Downward Spiraling

Cause or Kingdom?

2012-01-21T09:51:00.000-08:00

I have been reading quite a bit about and from Clarence Jordan, the founder of Koinonia Farm in rural Georgia. He wrote the Cotton Patch version of the New Testament. He was trained as a Southern Baptist preacher, and when he would guest preach he would only have a few notes on a small piece of paper and the original Greek New Testament that he would translate as he preached. Jordon was a dynamic individual. He was on the forefront of the battle against segregation and developed a unique model for communal living. However, he didn't start Koinonia in the early 1940s to create a prophetic call against the evils of segregation. Nor did he begin with the idealistic notion of starting a monastic commune in rural Georgia. He didn't reject the nationalism of World War II and register as a Conscientious Objector, which, in patriotic Dixie was almost unheard of, because he wanted to make a statement against war. He did all of this because he felt that the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5, 6 and 7) were "marching orders" for God's people. The words of Jesus, specifically in the Sermon on the Mount, were the framework for God's Kingdom. As Jordan said, he wanted Koinonia to be "a demonstration plot for the Kingdom of God." He wasn't a civil rights leader, a monastic leader, or anti-war protest leader. Jordan simply believed that these concepts were clearly Jesus' instructions for us. As Joe Maendel, a friend of Jordan and a devout Hutterite, recalled:

I had been trained to think that Jesus' words were in the Bible from one end to the other, that the whole book from the first page to the last contained God's words on law and order. Clarence just put his arm around me and said, 'Joe, you don't know how to read the Bible.' And then he took me home and showed me.

He showed me where some of the Bible is just history, where some of it is just telling how so-and-so applied what Jesus said, and how some of it just sets the stage for what Jesus did or said. he told me there is only one place where Jesus starts giving orders and that was in Matthew five, six and seven. He showed me how Jesus didn't talk about community or how to be a Christian -- he talked about love, and mercy, and humbleness -- and Clarence said if you have these, you have community automatically. Clarence said you can argue about the rest of the Bible if you want to, but there is no argument about Matthew five, six, and seven.

Clarence Jordan had only one cause, his singular desire was to enter deeper into God's Kingdom. We have visited several churches over the past few years, and we have attended several conferences. In many instances, opportunities are presented for people to get involved with different "causes." The opportunity to support those digging wells in impoverished nations, or the chance to work with those involved in distributing the Gospel to communist nations. While I whole-heatedly support the efforts of these organizations and individuals who are tangibly loving their neighbors, I also know first hand that when we become about a cause we can quickly get burnt out. One week our hearts are impacted by a video we watched and so we give a little to help build a well in India. The next week we hear about a friend who is helping an organization to end human trafficking. Drawn into the heart-wrenching stories, we try to get more involved. We wonder how we can become involved in so many different "causes," and with the typical American's busy life, the only solution is to give financially. That subdues our conscience -- for a while. The well has been dug, people in the village now have water . . . . what's next? Homelessness? Hunger? Orphans?

Once again, many founders, workers and donors to these causes are centered in the middle of God's Kingdom, but many times it feels like some Christian circles can become a trendy social justice À la carte. Our faith becomes schizophrenic, scattering our time, energy and finances over logo ladened t-shirts, bumper stickers and self-righteous pats on the back.

Jordan advocated for Jesus followers to give. He quoted Augustine in his letter to supporters in 1968:

"'He who possesses a surplus possesses the goods of others.' That's a polite way of saying that anybody who has too much is a thief. If you are a 'thief,' perhaps you should set a reasonable living standard for your family and restore the 'stolen goods' to humanity."

But the giving wasn't sparked by a cause, it was sparked by the Kingdom. Jordan didn't try to convince others to live communally, fight racism, or become pacifists, in other words, he wasn't looking for a cause to fight. Instead, he was trying to convince folks that we must enter into God's Kingdom. Furthermore, Jordan believed that the Sermon on the Mount was the summary of Jesus' teaching about the Kingdom. By putting the ideals laid out in the Sermon on the Mount into action in our daily lives, justice, which is God's "cause," will naturally (and supernaturally), become our "cause."

Point of Sale Salvation

2011-12-19T19:47:00.000-08:00

I can't remember exactly when I prayed "the" prayer. Maybe I was three or four, possibly five, my mom probably knows. It doesn't seem that significant now. I remember telling people that my true conversion occurred when I was 19. After the spiritual high wore off, it didn't feel much different and I went on making the same mistakes, questioned what it all meant and struggled with knowing what it meant to "believe" in Jesus. It was / is more of a process than an instantaneous conversion. Today I can say that I am assured of my salvation; I know who I am in Christ. I have heard somewhere that salvation happens instantly, but sanctification is a process. I don't know. Paul said that we must "work out our salvation," so he would probably disagree with the whole "instantaneous" thing.

I have never pushed the whole prayer thing with my own kids. I guess I'm not really willing to pressure or even gently and lovingly persuade my kids into doing something I'm not even sure about. This isn't to say that I don't think proclaiming that you know and love Jesus isn't an important and life altering decision in someone's life, or that parents that have or plan to talk to their kids about "accepting Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior," are doing something inappropriate. It is just something that I am personally choosing not to pursue with my kids. Something I want them to become curious about and really want to do it, not something I planted or indoctrinated them with. I recall telling campus missionaries that tried to "save" me in college that Christianity was my parent's religion. Maybe that's because I prayed "the" prayer before I knew that I could make it mine, before I knew what it even meant to follow Jesus (which I still don't fully understand).

I think the bigger question here is what does it even mean to be "saved." Theologically, the "work" of salvation has already happened on the cross, but what does it take to be "saved." Should we simply believe? Must we then proclaim what we believe? Is that it? Most mainstream Evangelicals treat salvation like a point of sale transaction. Once you swipe your eternity debit card through the machine and punch in your Jesus PIN number, you are good to go. But I have problems with this definition of salvation. It is obvious to me that it isn't some instantaneous occurrence where a little bell rings in Heaven and half-naked baby angels begin to celebrate. I also believe that shedding this type of view is essential to our understanding of what it means to enter into the Kingdom of God and both know and follow Jesus. The "cost of discipleship" discussed in Luke 14 should tell us that it is more than simply praying.

One of my favorite translations is the New Living Translation. Reading through the New Testament I have noticed that nearly every time the translation uses the word "believers" it has an asterisk. In the footnote it reads "Greek: disciples." I wonder why the translators chose to use "believers" instead? "Disciple" is so much richer in context. To be a believer (someone who knows) has a much different meaning than a disciple (someone who imitates).

In John 8, Jesus is speaking to a crowd of people. Early on, He is speaking directly to the "unbelievers," but then he turns his focus to the "believers":

"Jesus said to the people who believed in him, “You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings. And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

It sounds like you can be a "believer" and not be free. Only by following his teachings can you become a disciple and learn the truth, and only then will you be set free.

In Matthew 7, Jesus says that simply calling out to him (praying?) will not automatically mean you will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. You must actually do something (be a disciple):

“Not everyone who calls out to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter." (Matthew 7:21)

The question that follows is "what exactly are the 'teachings' of Jesus?"

“Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?” Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ (Matthew 22:36-39)

And in John, Jesus comes full circle: we must (1) remain faithful to His teachings, (2) His teachings are to love and (3) if we love we prove we are a true disciple:

"Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.” (John 13:35)

I write all of this not because I have answers, but because I have questions. How can I lead my kids into a deeper and more authentic relationship with Jesus? How can I allow freedom for my children to make their own decisions and be true disciples of Jesus? I think part of the reason I don't want to lead my children through a simple pray and profession of faith is that following Jesus is so much deeper than that. I want my children to be disciples of Jesus, not just believers in Him.

Our Abba Father

2011-12-09T07:15:00.000-08:00

Originally posted on our MSM blog on November 24th, 2008:

I have been overwhelmed on a couple of occasions here in Charlotte. Once was when Avery and I sat in on a Bible study at Hoskins Park. Hoskins is a transitional housing ministry that gets men off the streets and helps them plug back into society. I sat near the back with a few guys I had met earlier that night listening to the speaker as he talked about the attributes of God – How do we see Him? Who is He to us? The room was filled with men who were broken in one form or another, myself included. I slowly brought my eyes across the small room with probably more than 40 men stuffed in it. I saw some men eagerly taking notes, I saw others focused intently on the speaker, I saw one man sleeping, and being nudged by fellow brothers with stern looks on their faces. I saw another young man, actually the first I had met that night, get up slowly from his seat and stagger towards the door, errantly grasping for the door knob until finally he clumsily made his way outside, followed quickly by a couple of staff. Turns out that sometime between the time I met him and Bible study he had downed a 5th of vodka and had to be taken to the hospital. We were all broken, none more than any other. I got a sense that the men were “for” each other, and believed in the staff who lived right there with them.

As I held Avery in my lap and listened, a feeling of joy rushed over me, Jesus was with us, and only His healing can truly “heal” us. It’s amazing when a group of broken people gather together. More importantly, broken people who are ready for the Lord to work. I was inspired by these men. I got a sense of community from Hoskins Park. I also got the sense that the Lord wanted me to tell them all that He was proud of them, that even though they have all been pulled through the muck and mire, that it doesn’t discount their story, it doesn’t make their impact on others invalid. That actually the opposite was true, their stories, thier testimonies, even though incomplete, were given to them by God, by our Abba Father, and He wants us to shout them to anyone who wants to listen.

I love it when Avery tells me a story, about what he learned in Sunday school that day, or what he heard downtown from somebody, I want to hear him, I want to listen. That is what God, our Abba Father wants from us. He wants to hear our story, our testimony of what He has done in our lives. I was overwhelmed, like every single man’s story in that room the other night was downloaded into my mind, like I knew them well, their struggles, their victories, and I hadn’t heard one of them. The Lord was confirming in my own soul that when His people come together, and earnestly seek Him with transparency, and honesty, realizing our own brokenness, great things can happen. God honored that. Afterwards, men I had never met or talked to, men from completely different social, and economic backgrounds came up to Avery and I and gave us hugs, thanking us for being there. Overwhelming.

Prosperity Doctrine Debunked

2011-11-30T17:51:00.000-08:00

Originally posted on our MSM blog November 26th, 2008:

If you are much younger than I am, you probably don’t even remember Jim Bakker and the PTL (Praise The Lord Club). Back in the 60s, Bakker was the first host of The 700 Club, then started his own televangelist show, The PTL Club, on Trinity Broadcast Network (TBN), eventually owning the rights to the show. He used his power and influence to embezzle millions of dollars, which he was convicted of and sentenced to prison. Interestingly enough, the property that Forest Hill Church in Charlotte is on, was owned by the Bakker’s, and it was not only the studio location of The PTL Club which, on a daily average, reached the TV sets of an estimated 12 million viewers, but it was also their home (the staff at Forest Hill called that building “the mansion”), which Forest Hill now uses as office, and small group meeting space.

Now, why am I writing about Jim Bakker you ask? Well first off, let me make it clear, there is no connection whatsoever between Jim Bakker or the PTL and Forest Hill Church. Forest Hill purchased the property long after the scandal, long after Bakker was in prison. The campus is huge, there have been add-ons and renovations. One that intrigued me was in the basement, below the filming studio, where Bakker had installed a pool, with Roman-looking columns and lavish molding and architecture. Forest Hill renovated the pool to create the youth worship room by just laying down flooring over the top of it, yep, just a hollow pool just beneath rowdy 8th graders (good thing none of their parents read this website

So, back to the question, why am I writing about Jim Bakker? I couldn’t help but think about Jim Bakker and his cronies lounging around the pool or sitting in the sauna talking about the prosperity doctrine or some other skewed theology that justified his lavish spending and complete disregard for other people. Then, ironically, we had the opportunity to talk about poverty, the homeless and poor in Bakker’s old living room, and on top of his pool. Our God has a great sense of humor. Twenty years prior, in the same room, people were talking about how material prosperity, particularly financial prosperity and success in business and personal life, is to be expected as external evidence of God’s favor. Then last week we had the opportunity to share the true and simple Gospel. Classic.

Here are some scriptures we used in our presentation that I’m not sure were fully understood until Forest Hill took over the property:

Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. (Luke 12:33)

Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life. (I Timothy 6:17-19)

If someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need but shows no compassion—how can God’s love be in that person? Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions. Our actions will show that we belong to the truth, so we will be confident when we stand before God. (I John 3:16-19)

Whatever you have done for the least of these brothers of mine, you have done to me. (Matthew 25:40)

In all of our travels we have seen very few churches who reach out in more tangible and meaningful ways to the poor and marginalized than at Forest Hill. Thanks Forest Hill for helping debunk false doctrine.

(Additional note: In prison Bakker started to actually read the Bible. He then came out with a book called I Was Wrong where he wrote “The more I studied the Bible, however, I had to admit that the prosperity message did not line up with the tenor of Scripture. My heart was crushed to think that I led so many people astray. I was appalled that I could have been so wrong, and I was deeply grateful that God had not struck me dead as a false prophet!”)

The Big Buster Fiasco

2011-11-20T07:28:00.000-08:00

Originally posted September 13th, 2008 on our MSM blog:

If you haven’t been paying attention to the news from Illinois, it is raining in Chicago. Day and night, night and day it is raining. Here is a picture of the flooding.

So we needed somewhere to park Big Buster because we were headed to Jesus People USA for a week, and there isn’t much RV parking in downtown Chicago. We were offered a place to park by a guy who is part of Reba Place Fellowship and owns a vacant lot in Evanston. He showed us were it was and then drove off. The whole place was washed over in mud, so you couldn’t tell where the asphalt ended and where the dirt started. I tried to keep it as close to the right as possible, but about 30 ft. in were branches from a tree that I had to avoid. As I steered left we began to sink. We got all the way up to our axle and storage containers along the entire driver side. The view from the back had us tilted almost to where it looked like it would just tip over. I spent 2 hours digging out the entire driver side so that when the tow truck pulled us out they didn’t scrape the undercarriage. The tow company had to get the “extra-duty” truck, but they got it out. No damage.

I was thinking as I helplessly looked at the back of the RV tilting to one side: What if the earth swallowed up Big Buster? What if this was the end of our trip? His answer: I would point you in a different direction, I would bless you in a different way, the world would not end, and in some ways, it might end up being better, because you would have a story to tell. Big Buster (unfortunately) will be destroyed by moths and rust, our God is much bigger than that box I was putting Him in. The Lord rushed in and gave me a sense of peace and almost tranquility about the situation. God is good – ALL THE TIME!

This is what Serenity and the kids did while I was digging.

And although the Lord didn’t take away Big Buster, we still have a story.

Jesus People USA

2011-11-20T07:24:00.000-08:00

Originally posted September 23rd, 2008:

We had a great time at Jesus People USA last week!

We were welcomed by Anna, the gal in charge of hospitality of volunteers and guests, and directed to our humble abode that our family would be living in for the next 7 days.

We then took a couple days to settle in and get adjusted to the new schedule and new surroundings. They provide breakfast, lunch and dinner for all the residents, guests, and volunteers. What a treat! Having our own apartment AND being served each meal was like vacation to us!

During last week we “did life” with Jesus People. Each day was filled with meeting new people, eating with everyone in the cafeteria, participating in the food bag program at the shelter, watching the kids all play together on the playground, figuring out the bus system, visiting some of the Chicago city parks, doing laundry in the basement of JPUSA late at night, and joining everyone for church on Sunday.

One of the biggest things that stood out to us was the diversity of JPUSA. The top three levels of the building was an assisted living community that Jesus People took care of and lived with. A group of students had just been welcomed to start the Project 12 program that is an intensive discipleship program for newcomers. Then there are all the folks who have made the commitment to live there and call it “home”. Many of them had been there for 10+ years, raising their families there and taking part in the common work that supports the financial burdens of the community. All these people consisted of whites, blacks, goths, punks, travelers, children, young families, elderly, jocks, artists, musicians, hippies, and even a pirate who greeted Andy with “Ahoy!”. It was a beautiful picture of the kingdom of God.

Honestly, our time at Jesus People was a place that ministered to us. We were blessed by their gracious hospitality and welcoming spirits. We left knowing that we had made friends and kindred spirits. We were encouraged by their stories and what the Lord had taught them through living in a community of believers. They had experienced ups and downs, times of passion, times of complacency, change, division, mistakes made within their community, joy, heartache, and many, many times of working through differences. Someone made a statement that really summed it up, “You either come and learn or you realize you are not ready and leave.” Community is not easy but can bring more joy than you could ever experience on your own.

This little spot needs some Jesus

2011-11-17T22:02:00.000-08:00

Originally posted on October 20th, 2008 on our Mustard Seed Ministries blog:

We went down a few blocks from our parking spot at the Jubilee House to Dorchester Ave. today to give out some free coffee. Most people wouldn’t make eye contact with me, and even more didn’t want anything I was offering. This is what I did most of the morning:

But that was OK. We pray for an attitude of simplicity, and when we keep our eyes fixed upon Jesus, whatever comes our way is a blessing. That may be feeding hundreds and praying for just as many, or it could be handing out 8 cups of coffee and listening deeply with those 8 people. I was able to pray for one Vietnamese man named Gree (probably spelled much differently) who had lost his job 7 months ago and was looking for work — any work. With his broken English he told me his story about working hard the past 7 years and always having work. The fact that he lived in the same place for all 7 of the years yet his landlord kicked him out just yesterday. I prayed with him that he would find a job, but that more importantly he would see Jesus revealed in his life, and that Jesus would become the only thing that he truly “needed.”

The most enjoyable friend that I met was a guy named Ron. Ron approached me as I was sitting exactly like the picture above. He didn’t make eye contact until he was a few feet away. When he did I asked him if he wanted some free coffee and his immediate (and I mean immediate) response was “NO!” Then not 4 seconds later he came back around the corner and said, “what did you say?” I repeated the same thing, “would you like some free coffee?” He smiled from ear to ear and a look of disbelief came over his face. “Your just giving free coffee away? Sure, I love coffee, I have no idea why I said ‘No’ I love coffee. Something made me just stop and turn around.” The whole time a huge infectious smile crossed his face. Then he asked, “So, why do you do this?” I simply said “Jesus.” Ron’s face changed to a serious look and he seemed like he was going to cry, not in a blubbering kind of way, but in a way that he couldn’t stop because he was moved. He glanced slightly upward as to look to God and with his hand on his chest he started to tell me about his relationship with God, and as his story went on so did his excitement. Ron was a great encouragement on a day we had to pour out a bunch of coffee.

Ron went on to say that he wasn’t even going to come down the block I was on, but something led him that direction. He also said that the small park we were set up at was the exact ground that a Vietnamese gang had “claimed.” Some stabbings and even some shootings had occurred there in the past months. He mentioned, “This little spot needs some Jesus.”

Veggie Oil Ratings

2011-11-15T16:58:00.000-08:00

See post below to know why I am reposting from our MSM blog.

Originally posted on September 28th, 2008:

So I'm not sure if anyone has noticed, but a while back we added a segment on the left hand column of our website called "currently running our RVs on vegetable oil from . . . " Next to the name of the restaurant we pumped the grease from is a number in parentheses. Tim and I have a rating system we use when discussing grease. Usually when we pull up behind a restaurant to look in the grease bin, only one of us gets out to look inside. When the lone scout returns the discussion usually goes a little something like this: "It looks like around a 7, about 50 gallons. Do you want to go in and ask or do you want me to?" Our rating system goes as follows:

1 - straight fat, usually makes Tim dry heave

2 - some grease, some fat, probably smells terrible and stays with you for a while

3 - possibly garbage or something else (we saw a dead bird in one grease bin)

4 - some grease, but a fatty sludge floating in it as well

5 - this is the lowest rating that we actually use. A 5 is not fatty, but very dark. The managers of these restaurants get the most out of their grease, but hey, it still drives.

6 - slightly lighter, and no fat

7 - an amber color, looks a little closer to what fuel should look like

8 - similar to a nice pale ale, but I wouldn't drink it

9 - we call a "9" -- Qdoba grease. This stuff looks like honey, and drives just as smooth

10 - SVO or straight vegetable oil -- we've never gotten this stuff for free.

Not all nationwide chains have the same rating. For example, we looked in Sonic grease bins a dozen times and didn't want anything to do with it, but the Sonic in Rock Springs, WY, was an 8. One nationwide chain has continually received the same low rating - Outback Steakhouse. Take it from us, beware of the bloomin' onion.

School of Radical Christianity

2011-11-13T21:37:00.000-08:00

Obviously, if you follow this blog (which the extended periods of time between posts probably assures that nobody is reading this), you know that I have not posted much for quite a while. This was for several reasons. First, I have been busy adjusting to being a full time teacher again, but that is no excuse for the lack of posts this past summer. The main reason, however, is that I have simply had nothing to say. I have not had much creative inspiration, and have not felt like sharing much. I blame Facebook. So, as of last week, I am going to pour my creative energy into writing again and have disabled my Facebook account. I figure my real friends can find me some other way, such as this blog, or our Jubilee website, or calling me, or maybe even if the occasion arises, a face to face discussion!

To spark some creative thoughts, I have decided that I will repost a favorite blog entry from our Mustard Seed Ministries blog (our traveling ministry blog) every few days. Here is the first one I found that caught my attention. . . ahhh, the days we spent at the Holy Family House. . . we can learn a lot from those crazy Catholics. Enjoy. . . .

Originally posted on August 21st, 2008:

We dropped in on the folks at Holy Family Catholic Worker House today. If you don't know much about the Catholic Worker Movement or it's founder Dorthy Day, I encourage you to check them out. Her solidarity with the poor brought on much persecution here in the United States. She was hated for advocating socialist ideals, she was arrested for protesting women being excluded from voting, and for protesting both European wars.

The "Holy House" as it is known in the neighborhood, was a peaceful, welcoming place. The rhythms of life seem simpler, smoother, and in a lot of ways easier, although life in a working poor neighborhood can obviously have it's difficulties. The house opens it's doors 4 times a week to anyone who is interested in coming for breakfast, and 6 times a week for dinner. They have designed and intentional times for community, for prayer, for spending time together in service, and all of it based on the Gospel.

Their website says it best:

We live, in community, a simple lifestyle and are about a ministry of specific works of mercy and works of justice. Community and ministry are necessarily integrated elements of living at Holy Family House. Part of the on-going purpose of Catholic Worker, by tradition, is to be a “school of radical Christianity, an invitation to know, through experience, the Gospel Jesus, who chose to become like, be with and for the poor.”

I saw the prayer of St. Francis today while I was there and I can only hope that we as Christians, and specifically we as Mustard Seed Ministries can, through Christ, be able to do this:

Where there is discord, may we bring harmony.

Where there is error, may we bring truth.

Where there is doubt, may we bring faith.

Where there is despair, may we bring hope.

St. Francis of Assisi

Of Gods and Men

2011-09-04T17:22:00.000-07:00

Serenity and I watched this movie last night. It was very powerful. If you are looking for a Transformers-type blockbuster, this isn't it, but it is very well done, extremely suspenseful, and is quietly powerful. It was one of the best movies Serenity and I have seen for a while, and we watch a lot of movies.

Much of the movie follows the daily prayers, meals and simple tasks of the monks, and is starkly contrasted from scene to scene by showing other characters in the film, such as military officials and Islamic extremists. The simplicity of the monk's daily lives is possibly the most powerful aspect of the film. From watering their vegetable gardens to the meditative prayers throughout the day, the simplicity of their lives is appealing.

There are some very profound scenes throughout the film dealing with missiology, community, peace and reconciliation.

Woe to You

2011-08-15T09:15:00.000-07:00

Here are the lyrics to a song by one of my favorite musicians, Matt Papa. The lyrics are a little shocking, then you realize that it is basically an overview of what Jesus said in Matthew 23. Are we acting like 21st Century Pharisees? As you read the lyrics, allow the Holy Spirit to reveal things in your own life. In the way you worship. In the way you speak to others. With your finances. In the way you view God. In the way you "do" church. In the way you seek justice.

I have allowed this song to speak to me and it has torn me up, sometimes to tears. Am I grieving His Spirit? Where is my treasure? Is God simply my genie? Am I practicing a "worthless religion"? Is the gospel I profess tickling my ears or is it a radical, life-altering, power-filled Gospel, Good News worth listening to. All of these are questions we must ask ourselves if we plan to be the church the Bridegroom is coming back for.

Woe To You

Religious people
You white-washed tombs
Beautiful on the outside
But you’re full of bones

You look very religious
You follow all your little rules
But you don’t follow Jesus
You just talk like you should

Woe to you, woe to you
All your pretty words sound
Like filthy rags
Woe, woe to you

Prosperity and progress
You say bless me indeed
You fill up your bank accounts
While children die in their need

One day you’ll retire
You’ll have a house on the sea
But my friend where your treasure is
That’s where your heart’s gonna be

Woe to you, woe to you
You call him Lord but
He’s just your genie
Woe, woe to you

Where is the justice?
Who’s preaching the truth
Your sermons are entertaining
And your churches are cool

You’re grieving His Spirit
And You’re winning the lost
To a worthless religion
Cause you don’t talk about the cross

Woe to you, woe to you
Your gospel is tickling our ears to death
Woe, woe to you

Where is the justice and mercy
And walking humbly with Your God
Who’s caring for orphans and widows
And living holy in this world
For this is what He requires

Woe to you, woe to you
For many will come to Him on that day
And say Lord, Lord, but He’ll say
Woe, woe to you

Woe to you, woe to you
Repent before it’s too late

There is a war going on for your mind

2011-05-07T15:36:00.000-07:00

2011-05-06T22:13:00.000-07:00

Stolen from FCb4

There is another way. . .

2011-05-03T12:39:00.000-07:00

. . . . a third way, the Way of Jesus.

God loves that guy

2011-05-02T14:28:00.000-07:00

Great song by Andy Gullahorn, one of my favorite performers:

That Guy
He scoped out the market
All the women and kids
With so many distractions
Nobody noticed him
Nobody noticed him
He had a jacket a size too big
A skullcap on his head
And a couple of homemade bombs
He duct taped them to his chest
He taped them to his chest

God loves that guy
God loves that guy

He followed his heart
To a co-worker’s bed
He could have salvaged his marriage with kids
But he chose to leave instead
He chose to leave
He thought it was love
But it was just a mirage
So he sits in his idling car
Parked in a closed garage
Inside a closed garage

God loves that guy
God loves that guy

Me on the other hand I can write somebody off
Like the last check for a student loan
I can love when it’s convenient
But it’s not always convenient
It’s not always the easy road
I want to look past the outside to the well-meaning heart
To the good they forgot that they had
Teach me to love, teach me to love
Teach me to love like that

He messed up again
Wanted to disappear
But he can’t ‘cause he’s easy to find
I see him in the mirror
I see him in the mirror

God loves that guy
God loves that guy
Teach me to love, teach me to love
Teach me to love like that
Love like that

On Friday a thief | On Sunday a King

2011-04-20T21:01:00.000-07:00

Though the Earth Cried out for blood
Satisfied her hunger was
Her billows calmed on raging seas
for the souls on men she craved

Sun and moon from balcony
Turned their head in disbelief
Their precious Love would taste the sting
disfigured and disdained

On Friday a thief
On Sunday a King
Laid down in grief
But awoke with keys
Of Hell on that day
The first born of the slain
The Man Jesus Christ
Laid death in his grave

So three days in darkness slept
The Morning Sun of righteousness
But rose to shame the throes of death
And over turn his rule

Now daughters and the sons of men
Would pay not their dues again
The debt of blood they owed was rent
When the day rolled a new

On Friday a thief
On Sunday a King
Laid down in grief
But awoke holding keys
To Hell on that day
The first born of the slain
The Man Jesus Christ
Laid death in his grave

On Friday a thief
On Sunday a King
Laid down in grief
But awoke with keys
Of Hell on that day
The first born of the slain
The Man Jesus Christ
Laid death in his grave

He has cheated
Hell and seated
Us above the fall
In desperate places
He paid our wages
One time once and for all

C.S. Lewis and Rob Bell -- BFFs

2011-04-12T10:01:00.000-07:00

I have to be honest, I have never really thought much about the topics of heaven and hell. I tend to want to be a minimalist, to keep it as simple as I possibly can, and that includes my theology: "love God and love your neighbor." Orthodox (whatever that means since "right thinking" is different for each denomination out there and very view topics can the evangelical church actually agree upon - even the "creeds" differ) eschatological theology seems to undo my "simplicity" doctrine. So I have always stayed away from it.

Rob Bell kinda messed that up for me. Being a naturally inquisitive fellow I wanted to know what Arminianism was, or what being a Universalist actually means. So I began to do a little reading, and I mean very little. I am not intellectual or a theologian, my daily struggle is to think about God more than I do about football, so I'm not going to present myself as someone who has all the answers and has thought about this stuff for decades. The first thing I came across was an article about C.S. Lewis -- this is where my research has stalled. . .

Did anybody else know that Lewis smoked no less than 30 cigarettes a day between pipes? That he lived for more than 30 years with a woman who was not his wife? Or that one of his best friends was a homosexual? Most evangelicals today, unfortunately, would reject anyone with that sort of a resume. But when they hear it was C.S. Lewis, they rightly make the decision to look past some of his moral failings.

What if they learned that Lewis had some less than orthodox beliefs about heaven and hell and several other theological questions? Some quite similar to Bell's. We tend to quote Lewis when he affirms our orthodox thinking (once again, not a big fan of the word, who is to say what is "right thinking"). Here is a smattering of some of his thoughts:

On the Bible:

"Naivete, error, contradiction, even wickedness are not removed. The total result is not 'the Word of God' in the sense that every passage, in itself, gives impeccable science or history. It carries the Word of God. . ."

"If every good and perfect gift comes from the Father of lights, then all true and edifying writings, whether in Scripture or not, must be in some sense inspired."

Only C.S. Lewis can get away with this level of heresy! A biographer of Lewis' claimed that he did not believe in the infallibility or the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures. Whoa. Let's continue. . .

"The first chapters of Genesis, no doubt, gives the story in the form of a folktale."

What? This orthodox thinker believed that the creation story was simply that, a story? (Did anybody else know that John Calvin (talk about orthodoxical) questioned the story of Job and believed that it was actually fiction. If we have to throw out Calvin and C.S. Lewis, we will have to get rid of a lot of books. You can rest assured though, Lewis did not believe that the New Testament had any fiction, in his assertion, it was all historical fact.)

About Salvation:

When asked if he had made a "decision" at the time of his conversion, Lewis responded:

"At the time, I felt I was the object rather than the subject."

So it's not just about saying a prayer or making a "decision" to follow Christ?

In the last Narnia book, Susan, a central character is "of her own free will 'no longer a friend of Narnia' [that is, a believer]." This is where Arminian doctrine comes in, C.S. Lewis believed that you could lose your salvation.

The fate of all mankind:

(It is easier here to simply quote directly from one of the articles I read)

"In the children's Narnia series, the lion Aslan is Lewis's Christ-figure. In The Last Battle deceivers say: "[The god] Tash and Aslan are only two different names for You Know Who." Later they use the hybrid or compound name Tashlan to make their point. At the end of this last book in the Narnia series one of the outsiders, a Calorman named Emeth (which is the transliteration of the Hebrew world for "truth"), who has been a life-long worshiper of Tash, approaches Aslan. To this Tash-server Aslan says, "Son, thou art welcome." Emeth counters, "I am no son of Thine but a servant of Tash." Aslan rejoins: "All the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me." This is a clear indicator that for Lewis the non Christ-worshiper may be received into heaven."

Now, I understand that some of you may not agree that we can pin Lewis' beliefs down to what he wrote in a children's story, but how many times have we taken what Lewis wrote in the Narnia series and used it to support some of his more orthodox beliefs? Shouldn't we also hold up some of his less than orthodox ones that happen to come from allegory?

I had an acquaintance, and reader of this blog, send me emails and tell my why the authors I have read were heretical. ALL of them. From John Eldridge to Brennan Manning. From Shane Claiborne to Greg Boyd (actually, he never said anything negative about John Perkins, but hey, how could you, the guy is a legend). He wanted to get together and discuss the finer points of systematic theology. I declined, remember my "simplicity" doctrine? If Brennan Manning and Shane Claiborne are showing me a deeper way to love God and love my neighbor then I embrace them. You can add C.S. Lewis to that heretic list too, and I'm fine with it. Actually, I think he would have been too, I'm also pretty sure he would do a decent job defending his "heretical" points of view, as one former student of Lewis' once said, debating him is like "wielding a peashooter against a howitzer."

My biggest question is why we are so afraid to talk about these things? Why do we not want to acknowledge our reservation, or doubts or our fears? When we refuse to acknowledge these questions inside of us and inside of our brothers and sisters we eliminate any sort of grace-filled discussion about the questions that so many of us have but are afraid to bring up, because, hey, we might be treated like Rob Bell. We do such a good job of telling people what we are against, what we don't believe in, who we think are wrong and where all the people who don't agree with us can go, that it overshadows what we should be "for." We should be for people. We should be for affirming our doubt so that we can collectively love Jesus in a deeper way. We should be for Rob Bell as much as we are for C.S. Lewis (or people who ramble off his "orthodox" quotes while ignoring or rejecting his less "orthodox" ones).

Pastors and theologians (actually anybody with a blog) who disagree with Bell have been lambasting him. Would those same people, when given the choice, rather reject Bell and his eschatology, or wash his feet. I think there would be a deep hesitation in the latter. Only one time does Jesus ever give us an "example" (John 13), maybe if we served Bell and others who may be questioning what all of this means rather than condemn, the unbelieving world would actually be able to embrace the Good News of Jesus. Who knows, C.S. Lewis was an atheist until he was 32, maybe some atheist sees our actions and actually becomes one of the evangelical world's greatest theologians.

Brought to you by the Corn Syrup producers of America

2011-03-31T21:03:00.000-07:00

I found this funny.

Have we fallen for a myth?

2011-03-24T09:38:00.001-07:00

This post has been a long time coming. I finished Greg Boyd's book The Myth of a Christian Nation months ago, and haven't had the time to write about it (being a father of 4 kiddos limits my concentrated time for writing, I would really like to do more, but can't find the time without neglecting their desire to play Connect Four - which is, OK). It has taken me just about that long to process some of the concepts and truths in the book.

Originally I had not wanted to read the book because I believed it was going to be too political, too Left and Right. I assumed that it would stand on one side or the other and try to explain a certain political position, whether that be liberal or conservative, and how it fits with God's plans. I guess I judged a book by it's cover (or its title). It did none of this, rather it put into writing things that I have believed about politics and government but not been able to articulate, then went one step past that by planting those beliefs right in the middle of the Kingdom of God.

Boyd is a pastor of a church in Minneapolis. When he preached the sermon series the book is based upon, over 1,000 of his church congregation left the church. The message is bold, but just as Jesus said, "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first" (John 15:18).

Here is what Boyd writes as the thesis of the book:

My thesis, which caused such an uproar, is this: I believe a significant segment of American evangelicalism is guilty of nationalistic and political idolatry. To a frightful degree, I think, evangelicals fuse the kingdom of God with a preferred version of the kingdom of the world (whether it's our national interests, a particular form of government, a particular political program, or so on). Rather than focusing our understanding of God's kingdom on the person of Jesus - who, incidentally, never allowed himself to get pulled into the political disputes of his day - I believe many of us American evangelicals have allowed our understanding of the kingdom of God to be polluted with political ideals, agendas, and issues.

The book wasn't necessarily political, in the sense of standing in a liberal, conservative, Right or Left ideology, but it was very political, in the sense that it spoke about kingdoms. Really, the book is a treatise about the contrast between the kingdom of the world and the Kingdom of God. It was eye-opening.

In the first two chapters, Boyd explains, while thoroughly inserting Scriptures, this difference. The first chapter, titled "The Kingdom of the Sword," discusses how this kingdom is basically a "power over" kingdom. Meaning that, although not everything governments of the world do are necessarily bad (Boyd repeats numerous times that many governments do some very good things), they use power to coerce it's citizens into following laws and doing good (or evil). By referring to these "kingdoms" as "The Kingdom of the Sword," Boyd is not specifically defining them by violence, as much as this might be the case, but rather by the power to use violence if needed in order to control citizens. Yet, however much a government attempts to influence how their subjects think and feel, it cannot bring about internal change. Only the Kingdom of the Cross can do that.

The Kingdom of the Cross is how Boyd defines the Kingdom of God because the actions of Jesus on the cross is a perfect example and representation of the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of the Cross is defined by "power under," sacrificially loving others, even your enemy, serving them, "becoming the least." Boyd gives several examples of what this looks like in the life of Jesus: becoming like children (Matt. 19:14, Matt. 18:3-4), possibly the most dramatic and emotional example was Jesus washing feet (John 13:4-5), and enemy love (Matt. 16:21-23). In regards to this, Boyd tells the story of how the slave of the high priest, Malchus, had his ear cut off by Peter in the garden when they attempted to arrest Jesus. "But Jesus answered, 'No more of this!' And he touched the man’s ear and healed him" (Luke 22:51). Boyd then asks some poignant questions:

"Do you think [Malchus], with whatever ill will he may have harbored toward Jesus on the way to arresting him, continued to harbor it after his encounter with Kingdom love? Can you imagine him being among those who spit on Jesus and mocked him? Is it not more likely that he became at least a little more open to God's love and perhaps a little more loving toward others as a result of Jesus' gift? The point is that love, through service, has a power to affect people in ways that 'power over' tactics do not, and it is this unique power of self-sacrificial love that most centrally defines the kingdom of God."

The Kingdom of God contrasts the kingdom of the world in every possible way. If we desire to experience the Kingdom of God, we must first learn to recognize it. The example we are given is in the life of Jesus. Examining His life, what He did, where He went, who He spent time with, how He interacted with government, money, His friends and His enemies are just a few of the relationships we must examine in our own lives. I find it interesting that the only time Jesus tells His disciples that he is giving them an "example" is when He washes their feet (John 13:15).

The book does discuss politics. Boyd goes on to discuss Constantine and the Christianization of empire in AD 312, going even further by giving a short history of the "power over" of the Church. Finally explaining that it was never Jesus' goal to Christianize the Romans, and that it shouldn't be our goal to Christianize our current kingdom-of-the-world government in the United States. Legislating morality through some political agenda by demonizing gays, pro-choicers or liberals or on the flip side demonizing fundamentalists, gay-bashers and anti-abortionists as being intolerant blurs the line between the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world.

If we were thinking along the lines of the kingdom of God, however, we would realize that none of the people mentioned in the above lists are people whom kingdom-of-God citizens are called to fight against. They are, rather, people whom kingdom-of-God citizens are called to fight for.

Rather, what we must focus on is recognizing the contrast between the two kingdoms. That should be our singular focus as kingdom-of-God citizens and is probably once again best explained by Boyd:

A person may win by kingdom-of-the-world standards but lose by the standards that eternally count-the standards of the kingdom of God. We can posses all the right kingdom-of-the-world opinions on the planet and stand for all the right kingdom-of-the-world causes, but if we don’t look like Jesus Christ carrying his cross to Golgotha-sacrificing our time, energy, and resources for others-our rightness is merely religious noise. Jesus taught that there will be many who seem to believe the right things and do religious deeds in his name whom He will renounce, for they didn’t love him by loving the homeless, the hungry, the poor, and the prisoner (Matt. 7:21-23; 25:41-46; cf. Luck 6:46-49). However right we may be, without love we are simply displaying a religious version of the world, not the Kingdom of God.

Jesus, our example, didn't win in a kingdom of the world way, that is why He said that His kingdom was not of this world. To Pilate, His victory wasn't going to look at all like a victory. If we call ourselves followers of Christ, we must learn to recognize this Kingdom that He spoke of and desperately seek it, with everything we can muster and all of who we claim to be.

God, give us more creativity. . .

2011-03-19T23:18:00.000-07:00

Creativity like this. . .

Here is the trailer to a really cool urban farming project / film project. A very creative way to spread the love of fresh produce.

You can check out episodes of Truck Farm at Sustainable Traditions.

Take a moment. . . .

2011-03-01T16:17:00.000-08:00

and think about this. The United States spends $30,000 per second on its military. What should be the typical Christian's response to that statistic?

My wife is amazing . . . (my kids are too.)

2011-02-26T19:27:00.000-08:00

While I am at work, kicking my feet up, Serenity is at home with our four kids. Usually, when I spend a few hours alone with the kids and Serenity gets away to have coffee with a friend or to just have some time on her own, my head nearly explodes from the frustration that wells up inside me. Don't get me wrong, I think my kids are great. They are fun to be with and possess a compassion and kindness that fills me with joy. They each put a smile on my face in their own unique way.

However, spending an entire day with them can sometimes become a little stressful. Serenity is able to do this day in and day out with a grace and love that, as she would be the first to tell you, can only come from the Holy Spirit.

Homeschooling an 8, 6, and 4-year-old with a 16-month climbing all over you is a fantastic feat. Doing it without going crazy is even more fantastic. Doing it well is supernatural. My wife pulls this off. Yes, she is not perfect, and on occasion as I walk into the house after a day at work and see her still in her pajamas, she gives me a look like I better take the kids for a while or . . . well . . . I don't know, but it wouldn't be pretty.

She not only pulls this off with grace and love, but she does it with an amazing creativity. Last week each of our 4 kids went through the stomach flu and Serenity was still able to do this amazing project with them:

That's right, our solar system. Each paper-mâché planet in their respective spots orbiting around the sun (the ceiling light), and don't forget the newest dwarf planet (Pluto) on the far right.

Not only are our kids learning something, but they are having fun doing it. On top of that, my wife puts in the time to make our kids feel valued and esteemed as children of God, preparing them to be "in the world, but not of the world."

I'm sorry I don't say this enough, but thank you Seren for doing this important work, and doing it well, you are an awesome home-schooling momma.

Justice/Injustice Personified

2011-02-26T11:24:00.000-08:00

Understanding the differences may demonstrate your understanding of the Kingdom of God. I know I'm still striving to recognize them.

What matters to God?

2011-02-19T09:12:00.000-08:00

Last weekend, Serenity and I were able to attend the Justice Conference in Bend. It was an wonderful time of being filled up by an amazing God. The conference was packed (literally, over 1,000 attendees - the conference center ran out of chairs - and six 1-hour sessions each day) with scholars, pastors and speakers who revealed new concepts and challenges to both of us. We both came away from the weekend feeling renewed and more focused on seeking "what matters to God." Most of the time we struggle with knowing exactly what that means, but we are seeking an answer.

I want to give you a snapshot of some of the speakers and concepts that stood out to me. Each of these I plan to wrestle with individually, and could probably write a post about each. Another time maybe.

To open the conference up, the lead pastor at Antioch Church in Bend, the driving creative force behind the conference, Ken Wytsma (check out his blog here) shared a message entitled Why Justice?

Ken spoke about the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." (action)

Yet he goes on to say that many in the Church have changed it to the Silver Rule: "Do not do unto others what you would not want done to you." (passive)

Possibly the most powerful concept of the entire weekend was when Ken showed a video of a young girl trapped in the sex trade in southeast Asia, explaining that it was when presented with this issue that he realized:

"God simultaneously hears my prayers and the prayers of that little girl."

This forces us to see many of our cares and worries in a completely different perspective.

What matters to God? That little girl matters, not as if we don't, but when we pray that God would fix our VW, when viewed from this perspective, you have to wonder how concerned God is in answering it. And we are now presented with a choice - do we follow the Golden Rule or the Silver Rule? Do we seek justice (action) or do we simply not hurt others (passive)?

You can watch his entire message here:

Mike and Danae Yankoski spoke on Saturday morning and shared about living out justice every day. Mike wrote the book Under the Overpass, which greatly influenced our own walk towards God's call to love the marginalized. Danae co-authored Crazy Love with Francis Chan, and they wrote a book called Zealous Love together.

[Andy footnote]: It can become popular to "shop" for justice issues. A lot of idealists are swept away by every issue of injustice in the world and quickly become overwhelmed by the enormity of pain and suffering throughout our world. Mike and Danae encourage us to live it out in our daily lives. One of my prayers is that His Spirit will give us eyes to see the injustices in our communities rather than fruitlessly search out the newest and hippest trend.

Mike spoke about the Hebrew word "shalom." Many simply translate shalom as "peace," but it is much more than that, it is "the flourishing of everything that is." The opposite of shalom is injustice. We must seek justice in order to experience shalom. We must be both ambassadors and agents. Ambassadors 'declare' and agents 'seek out.'

Ultimately we must be adamant about justice, we must be searching for it in our daily lives, yet we are not called to do all of the work of the kingdom.

Shane Claiborne rocked it as usual. He spoke on several issues, it might just be better for you to go and watch this YouTube video, it is very similar to what he spoke on last weekend:

Bringing the Kingdom of God down to Earth: Shane Claiborne from Urbana 09 on Vimeo.

Eluding to the parable of the mustard seed, Shane said "The Kingdom spreads best by fascination not by force."

Adam Hochschild gave a synopsis of his book Bury the Chains, which is about the fight to end the slave trade in the British Empire. This was very interesting (and not just because I have a history degree, even right-brained Serenity said it was good.) Really good stuff about the fight for justice and how it might take a life-time, but it is close to the heart of God.

Adam Hochschild :: Bury the Chains from The Justice Conference on Vimeo.

Lastly, Nicholas Wolterstorff, an authority on justice, and the Professor Emeritus of Philosophical Theology at Yale spoke twice over the weekend and just about made my head explode. On Saturday night his message was about Matthew 25 and the parable of the sheep and the goats. When we do the things Jesus talks about in the passage, feed the poor, clothe the naked, visit the prisoner and love the orphan and widow are we doing the things of charity or the things of justice? Dr. Wolterstorff would argue we are living out justice, not simply benevolence.

Nicholas Wolterstorff :: As You Have Done Unto the Least of These from The Justice Conference on Vimeo.

One of the most interesting concepts discussed this past weekend was the Greek word dikaios. Dr. Wolterstorff believes we (English speakers) have incorrectly translated this word. The "romance" languages of Spanish, French, Italian, etc. translate dikaios as justice, while most English translations have the word as righteousness. This word can sometimes allow us to focus inwardly and make our faith individualistic. As in Matthew 5:6:

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

When we change the translation to what Dr. Wolterstorff believes to be a more accurate translation, it brings new meaning to the words of Jesus:

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be filled.

Or again in Matthew 6:33:

But seek first his kingdom and his justice, and all these things will be given to you as well.

Dr. Wolterstorff claims that this word, dikaios, is mistranslated throughout the Old and New Testament. This allows us to see that seeking His Kingdom is a synonym to seeking justice. At the very least it demonstrates that seeking justice is something that matters to God.

Sins? They now have an app for that.

2011-02-09T16:54:00.000-08:00

This is classic. They now have an app for Catholic confession. You can scroll through a list of sins, choose the one you committed and then receive penance for them. The app guides the sinner through the 10 Commandments with a series of questions attached to each. Users tick boxes for the sins they have committed. The $1.99 app then guides them through contrition and offers sample phrases they can tell a real-life priest to be absolved of sins.

Justice

2011-02-09T15:00:00.000-08:00

Off to the Justice Conference this weekend in Bend, OR.

I'm beginning to realize more and more that the work we are doing out of our garage is the work of justice. There are so many things that are intertwined in our little community Tuesday afternoons: reconciliation, redistribution, community, compassion. It is so simple, yet complex.

I'm very excited about wrestling through some of this during our time this weekend, not only will it be a time to dive into our role as people who create space for God to do his work of justice, but it will be a great time for Serenity and I to have some space of our own, become refreshed on our mission, as we make a push for our 1 year Jubilee anniversary!

"Resident Aliens"

2011-01-16T09:33:00.000-08:00

The basis for the ethics of the Sermon on the Mount is not what works but rather the way God is. Cheek-turning is not advocated as what works (it usually does not), but advocated because this is the way God is--God is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish. This is not a stratagem for getting what we want but the only manner of life available, now that, in Jesus, we have seen what God wants. We seek reconciliation with the neighbor, not because we feel so much better afterward, but because reconciliation is what God is doing in the world through Christ [italics added].

Hauerwas and Willimon - Resident Aliens

Greg Boyd: GOD’s Kingdom vs. The Kingdom of Man

2011-01-16T09:31:00.001-08:00

This is essential to our understanding of God and our role in this world. Jesus refers to the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of Heaven more than 100 times. We must grasp the fact that His Kingdom is in direct opposition to the kingdoms of this world, no matter how "good" they may seem.

The marriage of belief and action

2011-01-15T11:01:00.000-08:00

There is a "dual importance of right thinking and right living. Both are present in communities that manifest God's kingdom. Both matter. Yet it seems that many of us have inherited a version of Christianity in which sound thinking (orthodoxy) invariably comes first. Meaning, we often feel the need to completely iron out our theology before we enact our theology. We feel the pressure to resolve all our questions about a given issue - an issue like shared economics, for instance - and figure out exactly what we believe before we start behaving in new ways." - Economy of Love

Downfall of the Kingdom of the Sword

2011-01-09T17:16:00.000-08:00

I watched this movie yesterday. Powerful and perplexing stuff. The film has a tense feeling to it throughout, as do most films based on mad men. Downfall is based on the memoirs of Hitler's stenographer and personal secretary, who was with him throughout the war, even the last 12 days of his life spent in the Berlin bunker, which is what the movie focuses on.

As a history teacher, I have spent time teaching on Adolf Hitler, World War II and the Holocaust. They are all difficult topics to help high school age students (or anybody for that matter) understand. There are layers of complex questions, but one of the most common and also most difficult to answer is simply "why?" Why was Hitler compelled to heap such violence and hatred on a group of people? Why did the majority of German people simply go along with it? Why didn't the Allies do more, or even acknowledge the atrocities? I don't think any of us truly know, that is why it is so perplexing.

I was reading in Luke last Saturday where he says that the Holy Spirit will give us the words to say whenever we are in difficult situations and need to bear witness (Luke 12:12 and Mark 13:11). Right away I wondered what I would say (or better yet, what words the Holy Spirit would give me) in response to someone who asked "What about death and destruction by men, is that God's plan?" "What about Hitler, God's silence proves there is no God?"

What about Hitler? Especially after you read Romans 13 or the "unlimited submission to government" chapter of Paul's letter. Where do we draw the line? What exactly does it mean to be "subject" to the authorities? Does it mean to agree with the government? Not break laws? Pay our taxes? Look the other way when we see the government we are subject to act unjustly or violently? Does Romans 13 prohibit Christians from civil disobedience? Most of us would claim that if we were a German Christian in 1943 we would have opposed Hitler and the Nazis. Then why did very few Christians actually do this? According to Paul, all authority has been "instituted by God" (Romans 13:1). Is this the text that most of these believers sited in their inaction? What about in our own blind patriotism in this present age? Is the government always right, or does it perpetuate injustice and we site Romans 13 to justify our complacency?

John Howard Yoder probably gets it right in his book The Politics of Jesus when he writes:

"God is not said to create or . . . ordain the powers that be, but only to order them, to put them in order, sovereignly to tell them where they belong, what is their place . . . [it is not] by ordering this realm God specifically, morally approves of what a government does . . . God does not take the responsibility for the existence of the rebellious "powers that be" or for their shape or identity; they already are. What the text says is that God orders them, brings them into line, providentially and permissively lines them up with divine purpose."

The Kingdom of the Sword, which includes every government that was ever created by man (even "good" ones) will eventually recede and disappear. God has promised this, and we can have peace knowing that the Kingdom of the Cross, the backwards, upside down Kingdom of Jesus is the only Kingdom ordained and it is always advancing.

The "athletic trim" of poverty

2010-12-31T12:02:00.001-08:00

Among us English-speaking peoples especially do the praises of poverty need once more to be boldly sung. We have grown literally afraid to be poor. We despise anyone who elects to be poor in order to simplify and save his inner life. If he does not join the general scramble, we deem him spiritless and lacking in ambition. We have lost the power even of imagining what the ancient realization of poverty could have meant; the liberation from material attachments, the unbribed soul, the manlier indifference, the paying our way by what we are and not by what we have, the right to fling away our life at any moment irresponsibly -- the more athletic trim, in short, the fighting shape.

William James

Merry Christmas!!!

2010-12-26T18:32:00.000-08:00

I've got some reading to do!

Stephen Colbert speaks the truth

2010-12-18T09:41:00.000-08:00

I know this is satirical, but it is so true. I found a quote on a friend's blog and thought I would go watch The Colbert Report episode with the quote in it. Here it is:

If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn’t help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we’ve got to acknowledge that he commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don’t want to do it. - Stephen Colbert

Dayenu

2010-11-25T14:00:00.000-08:00

I came across this word the other day. I love words in other languages that are packed with meaning and have no exact translation in English. I know that the English language probably has these too, but it seems like they aren’t as frequent. Dayenu is a Hebrew word that means

“that alone would have been enough, but for that alone we are grateful.”

This is a powerful concept. It is learning to be truly grateful with what God has already given us and not ask Him for more. Many times it seems that our actions tend to contradict this concept. We desire a better job rather than be grateful for the job we have. We desire a bigger house rather than be grateful for the roof over our heads. We desire more money, better cars, a boat, the newest electronics, etc., etc., etc. We all can think of something right now that we desire. We have been trying to communicate to our kids that when they complain about things they are really telling God that what He has already given them is not good enough. Really, buying into our culture and the American Dream tells us that we shouldn’t be content, that we should always be looking to move up the ladder. Consumerism dictates how we live our lives and ultimately who we believe we are as people. The purpose of a commercial is to convince us that our life without the product they are pushing is incomplete, we shouldn’t be happy or content until we have what they are selling. The concept of Dayenu turns this thinking on its head.

In the ninth century, Jewish communities began to sing a song based off of this concept during Passover. Some Jews in Afghanistan and Iran hit each other over the head with onions during one of the stanzas to remind them to not complain like they did here.

Serenity and I have put together our own Song of Dayenu based off of the Jewish style:

If He had given us food on our tables. Dayenu.

If He had given us clothes on our backs. Dayenu.

If He had given us roofs over our heads. Dayenu.

If He had given us today. Dayenu.

If He had given us family. Dayenu.

If He had given us rest. Dayenu .

If He had given us fellowship with each other. Dayenu .

If He had given us the gift of the Holy Spirit. Dayenu .

If He had done what He did through His son Jesus Christ. Dayenu .

For all these things – alone and together – we say Dayenu.

May we continually look to God with grateful hearts and learn to be content with everything He has already given us.

Abba, Father

2010-11-11T16:22:00.000-08:00

We spoke at a “Primetimers” gathering yesterday. Primertimers is exactly that, a group of retired (mostly 75-years-old +) folks from a local church that gather once a month and hear from a local ministry or pastor. We were asked to share about our journey and about our current journey of the Jubilee Food Pantry and Community Garden. At one point during our time sharing, Avery tapped me on the arm and said he had something to share, so I handed him the mic. In a clear and concise message Avery said: “In Chicago, our RV sunk in the mud. I was afraid, and very sad. But God taught me that I shouldn’t be afraid and that He was in control.” Then he handed the mic back to me. The room of elderly men and women burst into applause, and when I glanced briefly at Serenity we both almost started crying. I am so proud of Avery.

I don’t doubt that Avery was afraid, he panicked even more than I did, he was a basket case. As I was kneeling in a foot of mud futilely digging the wheels out of three feet of mud in the pouring rain, Serenity, in the back bedroom of the RV, began having the kids sing songs about the joy of the Lord. Avery couldn’t stop crying as he sung. To him, his whole world was being swallowed up by the Earth. And I didn’t blame him. That incident outside of Chicago was one of the most impactful for Avery during our journey. In the coming weeks and months we talked to Avery about what would have happened if Big Buster was swallowed up, if everything we possessed just disappeared. Would we be OK? Would God still love us? His eventual answer was “yes,” and since then the Lord has revealed some more significant truths to him:

“God is our refuge and strength,

always ready to help in times of trouble.

So we will not fear when earthquakes come

and the mountains crumble into the sea.

Let the oceans roar and foam.

Let the mountains tremble as the waters surge!”

Psalms 46:1-3

“The Lord is for me, so I will have no fear.
What can mere people (or the rains from Hurricane Ike) do to me?”

Psalms 118:6

I so want to be the hero for Avery, I want him to know I can protect him, provide for him and be there to fix his problems, but that is unhealthy and can lead to some serious disappointments, because I shouldn’t be his hero. I am his earthly father and as Psalms 118 goes on to say:

“It is better to take refuge in the Lord

than to trust in people.”

If I’m going to be the father that God calls me to be I have to continually point him to his heavenly father, his Abba Father. The word abba means “daddy” in Aramaic. Jesus called His father that in the Garden of Gathsemane, and the Apostle Paul reminds us that we must not have a spirit of fear, because we are children of the Most High God, “now we even call him ‘Abba, Father.’” (Romans 8:15)

If I try to be Avery’s hero, if I try to be something that only God can be for him, I will create a deep father wound in Avery, because no matter how good of a dad I am, I will fail. No matter how much I teach him, even teach him about good things, about Jesus and who he is in Jesus, if I try to be something more, something I’m not designed to be, I will fail him. Like many of us, he won’t understand the concept of looking at God as Daddy, because the only daddy he knew failed to be what he needed him to be.

If I have one job as a daddy, it isn’t to solve his problems, be his hero or teach him how to be a man, it is to simply and consistently point him to Jesus, his true Abba, Father.

“See how much our father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are!”

1 John 3:1

Thou Shalt Not Judge. . . . .

2010-10-29T13:37:00.001-07:00

We have been talking to the kids about the parable Jesus tells about the speck of sawdust in their friend's eye and the plank in their own. I have a hard time with this one, not when it comes to eternal salvation, but rather to what kind of movies someone likes. I'm sorry, but when someone tells me that they liked Tranformers or G.I. Joe or The Rock or any Nicholas Cage movie other than Raising Arizona, something internally whelms up inside of me and I begin to think that maybe they have difficulties understanding basic concepts of a story line or of cinema in general. Maybe it was a first date with a real special girl and they have fond memories of the event that is displaced onto the actual film. Or maybe, there is another movie with the same title that is really good and I just missed it.

I actually take it one step further and begin to ask these people which movies they recommend and then don't go see or rent them.

So, in the spirit of full disclosure, here is a list I put together of my favorite movies. It is in alphabetical order, so don't read too much into it. Some probably aren't "Oscar worthy," I just enjoyed them. Some would be mediocre but the ending almost makes me cry (Hoosiers), others I grew up with so are possibly inflated (Empire Strikes Back, Back to the Future, Karate Kid). Some are rated R and are pretty vulgar (The Big Lebowski, Goodfellas), but that doesn't make them bad films. While others I watch with my kids (Kung Fu Panda, The Incredibles, Gladiator - just kidding). I have probably forgotten a few, I will add them if I think of them. Feel free to make comments and judge me, unless it is about my salvation, then I think you need to read Matthew 7:1-5.

Back to the Future
The Big Lebowski
The Bourne Identity
Braveheart
Cinderella Man
Dances with Wolves
Empire Strikes Back
Forrest Gump
Gandhi
Gladiator
Goodfellas
Good Will Hunting
Gran Torino
Hoosiers
Indiana Jones and The Raiders of the Lost Ark
The Incredibles
Karate Kid
Kung Fu Panda
Lord of the Rings
The Matrix
Momento
Open Range
The Pianist
The Princess Bride
Saving Private Ryan
Shawshank Redemption
Stand by Me

Polycarp

2010-10-20T21:33:00.001-07:00

Amazing video about the story of one of the early christian martyrs. I can only pray that I attain the faith of this disciple.

Food that costs you nothin'

2010-10-19T17:20:00.000-07:00

“Is anyone thirsty?
Come and drink—
even if you have no money!
Come, take your choice of wine or milk—
it’s all free!
Why spend your money on food that does not give you strength?
Why pay for food that does you no good?
Listen to me, and you will eat what is good.
You will enjoy the finest food.

Isaiah 55:1-2

Migrants in this World

2010-10-13T19:40:00.000-07:00

I find it interesting that many evangelicals will go to Mexico to "serve" the poor by building schools, building homes, handing out candy and running impromptu Vacation Bible Schools, but when those same folks who they are serving cross the border, they look at them with disgust, dust off the conservative rhetoric and line-up with the others to solidify this country's borders with patriotic fever. Peter calls disciples of Jesus "temporary residents and foreigners." We are all immigrants, our home is not here, from the Kingdom perspective we have more in common with the illegal immigrant who knows Jesus than the red-blooded American neighbor next door who doesn't. How many of us live this way? Do our loyalty's lie with our nation or our Kingdom? Are we using our worldly eyes or our Kingdom eyes when we look at issues that face us each day?

"Don't you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God? I say it again: If you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself and enemy of God." (James 4:4)

In light of the story Jesus told of the Good Samaritan recorded in Luke 10: How does God expect us to treat immigrants, foreigners, and migrants?

Better Questions

2010-09-30T21:45:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I really wish I could be a better teacher. To be honest with you, there are times that I don't try very hard. I usually go with the philosophy that when students don't want to learn from you, they just won't learn from you, there is nothing you can do. The best teaching technique is relationship. I saw this happen a lot when I was first teaching, which also coincided with a time in my life where I wasn't filled with the Holy Spirit. I would talk down to kids, out of fear of loss of control or whatever, I would make fun of them when I was angered by their disrespect. Sometimes I would scream down an entire classroom of students because I was frustrated or tired. I just wasn't a very good teacher and it wasn't because I didn't know the newest teaching method or hadn't implemented the perfect curriculum. It was because at times I wasn't the nicest person and some students just didn't want to learn from ME.

The craziest thing has happened the past few years. Now that I am teaching again and God has done a work in me, my students seem to love history. They enjoy learning what I am teaching. Yeah, I am a jerk every so often, most of you reading this know that, possibly from experience, but I really believe that my students like to learn about labor unions, the New Deal and President Nixon not because the content is thrilling to them, or that I have some really cool teaching strategies, but rather, because they like me.

Jesus was a master teacher. My colleagues and I could learn a lot from Him. Rabbi or teacher was what he was referred to by many of His followers. Jesus would rarely simply answer a question and then moved on, which is what I catch myself doing quite frequently, he would ask another question. . . . and then another and another. Jesus was asked 183 questions in the four gospels and only directly answered 3 of them! That means that he responded to 180 of the questions posed to him in the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John with either another question, or a parable.

"Oh my soul, be prepared to meet him who knows how to ask questions." T.S. Elliot

One particular passage stood out to me the other day. In John 8 Jesus is teaching in the temple courtyard and the Pharisees are attempting to trap him with questions.

“Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?”
They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust.
When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”
“No, Lord,” she said.
And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”

Drawing in the dirt until everyone walks away, Jesus asks the woman a question they both know the answer to. He could have told the Pharisees what they wanted to hear, he could have taken some moral high ground and proclaimed the difference between right and wrong and answered their leading questions directly. Rather, He asks questions, good questions, transforming questions. All of His questions were rooted in love. People didn't want to learn from Jesus because He had some unique teaching style, or that He even had good curriculum, if anything, His curriculum drove people away in masses, people wanted to learn from Jesus because He taught with love. Why do we overlook this aspect of Jesus? Why do we want answers when Jesus gave us more questions? I think answers give us systematic theology and dogma while more questions force us to keep searching, to open our eyes and ears for deeper truths.

I pray that God will give us the ability to ask better questions.

"We have done this ourselves"

2010-09-21T20:46:00.000-07:00

"Go to the people.
Live with them,
learn from them,
love them.
Start with what they know,
build with what they have.

But of the best leaders,
when the work is done,
the task accomplished,
The people will say,
"We have done this ourselves."

This Chinese poem was written by Lao-Tzu around 700 B.C, but it was popularized more recently by Dr. John Perkins. Dr. Perkins is the founder of Christian Community Development Association (CCDA) and has been an inspiration to both Serenity and I. The CCDA has three "Rs" of ministry:

Relocation
Reconciliation
Redistribution

These have been behind much of the heartbeat of the Jubilee Food Pantry and Mustard Seed Ministries.

Relocating to the broken places of this world, much like Jesus did. As John 1:14 says: "The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood" (The Message). Reconciliation to God and our neighbors. And the easy one (at least easier than the other two): redistributing what the Lord has given to us because things are temporary (Matt 6:19-21).

What I love about the above poem is that it is embedded with humility. When all of this is said and done, when the Lord has transformed Hubbard through the Jubilee Food Pantry, community gardens, and neighborhood block parties, when God's Kingdom is more evident on our streets, everyone will look at each other and say "We have done this ourselves." No one will remember Andy and Serenity, rather, folks will just see God working through each of them.

When we place loving people at the center of everything we are about, God's Kingdom outshines anything we can do ourselves.

The Beatitudes

2010-09-14T18:11:00.000-07:00

Blessed are you when liberals declare you not politically correct; blessed are you when conservatives persecute you for asking questions and when they falsely say all kinds of evil against you because you talk more about me than about their doctrines. Rejoice and be glad, because you’re probably onto the radically unfolding kingdom of God. For in the same way they tried to nail all the prophets who were before you.”

-Paraphrase of Matt. 5:11-12 by Philip Clayton (American theologian)

This was on a friend's blog and it was just too good to pass up - thanks Eric.

Jesus Wants to Save Christians

2010-09-11T08:52:00.000-07:00

I recently finished Rob Bell's Jesus Wants to Save Christians. It was very good. It was similar in many ways to some other stuff that I have read recently, but it's basic premise is that most Christians have missed the point of the Gospel and have been blinded by The World, specifically lies that are perpetuated by the "American Dream." But there is hope - the true Good News (Gospel) of Jesus Christ. Some statistics from the book:

America controls nearly 20 percent of the world's wealth and is only 5 percent of the world's population.

One billion people in the world do not have access to clean water, while the average American uses four hundred to six hundred liters of water a day.

Every seven seconds, somewhere in the world a child under age five dies of hunger, while Americans throw away 14 percent of the food we purchase.

Nearly one billion people in the world live on less than one American dollar a day.

Another 2.5 billion people in the world live on less than two American dollars a day, . . . while the average American teenagers spends nearly $150 a week.

By far, most of the people in the world do not own a car. . . . One-third of American families own three cars.

Americans spend more annually on trash bags than nearly half the world does on all goods.

God bless America? Yes, God did, but is this what He blessed us for? How can we change this? How can our generation bring up the next with an understanding of the true Gospel? How can we teach all generations that God has called us to something better?

As a high school teacher I work with youth quite a bit. I teach U.S. history. Sometimes I think that my students are pretty mold-able, that we can do great things by teaching this generation what it means not only to live in a global society, with neighbors who care about your decisions even if they don't live next door, but that with or without sanitation, electricity, food, water or an education, the most important thing in life is to know Jesus Christ and then live that truth out by loving Him and loving others by making decisions in our lives that contribute to His Kingdom. Here is another quote from Bell that makes me realize this is quite the difficult obstacle:

Imagine the average youth group in the average church on the average Sunday. Imagine visiting this youth group and having the pastor say to you, "I just can't get my kids interested in Jesus. Do you have any suggestions?"

How do you respond?

To begin with, the church has a youth group. This is a brand-new idea in church history. A luxury. Everybody in the church doesn't meet all together? All of the babies and older folks and men and women and widows and students aren't in the same room, but they've gone to separate rooms?

And there are resources for this? People and organizational structures and a budget? Let's imagine that in this case, this pastor, this youth pastor, is paid a salary for his or her work. A church with enough resources to pay someone to oversee the students? Once again, this is brand new, almost unheard of in most of the churches in the world, and in church history, a brand-new invention.

This salary can be paid and this building can be built because people in the congregation have surplus. They have fed themselves and their children and bought clothes and houses, and now, after these expenses, there is still money available. And this money is given in an act of generosity to the church, which disperses it to various places, among them the bank account of the pastor.

In many, if not most, of the churches in the world, immediate needs simply don't allow for such luxuries—too many people are hungry, too many don't have a roof, too many are sick—and so any surplus is spent immediately on the basic needs staring them right in the face,

people dying here,

right now,

today.

But this particular church is blessed, and we should be clear about this—it is blessing. It is good. It is fortunate that this particular church doesn't have those issues. This church has enough resources to hire a pastor who had the resources to get training to gather these students in the student room to teach them about the way of Jesus. Many Christians around the world would simply stand in awe of that kind of blessing.

And the students in this church, these are good kids. They are from families who just want to see their kids become good Christians.

Imagine just how much is available to them. They have more at their fingertips than any generation in the history of the world—more information, more entertainment, more ideas, more ways to kill time, more options.

Many of them own more than one pair of shoes.

There are even some among them who have eaten at least one meal every day of their lives.

So, we are talking about a minuscule minority of kids in the world.

At the exit off the highway near their church is a Best Buy and a Chili's and a Circuit City and a McDonald's and a Wal-Mart and a Bed, Bath and Beyond, much like the other towns in their state and in their country. The music they listen to is distributed by one of five major corporations, which also own the movie studios that create the movies they watch, which are also connected to the corporations that create the food they eat and the commercials they watch, which also have significant ties to the clothes they wear and the cell phones they own, and the ring tone on their cell phones, the one by the artist who is signed to the record label that is owned by the same company that owns the cell phone company and the advertising agency that announced the artist's new album, which is owned by the same company that owns the beverage company in whose advertisement the artist appeared, drinking that particular beverage, singing the song that is now a ring tone on the students' phones that they purchased at the mall across the street from the Olive Garden next door to the Home Depot on the other side of the Starbucks.

And so each week they gather to hear a talk from the pastor.

Their pastor tells them about the Jesus revolution.

About Jesus resisting the system.

About the blood of the cross.

About many of the first Christians getting arrested.

About Jesus having dinner with prostitutes and tax collectors.

About people sharing their possessions.

About Jesus telling a man to sell everything.

About the uniqueness of their story in the larger story of redemption.

How do children of the empire understand the Savior who was killed by an empire?

How does a twelve-year-old who has never had hunger pangs that lasted more than an hour understand a story about a twelve-year-old providing fish and bread for thousands of chronically hungry people?

How do kids who are surrounded by more abundance than in any other generation in the history of humanity take seriously a Messiah who said, “I have been anointed to preach good news to the poor”?

How do they fathom that half the world is too poor to feed its kids when their church just spent two years raising money to build an addition to their building?

They gather, they sing, they hear a talk from the pastor, and then they get back in the car with their parent and they go home; the garage door opens up, the car goes in, and the garage door goes down.

This is the revolution?

This is what Jesus had in mind?

And so the youth pastor turns to you and says, again, “I just can't get my students engaged with Jesus. Do you have any suggestions?”

What do you say?

How do you respond?

How do we take the flannel board and empty worship songs, the irrelevant messages and an imposter gospel out of the Church? How do we convince the next generation, or for that matter all generations, that Jesus Christ is worth it? The only answer is to point them to the true Gospel. The true message of Jesus. One that stands in contradiction to accumulation, war and safety and one that asks each of us to embrace Jesus on a wild ride that will make sense to only a few. A Gospel that asks us to abandon riches, to hug our enemies and to risk our lives for His glory.

My Best Friend

2010-08-14T15:08:00.000-07:00

Serenity and I will celebrate our 11th anniversary this week, and I have put together a video of our life together thus far.

Serenity, I love you more today than I could ever have dreamed of the day I saw you in the Stevenson Union. You are the perfect mother for our children and the perfect wife for me. Jesus brought us together for a reason, to bring glory to His name. Where one is weak, the other is strong. May we continue to look to Jesus for His light in our marriage. You are my best friend, I love you.

What I'm Reading

2010-08-09T09:45:00.001-07:00

I have been reading Dr. Platt's book Radical over the past week and it is excellent. I do disagree on a few points, overall however, I'm enjoying it. Ultimately I think his overarching theme could be summed up with a question that I have been wrestling with for nearly 5 years now:

What if we actually took the words of Jesus and applied them directly to our lives?

Examples:

"Any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple." - Luke 14:33

"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple." - Luke 14:26

"For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it." - Matthew 16:25

There are literally hundreds more.

More on the book later. . . .

Jesus Plays Possum

2010-07-27T09:20:00.000-07:00

Maybe it's because I was a history major, I don't know, but when I read scriptures and here stories about people and places (which is all of the Bible), I have the tendency of imagining myself in their shoes - walking. I was reading a passage in Luke and I was blown away by the creativity of Jesus. Time and time again, Jesus could simply call on His armies, or even done it himself -- but He refuses, that would have been just like all of the other Kingdoms and Kings. Jesus came to show us a different Way. Simply put, and as many of you fully realize, Jesus is amazing! This simple truth stood out to me as I read this passage.

On the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35) are two of Jesus' disciples. They are dejected. They are frustrated. They are probably a little annoyed and possibly feeling slightly betrayed. The "prophet" they had followed, who claimed to be the Son of God had just been executed by the Romans. Jesus had rejected each power structure: to the Sadducees He refused the status quo, to the Pharisees He pushed them out of their legalism, to the established oppressive nation-state (the Romans) He challenged their authority and to the Zealots He rejected the use of violence. These two disciples walking along the road back to their hometown of Emmaus, the one they left to follow Jesus, probably didn't know what to think. Who was this man? Was he even a prophet? He promised so much, and he didn't deliver. Now they have to go back to family, friends, and co-workers and admit that they walked away from their homes and jobs for a prophet that didn't pan out. The two had heard stories about Jesus rising from the dead, but when some of the other disciples went to His tomb He wasn't there. They didn't believe. Then a stranger walked up.

The stranger says "'What are you discussing so intently as you walk along?' They stopped short, sadness written across their faces. Then one of them, Cleopas, replied, 'You must be the only person in Jerusalem who hasn't heard about all the things that have happened there the last few days.'" At this point the stranger (which, as we know, turns out to be Jesus) could have thrown off his cloak and said something along the lines of "Ah ha, behold, it is me, Jesus, the Christ. I have risen from the dead and have come to give you life." At least that is what I would have done. But instead Jesus replies, "What things?" Basically He is provoking a conversation. The two go on to tell this stranger about the prophet who did powerful miracles but was put to death. Much like the power structures Jesus rejected, the two strangers did not have eyes to see and ears to hear (until later that night) and "had hoped he was the Messiah who had come to rescue Israel." Jesus obviously had, but nobody realized it. They had all been looking for the wrong things. The stranger then rebuts the two calling them foolish and then gives them a history lesson starting with Moses and covering all of the prophets who had all pointed back to Him.

Assuming the average walking speed is 2-3 miles per hour, it would take a person around 3 hours to walk the 7 miles between Jerusalem and Emmaus. This is a long time to not recognize the man you followed with your life the past few years. For whatever reason, they don't, and after His rebuke and history lesson, they beg Him to come home and have dinner. "As they sat down to eat, he took the bread and blessed it. Then he broke it and gave it to them. Suddenly, their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And at that moment he disappeared!" Talk about drama, you can't make this stuff up! These disciples had to have been impacted in a deep way. Luke says that they headed back to Jerusalem that night (another 3 hour walk - this time in the dark) and told the eleven disciples all that had happened. Can you imagine how energized and excited they had to have been at this point?

Put yourself there on that road to your hometown - dejected, confused, betrayed. Sometimes when Jesus shows up He plays possum just so we can have a deeper revelation of who He is.

Conversion

2010-07-05T10:45:00.000-07:00

The most powerful things happen when the church surrenders its desire to convert people and convince them to join. It is when the church gives itself away in radical acts of service and compassion, expecting nothing in return, that the way of Jesus is most vividly put on display. To do this, the church must stop thinking about everybody primarily in categories of in or out, saved or not, believer or nonbeliever.

- Rob Bell

The Shrinking Gospel

2010-07-03T10:30:00.000-07:00

Only a fraction of our sins are personal. By far the greater part are sins of neglect, sins of default, our social sin, our systemic sin, our economic sin. For these sins Christ died, and continues to die. For these sins Christ atoned, and continues to atone. . . . As long as evangelism presents a gospel centered on the need for personal salvation, individuals will acquire a faith that focuses on maximum benefits with minimal obligations, and we will change the costly work of Christ's atonement into the pragmatic transaction of a salvific contract. . . . The sanctifying grace of God in Jesus Christ is meant not just for the sinner but also for a society beset by structural sin.

- David Lowes Watson

The Gospel of Jack

2010-06-25T17:20:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite singer-songwriters is Jack Johnson. He has some chill acoustic guitar and occasionally adds some ukulele. He did the soundtrack for Curious George, so he is one of my kids' favorites as well. The lyrics he writes are pretty good too. I hear he owns a home in Ashland, Oregon, which is were I went to college, so that makes him even cooler.

I am reading Rob Bell's Velvet Elvis and came across an interesting section titled "True." Bell quotes Arthur Holmes who said "All truth is God's truth," and then adds,

"So as a Christian, I am free to claim the good, the true, the holy, wherever and whenever I find it. I live with the understanding that truth is bigger than any religion and the world is God's and everything in it."

We have the tendency to toss out truth because it didn't come from a "Christian" source. But if we truly believe the above quote, that all truth is God's truth, then truth can come from anywhere. It can even come from the lyrics of a "secular" song.

Bell goes on to explain that the Apostle Paul affirms this when he quotes Cretan prophets (Titus 1:12-13) and Greek poets (Acts 17:28). "Now to be able to quote these prophets and poets, Paul obviously had to read them. And study them. And analyze them. And I'm sure he came across all kinds of things in their writings that he didn't agree with. So he sifts and sorts and separates the light from the dark and then claims and quotes the parts that are true."

Now there are many things that are labeled "Christian" and are not true. For example regarding war, Henry T. Blackaby, a leading evangelical said in 2005, "those who oppose the war to liberate Iraq need to read God's Word. There is no question that the current war to liberate Iraq is a 'just' war – according to biblical standards." Chuck Colson was quoted in Christianity Today as saying, "out of love of neighbor, then, Christians can and should support a preemptive strike." There are plenty of these out there, so you can search on your own for quotes from evangelical leaders about their support of war, any war, which to me, equates to blind patriotism. The Christian Post wrote an article in February of 2008 about how most evangelical leaders still support the the war in Iraq.

Jack Johnson may not believe in God or Jesus, or anything spiritual, I don't know him personally, but the lyrics to the below song are closer to the heart of Jesus than any of the above quotes from evangelical leaders.

But who needs to see what we've done?
Who needs please when we've got guns?
Who needs keys when we've got clubs?
Who needs peace when we've gone above
But beyond where we should have gone?
Beyond where we should have gone
We went beyond where we should have gone
Beyond where we should have gone

So, . . . I claim it as truth. We've gone beyond where we should have gone.

"Sleep Through The Static"

(click on the above title to hear the song.
There is also a video from NPR of Johnson singing the song here.)

Trouble travels fast
When you're specially designed for crash testing
Or wearing wool sunglasses in the afternoon
Come on and tell us what you're trying to prove

Because it's a battle when you dabble in war
You store it up, unleash it, then you piece it together
Whether the storm drain running rampant just stamp it
And send it to somebody who's pretending to care

Just cash in your blanks for little toy tanks
Learn how to use them, then abuse them and choose them
Over conversations relationships are overrated
"I hated everyone" said the sun

And so I will cook all your books
You're too good looking and mistooken
You could watch it instead
From the comfort of your burning beds
...Or you can sleep through the static

Who needs sleep when we've got love?
Who needs keys when we've got clubs?
Who needs please when we've got guns?
Who needs peace when we've gone above
But beyond where we should have gone?
We went beyond where we should have gone

Stuck between channels my thoughts all quit
I thought about them too much, allowed them to touch
The feelings that rained down on the plains all dried and cracked
Waiting for things that never came

Shock and awful thing to make somebody think
That they have to choose pushing for peace supporting the troops
And either you're weak or you'll use brute force-feed the truth
The truth is we say not as we do

We say anytime, anywhere, just show your teeth and strike the fear
Of god wears camouflage, cries at night and drives a dodge
Pick up the beat and stop hogging the feast
That's no way to treat an enemy

Well mighty mighty appetite
We just eat 'em up and keep on driving
Freedom can be freezing take a picture from the pretty side
Mind your manners wave your banners
What a wonderful world that this angle can see

But who needs to see what we've done?
Who needs please when we've got guns?
Who needs keys when we've got clubs?
Who needs peace when we've gone above
But beyond where we should have gone?
Beyond where we should have gone
We went beyond where we should have gone
Beyond where we should have gone

An Economy of Enough

2010-06-19T07:18:00.000-07:00

As I read more and more of the stories about Jesus I am struck by the intentionality of Christ. Everything He did, everything he said, everyone he spent time with, ate with and talked with was intentional at that very time -- there was a truth to be learned not necessarily by His words, but by what He was doing, right then. I am reading Brian D. McLaren's Everything Must Change and he points out a couple of these occasions. The most striking is when Jesus feeds the multitudes (many call it Jesus feeds the 5,000, however, the five thousand refers to the men in the crowd. It is possibly more accurate to estimate that Jesus actually fed upwards of 15-20 thousand.)

Jesus saw the huge crowd as he stepped from the boat, and he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.
Late in the afternoon his disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away so they can go to the nearby farms and villages and buy something to eat.”
But Jesus said, “You feed them.”
“With what?” they asked. “We’d have to work for months to earn enough money to buy food for all these people!”
“How much bread do you have?” he asked. “Go and find out.”
They came back and reported, “We have five loaves of bread and two fish.”
Then Jesus told the disciples to have the people sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in groups of fifty or a hundred.
Jesus took the five loaves and two fish, looked up toward heaven, and blessed them. Then, breaking the loaves into pieces, he kept giving the bread to the disciples so they could distribute it to the people. He also divided the fish for everyone to share. They all ate as much as they wanted, and afterward, the disciples picked up twelve baskets of leftover bread and fish. A total of 5,000 men and their families were fed from those loaves!
(Mark 6:34-44 NLT)

It is easy to look at this (and other) miracles attributed to Jesus and take them at face value. It is a story about Jesus and his divine power, as well as a deep compassion and love for people. All of that is true, but as usually is the case with Jesus, there is more than meets the eye (or the ears) to this story. When the disciples realize that it is getting late they ask Jesus to send the people away so they can buy something to eat. McLaren points out that "Jesus' reply contradicts both the words 'buy' and 'they/themselves.' Instead of 'they/themselves,' he says 'you,' and instead of 'buy' he says 'give.'"

So many times we can't imagine that what we already have is enough. I'm not talking about some divine thinking about the power of God and if we can only believe in His power we can move mountains. Although that is exactly what Jesus ends up doing in this story, and it is a truth that I haven't quite grasped yet. I'm talking about something much less supernatural. In response to the disciples' request to "send the crowds away to buy something to eat," Jesus says: "You feed them." The disciples' response was probably something like this: "Seriously Jesus? There are possibly 15,000 people here. How?" Jesus tells them simply to "go and see" how much they already have. McLaren goes on, "[Jesus] wants them to count what they already have, because what they already have counts, and is, in fact, enough through God's gracious provision."

Jesus is intentionally contradicting our version of economy and provision and calling us to a radically different economy -- an economy of enough. As in this story, in God's economy of enough the people "ate and were satisfied" (v. 42). In this economy Jesus asks instead for "you" to "give" from what you already have. This is true religion (James 1:27). Finally, and most importantly, Jesus "taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven," gives thanks to God (v. 41). This economy is based on gratitude of the Creator, neighborly sharing and reducing our consumption. When we do this, we will all have baskets of bread and fish to spare (v. 43).

Resurrection

2010-06-06T15:48:00.000-07:00

Last week a friend of mine died. He was out all Saturday night drinking with his friends and flipped his truck on a lonely stretch of highway Sunday morning. The truck ended up upside-down in a small creek alongside the road. He died before anybody found the crash. Cody was a student of mine and a wrestler for two years before he transferred to another school. He was a senior this year, and would have graduated last week. Cody was a bright kid, even though he didn't always show it. He was a talented wrestler and a very good athlete. He had an enormous amount of fight, he wrestled 119 pounds but I remember him taking on our heavyweight (without much success - like I said - he was bright, but didn't always show it). He was the kind of kid that could drive you crazy, but could always make you laugh. I hadn't seen him for a year or so, but when I found out about the crash I felt a void somewhere. I miss him.

Avery saw me looking at a news article about Cody's death. He asked me why the truck was wrecked. I wasn't sure how to respond but I told him that a wrestler of mine had died in that truck. There was a long silent pause and then Avery said, "That's sad. Why'd that happen?" There was a longer pause. I simply told him, "I don't know."

Why does this sort of thing happen? Most atheists will point to death and suffering in the world as one of the major justifications for there being no God. It sure makes it tough to believe in a God that would allow this sort of thing. But didn't Jesus, God's son, walk through this life just like we are? Death was common in Jesus' day. Herod had all Jewish boys under two years of age killed. Roman soldiers practiced genocide on the local populations. Medicine was still rudimentary, death in childbirth and young children was common. I'm pretty sure Jesus experienced the pain of losing a loved one. Beyond all of that, Jesus himself die one of the most horrific deaths known to man, proving that he understood.

He is the resurrection and the life.

I don't think we can ever fully understand why God allows this sort of thing - nor should we. I'm heading to the funeral tomorrow and I don't really know what to say to some of his good friends - students of mine. Maybe I don't need to say anything. I have been touched by the lyrics in this song since I bought the album a few months back. Although it doesn't give us any answers, I believe it might be the only answer.

(you can click on the title and open it up in Windows Media Player, then come back to this page to read the lyrics below)

Resurrection by Andy Gullahorn

My good friend Paul was lying in the back seat of a station wagon headed to New Mexico.

Somewhere in the middle of the night the driver fell asleep and hit the wall beside the road.

My friend went through the window like a bullet through the glass, dead before he ever hit the ground.

(Chorus) Oh I believe, though it's hard sometimes, you are the resurrection and the life.

Jodi is a queen reigning throne upon a couch but the last few years have numbered days.

Cause the virus in her body and the cancer in her brain are buyin' up the real estate.

And the medicine they give her trades nightmares for her dreams and memories too tragic to describe.

(Chorus) Oh I believe, though it's hard sometimes, you are the resurrection and the life.

I know the words of life to come are true, but sometimes they feel like salt upon the wound.

When I'm asking in these moments "Where are you?". . . where are you?

Sometimes it's like Lazareth you come to roll the stone away and watch him walk back out alive.

Sometimes it's like my good friend Paul, breathless on the interstate, mother weeping at his side.

Either way it's something I will never understand, but I trust enough to take you at your word.

So I believe, though it's hard sometimes, you are the resurrection and the life.

Simply Amazing

2010-06-02T11:03:00.001-07:00

more about "Inspired Bicycles - Danny MacAskill A...", posted with vodpod

Holy Flakes

2010-05-29T21:39:00.001-07:00

A satirical look at what happens when we make Jesus a commodity.

On top of a dusty shelf in a small town grocery
were boxes of some store brand flakes that hadn’t sold in years.
The manager that transferred in with marketing degrees
thought he could sell that cereal with his big fresh ideas.
He found a picture of the pope and when he got it scanned,
used photoshop to take a spoon and put it in his hand.
Then a bubble with a caption of what the pope was trying to say,
"If you’re a Christian act like one and eat your Holy Flakes."
Holy Flakes, Holy Flakes. Holy Holy Holy, Holy Flakes.
The same old folks came in that week to get their raisin bran.
They all felt convicted when they saw the holy man
so they filled their carts up with John Paul instead of stuff they liked.
They thought it was their duty as the good God fearing kind.
(Chorus)
And the Holy Flakes sold so well they couldn’t keep them on the shelf so they diversified.
Soon there were Sacred Chips,
Virgin Mary Chicken Strips
and Prince of Peace Apple Pie.
It doesn’t matter if it has no taste cause its all in the name.
Soon they had a one brand town with pantries all the same.
It left them with no appetite for stuff that broke the mold
and a faith that was as shallow as the milk left in the bowl
of Holy Flakes.

Non-Violent Direct Action

2010-05-17T13:45:00.000-07:00

I repeated this phrase probably 30-40 times to my U.S. History classes when we studied the Civil Rights Movement a few weeks back. I wanted them to understand that the message of Martin Luther King Jr. and many other civil rights leaders was not one of passivity. It wasn't a message that asked folks to sit back and do nothing while the aggressors beat the tar out of you. These leaders specifically sought out unjust laws and then directly violated those laws. There is nothing passive about that. There was a reason Dr. King was placed in Montgomery, Alabama in 1956. There was a reason that Dr. King and others showed up in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. There was a reason that they showed up in Mississippi during the Freedom Summer of 1964. Injustice was occurring and they wanted to attack it head on with non-violent direct action.

The tactics of Mahatma Gandhi heavily influenced Dr. King. Although Gandhi was assassinated in 1949, King traveled to India a decade later and visited the birthplace of Gandhi. It had a profound impact on his vision for the beloved community in the United States, he wrote:

Since being in India, I am more convinced than ever before that the method of nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for justice and human dignity. In a real sense, Mahatma Gandhi embodied in his life certain universal principles that are inherent in the moral structure of the universe, and these principles are as inescapable as the law of gravitation.

That "moral structure of the universe" was obviously evident in the words of Jesus, and in this regard, specifically in the Sermon on the Mount. In fact, Gandhi was heavily influenced by the New Testament. King looked at some of Jesus' words with skepticism until he saw their tangible application in the Indian independence movement a decade earlier:

The 'turn-the-other-cheek' philosophy and the 'love-your-enemies' philosophy, were only valid when individuals were in conflict with other individuals; when racial groups and nations were in conflict, a more realistic approach seemed necessary. But after reading Gandhi, I saw how utterly mistaken I was.

It was only then that King fully realized that the nonviolent tactics of Jesus were the only viable solution to the problems facing oppressed people in the world. To recognize this individually it implies that Jesus had a political message, that God did not send His son to earth to simply teach us how to get to heaven. Why would Jesus teach a message of nonviolent resistance? My answer would be that nonviolence is the way of the Kingdom not a way to make it to the Kingdom, which implies that the Kingdom is already here - now - right now, all around us. That is why Jesus tells us to pray for His will to be done "on earth as it is in Heaven." So Jesus' words need to be taken literally and need to be applied to our lives today. Look at a passage from Matthew 5:39-41, in three short verses Jesus gives us the basis for non-violent direct action:

Do not resist an evil person! If someone slaps you on the right cheek, offer the other cheek also. If you are sued in court and your shirt is taken from you, give your coat, too. If a soldier demands that you carry his gear for a mile, carry it two miles.

In all three of these instances, the offended party is taking action, they aren't sitting helplessly waiting for the offender to continue harming them. "Turn you cheek," "give your coat," and "walk another mile." All three of these flew in the face of what was acceptable to the culture. Take for example the walking the extra mile. The Romans had oppressed the people of Israel for nearly a century prior to the public ministry of Jesus. Violence by the hands of the Romans were perpetuated against the Jews on a daily basis. In 4 BCE, Rome had sanctioned a mass execution of male children in attempts to eliminate the supposed "messiah." These acts were all carried out by Roman soldiers -- then Jesus says "If a [Roman] soldier demands that you carry his gear for a mile, carry it two miles." This is a defiant action. This is not apolitical. Jesus has a purpose here in telling the listeners to take part in this non-violent direct action. It was Roman law that soldiers could demand that subjugated people could be asked to help carry gear, and it was actually illegal to force them to carry the pack for more than a mile (1,000 steps). Jesus was telling His listeners to purposely break a law to demonstrate the injustice of the situation.

Fast forward to 1961. In Washington D.C., 13 riders boarded Greyhound buses heading south. The goal of these Freedom Riders were to bring attention to the unjust Jim Crow law of segregated seating on interstate travel. The riders met angry mobs and violence throughout the Deep South on their way to New Orleans - which they never reached -- most being arrested in Jackson, Mississippi. But the nation noticed and the law was thereafter enforced. Passengers were permitted to sit wherever they pleased on interstate buses and trains, "white" and "colored" signs came down in the terminals, separate drinking fountains, toilets, and waiting rooms were consolidated, and the lunch counters began serving people regardless of race.

Nonviolence is not passivity. In the words of Martin Luther King Jr.:

Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.

Kung Fu Bear

2010-05-17T11:42:00.000-07:00

This has nothing to do with anything, I just thought it was hilarious.

Radical Book

2010-05-07T08:42:00.000-07:00

I'm really excited about getting a copy of David Platt's new book titled Radical: Taking Back Your Faith From the American Dream. Don't know if you remember, but we put out a challenge the week before Easter to listen / watch one sermon each night before Resurrection Sunday. I haven't read the whole thing, but this book looks to be based off of those sermons. We never went to Birmingham, Alabama during our travels, which is where Dr. Platt pastors a church. Instead we heard about this sermon series through a remarkable blog that if you haven't checked it out before you really should, you will be inspired:

www.kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com

If you are interested in reading the first chapter of Dr. Platt's book you can go here.

What Jesus Left Out

2010-05-02T21:12:00.000-07:00

In Luke 4 Jesus returns to Nazareth and stands up in the synagogue, probably the same synagogue he went to as a child and young adult. He simply stands, finds where the prophet Isaiah wrote these words:

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

. . . "then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down." But he left something out. Something that seems pretty crucial to the actual verse in Isaiah. Here is the passage in Isaiah:

"The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor

and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn."

I'm wondering why? Anybody have any thoughts why Jesus would read all of Isaiah 61:1-2a, but leave out 2b: that he has come to proclaim "the day of vengeance of our God." Is Jesus trying to tell us something by not telling us something?

Can we serve both steel and Jesus?

2010-04-08T13:51:00.001-07:00

Father George Zabelka, a Catholic chaplain with the U.S. Air Force, served as a priest for the airmen who dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, and gave them his blessing. Over the next twenty years, he gradually came to believe that he had been terribly wrong, that he had denied the very foundations of his faith by lending moral and religious support to the bombing. Zabelka, who died in 1992, gave this speech on the 40th anniversary of the bombings. The excerpt is long, but is well worth it.

The destruction of civilians in war was always forbidden by the Church, and if a soldier came to me and asked if he could put a bullet through a child's head, I would have told him, absolutely not. That would be mortally sinful. But in 1945 Tinian Island was the largest airfield in the world. Three planes a minute could take off from it around the clock. Many of these planes went to Japan with the express purpose of killing not one child or one civilian but of slaughtering hundreds and thousands and tens of thousands of children and civilians – and I said nothing.

As a Catholic chaplain I watched as the Boxcar, piloted by a good Irish Catholic pilot, dropped the bomb on Urakami Cathedral in Nagasaki, the center of Catholicism in Japan.

I never preached a single sermon against killing civilians to the men who were doing it. I was brainwashed! It never entered my mind to protest publicly the consequences of these massive air raids. I was told it was necessary – told openly by the military and told implicitly by my Church's leadership. (To the best of my knowledge no American cardinals or bishops were opposing these mass air raids. Silence in such matters is a stamp of approval.)

I worked with Martin Luther King, Jr., during the Civil Rights struggle in Flint, Michigan. His example and his words of nonviolent action, choosing love instead of hate, truth instead of lies, and nonviolence instead of violence stirred me deeply. This brought me face to face with pacifism – active nonviolent resistance to evil. I recall his words after he was jailed in Montgomery, and this blew my mind. He said, "Blood may flow in the streets of Montgomery before we gain our freedom, but it must be our blood that flows, and not that of the white man. We must not harm a single hair on the head of our white brothers."

I struggled. I argued. But yes, there it was in the Sermon on the Mount, very clear: "Love your enemies. Return good for evil." I went through a crisis of faith. Either accept what Christ said, as unpassable and silly as it may seem, or deny him completely.

For the last 1700 years the Church has not only been making war respectable: it has been inducing people to believe it is an honorable profession, an honorable Christian profession. This is not true. We have been brainwashed. This is a lie.

War is now, always has been, and always will be bad, bad news. I was there. I saw real war. Those who have seen real war will bear me out. I assure you, it is not of Christ. It is not Christ's way. There is no way to conduct real war in conformity with the teachings of Jesus. There is no way to train people for real war in conformity with the teachings of Jesus.

The morality of the balance of terrorism is a morality that Christ never taught. The ethics of mass butchery cannot be found in the teachings of Jesus. In Just War ethics, Jesus Christ, who is supposed to be all in the Christian life, is irrelevant. He might as well never have existed. In Just War ethics, no appeal is made to him or his teaching, because no appeal can be made to him or his teaching, for neither he nor his teaching gives standards for Christians to follow in order to determine what level of slaughter is acceptable.

So the world is watching today. Ethical hairsplitting over the morality of various types of instruments and structures of mass slaughter is not what the world needs from the Church, although it is what the world has come to expect from the followers of Christ. What the world needs is a grouping of Christians that will stand up and pay up with Jesus Christ. What the world needs is Christians who, in language that the simplest soul could understand, will proclaim: the follower of Christ cannot participate in mass slaughter. He or she must love as Christ loved, live as Christ lived, and, if necessary, die as Christ died, loving ones enemies.

For the 300 years immediately following Jesus' resurrection, the Church universally saw Christ and his teaching as nonviolent. Remember that the Church taught this ethic in the face of at least three serious attempts by the state to liquidate her. It was subject to horrendous and ongoing torture and death. If ever there was an occasion for justified retaliation and defensive slaughter, whether in form of a just war or a just revolution, this was it. The economic and political elite of the Roman state and their military had turned the citizens of the state against Christians and were embarked on a murderous public policy of exterminating the Christian community.

Yet the Church, in the face of the heinous crimes committed against her members, insisted without reservation that when Christ disarmed Peter he disarmed all Christians.

Christians continued to believe that Christ was, to use the words of an ancient liturgy, their fortress, their refuge, and their strength, and that if Christ was all they needed for security and defense, then Christ was all they should have. Indeed, this was a new security ethic. Christians understood that if they would only follow Christ and his teaching, they couldn't fail. When opportunities were given for Christians to appease the state by joining the fighting Roman army, these opportunities were rejected, because the early Church saw a complete and an obvious incompatibility between loving as Christ loved and killing. It was Christ, not Mars, who gave security and peace.

Today the world is on the brink of ruin because the Church refuses to be the Church, because we Christians have been deceiving ourselves and the non-Christian world about the truth of Christ. There is no way to follow Christ, to love as Christ loved, and simultaneously to kill other people. It is a lie to say that the spirit that moves the trigger of a flamethrower is the Holy Spirit. It is a lie to say that learning to kill is learning to be Christ-like. It is a lie to say that learning to drive a bayonet into the heart of another is motivated from having put on the mind of Christ. Militarized Christianity is a lie. It is radically out of conformity with the teaching, life, and spirit of Jesus.

Now, brothers and sisters, on the anniversary of this terrible atrocity carried out by Christians, I must be the first to say that I made a terrible mistake. I was had by the father of lies. I participated in the big ecumenical lie of the Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox churches. I wore the uniform. I was part of the system. When I said Mass over there I put on those beautiful vestments over my uniform. (When Father Dave Becker left the Trident submarine base in 1982 and resigned as Catholic chaplain there, he said, "Every time I went to Mass in my uniform and put the vestments on over my uniform, I couldn't help but think of the words of Christ applying to me: Beware of wolves in sheep's clothing.")

As an Air Force chaplain I painted a machine gun in the loving hands of the nonviolent Jesus, and then handed this perverse picture to the world as truth. I sang "Praise the Lord" and passed the ammunition. As Catholic chaplain for the 509th Composite Group, I was the final channel that communicated this fraudulent image of Christ to the crews of the Enola Gay and the Boxcar.

All I can say today is that I was wrong. Christ would not be the instrument to unleash such horror on his people. Therefore no follower of Christ can legitimately unleash the horror of war on God's people. Excuses and self-justifying explanations are without merit. All I can say is: I was wrong! But, if this is all I can say, this I must do, feeble as it is. For to do otherwise would be to bypass the first and absolutely essential step in the process of repentance and reconciliation: admission of error, admission of guilt.

There is no way to conduct real war in conformity with the teachings of Jesus.

I was there, and I was wrong. Yes, war is Hell, and Christ did not come to justify the creation of Hell on earth by his disciples. The justification of war may be compatible with some religions and philosophies, but it is not compatible with the nonviolent teaching of Jesus. I was wrong. And to those of whatever nationality or religion who have been hurt because I fell under the influence of the father of lies, I say with my whole heart and soul I am sorry. I beg forgiveness.

I asked forgiveness from the Hibakushas (the Japanese survivors of the atomic bombings) in Japan last year, in a pilgrimage that I made with a group from Tokyo to Hiroshima. I fell on my face there at the peace shrine after offering flowers, and I prayed for forgiveness – for myself, for my country, for my Church. Both Nagasaki and Hiroshima. This year in Toronto, I again asked forgiveness from the Hibakushas present. I asked forgiveness, and they asked forgiveness for Pearl Harbor and some of the horrible deeds of the Japanese military, and there were some, and I knew of them. We embraced. We cried. Tears flowed. That is the first step of reconciliation – admission of guilt and forgiveness. Pray to God that others will find this way to peace.

All religions have taught brotherhood. All people want peace. It is only the governments and war departments that promote war and slaughter. So today again I call upon people to make their voices heard. We can no longer just leave this to our leaders, both political and religious. They will move when we make them move. They represent us. Let us tell them that they must think and act for the safety and security of all the people in our world, not just for the safety and security of one country. All countries are interdependent. We all need one another. It is no longer possible for individual countries to think only of themselves. We can all live together as brothers and sisters or we are doomed to die together as fools in a world holocaust.

Each one of us becomes responsible for the crime of war by cooperating in its preparation and in its execution. This includes the military. This includes the making of weapons. And it includes paying for the weapons. There's no question about that. We've got to realize we all become responsible. Silence, doing nothing, can be one of the greatest sins.

The bombing of Nagasaki means even more to me than the bombing of Hiroshima. By August 9, 1945, we knew what that bomb would do, but we still dropped it. We knew that agonies and sufferings would ensue, and we also knew – at least our leaders knew – that it was not necessary. The Japanese were already defeated. They were already suing for peace. But we insisted on unconditional surrender, and this is even against the Just War theory. Once the enemy is defeated, once the enemy is not able to hurt you, you must make peace.

Militarized Christianity is a lie. It is radically out of conformity with the teaching, life, and spirit of Jesus.

As a Catholic chaplain I watched as the Boxcar, piloted by a good Irish Catholic pilot, dropped the bomb on Urakami Cathedral in Nagasaki, the center of Catholicism in Japan. I knew that St. Francis Xavier, centuries before, had brought the Catholic faith to Japan. I knew that schools, churches, and religious orders were annihilated. And yet I said nothing.

Thank God that I'm able to stand here today and speak out against war, all war. The prophets of the Old Testament spoke out against all false gods of gold, silver, and metal. Today we are worshipping the gods of metal, the bomb. We are putting our trust in physical power, militarism, and nationalism. The bomb, not God, is our security and our strength. The prophets of the Old Testament said simply: Do not put your trust in chariots and weapons, but put your trust in God. Their message was simple, and so is mine.

We must all become prophets. I really mean that. We must all do something for peace. We must stop this insanity of worshipping the gods of metal. We must take a stand against evil and idolatry. This is our destiny at the most critical time of human history. But it's also the greatest opportunity ever offered to any group of people in the history of our world – to save our world from complete annihilation.

(An excerpt of a speech Fr. Zabelka gave at a Pax Christi conference in August 1985 - the 40 year anniversary of the bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki)

Land of the Free

2010-04-04T08:51:00.000-07:00

Below are the lyrics to a hidden track on Andrew Peterson's album Clear on to Venus called Land of the Free:

Little Elba how's the sun in South America
Does it shine upon the faces of the poor?
Do they see in it the brilliance of the place that's been prepared
And dwell upon the hope of what's in store
Or are they just like me do they only see
An opportunity to complain about the heat

And little Elba how's the rain in South America
Does it fall upon the roof tops of the sick
Do they thank the Lord for coming up with such a great idea
And dream about a place beyond all this
Or are they just like us do they gripe and fuss
About the rain and mud when they’ve had too much?

Cause I'm just a little jealous
Of the nothing that you have
You're unfettered by the wealth of
Of a world that we pretend that's going to last

Well I'm weary of the spoils of my ambition
And I'm shackled by the comfort of my couch
Well I wish I had the courage to deny these of my self
And start to store my treasure in the clouds
Cause this is not my home
I do not belong where the antelope and the buffalo roam

And I’m just a little jealous
Of the nothing that you have
You're unfettered by the wealth of
Of a world that we pretend that's going to last

They say God's blessed us with plenty
I say you're blessed with poverty
Cause you never stop to wonder
Whether earth is just a little better than the land of the free

So I hope you're safe and dry in South America
Cause I'm feeling pretty good in Tennessee
But may you never be so happy that you forget about your home
Your home in the land of the free

On the inside of a later album cover Peterson wrote this about the lyrics to this song:

"After my second trip to Bolivia with Compassion, I realized that in my songwriting fervor, I had misspoken. I don't believe, as the line in the bridge says, that little Elba and Hugo are "blessed with poverty". Poverty is a result of the Fall, and, though God certainly uses the worst Satan can throw at Him for His own glory and our good, poverty--true poverty--is an evil. It's an evil that we in the church are called to confront.

What I meant to say is that little Elba is blessed with simplicity. That's the aspect of life in the Third World that we Americans are lacking. Simplicity is what we sense is so glaring deficient in our American lives when we return from a mission trip. These days when I sing the Land of the Free, I sing this line: I say you're blessed with less than me."

May we fight the busy-ness that distracts us from allowing Christ to live through us bringing his Kingdom here -- now. May we embrace the simplicity of the Good News!

Radical Series

2010-03-27T10:56:00.000-07:00

So we have eight days left before Easter and I am going to throw out a challenge:

Listen / watch an approximately one hour message once each day.

The sermon series is eight sermons long, so if you set aside one hour each day/night you should be able to listen to it all by next Saturday night, the night before Easter (in order to do this you might have to sacrifice American Idol or The Bachelor or The Office, or business plans, or Facebook, or blogs or whatever else we waste our time with each night, but it is well worth it, or better said, He is well worth it). If you choose to take up this challenge, Serenity and I will be listening through the series with you. You could even come back to this post and write comments / questions for all of us to think about and discuss.

Post a comment below if you plan to take up the challenge so that I know I'm not talking to myself :) (make sure it isn't an anonymous comment, that would be hard to keep you accountable)

Here is the link to the sermon series: Radical Series, Church at Brook Hills

Blessings,
Andy

Nominal Christianity

2010-03-26T21:39:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking about this a lot lately. This quote summed up some of my processing quite nicely:

"The Christian landscape is strewn with the wreckage of derelict, half-built towers - the ruins of those who began to build and were unable to finish. For thousands of people still ignore Christ's warning and undertake to follow him without first pausing to reflect on the cost of doing so. The result is the great scandal of Christendom today, so-called 'nominal Christianity'. In countries to which Christian civilization has spread, large numbers of people have covered themselves with a decent, but thin, veneer of Christianity. They have allowed themselves to become somewhat involved; enough to be respectable but not enough to be uncomfortable. Their religion is a great, soft cushion. It protects them from the hard unpleasantness of life, while changing its place and shape to suit the convenience. no wonder the cynics speak of hypocrites in the church and dismiss religion as escapism."

From John Stott's Basic Christianity

2010-03-18T16:27:00.000-07:00

I know this is satirical, but it could legitimately happen, and as satirical as it sounds, Murray Hill Inc. REALLY is running for congress. Did you know that corporations are legally considered a person?

I heard an NPR interview with the CEO of Murray Hill Inc. He claims all they want to do is "cut the middle-man out of politics." Murray Hill Inc. is only a 5 year old corporation, so I think they will have some difficulties getting voting rights.

non-conformity does not mean uniformity

2010-03-15T22:06:00.000-07:00

We had another opportunity to head out to our Alma mater, George Fox University, and hear a peace and justice activist share about their heart for, well, peace and justice. This time it was Shane Claiborne. As I wrote in the previous post, Claiborne recently co-authored a book with fellow activist John Perkins called Follow me to Freedom: Leading and Following as an Ordinary Radical. Shane was scheduled to speak about new monasticism, but I think he just shares his heart and talks about whatever he feels led to speak about.

Towards the end of the message, he opened it up for questions and one guy in the back asked where we should draw the line when giving folks food or money, etc. A question we have been asked many, many times. Shane responded by saying: "On judgment day, Jesus isn't going to look at you and say, 'man, you were way too generous." Now, I completely understand the argument about enabling and how even when we give out food we are just freeing up the cash flow for some drug addict or alcoholic to purchase his next fix, but I truly do believe we should simply love --

"Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins." 1 Peter 4:8

The example I have always given when posed with this question (which once again is a good one, and there are no easy answers) is when Jesus encounters the poor or the lame I don't recall him ever asking if they had gotten into the situation because of poor choices of their own, Jesus doesn't judge them before he helps them. I don't recall Jesus telling the blind or the lame that he will only heal them on one condition, that they no longer sin and live blameless lives. We are simply called to love.

Claiborne speaks mostly on peace -- and gradually, slowly I have come to embrace this viewpoint, not just Claiborne's viewpoint, but one that can be traced back to the fountain, to Jesus himself. I know that we all know Jesus preached a message of peace, but how many of us live this out? How many of us embrace this message but go on to condemn abortion clinics? Abortion is inherently wrong, obviously, but as Christians we need to have as much of a belief in the sanctity of the unborn as we do the sanctity of the Afghan or Iraqi children -- even if that belief collides with the attitude of our nation.

Claiborne showed the following video which completely blew my mind and revealed how so many "believers" have blurred the lines between their faith and their nation:

Scary. Another quote from Claiborne: "[Christians] should be the ones who are most difficult to convince that violence does any good."

Three years ago Shane Claiborne was one of the most popular speakers in the evangelical world. From Southern Baptists to Quakers, his message was heeded. His message was and is challenging -- it challenges the powerful, including Christians in power. Most of his message is directed at those in power and questions how we, as Christians, can take part in a system that creates poverty, death and destruction. Eventually his popularity has went from the darling of the evangelical world to controversial, and banned from speaking. Although not a direct correlation, Martin Luther King Jr. was similarly treated when he began to speak out against the "Vietnam conflict." In his Beyond Vietnam speech, King called the United States "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today." Red-blooded Americans don't like it when you preach peace, even red-blooded Christian Americans. Gradually King lost much of his mainstream support and less than one year after giving the Beyond Vietnam speech, was assassinated. Many conspiracy theorists and some historians claim that King was assassinated due to his stance on peace and justice rather than his stance on racial equality and civil rights.

Interestingly enough, in the same speech, Beyond Vietnam, King said, "true compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar....it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring." Or as Catholic Worker founder Dorothy Day wrote, "our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy rotten system." The prophet Amos spoke a similar message more than 2,600 years ago condemning the Nation of Israel for accepting the new moral code and embracing an economy of haves and have nots. Claiborne's message isn't a new one but this message is just as important in this time and place as any other time in history.

There is no peace without justice

2010-02-22T22:16:00.000-08:00

I had the pleasure of going and seeing John M. Perkins speak at George Fox University's Center for Peace and Justice. Perkins is a remarkable character and it was wonderful to see him face to face. You can read more about Dr. Perkins on his website here. I was able to hear Dr. Perkins speak on two occasions; one night he spoke about 50 years of highs and lows of reconciliation ministry and the next afternoon I took part in a small group discussion about his new book he co-authored with Shane Claiborne titled Follow me to Freedom: Leading and Following as an Ordinary Radical. After both occasions I was able to speak with Dr. Perkins about our heart for our neighborhood as well as some obvious racial reconciliation issues that are present in our racially diverse community. Listening to Dr. Perkins speak was a high-point in my own walk.

Here are a few of the stand-out points I wrote down from his message:

He left his job 51 years ago and has not worked for a paycheck since. He "has lived at the absolute mercy of both his Friend (meaning Jesus) and his friends."
Repetitively made it a point to mention that we must be "doers of the word not just hearers."
As believers we use the Holy Spirit to try to heal our personal selves rather than to allow the Holy Spirit to bring us all together collectively to be the Kingdom.
Injustice is simply when we don't affirm the image of God in others.
"We have deified Capitalism. It's a good system, but it's not divine."
Speaking about divisive politics: "We have consolidated hatred in a language of division."
As a church we no longer have a prophetic voice that would call out power to meet the needs of the people and break the chains of injustice because we have come to accept the system.
Our best approach may be to lower our own voice so that others will be forced to lower theirs.
We all need friendship because their is something in you that is missing in me.
Suffering is redemptive.
Our religion has become, to many, a superficial therapy.
We can't have peace without justice.

Jesus Christ was a White, Middle-class Republican?

2010-02-14T09:54:00.001-08:00

King and a Kingdom by Derek Webb

who's your brother, who's your sister
you just walked passed him
I think you missed her
as we're all migrating to the place where our father lives
'cause we married in to a family of immigrants

my first allegiance is not to a flag, a country, or a man
my first allegiance is not to democracy or blood
it's to a king & a kingdom

there are two great lies that I’ve heard:
“the day you eat of the fruit of that tree, you will not surely die”
and that Jesus Christ was a white, middle-class republican
and if you wanna be saved you have to learn to be like Him

but nothing unifies like a common enemy
and we’ve got one, sure as hell
but he may be living in your house
he may be raising up your kids
he may be sleeping with your wife
oh no, he may not look like you think

Brand Jesus

2010-02-13T15:49:00.000-08:00

I have been reading a book titled Brand Jesus: Christianity in a Consumerist Age by Tyler Wigg Stevenson. The author has a degree from Yale Divinity School and does a pretty good job sounding like he does. I disagree with some of his premises, however, there are some very interesting concepts discussed throughout the book that have brought me into some deep contemplation.

Basically, Stevenson argues that all of us purchase things that define who we are, or who we want to be. Hundreds of years ago we went from a society that produced to a society that consumed, rarely do any of us "produce" our own possessions (i.e. self-sustained food production, weaving our own clothing, etc.). Since this is the case for nearly every one of us, we use our consumption to define who we are.

"Our image, our identity, who we are in respect to others, how others view us, and how we view ourselves -- in a consumerist society, all of this is up for sale in the products and services that we choose. This means that we become the products."

And it doesn't just stop with our culture, it permeates the Church as well -- that is Brand Jesus, an impostor that poses as truth and allows consumerism to grab hold of our spirituality. Here is a particularly amusing quote from Stevenson:

"Brand Jesus batizes consumerism and is utterly amenable to the presence of other brands. Are you a Christian yuppie? Enjoy Brand Jesus alongside Mercedes, Dom Perignon, Lacoste. How about those Christian punks? Brand Jesus rocks hardcore with P.O.D., Kerusso, and NOTW. For all the Christian patriots out there, know that Brand Jesus salutes you, along with manifest destiny, partisan politics, and anything that combines crosses with flags and/or bald eagles."

Now, this is funny because although we may not fall into any of the above categories, we can probably think of a different "Brand Jesus" category we fit our spirituality into. When we really think about it though, it no longer is that funny -- we have begun to unknowingly worship Mammon.

The conclusion is made that we are all part of the consumerist system that we have in this country and there is very little we can really do to change that. His argument is actually that we SHOULDN'T fight to change the system -- and I agree with him. Stevenson writes:

"any actionable plan against Brand Jesus [a fake Christianity based on consumerism] is doomed. And that is because consumerism is better at cultural judo than any of us will ever be: It will take our own efforts and turn them against us. Any active attempt to resist consumerism can and will be packaged, branded, marketed and sold back to us. And when we consume our own identity as the resistance -- as we invariably will -- we will have surrendered, in advance, the very battle that we aspired to fight."

I am reminded of Revelation 18 where Babylon is condemned in John's dream because they have hoarded their riches, they have traded and purchased, they have grown "rich from her excessive luxuries." John goes on and writes: "The merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her because no one buys their cargoes any more." In Revelation 18:13 he goes as far as to say those cargoes were the "souls of men." Consumerism can wrap around our souls like a tumor and choke out any life.

We have but one choice when it comes to fighting the consumerism that is plaguing His chosen people, not fight the system that has created so much pain and anguish, but remove ourselves from that system. Verse 4 says:

Then I heard another voice from heaven say:
[speaking of Babylon]
"Come out of her, my people,
so that you will not share in her sins."

This is our only choice. To be honest, I have no idea how we do it, but we can no longer go on living like the consumerism that permeates our lives is not a problem. As Paul writes in Ephesians 5, "Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil." We can no longer sleep as the evil one destroys our homes.

"Wake up, O sleeper,
rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you."

Cleaning Up The Cross

2010-02-10T09:30:00.000-08:00

Maybe some of you have had this experience before, but I was sitting listening to the message last Sunday and as I was listening the Lord was downloading something completely different than what the point of the message was. I understood the pastor, I was tracking him and it was a good sermon, but the message the Holy Spirit was giving me was different, and each main point, each scripture verse, even the songs we sung, zeroed in on what the Holy Spirit was telling me in a much more finite way than what the pastor was.

I have expressed this before, but I think it is important to say it again, much of what I write is a form of mental processing. Some stuff is very set in my mind, I know it to be truth and I want to express it that way. Other stuff is just me talking, I might believe it, but I'm wrestling through the "truth" of the matter, while other stuff is just what I'm thinking, I'm not so sure and I'm using this medium to process through it. In a lot of ways I am holding a mirror up to myself - if I'm writing about it, it means I probably struggle with it just as much or possibly more than the body of believers out there. Please struggle through these things with me.

As I was listening to the message last Sunday the words I kept thinking were "cheap grace." I asked myself, "What does that even mean?", and I started to get the picture of a "cleaned-up crucifix." One that has a solemn looking Jesus on the cross with a crown of thorns and possibly even a tear in his eye.

This is how many of us see the sacrifice of Jesus, or at least that is how we live our lives. We take Jesus' sacrifice on the cross and we sanitize it, we dab up the blood and clean up his wounds. This is cheap grace. Cheap grace gives us the ability to justify our sins, to ignore the deep sacrifice of Jesus to erase those sins - and so, we keep on sinning. Romans 12:1 says:

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.

When Paul spoke of "our bodies" he wasn't speaking of simply our physical bodies and sexual sin, but of our mind and our soul as well. Giving God everything. We tend to compartmentalize and give God our Sunday mornings, or our 15 minutes before the day begins. Paul urges us to become "living sacrifices" that is how we worship God. I think this becomes clearer when we see a vivid depiction of Christ's sacrifice for us. However you feel about the gore in Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ, most scholars agree that it is an accurate portrayal of the crucifixion. If you have objections to the film, that is fine, but tell me which of the two, the picture above, or the video clip below, shows the deep sacrifice that Jesus demonstrated for us?

Christ commands us to live a life of sanctification, meaning a process of becoming holy. As Paul says, offer a living sacrifice, "holy and pleasing to God." Are we on an all-consuming journey to become Christlike, to become holy? I know that at times, I can be all consumed, but then it fades, and I either ignore the cross, or I take some bleach and wipe up the blood, clean it up a bit. I make His sacrifice seem insignificance, which also makes my sin seem insignificant. I fully understand the concept of grace, but true grace is different from cheap grace. The grace that we experience through Christ cost a lot, it wasn't cheap. We can do nothing to earn this grace, but if we grasp this sacrifice, we should have the all-consuming desire to be holy and to be like Christ. If there is one thing that Christ commands us over and over to do it is to follow Him, to learn from His ways, and then, as Ephesians 5:1 says, "be imitators of God."

At the end of the message we sung the song Sweetly Broken by Jeremy Riddle. I was deeply convicted and knew the Holy Spirit was asking me some very pointed questions: Does your life reflect a desire to be Christlike, to be holy? Do you drink in His suffering? As Paul said in Galatians 2:20, are you crucified with Christ?

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

The very least we can do to show our connection with Christ is to obey His commands, to keep His ways. Each time we sin, we cheapen His grace, we cheapen His sacrifice. Only through accepting that there is nothing that we can do and then allowing Christ to plant a desire to do everything for Him can we begin the process of sanctification. Only then can we begin the process of being crucified with Christ, dying to ourselves and allowing Christ to fully life through us. Listen to the words of this song below, read the lyrics, and ask yourself as I did, "Do I drink in His suffering?"

Sweetly Broken by Jeremy Riddle

To the cross I look, to the cross I cling
Of its suffering I do drink
Of its work I do sing

For on it my Savior both bruised and crushed
Showed that God is love
And God is just

Chorus:

At the cross You beckon me
You draw me gently to my knees, and I am
Lost for words, so lost in love,
I’m sweetly broken, wholly surrendered

What a priceless gift, undeserved life
Have I been given
Through Christ crucified

You’ve called me out of death
You’ve called me into life
And I was under Your wrath
Now through the cross I’m reconciled

Chorus:

In awe of the cross I must confess
How wondrous Your redeeming love and
How great is Your faithfulness

Only light drives out darkness

2010-01-23T21:15:00.000-08:00

"The ultimate weakness of violence

is that it is a descending spiral,
begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.
Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the liar,
but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth.

Through violence you murder the hater,
but you do not murder hate.
In fact, violence merely increases hate...
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence,
adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate: Only love can do that."

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

Corner in Memphis

2010-01-15T14:21:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite artists. His lyrics and his voice are both rough in a way that allows his message to cut to the heart of the true Gospel.

Do you think Jesus would like the songs that we sing?

Corner in Memphis by Todd Agnew

Saturday on Beale St. with the drunk and the searching
I hear an old man playing guitar
I can't make out what he's saying
But I can tell you that he's suffered
And that he means every word from the bottom
Of what's left of his heart tonight

A few hours later, I slip into church
Singing songs about saving grace
One guy's nodding off and another hates to be here
And we all mouth the words to save face
It's 11:15 on Sunday morning
And I wish I was

On a corner in Memphis listening to the old man
Singing out his sorrows and laying down his pride
He's telling me his story or at least his side
With no need to pretend and nowhere to hide

'Cause we are all broken here
We are all ashamed
I couldn't fool you if I wanted to
Our stories are too much the same

And what about this Jesus?
They say He drank with the poor and the blind and the lame
Do you think He'd like the songs that we sing?
Or would He feel the same as I do?
What if Sunday School was on Saturday night?

What if their heart-breaking cries of pain
Are the first hymns of tomorrow's saints?

On a corner in Memphis, we're singing with the old man
Crying for his sorrows and laying down our pride
He's telling us our story, or at least his side
With no need to pretend and nowhere to hide

On a corner in Memphis
We're singing out our sorrows
He's telling us his story
With no need to pretend and nowhere to hide
On a corner in Memphis

Jah puts His soldiers everywhere

2010-01-15T12:22:00.000-08:00

After Serenity and I had the opportunity to share at Grace Chapel last Sunday a friend of mine, who is on staff at Grace, told me I had to see this video. He linked to it on his blog as well. The video is set in Atlanta, Georgia. The guitarist and lead singer is Carlos Whittaker of Integrity Worship and is an artist and pastor at Buckhead Church which is part of a large church in the ATL. He was filming a new music video and a man walked up to him and started singing along. Interesting side note: while on our journey, we actually parked in the parking lot of Christian Church Buckhead, which is not Buckhead Church, but is obviously frequently confused with it. :)

Here is what Carlos says about the encounter on his blog: ragamuffinsoul.com.

If you listen carefully at the end you hear me saying this to Danny:

“Keep trying to make it man.”

He looked me square in the eye…cocked his head sideways with a confused look on his face…and said,“Trying to make it? No man. I ain’t trying to make it…I’m making it. Jah puts His soldiers everywhere. Jah says, Yea 'though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death'… He places some of us, in that valley.”

It reminded me of a post I did while in Charlotte, North Carolina about Jo-Rob. I encourage you to read it, but the basic jist is that in our society we are so focused on trying to "fix" others that we miss the point that God might be making. We may actually be working against the Kingdom of God. Maybe God doesn't want us all to have houses, jobs and comfort, maybe God puts His soldiers everywhere, even in the valley of the shadow of death. Before we try to fix someone, maybe we should simply try to love them first.

Set Apart

2010-01-12T18:45:00.000-08:00

Ronald J. Sider, author of Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger (a book that deeply impacted me) just released a new book titled The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience. In it, Sider paints a pretty disturbing picture of the Evangelical Christian, asserting that the average Christian lives exactly the same as their non-Christian neighbor. Specifically, Sider argues (backed up by information compiled by the Barna Research Group) that Evangelical Christians have similar rates of divorce, premarital sex, domestic violence and use of pornography than non-believers, and are actually more likely to hold racist views than other people. Sider says, "by their daily activity, most Christians' regularly commit treason. With their mouths they claim that Jesus is their Lord, but with their actions they demonstrate their allegiance to money, sex, and personal self-fulfillment."

God gave the Isrealites the Law not so they would have rules to follow and be able to achieve worthiness, but so that they would be set apart, so they would be different from others.

"But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light." 1 Peter 2:9

Is personal moral purity wrong? Obviously not, but we can quickly become so focused on our own purity that we miss the message Jesus spoke. We begin to reduce the Gospel to a formula for the forgiveness of sins and the saving of our own personal soul, Bonhoeffer called it "cheap grace." Rather, Jesus called us to a life of transformation "out of darkness into His marvelous light," one marked more by action rather than reflection. Once again, is reflection wrong? No. But if all we do is reflect inwardly on how to become a better person and how to follow Jesus more precisely, we will simply become pharisees.

"Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe him,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.
Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
"If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.
The LORD will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.
Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.
Isaiah 58:6-12

If we spend ourselves on behalf of others, our own personal moral purity mysteriously appears. Our salvation is not earned through works, but our complete restoration is achieved through works.

Evangelical Christians have a problem, we are so focused on our own personal walk with God that we don't see our neighbor's need (and unfortunately they see our hypocrisy) and miss the opportunity to incarnate the Good News. This was recently on a friend's blog that I found remarkable:

We have become so fixated on personal (and very political) issues that we have missed our true calling as followers of Christ. We are more defined by what we are against rather than what we are for, who we don't like rather than who we love. The sanctity of life is a huge issue, but what about the sanctity of the lives' of children (or adults for that matter) in Iraq, or the 30,000 children that die every day from hunger and poverty?

Sadly, most Evangelical Christians have bought into "cheap grace." If we are going to be the Church that Jesus intended us to be, we must be a community set apart, not individuals living moral (or as the study shows not-so-moral) lives separately. We must live out the upside-down nature of Jesus' message by listening to His Spirit and following His call together, in the opposite direction of the culture. Most of us have been, to paraphrase Shane Claiborne, admiring and worshiping Jesus but not following Him and actively doing what He did. . . . We adore His cross without taking up ours.

We don't simply need to be believers, we need to be converts, converted from conforming to the patterns of this world.

We need to be set apart.

Missionaries of Charity

2009-12-21T13:14:00.000-08:00

I am reading a biography on the life of Mother Teresa. I came across these two stories that I found really funny. As most of you know, the Missionaries of Charity, the order started by Mother Teresa, accepted a life of extreme poverty. She would say, "our rigorous poverty is our safeguard." When faced with the challenge of adhering to this vow, Mother Teresa said,

"We do not want to do what other religious orders have done throughout history, and begin by serving the poor only to end up unconsciously serving the rich. In order to understand and help those who have nothing, we must live like them. . . . The only difference is that these people are poor by birth, and we are poor by choice."

The sisters found ways to use things twice, and never took items that could be used to help the poor they were serving. On many occasions the sisters would use the old sacks of wheat to sow into habits (distinctive set of clothing worn by religious orders). The lettering could not always be washed out and beneath the pleats across one sister's behind were the words "Not for resale." Another sister needed shoes desperately, but the only ones available were a pair of red stiletto heals. Her hobbling appearance in such unsuitable footwear had the sisters laughing hysterically.

More Romero. . .

2009-11-15T09:32:00.000-08:00

Some more Romero.

In our preaching to rich and poor, it is not that we pander to the sins of the poor and ignore the virtues of the rich. Both have sins and both need conversion. But the poor, in their condition of need, are disposed to conversion. They are more conscious of their need of God.

All of us, if we really want to know the meaning of conversion and of faith and confidence in another, must become poor, or at least make the cause of the poor our own inner motivation. That is when one begins to experience faith and conversion: when one has the heart of the poor, when one knows that financial capital, political influence, and power are worthless, and that without God we are nothing.

To feel that need of God is faith and conversion.

From The Violence of Love by Oscar Romero

I am a worker

2009-11-09T10:51:00.000-08:00

I started reading Oscar Romero's The Violence of Love a few years back. Basically it is a collection of his sermons that he spoke towards the end of his life, just before his assassination in 1980. From 1977 (the year I was born) until March 24th, 1980, Romero preached a message of love. A message that spoke out against the torture and murder that was going on against his Salvadorian people. In the midst of this violence Romero asked his congregation and those listening in on radio broadcasts to forgive their enemies, turn their cheek and embrace their oppressors. The title to the book came from the following passage about loving our enemies:

The violence we preach is not
the violence of the sword,
the violence of hatred.
It is the violence of love,
of brotherhood,
the violence that wills to beat weapons
into sickles for work.

(Oscar Romero, November 27, 1977)

The following was actually not written by Romero, but was dedicated to him after his assassination. Still, it is very powerful and spoke to some of the things I have struggled with when trying to figure out what exactly it means to be a believer who has a heavy heart for the least of these. When God gives us a glimpse of His Kingdom it is both overwhelming and extremely comforting - we can't do it all, but we can do some things. "We are workers, not master builders."

PROPHETS OF A FUTURE NOT OUR OWN

It helps now and then to step back and take a long view.
The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of
saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession
brings perfection, no pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives include everything.

This is what we are about. We plant the seeds that one
day will grow. We water the seeds already planted
knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects
far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of
liberation in realizing this.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning,
a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's
grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the
difference between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not
messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.

New Video

2009-11-09T10:27:00.001-08:00

Check out the new Mustard Seed Ministries video I put together for a speaking opportunity next week.

Mustard Seed Ministries from Andy Coulombe on Vimeo.

The Prayer of Francis of Assisi

2009-10-27T21:18:00.000-07:00

What if we all lived this out? The world would be a different place.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
Amen.

Check Yourself

2009-10-17T10:27:00.000-07:00

I can recall numerous times on our journey when someone would strike up a conversation with me between church services, or at prayer meetings. It would usually start off with something along the lines of "So why do you serve the homeless?" I could usually sense some sort of agenda in the question, something that wanted to be said. There was a slice of antagonism in their voice, a dash of cynicism about the validity of serving the poor. My response spoke directly to the fact that Christ called us to, and that personally I try to see Jesus in each and every person I meet (Matthew 25:40). That usually wasn't enough, the conversation would awkwardly make a right turn and the typical generalization would be thrown out - "many of them are there because they want to be." Then the commonly heard story about the guy who makes $40,000 a year while begging for change. At the end of each day he walks around the corner to his Lexus and drives home to his $300,000 home. Usually my antagonist has either personally seen this guy get into his Lexus or he read a factual article about this specific guy. This justification for not helping the poor is rampant.

This attitude didn't end when we returned to Oregon, it is a commonly held belief (for one reason or another) amongst people, even those who profess to be Christians - the poor choose to be, if they really wanted out of poverty they could do it themselves. The thought that possibly there are institutional forces that perpetuate poverty amongst different groups is an impossibility . . . . for a white, middle-class and educated individual.

If some catastrophic event occurred to my family and I right now, would we become homeless? Ask yourself that question. No, seriouosly, right now, stop and ask yourself that question. My answer is an emphatic "NO!" Why? Because I have a middle-class safety net, I have friends and family who love us and would refuse to allow us to live on the streets. We have people in our lives who would loan us money, would bring us food, and big enough houses to give us a roof over our heads. Do the poor know people like that? Usually not, they know other folks who are impoverished, other people who are struggling to put food on the table, other folks that if asked to give help would not be able to.

Blaming the victim is a real easy way for us to abdicate our God given responsibility to love on the poor. Jesus did not say "the poor will always be with us . . . so you really don't need to love them and care for them, just blame them for their circumstances."

When Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast back in 2005 many in the media began to demonize the poor - why couldn't they get out? Why wouldn't they want to leave? Rush Limbaugh was quoted as saying on his radio show: "Why can't they [the poor] afford cars?" This is a legitimate question when you have surrounded yourself with such wealth that you don't know anyone who makes less than $30,000 a year. Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly generalized the hurricane victims as drug abusers: "Many, many, many of the poor in New Orleans. . . weren't going to leave no matter what you did. They were drug-addicted. They weren't going to get turned off from their source. They were thugs."

This attitude is so prevalent in our society that it is basically commonplace. Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote, "The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina -- with its pathetic images of desperately poor people, mostly black people, stuck in New Orleans without food, water or adequate shelter after all the affluent people had fled -- should come as no surprise. This is a natural consequence of a political and social culture that has decreed: You're poor? Why would you want to be poor? Tough luck. You're on your own."

In our economic system (capitalism) this type of political and social culture is almost understandable (as well as detestable) if for not one thing -- many of these same folks who hold this attitude also call themselves followers of Jesus. People are much more inclined to pay $3.79 and put a Jesus fish on their bumper, or buy a WWJD? bracelet to show that they are good people rather than answer the actual question - What would Jesus do? Would He ignore the poor and justify it to Himself by claiming that they are all drug users and got in their situation by the poor choices they made? Would he put a Jesus fish on his bumper as he avoids eyecontact with the homeless mother at the freeway off-ramp? You and I are surrounded by so many images and rhetoric in our affluent and comfortable lifestyles that we feel completely justified in ignoring the poor. If we do this, we run a significant risk of looking almost identical to the Pharisees that Jesus came to challenge and discredit.

I found this funny.

2009-09-12T21:21:00.001-07:00

True Prophets

2009-09-12T17:44:00.000-07:00

I believe that in Christian culture we have developed a distorted view of what prophecy is. I think many of us, myself included for a period of time, believed that the job of a prophet was to predict things to come, conjuring up images of Nostradamus and crystal balls. The prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures (the Old Testament) were men - and women - who spoke out against existing power structures and injustice brought on by this inequality. You could argue that the role of "prophet" in this sense went all the way back to Moses and his desire to speak out about the injustice that was being heaped upon his or her people. It is true, many prophets cited specific examples of what was to come, but always IF the people did not respond to God's call to create equality among themselves.

The prophet Isaiah:

wash and make yourselves clean.
Take your evil deeds
out of my sight!
Stop doing wrong,
learn to do right!
Seek justice,
encourage the oppressed.
Defend the cause of the fatherless,
plead the case of the widow.

Jeremiah:

But your eyes and your heart
are set only on dishonest gain,
on shedding innocent blood
and on oppression and extortion.

Micah:

Woe to those who plan iniquity,
to those who plot evil on their beds!
At morning's light they carry it out
because it is in their power to do it.
They covet fields and seize them,
and houses, and take them.
They defraud a man of his home,
a fellowman of his inheritance.

Amos:

For I know how many are your offenses
and how great your sins.
You oppress the righteous and take bribes
and you deprive the poor of justice in the courts.

Ezekiel:

Her officials within her are like wolves tearing their prey; they shed blood and kill people to make unjust gain.

Obviously there is a common theme here. The Old Testament prophets all spoke out against inequality, oppression, corruption and greed, and this is simply a short list of scripture references. For Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah, Amos and Ezekiel, challenging the status quo and specifically to challenge the mistreatment of the lower social classes was the prophetic vision the Lord gave to them. Their vision of the future was tied completely to their view of the present; "change your ways now, or this will happen to you and your people in the future."

I'm reading the book The Politics of Jesus by Obery M. Hendricks, Jr. In it, Hendricks says that "there has never been a conservative prophet."

Thus the primary purpose of biblical prophecy is to effect social and political change in society. Prophets never uncritically support the status quo. Rather, their role is to challenge it. In our time, when many seem to think that Christianity goes hand in hand with right-wing visions of the world, it is important to remember that there has never been a conservative prophet. Prophets have never been called to conserve social orders that have stratified inequities of power and privilege and wealth; prophets have always been called to change them so all can have access to the fullest fruits of life.

Hendricks goes on to boldly state:

How can a false prophet be identified? There are two telltale criteria: (1) they are silent about issues of social justice, and (2) they function as uncritical supporters of rulers and politicians, rather than as their moral conscience and dedicated arbiters of biblical justice. Instead of challenging political regimes -- and all earthly regimes need to be continually challenged to do right -- false prophets either align themselves with them or say nothing at all.

Pastors, Christian leaders and others, although having an obvious duty to comfort those afflicted in mind, soul, spirit and body, it is also their duty to afflict the comfortable. If the pastors that have your ear -- whether that be when you are sitting in their pew, listening to them on podcast or watching them on TBN -- if they are not challenging you to love the poor, protest social inequities and stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves, you may be listening to a false prophet, at the very least a shepherd who is not taking care of his flock.

Which "Son of God" are you following?

2009-07-28T09:04:00.000-07:00

I struggle as I read the Beatitudes, specifically Matthew 5:9, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God." My mind instantly moves to thoughts of Hitler, or Pol Pot, the Interahamwe, or Mao Tsedong. Shouldn't the genocides perpetuated by these men be stopped, even through violence? One of the greatest theologians of the 20th century wrestled with this same question. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a pacifist throughout all of his preaching and writing was involved and eventually executed for a failed assassination attempt on Hitler. Was violence against injustice best for the greater good? Is it what God would have wanted?

Malachi 3:6 says "For I am the LORD, I do not change." Hebrews 13:8 says, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever." And James 1:17 says, "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning." I believe this, God is the same yesterday, today and forever, but how can I reconcile this with the following scriptures:

"When the Lord your God hands these nations over to you and you conquer them, you must completely destroy them. Make no treaties with them and show them no mercy." Deut. 7:2

". . . in the cities of the nations the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy them . . . as the LORD your God has commanded you." Deut. 20:16-17

"Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.'" 1 Sam. 15:2

God is the Lion. Many recognize that the above scriptures are in judgement of those nations who defiled the one true God, and Jesus doesn't avoid the topic of judgement either. In Luke 10:13-15 Jesus pronounces judgement for the cities who did not recognize and repent. Every time Jesus spoke of the Kingdom of Heaven he is implying judgement, the fact that most will not meet a happy fate, some will die horrible deaths, or worse, be cast into the depths of hades.

Jesus however, is the Lamb. Eventually every living thing will worship this Lamb:

"Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength
and honor and glory and praise!" Rev. 5:12

John the Baptist recognized the Lamb: "The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" John 1:29

The prophet Isaiah describes how this peaceful Lamb will be sacrificed for our sins:

He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before her shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth. (Isaiah 53:7)

And He didn't strike back either, or at least in a way we would have thought. He practiced what he preached from the Sermon on the Mount:

"Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also." Matt. 5:39

"Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you." Luke 6:27-28

So God is both the Lion and the Lamb. Full of both violence and peace. This is a concept I cannot fully understand, and that is OK (His ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts (Isaiah 55:8-9)).

An article in the Simple Way publication Conspire shed some new light on this as I read it earlier this week. The article was titled No Shortage of Messiahs and discussed the peaceful revolution of the true Messiah Jesus Christ. The article recounts the story of the hours leading up to Jesus' death, with some details that my Christian upbringing left out. There were 4 men waiting to be executed as "political insurrectionists." Jesus was accused of calling himself the Son of God, the 3 others are called "thieves" in English, but "the Greek word lestes was a term used by Rome for military revolutionaries." These men were Jewish revolutionaries, who, much like Robin Hood were bandits who had been killing and stealing from the oppressive Roman empire. One eventually rejects Jesus, the other accepts Him, but the third, Barabbas, is put beside Jesus of Nazareth for the people to choose. One will be released, one will be executed.

"There is a profound irony in that moment: The Gospels speak of Jesus as the son of God, or the "son of Abba." In Hebrew this would be bar Abbas. Barabbas. That's right: Two sons of God, presented to the people. Both on trial on the same day for the same crime. They not only share names, but they made similar claims: Both claimed to be the Christ, the messiah, the chosen one who would lead Israel out of bondage, the son of the liberating God whose judgement was imminent and whose reign would be established. And Rome reckoned both of them to be dangerous."

Ultimately, we have the same choice: which son of God will we choose? One that uses redemptive violence to achieve an earthly goal of peace. Or one that doesn't make sense to us, one that uses ways and means that are not compatible with our ways and our thoughts, and achieves a peace that is beyond our comprehension and probably out of our view.

Brennan Manning puts it this way in his book The Signature of Jesus:

Calling peacemakers "bleeding hearts," "do-gooders," and "good Samaritans" with a tone of condescension indicates an unacknowledged alienation from the gospel. When will Christians be honest enough to admit that they don't really believe in Jesus Christ? That the Nazarene carpenter must be dismissed as a romantic visionary, a starry-eyed reformer hopelessly out of touch with the "real" world of domination, aggression, and power?

When we embrace just war theology and redemptive violence as the only way to achieve peace, are we choosing Barabbas over Jesus?

Sorry people. . .

2009-07-27T11:44:00.000-07:00

I don't know how many people really look at this blog, but to those 3 people out there who are waiting for another post, I am working on one. We have been relaxing and waiting on the Lord to reveal things as we dive into our next phase of ministry. I have plenty of thoughts, just nothing that I have felt like writing down lately. They are coming though. . . .

Rainwater Barrels

2009-06-04T15:05:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to get excited about implementing some of the "green" practices we have seen on the road and read about long before we even hit the pavement. Some of these are so simple and low cost that it baffles me why more people wouldn't do it. Probably the easiest and low maintenance ideas is that of rainwater barrels. You simply set up a barrel below a gutter downspout and instead of having the downspout drain to the street you re-route it to fill a 55-gallon barrel. The barrel needs to have a spigot at the bottom where you would attach a hose (or you could simply dip watering cans into the barrel and walk back and forth to the plants, but my time is too valuable for that, plus I'm lazy). Then water. That simple! You can get much more in-depth, to the point where you can actually create filter beds, bore wells and open wells all designed to filter rainwater into drinking water. I simply want to water my garden and potted plants more effectively and efficiently.

My plan is to incorporate 3 water barrels throughout the property. The downspouts are usually on the front of your house, near the street drain-off. I can conceal both of these barrels in corners behind fences and use them to water my front and side yard plants, possibly with soaker hoses. The third barrel I plan to put under our patio covering in the back and use in our small vegetable garden. This one will be tougher to conceal, but I have some ideas.

Amazingly, you only need less than 0.5 inches of rainfall to fill one 55-gallon barrel (shown above). As for savings on your water bill, that depends on your water usage, size of your lawn, number of people in your household, but a rough estimate says that 40% of your water usage during summer months goes to watering gardens, lawns and other plants. My average water bill during the summer is about $80. Let's assume that I can cut my water usage by a conservative estimate of 25%, that would save me approximately $20 a month. I could go on a date with Serenity (if someone would babysit for free - hint, hint :)

Spiritual Schizophrenia

2009-05-18T19:05:00.000-07:00

This passage from Brennan Manning's book The Importance of Being Foolish, might be the best commentary I have ever read about the individual anemic American church goer (sadly, to one extent or another, myself included). It is a long quote, but it is worth reading:

The crisis of American spirituality, put bluntly, is Spirit versus flesh. The failure or flat refusal to abide in the mind of Christ creates duality and separation within us. We do not choose decisively between God and Mammon, and our procrastination constitutes a decision itself. We carefully distribute ourselves between flesh and Spirit with a watchful eye on both. The unwillingness to sustain ourselves with the awareness that we are children of God causes a spiritual schizophrenia of the most frightening kind. It is not that I am afraid to tell you who I am; I truly cannot tell you because I don't know myself who I am. I have not given the deep inner assent to my Christian identity. I am afraid of losing my life if I were to find my real self. God calls me by my name, and I do not answer because I do not know my name.

The lifestyle of schizoid Christians is erratic because at different moments we deliberately separate ourselves from our real selves. We hug certain events, experiences, and relationships to ourselves and exclude the presence of the indwelling Spirit. It may be a movie, a conversation, an illicit love affair, or a business transaction. Later, we re-enter the self that calls itself Christian and take part in events where God is celebrated in speech and song. Afterward we confide to friends, "Worship was kind of flat tonight."

Heightened by what someone has called "the agnosticism of inattention" -- the lack of personal discipline to overcome media bombardment, sterile conversation, and utilitarian relationship --our self-awareness grows dim, the presence of a loving God fades into the distance and the possibility of trust and intimacy seems less plausible. Inattentiveness to the holy destroys openness to the Spirit. Just as the failure to be attentive dissolves personal love in a human relationship, so inattention to the real self dissolves loving awareness of the divine relationship. A verdant heart becomes a devastated vineyard. It is impossible to consider God with heart and head filled with earthly business.

When we periodically close ourselves off from God, our hearts are touched by the icy finger of agnosticism. Christian agnosticism does not consist so much in the denial of a personal God as in the unbelief of inattention to the sacred. The way we live bears unmistakable witness to our loving awareness or lack of it.

Life in the Spirit implies the existential knowledge of being loved by God and sharing Jesus's own experience of that love. But so many of the things we do in our solitary moments have nothing to do with the Spirit or with the living will of God. Bothered by this dichotomy, we plunge into spiritual activities and get involved in church-related organizations and events in an effort to fill the empty space we know needs filling. Disinclined to renounce managerial control of our lives and unwilling to run the risk of living in union with Yahweh, we seek personal security and reassurance in rituals, devotions, liturgies, and prayer meetings. These structures provide a modicum of peace and promise that comfortable piety and material possessions that constitute the sense of self will not be disturbed.

There is a need for careful discernment here. The evidence of earnestness, sincerity, and effort is considerable. But something is missing.

That something is transparency. The glory shining on the face of Christ Jesus does not shine in many of us. Unlike Jesus, we have not given our deep inner assent to who we are meant to be. We have not surrendered to the mystery of the fire of the Spirit that burns within. We stand close enough to the fire to stay warm, but we never plunge in; nor do we come out burned and incandescently transformed. We might be nicer than most other people or have better morals, but we do not live as brand-new creations. Instead, our opaque personalities reveal our divided hearts.

Beauty of the Lord

2009-05-06T18:39:00.000-07:00

“Everybody needs beauty... places to play and pray in, where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike.”

-John Muir (c. 1902)

I had the opportunity to spend the past few days on my own in Yosemite Valley. My campsite was feet away from the Merced River to the East I could see Half Dome and to the West Royal Arch Cascade. I rode my bike from Half Dome to Bridalveil Falls, soaking in the waterfalls, meadows and spring blossoms. Later that day I hiked to the base of Half Dome. I continually was asking God to reveal Himself to me, to show me what He wanted me to encounter, why He was giving me this time on my own. As I walked amongst the pines on my way to Mirror Lake I felt Him embrace me with these simple words: "I love you so much, I just want you to enjoy yourself, this is my gift to you." With the pressure gone of figuring out what God wanted me to understand, I simply rested in Him. It was a time of connection with God that I have never experienced before and it was exactly what I needed. Praise God!

(Yosemite Valley; El Capitan on the left, Bridalveil Falls on the right with Half Dome in the center distant)

The Lord is my shepherd;
I have all that I need.
He lets me rest in green meadows;
he leads me beside peaceful streams.
He renews my strength.
He guides me along right paths,
bringing honor to his name.

Psalm 23:1-3

(Half Dome with Washington Column to the left)

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

Matthew 11:28-30

(Mirror Lake reflecting Mount Watkins)

O LORD, how many are Your works!
In wisdom You have made them all;
the earth is full of Your possessions.

Psalm 104: 24

(base of Yosemite Falls)

Beauty of the Lord

Jesus Your love has come one step closer
I will trust that You will never let me go
Jesus Your love has won me over
All my trust has found no other

I will declare the beauty of the Lord
Nothing compares to the beauty of the Lord
Jesus Your love takes my breath away
I’m living everyday for the beauty of the Lord
Jesus Your love takes my breath

Desperation Band

(Lyrics by Jared Anderson)

(Apple blossom in Yosemite Valley)

Let all that I am praise the Lord.
O Lord my God, how great you are!
You are robed with honor and majesty.
You are dressed in a robe of light.
You stretch out the starry curtain of the heavens;
you lay out the rafters of your home in the rain clouds.
You make the clouds your chariot;
you ride upon the wings of the wind.
The winds are your messengers;
flames of fire are your servants.

Psalm 104:1-4

The Catholic Worker

2009-04-20T09:24:00.000-07:00

We have been parked at a Catholic Worker House for the past week or so, it is located in the predominantly African American neighborhood of West Las Vegas. If you don't know much about the Catholic Worker movement, read here or here, it is well worth your time. If you don't want to go read those links, I will give you a short overview in my own words and experiences: Basically, the Catholic Worker is a loosely connected group of people (and the houses and farms that they live in) who live incarnationally amongst the poor and meet their basic needs through a gospel centered hospitality. The CW is not under the auspice of the Catholic Church, and in many ways is contrary to the Catholic Church. The term Catholic is from it's very beginning roots meaning "the universal church of the apostles" or simply "the Church" or "Bride of Christ." We have come across "protestant" Catholic Worker houses, and unfortunately, we have come across some Catholic Workers who were non-believers and atheists and distributed hospitality based on a skewed humanism that focused on social justice for social justices sake as well as a lot of activism. Overall however, it is a group of believers who are loving Christ by loving on the least of these in a simple and incarnational way in broken parts of this kingdom.

Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day founded this network of hospitality houses and farming communes in 1933, in the midst of the Great Depression. Day gets most of the credit for starting the CW. She was a remarkable woman and fully understood the need for more than hospitality as she was quoted once as saying "Food for the body is not enough. There must be food for the soul."

What is so very interesting to me is that most times when two people of the opposite sex start something, usually the male ends up with all the credit, even when he doesn't deserve it. In this partnership, Day usually gets most of the credit, and from everything I have read, including autobiographical writings by Day herself, Maurin should receive more of the credit than he did. Which is probably just the way he would have wanted it, the glory going to God and the attention going to others, including the men and women he served. He was more of the philosophical and theological engine behind much of the outpouring. When Maurin was on his death bed, literally the last few years of his life, he refused to live inside of their house in New York City, rather, he lived in the old shed in the back that had just enough room for his bed and some of his reading and writing materials. He didn't want to take up any room that could be used for sheltering and feeding the poor.

"So the last will be first, and the first will be last." Matthew 20:16.

Maurin wrote short "essays" or poems with the core of many of his ideas and philosophies running throughout. He called them "easy essays," here are a few of my favorites:

Christianity Untried

Chesterton says:
"The Christian ideal
has not been tried
and found wanting.
It has been found difficult
and left untried."
Christianity has not been tried
because people thought
it was impractical.
And men have tried everything
except Christianity.
And everything
that men have tried
has failed.

Feeding the Poor at a Sacrifice

In the first centuries
of Christianity
the hungry were fed
at a personal sacrifice,
the naked were clothed
at a personal sacrifice,
the homeless were sheltered
at personal sacrifice.
And because the poor
were fed, clothed and sheltered
at a personal sacrifice,
the pagans used to say
about the Christians
"See how they love each other."
In our own day
the poor are no longer
fed, clothed, sheltered
at a personal sacrifice,
but at the expense
of the taxpayers.
And because the poor
are no longer
fed, clothed and sheltered
the pagans say about the Christians
"See how they pass the buck."

Better Off

The world would be better off
if people tried
to become better,
And people would
become better
if they stopped trying
to be better off.
For when everyone tries
to become better off
nobody is better off.
But when everyone tries
to become better
everyone is better off.
Everybody would be rich
if nobody tried
to become richer.
And nobody would be poor
if everybody tried
to be the poorest
And everybody would be
what he ought to be
if everybody tried to be
what he wants
the other fellow to be.

Fast Food Folk Song

2009-04-14T21:23:00.001-07:00

Completely off topic from my usual rants, but my friend Heath posted this on his blog and I had to follow him up. Personally, Taco Bell is my favorite fast food joint, mainly for the price, not necessarily 3 hours later. Watch the whole thing, the most amazing part is after they get done singing.

The Scandalous Gospel

2009-04-04T17:37:00.000-07:00

I'm wondering how scandalous we as Christians really believe the gospel is. Have we done everything we can to fit it into a box that our culture says is acceptable? I don't think that the gospel fits in that box, I think we have made it fit by believing the lies that maybe Jesus wasn't speaking literally and that the things in the Bible don't necessarily apply to us today. The opening of Jesus' ministry, the Sermon on the Mount, gives us a glimpse of the radical demands Jesus was asking of us:

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.

And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.

Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.

But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

All quotations come from the Sermon on the Mount - Matthew 5-7

While we were in San Diego we ran into a group of Rainbow Gathering folks. The Rainbow Gathering found its roots in the counterculture activity of the 1960s and as you can probably guess, is based in hippie culture. We came across a group of these guys back in Rock Springs, Wyoming. They had come down out of the mountains because of a forest fire nearby their camp (according to them was set by the federal government to force them to leave). One of the leaders of the group began spewing theology on all of us that was skewed at best if not complete blasphemy. I couldn't handle it, I wasn't going to argue with the guy, but I wasn't going to listen to him either, so I just went inside and found something to do for a while while Serenity and Tim and Jenn carried on a conversation with him. In San Diego, Captain Kitten (one of their Rainbow Gathering nicknames) spewed much of the same theology, a type of universalism where everything is OK, eventually we will be like Gods, and that Jesus wasn't the Son of God, but just another good man, a wise prophet. I couldn't handle the dialogue with Captain Kitten either and I found something to do while Serenity tried rationalizing with them (it doesn't really need to be said, because all of you know it, but she has much more patience with this sort of thing). I was listening to the entire conversation though and at one point I became so angry that I had to stop and interject. Their main point was this: who is God to demand our respect? What? If God is the creator of everything, the one who created DNA and sunsets, photosynthesis and waterfalls, then we should have no other response other than to fall down on our knees and worship Him. But because of their own self-centered view of the world and of God, these guys wouldn't hear it, they wouldn't listen, although they wouldn't admit it, life was all about them, so I went back to cleaning up and found more to do.

We as Christians however, may be worse - we dumb down the Gospel. We may not believe in some weird universalism, but we are just as self-centered. As Brennan Manning writes in his book The Importance of Being Foolish:

The suspicion grows that the gospel ethic is impractical, impossible, and therefore irrelevant. The words are nice, but who pays them any mind? After all, I can't be asked to do all that! I can't survive in the jungle out there if I take Jesus's revelation seriously. I can't be always giving. There must be a limit.

When we don't take Jesus's words literally, we are missing the point of grace. God's grace winds up being meaningless. Manning goes on to say:

If the radical demands of the Christian life are never proposed, if we settle instead for the tepid observance of a lukewarm set of precepts, how easily we become pharisaical and self-righteous. We try to save ourselves by our own works. . . . The radical demands of Jesus daily remind us of our shortcomings and make us realize that salvation is God's free gift.

When we hold our lives up to the true gospel we have no other response other than to see our own wretchedness and our need for grace that only comes through a relationship with Jesus.

When we hold our lives up to the compromised gospel, the one that fits into our American culture box, we begin to think we can do it ourselves. We take scripture and write it off as something that no longer applies to the 21st century or we find a meaning that doesn't convict but rather confirms. Love your enemies (except if they threaten national security), do not store up treasures on earth (unless the Lord has blessed you with abundance).

We must not filter the gospel, we must let it be what it is, scandalous - Jesus's words meant something when He spoke them 2,000 years ago and they mean just as much today. Just the same, Jesus dying on the cross in our place, His Father giving us a gift that is impossible to earn, but must be simply received, that is scandalous and means just as much today as it did 2,000 years ago.

A New Law by Derek Webb

2009-03-25T21:41:00.000-07:00

One of Serenity and my favorite musical artists is Derek Webb. His lyrics cut to the heart of the Gospel. I was listening to this song while cruising down I-5 in Big Buster and it spoke directly to my desire to be told what to do rather than listen to the Spirit. I want a list of things that will make me more righteous or holy, which all distracts from a relationship with Christ. Here are the lyrics:

Don’t teach me about politics and government
Just tell me who to vote for
Don’t teach me about truth and beauty
Just label my music

Don’t teach me how to live like a free man
Just give me a new law

I don’t wanna know if the answers aren’t easy
So just bring it down from the mountain to me

I want a new law
I want a new law
Gimme that new law

Don’t teach me about moderation and liberty
I prefer a shot of grape juice

Don’t teach me about loving my enemies

Don’t teach me how to listen to the Spirit
Just give me a new law

What’s the use in trading a law you can never keep
For one you can that cannot get you anything
Do not be afraid
Do not be afraid
Do not be afraid

The Silence of Jesus is Exquisite

2009-03-24T21:08:00.000-07:00

On Sunday we went to Harbor Presbyterian Church in Ocean Beach and the pastor spoke on the denial of Christ by Peter. Interesting passage:

Meanwhile, Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard. A servant girl came over and said to him, “You were one of those with Jesus the Galilean.” But Peter denied it in front of everyone. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. Later, out by the gate, another servant girl noticed him and said to those standing around, “This man was with Jesus of Nazareth.” Again Peter denied it, this time with an oath. “I don’t even know the man,” he said. A little later some of the other bystanders came over to Peter and said, “You must be one of them; we can tell by your Galilean accent.” Peter swore, “A curse on me if I’m lying—I don’t know the man!” And immediately the rooster crowed. Suddenly, Jesus’ words flashed through Peter’s mind: “Before the rooster crows, you will deny three times that you even know me.” And he went away, weeping bitterly.
Matthew 26:69-75

The next time Peter sees Jesus is after His resurrection, while fishing on the Sea of Tiberias. Jesus helps the disciples catch some fish (John 21:6), and then asks them to eat breakfast with Him. Nothing reminding him of his denial, or as Brennan Manning says in his book The Importance of Being Foolish,

There is no mention, apparently even no memory, of their betrayal. Never a reproach or even an indirect reference to their cowardice in the time of testing. No sarcastic greeting like, 'well, my fair-weather friends. . . .' No vindictiveness, spite, or humiliating reproach.

Isn't this amazing? Manning states that "the silence of Jesus is exquisite." Again, when Jesus encounters Mary Magdalene, He tells her to "go and tell my brothers. . . ." (Matthew 28:10). He calls these betrayers and cowards brothers. Jesus was the perfect example of how He calls us to love in I Corinthians 13. Especially verse 5: love is "not irritable, and keeps no record of wrongs." Jesus is not disappointed in us, neither is God for that matter. He is silent on the matter because His love has covered it all and His memory is erased.

Saint Patrick

2009-03-18T07:47:00.000-07:00

The town were I used to work in Oregon, Woodburn, has a very interesting mix of people: 80% Hispanic, 15% Russian and 5% other. For the first time in my life I was the "other". I enjoyed the diversity. As wrestling coach I had a disproportionate number of the Russian population as you could have guessed (although I had some really good Hispanic wrestlers, most of the population thought we wore colorful masks with zippers and jumped off turnstiles). Many of the Russian population at the school is Russian Orthodox who would miss 20 or so days of school a year to celebrate different events in church history or to honor different saints specific to thier religion. I would ask students and wresters before they left school for a Russian Holiday, "Do you know what you are celebrating?" Nearly every time the answer was, "well, no, not really." I would give them a homework assignment of learning what they were missing school for other than drinking with their friends in the church parking lot while their parents spent the day inside doing "religious" type things.

So, before we go judging my dear Russian friends, how many of us know anything about Saint Patrick other than parades, Irish, green beer and random people pinching us (I had an old lady pinch me at CVS pharmacy yesterday and then say, "Honey, you go on home and tell your wife that an old lady at CVS pinched you.")

Some cool facts about good ole' Saint Patty:

Historians guess that he lived between 320 and 460 AD
He was British born and considered a Roman (by this time in history the Roman Empire had conquered the British Isles)
He was captured by Irish raiders and forced into slavery on Ireland for 6 years before he escaped and returned to his family
Although he was British (and had been captured and forced into slavery) he had a vision that he was supposed to go to the Irish people to spread the Good News
He refused to take financial gifts from nobility and actually sold his own inheritance to enhance his ability to find commonality with the very people he was trying to reach
He drank a lot of green beer (not really sure about this one, but that's what Americans think, right?)

Knowledge

2009-03-16T10:42:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking recently: "Knowledge doesn't necessarily equate to understanding."

A pastor friend we met recently said to us, "nowhere in the Bible does it command us to 'study'."

I love to research, to study. I have a history degree, one of my favorite places to go is the library, reading about the American west, or the Civil War, World War II, or the middle ages. I just soak it up, I love to study. I think it drives Serenity nuts sometimes. When we travel, I do a lot of research, I don't want to drive 2 miles away from the coolest thing around and not see it, I want to know. I don't want to be ignorant.

But sometimes there is no amount of studying that will bring about understanding. Some things about God are just a mystery, we will never know until we see Him face to face, and even then we probably won't be able to understand the Great Mystery.

For the truth about God is known to them instinctively. God has put this knowledge in their hearts. - Romans 1:19

Paul states clearly that what we know about God isn't necessarily something we learned, it was placed in our hearts by God. When we earnestly seek His knowledge and an understanding of God, He will place it in our hearts what we need to understand.

What interests me is that the early churches, all of the epistles of Paul and others, none of those churches had a Bible, or even early manuscripts of most of what we call the "Bible". I guess they had the letters that where written to them, but outside of a handful of those and what we call today the Old Testament, most of the early believers didn't "study" like we Christians feel compelled to do today. Not that it is a bad thing. However, we get so caught up in doing our "quiet time" or study time, or Sunday "school" which obviously implies "study", that it stops being about an intimate relationship with Christ and becomes a bullet charted knowledge of a book. It isn't living and breathing and exciting.

While knowledge may make us feel important, it is love that really builds up the church. I Corinthians 8:1

Action, which is based in love, is what builds up the church, it is what will truly last, not a super-academia based understanding and knowledge of the spiritual facts of the Bible. That is not pure TRUTH. Ask God to reveal TRUTH, KNOWLEDGE, and UNDERSTANDING to you:

asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you might grow in your knowledge of God. Ephesians 1:17

So stop studying the bullet points and start applying the action of love to the people around you.

make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone. The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Peter 1:5-8

Ears that Hear

2009-02-22T12:02:00.000-08:00

I was recently given a short passage to read from Eugene Peterson's The Jesus Way. In it, Peterson discusses Isaiah 6. It was of particular interest to me because it is the passage that the ministry organization that supports Mustard Seed Ministries is named after - Isaiah's Stump. The Lord revealed some truths in the passage that relate to some of the things we have seen on the road. I have often asked myself, "why don't people repent and turn to the Truth, to Jesus?" We have seen drug addicts in the depths of despair seemingly in the deepest valley of hopelessness, when asked if they would like something to eat, or something to drink, flip us the finger, tell us they have all they need to drink and hold up a bottle. I have seen people, when presented the simple gospel of Jesus Christ, how when you turn to Him, He embraces and frees us, releasing us from the chains we have been bound by, turn away and refuse to accept this free gift of grace and forgiveness. It baffles me, but I'm not sure if the Lord wants us to get too caught up in those who refuse to listen. I believe He simply asks us to be obedient and present the Truth, the simple gospel, and let the Holy Spirit work from there.

We are the sowers, but we do not reap, that is for the Holy Spirit.

Isaiah 6:8-13

⁸ Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?"
And I said, "Here am I. Send me!"

⁹ He said, "Go and tell this people:
" 'Be ever hearing, but never understanding;
be ever seeing, but never perceiving.'

¹⁰ Make the heart of this people calloused;
make their ears dull
and close their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
hear with their ears,
understand with their hearts,
and turn and be healed."

¹¹ Then I said, "For how long, O Lord?"
And he answered:
"Until the cities lie ruined
and without inhabitant,
until the houses are left deserted
and the fields ruined and ravaged,

¹² until the LORD has sent everyone far away
and the land is utterly forsaken.

¹³ And though a tenth remains in the land,
it will again be laid waste.
But as the terebinth and oak
leave stumps when they are cut down,
so the holy seed will be the stump in the land."

Basically the Lord was telling Isaiah that He wanted him to go to the Hebrew people and tell them: "listen, I'm gonna tell you a bunch of things about the Lord, I'm gonna tell you about the Truth. I'm even gonna tell you about the Messiah who is to come, but your not gonna get it." In other words, I'm gonna talk until you are dumb, your eyes, your ears, you will not see, you will not hear. I'm gonna talk until your "cities lie in ruin," and your land is full of stumps. However desolate that sounded, it must have been refreshing for Isaiah! The pressure is gone. Isaiah didn't have to save anybody! I think many times we get this feeling that people have to get it, they must understand, when in actuality, the Lord isn't calling us to make sure people get it. Sure, there is good teaching, mentoring, discipleship, all of this helps guide people into the Truth, but we cannot save a single soul, that is for the Lord, and this is what the Lord was, in essence, telling Isaiah: "be obedient, preach the message I have given you, tell people about the 'holy seed' that is to come." That's it!

Stump land sprouted the "holy seed," Jesus, and Jesus went on to fulfill Isaiah's prophecies and preach many of the same messages. When large crowds gathered around Jesus, he would begin to preach in parables. Personally, I love parables, they are mysterious, they make you think, and usually once you figure out what Jesus was saying, the Truth is profound and meaningful. In Luke 8, Jesus reveals why He uses parables.

His disciples asked him what this parable meant. He said, "The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others I speak in parables, so that,
" 'though seeing, they may not see;
though hearing, they may not understand.'

Jesus quoted from Isaiah 6. Although our heart should be to see every person turned to Jesus, if someone rejects the Truth we should not let it bind us in emotion, we should not let it stop us in our tracks and keep us from pressing on for His glory. Sincere seekers will understand, sincere seekers will perceive. Even with large crowds gathered, Jesus uses a preaching technique, parables, to narrow those who understand. On the flip side of that, it isn't our fancy talk, or our wise words that draw people into a relationship with Jesus. In I Corinthians, Paul mentions that he did not preach the gospel "with wisdom of words," (1:17) and then again "with excellence of speech" (2:1). Paul knows that all he must do is preach the simple gospel of Jesus crucified, it is up to the Holy Spirit to allow those who are listening to truly "hear."

The Art of Volkswagen Maintenance

2009-02-16T19:57:00.000-08:00

Eight years ago, way back in 2001, Serenity and I took a 40-day journey around the western United States. We traveled to 18 National Parks and 22 states. We made it as far east as Kansas City and even went for a swim in the Gulf of Mexico. It was a graduation present for me basically. I was to be done with my Masters degree in teaching (not really a masters, just an extra year of school at an astronomical price to see if you are really serious about sitting in staff meetings about literacy for 4 hours) in May, and I figured I didn't really need to start looking for a job until July or so, so we planned for about a 4-5 week journey. We purchased a 1976 Volkswagen Westfalia pop-top camper van that we then had a rebuilt engine put in. It was 2000 cc of pure power - a minimum of 25 miles per hour up the Rockies - guaranteed!

He purred like a kitten. We nicknamed him Bernie. Volkswagens from this era are actually a lot of fun to drive. Air cooled, so the heat just barely comes out of the vents. In winter I was seen quite frequently driving to school with mittens a ski cap and a down jacket on.

As soon as it looked like I wasn't going to kill any of my professors and graduation was actually something that would likely occur, I began to plan the trip. I laid out every detail, possible scenic routes, roadside attractions, nearby national parks, cool history or scenery. I didn't want to miss out on anything. If we were close, I wanted to go see it. We set a budget and began working on reservations in campgrounds from Yellowstone to the Grand Canyon and Yosemite. We would stay in Walmart parking lots when the money was thin. We rarely ate out, mostly relying on the storage space in the VW, and the 3 burner Coleman stove we brought along. It was seriously a precursor to our current trip - a trial run of sorts without kids and in a smaller vehicle.

We left before 6am on a Monday morning in May. The excitement of the trip was nearly too much to contain. We had loaded up the VW, stacked wood above the front cab for our campfires the first few days, and brewed some coffee. Every detail was accounted for - maps, phone numbers, campsite reservations, cash, etc. The first day we drove east on I-84 through the Columbia River Gorge and then headed north across the river into the apple orchards of eastern Washington. By mid-afternoon we were driving through Spokane and into Idaho. We began to cross the Rockies into Montana for our first nights stop at Beaver Tail Falls in big sky country. The first day of driving was a success - 10 hours of driving, no problems, and we drove through three states.

Next morning Bernie wouldn't start. I had bought this VW repair manual that read like a comic book - everything in it was hand-drawn with funny commentary from the author. After diagnosing the problem, the book told me to take a wrench and tap on the solenoid.

Seriously? Just hit something with a wrench? The book said it, so I did it, and Bernie started right up. However, over the next 5 days, Bernie broke down 6 times. At one point I was so frustrated by it all, I left him running as I filled up with gas - I know, not the smartest, but you weren't there.

We literally coasted into a Walmart in Idaho Falls and I pushed it through the parking lot as Serenity steered it into a good place to stay the night just in case we were stuck there for a few days - it was Friday of Memorial Day weekend. I figured it was the starter, so I got under the back end (most VWs the engine is in the back) and pulled the starter out, which was just simply unscrewing the wires leading to the alternator and solenoid and ratcheting out the bolts keeping it on the engine. I put the starter in a box and began walking down the road in the general direction I thought an auto parts store might be. About a half mile down the road I catch in my peripheral a red truck slowing down with a large bearded man inside who begins to roll down his window. "You need a ride?" he says. I said sure I did and he drove me the rest of the way to the auto parts store. His truck had AC, which was nice since it was nearly 90 degrees outside and even hotter when you are under a Volkswagen. We made small talk while waiting in line, his name was Mr. Robinson, he lived just outside of town was married and had 5 kids. In the near future they were all going to move to Eastern Europe to open an orphanage and share the gospel with the people in a small community in Romania.

His wife and him were on a date night when they saw Serenity and I in the corner of the parking lot. He told her that he wanted to see if I needed help and by the time he came back outside of the store, I was gone, so he went looking for me.

After purchasing a new starter Mr. Robinson gave me a ride back to Walmart where I installed the new part and . . . it still wouldn't start. So, Mr. and Mrs. Robinson invited us to stay at their house until we got it all figured out. He towed us over to his driveway down a long country road in front of an old farm house and then fed us a barbecue meal along with some hospitality and some good conversation. The Robinsons said we were welcome to stay over as many nights as it took - as long as I would help him pack! We didn't roll out of Idaho Falls until the following Monday - after another new starter, new solenoid and some alternator repair. The Robinsons took us in as family, showed us hospitality, gave us encouragement when we needed it and really, didn't ask for anything in return except moving a few cabinets into storage.

One night as I worried about how much the repairs were going to cost, and if our plans would get messed up for staying too long in Idaho Falls, I sat around a square table in the middle of the kitchen of a guy I had only met a day or two earlier, Mr. Robinson said something so simple, yet so true that I have not yet forgotten it: "Andy, its not about the destination, its all about the journey. You've got to find God in the journey."

Sometimes we get so caught up in our schedules, our plans, our calendars, that we forget to live. We are always thinking about what is next, did I plan out next week, or next month, or even next year? What about today, what about this hour, what about this minute? What about the journey? I'm afraid that we are so focused on what is next that one day we will wake up and think, where did it all go? Where was God in all this? Even though I only knew Mr. Robinson and his family for one three-day weekend eight years ago, his words gave me a glimpse of how to truly live and find God - today.

A few phrases I've actually heard more than once. .

2009-02-05T07:44:00.000-08:00

I know this is slightly divergent from what I usually write about, but I couldn't resist not letting people know what my life is like living on the road in an RV with my family. Here are three phrases I heard just this morning: (Warning: potty mouths were used)

1) Momma: "Eva, what happened to your shirt? Sweety, you need to wear a shirt." Ally (4 years old) giggling: "yeah, your nipples are showing."

2) Avery: "Daddy, Ally's butt crack is showing again."

3) Avery: "Daddy, Eva pooped on the sidewalk." My response: "really?" Avery: "Yeah, she squatted and everything."

All before 9am.

A prescription against sin

2009-01-23T09:13:00.000-08:00

If we are walking with the Lord and truly doing what Martin Luther wrote 500 years ago, "Love God and do what you please," then our life will be a reflection of the one who is Love. We will love our neighbors, we will seek justice, we will continually renew our minds to be more like the mind of Christ. Our outpouring will be one of peace, joy and love - the fruits of the Spirit. I believe that many in the Church are so focused on personal sin that we begin to lose the focus on anything outside of our own selves. We become inwardly focused towards a goal of holiness and become fixated on our own sin. There have been times in my life where this has been the truth. During my journey through alcoholism, drug abuse, and sexual addiction I became so focused on the sin that it overwhelmed me with shame and guilt and condemnation, it kept me from seeing God's grace for me. I became confused about who God was and why His Spirit inside of me wasn't eradicating all of the pain and sin. I believe Paul was going through something similar when he wrote:

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. (Romans 7:15-20)

Personal edification and holiness is so very important, but I don't believe it can be done in a vacuum, we must get outside of our own personal journey and share it by outpouring in service to others. Only then can we fully be healed from personal sin. The viscous cycle of sin and condemnation is broken only when we refuse to look inside of us for holiness and focus on the call of Jesus to pour out our love onto others - believing His promise that we won't remain empty, but rather He will fill us back up.

I have been reading an excellent book titled Submerge: Living Deep in a Shallow World by John B. Hayes. In it, he comments on Isaiah 58:6-12 as being not a "legalistic job description" for those who work with the poor, but rather a prescription of a healthy relationship with Christ for all Christians. It is "written for our well-being, not our justification."

“No, this is the kind of fasting I want:
Free those who are wrongly imprisoned;
lighten the burden of those who work for you.
Let the oppressed go free,
and remove the chains that bind people.
Share your food with the hungry,
and give shelter to the homeless.
Give clothes to those who need them,
and do not hide from relatives who need your help.
“Then your salvation will come like the dawn,
and your wounds will quickly heal. Your godliness will lead you forward,
and the glory of the Lord will protect you from behind.
Then when you call, the Lord will answer.
‘Yes, I am here,’ he will quickly reply.
“Remove the heavy yoke of oppression.
Stop pointing your finger and spreading vicious rumors!
Feed the hungry,
and help those in trouble.
Then your light will shine out from the darkness,
and the darkness around you will be as bright as noon.
The Lord will guide you continually,
giving you water when you are dry
and restoring your strength.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like an ever-flowing spring.
Some of you will rebuild the deserted ruins of your cities.
Then you will be known as a rebuilder of walls
and a restorer of homes.
(Isaiah 58:6-12)

Serenity and I have both mentioned that we have went through quantum leaps in our faith since we have been on the road. The Lord had stretched our faith, grown our desire for Him, and multiplied our hope for His Kingdom. Through the struggles, the pain and the sorrow of working with the poor on this journey, we have been much more aligned with God. Not simply because we have helped the poor, but because we have stopped looking to "fix" ourselves and began to look to the Lord. I am personally no longer stuck in the cycle that Paul wrote about in Romans 7 (For what I do is not the good I want to do, etc., etc.), I have come to the point where "I do not even judge myself." (I Corinthians 4:3) The evil one wants us to stay focused on our sin, shifting focus inwardly into a cycle of confusion, distracting us from our call to love God and to love the least of these.

In Isaiah, the Lord promises that when we feed and clothe the poor, when we free the oppressed and give shelter to the homeless, our "wounds will quickly heal." Sin will no longer be our focus, rather glory and honor to the Lord. I think the last verse, Isaiah 58:12, speaks directly to our ministry:

Some of you will rebuild the deserted ruins of your cities.
Then you will be known as a rebuilder of walls
and a restorer of homes.

The Prodigal Son

2009-01-23T07:13:00.000-08:00

We all have something in common with the parable of the prodigal son that Jesus told in Luke 15. To one extent or another, we have all run from God, tried to do things on our own. I find great encouragement in this parable that Jesus told to a group of "tax collectors and 'sinners.'" I think this story has spoken to me because of the Father's great and unexplainable love for His son. Sin separates us from God, but possibly just as impacting is that the evil one tricks us into believing that because of sin, God no longer loves us. The core of Jesus' message in this parable, once again spoken to a group of "tax collectors and 'sinners,'" is that there is nothing that will keep our Father from embracing us. Nothing!

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, can come between us and separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-39

This was a song that was sung at a youth summer camp I used to go to in the Sierra Nevada mountain range of California. I now sing it to my kids every night I put them to bed. It is an important verse to me, one that allows me to believe that although I have turned my back on my Father, slept in pig sties, allowed pride to keep me from going back for so long to my Father's house, He will, and has, embraced me. He loves me - no matter what. Sin separates us from God, but nothing can put a wide enough canyon between the Father and his son to keep Him from loving us.

Twelve years ago the Lord spoke to me at one of the lowest valleys of my life and brought me out of the muck and mire I had been wallowing in. The evil one still had plenty of footholds in my life, and he has used them to try to bring me down, to return me to the pig sty, but I continue to rest in Romans 8:38-39 - nothing can separate us from the Love of God. The prodigal son was embraced by his Father, just like our Father embraces us. Not with a list of things we need to do better, or after we clean ourselves up, but just the way we are. Jesus tells us that when the son "was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him." (Luke 15:20) This is not a picture of a grey bearded Father wagging His finger at us in disappointment, wondering if we are ever going to "get it." This is a picture of a Father who embraces us with love and compassion, excited that we were "dead and are now alive again; [we] were lost and am now found," (Luke 15:24) and begins to celebrate, never burying us with condemnation or shame, tools that Satan tries to use to confuse us about the nature of God. Not only does our Father embrace us after years and years of transgressions, but when we turn to Him, as King David wrote in Psalms 51 after being convicted of his sins with Bathsheba, with a broken and contrite heart, He runs to us and throws his arms around us and kisses us. I'm not even sure if we can fully grasp this radical Love of our Savior for us, but if we can just embrace a slice of it, it can change our world.

Dr. King

2009-01-15T17:50:00.000-08:00

In order to be true to one's conscience and true to God, a righteous man has no alternative but to refuse to cooperate with an evil system.

Martin Luther King, Jr. - In his book "Stride Towards Freedom" - 1958

The Reverend

2009-01-15T17:27:00.000-08:00

True compassion, is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

Martin Luther King, Jr. - From his "Beyond Vietnam" speech, 1967

Martin Luther King, Jr.

2009-01-15T17:10:00.000-08:00

The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.

Martin Luther King, Jr. - From his "Strength to Love" speech, 1963