my faith.

There is so much in scripture that sounds like truth to me. The very tone of the Bible stands out for its often unexpected honesty. Hardly a hero gets by without having his faults laid out for posterity. Moses played timid, then let his ego get the best of him. Gideon made an idol. Samson visited prostitutes. David killed a man to get his wife. The most influential of Jesus’ disciples hardly understood anything he said, lost faith at crucial times, asked for fire to be sent from heaven to destroy their critics, denied him, and even in one case had a history of Christians. Peter even said Paul was hard to understand.

The writing itself all hangs together so well. You can find contradictions if you’re looking for them, I suppose, but that’s not my game. I understand that I’m not going to get the context and the exact meaning of everything 2,000 years later. What I can get amazes me, though. People talk about how Paul and James say opposite things, but when I read James' book, he simply seems to be repeating what Paul said: this is all about how we treat each other. He even refers to “the law that gives freedom”, a phrase also found in Paul’s writing.

Most of all, there’s the way that Jesus acted when he was on Earth. He didn’t put up with bureaucratic baloney. He didn’t coddle those in power and make sure he stayed on their good side. He went straight to the common folk, and even hung around those that most wouldn’t have anything to do with. He wasn’t embarrassed to eat with tax collectors and prostitutes. He even talked to the half-breed woman with the bad reputation like she was just as important as anyone else.

Oh, there’s one other little thing. He rose from the dead.

Paul said, “You don’t believe me? Here’s a list of people who saw him; go ask them.”

And no one was able to say anything different. Amazing.

With all of that “objective” material as a foundation, it’s no problem at all for me to use the subjective wonder of God’s world to finish building my faith. There’s too much amazing in this world to have just happened. When I was a teen I realized that I couldn’t comprehend how I could simply think, “fingers, move” and it happens. I still can’t. I know there are scientific explanations that tell just how, but they really don’t tell me all I need to know.

I don’t believe that everything can be explained by charts and formulas. They say that there’s a very tiny difference between a monkey’s DNA and our own. No disrespect to monkeys, but while our species have produced a Shakespeare, a Mozart, and a DeVinci, while we have established cities and built big metal things that somehow speed through the sky, visited our own moon, and, yes, mapped out DNA itself, monkeys continue to throw excrement at people who come to look at them.

There’s more to us than just chemicals. There’s the spark of the divine, a shadow of our creator pointing us to the One who made it all.

If none of this sounds like your standard Christian Evidences, that’s okay. It isn’t meant to. This is only a partial list of some of the things that increase my personal faith. You will likely have a different list.

But as far as I’m concerned, doubt doesn’t stand a chance.

doubt

2005-11-02T22:22:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, even, the flood of religious terminology and disconnected thinking saps away my faith in the reality of it all. Sometimes I get caught in the continual loop of ceremony and gerry-rigged doctrine and begin to wonder whether any of it is real. We manufacture this artificial form and present it as coming from God, and when we recognize this, the next logical thought could be, “what if God is just something we’ve manufactured as well, the way the Greeks and the Egyptians manufactured their gods?”

Our religious facades, often conceived as a hedge to keep us consecrated to God, instead become a hedge that keeps us away from God. We lose faith, because faith seems like a sham.

Most of the time, at least with me, God manages to quickly get my attention and remind me that He is real, even if all of my conceptions about him are not. Other times, though, doubt punches me in the gut.

My insomnia takes many forms. Some nights, I lie in bed unable to sleep, working through things in my mind, and understanding comes. Other times I wake up in the middle of the night screaming, unable to breath, starting for the light switch. It’s these times when doubt takes control.

What if? What if death is the end? What if I’m living a meaningless life, stumbling headlong toward the grave when not only will by body rot away into nothingness, but my mind also will fade into oblivion as the synapses stop dead? What if thought, existence, immortality is all just a delusion we have created for ourselves?

I’ve learned that these thoughts don’t survive morning light. That come morning and clear thought, God is there. But every once in a while, for a few moments I know what it’s like to live with no hope beyond this life. And I wouldn’t want to live there full-time.

Sometimes, the doubts creep back in. I stumble across the story of the Tower of Babel and think, “Are you serious? Are you really trying to tell me that the reason we have all kinds of different languages is that God didn’t want man to be able to work together too well?”

Or I read about the times in the Old Testament when God told his people to slaughter everybody, kids included.

Or I read about Ananias and Sapphira, and think that this story would fit better in the Old Testament.

Or I read about how the periods of Israel’s history that were the most glorious cannot be found in the archeological record or in other nation’s histories.

These are all serious doubts, valid questions concerning my faith.

Some people try to overcome these nagging voices by piling up every archeological or historical piece of evidence they can. Some seem strong, and actually strengthen my faith. The evidence for the resurrected Christ is strong enough to me to overcome an encyclopedia full of doubt.

Some, though, overreach, and can easily be seen through. Some people take verses out of context or misinterpret scientific data to try to prove God. And when I see obvious instances of this, doubt pecks on my shoulder.

I have learned not to be afraid of doubt. Honest inquiry really does lead to truth, and, as I said before, God claims to be truth. If this is right, he will be at the end of our most honest searching. If it is not, best to know now. I disagree with those who say it’s good to be a Christian whether Christianity is true or not. I side more with Paul, who says that if Christ didn’t rise from the dead, we’re more miserable than anybody. We’re fools, led down the path to nothingness by our own imaginations.

My doubting has caused me to open my eyes wider, and opening my eyes most often lets me see God more clearly. I believe He is there. And I don’t think he’s hiding at all.

dust

2005-10-31T22:17:00.000-05:00

(revisiting my previous thoughts on Psalm 103 in light of my last post)

dust

Thankfully, God’s mercy is available.

I find comfort in Psalm 103.

8 The LORD is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in love.

9 He will not always accuse,
nor will he harbor his anger forever;

10 he does not treat us as our sins deserve
or repay us according to our iniquities.

How can the holy God behave like this toward us? Is David writing about the same Jehovah who rained fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, who ordered Israel to destroy cities leaving no one alive, who prescribed capital punishment for children who disobey their parents, who struck down Nadab & Abihu & Uzzah and so many more?

How can this God be called compassionate? How can David say that he doesn’t treat us as our sins deserve? It’s a mystery. To us, it’s a contradiction. But to David, famously called a man after God’s own heart, it’s part of God’s character.

He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.

David lived a turbulent, violent life, killing his tens of thousands, not being allowed to build God’s temple because of the blood on his hands. David struggled with his faith at times, writing beautiful laments, questioning where God was, why Jehovah wasn’t coming to his rescue, in the end always coming back to the idea that God is trustworthy, and will take care of him and lead him through the darkness.

David was human, and his humanity shows through nearly every line of his poetry. It’s a comfort to know that the man who identified so closely with the almighty God fought the same demons I fight.

And he said that God does not treat us as our sins deserve.

Perhaps the next passage of this psalm holds a key.

11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him;

12 as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

13 As a father has compassion on his children,
so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him;

Those who fear him. David not only loved God, he feared him.

As close as David was to God, he never lost his fear of the overwhelming greatness of the creator. Yet David, in spite of that fear, was able to approach God boldly, as a later writer said, pour out all of his joy, his pain, his absolute despair to him, and know that the one who sits on the throne of the universe not only heard his cries, but loved the one crying out, and would ultimately save him from all of his enemies.

David’s fear gave birth to faith.

This reminds me of the way that Luke records Jesus calling Simon Peter. Peter has been out fishing all night with James and John, and hasn’t even caught a minnow. Jesus tells peter to try again. Peter shrugs his shoulders, says “there’s no point in this, but if you say so,” and lets down the nets.

The fishermen pull in such a catch that their nets break. Peter’s response tells us all we need to know about his heart.

"Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!"

How else can we respond when we, in all our imperfection, all our dirty-faced humanity, encounter the Son of God in all of his brilliant white holiness? How can we not fall on our faces before God and say, “I’m not worthy?”

This is what will happen when we understand just who God is and that we are standing in His presence. This is what will happen when we encounter Him directly and realize how asymmetrical our relationship with Him is.

And Peter, starting from this point of absolute humility, grew closer to the Incarnate Word than anyone else on Earth.

I think you see something similar with David. Look at the next verse of the psalm.

14 for he knows how we are formed,
he remembers that we are dust.

Maybe that’s the key for David. He fears God. He understands how unspeakably great God is, and uses every word he has to describe the indescribable. And He knows that God knows. He knows that God knows we are dust.

I think sometimes that if we realized that we are dust, and that God already knows this, our relationship would grow like David’s relationship with Jehovah, like Peter’s relationship with Jesus. When we understand that he could crush us, that he could strike us with a divine lightning bolt, that he could sweep us away from him and cast us from his presence for any of a billion reasons, yet he chooses to embrace us and to give himself for us, the whole dynamic of our relationship with God will change.

He knows we are dust.

The concept of wonder comes to me again. I think of my eight-year-old self staring into the sky and realizing that there was something more than I could begin to comprehend. And I think about how the fear overcame me. And I think about how it took years for me to take that fear and own it, to not only live with that fear, but to thrive on it, and use it to draw closer to the one who is greater than my imagination.

And I wonder what it will take for me to take this fear, wrapped in the concept of God’s amazing love, and use it as an impetus to live an active, helpful, Godly life.

God loves those who fear Him. And we can only realize how great that love is when we realize that God’s awful greatness makes his awesome, great love completely incomprehensible.

The mystery lives.

17 But from everlasting to everlasting
the LORD's love is with those who fear him,
and his righteousness with their children's children-

18 with those who keep his covenant
and remember to obey his precepts.

And speaking practically, that’s where this fear of the Lord leads. We follow Him. We are saved by his grace, and we no longer have the hubris to either act as if we have been saved because of our own insight or goodness or to act as if we can live in the presence of the Holy Lord without changing, without taking on His life as our own and behaving as if we belong to Him. Fear, Love, Grace, these things transform our lives and cause us to move toward him and continually become more like him.

David, who lived through violence and war, fell into deep despair, and let his lust lead him into the darkness, continued to move toward God in spite of all of this, surrendered himself to God’s mercy, and came to be remembered by all who came after as God’s beloved

Peter, who in his earthiness couldn’t quite grasp Jesus’ way of doing things, who wanted to pick up a sword and fight his enemies, yet found that his courage failed him completely when the time came to put his life on the line, kept moving toward God (after Jesus showed him a second miraculous catch of fish, echoing his calling, then recommissioned him), and became the voice of God’s kingdom on the day that the Spirit presented the glorified Christ to the world.

God shows us over and over that he can redeem us, in spite of ourselves.

But I’m lapsing into religious speak, and religious speak masks the problem. Religious speak tries to hide the truth that there’s a gap between who I am and who I should be. Religious speak can make me (and the religious community) seem fake, pompous, out of touch. Religious speak can disguise my essential dustiness.

I need to change. Period. No excuses. No self-justification. No procrastination. I am not who I should be.

I can’t do it myself. I can only throw myself on the mercy of the one who knows I am dust.

19 The LORD has established his throne in heaven,
and his kingdom rules over all.

20 Praise the LORD, you his angels,
you mighty ones who do his bidding,
who obey his word.

21 Praise the LORD, all his heavenly hosts,
you his servants who do his will.

22 Praise the LORD, all his works
everywhere in his dominion.
Praise the LORD, O my soul.

So Why Do I Live Like This?

2005-10-30T13:22:00.000-05:00

The federal government has decided that it’s okay to be a hypocrite.

At least that’s the message of their anti-drug ads. They’ve noted the dilemma of parents who partook of certain vices in their younger days, but now want to keep their kids from doing as they did, and responded by saying, “Hey, it’s okay to be a hypocrite.”

I disagree with them.

No, I don’t disagree that parents who used drugs should tell their kids not to do this; I disagree that this is what it means to be a hypocrite. A hypocrite is not someone who learns from his or her mistakes. A hypocrite is not someone who says, “I did this when I was younger, but I now realize that this is not a good thing.”

That’s not being a hypocrite; that’s being an adult.

If a person said, “Well, I did drugs, and I found out it wasn’t a good thing, but since I made a mistake, I think it’s only right if I let you go on and make the same mistake, and I’ll keep quiet,” that person would not be a hypocrite; he would be an idiot. Trying to see that your kids have a better life than you is part of what being a parent is about. It’s part of loving your children.

It doesn’t mean you’re a hypocrite.

If you continue to smoke pot, but tell your kids to keep away from it, then you’re a hypocrite.

Hypocrites don’t honestly try to help others while also realizing they are growing and maturing; hypocrites make a mockery of the whole process by acting like righteousness is all about words and outer appearances.

For instance:

A junior counselor at a church camp who gives a moving, emotional campfire talk on the crucifixion, telling the story of the drawbridge operator who is forced to sacrifice his child to save the lives of others, comparing this story to the story of Christ, leaving the campers in tears, then leaves immediately, goes into town, buys liquor with a fake ID, then brings it back to camp to party with the other junior counselors, is a hypocrite.

A businessman who professes piety, attends church regularly, takes part in leading the church, gives more than 10% of his income, yet treats his employees like chattel, not even paying them enough to support a family, while overfeeding his own affluence is a hypocrite.

A politician who cloaks policies that help the rich and hurt the poor in sanctimonious language while draping himself with the Christian flag is a hypocrite.

A man who claims to have discovered the wonder of God and the glory of His grace, yet lives for himself, keeping his own wants, his own comfort at the center of his life, only helping others when it is convenient for him to do so, is a hypocrite.

Oops. I’ve gone and started talking about myself.

If I really know God in all of His glory, and have come to understand that being a follower of Him means living a new, qualitatively different, life, then why don’t I do better? Why do I find it so hard to look beyond myself and see the needs of others?

There has to be an answer somewhere, but I’m not sure I’ve found it.

I want to reach for God, I want Him to transform my life, I want to help spread His kingdom into the world, but instead I sit here at home, staring at the computer. Isolated. Shut off from the world.

There’s always a reason. Always an excuse. Always a way to justify my own actions.

The politician says, “I’m helping the poor to learn to fend for themselves.” The businessman says, “At least I’m providing jobs for people who would otherwise be on welfare.” The junior counselor says, “I’m young, I need to live for the present.”

I say, “I don’t feel like doing that, and besides, I would just get in the way.”

If I’m reading the bible correctly, Jesus, Paul, James and the others said that key to everything is the way we treat each other, putting each other first, going out of our way to help, serving those in our path as if they were Jesus himself.

Yet I still live in my own selfish way, praying for forgiveness, finding excuses not to do what I can.

God, I need your mercy.

I know what Paul said in Romans 7, about how he constantly found himself doing the very thing he didn’t want to do. Some people say that he was referring to the way he behaved before he became a Christian, but I don’t think so. I think that Paul was so aware of the holiness of God and the righteousness of Christ that this made him even more aware of his own inadequacies. This is the same man who said that Christ came to save sinners, “of whom I am chief.” That’s present tense there.

But Paul also talked about holiness and submission and transformation. That seventh chapter of Romans is tucked right between the sixth and eight chapters (obviously). In the sixth, he says things such as:

“So, since we're out from under the old tyranny, does that mean we can live any old way we want? Since we're free in the freedom of God, can we do anything that comes to mind? Hardly. You know well enough from your own experience that there are some acts of so-called freedom that destroy freedom. Offer yourselves to sin, for instance, and it's your last free act. But offer yourselves to the ways of God and the freedom never quits. All your lives you've let sin tell you what to do. But thank God you've started listening to a new master, one whose commands set you free to live openly in his freedom!”

and:

“As long as you did what you felt like doing, ignoring God, you didn't have to bother with right thinking or right living, or right anything for that matter. But do you call that a free life? What did you get out of it? Nothing you're proud of now. Where did it get you? A dead end.

“But now that you've found you don't have to listen to sin tell you what to do, and have discovered the delight of listening to God telling you, what a surprise! A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way! Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God's gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus, our Master. “ (both from the Message)

And in the eighth, he talks about the Holy Spirit living in us, changing us, perfecting us.

Yet sometimes it’s hard to see how my life’s changing. Sometimes all I can see are the patterns of willfulness and selfishness that seem to define my life.

How many promises do I have to make to do better before I start living the way I’m thinking? How long will God put up with me?

God, I need your mercy.

Eternity (continued--but that goes without saying)

2005-10-25T17:59:00.000-04:00

Another way to say that eternity is existence outside of the timestream is to say that it is a state of being rather than a period of time. When something is eternal, then it is eternal in that very moment, as well as in all future moments. Eternity is a quality, and it is a quality that is associated with God.

He is Eternal. His life is Eternal Life. Thus when He gives us life, we possess Eternal Life, something that can only exist if we have fellowship with the One who is Eternal.

If we live in Eternity, then do we already live in the state I feared as a child, one that will make our heads swim and our stomachs double-clutch if we think about it too much? No matter how much we study, we cannot get a much better hold on the concept of eternity than I did as an eight-year-old. It’s an idea that is so other, so foreign to our fallen state, that there’s no way we’re going to be able to understand it this side of, well, if not eternity at least physical death.

If we live in Eternity, we live in a state of constant wonder. And this wonder, if we are willing to take hold of it, will take us on the ride of our lives. We no longer live by sight; we no longer have to see where each step we take is going to land. We live by faith in the One who created the universe, and we let go of our dependence on the physical world and trust Him to lead us on paths we can’t find on our own.

This sounds nice and easy, but when we try to actually do it, it turns into a bunch of spiritual gobbledegook. A few high-sounding ideas aren’t going to stop our feet from hurting after we’ve been on them too long. They aren’t going to bring down the price of gas or make our paychecks any bigger. They aren’t going to seal up our broken hearts and make them good as new. They aren’t even going to take away that hard pit we get in our aforementioned stomachs whenever we think about death.

No matter how much faith we have, as long as we’re living in this life, we won’t find absolute peace. That’s out there in the future, somewhere out of our vision. But God has promised us that it’s there, and if we open our eyes, we will see enough wonder in our everyday world to make us certain that He is here with us, and that He is leading us forward, sometimes stumbling, sometimes leaping, toward something greater than we can imagine. Something we’ve always wanted, but never been able to put our finger on.

Sometimes the hardest part about this is giving ourselves permission to wonder.

Have you ever tried to start a discussion about what people think Heaven will be like, only to have someone say, “All I care about is whether or not I'll be there. If the Bible doesn’t tell us exactly what Heaven's like, we shouldn’t wonder about it.”

I have.

Have you ever started speculating about what a Biblical character must have felt in a certain situation, what doubts he might have faced, whether he came close to turning and running the other direction, only to look around and see people squirming in their seats and looking down on the floor, because we shouldn’t be going beyond what was written by talking about such things?

One thing I particularly value about my heritage is the high regard we have always had for the Bible. But sometimes we have let this regard keep us from looking for God beyond the sacred page. Literally. One of our songbooks even changed the title of the old hymn to “Within the Sacred Page.”

But God is out there and he is here among us. We should never let our fear get in the way of our recognizing His handiwork.

“Awesome Wonder” should be more than just something we sing on Sunday morning. It’s a challenge for each of us to recognize God in our present reality. I think that’s part of what “Eternal Life” means, that the quality of the life we live now changes because God is here with us, and living in His presence means we live in a different world. All of Satan’s damage is still there, but we can see through his vandalism and see the traces of the Garden all around us.

We should never be afraid to look for God. Sometimes this fear of doing wrong, fear of stepping off of the path, of slipping over the emotional edge of our logical mesa, keeps us from seeing God as He is.

-----------------------------

I remember having a similar experience to the one I described above when I was in the first grade. Our teacher asked each of us if we had any questions about anything at all, and I asked her one that had been on my mind for a while.

“How is it that other people have feelings too? I know that’s what everyone keeps saying, but I just don’t see how that can be true.”

Now, what I meant by this was that I perceived everything through my own senses, and these senses defined the whole world as far as I was concerned. The idea that other people also perceived the world through their own senses, and thus from completely different viewpoints, seemed impossible, incomprehensible to me.

But, being six years old, I couldn’t put this into words. And I knew immediately by the look in my teacher’s eyes what she thought I meant.

“No, you should never think that you’re the only one who has feelings. When you do bad things to other people, they really hurt, just like you do.”

She thought I was a sociopath. I wanted to scream, “That’s not what I mean,” but instead I shrugged my shoulders and despaired of ever getting her to understand.

When I tell people about this, they say that most kids don’t think like this. Most kids, they say, don’t think about anything but playing and enjoying themselves, and eating and sleeping. It’s like they think a child is a higher form of Border Collie or something. I disagree.

I think that when we are young we all instinctively know what it means to wonder. We see the reality of the physical world around us, take note of the way that we perceive the world, and, without access to formulas and all kinds of scientific data, instinctively know that it all doesn’t make sense. There must be something more than what we can see.

But when we get older, we’re taught not to wonder. We’re taught that wonder is dangerous sometimes, even. That wonder is faithless. That it is childish.

Instead, I think living by faith means we must live in wonder. To become as a child means to give in to the sense of uncertainty that requires we trust in God, and know that He is the only explanation for the mysteries around us.

Child-like wonder isn’t always comfortable, but it will lead us closer to God.

Thinking About Eternity

2005-10-23T14:42:00.001-04:00

I had another dream about lions at the door
They weren't half as frightening as they were before
But I'm thinking about eternity
Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me

And I'm wondering where the lions are...
I'm wondering where the lions are...
--Bruce Cockburn

I discovered eternity in October of my third grade year, and for a while, I couldn’t think about anything else.

First I discovered the physical side of eternity—infinity. I was sitting on a concrete slab outside after school, waiting for my school bus, leaning on a pillar,and staring at the sky. The sky always looks higher to me in October. It’s like the pure blue that I see is so far away and so deep that it bleeds into space. On this particular day, a few white clouds moved with the wind somewhere beneath the blue, and the motion of the clouds made the sky seem farther away than ever.

As I watched the clouds, I thought about what I had read in the kids’ science books I had at home about how the moon, planets and the Sun, as far away as they seem, are no farther away than the next town compared to the stars. And the stars go on and on and on more billions of miles than we have yet discovered, and beyond what we see, the universe continues on and on and finally ends in. . .

That’s when I stopped. Ends where? Ends in what? I suddenly realized that, at least according to what I had read, the universe doesn’t end. It Just Goes On Forever.

There was that word. Forever. That meant that you could go to the end of the universe, then go that far again, and do this again and again for ever and ever. But that made no sense. If there was forever, then there couldn’t be an end. But how could something exist that didn’t have an end? If the universe was really there as a physical thing, then it had to have a real, solid shape that you could see, and if it was real and solid then how could it never end? Never wasn't a word that you could use to describe something that really was there. If something was real, yet was infinite, then...

I had reached an idea my eight-year-old brain couldn’t handle.

(Not that my adult brain can, but I’ve learned to cope; at one point I believed that this idea, coupled with the idea that scientists say that the infinite universe has a shape, disproved science. If something had a shape, I reasoned, it must be finite. The ideas of infinity and shape were contradictory. I’ve since decided that my failure to comprehend this idea doesn’t make it invalid; it just means there’s a lot out there that I don’t get.)

Anyway, my mind shut down at the idea of infinity. It was something that couldn’t be. I tried hard not to think about it, but, of course, doing so made me think about it even more. And this idea led to the big one.

Eternity.

When we die, I was told, we would live with God forever. There was that word again. And if forever wasn’t comprehensible in terms of space, how could it be in terms of time? How could something exist forever and ever, with no end ever coming? If this were true, wouldn't it make the concept of time itself meaningless? And what about the idea of God existing forever? How could he have had no beginning? I mean, if you keep going back and back and He’s still there, then the word “past” makes no sense at all. The past, the future, it was all a bottomless pit with no real meaning.

As I started to think about this, it was all I could do to keep from crying. But I did for the moment. The crying came later.

That night my parents took my sisters and me to a big Halloween party at the auditorium in town. As I was getting into my costume, all the stuff about eternity pushed its way to the front of my mind, and I couldn't shut it out. I collapsed on my bed crying, and was only able to get into my costume (which I, not surprisingly, have no memory of)after a series of threats from my perplexed parents. I tried to tell them why I was crying, but couldn't form any of my thoughts into words at all.

We drove to town and joined hundreds of other kids getting goodies and playing games. But I couldn’t enjoy any of it, because, as much as I had always liked dressing up and telling ghost stories and all, I could only think of one thing.

Eternity.

My stomach doubled up on itself again, and my throat collapsed into my chest. Then I started bawling again right there in the middle of the party, just as they were calling kids up to give out the prizes for best costumes.

This time my parents thought some of the costumes were scaring me maybe, and this might be why I was crying before--that I had heard too many ghost stories and seen too many scary things, and couldn't handle it any more. But none of the normal Halloween frights were bothering me at all, and I finally convinced Mom and Dad of this. They asked me over and over why I was crying, but I couldn't put it into words. I still can’t really, even today. I start talking about the whole thing, and sooner or later I just dissolve into ellipses.

This scene played itself out over and over again for a few months. I remember sitting on my great grandmother’s front porch out in the country, wishing I could stop thinking about forever, stop crying, and go down and play in the creek. But I couldn’t.

I don’t know how I finally got over this. I know how I deal with the whole time thing now. I've come to believe that Einstein’s bit about time being relative was right, that we only perceive time as linear because we live inside it. I believe that God exists outside of time, and that we also will live outside of time when we leave this life. And even though we cannot here and now imagine what non-linear time is like, or imagine what it is like to stand outside the timestream, we will know one day. And that is enough for me now.

But it wasn’t then. This concept bothered me so much that I decided I could never be a Christian. I couldn’t handle the idea of going to Heaven, because if this neverending idea made me cry here and now, how much more would it bother me then, when I was living in the nonexistant middle of it? I was sure I couldn’t handle it.

My most miserable memory of this time was the evening I sat in church listening to a visiting preacher talk about Heaven, then ask all those who wanted to go to raise their hands. I didn’t. I couldn’t. I didn’t even want to think about Heaven, much less go there. I was scared that people would notice that I hadn’t put my hand up and would think awful things about me, but I was in the third grade, and no one noticed.

Eventually, this passed, thank God.

But what’s been much harder to get over is the idea that I have to understand everything. I was taught this, I guess, but it was already right there in my makeup, too. Traditionally, so much has depended on our getting everything right, and personally, I’ve always obsessed about knowing as much as I can possibly know.

But I’ll never even grasp a speck of what Is. The universe is larger, more wonderful, and more surprising than my tiny mind can comprehend. And as far as God, the creator of it all, goes, all I can do is open my mouth and gasp.

I thank God for my ability to wonder. Wonder is the beginning of the realization that I can't make it without help. Wonder is the beginning of faith.

fear

2005-10-21T20:01:00.000-04:00

When I was writing the bit about imagining what Jesus’ role in creation might have been, I realized how silly it is for me to be afraid that people would take what I was saying the wrong way. I think I’ve been trained to be afraid of what other Christians will think, that is to be afraid that they will not just disagree with what I’m saying, but judge me as a heretic because of it.

That kind of fear should have no place in a Christian’s mind.

We should fear God, of course. We should approach Him with a sense of awe that He is so much more than we can comprehend, that He is entirely other, and that He is the absolute standard by which everything else in the universe is measured.

And we should fear Satan. Even though he is not as great as the One who lives in us, we should still fear him in the way that we would fear a rattlesnake. We should fear him enough that we aren’t tempted to play around with him, trying to get close enough to experience the aroma of pleasure and the thrill of danger that surrounds him.

But fear each other? I don’t think so.

We should respect and love each other; I’m not saying we shouldn’t. We should be careful that we don’t trample each others’ feelings and faith in our rush to grab hold of the next big spiritual thing. We should always realize that not all of us are in the same place, and because we see things a certain way, and believe that this represents progress in our journey of faith, that this does not make us superior to those around us, either intellectually or spiritually.

That’s not what I’m talking about.

I’m talking about the sense that has developed among us that we have to watch our doctrinal purity because the slightest deviation from What Is Accepted will damn us eternally. This atmosphere has stifled our spiritual growth for too long. It has been difficult for us to grow individually, congregationally, or corporately (in the sense of the larger fellowship), because growth means expanding boundaries, and our boundaries are watched closely.

We’ve let those who believe that faithfulness means not just faithfulness to God but faithfulness to their interpretation of God and His word—which is not to them an interpretation, but rather a proclamation of the plain truth—rid us of not only the opportunity but even the desire to grow spiritually.

If this attitude had been present from the beginning, our movement would not even exist. We would all still be held under the thumb of medieval theocracies which existed to perpetuate their own power rather than spread the good news about God’s interaction with mankind.

But sometime, probably in the last century, a power struggle within our movement led to men with this attitude gaining supremacy. And in order for them to solidify their power, they felt it necessary to quash opposing opinions—which necessarily amounted to heresies. In this way we have even defined the history of movement as a successful battle to overcome man-made doctrine and establish the truth of God.

History was written by the winners. And too often the winners were the ones who were willing to silence all other voices.

But this is not the type of people God’s word calls us to be. God calls us to be a loving people, and a true relationship with God—Jesus Himself said this, and it was repeated by Paul and James—becomes evident not because we know doctrine but because we live for others. We define truth as a set of doctrinal statements; God’s Word defines Truth as Jesus Christ, and equates possessing this truth with loving God and loving each other.

And perfect love drives out fear.

We should be encouraging each other to a greater faith. We should challenge each other to constantly question and challenge, to realize that God is taller and wider and more expansive than we will ever experience, that there are always deeper and higher places than we have yet experienced, and no matter how much we learn about God and how close we grow to Him, there will always be more.

In other words, we should be doing the exact opposite of what we often do.

Fear hold us back. Not only does fear keep us from challenging ourselves because of what others may think, fear sometimes makes us wary when we see others going deeper. We are afraid for them, afraid that if they slip our pre-set boundaries, they will be lost forever.

And perhaps somewhere inside we are all afraid that others will outgrow us.

Again, there’s no real cause for fear here either. We aren’t judged by each other. None of us can really gauge how much we understand compared to someone else. God meets each of us where we are, and draws us to Him. And none of our understanding approaches the totality of Him.

When we come to Him, He casts out all fear.

WORD

2005-10-20T21:10:00.000-04:00

And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

In the beginning, God.

Last night, when everything here was silent, I thought about the beginning. I imagined what God’s voice might have sounded like when he created everything. I could almost hear his voice say the words that created matter out of nothing. I imagined that when he said “earth”, the word grew and took shape, and the vibrations from his voice formed into a solid, round mass, floating in space.

And as he said “light”, the word grew and spread until it filled the universe, and the light that came directly from Him filled the dark earth, which immediately seemed larger and full of potential. He then said “day”, and the word reverberated, spread, and took on a permanence that was reinforced by the word “night”, which, dark as it was, lay still and full of expectation.

The other words came, and as they came, God’s voice took on one shape after another, with the tenor of his voice shifting to match each new creation. And I imagined that the creations themselves, the trees, the grass, the animals, each took their unique shapes because of the way God’s voice sounded when he spoke them into existence.

And then he spoke “man”, and “woman”, and the shapes that emerged from swirls of dust swept up into the air by his rich, caring tones revealed God’s purpose in previously unimaginable ways.

But of course all that was just in my imagination. It was something formed when my sleepy mind couldn’t quite drift into sleep. There’s no way to say what creation was like, or what it looked like and sounded like when God created everything that is.

But. . . .

John 1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men.”

I’ve known people who believed that words had literal power, that saying something was the same as calling that particular notion into being. On the whole, I’ve thought that they didn’t quite understand that a word was nothing except a way of communicating an idea. My own words sound so tinny, so impotent. I say something, and the sound falls to the floor and lies there unnoticed.

And I’ve heard a certain radio commentator rant on and on about someone or other whose essential liberalness could be proven by his position at the University of The Incarnate Word—after all, wasn’t it just like those Liberals to hold a word up as something special enough to name a school after? I thought it was sadly amusing that he had no idea what the name of the school referred to.

But John said the Word Was God. And the Word created all things. I thought about this last night, and wondered whether this might mean that when God spoke the world into existence, Jesus was His voice. That the pre-incarnate Jesus did all the heavy lifting, forming all that we know into the shapes we still see (save the extent that creation was marred by Satan, of course). Could my imaginative idea of how the very sound of God’s words echoed in the visible aspect of creation not be far from the truth? And could this sound, the way I imagined it, be the personality of Christ Himself? (Please know that I’m not saying that Jesus was created when God spoke, but rather that He was in a sense the voice of God.)

But these ideas scare me. They seem too close to heresy. But maybe thay just seem that way to me because I've been taught to be so careful about the Bible, I don't know. These are probably fairly common ideas that just haven't found their way into my view yet. It may even be silly that they seem scary to me.

But anyway, they’re not intended to be heretical; they are only intended to be a visualization of the way that creation worked. John himself says that all things that were created were created by the Word, and that Christ was and is That Word.

So could this not be a valid visualization of creation? If not, then why did John, through the Holy Spirit, choose the word “word”?

I will admit it may have to do with what John says next. Because John then goes on to say something that blows us away. He says “The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.”

God’s voice, God Himself, the One who was present in every aspect of creation became creation. So that we, in our fallen state, could get to know the One who created us again, the one we turned away from in the garden. The Word of God communicated the essence of God to us by taking on our shape, showing what we were meant to be, then creating a way for us to get back the fellowship we had lost. He became man so we could be with God.

And through His death, his resurrection, and His Spirit living in us, he continues his eternal act of creation by recreating us. And this second act of creation will one day be complete, and we will be restored to fellowship with the Father eternally.

There has never been the slightest doubt in my mind that the God who started this great work in you would keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish on the very day Christ Jesus appears. –Philippians 1:6.

(please excuse the lenghth of the above; this ran through my head as I was lying awake at 2 AM last night.)

The Gifts We Are Given

2005-10-18T08:29:00.000-04:00

It’s a good thing we don’t choose our own spiritual gifts. I would have chosen to sing like Frank Sinatra, and that would have only led to heartbreak.

I mean, singing like Sinatra was a Very Good Thing back in the forties and fifties, when you had big bands and Cole Porter and that kind of thing. But where would it get you now? If Frank Sinatra came along today, where would he find an audience?

I certainly don’t see him getting a record deal on his own. He’d show up for an audition, sing his piece, and wait while the record executive leaned forward over his desk, stared a hole through Sinatra, and took a deep breath.

“Look,” he would say, “You have a nice voice and all, but we just can’t use you. You just don’t reach the right demographic. Tell me, can you seriously imagine a thirteen-year-old girl buying one of your records? Visit a record store and check out what’s selling. Buy yourself a few CDs. Try to at least get familiar with hip hop. I’ll bet you could rap if you gave it a go. Work on it a while, and if you manage to make yourself into something someone would listen to, maybe we’ll talk then.”

Of course what the record executive would actually say wouldn’t sound anything like this. I’m too out of touch to have a clue what he would say really; that’s part of my point.

Or maybe Sinatra would go on American Idol. I can’t imagine things there would turn out any better, though.

Randy: Dawg, are you feeling it? ‘Cause Frankie, I’m not feeling it. It just didn’t work for me. Sorry.

Paula: Frank, you sang really hard, and I can tell you really believe in yourself.

Simon (interrupting): Francis, what Paula’s trying to say is that no one else believes in you. You’re a relic. Your time has come and gone. Maybe, if you’re lucky and have the right connections, you can get a job doing voiceovers for commercials, but that is as far as you can go.

We’ve given you advice, and you have refused to follow it. We’ve told you to loosen up, to show us some moves, to sing something that will appeal to someone under fifty, but you insist on continuing with this thing you call “crooning”. You may be doing things your way, but frankly, no one else wants to listen. Pack your bags.

In the end, Sinatra would probably end up in Vegas again, but instead of running the place, he’d be opening for some third rate musician in an off-the-strip casino. His vocal talent would be wasted; the world would never hear his voice.

This would be the wrong gift at the wrong time. Or at least that’s the way we would look at it.

But I wonder whether this would really be the case? Aren’t these scenes being replayed everywhere, all the time?

We live in a culture shaped by individualism, but ruled by corporations. That is not a happy combination. All around us are men and women who know they could contribute, know they could do something worthwhile, if they were only given a chance. But our corporate culture doesn’t value their individual talents, so they live in obscurity, using their talents in quiet ways.

Could it be that these quiet ways honor God too? Could God be pleased with us even if we aren’t reaching the masses, but only reaching out to those around us? What was it he said about just offering a cup of water?

It may be true, as I used to hear it said, that God wants us to do great things. But it may also be true that what he considers great and what we consider great are very different things. I think it’s pretty definitely true that we often please God and lift him up even if the approved panel of judges tells us to pack our bags and go home.

And if He is an appreciative audience, what better one could we ask for?

Visiting the Amish

2005-10-17T20:59:00.000-04:00

This coming Saturday, twenty or thirty of us will pile into two or three vans and head up to Amish country in Ohio. What we will do there can be characterized in different ways. You could say that we’ll be imposing on people of a different culture, treating their religion as a tourist attraction. Or you could say that well be indulging in a longing for a simpler time, a more basic way of life. Some might even say that we will be merely indulging our appetites, glutting ourselves on as much good food as we could hold.

Personally, I think reason number two is the closest to the truth.

The easiest lesson to draw from this is to face the danger of failing to change. That is, if we persist in our traditions without adequate reasons, we will lose our relevance and become nothing more than tourist attractions. I’ve heard people suggest this, and it’s true. And yes, I think that a desire to go back to the way things were is part of the draw of this trip, especially among the older folks (and I increasingly count myself among this group as I realize that several of the relics we will see the Amish use will be things I can find in my own childhood memories.)

But the desire that makes us look back isn’t always as dangerous as we think. This desire is at heart a desire for simplicity. And that’s a good thing. Because we can reclaim simplicity without sacrificing progress.

Progress itself isn’t an enemy. Progress allows us to move more easily, to think more quickly, tosee more sharply. Progress allows us to reach out to those around us in ways that show that we are part of the same culture as they are (without giving in to the values of this culture) and speak the same language that they do. No, the danger doesn’t come from progress itself. The danger comes from the entanglements that grow thicker and thicker every passing year. We often confuse these entanglements, which are as certain as time itself, with the positive changes they accompany. What we fail to sometimes realize is that these entanglements attach themselves to us and grow larger and larger even when we try not to change.

Sometimes our traditions themselves, the ones that we long for, the ones we hold on to and try to keep from slipping away, become entanglements themselves, even. And sometimes a desire to go back to the past can become an entanglement.

What we need to realize is that the simplicity can be found in the midst of progress. We can get back to the basics at the same time we embrace the technology that moves us into the future, because in the end, all the new gadgets and process can be used just like we used the old ones (when we used them best at least), to bring us closer to God, to let us see His face more clearly.

Could it be that when we long for simplicity, what we are really desiring is direct communion, with God and with each other?

We find this communion in nature, because there, the curtain is pulled back. There are no man-made constructs to block our view. But we can also find this communion in our fellowshipping and in our worshipping, whether we are doing these things around and outdoor campfire or in a large indoor assembly, complete with the latest power-point presentations.

If God is with us, then we will find the peace, the simplicity we’re looking for.

Patience?

2005-10-13T20:45:00.000-04:00

I'm trying to figure out why I am at times so impatient with people; particularly with people I don't know. I deal with a hundred different people each day, and I'm always ready to assume the worst about their motives. It is too easy for me to respond impatiently, ungracefully. I take offense quickly, whether the offense is intended or not.

This may just be because I've been so mentally tired the past few months. Or it may be something else.

I think about what I've read recently by Donald Miller again. In "Looking For God Knows What" he talks about what he calls lifeboat theology. I'm not going to be able to do justice to this idea in this short space, but this is basically the idea that we try to protect our space in the lifeboat by proving that we have more worth than others. And when our worth is threatened, we react. Retaliate, even.

I can defend my defensiveness by saying that I'm just trying to get people to be polite, to respect others, to see the whole picture instead of just part. Or if my reaction is toward the other drivers on the road, I can convince myself that what upsets me is that their driving habits are dangerous and put others' lives at risk.

But the more I think about it, the more my reactions, my impatience, comes down to the lifeboat theory. It's hard to admit, but I spend much of my time trying to prove that I'm as valuable as anyone else.

I've been watching myself ever since I read this a week ago. I've been trying to catch this attitude, reminding myself that my worth should come from God and not from the value others assign me. Sometimes I've succeeded. Sometimes I haven't.

It's a tough challenge, one that really fights against my nature.

But who knows, maybe this is why God has put me where I am, in this job that I utterly despise, but happen to be disturbingly efficient at.

Maybe this is the way to patience and humility.

Salvation Issues

2005-10-11T22:01:00.000-04:00

I think when we talk about what is and isn't a salvation issue, we may be talking outside the issue. Somewhere we've developed the idea that in order for something to be important, it has to be a "salvation issue".

Thing is God cares about us as people, not just as numbers. He's not trying to outscore the devil; he's trying to redeem us, to take our fallen selves and turn us into something like what we were intended to be. We'll only see the absolute fulfillment of this in eternity, but in the here and now we should know that God's working on us, forming us.

And what he tells us in the Bible, all those things about coming together, encouraging one another, putting off fleshly behavior, acting like we belong to him and showing his love to the world--he's not just telling us those things so we can be saved; he's telling us these things so we can grow into his likeness.

Someone mentioned the other night that they would like to talk about the things that will send us to Hell. Only one thing will separate us from God (send us to Hell)--and that is not knowing Christ, not resting our lives, our hopes in Him.

I think we would be healthier and happier, and even show a more accurate, more loving picture of God to others if we thought in these terms more. God didn't call us to be moralists. He called us to become like Christ.

Please excuse the ramble. Thanks.

Thinking About Truth

2005-09-30T11:36:00.000-04:00

I've been reading Donald Miller lately, and have just finished reading some stuff by Brian McLaren. I've also been listening to admonition to get better acquainted with God by reading the Gospel Minutes and the West Virginia Christian and watching In Search of The Lord's Way.

And this has all been causing me to think about truth. I think we've been limiting truth by trying to fit all of it in our little catechisms. Truth is greater than any of us, greater than all of us. It is something that comes from God, and He is so far beyond us that we can't begin to comprehend Him.

We pay lip service to searching for truth, to following truth, but what we really want to do is to prove to other people that our way of thinking is truth.

And that's not honestly loving truth at all.

We get so hung up on doctrine that we can't grow closer to God, sometimes, because the very things that could lead us to now Him better aren't part of our formulas.

Really, really, really loving truth and searching for it takes courage, because, in spite of what they say, most people would rather not go there.

But God IS truth, and going there is worth the journey, to say something that sounds a bit too cliched to fit.

I was thinking about this when I went to sleep, and I woke up ten minutes later with a song going through my head. It needs a lot of work, and doesn't really work without the tune, but here's where it stands now:

Can I be (oh Lord)
Can I take your hand,
Can I be a follower of the truth?

No matter where it leads
No matter what it costs,
Can I be a follower of the truth?

I can say the words
But do I listen deep?
Do I know myself well enough to say,
That I can be the one
Who only hears your voice?
Can I tell the difference between your and my way?

Can I be (oh Lord)
Can I take your hand,
Can I be a follower of the truth?

No matter where it leads
No matter what it costs,
Can I be a follower of the truth?

What if following you
Means I have to say
My way, my words, haven't always been true?
Can I humble myself,
Can I say I was wrong?
Can I be honest, transparent, all the way through?

Can I be (oh Lord)
Can I take your hand,
Can I be a follower of the truth?

No matter where it leads
No matter what it costs,
Can I be a follower of the truth?

Do I see the truth in your eyes?
In the eyes of the people I know?
Is the truth I've been searching for
Right here?

Can I be (oh Lord)
Can I take your hand,
Can I be a follower of the truth?

No matter where it leads
No matter what it costs,
Can I be a follower of the truth?

So, what if truth isn't what we've always thought it was? What if the things we've labelled squishy and wimpy really are the truth, and the hard facts of the Gospel as we've presented them are mostly man-created? What if truth in the end has to do with the way we relate to God and to each other?

Something to think about.

Live like everything depends on. . . .

2005-06-19T22:12:00.000-04:00

There's a saying that shows up in bulletins and on marquees occasionally, "Pray like everything depends on God, then work like everything depends on you." I understand the sentiment, but don't agree. We should pray, work, and live like everything depends on God.

We spend too much time depending on ourselves, our goodness, our mental capacity, our perseverance, our own hard work. If any of that was good enough, the Law of Moses would have been good enough. We could have just decided to bear down, do all we could, and keep that law. But we couldn't. And it wasn't.

If any of that was good enough, there would have been no need for a cross.

In the end, the tendency to want to do it all ourselves is pure ego. We pay lip-service to needing grace, but continue to live like everything depends on us. Because we do this, because we trust in ourselves so much, we get ourselves into messes.

Joel Stephen Williams tells the following story on his website:

Many years ago in a textile factory there was a sign on the wall which read: "If your threads get tangled, send for the foreman." One woman who was fairly new was a diligent worker, but her threads got tangled one day. She tried to disentangle them, but her efforts only made matters worse. Finally she gave up and called the foreman. He came and looked for a few moments and then asked: "You have been trying to untangle them yourself, haven't you?" "Yes," she replied. "Why didn't you send for me, according to the instruction?" She shrugged her shoulders and said: "I did my best." With much tact, yet, with great insight, he quietly said: "Remember that doing your best is sending for me."

Isn't it time we realized that the best we can do is trust God and let Him work in us? Isn't it time we stopped living like everything depends on us and started living like everything depends on God?

Psalm 33
20We wait in hope for the LORD;
he is our help and our shield.

21 In him our hearts rejoice,
for we trust in his holy name.

22 May your unfailing love rest upon us, O LORD,
even as we put our hope in you.

Lose Myself in Worship

2005-06-16T23:59:00.000-04:00

(song lyrics)

(I want to) Throw off all this ritual and bow myself before you
I simply want to worship your sweet name
So take my heart and purify me, take my life and sanctify me
Help me find the words to lift you up in praise
and lose myself in worshipping your name

1.I get so tired of ceremony, at times it seems the words we say
fall meaningless and empty back to earth
we look just right and act just right, it all seems so familiar
and I wonder what a million words are worth.

2.There's something deep inside of me that longs for something deeper
A God-shaped hole that only you can fill
I want to worship you with all I feel inside my spirit
I hunger for communion that is real

Bridge:(My God I) turn to you, and reach for you, I search this empty earth for you
I simply want to worship you, my Savior and my Lord

End:I want to throw off all this ritual, and lose myself in worshipping your name.

But how

2005-06-16T23:51:00.000-04:00

do we do it? How do we throw off all of these hinderences and get so we're just face-to-face with God? Is it possible for us, in our human skin, to even know what we've created and what's real? Have our rituals become idols that we can't distinguish from God Himself?

We have to simplify. We have to get past the constructs and get to the solid, simple reality of Christianity. Jesus prayed that we would be one as He and His father were. I can't believe that these were just words. There has to be some way for us to empty ourselves out, submit ourselves to the Father, and let Him make us one.

There has to be a way.

We Are One

2005-06-16T23:03:00.000-04:00

(song lyrics)

Chorus:
We are one--weak and struggling souls, united by his love
We are one--clinging tightly to the blessed only Son
We are one--strengthened by his grace and made whole by His Blood
And we'll make it if we only let our Savior--Make Us One

1-Unity--I've heard about Unity, But sometimes I wonder if we really mean
True Unity--or if we only want all people to conform to us, not to the One who sets us free
The One who heals our stripes and sends his Holy Spirit in
Whose Grace covers a multitude of sin.

2-Unity--Our Lord Loves Unity, When we conform to Him then we will see
True unity--Accepting one another through Him. All our weaknesses and faults buried beneath
The Holy grace of Jesus bought so dear on Calvary
His grace, it isn't cheap, but praise the Lord it's free

Bridge--Why do we want to judge each other, don't we know what really matters
Why do we want to hurt each other, I pray that God will show us mercy and let us truly see

He Remembers We Are Dust

2005-06-12T17:01:00.000-04:00

Psalm 103
Of David.
1 Praise the LORD, O my soul;
all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
2 Praise the LORD, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits-

3 who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,

4 who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,

5 who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.

6 The LORD works righteousness
and justice for all the oppressed.

7 He made known his ways to Moses,
his deeds to the people of Israel:

8 The LORD is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in love.

9 He will not always accuse,
nor will he harbor his anger forever;

10 he does not treat us as our sins deserve
or repay us according to our iniquities.

11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him;

12 as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

13 As a father has compassion on his children,
so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him;

14 for he knows how we are formed,
he remembers that we are dust.

15 As for man, his days are like grass,
he flourishes like a flower of the field;

16 the wind blows over it and it is gone,
and its place remembers it no more.

17 But from everlasting to everlasting
the LORD's love is with those who fear him,
and his righteousness with their children's children-

18 with those who keep his covenant
and remember to obey his precepts.

19 The LORD has established his throne in heaven,
and his kingdom rules over all.

20 Praise the LORD, you his angels,
you mighty ones who do his bidding,
who obey his word.

21 Praise the LORD, all his heavenly hosts,
you his servants who do his will.

22 Praise the LORD, all his works
everywhere in his dominion.
Praise the LORD, O my soul.

We hear the stories of Nadab and Abihu and of Uzzah over and over again, stories told to prove that God is up in Heaven, waiting with His lightening bolt to zap us when we mess up, stories that, taken by themselves, give us entirely the wrong idea of who God is.

Jesus didn't come to Earth to change God's nature, he came to reveal it.

In this Psalm we see that nature clearly. The wrath we see at times is not directed against those who follow Him. For those who fear Him, God is patient. Forgiving. He knows we are dust. He created us, and he knows we are weak and will not live perfect lives.

God doesn't want to destroy us in a fit of anger, instead,

The LORD is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in love.

There's what almost seems like a contradiction in this Psalm; if we fear God, we have no need to fear. But it is a true saying. If we follow Him, he picks us up when we stumble and sends us on our way.

Remember, we do not serve a God who treats us as our sins deserve. We serve a God who knows us, and has compassion on His children.

So let's stop picking and choosing stories from the Old Testament to show that God is the type of god who would strike down his children for reasons such as misunderstanding his exact pattern of worship, ignoring other examples that would show the opposite (such as His acceptance of unauthorized synagogue worship, Christ's observance of the extra-scriptural Feast of Dedication (Hanukkah) and others). Let's recognize the revealed character of God, and know that He reaches down for us at His expense.

Praise the LORD, all his works
everywhere in his dominion.
Praise the LORD, O my soul.

Quote from Jeff Walling

2005-06-04T11:15:00.000-04:00

from Until I Return. This follows a discussion of Romans 7

I imagine this struggle in corporate terms. I envision the board of directors of My Life, Inc., as having three members: Mr. B. (my body), Mr. S. (the Holy Spirit), and Mr. M. (my mind). In one chair sits my body, Mr. B. He's the part of me that is oriented toward pleasing the sensed, the part that Paul called the "flesh." And he is both completely selfish and very consistent. He always wants what he wants. . . and he wants it now. Whether it's another handful of candy or another ten minutes of sleep in the morning, Mr. B. always votes for what feels good. Furthermore, he will lie, cheat, and steal to get it. With a straight face, he will offer the most ridiculous arguments, such as, "If you eat the whole pie tonight, I promise we'll skip lunch and dinner tomorrow to make up for it!" Right!

Sitting opposite this manipulative con artist is Mr. S., the Holy Spirit. Like his more selfish opponent, Mr. S. is wonderfully consistent. Unlike Mr. B, however, he is an absolutely straight shooter. He'll level with me and say, "This won't be fun or feel good, but it's the right thing to do." In every setting, he will consistently point me toward what is righteous. His values are those of Christ, and his will comes directly from the Father. "What would Jesus do?" is his favorite question, much to the chagrin of Mr. B.

When a moral dilemma arises, Mr. B. and Mr. S. go at it. Mr. B. passionately argues for passion, and Mr. S. steadfastly advocates Jesus' way. They can argue back and forth for what seems like hours, and when the roll call is taken, each casts votes on the opposite side of almost every issue.

Who casts the tie-breaking vote? Well, occupying the remaining chair is Mr. M., the part of me that wields the gavel and declares a verdict. Unfortunately, my mind is the part of me that is not consistent. My mind can choose to listen to the sweet song of Mr. B. or the clarion call of Mr. S. The inconsistency of my mind is why the Scriptures tell the Christian, "Set your minds on things above" (Colossians 3:2) and "Keep in step with the Spirit" (Galatians 5:25). And that is why we must keep listening for the Spirit's inner voice of integrity.

But our Counselor doesn't stop there. Not only will he guide us concerning the direction we are to go, if we allow him to have full sway in the boardroom of our lives, he will give us the strength to accomplish those God-given calls. The Holy Spirit can do more than advise--he can empower!

A troubling thought

2005-05-29T23:36:00.000-04:00

While reading about the Pharisees plotting to kill Jesus in class this morning, someone started talking about the Muslims, and saying that this was the natural way for them to behave. However I'm not sure that this is one that we can just lay at the feet of other religions.

Christians have done their share of killing people in God's name over the years. This was an accepted punishment for whatever was deemed heresy for long periods of time. Then, of course, you have "Bloody Mary" killing protestants, then Elizabeth turning around and killing just as many Catholics, if not more, and the behavior of Cromwell and his cronies, and the Puritans in America, even.

Satan has infected Christians with this desire to kill those we disagree with over the years. I don't have time to go deep into what I'm thinking now, but I wonder, Is the only reason that you no longer see this that its no longer legally acceptable? Would the religious disagreements we see today still end with killing if People could get by with it?

It's a scary thing, but I wonder whether the hate that these religious arguments brings out in us isn't comparable to the hate that Jesus talked about in the sermon on the mount when he said "21"You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.' 22But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment."

Murder's no longer an option, so we think it's okay to still be angry and hate as long as we don't go ahead and kill those we consider heretics.

Or maybe not.

What makes me wonder about this is that those who have killed in Christ's name in the past haven't been outside the mainstream, but rather have done so to protect the mainstream. Henry V, for instance, is always portrayed as a Pious man, yet he widely persecuted the Lollards, because he considered them heretics. The Puritans laid a foundation for this country (although much of our founding movement was in part a reaction against them), yet they killed those they thought went too far.

Why did we at times kill Indians so easily? Sometimes we were in direct conflict with them, but at other times we were convinced that they were less human than us. The same logic was used to perpetuate slavery.

When we fight wars, we become convinced that we have a right to kill others because of their nationality, and the government is at times portrayed as sacred, and when we question the government, our patriotism is doubted . I'm no pacifist, but I can see the same type of thinking being used to justify killing in the name of religion. There's a certain blindness we take on when we go to war. We justify things such as the killing of civilians or immoral acts by pointing out how much worse the actions of enemies are. How much of a stretch would it be to see how this type of thinking can apply to our religious beliefs.

I think separation of church and state is our biggest hedge against this sort of thing. But I wonder at times if the heart doesn't still exist in some of us. I wonder how far we really are from this sort of thinking.

Jesus and the Pharisees--pt. 1

2005-05-29T23:33:00.000-04:00

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Matthew 9:36

While studying Matthew recently, I saw something in the pattern of Jesus' interaction with the Pharisees that reminded me of us. Often people bring up Jesus' words to the Pharisees as justification for our public condemnation of those we disagree with, but reading through these encounters, I saw a different pattern.

Our harshest words are reserved for those we differ from doctrinally, those whose procedures differ from ours, whose worship doesn't meet our criteria (which we believe is also God's), who use different language than we do, and who call themselves by different names both corporately and individually.

Jesus seems to have reserved his harshest words, however, for those who treated people poorly.

The Pharisees were the guardians of God's word. The sect had started as a reaction to the secularization of the Jewish people under Greek rule. They had started off with pure motives, and were by all accounts closer to God than the Saducees, who had few spiritual concerns at all but instead were consumed with a desire for wealth and power.

But over the two centuries of their existence, the pure ideals of the Pharisees had been corrupted. They had built their own fences (their term) around the Law, fences made up of their own rules and regulations to make sure that no one came close to breaking the law. Milton Jones has written some interesting things about his in his book Grace, The Heart of Fire.

It wasn't long before the Pharisees became more concerned about their own constructed fences of rules and regulations than they were about the Law itself. Soon their energy was spent trying to protect their own system of rules, and violating the rules of the Pharisees became as great a sin as violating God's law.

And concerns such as mercy and compassion, which had been God's primary interest all along, became lost by the wayside.

Let's look through Matthew, and examine each of His encounters with the Pharisees.

We first meet the Pharisees in chapter three. Here, they have come to hear John, but he calls them a "brood of vipers". One of our Junior High students asked last week why both Jesus and John used this phrase for the Pharisees. I'm not sure I know the answer to that, but the idea that they did tells us something true about the nature of the Pharisees. In this encounter John warns the Pharises that Jesus is coming with a winnowing fork, and unless they repent, they will soon meet their judgment.

Jesus first mention of the Pharisees is recorded as part of the sermon on the mount in:

17"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus sets up the picture here. He has come to fulfill the Law. The Pharisees believe that they are protectors of the law, but Jesus says that, in order to enter the Kingdom of heaven, one's righteousness must be greater than theirs. What can He mean by that?

He immediately transitions from this into a discussion of murder and hatred. he explores the idea that the Pharisees teach that it is okay to say whatever you like to your brother, as long as you don't use the word Raca (empty-headed). The Pharisees have reduced the requirements of the law down to a matter of semantics. Avoid this certain word, and everything is okay. Jesus goes deeper. He says that the real sin is the hatred in the heart. That is the seed of our mistreatment of others, and that this hatred can condemn us even if we use words that weren't on the forbidden list.

It's a bit disconcerting that we have taken this passage at times and used it as a prohibition of the word fool, making the same mistake the Pharisees made with raca, ignoring Jesus' main point that it is the hatred of our brother in our heart that condemns us.

Jesus then goes on to talk about how reconciliation with our brother should be completed before we make an offering to God, anticipating the quote he will use twice later in the book, "I desire mercy, not sacrifice".

He next meets the Pharisees in chapter 9:

10While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and "sinners" came and ate with him and his disciples. 11When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?"

12On hearing this, Jesus said, "But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice. It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.

Here we see the beginning of a recurring theme. The Pharisees reaction to those they consider sinners is rejection. Jesus uses the word "sinner" ironically, with an allusion to the fact that the Pharisees cannot see their own sins. The contrast is clear: Jesus is the friend of sinners, the Pharisees are sworn enemies.

And there's that quote from Hosea: "I desire mercy, not sacrifice." We'll run into that again soon.

Then in verse 34 of the same chapter the Pharisees, confronted with the good work Jesus is doing, dismiss Him by saying, "It is by the prince of demons that he drives out demons."

His reaction?

Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness.

Jesus next encounter with them,in chapter 12, is one we can find particularly troubling:

1At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. 2When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, "Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath."
3He answered, "Haven't you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? 4He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated breadwhich was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. 5Or haven't you read in the Law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple desecrate the day and yet are innocent? 6I tell you that one greater than the temple is here. 7If you had known what these words mean, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the innocent. 8For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath."

9Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue, 10and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, they asked him, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?"

11He said to them, "If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? 12How much more valuable is a man than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath."

13Then he said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." So he stretched it out and it was completely restored, just as sound as the other. 14But the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus.

We can easily dismiss the grain-picking. The disciples weren't violating The Law, they were only violating the Pharisees' laws. But Jesus also said what David and his men did was all right, and that was definitely in violation of God's Law.

How could this be okay? And what does that really mean, "'I desire mercy, not sacrifice"? Jesus told the Pharisees to learn this, and now says that because they didn't, they're condemning the innocent.

Could it really be that God can be honored even when we don't fully obey His commands? If we do good more but don't follow all the rules and regulations, will God still approve? Could we be condemning the innocent because we don't understand this?

These are troubling thoughts for us.

They troubled the Pharisees also, to the point that they decided to try to kill Jesus.

In the meantime, they encounter Him twice more in this chapter. The first time, they again nonsensically accuse Him of casting out demons by the power of Satan. The second time they, seemingly oblivious to all of the miracles around Him, ask for a sign. He says they'll get one. The sign of Jonah--the resurrection.

Jesus & The Pharisees (What can we learn?) pt. 2

2005-05-22T23:28:00.000-04:00

Then comes chapter 15:

1Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, 2"Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don't wash their hands before they eat!"
3Jesus replied, "And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? 4For God said, 'Honor your father and mother' and 'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.' 5But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, 'Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is a gift devoted to God,' 6he is not to 'honor his father' with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. 7You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:
8" 'These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
9They worship me in vain;
their teachings are but rules taught by men.'

How often have we used those last two verses to condemn people for worshipping improperly, while, in context, Jesus is talking about people who claim to worship God while mistreating even their own family! God have mercy on us.

Then, the next verses:

10Jesus called the crowd to him and said, "Listen and understand. 11What goes into a man's mouth does not make him 'unclean,' but what comes out of his mouth, that is what makes him 'unclean.' "

12Then the disciples came to him and asked, "Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?"

Does this offend us? Would it if we took the time to consider what it says rather than what we've always claimed it says?

In chapter 16, the Pharisees, together with the Saducees, ask Jesus again for a sign. After this, Jesus tells his disciples to watch out for the yeast, the influence, of the Pharisees. We would do well to do the same.

In chapter 19 the Pharisees try to justify their practice of discarding wives they are tired of. Jesus says this has been permitted because their hearts were hard, but was not God's intention.

When Jesus enters Jerusalem, the encounters intensify. The Pharisees constantly challenge Jesus, and He lets them know that He knows they are plotting to kill Him, and will be rejected by God. They try to trap Him, but he instead traps them. They decide to not use words anymore, but to get rid of Him immediately.

Then comes the big one. Chapter 23.

1Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: 2"The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. 3So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. 4They tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.
5"Everything they do is done for men to see: They make their phylacteries[a] wide and the tassels on their garments long; 6they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; 7they love to be greeted in the marketplaces and to have men call them 'Rabbi.'

8"But you are not to be called 'Rabbi,' for you have only one Master and you are all brothers. 9And do not call anyone on earth 'father,' for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. 10Nor are you to be called 'teacher,' for you have one Teacher, the Christ.[b] 11The greatest among you will be your servant. 12For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

13"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.[c]

15"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.

16"Woe to you, blind guides! You say, 'If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.' 17You blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes the gold sacred? 18You also say, 'If anyone swears by the altar, it means nothing; but if anyone swears by the gift on it, he is bound by his oath.' 19You blind men! Which is greater: the gift, or the altar that makes the gift sacred? 20Therefore, he who swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. 21And he who swears by the temple swears by it and by the one who dwells in it. 22And he who swears by heaven swears by God's throne and by the one who sits on it.

23"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spicesmint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the lawjustice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. 24You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.

25"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.

27"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. 28In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

29"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. 30And you say, 'If we had lived in the days of our forefathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.' 31So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. 32Fill up, then, the measure of the sin of your forefathers!

33"You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell? 34Therefore I am sending you prophets and wise men and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town. 35And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. 36I tell you the truth, all this will come upon this generation.

37"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. 38Look, your house is left to you desolate. 39For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'

That's scary stuff. We all need to sit down, read it through, and ask whether it applies to us. What is our concern? Is it real righteousness, or outside appearances. Do we shut the door in the faces of those seeking Christ with our rules and regulations? Do we realize that the most important part of the Law is "justice, mercy and faithfulness".

What we see here is the absolute result of the path of the Pharisees. We haven't gone all the way to the end yet. But when our brotherhood produces several publications dedicated to pointing out the minute faults of other brotherhood preachers, labeling them unfaithful for reasons ranging from clapping in services and using "praise teams" to fellowshipping with people the writers have deemed "unfaithful", it's an open question as to how far down the path we've traveled.

And when we put out even more publications and programs dedicated to pointing out how much better our fellowship is at rule-keeping (not mercy, not justice, not faithfulness in the Biblical definition, but rule-keeping) than other churches, it's time we face up to the reality of how much the yeast of the Pharisees has spread through us.

There's only one more mention of the Pharisees in Matthew. That comes in chapter 27, after they have done their work and seen Jesus crucified, when they go to Pilate and try to make sure that Jesus stays in the tomb.

They fail at this. And there lies our hope.

I wonder what Jesus would say to us today. Would he praise us for our excellent law-keeping, and say that other churches should be just like us in that regard? Did He praise the Pharisees for their law-keeping?

Is it maybe time that we focus on the most important things?

Quote from Milton Jones

2005-05-22T20:12:00.000-04:00

"Grace brings freedom, but it doesn't end commitment."

About Worship

2005-05-22T13:33:00.000-04:00

Worship, though, is a great thing. When we come together we should experience the presence of God.

Our worship should lift Him up, and through what we do there, through our singing and communing and teaching, we should grow closer to Him and to each other. Our worship should help make us into a community that finds its identity in Him.

Reducing our worship to a series of acts lessens it, and in a sense dishonors the one we worship. We become the center.

But if we make Him the focus of our coming together, He is lifted up. And we know what the result will be.

Worship isn't only an intellectual experience and it isn't only an emotional experience. It is a time when we take our whole being, everything God has given to us, our brain, our heart, our hands, and lift it up to Him. It is a time when we recognize that we belong to Him, and our life is most worthwhile when He lives through us.

And this corporate worship then carries on through the rest of our lives, and potentially makes everything we do a sort of worship, an offering, to Him.

If God is not tangibly present when we worship, we are missing His blessing. We have developed such a suspicion of emotion (and we have a right to be suspicious of emotional excess) that we have come to suspect anything that touches our emotions.

Don Moen put it well in when he wrote this:

I just want to be Where You are
Dwelling daily in Your presence
I don't want to worship from afar
Draw me near to where You are

I just want to be Where You are
In Your dwelling place forever
Take me to the place where You are
'Cause I just want to be with You

I want to be where You are
Dwelling in your presence
feasting at Your table
Surrounded by Your Glory
In Your presence
Thats where I always want to be
I just want to be
I just want to be
with You.

Knowing the Truth

2005-05-21T22:45:00.000-04:00

John 4:19-24
"Sir," the woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem."
Jesus declared, "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."

But to us it becomes much more complicated. To worship in spirit and in truth means. . .

Teach
Preach
Give
Commune
Pray
Sing

That's the truth part, at least. As far as the spirit part goes. . . . well, we haven't quite figured that one out, but we have the truth part down, and that's enough.

But do we even have the truth part down?

Over and over again in the book of John, Jesus repeats the phrase "I tell you the truth". Then in chapter 14 he goes one step further.

"I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him."

This completes the picture Jesus has been painting all through the book. He IS the truth. We are now able to come before God and worship Him in spirit and truth because Jesus has come, and he has revealed the Father. We now all worship the One we know.

So where should we worship? In Jerusalem? In the mountain?

Jesus says it doesn't matter. Spirit and Truth matter, and he is truth. Here, there, wherever, it doesn't matter. He is there.

But what about the how? Didn't the spirit leave us a detailed list of acts of worship and how these acts are to be done, like he did for Moses?

We search, but we cannot find such a list in the New Testament. So what do we do? We pull out every verse that even sounds like it talks about worship (except for the ones that bother us, like the charismatic verses), and make a list. After all, God likes lists. Look at the ones he gave Moses.

Perhaps we should instead back up to the first chapter of John, where that word truth is used again, and see if there's a clue there:

From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

Grace and truth? Could it be that this grace, this freedom, this one blessing after another, means that we on longer have to perform rituals in certain ways to gain God's favor, but instead simply worship in spirit and in truth, with Christ not only bringing us the absolute, ultimate truth about God the Father and salvation, but being truth Himself?

It's too much for us to grasp.

So we make lists.

We pull out verses not only to make singing an act of worship, but to exclude instruments (an exclusion not made in the Old Testament, when God accepted worship with instruments, which was not commanded--somehow on this issue we've come to believe that we have less freedom and grace than David), even though the verses in question have nothing to do with worship.

We take a verse about a collection being taken up at a particular time for a particular reason (to be sent elsewhere), and say that this is the only way to finance the local church.

We take a single verse about the Lord's Supper being eaten on Sunday, ignore another verse using the exact words that says it was done daily, and say that communion can only be taken on Sunday (and condemn those who don't do it weekly). On top of this, we make a pinch of a cracker and a sip of grape juice the accepted way to partake in this "supper" with absolutely no Biblical support.

And we say that anyone who questions these methods is simply preaching to itching ears.

So much for grace and truth.

Lord have mercy on our souls.

Some Basics

2005-05-21T22:30:00.000-04:00

I am a lifetime member of the Church of Christ (non-instrumental). I value much I have learned and received from the Church of Christ. I value the congregational autonomy, the dedication to the Word of God to the point that if our study leads us away from the way we have always been taught, we are encouraged to follow God's word. I value the commitment to believer's baptism. I value the way the Church of Christ has remained conservative without falling into Evangelical excess.

In some way, though, I believe our movement--or at least part of our movement--has gone off track. While many have remained committed to following where God leads no matter what others say (there is some great work being done on the national level by men such as Milton Jones and Rubel Shelly, for instance), others have become more committed to the idea of "The Church of Christ" than they are to the pursuit of, and more importantly, the surrender to, God.

I don't mean to sound judgmental. Many of the more conservative members among us (most, I would guess), have committed their lives to God, and they do what they do because of this commitment to Him. But I believe that we have become so mired in our traditions that we find it hard to see what's real and what isn't.

I think we need to simplify.

Our movement has been around for 200 years now. That's roughly the same amount of time the Pharisees had existed when Christ came, and our movement has paralleled the Pharisees in frightening ways. We have become obsessed with forms, with lists, with steps to salvation and acts of worship. We have not learned what God meant when He said "I desire mercy rather than sacrifice."

But because of our autonomous structure, hope remains. Many of our brothers have, as Lois Cheney once put it, wandered past the signs and the booths and the men explaining what God's truth looks like and what it means, and have come face to face with God's truth itself.

Others of us are still struggling. I am one of those, and I will try not to forget it as I am writing here.

Re-thinking a few things

2005-05-21T20:52:00.000-04:00

I hope to use this to sort through some of the things I've been thinking about lately. We'll see.

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