I found this funny.

True Prophets

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?

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. . .

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

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 :)