Jesus The Radical Pastor

MOVED!

2007-12-13T12:24:00.000-08:00

JESUS THE RADICAL PASTOR
MOVED
click on words

JTRP Has Moved To Word Press

2007-10-28T23:00:00.000-07:00

Hey Blog Friends!

JESUS THE RADICAL PASTOR

has moved to

http://www.jesustheradicalpastor.com/

Meet me over there now. I am using Word Press. A good friend of mine, Jeremy Bouma, is giving me some great "techie" counsel. Jeremy is an exceptional young theologian and friend.

The web site is somewhat under construction so please be patient. Thanks!

Out of Print: A Novel by John W Frye

2007-10-24T21:00:00.000-07:00

My second book is now available! To learn more about it and purchase a copy, click here. At the book website you will also be able to read the back jacket copy, an excerpt from the first few pages and a comment from Scot McKnight's Afterword. Credo House Publishers is a division of Credo Communications under the excellent leadership of Tim Beals.

This is my first attempt at fiction and I am told that it is a gripping and provocative story. You be the judge of that. I wrote the book to provoke meaningful conversation about the Bible as both a divine gift and a human creation.

On the book website is a CONTACT tab. I want to hear what you think of the story. My heart-felt thanks to Jeremy Bouma for creating the book's web site.

I thank Dr. Scot McKnight, Karl A. Olsson Professor of Religious Studies at North Park University, for writing the Afterward, admitting that he is not a huge fan of fiction, but that my book "hooked" him. I appreciate Scot's comments about the novel.

My first book was Jesus the Pastor: Leading Others in the Character and Power of Christ (Zondervan: 2000).

A Time to Laugh: Ecclesiastes and Joy

2007-10-21T14:30:00.000-07:00

"Well, I think Ecclesiastes is just human wisdom, the best people can find 'under the sun.' It's just man's ideas, not God's, you know, what with its hedonism and all, telling us to 'eat, drink and be merry.' It is a wisdom beneath Christian dignity."

The above is what many sadly think of the amazing biblical book titled Ecclesiastes. Notes in the old Scofield Bible promote this misguided view. C.I. Scofield's understanding of the phrase "under the sun" is way off base. It's simply a phrase for location, i.e., "under the sun" means "on the earth." The phrase carries no moral or theological overtones.

We looked at the "meaningless" theme in the last post and concluded that Qoheleth was not being pessimistic, but realistic. In this post we tackle the "enjoyment" or the "eat, drink, and be merry" theme.

Consider these repetitive calls to enjoyment of life:

A person an do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work (2:24).

That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil—this is the gift of God (3:13).

Then I realized that it is good and proper for a man to eat and drink, and to find satisfaction in his toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given him—for this is his lot (5:18).

So I commend the enjoyment of life, because nothing is better for a man under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad (8:15).

Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for it is now that God favors what you do. 8 Always be clothed in white, and always anoint your head with oil. 9 Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun— all your meaningless days (9:7-9).

However many years a man may live, let him enjoy them all. ...Be happy, young man, while you are young, and let your heart give you joy in the days of your youth (11:8-9).

Unquestionably Qoheleth commends eating and drinking and finding joy in life. Yet, the question is: Does Ecclesiastes promote a hedonistic life? The answer is a resounding "No!"

Qoheleth probes the limits and bankruptcy of hedonism as he describes his "experiment" with unbridled pleasure in 2:1-11. Read the verses. Notice Qoheleth's summary comments: "I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure" and "Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun." His foray into hedonism was meaningless. So whatever the repetitive "enjoyment" theme is, it is not a call to hedonism. Hedonism is seeking pleasure as the highest or ultimate goal in life.

The enjoyment theme is a gift from God to help us on our journey in this meaningless existence. If you are tripping over the word "meaningless," please read the previous post. Qoheleth, the wisdom writer, commends finding deep joy in daily pleasures---eating and drinking at our meals, enjoying the pleasures of marriage (if we are married) or companionship with others if we're not. God made us to experience joy, and joy is a worthy experience, a wise experience in our otherwise wearying life.

Behind the wisdom writer's call to joy is a deep-seated belief in a theology of celebration. The God of Israel called his people to joy. God's people were to eat and drink and rejoice in his presence (when they brought tithes to the LORD). Even told to buy "fermented" or "strong drink." What?! Nehemiah told the people not to weep and mourn, but to eat and drink, "for the joy of the LORD is our strength". Jesus told stories of a joyful, party-throwing shepherd who found his lost sheep, and a celebrating woman who found her lost coin, and a village chief who as a father calls for a city-wide feast when his lost son came home. And there was "music and dancing" (Luke 15)!

We sorely need a theology of joy and celebration, especially because some in west Michigan define Christian holiness by what Christians can't do. Horse face holy ones presuming to speak for God wring every drop of joy out of anything and everything. For many, there is a religious knee-jerk response of guilt to every experience of joy. "There will be no joy without guilt in this house...in this church!" Years ago I got a call from a local Bible school telling me that their students could no longer attend our church because we held a square dance during the Fall season. Drabness and dullness are next to holiness. I don't know where these ideas crept into the faith, but they certainly did not come from the Bible or from Jesus.

I think Christian kill-joys perpetuate the ancient heresy of gnosticism. Gnosticism promoted the idea that the flesh is bad and the spirit is good. So anything that is bodily or "fleshly" enjoyable---eating good food and drinking good wine and celebrating good sex---has to be frowned upon; it's "carnal." Only prayer and Bible reading and being quiet are holy, and certainly abstaining from sex except to procreate is very holy . Yet, it was heretics who forbade those things according to the Apostle Paul in 1 Timothy 4:1-4.

Once again we discover Qoheleth to be very astute, giving us rock-solid wisdom. "The words of the wise are like goads, their collected sayings like firmly embedded nails—given by one Shepherd" (12:11). Our party-loving, joy-bringing Shepherd.

Ecclesiastes' Reality Check

2007-10-15T15:30:00.000-07:00

There used to be an indelicate bumper sticker that read "Sh*t Happens." (I'm not trying to be provocative with this. Just reporting what I've seen.)

I think that Qoheleth, the wisdom writer of the Book of Ecclesiastes says it more delicately and robustly, " 'Meaningless! Meaningless!' says the Teacher. 'Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.' "

A group of friends and I recently looked up every reference to "meaningless" in Ecclesiastes. What an apparent negative drumbeat about life---knowledge is meaningless, as is pleasure, success, money, fame, royalty, building an inheritance, work, youth and vigor, death and more!

Yet, the pertinent question is this: Is Qoheleth being negative with his repetitive "meaningless" refrain?

Qoheleth is writing in the tradition of Jewish wisdom. These are some "givens" in his outlook:

1. God is the creator of humanity and of all things (7:27; 11:5; 12:1; 12:7 = Gen 2:7).

2. Human beings experienced a "Fall"--a cracking of the Eikon according to Scot McKnight (7:27; 9:3; rebellion makes humans like "beasts" 3:18).

3. All existence was subjected to meaninglessness as the Book of Ecclesiastes reports. The Hebrew word is hebel (pronounced hev-el) and it means "breath, vapor, insubstantiality, useless." Paul picks up on this reality and writes that God will redeem it (Romans 8:20-21 where the term "frustration" is from the Greek word for hebel).

4. Life does not unfold in a tidy "cause-effect" manner. This truth is what strains the mind and sears the heart of the wisdom writer. Ponder this: "There is something else meaningless that occurs on earth: righteous people who get what the wicked deserve, and wicked people who get what the righteous deserve. This too, I say, is meaningless." Why is this so troubling? Recall Deuteronomy 28--the blessings and the cursings formula? That's why!

Qoheleth is not being negative--a party pooper, a nay-sayer. He's being realistic. We live life in a world created by God and that world has suffered a severe blow because of sin. Qoheleth wants us to wake up and smell the coffee, to hear the screams of the oppressed, to ponder the debauchery of the rich, to smell the nauseating odors of death, to grapple with unexplainable injustice, to monitor our own hearts and honestly admit the evil that is there.

We humans know that things are "not the way they ought to be." We all long for something more, something deeper, more fulfilling. We commiserate, "There's just got to be more to life than this." Even the restless longing is an evidence that we've been touched by God. "[God] has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end" (3:12). We want to know what will happen next and we can't know it (8:7). Here is the smartest thing in the book about meaninglessness: "No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all his efforts to search it out, no one can discover its meaning. Even if a wise person claims he knows, he cannot really comprehend it."

Sometimes there is more behind a bumper sticker than meets the eye.

Emerging Church Conversation...Right Here in River City!

2007-10-11T15:00:00.000-07:00

THE EMERGING CHURCH: EVALUATING THE CONVERSATION
A BAKER BOOK HOUSE FORUM
OCTOBER 18, 2007
7:00 PM
(at the E Paris Store)

This forum will have four topics with four presenters moderated by Sarah Cunningham, author of Dear Church, Letters from a Disillusioned Generation

Topic: What is the Emerging Church?
Steve Argue is founder of Intersect Community, a ministry for training and coaching emerging leaders globally. He is the Executive Director of the Contextual Learning Center of Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, where he teaches. He is a doctoral student at Michigan State University, having completed his MDiv at Trinity International University.

Topic: A Friendly Critique of the Emerging Church
Michael Wittmer serves as Associate Professor of Systematic and Historical Theology at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary where directs the Center for Christian Worldview. Michael holds a Ph.D. from Calvin Theological Seminary and is author of Heaven is a Place on Earth.
Topic: The Emerging Church and Urban Communities
Andre Daley is Founder and Lead Pastor of Mosaic Life, an urban, multi-ethnic faith community in Grand Rapids, MI. Andre earned his B.A. from City College of New York in Psychology and a Master of Divinity from Princeton Seminary.

Topic: The Emerging Conversation is Good for the Church.Presenter: Me. Hopefully I'll have a surprise for those who attend.

Louis McBride, a former student of mine at Moody Bible Institute and now serving at Baker Book House, is working diligently to make this a meaningful learning experience for all who attend. Carve out some time and join us for a stimulating evening of conversation.
Baker Book House recently released a constructive book to advance the emerging conversation. The author is Tim Keel and the book is Intuitive Leadership.

Jesus and The 'Cutting Edge'

2007-10-09T12:15:00.000-07:00

Jesus said, "If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off" (Mark 9:43).

What if your hand is causing you to die? Cut it off!

On April 26, 2003 Aron Ralston, a young man and expert Aspen climber, got trapped as he was hiking in the Canyonlands National Park in Utah. An 800-pound boulder shifted onto his arm as he climbed through a narrow ravine. Five days later, after running out of water and wondering if rescuers would ever find him, Aron cut off his arm with a pocket knife. He repelled down the mountain and hiked 5 miles before he was found by a Dutch vacationing family.

Terry Mercer, a helicopter pilot with the Utah Highway Patrol, said after seeing Aron, "I've never seen anybody that had this much desire and this much tenacity to stay with it and stay alive."

Radical decision. Painful action. Continuing life. These are part of Aron Ralston's story. Jesus teaches us that these issues must be part of our story as well. Sin can be the 800-pound boulder pinning us down and causing life to seep away. "Cut off your hand!" Jesus counsels. Just as we do not condemn Aron Ralston for "mutilating" his body, as a matter fact we admire him, so we do not accept the perjorative claim that Jesus is fanatically calling his followers to self-mutilation. Yes, the terms are strong and, yes, Jesus uses hyperbole, but only to emphasize the seriousness of life in the kingdom of God (versus the alternative).

Sin will kill us. And in this part of Mark's Gospel, the sin Jesus has in mind is that of forsaking him and his gospel way. The sin is obedience to the impulse to lay the cross down and find an easier way to be a Christian. Jesus is strongly warning us to not let anything dilute our loyalty to him and divert us from living the Jesus Way, the way of the cross. It is better to be crippled and be alive than to be whole and be dead. In hell dead.

Radical decision. Painful act. Continuing life. I would want the helicopter pilot, Terry Mercer, to say of my loyalty to Jesus and the gospel of the kingdom, "I've never seen anybody that had this much desire and this much tenacity to stay with it and stay alive." Wouldn't you want that said of your life of following Jesus?

In the USAmerican church we've created powder-puff Christianity and Lazy-Boy discipleship and Sleep-Comfort worship. We're into Super-size me...Me! The last thing we will ever imagine is taking a pocket knife to our soul and experiencing the pain that leads to life. "Oh no, let's not get too fanatical about this Jesus stuff. 'Radical' is not in my vocabulary." It's alright to imagine Jesus bleeding to death on the cross (or to see it portrayed in The Passion of the Christ), but not one drop of our blood, not one bead of our sweat, not one tear from our eyes in the cosmic challenge of following Jesus.

God, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.

Move over, Dirk Pitt. Sylvie's Here!

2007-10-08T17:00:00.000-07:00

Sylvie is ready to dive!

Our daughter, Leah, and her family are vacationing in Florida. Her husband, Andy, and the kids, Jackson, Trevor and Sylvia are having fun on the beach. Andy's brother, Mike, and his family are there, too, sharing a rented house on the ocean front.

"Raise Your Glass": McKnight Awarded at CU

2007-10-06T11:15:00.000-07:00

John and Julie Frye and Scot and Kris McKnight

Julie and I had a delightful evening at the Van Andel Museum in Grand Rapids, MI where Cornerstone University held their Alumni Banquet and Awards Ceremony. Dr. Scot McKnight was honored as the 2007 Alumnus of the Year. Scot still holds the most points in a game for the University's basketball team. Scot's philosophy professor, Ron Mayer, had a copy of the 1976 year book for Cornerstone University (formerly aka Grand Rapids Baptist College). In the year book Julie and I saw a much younger Scot (with hair) jumping in the air for what would have been a 3 point shot if they had existed then. We also saw a picture of a young Gary Raymond who coached Scot in basketball.

From his much hit-upon blog "Jesus Creed" we learn that "Scot McKnight is a widely-recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. He is the Karl A. Olsson Professor in Religious Studies at North Park University (Chicago, Illinois). A popular and witty speaker, Dr. McKnight has given interviews on radios across the nation, has appeared on television, and is regularly asked to speak in local churches and educational events. Dr. McKnight obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Nottingham (1986)."

To me Scot embodies "a new kind of scholar." I think that it is fantastic that Scot stays engaged with the local church; he's smart, yet down to earth, with a joyful sense of humor. He's not afraid to question, explore and formulate new ideas in theological and biblical studies. He's a friend and, at times, corrective voice to "the emerging conversation." He is a machine when it comes to writing, with over 20 books already published and he's working on several more. He's a devoted husband, dad, and Cubs fan. His wife, Kris, is a warm, personable lady with a career as a psychologist. Scot and Kris are high school sweethearts and at one time were an enthusiastic couple for the Freeport (MI) Pretzels!

Scot does, however, have one sad Eikonic flaw: he doesn't like to read fiction. I keep telling him that he can't be a full, well-rounded scholar without reading good fiction (and annually reading Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea and Dickens' Christmas Carol doesn't count). He continues to resist, saying that fiction is a waste of time. C'mon, Scot.

So, Scot received a beautiful hand-carved, wooden trophy of a globe with eagles at the four corners representing Cornerstone's mission to cover the planet with the good news of Jesus Christ. Scot is certainly helping Cornerstone achieve that mission.

Ecclesiastes and Establishment Evangelicalism

2007-10-04T21:00:00.000-07:00

One of the most misunderstood and often maligned books of the Old Testament is the wisdom book of Ecclesiastes. Many readers either dislike it or love it.

Those who resist it usually react to the alleged dismal refrain "Meaningless! Meaningless! Everything is meaningless!" Who needs a Bible book to tell us something like that? Just watch old Seinfeld TV episodes or listen to USAmerican political rhetoric. Why waste revelatory energy on a downer?

Those who like it are drawn to the "eat, drink your wine, enjoy your wife" refrain. We know "stuff happens," so make the most of the good times.

Did the author Qoheleth have a purpose in writing and/or compiling this fascinating book? I think so.

Not only was the Teacher wise, but also he imparted knowledge to the people. He pondered and searched out and set in order many proverbs. The Teacher searched to find just the right words, and what he wrote was upright and true.
The words of the wise are like goads, their collected sayings like firmly embedded nails—given by one shepherd. --Ecclesiastes 12:9-11

A few observations: 1) the Teacher (Qoheleth) is wise. He is not a cynic nor a skeptic. He is a skilled thinker in his biblical tradition. 2) Qoheleth reflected deeply and explored widely and wrote precisely. Ecclesiastes is not spontaneous graffiti. 3) Qoheleth was a word-smith and wrote dependable wisdom.

Using two metaphors (word pictures) in 12:11, Qoheleth (the Teacher) offers his two-fold purpose in writing. The first aspect of his (her?) purpose is to stimulate action. Wise words are like "goads." A goad was a long, pointed stick used by shepherds to provoke movement in animals. Wisdom is a pointy, if not sometime painful stimulant that expects a prompt reaction. "Move!" We could use the cliche' that one of wisdom's aims is "to afflict the comfortable." The second metaphor--"firmly embedded nails"--gives us the second aspect of wisdom's purpose: to create stability. The nails are tent-pegs used to secure the tents so that the desert winds do not blow them down. When the winds are strong, we want the nails to be firmly embedded and to hold fast.

Do you see the creative tension in these wisdom energies? To stimulate and to stabilize. To provoke movement and to prevent movement. Overall, these twin aspects of wisdom's purpose provoke us TO THINK!

I am sick of establishment evangelicalism's strident expectation that we believers simply accept evangelicalism's prevailing views. Don't think! Don't question! Don't dare get into a conversation about establishment doctrines and dare to emend, expand or perhaps, God forbid!, jettison some of them.

We need wise goads these days to get a lot of lazy, just-tell-me-what-to-believe-Christians off their mental butts and to start thinking, questioning, searching the Scriptures with fresh eyes and ears and to begin creating a robust gospel and theology big enough for the devastating global mess our planet is in.

You have heard it said unto you: "If it ain't broke don't fix it." But I say unto you, "The USAmerican evangelical gospel is broke, broke to pieces." The evidence: the sad cultural bondage of the church.

If you're interested in pursuing a robust gospel, I invite you to read and discuss with friends Scot McKnight's book Embracing Grace: A Gospel for All of Us.

Cheeseburger (and more) in Paradise

2007-10-03T21:30:00.000-07:00

Some churches give you a little gold star for attendance. In Southwest Florida, they give you a huge starfish to wear.

Just kidding.

Julie and I spent last week Tuesday to Tuesday with some good friends from church on Estero Island (Ft Myers Beach). They graciously invited us to join them in their condo and to experience the Gulf coast joys of boating, swimming, sea-dooing and golfing. The weather was exceptionally perfect. It never hampered our excursions into daily fun. Did I mention eating?

Last Sunday we attended "Chapel by the Sea," a Presbyterian church. This unique church is decorated in the motif of a ship---the pulpit looks like the bow of a ship, the cross is a mast, the baptismal font looks like a giant sea shell and the windows are stained-glass portals. The Rev. David Uhl spoke on the symptons, causes and cures of "burn out."

Tanned, refreshed and carrying home a boatload of sea shells, we're back.

Jesus and His Rank Amateurs

2007-09-24T10:30:00.000-07:00

It's about this time that I'd start slapping the disciples up side the head yelling, "Don't you get it, you dufi (plural for dufus)?!" The disciples' dufuscosity was in a league of its own. (I am indebted to David Duncan for the term 'dufuscosity' in his book The Brothers K.)

This Galilean rag tag bunch were in a dither about who was 'the greatest' among them. Like a fight among homeless people about who's going to the CEOs breakfast. In a culture obsessed with rank and recognition, the disciples were clamoring for seats close to Jesus. All of them wanted to be first and none of them wanted to be twelth. A little later on James and John will urge their Mommy to lobby for some chief seats for them.

Jewish culture in Jesus' day was paranoid about recognizing the greater and the lesser in the social order. As a host you never dared to seat a greater in a lesser seat. Pharisees, as you may recall, had a penchant for chief seats. Jesus once said that when you're invited to a banquet, don't take one of the "big" chairs, that is, don't flaunt your social rank. Sit in the back and let the host recognize you.

Notice Matthew rubbing his red, swelling eye? Peter punched him as the argument heated up along the road to Capernaum. I'm pretty sure that Peter thought he was the greatest. When they settled in the house, Jesus asked why they got into fisticuffs on the road. The disciples went mute, embarrassed or ashamed or stubborn, who knows?

I don't think USAmerican discipleship training ever elicits fist fights and the reason is we have trivialized and cheapened discipleship. The best we have is a fill in the blank workbook. For example,

"In Mark 9: 36 what did Jesus use as an illustration of his teaching?"

_____________________ [the answer: a child] Ooooooo. Isn't discipleship fun?

Jesus had something deep and wide in mind; he was out to re-train our whole way of life when he said, "Sit down. I'm going to train you now."

The child was chosen not because he or she was cute, or innocent, or 'precious', or trusting. The child was chosen because the child had no rank in the culture. No influence, no vote, no power, no say-so about who's in charge. Jesus was saying, "If you're going to fight, fight for the lowest place in the social order. Become the slave of all." That's just not in our DNA.

We start out early training children just the opposite. "How many stars did you get for your memory verse work?" "Seven, and Billy only got five! I'm better. I get a chiefer seat!"

But the plot doth thickeneth! "Taking [the child] in his arms, [Jesus] said to them, 'Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.' "

What?!

Jesus takes the cultural rank of the little child as well as trains his Twelve to do the same. This can't be. This goes against the whole kit and kaboodle grain! But like the late night cable TV commercial, "Wait! There's more!!" Ponder these words: "...and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me."

The one who sent me. "Jesus, you've got to be kidding!" Are you saying, "God takes the powerless, vulnerable, weak rank of the child?"

Welcome to the new definition of "messiah." Welcome to a re-imaging of God.

No wonder we would just as soon fill out our neat workbooks and call that 'discipleship.' Because our discipleship is just the thinnest veneer over our American way of life.

Litigating the Lord

2007-09-19T12:30:00.000-07:00

Did you know that an Omaha senator has sued God?

Greg Boyd responds here. Boyd asks which God will take the stand.

"I Brought You My Son."

2007-09-18T18:45:00.000-07:00

The church is the presence of Jesus in the world. Let's think about that.

In a startling statement in Mark 9:17-18, "A man in the crowd answered, 'Teacher, I brought you my son... I asked your disciples to drive out the spirit, but they could not'."

Actually at the time the man brought his son to the disciples Jesus was on the Mount of Transfiguration with Peter, James and John, and Moses and Elijah. If I was Jesus, I would have pushed back at the frantic and bewildered father, "What do you mean by saying 'I brought YOU my son'? You talkin' to me? I was not even here, you numbskull!"

But, thankfully, Jesus did not say that.

In the mind of the man, to bring his son to the disciples was equivalent to bringing his son to Jesus. The disciples were an incarnate extension of Jesus. The disciples' failure was Jesus' failure. Later on the father would preface his request with "If you can..." (Mark 9:22). This "if you can" irritated Jesus and he responded accordingly. But the man had some reason to question Jesus' ability in light of his disciples' failure.

Jesus in his last hours would pray for the disciples, "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me" (John 17:20-21). Oneness with Jesus and the Father...that the world may believe that the Father has sent Jesus. That reality is about us--the church. Most USAmerican Christians are "one" with America more than with the only radical Savior for America.

Ponder these words of the glorified Jesus to Saul of Tarsus, ""Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?"

Saul answered, "I am not persecuting you, Lord. I'm only persecuting Christians here and there."

Jesus said, "Don't you get it, Saul? Everything you do to the Christians you are doing to me!"

Jesus seals the reality that his followers are his presence in the world.

This world, filled with desperate people, has every right to conclude who Jesus is and what Jesus can do based on the life, words and deeds, attitudes and priorities of the church.

God help us. "Lord, we believe; help us recover from our unbelief."

Fun Reading: Ella Minnow Pea

2007-09-17T13:00:00.000-07:00

Do you want some fun reading?

Mark Dunn's Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel of Letters fits the bill.

You will meet Ella Minnow Pea who lives on an island named Nollop after the famous Nevin Nollop who was the creator of the immortal phrase "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." Nollop is off the coast of South Carolina.

The blurb from the Philadelphia Inquirer on the back jacket states, "A curiously compelling...satire of human foibles, and a light-stepping commentary on censorship and totalitarianism."

Julie and I both convulsed with laughter reading this "zany book."

Part 4-- A Community Called Atonement: Praxis

2007-09-11T11:15:00.000-07:00

The fourth and final part of Scot McKnight's book A Community Called Atonement is the most creative stuff I've read under the umbrella of "atonement." Even Scot himself writes, "I stand here on the threshold of a doorway that few enter: atonement is something done not only by God for us but also something we do with God for others" (117). Part 4 of the book is titled "Atonement as Praxis: Who does Atonement?"

"We are summoned to participate with God in his redemptive work" (117).

Scot adds this caveat: "But lest I be accused of something worse than heresy, let me make it clear up front: I do not believe humans atone for others and I do not believe humans can atone for themselves. Atonement is the work of God---in Christ, through the Spirit---but God has chosen to summon us to participate in God's work, even though we are cracked Eikons or, to use Paul's words, 'clay jars,' (2 Cor. 4:7)" (118).

The church not only has an atoning message (or Story to tell), the church is an atoning community in the world. The church is God's Spirit-empowered people who bring about healing in human relationships so that people live their Eikonic-purpose: to love God, love others, love themselves (properly) and love the world. All that sin did to crack the image (Eikon) in human beings, God now restores to those so cracked in and through the church--the new society of human beings "in Christ."

Praxis includes justice. But whose justice? "But justice for the Christian is not about freedom or liberty, rights, individualism, or the pursuit of personal happiness. ...Christians can't let the U.S. Constitution (or John Stuart Mill or Karl Marx) define what 'justice' means. We have to define justice in a way consistent with what Jesus meant by 'kingdom'" (124). The ecclesial community is a just community and stands for and extends God's justice in the world.

An ecclesial community (church) sharing in the perichoretic life of the Trinity will be missional more than attractional. "Sent" is a key word (see John's Gospel). Jesus and Paul envisoned the church sent into and engaging the world in beneficiary ways, in Jesus Creed ways---loving God and loving others. And we do so, not with the agenda to get the world "saved" but because that's simply what the Jesus Way means.

"Whenever the Bible replaces the Trinity, we have bibliolatry" (143). This is Scot's way of saying we have a (Trinitarian) God-centered faith, not a Book-centered faith. Scot affirms Eugene H. Peterson's Eat This Book.

Scot concludes section four (and his book) with a brief word about the "atoning" nature of baptism, the Lord's Supper and prayer.

With so much pious junk food for the soul available in the market place, it is good to have devoured A Community Called Atonement and to feel the vitamins and minerals of excellent teaching. Thanks, Scot.

Part 3-- A Community Called Atonement

2007-09-10T09:00:00.000-07:00

In Part 3 of A Community Called Atonement "Atonement as Story: Whose Story?" I had the feeling that Scot McKnight was a skillful and knowledgable tour guide taking us to some of the most interesting "places" in the land called Atonement.

Why did Jesus choose Passover rather than Yom Kipper as the backdrop for his atoning mission? Doesn't the Day of Atonement logically fit Jesus' saving intent? We are treated to atonement in the story created by Jesus, and it is fascinating with some tidbits thrown in about the actual meal Jesus ate with his disciples---a "Passover-like meal." Interesting, indeed. With this excursion into the Jesus story, the vast panorama of atonement captures our minds. Only in Part 3 of the book is Mark 10:45 introduced as crucial.

Question: Why did Paul go a different way than Jesus with his atonement story? Why did Paul not feel obligated to mimic Jesus' details? Why did the Early Church Fathers feel free to create their own stories of atonement and not mimic either Jesus or Paul? Why does Paul haul us into a courtroom? Why is Paul obsessed with "death"? (Scot calls Paul a 'mortician.') We have to know the story that Paul is trying to tell. We get McKnight's take on the theological hot potato called NPP or New Perspective on Paul.

Scot walks us through what I will call the Atonement "hall of fame," that is, the various theories of the atonement. Scot likens the theories to golf clubs. Rather than picking one club as the best or dogmatically asserting only one as "the biblical view," Scot puts them all in the golf bag that he calls Jesus' identification for incorporation. Scot shows how each club is needed and each club is biblical. We must listen to them all if we are going to hear the beautiful and robust orchestration of the music of atonement. Scot values penal substitution, yet points out a couple of weaknesses in that theory which makes it too restrictive to tell the whole story of atoning grace.

Next: Part 4

Part 2- A Community Called Atonement-- More than "Me" Theology

2007-09-08T08:30:00.000-07:00

Part 2--Atonement and Image: With Which Image?

This part of Scot McKnight's A Community Called Atonement I would title "Atonement Theology for Dummies." Scot has a pleasant and peaceful style and a "new kind of scholar's" ability for making complex theological concepts clear and accessible to the rest of us.

In an evangelical culture of rampant individualism..."you [Jesus] took the Fall, and thought of ME above all..." suggests a popular Christian song. Me, me, me. Well, sorry to burst the "me" bubble, but Jesus had more on his mind while on the cross than "me." Scot unpacks the robust scope of Jesus' atoning work. Of course, by virtue of their union "in Christ" individuals do benefit from Jesus' saving life and death and resurrection and the giving of the Spirit at Pentecost. Yet, all those aspects of Jesus' atoning work have a community in mind, a specific people--the people of God. "Before another word be said, notice the essence of this act of God: Pentecost comes not simply to regenerate individual Eikons but to recreate an ecclesial community of faith in which the will of God manifests inself in worship, fellowship, and the missio Dei" (75).

In this section of the book Scot delivers us from the horribly reduced and anemic "gospel" testimony that squeaks out, "Jesus died for my sins so I can go to heaven." In place of that withered reduction Scot offers the perichoretic acts of God that invite us into a reality "in Christ" that literally renews the cosmos! We are caught up into something huge, grand, sweeping, and, at times, ineffable.

Scot offers a crux et ("the cross and...") view of atonement. While emphasizing the pivotal and strategic cross work of Christ, Scot shows how Jesus' incarnation (and earthly life), his death on the cross, his resurrection (and ascension) and the giving of the Spirit are all part of the story of atonement. Most of us have been taught atonement only in terms of sacrifice and blood (and those are important features of atonement, yet not the whole story).

Using Scot's controlling metaphor, we need multiple golf clubs in our bag to understand atonement. It surprises many that penal substitution is just one club in the bag.

Next: Part 3

A Community Called Atonement: Part 1

2007-09-06T12:30:00.000-07:00

Scot McKnight, Karl A. Olsson Professor in Religious Studies at North Park University, offers another provocative study. His recent book A Community Called Atonement (Abingdon) invites us to hear the symphonic music of the biblical metaphors for the atonement.

The guts of the book comprise four parts:

1. Atonement and Convergence: Where to Begin?
2. Atonement and Image: With Which Image?
3. Atonement as Story: Whose Story?
4. Atonement as Praxis: Who Does Atonement?

Many teachings on atonement get right to a specific text like Mark 10:45, for example. Scot wisely resists that urge. In Part 1 Scot begins with Jesus (of course!) and with Jesus and the kingdom of God.

But, wait! Like the cable TV, late night commercial, there's more! Scot goes on to present six significant converging realities that lead up to the symphonic sounds, the multiple images that present the atonement. Let the reader, read.

"Thus, atonement is not just something done to and for us, it is something we participate in---in this world, in the here and now" (30).

Next: Part 2

Jesus: Do You See Who I See?

2007-09-05T21:00:00.000-07:00

Have you heard of a stereopticon?

Neither did I until I read a brief description of one in The NIV Application Commentary: Gospel of Mark by David E. Garland. (Garland was quoting an essay by Walter Wink.)

A stereopticon allows a person's brain to receive two different images, one from each eye, at the same time. Like the huge lenses that your optrician uses to test your eyes, the stereopticon projects the two images. Two groups of people, Latin Americans and USAmericans, with stereopticons were simultaneously shown images of a bull fighter and a baseball player. The Latin Americans "saw" only the bull fighter and the US citizens "saw" only the baseball player. The point? We are culturally-conditioned "to see" what we see.

Scot McKnight over at Jesus Creed.org in "Which Jesus will it be?" suggests that various "Jesus scholars" see a Jesus in the Gospels that they set out to see. Some see an historical Jesus as a failed prophet, or a pious theological Jesus, or a Second Temple Judaism Jesus, or a projection of the early church Jesus, or a Jewish Cynic Jesus, etc. Like the old TV show, I want to say, "Will the real Jesus please stand up!"

A contingent of evangelicals (decreasing monthly I hope) are still holding to "the myth of objectivity." They seem to think and speak and write as if they are above the fray and are not at all culturally-conditioned. In the ghetto of their minds they find safe haven. As far as they are concerned, they come to the Bible with pure, uncluttered, unconditioned, unbiased, untainted minds. Thus, their pronouncements have the tone and inviability of bomb-proof certainty. You get the feeling that not only is the Bible inerrant, but each of their statements are, too. How can they be wrong since they are so "objective"? They, and they alone, have "the biblical position" on whatever the topic is at hand. They are clueless to the condescending arrogance they project. Nit-picking sawdust out of others' eyes as they haul logs in their own. It's silly really.

But, John, this just leaves us with relativism! No one knows all the truth and everyone has some of the truth? Where will that get us? Only confused, right?

Not necessarily.

Imagine that I am talking with some friends about my lovely wife Julie. I am a devoted witness to her. Some friends think that Julie is a native Michiganian, not knowing she was born in Dallas, Texas. Some think she married me for my knock down good looks (and they may not be too far off), some think she, as a pastor's wife, is omnicompetent for all things local church. Some think she is the coolest grandmother alive. I can defend her honor, be a good apologist for her character and abilities, build bomb-proof evidence of her interesting history and on and on. Yet, the best thing I can do is introduce her to my friends. "Friends, here's Julie. Talk with her. Get to know her."

Jesus is more alivethan Julie, so to speak. Do we really believe this truth? Relational knowing is "true" knowing. Do I know Julie personally? Yes. Do I arrogantly presume to know all about her? Even after 38 years of marriage, the answer is "No." Yet we have some evangelicals presuming to know God fully----everything there is to know about God they know. Don't dare "to know" anything differently about God than they do. (The irony is that they keep repeating Luther and Calvin as if all good theological work ended with the Reformers.) Those who disagree with them may end up being labelled hairy ticks.

Some USAmerican evangelicals seem to think the Great Commission is "Go, and tell the world how evil it is [especially if it's liberal Democrat] and slam your Christian brothers and sisters, too, if they disagree with you."

Gandhi said, "Live now the way you want the world to become." That's "gospel" even according to Jesus.

The Shaping of Pastors to Come

2007-09-04T12:45:00.000-07:00

A friend informed me of the latest ecclesiological technology.

Click here.

The Joy of Mini-Church: 5th and Final Part

2007-08-29T12:45:00.000-07:00

I will conclude with some personal musings about mini-church. I use mini- in place of mega-. I am persuaded that mini- is where it's at pastorally.

A person who is interested in and skilled for (and "called" to) pastoral ministry carries an internal vision of local church life. The prevailing "business" model of church will appeal to those with the requisite leadership (read CEO) and management skills. Achievable goals, clear objectives, measurable standards and crisp job descriptions will be the vocabulary of the operation. None of this is bad nor is it necessarily biblical. It's the way things are in the good old U.S. of A. A Harvard or Yale MBA is more required than, let's say, a seminary ThM or MDiv to take charge of the megachurch. Bravado and challenge are the guts of mega-ministry. "We gotta take the hill even if we die trying!" shouts the commander- in-chief. Mega- means big. So, you need help. It's a "team" thing. Probably Philip, the disciple, was Jesus' "executive pastor" because Philip carried the calculator. "Lord, we don't have enough bank to feed this mob. Cha-ching!"

Maybe it's just me, but pastoral ministry ought to be, well, pastoral. My goal as a pastor is to help ordinary people living their ordinary lives to be attentive to God. If they take a hill or two in the process, fine. But to take several hills and then have them ask, "Well, dang, where was God in this whole enterprise?" seems futile to me. Jesus got more done in 3 short years with Twelve people than a lot of USAmerican pastors get done in 20 years with 5000 people. What's up with that?

You can't package and market "soul care." It can't be purpose-driven. There are no 7 sure steps to soul care. You can't fill in the blanks in a manual and learn soul care. Do pastors need to be attentive to God? Yes or no? Here's the reality : We're burning pastors out by the hundreds every week and they show up at our retreat/renewal centers ashamed and crying, "I lost God. I actually lost God somewhere in this mess called ministry. I kept the 'operations' afloat, but I was running on empty." Church = keeping the operations afloat (expletive deleted).

Human relationships are not digital or programmatic. Sound and sight and touch, laughter and tears and silence, story and memory and hope, pain and questions and freedom to deeply doubt and still be loved, hate, confusion and bitterness, forgiveness, peacemaking and embrace. Waiting for and helping Rodney and Betty to get from their car using their walkers to their chairs on Sunday morning. Listening to little Jessica tell why she's wearing a watch: "It tells me when I get to go potty" she beams with an absolutely gorgeous smile. High-fiving with energetic Sam and getting some coffee for aging Ray. Talking theology with Jeremy, talking drywalling with Harold, thanking Cheryl for her delicious meat loaf and helping Rich hang letters on the church sign. Grieving with a new widow and laughing with Tim and Sonja about the "thrills(?)" of raising daughters. And in the midst of life as it is, encouraging one another to stay attentive to God---to God's presence, love, promises and mystery.

Few are those who find it.

I am ending this brief series because all you need to do is google "small church" and helpful resources galore are available.

Proper Confidence by L. Newbigin

2007-08-28T10:30:00.000-07:00

This is one stimulating stick of dynamite...and it's lit.
What? you ask.
Leslie Newbigin's Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt and Certainty in Christian Discipleship.

I've seen this little, yet potent book referenced on different blogs and I've had friends encourage me to read it.

What if we discover that with the syncretism resulting from the submission of the evangelical faith to the prevailing tenets of modernity, evangelical scholars, pastors and people have warped the Bible into a book that even Jesus wouldn't recognize? Newbigin, while not using those words, suggests that we've done just that. With the embracing of Decartes' "I think therefore I am," thinkers in the West elevated the human mind as the arbiter of truth (aka "indubitable certainty").

Many have endeavored to transform the Bible into a book about epistemology (how we know what we know) rather than God's Grand Story of soteriology (how we find deliverance from the tyranny of cosmic fallenness). I am indebted to my friend, Scot McKnight, for this observation. Newbigin stresses that the only "indubitable certainty" is a Person---the Three-in-One God. To shoe-horn the Bible into being a book with "scientific accuracy" is to commit an act of treason against the Christian faith. Trans-rational realities are at work in the faith and these supremely relational realities will always seem "moronic" or be "a stumblingblock" to those who need to live with the fantasy of "indubitable certainty."

Those committed to "indubitable certainties" scramble around in the problem passages of the Bible and invent ways to make the Bible hold its own in a culture worshipping at the feet of scientific "truth." Remember the noise and the dust and smoke of "the battle for the Bible"?

I like Newbigin's suggestion that Descarte could have offered, "I love therefore I am." Imagine the West if that idea had caught hold and shaped an epistemology. Knowledge puffs up, loves builds up. Hmmmm....where did that idea come from?

The Joy of Mini-Church: Part 4

2007-08-27T09:45:00.000-07:00

Nickles and noses. Not!

How do you measure a "successful" church? Budgets and buildings and bodies? I read somewhere that when you measure a church by personal relationships, the small church is the best expression of the Christian faith. When we think that a Sunday event is the marker of success, then personal relationships take a much lower rank on the priority list. Many people filter in and out of "big" churches and nobody knows their name. So with the dawn of the 1980s, "small groups" became the mantra of big churches. One illustration I saw at a "church growth" conference was a picture of an elephant made up of a collection of mice. Big church made of small groups. Nice. Whoopee.

Love is never anonymous. Love has named, personal interaction all over it. The Trinity is love according to the Apostle John. Yet, this love never came from a distance, from a platform up front through a well-crafted monologue. Love had a face and a name, touching hands, dusty feet, both a tender and turbulent voice, and an engagement with the best and worst of humanity. Small churches are about named people who are deeply committed to loving God and loving others. The love is not a succinct leaflet or an iPod message or a stunning foyer with a Starbucks in the corner. The love is a smile and handshake, a listening ear, a reaching in the pocket and money given without having to go through "the proper budgetary channels." It seems that small churches are just the right size for loving God and loving your neighbor. I read somewhere, "Small congregations are the right size to be all that God calls a church to be."

I think a church is too large when its size distracts us from practical, nitty gritty love. When all the energies are directed into "growing" rather than into "loving," the church has become an idol. Jesus did not say, "The world will know that you are My disciples by the massive people- warehouses you build and call churches."

Can large churches really love God and love people? Of course! But they have to overcome so many obstacles (or, as in the movie O, Brother Where Art Thou "Ob-STACK-als") that simply don't exist in the smaller churches.

Here's an insider note, a myth-buster. Conventional, big church wisdom says that in a small church the pastor does everything. He or she has to. Pastor is the hired gun; the paid professional. It's simply not true. In my small church I am not frantic to "mobilize the laity." I'm trying to keep up with them! They are loving God, loving each other and their neighbors. My challenge now is to take all that loving and help shape it into some corporate---"let's do these things together"---strategies.

I hope you ponder this particular joy of the small church.

NOTE: Les Puryear visited and commented. You talk about some good stuff about mini-church! Click here www.lesliepuryear.blogspot.com

The Joy of Mini-Church: Part 3

2007-08-21T18:00:00.000-07:00

Family. The greatest joys, the deepest heartaches.

One of the joys of mini- versus mega-church is that people want a sense of family. I admit that it is possible to create a "family feel" in a mega-church, but it's not easy and it's not the same as being a family. Sometimes people will gravitate away from a big church saying something like, "We just felt lost there. We could come and go and no one would even know. So, we wanted to seek out a small church where we could develop a sense of belonging...of 'family.'"

Those who know more than I do about these things tell me that the moment you choose to be a "family" church, you have immediately limited your growth potential. At a certain growth point a church will not feel family-like anymore. Some line is crossed and the church becomes "an organization" or "a team" or (gasp!) "an army." Mega-churches work like mad to break their bigness into littleness--with connecting church, house churches, small groups, or "platoons." I think that at some point the very forms of bigness work against what the "church" is supposed to be. I could be wrong.

My question is this: why do we have to outgrow the sense of "family"? Who says with any kind of binding authority that being a family church is a bad thing? I get out my New Testament and review what God's up to in calling out people for his Name and I see "family" everywhere!

I know that the first century familia was not the same as the USAmerican "nuclear family." The familia included a man, his wife, his children and his slaves (with their families). Yet, the family was a working metaphor for the called-out ones of God. We are the "household" of faith. We have a common Father and older Brother. Even Paul chose to use the family metaphor to shape his apostolic ministry, telling the Thessalonian church that he served among them like a "nursing mother" and like "a father." He didn't throw around his apostolic weight; he demonstrated family love. Moreover, and most strikingly, Jesus said, "Who are my mother, my sister and my brother? Anyone who does the will of my Father, that's who!" Jesus redefined the family--the new people of God.

When our daughters were younger I would sometimes refer to one of them as "old-what's-her-name."

"Oh, Da-aaad! You know who she is."

Of course, that's what families are for: a place where you are known. Not tagged with a sticker that reads, "Hi, my name is John." And it's not just your name that matters. You matter, and your entire story is held as a sacred trust. You are not your story, but you and your story are honored and challenged and transformed "in the family."

I know that's what bars are for, too. "Cheers"--where everybody knows your name.

Mini-church is family size. We're small enough to create a common family story and yet big enough to do more in and for our community than any one (USAmerican nuclear) family can do. A Trinitarian God-shaped relational community exists and it seeks to spread the love and the joy. The idolatry of the USAmerican (Christian) nuclear family is dismantled in the presence of a serving, missional, multi-gifted spiritual family where there are no "big shots."

Turn in your Bibles to Luke 4, and pass the green beans and potatoes...

The Joy of Mini-Church: Part 2

2007-08-20T12:30:00.000-07:00

Uncontrived intergenerational community is another joy of the mini-church.

The bigger the church, the more the crucial realities have to be programmed. Crucial relationships have to be turned into "goals," "objectives," and "measurable standards" with someone responsible to see the program succeed. Nothing "mega-" happens naturally. "Mega-" must be "visioned" and "staffed" and "budgeted."

Thankfully it's not that complicated in a small church.

Meet Ray. He's an older Dutch man with white beard and hair. His rich, sonorous voice stirs us all as he reads the Psalm for the morning. In the Netherlands during World War II he served in the underground and led clandestine assaults against the Nazis. When Ray tells me what he did to survive those horrendous months of war I sense that I'm at the edge of a suffering and pain that I'll never really comprehend. Ray deeply loves "Gott." To hear Ray's passion as he ends the corporate praying of "the Lord's Prayer"--"...and the power and the GLO-ry forever"--sends chills down your spine.

And the following Sunday, there is 11 year old Shelby, blonde hair, blue eyes, 'cute as a bug' as they say, reading for the congregation the Psalm of the morning. Her voice brings to us the 'voice of God' just as Ray's did the Sunday before. I've met Shelby's two younger sisters and I know her mom and dad. Shelby is sharp. She's already a seasoned trial lawyer in a little girl's body. I know from inside sources and I've seen proof.

For a small church, we've got the generations covered end to end. I baptized little baby Nathan on Mother's Day and I recently did the funeral of Mark who died unexpectedly at age 53, leaving a widow and four children and four grandchildren.

Nothing is contrived. We aren't trying to be intergenerational. We just are. Young voices and old, aches and pains, giggles and diapers, walkers and hearing aids, game-boys and hair-ties. We've got bald babies and bald old men. We've got young adults (like Julie and me...don't I wish we were still 'young adults'). Children have a place and space with the adults, and yet have their own space as well. We have singles, and widows, we have marrieds and remarrieds. We have war veterans and postmoderns. Most of all we have a common love for Jesus Christ.

As the pastor, I want people to know that God's voice sounds like the voice of everyone in our community. Not just mine, or Ray's or Shelby's. Even out of the mouth of infants our God speaks.

Life, intergenerational life happens in mini-church. What a joy!

The Meaning of "STOP"

2007-08-19T19:00:00.000-07:00

Hermeneutics in Everyday Life
by Tim Perry, Durham University.

Suppose you're traveling to work and you see a stop sign. What do you do? That depends on how you exegete the stop sign.

1.A postmodernist deconstructs the sign (knocks it over with his car), ending forever the tyranny of the north-south traffic over the east-west traffic.

2.Similarly, a Marxist refuses to stop because he sees the stop sign as an instrument of class conflict. He concludes that the bourgeois use the north-south road and obstruct the progress of the workers in the east-west road.

3.A serious and educated Catholic rolls through the intersection because he believes he cannot understand the stop sign apart from its interpretive community and tradition. Observing that the interpretive community doesn't take it too seriously, he doesn't feel obligated to take it too seriously either.

4.An average Catholic (or Orthodox or Coptic or Anglican or Methodist or Presbyterian or whatever) doesn't bother to read the sign but he'll stop if the car in front of him does.

5.A fundamentalist, taking the text very literally, stops at the stop sign and waits for it to tell him to go.

6.A seminary-educated evangelical preacher might look up "STOP" in his lexicons of English and discover that it can mean:

1) something which prevents motion, such as a plug for a drain, or a block of wood that prevents a door from closing;

2) location where a train or bus lets off passengers. The main point of his sermon the following Sunday on this text is: when you see a stop sign, it is a place where traffic is naturally clogged, so it is a good place to let off passengers from your car.

7.An orthodox Jew does one of two things:

a) Take another route to work that doesn't have a stop sign so that he doesn't run the risk of disobeying the Law;

b) Stop at the sign, say "Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, king of the universe, who
hast given us thy commandment to stop," wait 3 seconds according to his watch, and then proceed.

Incidentally, the Talmud has the following comments on this passage: Rabbi Meir says: He who does not stop shall not live long. R. Hillel says: Cursed is he who does not count to three before proceeding. R. Simon ben Yudah says: Why three? Because the Holy One, blessed be He, gave us the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. R. ben Issac says: Because of the three patriarchs. R. Yehuda says: Why bless the Lord at a stop sign? Because it says, "Be still and know that I am God." R. Hezekiel says: When Jephthah returned from defeating the Ammonites, the Holy One, blessed be He, knew that a donkey would run out of the house and overtake his daughter, but Jephthah did not stop at the stop sign, and the donkey did not have time to come out. For this reason he saw his daughter first and lost her. Thus he was judged for his transgression at the stop sign. R. Gamaliel says: R. Hillel, when he was a baby, never spoke a word, though his parents tried to teach him by speaking and showing him the words on a scroll. One day his father was driving through town and did not stop at the sign. Young Hillel called out: "Stop, father!" In this way, he began reading and speaking at the same time. Thus it is written: "Out of the mouths of babes." R. ben Jacob says: Where did the stop sign come from? Out of the sky, for it is written: "Forever, O Lord, your word is fixed in the heavens." R. Ben Nathan says: Where were the stop signs created? On the fourth day, for it is written: "Let them serve as signs." R. Yeshuah says....[continues for three more pages]

8.A Lubavitcher rabbi (Pharisee) does the same thing as an orthodox Jew, except that he waits 10 seconds instead of 3. He also replaces his brake lights with 1000 watt searchlights and connects his horn so that it is activated whenever he touches the brake pedal. He also works out the gematria of shin-tav-pey (S-T-(O)-P) and takes it to mean that the Rebbe Schneersohn, of blessed memory, will be resurrected as the Messiah after he has stopped at this intersection 780 times.

9.A scholar from the Jesus Seminar concludes that the passage "STOP" undoubtably was never uttered by Jesus himself because being the progressive Jew that He was, He would never have wanted to stifle peoples' progress. Therefore, STOP must be a textual insertion belonging entirely to stage III of the gospel tradition, when the church was first confronted by traffic in its parking lot.

10.A NT scholar notices that there is no stop sign on Mark street but there is one on Matthew and Luke streets, and concludes that the ones on Luke and Matthew streets are both copied from a sign on a street no one has ever seen called "Q" Street. There is an excellent 300 page doctoral dissertation on the origin of these stop signs and the differences between stop signs on Matthew and Luke street in the scholar's commentary on the passage. There is an unfortunate omission in the dissertation, however; it doesn't explain the meaning of the text!

11.An OT scholar points out that there are a number of stylistic differences between the first and second half of the passage "STOP." For example, "ST" contains no enclosed areas and 5 line endings, whereas "OP" contains two enclosed areas and only one line termination. He concludes that the author for the second part is different from the author of the first part and probably lived hundreds of years later. Later scholars determine that the second half is itself actually written by two separate authors because of similar stylistic differences between the "O" and the "P".

12.Another prominent OT scholar notes in his commentary that the stop sign would fit better into the context three streets back. (Unfortunately, he neglected to explain why in his commentary.) Clearly it was moved to its present location by a later redactor. He thus exegetes the intersection as though the sign were not there.

13.Because of the difficulties in interpretation, another OT scholar amends the text, changing the "T" to "H". "SHOP" is much easier to understand in context than "STOP" because of the multiplicity of stores in the area. The textual corruption probably occurred because "SHOP" is so similar to "STOP" on the sign several streets back, that it is a natural mistake for a scribe to make. Thus the sign should be interpreted to announce the existence of a shopping area. If this is true, it could indicate that both meanings are valid, thus making the thrust of the message "STOP (AND) SHOP."

14.A "prophetic" preacher notices that the square root of the sum of the numeric representations of the letters S-T-O-P (sigma-tau-omicron-pi in the Greek alphabet), multiplied by 40 (the number of testing), and divided by four (the number of the world--north, south, east, and west), equals 666. Therefore, he concludes that stop signs are the dreaded "mark of the beast," a harbinger of divine judgment upon the world, and must be avoided at all costs.

* * * * * *

I hope you had a good laugh. I found this over at smallchurch.com

The Joy of Mini-Church: Part 1

2007-08-16T12:30:00.000-07:00

In Leadership Journal I saw a funny cartoon some years ago. A street ran between two churches. On one side of the street was a huge mega-church and on the other side a small mini-church. The pastors of both were fleeing their respective churches and running toward the opposite church shouting, "Finally, this is what I really want!" Mega-guy wants a mini-church and Mini-guy wants a mega-church.

I am going to do a meandering series about the joys of mini-church. While I do not intend to disparage mega-churches, I do tend to view them as celebrity churches. Just as Hollywood elevates celebrities against whom many citizens unwisely measure their ordinary lives and live vicariously through "the stars," so lots of people (and pastors) in small churches get star-struck by and perhaps envious of the evangelical celebrity churches. I do confess that I've learned a lot from Willow Creek Community Church, Saddleback, Mars Hill Bible Church, Hillsong, and other big time churches. But, let's admit it, these are the celebrities among us---us, the ordinary, non-celebrity churches. The average Episcopal Church has 89 members. Most USAmerican churches are 100 or less.

Ed Dobson, long-time pastor of Calvary Church here in Grand Rapids, MI, once said at the Moody Pastors' Conference, "Big churches have big problems; little churches have little problems. So, brothers and sisters, don't envy me because I pastor a big church." I'll never forget Dobson's transparent comment.

I don't want to repeat the recurring litany (cliche) of the small church: Bigger is not necessarily better. Why? Because sometimes bigger is better. Bigness is no sin, but neither is smallness. The fatal flaw in thinking about smallness in a "super-size me" culture is that smallness means or marks failure. Or, smallness represents lack of passion, or comfort with the status quo, blah, blah, blah. Wrong!

I, like most of you, am aware that we're in a massive transitional era in church history. We're in a vast liminal space. Some enduring, cherished, yet merely human constructs of theology are being questioned, debunked and/or reconfigured. Ideas move the world. Theological ideas move the church.

These are the days of highly interactive, global, transitional theology. I, for one, like it. It does not scare me, as apparently it does a lot of my pastor-peers. Even the idea of "pastor" is being reimagined. Great. But in liminal space, the floor moves. Nothing is nailed down. Liminal space needs liminal leaders. For those who need a "nailed down" confidence--an unmoving floor-- these are frightening times. Fear provokes a plethora of panicked idiocy. My advice? Chill. As passionate followers of Jesus and the Jesus Way, we'll make it through. Not without tears and, perhaps, not without scars. Take a hard look at our Leader--the "nailed down" One.

The first joy of the mini-church: I see a gathering of people and I know all their names. I am even learning their stories--their many blessings and their heart-rending brokenness. We're here for each other and we're here for our community. We're not driven by church policies; we're driven by relational trust as we seek to love God and love people. Do we want to grow? Of course, but we will grow relationally and deeply and personally.

I do not miss the days when I looked out on a room of mostly strangers...regular attenders. As Eugene H. Peterson emphasizes: the personal name is the most important part of speech.

"The shepherd...calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me..." (John 10:2,3,14).

"Free Labor for the Sunday Event"

2007-08-15T17:30:00.000-07:00

My friend, Susan Arnold, over at The Philosophical Pastor made some unsettling, yet-true-in-many-cases observations about "church" in our time. Susan commented, "Seriously though, (and this is, unfortunately, serious) you know what is really heart-wrenching about all the pushing and signing up and “discovery of gifts” you describe here is that those “discoveries” are just a way to get people to think they are using spiritual gifts and doing ministry when they serve coffee or set up chairs. Those “inventories” never really result in people being mentored by others and developed in the gifts of the Holy Spirit for the equipping of the saints; they result in people getting corralled into free labor for the Sunday event."

"...people getting corralled into free labor for the Sunday event."

When is this crap going to stop. Many American evangelical churches are chewing staff pastors and people up and spitting them out for the sake of the "bottom line" and "getting the numbers up." Something as biblically valuable as the Spirit gifting a community of people to live a life of love toward God and others is degraded into USAmerican pragmatic manipulation to keep the activities of a workaholic church afloat.

Jesus' Impaired Miracle

2007-08-14T12:45:00.000-07:00

Imagine that the 5000 "men" and the 4000 "men" that Jesus fed with bread and fish each had a wife and, let's say, two children. That would mean that Jesus fed to complete satisfaction some 36,000 people. The disciples picked up a total of 19 basketfuls of leftovers (I know there are two different words for "baskets" in Mark 6 and Mark 8).

Soon after these two startling miracles the disciples fuss about not having any bread in the boat. In an exasperated, classic understatement Jesus asks the Twelve, "Why are you talking about having no bread?"

Jesus goes on, "Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear" (Mark 8:18)?

These questions are bracketed between two miracles: Jesus heals a deaf (and speech-impaired) man and Jesus heals a blind man (see Mark 7:31-35 and 8:22-26).

Ben Witherington III quoting Hooker points out that the healing of the blind man (in stages) is "an acted parable." The blindness (and the deafness) of the disciples is in view. The unconventional process in the "once I was blind, but now I see" miracle has three peculiarities: 1) Jesus asks about the effectiveness of his touch (Mk 8:23), 2) the man reports only a partial healing (Mk 8:24) and 3) Jesus touches the man again and restores full, excellent sight (Mk 8:25). No other miracles in the Gospels contain these peculiarities. It's Jesus' impaired miracle.

Discipleship is more about seeing than about knowing. Contemplate Jesus' (shortest?) parable in Luke 6:39. The theme is blindness. Then note Luke 6:40. A student when he or she is fully trained (not taught) will be like his or her master/teacher. Our ailment isn't not knowing, but not seeing. Do you remember Jesus' question to Simon the Pharisee in Luke 7? Jesus asked, "Do you *see* this woman?"

Will we admit our own impairment? Do we see beyond the obvious and ordinary to the eternal and extraordinary when we see Jesus...and others?

"Open our eyes, Lord, we want to see Jesus..."

The Pathetic Prophet Jonah 4

2007-08-06T16:30:00.000-07:00

"God in the hands of an angry sinner" is how I heard Warren Wiersbe title Jonah 4. That title fits.

Only in the mind of pathetic, highly prejudiced Jonah could the grand description of Yahweh as "gracious and compassionate...slow to anger and abounding in love" be viewed as a flaw in God's character! What the Bible celebrates as the hope of the human race, Jonah fitfully spurns as a deficit weakness in God. "That's why I booked it to Tarshish because, whaaa!, whaaa!, you're that kind of namby-pamby God. I knew better. You embarrass me, God, by loving and sparing these stinking Ninevites. You've wasted your grace on the wrong people!"

What get's me is God's patience with Jonah. God just keeps asking, "Do you really have a right to throw a tantrum like this?"

"Yes, I do! Whaa! Whaa! I'm so mad and righteous, I just want to die!" He said this thinking that he was in the same league with his contemporary Elijah. I can just hear God saying under his breathe to the angels, "Jonah is no Elijah...just like Dan Quayle was no J. F. Kennedy."

The writer of this profound little book was a poetic genius. He draws us in, getting us to side with the captain and the sailors over against rebellious Jonah (chapter 1), getting us to admire the repentant king and the people of Nineveh and feel absolutely disgusted with Jonah (chapters 3-4). Then, whamo! The big conclusion: God humanizes Israel's greatest enemies of the time: the Assyrians.

Not only is that violent, pagan people humanized, they are being treated with compassion by Yahweh just as he treated Israel through the prophet Joel. God is no respector of persons when it comes to repentance! This really jerked Jonah's chain...and the first readers of this prophet and the people in Jesus' day. Remember Jesus' story about the vineyard owner who paid the guys who worked from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. (1 hour) the same as the ones who worked from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. (all day)? "Whaa! Whaa" That's not fair!!" God is free to "waste" his grace on whomever he pleases.

God is not fair. God is gracious. We should celebrate his loving, compassionate heart and affirm that God can express it when, on whom, and however he chooses.

Jonah had more "love" (or was it ugly self-interest?) for one plant--here today, gone today--than he had for an entire city of human beings. Pathetic.

Yet, let's be careful. A "Jonah" lurks in my heart and in yours, too. How many of us have wanted Al Qaida incinerated? How many have thought, if not outright said, "Nuke the Iraqis into oblivion?" We can only think that when we've dehumanized men and women and children who have been created in the "image of God."

Jesus never dehumanized Rome or Romans or Roman soldiers. As a matter of fact, he prayed, "Father, forgive them because they don't know what they're doing."

Is there more to "the sign of Jonah" than Jesus being in the grave? Could the sign of Jonah include an outrageous grace to "enemies"?

OUR KOREAN BROTHERS AND SISTERS

2007-07-31T17:00:00.000-07:00

click and read Eugene Cho
Then...
PRAY

African Bible Commentary: New Lens on Life

2007-07-30T18:45:00.000-07:00

"The gospel has no permanent resident culture."

A good friend of mine recently gave me a copy of the African Bible Commentary. I've wanted one since it became available over a year ago. It is a one-volume whole Bible commentary with entries from 70 African scholars. These highly competent men and women (most have PhDs from highly prestigious schools) present a commentary from their culture and worldview. These African scholars invite us westerners to look beyond the confident, often arrogant results of our biblical study skewed as it is by western cultural limitations.

Kwame Bediako, PhD in Divinity from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland (as well as PhD in French Literature from the University of Bordeaux, France) wrote an opening article for the ABC titled "Scripture as the Interpreter of Culture and Tradition." While Kwame Bediako's entire article is immensely stimulating, one sentence by this African scholar leaped from the page, grabbed my mind and pinned it to my desk saying, "Think!"

Kwame Bediako wrote this simple, stunning sentence: "The gospel has no permanent resident culture" (ABC, 4).

The gospel doesn't reside in western Michigan or Wheaton, IL or Dallas, TX, or Colorado Springs. The gospel isn't exported with American missionaries to other countries. The gospel is nomadic, a God-created gypsy, a "word" without a country, yet comfortably at home in all cultures.

Why did this sentence stun me? Because it socked me in my fat American arrogance. Bediako humbled my supposed theological superiority. His precise sentence was a crow bar that pried away my culture-bound grip on the Americanized "good news."

We live in a truly startling moment in history (no matter how you feel about USAmerican politics). We live in a time when clear, strong voices "from [almost] every tribe and language and people and nation" are helping to shape a global gospel and an international theology that are not hide-bound by any one culture. Western gospel empirialism is fading fast. To God be the glory!

The Openness of Jonah 3

2007-07-25T17:45:00.000-07:00

We serve a God of second chances. "Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time:..." (Jonah 3:1).

Jonah obeyed and went to Nineveh. Smart man.

Nineveh was "very important city" (NIV). Actually, it was "great (according) to God," which is what the Hebrew reads (vs. 3). Allen sees the phrase as an intensive phrase, something like "Nineveh in comparison to God was great." Or, "Nineveh was God-sized." Whatever the meaning, it presents the mammoth task of Jonah as he begins his apocalyptic preaching to this massive city, "Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned (demolished)." This message is the biblical inspiration for seeker-friendly preaching.

I love it. Brevity is the soul of repentance. From the king to the kindergarteners the whole city turns to Yahweh. If Jonah were Napolean Dynamite, he might have said, "Gosh! I just can't believe it. Sackcloth and ashes? These ratty Ninevites have gone maximum religious on me."

Jonah chapter three ends with one of those Old Testament bomb blasts. The writer tells us in verse 10 that "God repented," too. The words create a gasp in us. God repents or relents or changes his mind? It sure sounds like it even in the NIV: "When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened."

At least 36 times in the Old Testament we read that God changed his mind, or relented or repented. These 36 occurrences cause severe mind cramps in many people. They get knotted up because they reason like this: God is perfect. Perfect can't change. If perfect changes for the better, then it wasn't perfect to begin with. Yikes! We can't start with an imperfect God. Continuing, if perfect changes, then it must be only for the worse. Yikes again! We can't end with an imperfect God. Therefore, the Bible is dead wrong 36 times when it flat out tells us that God changed his mind.

The insider, wise ones among us help out here. What we have 36 times, they propose, is an anthropomorphism. This is a long, catchy word for "These 36 verses don't fit our theology." The mantra is: "God can't change! God can't change!" God is the great unblinking unfeeling stare. We're told that God condescends to our childish state ("baby steps") and merely reports that God seems to be like us--we can change our minds after all--but, really, God is not like us. We can do something that God can't do. Doesn't that make you feel really special? You can change your mind, but God can't change his. What a mighty God we serve!

Oops! I misspoke or miswrote. We really can't change our minds because everything we think, say, feel or do has been decreed beforehand. We, too, are cosmic unblinking little stares just living out the programming of Big Daddy Stare. Ooh, I get goose bumps from such articulate, warm theology. Just think, everything that I am writing at this moment has been decreed by God from eternity past. He decreed that I write about how silly it is that he decreed everything. This is just too fun.

But you say: God didn't predetermine everything beforehand. He just knows everything beforehand. Well, if God just knows the future, but doesn't determine it, does that mean I can actually do something different than what God "knows"? If God merely knows beforehand that I am going to eat Copper River salmon today and then I choose to eat a Johnsonville brat instead, was God's knowledge imperfect? There's that dastardly word again. Just because God merely knows beforehand doesn't mean we have actually have a choice in the matter. We will think, feel, and do exactly and only what God "knows." And remember, according to the insider, wise ones, God knows all things actual and possible. Sing to the tune of "I'd like to be an Oscar Mayer weiner"...

"Oh, I'd like to be a predetermined pup-pet.
"That is what I'd really like to be-ee-ee.
"For if I were a predetermined pup-pet,
"God would always be in charge of meee."

Fun, eh? We must, at all costs, protect God's sovereignty. It's up to us, you know. God needs us to protect his meticulous control. How mighty we are! We must protect his omniscience, too. How can God get along without us protecting him?

And God changed his mind. Whoopty-doo. I would like to think that God is free and if he wants to change his mind, have at it. I like a truly relational God, a truly interactive God. I like a give-and-take God who mixes it up with us. I'll take Jonah 3:10 and the other 36 verses any day over the imported perfection of Platonism.

Who Puts Who to Sleep?

2007-07-23T13:00:00.000-07:00

Our daughter Leah and her three children, Jackson (5), Trevor (3), and Sylvia (11 mos) have been visiting with us these past two weeks. Leah and her husband, Andy, now reside in Haslet, TX, outside the Dallas-Ft Worth metroplex.

One of the fun things to do in the evening is to hold Sylvia and swing her to sleep on our deck swing. She seems to "melt" into me as she gives in little by little to sleep. The hard thing about rocking a beautiful little girl to sleep is that it acts as a powerful sleep aid for me as well.

The Aquatic Prayer of Jonah 2

2007-07-18T17:45:00.000-07:00

Nothing improves a person's prayer life better than getting swallowed by a great fish. Jonah is witness to this biblical truth.

With what one writer calls "intuitive perfection," Jonah crafts an artistic, even stunning prayer of thanksgiving. With a deep memory of the Psalms, Jonah writes his own, drawing on words and phrases from "the prayer book of Israel." I imagine this was quite challenging as he was being churned in the stomach of a large grupper and marinating in fishy, digestive juices. My heart goes out to Jonah because I have a hard time praying in a decent, comfortable room. Maybe I need to use the Jonah method of prayer.

The Prayer of Jonah. It has a faint, familiar ring to it. I can't quite put my finger on it. What is it? Do you think "The Prayer of Jonah" and its unusual Sitz im Leben* would make a really marketable little book?

Just as Yahweh--the God of Israel--is the real hero of chapter 1, so Yahweh captivates Jonah's mind as he shapes his prayer in chapter 2. Feel the impact of his resounding conclusion: "Salvation comes from the LORD!" Jonah doesn't just know this truth, he incarnates it. Jonah compresses the glorious, central message of the Bible into five English words (just two in the Hebrew).

Jonah, by his own admission, was snatched from the jaws of a watery death. On the verge of unconsciousness, Jonah prayed. Yahweh heard. Thinking that he would die from seaweed wrapped around his throat, he gets swallowed by a God-appointed fish. In the dark, slippery folds of the fish's gut Jonah begins to faint away. Perhaps the last conscious thought of this rebellious prophet was "Help!!" Yahweh helped him. God talks to the fish (2:10) and, blurp!, Jonah is deposited on dry land. Terra firma never felt so good to him, having been to hell (well, Sheol) and back.

Did Jonah first scrawl out his thanksgiving prayer in the sand on the beach near Joppa? Who knows? We do know there was one happy prophet with a whole new appreciation for God recuperating on the Mediterranean coast.

Pagan sailors cried out to God for help in chapter 1. A rebellious Jewish prophet called for help in chapter 2. Yahweh heard both. Human need and honest prayer get the attention and response of the God of the Bible. Yahweh is no respecter of persons.

Liberated from the fish's "bowels of mercy," Jonah wonders about Nineveh.

*Sitz im Leben means "setting in life."

Jonah the Anti-Hero Prophet 1

2007-07-12T17:30:00.000-07:00

"...and the ship thought it would shatter (like pottery)" (Jonah 1:4).

What creative personification by the poet-author of Jonah! God "hurls" a great wind onto the sea and the ship thinks, "Uh oh, I am going to crack up!" The ship thinks. Remember the little engine that could? "I think I can..." A rebellious Jewish prophet makes a ship think.

Jonah 1 presents an Israelite shocker: Jonah gets a Yahweh-call and immediately proceeds to disobey it. When verse 3 was read for the first time, the Jewish listeners sucked all the air out of the room. Jonah did not go for or with the LORD; twice we read that he went away from the LORD. Silly, silly man.

During the hurricane, sailors and captain are frantically throwing cargo overboard and crying to their gods, "Help! Help!" But Jonah "has a real peace" about his decision. He is below deck sound asleep.

Never bank on "having peace about it" to verify the will of God. Jonah had "peace" and was in active rebellion from God. "Having peace about it" for many is a cloak to do what they want to do or to avoid what they don't want to do..."I just don't have 'peace' about it." Be careful with that tom-foolery.

"The lot fell to Jonah." Now Jonah owns up to his rebellion. Lots don't lie.

Jonah got tossed overboard to settle the fury of Yahweh as symbolized in the fierce storm. At first the sailors tried to get to shore, but couldn't make it. They were good guys. As soon as Jonah sank, the storm stopped. The pagan sailors worshipped Yahweh. Jonah is a sorry specimen of faith compared to them.

God "appointed" a great fish who went fishing for men and caught Jonah. Jonah can tell you a lot about "bowels of mercy." He does in the next chapter.

Welcome, Lois!

2007-07-09T21:30:00.000-07:00

We have welcomed a new family member to our home. Lois Mays, Julie's mother, has moved from Nashville, TN to Grand Rapids, MI, to live with us.

Lois was living with Julie's sister, Diane, and family.

At 88, Lois is an avid reader and enjoys crossword puzzles and jigsaw puzzles. She was an excellent seamtress. When I started dating Julie in 1968 at Moody Bible Institute, she had the cutest clothes---originals made by Lois. Lois is one of four sisters--all who are still alive-- Phyllis, Lois, Julia, and JoAnn. Famously known as "the Porter girls."

This past May, Lois was reunited with her sisters at a family reunion/wedding celebration in Nashville. Diane's youngest son, Jonathan married Grace. What a wonderful time with extended family. Julie counted 33 relatives all related to "the Porter girls."

Walter Mays, Lois' husband, a Texas man worked many years for Ford, Inc., for LeTourneau Corporation, Marathon Corporation, and the Texas Crippled Children's Hospital. Walt (aka "Shorty") was the youngest of 9 brothers from Frisco, TX--enough for their own baseball team. He was a devoted Christian and helped found Village Bible Church of Hot Springs Village, AR. He died in August of 2000.

Lois had 3 children--a son, Brian who died at the age of 35 of cancer. He was a neat man (who looked very much like Paul Newman). Brian was a civil engineer who owned his own business in the greater Chicago area. Brian was quite an athlete--in football (all-state quarterback) and in golf. Man, could he hit the long ball off the tee!

We're glad Lois is part of her Michigan family now.

Un-Sweetened Jesus

2007-07-05T07:30:00.000-07:00

Sweet Jesus.

Sweet little Jesus boy.

"My Sweet Lord."

There's an indie film titled "Sweet Jesus." You can get a "my sweet Jesus doll." It's so cuddly.

A sculptor caused a religious uproar by crafting a naked, 6-foot crucified Jesus out of chocolate! Talk about sweet!

The last adjective that comes to my mind to describe Jesus is "sweet." Having rummaged around in the four Gospels for some years now, I can think of a lot of good adjectives for Jesus, but sweet leaves a sour taste in my soul.

I prefer Salty Jesus. And I don't mean salty as in "salty language" (profanity). Jesus was high potency salt. He even describes his followers as "the salt of the earth" (Matthew 5:13). Why do we try to be "sweet" people?

You don't call someone who terrifies the daylights out of you "sweet." Jesus terrified his disciples numerous times---"It's a ghost!" they screamed. He terrified people in Decapolis by casting out a "Legion" of demons. Jesus created fear in the lives of lots of people.

You don't call someone who irritates the daylights out of religious people "sweet." The religious leaders of Jesus' day had a lot of adjectives for Jesus---demon-possessed, mad (crazy), deceiver, bastard, fraud. I don't think "sweet" ever entered their minds. "Let's kill him" did enter their minds. Do you want to murder "sweet" people?

Let's leave the word sweet out of our Jesus vocabulary. Let's keep it for Grandma, grandkids, tea, nice guys and the hip epithet "Suuuue-eeeat!"

For Jesus, I like "holy," "agitator," "rebel-rouser," "courageous," and "gutsy."

I know. "Salty little Jesus boy" just doesn't have...what?...that sweetness.

Jesus the Trouble-Maker

2007-07-03T12:30:00.000-07:00

Galilee and Judea were a fireworks warehouse and Jesus was a flame-thrower.

From one perspective, Jesus was a trouble-maker. For the "don't rock the boat" crowd, Jesus danced in the canoe. What is a trouble-maker?

Anyone who instigates change will be viewed as a trouble-maker. Anyone who questions the way things are because of a vision of the way things can be will be called a trouble-maker. Anyone who knows "the pecking order," but does not peck or allow his followers to peck in their proper places will be called a trouble-maker. Anyone who knows where the boundaries are and then lives like he doesn't care where the boundaries are will be called a trouble-maker. Anyone who is not threatened by the powers that be will be viewed as a trouble-maker.

Gandhi was a trouble-maker. So were Rosa Parks, Martin Luther, Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, Ignaz Semmelweiss, and Erin Brockovich.

Jesus was a destabilizing reality. He, in the shadow of Jeremiah, came "to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow" (Jeremiah 1:10). Some even thought Jesus was Jeremiah (see Matthew 16:14).

One of my favorite teachers, "Prof" Howard Hendricks, use to say, "All true learning takes place only after you are thoroughly confused." Trouble-makers confuse us and, in that sense, serve us. We so easily petrify in our views, in what appears to us "to be right."

Have we so sanitized Jesus that it seems sacriligious to us to see him as a trouble-maker? The Roman Empire did not crucify "nice guys." They crucified trouble-makers.

Santiago's Cross: The Old Man and the Sea

2007-06-28T07:30:00.000-07:00

What a story!

I recently completed my annual summer reading of Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea.

It may just be me, but I cannot escape the Christ-symbols inherent to Hemingway's Santiago character. But it's not just me. Others smarter than I am also see these outright Christ-references. Carlos Baker, in his book Hemingway: The Writer as Artist (4th edition) has an informative chapter titled "The Ancient Mariner" and Baker definitely holds that Hemingway purposely created not only a Christ figure, but sees the novella as a "parable." Santiago's name (Saint James--a fisher man), his "faith," his time at sea (3 days), his bloodied hands (stymata), his prayers, his dreams of lions (a biblical figure), his sense of identity and purpose (mission), his battle with "evil" (the shark attacks), and most evidently the final scenes with Santiago carrying the skiff's mast and sail (cross-shaped) on his shoulders and falling beneath it as he struggles to get to his shack. How can we not believe Hemingway's intent after reading a sentence like this: " 'Ay,' he said aloud. There is no translation for this word and perhaps it is just a noise such as a man might make, involuntarily, feeling the nail go through his hands and into the wood."

The literary question is: Did Hemingway purposely craft Santiago as a Christ-figure? Or, are these symbols just part of his good story with no authorial intent to point to Christ? Opinions divide here. I am of the opinion that Hemingway's Santiago was intended to be a Christ-figure (affirmed by Carlos Baker). Could it be that Hemingway is telling this story to let us know that, in his view, Christ has failed? That whatever Christ did in his great, self-sacrificing work, it is all undone by the sharks? If Christianity is anything, according to Hemingway, it is a pitiful skeleton rocked by the waves of the sea near the garbage bins, misunderstood by the ignorant woman and man sipping their drinks on the Terrace.

What do you think?

When Second Place Makes You the Winner: Book of Ruth 4

2007-06-27T22:30:00.000-07:00

“For the gospel does not address a faceless, nameless mob, but persons. The history of salvation is thick with names. The name is the form of speech by which a person is singled out for personal love, particular intimacy, and exact responsibilites.” --Eugene H. Peterson

“A genealogy is a striking way of bringing before us the continuity of God's purpose through the ages. The process of history is not haphazard. There is a purpose in it all. And the purpose is the purpose of God.” --Leon Morris

Names: Naomi, Ruth, Boaz, Elimelech, Kilion, Mahlon. ...Perez, Obed, Jesse, David. Amazingly, we do not know the name of the nearer kinsman who relinquishes his rights to Boaz in Ruth 4. He disappears anonymously in history.

Naomi, Ruth and Boaz with their child, Obed, get caught up into God's grand redemptive story. These ordinary people going obediently about their ordinary Bethlehem lives get scooped up into the lineage of Jesus himself.

"A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham. ... Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David." Matthew 1:1, 5-6

Did Naomi, Ruth and Boaz know what they were getting caught up into? Probably not. They did not know the whole Story. Neither do we. Like them, we must believe simply that there is a Story. We are invited to go about our lives, living obediently in light of the reality and revelation of God. We are to live and love compassionately with one another and with the alien and stranger. We are to believe that the "other" is welcomed by Israel's God, that an old woman embittered by life's struggles is still qualified to hold God's future in her arms, that a faithful farmer, who out of a gracious spirit that mirrors his gracious God, participates in purposes unimaginable in his day when "everyone did what was right in his own eyes."

Mr. No Name Guy gives up his shoe in a legal transaction before the city officials and steps out of history and out of the privilege of being in the genealogy of Jesus Christ. Boaz, who came in second, becomes the winner. Matthew picks up his name and the name of his Moabite wife, Ruth, when he opens his Gospel centuries later.

We live by faith, not by only what we see. Our stories, too, change the world.

Good Medicine for a Pastor's Soul

2007-06-24T20:45:00.000-07:00

Annie Dillard

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Her writing brings me down to earth as a pastor. I am referring to Annie Dillard and her funny and unnerving exposition titled "An Expedition to the Pole" in her book Teaching a Stone to Talk.

In a captivating interplay between attending both Catholic Mass and Congregational services and the adventures, hardships and tragedies of Arctic and Anarctic explorers, Dillard expresses the wonder and absurdity of human beings trying to reach God, "the Absolute [as] the Pole of Relative Inaccessability." The Pole she terms as "the Pole of great price."

"Every Sunday for a year I have run away from home and joined the circus as a dancing bear." This is Annie's description of herself (and others ) who join together to meet God in a church service.

"Week after week we witness the same miracle: that God is so mighty he can stifle his own laughter. Week after week, we witness the same miracle: that God, for reasons unfathomable, refrains from blowing our dancing bear act to smithereens. Week after week Christ washes the disciples' dirty feet, handles their very toes, and repeats, It is all right--believe it or not--to be people."

Early Polar explorers, standing on their dignity and own beliefs about what they needed to explore the Pole of Relative Inaccessability, left comic-tragic debris of their misunderstandings of just what they were attempting. Unprepared food-wise, clothes-wise and carrying the least likely to help supplies---sterling silver tableware embossed with each officers initials. One officer whose feet froze and made him a liability to his men, announced to his men as he stepped out of his tent to freeze himself in a blizzard, "I am just outside and may be some time."

"The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies' straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake up and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return."

"Wherever we go, there seems to be only one business at hand---that of finding workable compromises between the sublimity of our ideas and the absurdity of the fact of us.... If, however, you want to look at the stars, you will find that darkness is necessary. But the stars neither require or demand it."

Pastors can get so full of themselves. Leading their crews to the Pole of Relative Inaccessability, they end up dying as they stand in their dignity and supposed understanding of the Wholly Other. God, to quote Annie, "does not give a hoot" about what we think impresses him. We can die on the Polar ice with our silverware and chocolate in hand with our diary reporting how we froze to death in "the icy halls of frozen sublimity."

Thank you, Annie Dillard, for a reminding us of our inescapable humanity.

Sasha Savich Visits Our Home

2007-06-23T20:45:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday evening Julie and I hosted a get-together for friends who support my mentoring ministry to Ukraine pastors. The guests were invited to meet Sasha (Aleksandr) Savich, Pastor of Calvary Church, Lutsk, Ukraine.

Sasha is on a 4 week tour of U.S. cities and churches to speak about his life and ministry in Lutsk. He spent a week in Philadelphia, PA speaking at a Ukrainian youth camp with his fellow pastor from Lutsk, Pasha Myronuk. Sasha's grandfather (on his mother's side) came to the U.S. years ago and settled in Philadelphia. Sasha spent 31/2 days with us in Grand Rapids and visited Brightside Community Church, Bella Vista Church, and the church I serve--Fellowship Evangelical Covenant Church. He left this morning for Houston, TX, visiting good friends there.

We welcomed about 25 guests who came Thursday to meet Sasha, learn more about his ministry and to enjoy some excellent food prepared by Julie. Some folks have been giving to the Ukraine ministry since I began. It was fun having friends from Bella Vista Church and Fellowship Evangelical Covenant Church hang out for a few hours. Our deck became delightfully crowded as we all enjoyed an almost perfect Michigan evening.

I count it a privilege to know Sasha and serve with him to strengthen the missional churches in Ukraine--churches that have a passion to express the Gospel in word and compassionate deed.

"A new world needs a new church. Ukraine in a new world."

When Love Makes You Risk--Book of Ruth 3

2007-06-20T18:15:00.000-07:00

When Frodo finally threw the "One Ring to rule them all" into the fires of Mount Doom, the fierce battle on the Fields of Pelennor dramatically turned in favor of middle earth. The simple action of an ordinary, bumbling Hobbit altered the course of a grand cosmic battle between good and evil.

In the fields of Bethlehem, three ordinary people make simple, down-to-earth choices and, by those choices, enter into and dramatically influence God's grand purposes in history. Naomi, Ruth and Boaz get swept up into God's great Story.

Each made choices bristling with risk.

Naomi. In her love for Ruth, Naomi plays her role as match-making parent to find Ruth a husband. Did Naomi also know there was a kinsman-redeemer nearer in line than Boaz? If so, her risk in suggesting Ruth play her part is compounded. Naomi knew that there was no guarantee how Boaz would respond, other than her hunch about his gracious and good character. Boaz was under no legal obligation to care for Ruth and Naomi in view of the nearer kinsman-redeemer. Second-guessing other people's choices is tricky business.

Ruth. Did this young Moabitess know what she was getting into when she owned the Israelites as her "people"? Gleaning in Boaz's fields is one thing, marrying this older man because he was a near relative of Elimelech is another. I can hear Ruth ask, "Levirate marriage? What in the world is levirate marriage?" Deuteronomy 25:5-6 were new to her. Yet, for the sake of Naomi and Mahlon, her dead husband, Ruth accepts the religious customs of this new people and dutifully carries out Naomi's instructions. Risking both her life and Boaz's good reputation, Ruth, clean and perfumed, walks into the night and slips under Boaz's covers as he sleeps at the threshing floor. In the ancient custom of Bethlehem, Ruth asks a startled-awake Boaz, "Will you marry me?" as she says, "Spread your garment over me."

Boaz. After a good harvest and some hard winnowing into the evening, Boaz, having made his heart merry with wine, sleeps near the grain pile. In the middle of the night, somehow shocked into alertness, he turns and finds a beautful young woman between his legs (probably the meaning of the euphemism "at his feet"). Discovering it was Ruth, the alien girl, who pops the question then and there, Boaz, honored at being asked, tells the truth: "There is a kinsman-redeemer nearer than I." Boaz now takes a risk by saying that if the nearer kinsman does not do his part in redeeming her, Boaz will. Why does Boaz commit to this when he is under no legal obligation whatsoever to do it? Could it be...love? The plot thickens. Naomi's, Ruth's and Boaz's decisions all hinge on the pending decision of some unnamed relative. This is risky business for all of them.

The intertwining of human choices makes for a great story. The little Book of Ruth is a great story. We now wait as Boaz goes to the city gates (the courthouse) and initiates a negotiation with Mr. Nearer-than-Me.

Ruth chapter 3 reminds us that we do not just find meaning in life. God invites us to make meaning. As we make choices that interlock with God's will and the wills of others, a story unfolds. Famine and marriage and death and changing culture and happening to pick the right person's fields in which to glean are one thing. To get caught up in the uncertainty of other people's decision-making is another. Great meaning is forged out of daily, ordinary decisions by ordinary people.

The Book of Ruth 2.1

2007-06-18T10:30:00.000-07:00

I will be commenting on the Book of Ruth chapter 3 soon. In the meantime, consider this: Of the 85 (English text) verses in Ruth, 50 are devoted to dialogue.

Stories are about people and the conversations that people have. God advances his grand Story through ordinary people talking redemptively with one another. Boaz is "Exhibit A" as a redemptive conversationist. Yes, there are events---the famine, the trip to and return from Moab, the multiple deaths, the wheat and barley harvests, a night rendezvous at the threshing floor, a meeting of the town elders---but these are made meaningful by human beings in daily, ordinary conversation under the arch of God's voice speaking from the written Word (Leviticus 19 and Deuteronomy 24).

I think a lesson from Ruth would modify Nike's slogan from "Just Do It!" to "Just Converse It!" Redemption proceeds from the inside out. Events do effect us, but they don't get inside us. Words do. Speech connects our souls. Redemption isn't about modifying behavior; it's about transforming human lives at the core, the heart.

As a hurried people conditioned to act, we perform and speak mostly from shallow interior places, not from deep inside ourselves. So, we end up lamenting or cursing, "Why did I do that?!" "Why did I say that?!"

The Book of Ruth, an intriguing short story permeated with conversation, invites us to speak and to act not from our egos, not from minds, not from social pressures, not from our all-to-evident flaws, not from our "Mr. (or Mrs.) Fix-It" tendencies, and not from some TV sit-com script, but from caring hearts yielded to the eternal Voice outside ourselves and from hearts that deeply respect and express hope for one another.

Stories create reality.

When Grace Sneaks Up on You--Book of Ruth 2

2007-06-12T21:00:00.000-07:00

God's grace wears a human face.

In Ruth chapter 2, we meet Boaz. Boaz, without sword or shield, becomes Ruth's rescuing knight (a term suggested by Leon Morris). Boaz is called a "worthy man," a man of high moral integrity. The phrase is translated "mighty warrior" in Judges 11:1.

How does this single, simple Judean farmer become God's new kind of warrior for a Moabitess named Ruth?

Boaz embodies grace. He's curious ("Who is this young woman?"), caring, and quite capable of taking charge of Ruth's welfare. Also, shhhhh, he's a relative of Naomi's now dead husband, Elimelech.

Boaz incarnates God's gracious provision for the widows, orphans and aliens by not harvesting the corners of his grain fields. Boaz knows from Leviticus 19:9-10 and Deuteronomy 24:19 that YHWH cares for the lives of those who have become hardship cases. Living in a time of moral corruption and religious rebellion, Boaz could have done what was right in his own eyes. Yet Boaz adheres to God's word. Ruth is the beneficiary of Boaz's obedience.

Boaz commands Ruth's protection. As a foreigner, some of the the young men, the thugs, could have molested her, shamed and mocked her, even harmed her. Boaz will have none of that. Boaz provides her with social status by welcoming her to his workers' meal and by personally offering her special recognition. He provides enough food for Ruth to share with Naomi. He makes sure that the harvesters purposely leave extra for Ruth to glean. Grace is abounding.

Boaz recognizes Ruth's fierce dedication to Naomi and he blesses Ruth as a worshiper of YHWH. Boaz knows that Ruth is a hard worker, not a free-loader.

Grace always surprises us. "Why have I found such favor in your eyes that you notice me--a foreigner?" Ruth asks Boaz in shocked, genuinely humbled surprise.

Boaz turned his workplace into God's place. Notice his morning greeting to his workers--"The LORD be with you!" His fields of grain became fountains of grace for a young, poor widow. Boaz's loyal obedience to some old harvesting laws opened up a new future for Ruth and Naomi.

A simple Judean farmer's devotion to YHWH's hesed ("loyal love") transformed that same farmer into God's gracious knight. God's grace in Ruth's life had a face and a name: Boaz. We become like what we worship.

Israel's gracious God calls out and creates a gracious people who in turn bless others.

Centuries after Boaz, the Word would become flesh and live among us...with a face and a name: Jesus. Jesus---full of grace and truth.

When Life Changes Your Name--Book of Ruth 1

2007-06-09T20:45:00.000-07:00

Touted as one of the earliest and best short stories, the Book of Ruth introduces us to ordinary, down home people. No majestic kings, no warring armies, no ragged, craggy prophets. We meet instead an old widow, a young widow and a farmer.

Naomi, Ruth (the Moabitess), and Boaz.

Some background (from Ruth 1).

Elimelech takes Naomi, his wife, and his two sons, Mahlon and Kilion, to Moab to avoid dying of starvation in famine-ravaged Bethlehem of Judah. As it turns out, Elimelech's decision does not ward off death. He dies, and so do his two sons after they had married Moabite girls, Orpah and Ruth.

Three widows remain. Naomi hears after some 10 years in Moab that the LORD had visited Bethlehem and there was food there once again. Naomi sets out for home, strongly urging Orpah and Ruth to stay in Moab. Orpah does stay, but Ruth, in a rare and deep commitment, stays with Naomi, declaring to Naomi that she, Ruth, now owns Naomi's people and God--Yahweh.

Naomi and Ruth enter into Bethlehem and the women of the town are startled, "Is this Naomi?"

Naomi responds, "Don't call me Naomi ('Pleasant'); call me Mara ('Bitter') for the LORD has dealt harshly with me."

Life, especially the struggles and trials of life, changed Naomi's name. She reported that she "went out full." Life had been good---good husband, good sons, apparently a fair life, but for the famine. She goes on to say, "But I came back empty." She is now a hardship case. She is a poor widow--no husband, no sons, and an alien daughter-in-law to care for as well.

The LORD gives and the LORD takes away.

So, why did Ruth so passionately cling to Naomi? Wouldn't you and I cut and run? Why was this young Moabite woman so taken with Naomi and her God, Yahweh, and her people? Why was she willing to abandon Moab and all that it offered for being a poor widow and living with a bitter, old widow in Bethlehem, a strange town in a strange land?

I believe it was Naomi's honesty before God that riveted Ruth to the faith. Something about Naomi's relationship to God even, maybe especially, when things got rough, and Naomi laid it all out before God. No painting a pretty face on hardship; no pretending things were good when they weren't; no shame about the tragedies. Naomi accepted life as it came and "told it like it is." She didn't have platitudes to give Ruth; she didn't have a "nice" God (she even refers to God as her enemy). Yet, she had Yahweh--I AM WHO I AM--and even though she was dealt a bad hand as we say, she still brought all of life to God.

I don't think Ruth had ever experienced a person's relationship to God with that kind of honesty. Brutal honesty. You didn't experience that reality with the Moabite gods. There must have been something about Elimelech, Naomi, Mahlon and Kilion---this Bethlehem family---that aroused curiosity, a hunger in Ruth and in Orpah. These two Moabite women wanted in on this Judean family's faith, so they married into it. And death itself could not turn Ruth away.

How has life changed your name? Are you honest with God, yourself and others about it? Honesty is the identical twin of holiness.

Strong Caffeine for the Soul

2007-06-07T08:30:00.000-07:00

Commenting on the conversation between the religious scholar and Jesus, Eugene H. Peterson notes that Jesus asks the scholar "How do you read?" [the text], not "What did you read?" Peterson continues,

"Why does the scholar ask for a definition? Clearly, because he needs to defend himself against responding to the text [love God, love your neighbor] personally. Defining "neighbor" depersonalizes the neighbor, turns him or her into an object, a thing over which he can take control, do with whatever he wants. But it also depersonalizes the scriptural text. He wants to talk about the text, treat the text as a thing, dissect it, analyze it, discuss it---endlessly. But Jesus won't play that game. The scholar has just quoted words of Holy Scripture that witness to the living word of God. They are words to be listened to, submitted to, obeyed, lived. So instead of inviting the scholar to join him in a Bible study of Deuteronomy and Leviticus under a nearby oak tree, Jesus tells him a story, one of his most famous, the Good Samaritan story, concluding, as he had begun with a question, "Which of these three, do you think, proved neighbor to the man...?" The scholar is impaled by the question: The words of Scripture can no longer be handled by means of definition, "who is my neighbor?" The text insists on participation, "will you be a neighbor?" Jesus insists on participation. Jesus dismisses the scholar with a command, "Go and do..." Live what you read. We read the Bible in order to live the word of God."
Eat This Book, 83-84.

Sadly, there is a way to read the Bible, even enjoy the Bible and yet not obey the One Whose Voice is the very life of Scripture. That's not how you read it.

Eat This Book by Eugene H. Peterson

2007-06-04T12:00:00.000-07:00

Eat This Book.

"Or to put it in the terms in which we started out: It is possible to read the Bible from a number of different angles and for various purposes without dealing with God as God has revealed himself, without setting ourselves under the authority of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit who is alive and present in everything we are and do.

"To put it bluntly, not evereyone who gets interested in the Bible and even gets excited about the Bible wants to get involved with God.

"But God is what the book is about."

Eugene Peterson is concerned that we have learned to read the Bible for intellectual (theological) stimulation, for moral guidance to the good life, and for personal inspiration and comfort--all of which are good things. Yet, each of these purposes falls woefully short of personally relating to the personal, relational, interactive and present living God.

I know people who really like the Bible: like to study it, like to debate it, and like to almightily defend it. Yet, all their biblical bluster is a way to not have to deal personally with the Living God and be personally changed into a more Christlike person. Christianity for them is an argument to be won or lost, not a relationship with the Triune God to be lovingly lived. Sad.

Eat This Book:A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading is the third volume in Eugene Peterson's series of books on Christian Spirituality. Eat This Book was preceded by Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places and The Jesus Way.

Correction: Eat This Book is actually the second volume in the series. The Jesus Way is the 3rd.

"Legion" Meets LORD III

2007-06-02T07:30:00.000-07:00

To be with Jesus.

In Mark 3:14 we read that Jesus chose the Twelve in order that "they might be with him." They would hang with Jesus and pick up clues and be instructed in how to live the Kingdom of God life.

We read in Mark 5: 18 that the marvelously liberated, formerly demon-possessed man wanted "to be with Jesus," too. That is, he wanted to be a disciple; a follower.

To the eager man's disappointment Jesus refuses his loyal attempt to follow and, instead, sends the man back to his Decapolis family with the directive to "tell them how much the LORD had done for you."

What we learn is this: To be with Jesus is not just a matter of proximity, but obedience. The man was closer to Jesus by obeying his directive, than if he had actually gotten into the boat with Jesus.

Sometimes our desires for contemplation, being near to Jesus, getting away and alone with God--are forms of disobedience. Why? We are under a clear directive, as well, to go and announce the Good News of the Kingdom. A spirituality that does not readily engage the unbelieving world both with compassionate deed and gracious truth is a deficient spirituality.

Obedience to Jesus is the highest form of companionship with Jesus.

"Legion" Meets LORD II

2007-05-31T07:30:00.000-07:00

Ben Witherington III (citing J. Marcus) points out the comedic nuances in the "power-encounter" between "Legion" and Jesus.

In Mark 5:7 the "Legion" screams at Jesus, "Swear to God you won't torture me!"

Well, duh!

Demons asking for God-intervention ("Swear to God...")? And pleading not to be tortured as they speak through a wretched human being who is an incarnation of their tortuous, tormenting work? Who are these idiots?!

Demons can dish it out, but they can't take it. They are twisted, whining babies.

"Boo hoo hoo, Jesus, don't hurt us, please, please, please. We know we are destroying this beautifully-made, image-of-God-bearing person, but please, pretty please, don't destroy us. Boo hoo hoo."

Satan's terror is mostly smoke and mirrors. I'm not down-playing his and his hench-demons hostility and evil work, but, hey, as Martin Luther noted, "...one little word will fell him." J-e-s-u-s.

Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

"Legion" Meets LORD I

2007-05-30T07:30:00.000-07:00

Sitting.
Clothed.
In his right mind.
A peaceful man.

Before, he was roaming among the death tombs, animal-naked and bleeding from self-inflicted wounds, screaming insanely from horrible demonic torture. A pathetic man.

"Legion" meets Lord and everything changes.*

The hectic noise of 2000 stampeding pigs screaming as they drown in the sea dies down.

Startled disciples and townspeople marvel (in terror) at the transformation of a maniac into a man who longs "to be with Jesus."

"Go, tell your family about the great things the LORD has done for you."

He went and announced the great things JESUS did for him.

JESUS IS LORD.

I notice one of the disciples looking out at the very calm Sea of Galilee; the raging, death-bringing sea that Jesus just commanded to stillness. That disciple now turns and sees the sane, clothed man sitting serenely at the feet of Jesus. Calm sea. Peaceful man. The disciple ponders.

Who is this who merely speaks and everything changes? Raging storms around us and turbulent storms within us cease at his word.

"Be still, my soul. The winds and waves still know his voice who ruled them when he dwelt below."

*Mark 5:1-20.

The Thinker(s)

2007-05-28T16:00:00.000-07:00

In the picture you see Auguste Rodin's "The Thinker" and me--a guy who just thinks he's a thinker. Julie (and some passers-by) told me to take my clothes off to make the comparison more authentic. I don't think too well in the nude in public so I decided to pass on the idea.

Julie and I, on this lovely Memorial Day, meandered the paths of our local sculpture gardens.
This bronze edition of Rodin's famous sculpture dates from 1904 and is on loan to Grand Rapids' Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park from the Detroit Institute of the Arts. It is the first time the piece has been moved in 85 years.

Rodin was inspired by Dante's medieval writings and the piece "symbolizes poetic genius in undisturbed contemplation." I wish you could see the detail in the work. Rodin believed in the majesty of the ordinary person. He told his students to seek out plain, ordinary, flawed people for their work, not models of human perfection.

About his Thinker Rodin said, "What makes my Thinker think is that he thinks not only with his brain, with his knitted brow, his distended nostrils and compressed lips, but with every muscle of his arms, back, and legs, with his clenched fist and gripping toes."

Another creative piece is British sculpturer, Bill Woodrow's, "Listening to History." It requires some patient observation and contemplation.

Barely surviving, I also was stepped on my Leonardo Da Vinci's massive horse sculpture. You just have to be careful walking the Meijer Gardens. Other than that, it was a pleasant day.

A Sequoia in My Wrist

2007-05-25T20:45:00.000-07:00

A Sequoia in My Wrist

John W. Frye

Looking back the years disappear in the distance
For the road behind is quite long and winding.
While up ahead the road feels shorter
And straighter than it is, I suppose,
And a big sign reads "No Exit."

Being in a big hurry for no reason seems silly now
And the passing trees and fields, cities and streets,
Playgrounds and cemeteries appear richer, more real
Than I am used to.

My wife's green eyes seem deeper now,
And more mysterious to me; and her touch is a gift,
And her friendly voice at night is a welcomed sound
To my ears that have heard stories of so much pain.

It's down hill I'm told on this side of life,
Yet I choose to find a few more mountains to climb,
Some strange wilderness to explore,
Some undiscovered clearing deep in the woods
Where we can sit and remember, talk, laugh and cry.
And drink cold water.

The hectic rush of generations goes on, of course,
And our minds are trained for habits of hurry.
Yet, thank God, our faithful bodies now say "No" to speed.
We enjoy the simplicity of just sitting together in quiet.

Free things seem so intensely valuable--
Like the hummingbirds warring for the feeder,
Like sounds of water trickling over rocks,
Like mourning doves reminding us that
So many in the world are very, very lonely.

Jesus didn't live to be my age
And I'm deeply sorry for that.
He lived urgently, freely, on the run.
If he had one, I think he would have
Looked at his Seiko too frequently.

I take my watch off now as a discipline.
Why wear around an invention on your wrist
To remind you that you are dying?
That the road ahead is shorter?

I'd like to plant a sequoia in my wrist
And watch it grow over the years to come,
But, unfortunately, I'm not made for it.

The road ahead now does not matter as much.
What matters is my best friend's voice.

Revelation: A Survivors' Guide in Empire

2007-05-23T17:00:00.000-07:00

When a curious form of theology turned the Book of Revelation into a flow chart of "end times" scenarios, a primary source for spiritual formation for the church to survive, even thrive under "empire" was lost. The last book of the Bible has become, for all intents and purposes, a lost book of the Bible.

Perhaps this is one reason why a major segment of the USAmerican evangelical church is blind to its own cultural captivity to empire. Like the church in Laodicea, thinking that it is healthy, wealthy and wise, this anemic segment of the church believes more in partisan politics than in the Spirit-empowered community for societal transformation, believes more in the majority vote than in the minority Christus Victor, and drowns in rampant materialism as they surround themselves with every edition of the "latest" Bible. I'm surprised there is not a Bible titled "The Republican Christian Study Bible."

John, the Revelator, gave the church "The Survivors' Guide in Empire." Revelation is a survival tool for those hiking the trails of national and international chaos. Yet, some insider, secret rapture theologians, believing the ecstatic visions of others, toyed with Revelation and it became an apocalyptic novelty comparable to a circus attraction. Emasculated of its original intent, the Revelation of John has created a cadre of people entertaining themselves to death as they long for the Great Escape. Without the formidable guide--the Book of Revelation--to shape and empower their allegiance to Jesus, a huge congregation of USAmerican believers has no direction and little encouragement to keep their loyalty to their King and his kingdom priorities. Success is not a kingdom priority. "Get'r done" is not a kingdom priority. Exporting a political ideology is not a kingdom priority. Choosing the next "American Idol" is not a kingdom priority. With the loss of Revelation, it became easy, even expected to turn the King of Kings into the Chairman of our favorite political party. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall become red, white and blue.

Don't get me wrong. I'm truly grateful for our nation. I have visited many countries (including Ukraine which I visit several times a year). I am very glad for my own country. Yet, I have had to wake up from the evangelical stupor that drinks in a-this-world-way-of-life and thinks that it is the life of the kingdom of God. Being of Cherokee descent, I'm a little hesitant to bow down to America as a "Christian" nation. Many well-known "Christian" leaders made promises to the Cherokee (and other Native Americans) and then broke them as they ravaged my ancestors in the name of Jesus. Forked tongue was an apt metaphor.

Yet, there is a hope. An intriguing light breaks the darkness. A fast-growing global community of alternative allegiance is daring to speak into all forms of empire, including the USAmerican kind. Citizens of heaven are not dead people, but living people who courageously pray "Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." These loyalists to Jesus and his reign refuse to confuse the kingdoms of this world with the kingdom of our God and of his Christ. They don't wave flags and send armies as if their King needs those things to get his job done.

Amazingly, the one book of the Bible that is so desperately needed in our day has become the basis of fiction best-sellers. Fiction.

Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy.

Promises Paint the Future

2007-05-17T14:30:00.000-07:00

When my girls were little, they had a record. Remember those? A record was a black plastic round thing with tiny grooves in it. Their record had a song on it called "I am a promise." The main theme repeated, "I am a promise. I am a possibility. I am a promise with a capital P." Out of the mouth of babes.

We live best by promises and not by principles, especially if the promises are God's promises.

We swim in a vast ocean of principles: mathematical ones, biological ones, financial, relational, technological ones. We have principles for everything. Then, here come the expert Bible-handlers providing their ever-so-helpful "biblical principles." The thing is: principles don't really do much for us. That's why God gave us a Bible chock full of stories about people (like us) who encountered an untameable God who made promises to them.

I think it would have been easier, if principles are all that necessary, for God to have given us an almanac of principles. Why waste our time with stories about God talking with Abram and Sarah and Abram's incessant lying about Sarah to the Egyptian kings? Why give us ghastly stories in the Book of Judges, exciting stories about David the shepherd-king, and rough and tumble stories about the prophets? Why give us four Gospels bristling with Jesus-filled stories? Why this Bible, if succinct principles are the "real" need? Yet, there it is: a Bible with stories of people who lived sometimes well and sometimes horribly in response to the living God's promises.

Promises have a divine "I will" in them. God's "I will" not only points us toward the future, it takes us there. A principle, on the other hand, just lies there like a cold, raw fish fillet asking us to do something with it. Wouldn't we rather have our future energized more by God's resolute "I will" than by our faltering "I will"?

Promises are God's paint with which God presents us with a breath-taking picture of a new, preferred future. With infinite wisdom and endless power, God extravagantly splashes color all over the future. We look up from our tiny "paint by numbers"/"live by principles" lives and almost collapse in wonder at the dazzling sight before us. We can almost hear God saying something like this: "I will make everything new! Do you want to join me?" Isn't that more inviting and compelling than gnawing on "seven principles of newness"?

Life transformation takes place in the wildness and adventure of promise, not in the quiet library of tidy principles. You can, of course, analyze promises, catalogue promises, exegete promises and stay spiritually numb. The same with principles. Yet the moment we believe God's promise, we come alive to the potential of a whole new future.

Learn a principle or live a promise. We get to make a choice.

Jesus Blew Their Minds

2007-05-14T06:30:00.000-07:00

Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!
Mark 4:41.

These words were uttered (perhaps screamed) in panic. The disciples were terrified. As Jewish boys, they feared a great fear.

For a while they were afraid of the sea as it was whipped into a deadly frenzy by the fierce winds off the eastern heights of Decapolis. Now they were terrified of the alien in the boat with them.

"What kind of a man is this...?!" What category do we put him in?

They had categories for all kinds of men: Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Herodians, lepers, tax-collectors, soldiers, emperors, Gentiles, Samaritans. But what kind of man is this? They had no category for a man who commands winds and waves and those winds and waves instantly obey.

Jesus blew the disciples' panicky minds.

Yet, as good Jewish boys, I think they had an inkling of who it was in the boat. Read the section of Psalm 107 below. Who does in Psalm 107 what Jesus did in the boat?

Psalm 107
23 Some went out on the sea in ships; they were merchants on the mighty waters.

24 They saw the works of the LORD, his wonderful deeds in the deep.

25 For he spoke and stirred up a tempest that lifted high the waves.

26 They mounted up to the heavens and went down to the depths; in their peril their courage melted away.

27 They reeled and staggered like drunkards; they were at their wits' end.

28 Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble, and he brought them out of their distress.

29 He stilled the storm to a whisper; the waves of the sea were hushed.

30 They were glad when it grew calm, and he guided them to their desired haven.

Who is in this boat with us?! Could it be the Yahweh, the Lord God of Israel?!

For our own spiritual health Jesus must become alien to us or we will not know him as he truly and fully is.

Happy Mother's Day 2007

2007-05-13T07:00:00.000-07:00

Two of our favorite people:

John's mother, Margaret (l) and Julie's mother, Lois (r).

Margaret lives in Linden, TN with John's stepfather, Neal Parrish.

Lois lives in Nashville, TN with her daughter, Diane Mayfield (Julie's sister) and family.

Both of these ladies love the Lord Jesus and pray for us and our family every day. We won't tell you their ages because you can see how young they are.

To our lovely mothers Margaret and Lois...

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

With love,

John and Julie

The Jesus Way and the American Way

2007-05-10T17:30:00.000-07:00

Remember the old joke regarding Ford's Model T?
In what color can I get my Model T?
You can get it in any color you want as long as it's black.

Assembly line wonder brought America a car they could afford.

That same mentality has created made-to-order USAmerican evangelical spirituality. We laugh off being "cookie cutter Christians" and then try endlessly to be just like each other. We are a herd of Xerox-copied sheep, not a unique individual with our name, our fingerprints, our DNA, our life of faith.

Eugene H. Peterson in his latest book, The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways that Jesus is the Way (Eerdmans, 2007), wrote a short few sentences that stopped me. Peterson writes, "For faith cannot be learned by copying, not by imitating, not by mastering some 'faith-skills.' We are all originals when we live by faith" (emphasis added).

"We are all originals when we live by faith."

As freeing as that sounds, we evangelicals are scared witless by Peterson's comment. We can't handle such a reality. Isn't it easier to receive the booklet, the 6 steps, the 7 purposes? Like all things American, we get our spirituality pre-packaged, even pre-digested?

American spirituality is made to order: no need to think for ourselves; no need to wrestle with God; no need to cultivate our own intimate love language with God; no need to walk the rough terrain of not knowing. No need to read "the meat of the Word" when daily vitamins will do. And, hey, by the way, the pastor is supposed to "feed me." Baaah, baaaah.

"We are all originals when we live by faith."

Originals? Or cookie cooker? Hmmmm.

Denzel in "Deja Vu"

2007-05-05T21:00:00.000-07:00

Julie and I are impressed with Denzel Washington's ability to portray believable characters. In Deja Vu, acting as ATF investigator, Doug Carlin, Washington takes us into a tense and thrilling mixture of modern day terrorism and wild science fiction.

After an horrific terrorist bombing of a ferry in New Orleans, ATF agent Carlin gets involved in an experimental FBI surveillance unit, one that uses spacefolding technology to directly look back a little over four days into the past. Carlin is transported back in time to prevent the ferry bombing and to save the life of Claire Kuchever played by Paula Patton.

One reviewer commented about Deja Vu: "A good script really helps a film and some lines of dialogue are truly excellent, intertwining science with religion whilst asking poignant, thought-provoking questions."

Sometimes I read theological ponderings about whether God is outside time or inside time or both. Films like Deja Vu present the intriguing complexities of such questions.

I was talking with a young couple recently and the guy had on a t-shirt that read "time is an invention." Watching Deja Vu, I think the t-shirt slogan is on to something. As I watched the film and wrestled with the "religion" issues, I thought about: what does God know, when does God know it, is he outside looking in as the FBI experimental unit "looks in" on Claire's life four days ago, or does he get involved in Claire's life as agent Carlin does?

Films like Deja Vu, in my opinion, shock classical deterministic theism. I like the idea of the God revealed in the Bible who mixes it up with us; who sees, listens to, and joins us in this reality called life. We're not living out some cosmic program, each of us being meticulously decreed to act, feel, think and decide as the program has pre-decided. What kind of sovereignty is that? None, in my book. It's a program. If everything is eternally decreed by God (as classical determinism insists), then all talk about authentic human freedom in the end is just smoke and mirrors.

I think relational theism is way ahead of the old-line linear decree of God view. In the divine-human relationship, God gets bumped and bruised (and crucified) as he enters our space and time to rescue us. He invites us into the story, not just as programmed widgets, but as authentic collaborators to make the story happen. Theology Proper begins at the cross of Jesus Christ and works out from there.

One final word, I do not build my theology off of Hollywood movies. I was trained in classical deterministic theism and realized one day that Calvinists are that in theology (theory) only. In every day life, they are as Arminian as most. Relational theism works from Jesus' cross out and takes the Bible's presentation of a highly interactive God mixing it up with humans very seriously. Relational theists see no need to read as "anthropomorphisms" straight-forward statements about God found in the Bible.

Can't Hurry Love or Growth

2007-05-01T20:30:00.000-07:00

Automatic.

What comes to mind when you read the word "automatic"?

I came across the term in Mark 4:28 "All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head." The phrase "all by itself" is αυτοματη (transliterated is "automate' "). We get our words "automatic" and "automatically" from this Greek term. It is used only one other time in the New Testament--Acts 12:10 "They passed the first and second guards and came to the iron gate leading to the city. It opened for them by itself, and they went through it. When they had walked the length of one street, suddenly the angel left him." You recall this is Peter being led out of prison by an angel. The iron gate opened automatically (same word found in Mark- αυτοματη).

Back to Mark 4:28. Jesus is telling another "seed" parable. This time he highlights the energy in the combination of soil and seed. Something automatically happens; something is done "by itself," that is, without the farmer's help. The farmer sows and sleeps, sows and sleeps and things happen beyond his control and without his contribution.

Jesus is speaking about "the kingdom of God." Mysterious forces are released that even the farmer does not know. He does his part, but then the seed and soil do so much more. The seed is and must be out of his hands.

In pragmatic USAmerican evangelicalism, the last thing we truly believe is that if we let go, God, in his creative mysteries, will still be at work. We are conditioned to believe that we've got to "run things," "be in charge," "make things happen," "take the hill."

We, leaders and pastors, think and act like we have to have our grubby little fingers all over people's growth in God. We analyze growth, systematize growth, facilitate growth, calculate growth, evaluate growth, ad nauseum. Because of our entrenched pragmatism and the itch for quick results, we stupidly try to hasten growth. We transfer the concept--"automatically"--to our frenzied methods hoping that the right "steps" and "fill-in-the-blanks" will promote transformation. We forfeit the restful contentment that God is doing what we could never do.

We resist hiddenness, seasonal slowness, and mysterious energies we can't control. We want harvest yesterday. Yet, God will not be "automatically" tied to our hurried methods. We either adjust to him and his ways or lose sleep and drive people crazy urging them to grow.

Don't get me wrong. We aren't called to be lazy. That is nowhere in Jesus' parable. We must do our part. We should do it well and faithfully. Yet, God, also, has his part to do. Some plant, others water, yet God and God alone brings the increase. We can sleep on it.

The People Known As Christians

2007-04-30T17:30:00.000-07:00

Paul Mayer is a blogger in the UK. He's joined the People Formerly Know As series with his take on [everything below is from Paul]...

The people known as christians...

Bill Kinnon started it with his thought provoking meme 'the people formerly known as the congregation', Jamie Arpin-Ricci has written my favourite iteration 'the people becoming known as missional' and Lyn has written the most poignant version 'the woman formerly known as the pastors wife' and there quite a few more out there as well.

I have decided to write this piece on the people known as christians to celebrate all these pieces and from my own perspective I see that we can so easily idealise church and how we go about being or not being the church. Alt titles for this piece could well have been: the people who [mess] up but are loved by God; the perfect church for imperfect people; the hope of the world for the helpless, through the hopeless; and the beautiful but bitchy bride [you may have some more suggestions]...

I really love the church and I really do think it is the best hope we got - it's also full of people like me so as bent as a 10 bob note!

We are the people known as christians, Jesus followers, little Christs, disciples, missionaries, followers, apprentices, the church, the body and bride of Christ. There are billions of us around the world, from every tribe, nation, race, generation, class and sex - and we are just part of the great linked river of faith, with billions downstream from us, cheering us on from history past and billions more upstream from us who will celebrate our faithful journies in history to come.
We are the people known as Christians, dwellers in the now and the not yet, citizens of this world yet strangers in our own lands. For we are part of a people and a kingdom that is present in this world and we live in the hope of the kingdom to come, a renewed heaven and a renewed earth.

Some of us live with unprecedented power and choice, having the ear of great leaders and the respect of many of the institutions of our time. We are amongst the wealthiest people who have ever lived. Living in a time of unprecedented peace, prosperity and plenty. We are able to live our lives in our own ways with our rights and freedoms protected. We gather freely, express openly are beliefs and choose to disagree with one another without recrimination. We live in the heritage of our christian western world and reap the benefits of the generations that have gone before who by their own sacrifices allow us to stand free today. We are ironically also the most anxious, overwhelmed, over worked, worried, fearful, cynical, stressed and depressed people of all time.

Many of us however are persecuted, ignored, and marginalised - we meet in secret, we fear arrest, torture and death. We exist on the crumbs from the table of the rich and wealthy world and what we can eek out with our own hands and lives. We are poor, uneducated, hungry and surrounded by disease and death. Yet we live by faith with lives that are gratefully generous to each other, seeing ourselves as a connected community rather than as individuals. For although we have little and long to have more we know that we already have the one thing that is worth having, a faith that transforms life itself.

We are people who have always recognised the need to gather together - whether we meet in ones and twos with the people who we do life with or in bigger groups to share the story of our lives and communities. Where ever and whenever we as christians have gathered we have seen people's lives transformed, hope spark into life and light flow into the communities around us.
This process can be slow, smouldering and subtle taking many lifetimes or it can suddenly spark into a roaring bushfire of sweeping transformation. For although we are committed to the ancient practises of prayer, study, service, giving and fasting we are not the catalyst for this change merely one means for the Holy Spirit to be at work in us and through us to the world around us.

We are therefore a people of presence, called to be as present to each other and the world as our other centred tri-une God is present to himself and to all of us they created in his image. God the Father who initiates, God the Son who came for us, as one of us and God the Spirit who moves amongst us all. It is the self revelation of our loving tri-une God that is challenging and changing us, leading us on a journey of inward change and outward lives that reflect a growing love, peace, kindness, gentleness, grace, mercy and humility towards the people and places in which we dwell.

We are also a people that when we gather together cause each other to experience hurt, hate, anger, fear, pain, suspicion, loneliness, pride and abuses. For we are not perfect but human, broken, cracked people who manage to inflict cruelties and do damage to each other and on the creation around us. We are to be as much a part of each others help and healing as we are already the cause of each others pain and sorrow. For it is not us the church who brings healing and wholeness to the world but the one we follow and are learning to follow, Jesus, our liberating, life giving king.

We are the people known as christians but we can also be called the imperfect,the isolated, the broken, the bitter, the arrogant, the angry, the humble and the hurting, the sinner and the sinning, the consumer and the consumed, the first and the last, the George Bush and the Mother Teresa.

As christians we are a people who are stubborn, slow to change, quick to miss the point, poor at listening, ignore the obvious, misinterpret the signs, and have huge blindspots we are grateful that God does not speak to us alone but also into the world. We welcome and appreciate critique and the stirring of the Spirit in the people around us, that have caused us to slowly wake up to social, economic, environmental and political justice - for those who have led us into the light through the civil rights, feminist and environmental protection movements, we are grateful.
Yet as the people known as christians we share a common dream, a hope, a savour, a liberator. We are Easter people, who walk in the hope of the birth, life, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus. For in Jesus we see the hope that we will once again have our humanity restored, we will get our lives back andone day live fully anew.

We experience the glimmer of this future when we love instead of hate, forgive instead of strike back, give instead of take, create instead of destroy, help instead of walk on by, laugh with others who laugh and cry with those who cry. These life giving moments remind us of the change that is going on quietly within us, the gentle caress of the Spirit conforming us in the image of our resurrected living Lord. The tongue tingling taste of the kingdom that has come amongst us now, the freedom that is given to escape our tired stories and self focused lives and experience the wonder and life as people called to care and serve each other, the communities and creation around us.

We are the people known as christian. Although we are the numerous and different, the fractured and fractious we recognise one Lord, Jesus and are called by the One God our Father, through the power of the one Spirit to be one body, one people, one nation, one family, one creation and one kingdom. Ours is a life walked together, learning to live for the other, learning to love the other as we are changed by the infinite love of God who is for us and transforms us.

Gregory A. Boyd at Mars Hill, Grand Rapids

2007-04-29T22:00:00.000-07:00

Dr. Gregory A. Boyd, pastor of Woodland Hills Church, St. Paul, MN spoke at Mars Hill Bible Church today. Julie and I went to hear him this evening.

Greg, using 1 John 3:8--"The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's works"--as the key theme, presented a biblical and passionate overview of Christus Victor--our warrior King and Deliverer.

From our origin as God's image-bearers and from the time we forfeited our God-given dominion over to the devil in the Fall, Greg moved to the life and mission of Jesus of "binding the strong man and plundering his house." With energetic imagery Greg painted a picture of Jesus' assault on the devil's evil mission in league with principalities and powers to destroy and bring death to human beings.

I was struck by Boyd's excitement that the first mention of the term "church" by Jesus places the church as the aggressive force storming the gates of Hell (Matthew 16:18). Jesus invites the church to plunder hell and release its captives because Jesus has already bound the strong man by his death on the cross (see Colossians 2:15).

However, in the midst of all the war talk, Boyd reminded us that other people are not the enemy--we don't struggle against flesh and blood. If it is a flesh and blood person or group of people or nation of people--even and especially our enemies, our only call is to express self-denying, sacrificial love. We are to mimic God and to live in love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us (Ephesians 5:1-2). People who dress Jesus up in red, white and blue may not have liked Greg's message.

To get a fuller view of Jesus as Christus Victor, I encourage you to read Boyd's book God at War: The Bible and Spiritual Conflict. In this book, Boyd relieves the unnecessary tension produced by classical determinism. That tension resides in the Godhead where the Father decrees "all things" (including very evil acts) and then sends his Son to fight against and clean up the very things that he, God, has decreed. That's what classical determinism leads to. If nothing, absolutely nothing happens "outside" God's decree, then God is the origin the evil. Classical determinists recoil at that conclusion and respond that the origin of evil is "a mystery." "Mystery" is a cop-out from where their theological system logically leads.

We were invited at the close of the service to celebrate the Lord's Table in light of what Jesus accomplished at the cross. It was a meaningful moment for Julie and me.

Thanks to Mars Hill for bringing Gregory A. Boyd into the area to speak.

The Role of Women in Ministry

2007-04-26T12:00:00.000-07:00

Why did it take Moses 40 years to get the people of Israel across a relatively small area of land from Egypt to the Promised Land?

Because he refused to stop and ask for directions.

Moses was a man. Men wander and wander, believing it is beneath them to ask for help.

I'm joking, of course. Yet, the gender wars seem to continue with both humor and, sadly sometimes, with hostility.

I am convinced that with the coming of Jesus, with his ministry to and with women, that a defining change took place in how women were viewed in a patriarchal culture. I believe that with the pouring out of the Spirit on the earth all kinds of differences that barred people from full equality with one another in the kingdom were abolished. Paul unpacks this equality in several of his New Testament letters. That equality is not just about equal standing before God, but equal status and function in the believing community. The equality in salvation is demonstrated in actual social change. Salvation opens doors for women, not closes them.

The dialogue/debate about the role of women in ministry continues in the USAmerican evangelical church. Excellent books about the issue from both the complementarian view (gifted women are excluded from some functions in the church) and the egalitarian view (gifted women have equal access with men to all functions of the church) are available. No one needs to be ignorant about the biblical, theological and practical dynamics inherent in the discussion. No one needs to be a "Bible thumper," either, as if the issue is cut and dry with no serious discussion needed. We have heard enough from those who say, ''The Bible says it; I believe it; that settles it." Closed minds are not good in any arena of life, including the church.

When God created "man," that is, human beings, God created persons male and female. I believe in genuine, God-created differences between the sexes. Yet, when only half of the image-bearers of God (men) have "authority over" (contrary to Jesus' view of authority) all the people in the body of Christ, the whole body suffers a loss; the believing community experiences a deficit.

There are a few hot-bed texts about this issue. Those who are honest on both sides of the issue, admit that these texts are not "right out there," plain as day. There are lexical issues, textual critical issues (in some), exegetical issues, contextual issues, and cultural/historical issues in every text discussed about "the role of women in ministry." All these lead to differences in theological understandings and pastoral practices.

As a pastor, I think that men will always think and feel and talk and teach as men. How could they do otherwise? The same with women in Christ. Isn't it true that God does not have only a "masculine" heart? God's "image" includes the feminine heart as well. The Spirit does not distribute New Testament gifts--leaders, pastors, teachers--with a gender bias.

I have experienced the teaching and pastoral ministry of ordained, trained, gifted sisters in Christ. It is undeniable that I received something of God that I would never receive from a man. I did not sense in the least a "feminist ideology" in them. They were simply serving as God created, gifted and called them. With what I know now about the few hotly debated texts, I would never refuse a gifted sister in Christ full equality in ministry with me or other men. I don't want to face the Judge Who judges rightly with that decision on my shoulders. Our sisters are different from men and that difference-in-relationship-to-God-as-a-woman needs to be heard, appreciated and affirmed by men and by all the church.

*Google image above

Get a Laugh! PFKATPFKATC

2007-04-22T15:00:00.000-07:00

It's good to be able to laugh at ourselves.

Dan McDonald is a friend of Bill Kinnon and Dan pastors Grace Toronto Church. Dan has jumped into the People Formerly Know As conversation. Here are Dan's thoughts on People Formerly Known As The People Formerly Known As The Congregation"

"I raise a glass to the People Formerly Known as the People Formerly Known as the Congregation, who, upon hearing that their disaffection had created a tsunami-like publicity wave that was about to become a Zondervan marketing campaign and then a new para-church ministry (40 Days of Anti- Purpose?), quietly realized that it was no use. Even their defiance had become hip. Soon CNN would be calling, and Larry King would be asking them for an interview. Sigh.

"And so, with heavy hearts, they looked around for the most authentic expression of Christianity they could find. It wasn't in the Christian bookstores. It wasn't in the radio programs. It wasn't even in the TV shows; Lord, no. Oprah didn't quite make it. Benny and Jimmy and the TBN gang had too much hair spray and too many white suits and ever-white teeth. And it was no longer in the blog weave known as TPFKATWhatever, which was now hopelessly popular, cool, hip, and with it.

"So they dragged themselves down to the local church. Not the magnet Uber-church that took up 15 acres of land, but the local church with the faded sign and the musty carpet. And there, they found something bizarre.

"Second-rate music, draggy announcements, bad children's stories, dated PowerPoint templates, and something else.... real parents who were teaching children about Jesus with joy in their hearts. Ushers who loved to serve. Snacks teams that laughed as they missed the last part of the service just to feed a hundred people. Guitarists in tears over a cheesy illustration by the young pastoral intern, who was so nervous he had forgotten to button his shirt properly and was speaking for 58 minutes because by gosh, since he only got to preach twice a year, he was going to tell them everything he had learned in the past 6 months. And patient singles, couples and parents nodding dutifully to him, knowing he was nervous and helping him feel loved and prophetic and useful. and finding that in those 58 minutes were some very helpful things for them, because a Voice was using this intern in his inadequacy.

"And that Voice, the Voice of the Shepherd, touched the PFKATPFKATC. And they remembered why it took them so long to become the PFKATC. Because despite the second-rate production values, the Spirit was here. He promised to be wherever two or three are gathered in His name. Excellent it wasn't- Cheesy it was. Authentic? Go ask the snacks coordinator if her joy is authentic, and she'll think you're from another planet. You can't DREAM UP this kind of second-rate cheese combined with this much first-rate joy in our culture any more; it has to be authentic.

"So they- the PFTATC, that is, decided to be radical and do a crazy thing. They called up the People Presently Known as Pastors, and found a bunch of peope equally frustrated, tired, restless, and hopeful. And they talked. And the PFKATCongregation realized the PPKATPastors hardly read blogs, because they are so busy dealing with the complaints and needs of the People Still in Their Congregation. The pastors were stunned that these people cared so much; they had assumed the leaving was because the PFKATC cared too little.

"And lo and behold, they each found out something wondrous and true, and that is this: that the people presently known as pastors mostly got into the pastorate for people like the PFKATC, because you care so much about the kingdom. And so do we.

"And so I raise a glass, as a Person Still Willing To Call Myself a Pastor, to You, the People About to Be Known Again As The Congregation. I know church isn't what it should be. That's my fault- and yours. I stamped it with my pathologies, and so did you. Don't try to bail on your responsibility just because I got paid to do this full time. Guess who paid me? This sucker is OURS, first to last. It's wounded, and weak, and corrupted, and full of hypocrisy- I agree.

"But the funny thing is... it IS the body of Christ. A messed up, messy, ego-saturated, hypocritical institution on earth. With idiots like you and me running it, what did you expect? Oh yeah, and one more thing - it is also His Bride. The glorious, triumphant, sinful yet forgiven, cleansed, spotless Bride against whom the Gates of Hell shall not prevail.

"If you turn your back on His Bride, you turn your back on Him. And since you are His, you won't do that. You will come back and help make the Bride beautiful again. Because you care. There is enough piss and vinegar and sadness and passion and real, Spirit-groaning hope in these blog threads to start a new Reformation. It's high time we started. Who's got the nails for the Door? I'll bring the hammer.

"And drink a glass to you all.

"Welcome back.

"Cheers."

Dan

* * * * * * * * *

Bill Kinnon commented, "Dan made me laugh and skewered me with the truth."

Dan, I, too, thank you for your wading into these PFKA waters and bringing a perspective that can easily get lost in the turmoil of "doing church" in the 21st century.

TPFKA Update from Bill Kinnon

2007-04-21T07:15:00.000-07:00

Over at "achievable ends," Bill Kinnon provides an update of THE PEOPLE FORMERLY KNOWN AS series. It is the April 20, 2007 entry.

The TPFKA virtual conversation is expanding. The church as "institution" is sick. People are willing to voice the symptoms of the sickness. They are longing for a healthy reality that participates in Jesus' vision of "church," and that vision is not only emerging, it is being lived "outside the four walls" of status quo church.

The Women Formerly Known as the Pastor's Wife

2007-04-18T17:00:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Lyn Hallewell over at "Beyond the 4 Walls," we now have another episode of "The People Formerly Known As..."

With a spirit of gentle honesty Lyn writes her reflections.

Click: The Women Formerly Know As The Pastor's Wife.

Thanks, Lyn.

Note: eye = a Google image.

THE GIRL FORMERLY KNOWN AS A NORMAL CHRISTIAN

2007-04-16T16:00:00.000-07:00

The following is from Heidi Daniels.
(photo on the right)

* * * * * * * * * *

I am the girl formerly known as as a "normal Christian."

You may know me as a violinist, as a teacher, as a sister, daughter, wife, and friend. You may have noticed that I don't attend a church building anymore and worried about me, maybe thinking that I have really fallen off the deep end theologically. Maybe you haven't talked to me in a long time because you are convinced of this. Maybe you've thought I'm turning away from God, or away from the Bible, or at least away from the Body of Christ. The truth is...
I'm a girl who deeply desires God. I believe I'm his image-bearer, though I'm still learning what that means. There are many like me, many who for years fit inside status quo Christianity. Many who, like me, find that the old boxes no longer contain the expansive life that Christ has filled us with. Many who have quietly and sometimes not-so-quietly found new ways to live out our lives as Christ followers.

I am the girl who, as a child, would wake up her parents late at night to confess some little act or thought that I perceived to be sinful - because I couldn't sleep, my conscience was keeping me awake. I am the girl who couldn't lie because it made me sick to my stomach. Don't get me wrong, I don't think these things reflect my "godliness from a young age", but rather my tender conscience combined with the overwhelming fear that I had, even as a child, of being "wrong."
I am the girl who read her first theology book when she was 13. I ate it up. By the time I was 18, I felt like I knew it all. I had systematic theology "down." I began to study philosophy in high school. I could use words like "pelagian" and "gnostic heresy" and "synchronistic" and "dialectic" intelligently in conversation. I read everything that existed by Piper, Packer, and Bridges. Then, being that it wasn't enough to read "about" the works of people like John Owen, I went back and read the originals, like "Mortification of Sin."

I am the girl formerly known as a normal Christian. I read my Bible daily and highlighted, underlined, and wrote notes in the margin. I led my first Bible study when I was 16. I am the girl who attended not one church during my high school years, but two. I was the faithful church attendee every Sunday, and then a faithful youth group member at a different church - always showing up early to Bible studies and Sunday evening events.

I am the girl who was promised the world by church leaders and famous authors, if only I would read my Bible and pray every day and submit myself to Christ. If I listened closely to the voices of "authority" in Christendom, I'd hear messages about how to secure God's blessing - how to avoid being hurt in romantic relationships - how to live a victorious or successful or wealthy life. When suffering was talked about, no one ever mentioned how dark it could be, how sometimes it felt as if God had left you all alone. Somehow even suffering was victorious, if you could be cheerful and stoic through it.

I am the girl whose world was shattered when a tale of unrequited love broke my heart, shattered my reputation, and for a while convinced me that God was holding out on me. Then I discovered that what I'd been taught was wrong. God wasn't a vending machine...I couldn't do the right thing and guarantee his response. God was wild, but good. He didn't always do what you'd expect, but he always did what was best.

I am the girl formerly known as a normal Christian...who came to see that much of Christendom in the modern era was about control. We couldn't control God, but we tried, by writing up our ideas about him and then freeze-drying them, shrink-wrapping them, and having them nailed down forever. "Sola Scriptura" became, instead of the liberating mantra of the Reformation, a way to climb into a box where we could close the lid and say that everyone on the outside "just didn't get it."

I am the girl who sat in a pastor's office with two pastors and a very hurting girl and watched as they "shoulded" on her, loading her down with burdens too heavy to carry. What was it that Jesus said about not breaking a bruised reed? It began to seem to me that the opposite was true of church leaders dealing with women who had been victimized by domestic violence and emotional assault.

I am the girl who slowly but surely moved away from being an attendee at a church and being to realize that the passion God had given me for his church wasn't about buildings, or programs, or budgets, or attendance. It was about his people - his body - his bride, the people he died to save.
I am the girl formerly known as a normal Christian who sacrificed her reputation as "one of the mature ones" - one of the ones you'd WANT in leadership, leading Bible studies, "ministering" - to instead become a person solely dependent on Christ....not pastors, not elders, not authors, not caregroup leaders. It's not that I think pastors, elders, authors, or caregroup leaders are bad people...many of them truly love God and are serving him as best they know how. It's just that I no longer accept that any of them are in a position to mediate my relationship with God, or are given any authority by him in my life. There are those that I respect and look to for an example, for guidance, for advice - like my parents, or Paul Morgan, or others who have walked with God longer than I and have much to offer me. But these people are not my authority, nor are they a mediator between God and me. They are friends, they are the community of Christ with me on the journey...but I do not bow to them.

Indeed, I do not bow to anyone except my Lord. I do not bow to church history, though there are many people that have come before, and I am grateful for their writiings, their example, their bravery. I do not bow to any organized expression of church, though they have done much good, I have come to see that there are other ways and sometimes better ways of being a living expression of the Body of Christ.

I am the girl formerly known as a normal Christian. I'm not normal anymore, I certainly don't stick with the status quo, I don't have much reverence for sacred cows, and I'm not afraid to disagree with the majority. But I haven't stopped loving the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and I'm passionate about loving his body - the church. I might not agree with you about how best to do that, but I haven't forsaken fellowship. I meet with the body of Christ in my home and the homes of others, in coffee shops, across fried rice at Thai restaurants, participating in redemptive conversations and living, loving, crying, and praying together. This, I believe, is Church - and it is something I will love and serve until my dying day.

You may disagree with me and you may think that what I'm saying is wrong...but all I ask is this...

Did Christ call us to be normal Christians? Or normal anything, for that matter? Or did he open up the possibility for so much more than getting along with Pharisees and not upsetting the status quo? As I recall, he wasn't afraid to cause a ruckus in the temple of his day. Wherever you are and wherever you serve - whether inside traditional church or outside - don't settle for normal. He has given us so much more than that.

* * * * * * * *

Thank you, Heidi. I hope many people hear you.

Greg Laughery: A Necessary Plea about "Church"

2007-04-14T08:45:00.000-07:00

Greg Laughery is a blog friend who lives in Huemoz, Switzerland. He has a site called Living Spirituality: Renewing the Mind, Refreshing the Heart, Reviving the Soul.

Greg in a recent post has reflected on Bill's, Grace's, Jamie's and my posts about The People Formerly Known As The Congregation/Pastor.

Read Greg's gentle commentary:

This post is connected to those of Bill Kinnon, John Frye, Jamie Arpin-Ricci, and Grace. It should be read with their concerns in mind as they seek to define The People Formerly Known as the Congregation. Their four posts seem to form a nucleus around the themes of lament, of disappointment, of betrayal, of pain, of renewal, of hope and redemption. Exodus continues. The journey of wilderness wandering, in the company of God, will lead toward new beginnings, and one fine day we will all arrive in the Promised Land. In the meantime, this time in-between times ….

A Plea from the Battle Torn and Worn who are longing for New Beginnings

Conflicts are brewing at an alarming pace between Christians who are emerging and those who are not. Fine – let’s get at what we have in common and where we disagree. But please, for the sake of Christ Jesus, let’s do this with grace, love, humility, and a flair for holiness, as we live before the watching world. There has been too much, and it must be said with tears, spiteful innuendo, anger, disrespect and injustice in the past. Let’s not repeat that in the present. These battles get ugly and there is no winner. The numbers of wounded merely increase and the love of Christ pales into obscurity. We are torn and worn by the wars. Release us, oh Lord, and give us a new beginning.

Give voice to those who long to be free; let us speak of some important matters.

We believe it is essential to love God, each other, and all people.

We believe it is crucial to turn our hearts and minds to God, and in so doing to worship, to encounter God, not just to talk or read about God.

We believe we are actors in the great drama of God’s global mission of redemption and the renewal of all things, centered in and upon the crucified and risen One.

We believe Scripture and Spirit reveal God, refresh our memories, empower our imaginations, and direct our lives into increasing and ever deeper community with God and each other.

We believe that Jesus is Lord and that churches or Empires are not.

We believe the focus on and drastic slippage into church activities, committees, buildings and bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo being central results in deep spiritual impoverishment. Tear down the walls – let the people go – let us go – following in the footsteps of Christ will bring freedom for the oppressed and disenfranchised. People are where it’s at.

We believe the arts, and cultural participation and analysis, are vital.

We believe in church as community, as a Scripture reading and living community.

We believe in hospitality and a compassionate welcoming of strangers.

We believe that the Christian life is an expression of living spirituality. Living spirituality is both verb and adjective. It is to be lived and it is living. Living because God is a living God and lived because we are spiritual people.

Thanks, Greg.

"I'll Have A Double Galatians. Hold the Psalm."

2007-04-10T18:30:00.000-07:00

Ken Medema once sang about our Christian culture's creation of the "corner drugstore Jesus pushing happiness pills." Well sung, Ken.

I am startled at the responses to the previous post. My friend, Bill Kinnon, is wondering why his essay and mine have struck such a sensitive nerve in the evangelical community (see previous two entries). "Grace" offered insights into the underlying issues of "church" gone awry and Jamie points us to a preferred missional future.

It's risky writing as we did because some will think we're petulant or whiney or bitter. As far as I can tell, Bill is a happy guy. And I'm enjoying the place God has called me to at this time in my life. Others may conclude differently. Such is the risk when you reveal the "family secrets."

I don't think Bill and I are seeking to place blame on anyone. We're trying to address a prevailing form of USAmerican/Canadian "church" that is spinning out a lot of negativity. Disillusioned people are fleeing congregational life as we have come to know it. Pastors are jettisoning a toxic form of ministry parading under the banners of "success" and "cultural relevance."

Remember "paint by numbers" kits? This is the USAmerican church. Just like McDonald's across the States---all the same---so is the average evangelical church. Same songs, same current trendy stuff, same effort at some kind of coffee bar. We older folks poke fun at teens wanting to express their "individuality" and end up in the same jeans, same shoes, piercings, same T-shirts, iPods, etc. as all their friends. Why do we joke about the teens when we sit in our churchy cultural sameness from sea to shining sea? For all the fuss about GenX, etc. versus Boomers, I even see an ocean of sameness in the emerging church. The 'conference-ization' of anything is the evangelical way.

We don't have honest evangelicalism. We have an American Christian economy driven by market share and media. You got a good idea? Publish it (with a workbook). You got a creative ministry? Put it on a DVD. You got a heart for the poor? Make money off of it. Anything is marketable. Bank on it.

Christians are investors in the corporation. What is their profit share?

"I pays my money and I makes my choice." Christians are consumers.

"May I see your menu, oops!, I mean your church bulletin..."

"Is this service rated G or PG? I hope to God, not R."

Q: "Are we going to do the 40 Days of Purple?" A: "Yeah, after we do Experiencing God and before we do Alpha."

"Can I bring my snack, oops!, I mean my coffee into the theater, uh, sanctuary?"

Who wants to serve in that mess? Who wants that mess in the first place? A whole lot of people and pastors are saying, "Not me!"

The People Formerly Known As "The Pastor"

2007-04-05T17:30:00.000-07:00

TPFKA"TP"
The People Formerly Known As "The Pastor"

The following post is a polemic. It is meant to provoke conversation in line with Bill Kinnon's, "Grace's" and Jamie Arpin-Ricci's posts mentioned in the last entry. These comments are a composite of my own experiences and those of disillusioned church leaders.

There are thousands of us. You probably know many of us now as insurance sales agents, real estate agents, or doing anything besides "church." We started with idealism about being voices for the kingdom of God and soon realized we became mutated forms of USAmerican business leaders. Even Jesus became a CEO. We traded immersion in the Bible for hyped-up seminars and books about good management, strong leadership and slick public relations. We learned that the size of our church parking lot mattered more than the size of your hearts for God. Be Thou My Vision got altered to "What is your vision statement?"

The People Formerly Known As The Pastor discovered somewhere in "doing church" that they were being paid as surrogates for the congregation's spirituality. You know, the old saw, "Pastors are paid to be good; the people are good for nothing." People seem to tell others more about their pastor(s) than about Jesus, their Savior. Of course, this made pastors feel good and loved and valued. Then it dawned on us, we were feeling good for all the wrong reasons. We were dynamic communicators, we awed people with exegetical biblical wonders, we spoke notebooks full of outlines with cute stories and precise principles and timely applications. We "rightly handled the word of truth" as a magician handles his tricks. What a one-man show. Little did we realize that all our song-and-dance additions overshadowed the eternal Word itself. For all our proclamation about the "sufficiency of Scripture," we communicated as if that Word needed our 2 cents worth. And our razzle-dazzle knowledge of Hebrew and Greek helped us create messages that made you feel totally inadequate to do serious Bible study on your own. So, you either read a fluffy devotional snippet each day or ran off to Bible Study Fellowship to really learn the Word.

The People Formerly Known As The Pastor wrestled with conflicting ego issues. Some felt the rush of power over people. Some even said that in order to get to God, you had to go through us. We were your covering (a term never used in pastoral ministry until the 1970s). We were "the Lord's anointed." Don't touch us. Being charged with the eternal well-being of souls is heady stuff. And, sadly, it went to our heads. We became commanders rather than servants. We liked the feeling of bossing people around...in the name of the Lord, of course. When you confronted us with our spiritual abuse of you, we were quick and smooth, savvy and cunning, and we made you feel like it was all your fault. On the other hand, others of us were scared to death of you. You gave us our paycheck. You gave us benefits. Unknown to us, you called us to your church in order to get your way. We thought we were authentically praying to God, "Your will be done...," but it became apparent that the will of God was the will of those who had the money. We became people-pleasers at the cost of our own dreams. Eventually the commanders among us got kicked out of the church and the fearful among us got scared out. Selling shoes looked mighty appealing.

The People Formerly Known As The Pastor ran up school bills, too, going to college and seminary. It's costly learning Hebrew and Greek these days. Our peers in the "market place" were making twice, sometimes 3 and 4 times the salary we were offered. We were told to live by faith. We saw the rampant materialism permeate the church and we baptized it with "being relevant with the culture." We officiated at very high-priced weddings and worried how we would get our own kids married. Spring Break meant Disney-World for you and your kids and a trip to see relatives for us. We tried to remember the thing about "treasures laid up in heaven" while realizing that tithing was the rich person's easy way out. Yes, we made you give to our grandiose building projects, our need for bigger this and newer that "for the Lord." We made you pledge to this idea and that effort. All the while we told you, "You can't serve both God and money." When some of us ventured to speak about simplicity, you thought we were anti-capitalists, unAmerican.

The People Formerly Known As The Pastor loved the idea of spiritual gifts and gift inventory tools. Now we could recruit you with this slick saying, "You will find your deepest joy when you become a Sunday School teacher, a financial council member, an evangelistic campaign organizer." We loved the idea of "recruiting." We could build our religious empire footnoted with Bible verses. More people serving possibly meant a bigger church. We could go to Pastors Conferences armed and ready to shoot off our mouths about "the hand of God's blessing on my church." Note that many pastors really do say,"My church." Our worries at night about problems and struggles in "my church" were the signal that we truly had taken ownership of what is God's. When we overlooked 20 compliments and ruminated angrily over one negative comment, we knew it was "all about us." Some of us needed counseling.

The People Formerly Known As The Pastor were angry people. Not that you would know it. Our spouses and children knew it. We lived in glass houses. Our kids had to be angels while yours were smoking pot and having sex. And, God forbid, that anyone in the church say anything negative about your kid(s). When you "dedicated" them to God on that Sunday morning, the church committed to helping you raise your child. But, watch out if someone corrected your child while at church. You lost it. You left. You were living under some crazy belief that being born a sinner didn't apply to your children. You wanted to drop them off in a very safe environment with very safe people and then you could forget all about them and do your church thing. You would listen to "Focus on the Family" and then pay church staff to focus on your kids. It was really a crazy environment.

The People Formerly Known As The Pastor began to smell something rotting in the whole "church" thing. Only once in the New Testament is the term for the service of pastor used as a noun (Ephesians 4:11-12). All the rest of the times "pastoring/shepherding" is used as a verbal form, except when used of Jesus. Having accepted a corrupted image and Christendom model of "the pastor," we finally began to see that corruption infiltrating the church. Apostles and prophets and deacons and elders/overseers are mentioned far more than "the pastor." Why did this one term and office (!) gain supremacy? In its current expression, "the pastor" certainly isn't biblical. And don't get some of us started on the injustice of limiting the equal status of women in ministry.

The People Formerly Known As The Pastor are still serving in the places once populated by The People Formerly Known As The Congregation. At least some of us are. We are not seeking to command and control. We are not jittery about what people think. We are not afraid of the seismic shift caused by TPFKATC. We sense that something magnificent is afoot. We are intrigued by the chaos. We, TPFKATP, are willing to risk significant change with TPFKATC in order to recover or even create local expressions of the kingdom of God that first of all are burning with missional passion and practice. We want to explore with you the meaning of the chaos, the vision of a preferred future, the challenge of being "church." We dream of kingdom outposts that are guided by the biblical text in its storied form, shaped by the community of the Trinitarian God, and devoted to the equality of all who are in the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth. What does this mean for "the pastor"? Who knows? That's the adventure we all are in!

TPFKATC

2007-04-04T12:30:00.000-07:00

TPFKATC:
The People Formerly Known As The Congregation

A blog to read (click on the words above).

My Canadian blogger friend, Bill Kinnon, has written a provocative essay. To get right to Bill's creative contribution, scroll a little way down the post.

Follow up by reading Grace's post. Bill calls her post "Part 2" of TPFKATC. Grace writes about "The Underlying Issues."

Even More! Read Jamie Arpin-Ricci's "A Community Becoming to be Known as Missional."

All 3 of these posts--Bill's, Grace's, and Jamie's--are profound articulations of the grassroot changes in USAmerican/Canadian view of "church."

Jesus. What a Man!

2007-03-30T08:30:00.000-07:00

Amidst the hoopla of riding on a donkey toward Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, Jesus rains on his own parade.

With Zechariah 9:9 as a backdrop, the people are yelling accolades to their humble king, blessing him and welcoming him into the "city of peace." According to Matthew and Mark, the people are cutting branches from trees and carpeting the dusty trail. John tells us that they were palm branches. Cloaks are strewn on the road as well. Jesus is receiving a royal welcome.

This is a happy, if not anxious moment for the jazzed up people. This king they imagine is going to do something amazing, something traumatic, something tremendous--what with all his powers. Look out, Roman garrison, Jesus is coming. Look out, corrupt Jewish leaders, the Righteous One is here. It's "pay back" time. Hosanna and hallelujah!

At the crest of the Mount, the panoramic view of Jerusalem fills Jesus' vision. There the "city of peace," tense with conflict and hope, smothered in prayers and blood, waits. The Temple mount captures the eyes of all. When Messiah comes, he comes as king to the Temple.

Jesus bursts into loud, wailing sobs. He is doubled over in grief. Underneath the hosannas, he hears "Spill the blood of the godless Roman swine!" He doesn't see a Temple; he sees a hideout for bandits. He doesn't see a place of prayer for all nations; he sees a money-making racket for Jews. He doesn't see a city of peace; he "sees" dead women and children strewn in the bloody streets like palm branches, like cast off clothing. So, he cries.

He also speaks. He speaks as a heart-broken prophet. He is old Jeremiah all over again. He cries because everything and everyone is so wrong. He's not coming to make Rome die; he's coming to die at the hands of Rome. He's not coming to liberate the city of peace; he's coming to declare its imminent and devastating end.

How does Jesus feel about that? What is God's heart like when he is compelled to speak judgement? For all its horror, these words of judgement do not contain any nuance of revenge. There is no hint of glee, no pay back. Only hot tear drops and deep grief. I repudiate Christians who paint a picture of God rubbing his hands together in joy and laughing as sinners go to hell, getting what they deserve. That is not the God of the Bible. Even as God unleashed the flood of Genesis 6, we read of a God deeply pained at the prospect. Jesus is that same God sitting on a donkey and crying.

Believe me, his humble donkey ride and massive cries are not a Trojan Horse act to fool Rome and Jerusalem. He's not going to suddenly enter a phone booth and come out SuperJew. He is going to walk very alone through the dark valley of the shadow of death. His weapon of choice is to receive a terrorist's death on a cross.

Triumphal or tearful? What kind of entry was it...for Jesus?

Jesus on "Who's In? Who's Out?"

2007-03-21T12:30:00.000-07:00

What do a Gucci chainsaw and Jesus have in common?

There's a lot of emerging conversation about re-working the whole "who's in? who's out?" construct. I think this is a good aspect of the conversation. Do some think the whole question needs deleting? I think so. Yet, I was jolted into thinking some more about this issue as I encountered Jesus in Mark 3: 31-35.

The Gucci chainsaw is not really "in." I got this picture off of "google images." And I'm not convinced it has anything to do with Jesus. I was just amazed that such a thing exists. Maybe it will be purchased by Elton John. Who knows?

Jesus was about redefining some long-held, almost irrevocable traditions in his 1st century, Second Temple Judaism culture (as many of you know from reading Tom Wright's The Challenge of Jesus). Jesus dared to redefine "family" in a centuries-long, patriarchal society. Mark makes this crystal clear in Mark 3: 31-35. It is worth reading...verse at a time.

31 Then Jesus' mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him.

32 A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, "Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you."

33 "Who are my mother and my brothers?" he asked.

34 Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, "Here are my mother and my brothers!

35 Whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother."

Why were his family looking for him? Mark 3:21 reports that they wanted to "seize" or "take custody" of him because they said, "He is out of his mind." This not a flattering picture of Mary and Jesus' brothers. They wanted to stop what they thought was an obsessed son and brother. Jesus was looney tunes.

After the classic Markan "interruption" to build the story (of the deep misunderstandings about Jesus), we pick up on the family's arrival in verse 31.

For me, Mark 3:34 is a case study in centered-set thinking. Mark writes that Jesus looked around (περιβλεψαμενος). This is a deliberate 360 degree gaze. How do we know? Because Mark adds that the crowd was "in a circle" (κυκλω) around him. This detail is important.

Who is in the center? Bingo. Those on the "outside" were natural family--"your mothers and your your brothers." Jesus takes the opportunity to redefine family as those inside who are accepting of and attentive to him and his word. Being accepting of Jesus and attentive to his word are those "who do the will of God" (verse 35). Did you hear the grenade explode? This is radical, scandalous talk!

Why? No longer is Abraham's blood in the veins a family identity marker. No longer is Jewish circumcision an identity marker. No longer is eating Moses' menu an identity marker. No longer is being a Jewish man the identity marker. "Whoever does the will of God is my family," Jesus declares. This opens the door to women, Gentiles, Samaritans, the poor, lepers, outcasts, "people of the land," slaves, whoever! The old stand-by markers are old wineskins exploding as the new wine of Jesus' Way is poured into human lives and relationships.

Centered set. You could be a diligent Jerusalem scribe in the lineage of Abraham and be guilty of the sin that is never forgiven (verse 29). You could be a marginalized, needy Samaritan woman who is a true worshipper of the Father in spirit and in truth. It depends on your response to the Center, the one in the middle of the circle.

There are those who are "in" according to Jesus. And those who are "out." Jesus will later say, "The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables..." (Mark 4:11). Those on the outside (δε τοις εξω). Those on the outside seem to be those wanting to ignore, defame, detract from, even destroy Jesus. They are neither accepting of nor attentive to Jesus and his word.

The emerging conversation cannot shake the need to discuss "who's in? who's out?"

Evil and the Justice of God by N.T. Wright

2007-03-19T08:30:00.000-07:00

When an "outsider" to the mishmash of our American politics mixed with our evangelical faith speaks to us, we can easily take offense. Unless that "outsider" is Nicholas Thomas Wright writing on the present day evil of our world. With none of "our" issues to defend, no senator or representative to vote for, no USAmerican evangelical cause to promote, N. T. Wright drags our country's conscience to the bar of biblical truth. He dares to do this in his book Evil and the Justice of God. He also engages his own country's conscience; even the Western world's conscience.

He dares to say that our country's reasons for our response to the evil of 9/11 were "immature and naive." What does he mean? He explains that it is immature to think that "they" are "evil" and "we" are "good." Evil runs right down the middle of every human heart. In this point Wright agrees with Jesus, not our politicians. All the evil of the world comes from the heart according to Jesus, not from a government style or a religion. It is immature to think that a style or kind of government (democracy) will eradicate evil from the world. We are told that if we bring democracy and freedom to the Middle East, evil will go away. That is biblical foolishness. Who is the largest exporter of pornography in the world? The democratic republic called the USA. Is that evil?

Wright does not try to divine the origins of evil nor does he rehash all the philosophical/theological conundrums associated with "the problem of evil." His task is more simple and practical. Wright asks, "What is God doing about evil?" With this question he surveys the Bible and comes to the fine point of the identity and task of Jesus and his mission. He then explores the task of the church in a world wrecked and terrified by evil--a church that is now participating in "new creation" on the resurrection side of Jesus' redemptive work.

I found the book unselttling at times. Wright presses me to state my loyalty. Am I more loyal to God and his work in the world or am I a loyal American who blindly believes everything I'm told by those in power in Washington, DC?

Evil is too serious a topic to turn into political slogans and shallow promises. Evil must be dealt with the way God dealt with it. This is the real "war" of the church.

The Line in the Sand

2007-03-17T11:00:00.000-07:00

The Line in the Sand
by
John W. Frye

The time that Jesus drew a line in the sand
The scandalous woman lived; sent away forgiven
While blood stones lay unused on the ground,
Once held by self-confessed sinners.

What is our line in the sand?
Does it heal, forgive, give hope and life?
Is it a life line or a line of dark challenge,
signaling separation, judgment and death?

Go ahead, make someone's day.
Draw your line in the sand.
People will see it and know your heart.
Love that forgives draws lines in the sand,
And so does the code of law that kills.

The hand that drew the line for the woman
Who, in panic and shame, bent naked in the crowd
Took the hammered, ragged nail.
His warm blood ran down to the line in the sand.

Where does our blood run these days?
Those who don't bleed, don't forgive.
What's our blood line...or
Blood stone?

Simply Christian by N.T. Wright

2007-03-12T10:15:00.000-07:00

This is simply one very good book by a good guy.

Those who long for justice, spirituality, relationship, and beauty will find Tom Wright's exploration of these realities within the Christian story a compelling read.

I connected with his often repeated refrain that we do not live in a world where God and everything are one (pantheism or panentheism) or in a world where God and everything else exist on the opposite sides of some great cosmic divide. Wright presents a reality of God and everything else overlapping and interlocking. Heaven (and God) are not me and you and the wind and trees nor is heaven (and God) polar opposites of earth and human existence. God and heaven are here in and around us. Torah and Temple, Jesus and the church are where heaven and earth, God and humans have overlapped and interlocked. We are called "to live at the intersection of heaven and earth." And Tom points out--it's not an easy place to live.

His descriptions of the 'church' and her mission are profound, yet simple to grasp. The implications of his re-definitions of church and mission from what most of us have received are staggering. New creation began in earnest at the (bodily) resurrection of Jesus and because followers of Jesus participate in that resurrection, we are new creatures commissioned to announce to the world that with Jesus--his life, death and resurrection--everything has changed! Jesus alone is the world's rightful Lord.

From this eminent and prolific New Testament scholar, historian and theologian, we get a down-to-earth vision of heaven (pun intended) and a breathtaking vision of Jesus of Nazareth, Israel's Messiah and the world's Lord. We are able to set the universal longings for justice, spirituality, relationship, and beauty into a thoroughly Trinitarian-framed, Christ-centered, world-affirming theology. We are invited to imagine how our little acts of kindness and love done out of loyalty to Jesus are changing this planet for the better. The "little seeds" will in fact become very big trees someday. Jesus said so.

Simply go and buy and read Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense.

What's Out? Mind-Game Christianity

2007-03-10T11:30:00.000-08:00

So I got to wondering if God does anything in response to human mental assent...

For example,

A: "Do you believe God forgives you through the blood of Jesus Christ?"

B: "Yes, I believe that." (Meaning, "I assent to its truth)."

A: "Good. You are thereby totally forgiven by God."

Is this accurate? Is it saying more than Jesus would say?

Is forgiveness a mental game played with God and his grace based on the work of Jesus Christ?

With an uneasy heart I say "I don't think so."

"Forgive us our debts/sins, as we also have forgiven our debtors/those who sin against us. ...For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins."

We like to think that forgiveness is a neat, clean transaction just between our mental agreement and God's Word (promise). Other people are actually peripheral or unnecessary. Not so, according to Jesus. There are very real social, relational connections between us and others and God and us. Nothing is private about forgiveness.

Less you think this is going astray, let me refer you once again to Jesus as recorded in Matthew:
Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?"
Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.
"Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
"The servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back everything.' The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
"But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!' he demanded.
"His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.'
"But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.
"Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?' In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
"This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart." --Matthew 18:21-35

Now if there is a relational dimension to something as fundamental as the forgiveness of our sins, I wonder if all of our alleged privatized doctrines ("between just me and God") are suspect. What if all our theology is valid only through the gateway of the entire Great Commandment which ends with "...and your neighbor as yourself." What if it is true that we don't really love the God we can't see because we don't love the very real human being we do see. John the Apostle suggested something to that effect.

What if all propositional theology is valid only if relationally lived. I don't think the simplistic bifurcation (dividing into two parts) of Paul's letters (e.g., Ephesians) is correctly understood. We tend to think that the lofty doctrines of Ephesians chapters 1-3 are a thing in themselves. They present "truths" we then "have to live out" (chapters 4-6). Not quite accurate. The changed lives and ethical newness of chapters 4-6 are the God-energized validation that the truths of chapters 1-3 have taken root in human lives.

Paul can describe the wonderful, comprehensive salvation in Jesus the Messiah (chapters 1-3), but he is thrilled to go on and describe the incarnation of that salvation in wives and husbands, children and parents, slaves and masters, Gentiles and Jews, poor and rich, female and male, cultured and Barbarian (chapters 4-6). In another place Paul actually says that believers are "the message of Christ." Words carved in stone and placed in the ark of the covenant, and written with ink on leather, papyrus, and printed on paper---words highly revered---have never thrilled God as much as "the Word made flesh." God dreamed of the day when "I will write my words on their hearts...I will put my Spirit in them..." That's incarnation.

Unless we incarnate what we say we believe, we're stone monuments, not living messages; museum pieces, not world-changers.

The USAmerican Luxury of Church Hopping

2007-03-05T09:00:00.000-08:00

Sasha Savich is a good, truth-telling brother.

I wrote earlier about his thoughts on our USAmerican "cheap grace." With our "repeat after me" prayer followed by our rock-solid affirmations of eternal security, we produce a cadre of people convinced of heaven when they die without any shred of evidence that the seed of truth has taken root in the soil of their lives. I don't think this "gospel" is either Jesus's or Paul's.

Sasha is stunned by another USAmerican church feature. We have the luxury of church-hopping. We are so use to this feature that it is hard to understand the spiritual horror that this feature generates in our Ukrainian brothers and sisters. With our franchizing everything in the USA, including church, we cater to the consumer mentality, to the shopper spirit, to the hopper syndrome.

I report this to Sasha and he sucks in his breath like I am lying to him. I'm not. Sasha shakes his head and looks so bewildered.

"Oh, John, that does not happen here. When we unite to the church, it is a covenant decision. It is serious. We would be horrified to see Christians in Lutsk shifting around from church to church. We pastors would not allow it."

In Ukraine Christ-centered, Bible-informed, mission-minded churches are hard to find. You find a family of believers and you become part of that family.

Imagine if our own children shifted around from family to family in our neighborhood, saying, "I don't like my current family. I think I'll go join the Smith family. They have a swimming pool and a large screen HD TV." We would be shocked. That's how Sasha responds to the USAmerican church-hopping mentality.

Serious. That's the word that describes the faith of Ukrainians. Utilitarian. That's the word for our USAmerican faith. What will my faith get me? My family?

Serious, but not somber. Committed and saturated with joy. United and living in a wide-open freedom. One of the reasons I like going to Ukraine is that it gives me a reprieve from the evangelical bubble of feel-good, me-centered, "I-deserve-to-be-served-today" faith.

Some of our luxuries are killing us.

Ukraine Ponderings on "Cheap Grace"

2007-02-21T02:09:00.000-08:00

Sasha and Natasha Savich

I asked my good friend and fellow pastor, Sasha Savich, what is one major difference between USAmerican evangelical Christians and Ukrainian evangelical Christians.

He thought for quite a time. Then, he said, "Cheap grace. You American Christians have cheap grace. You think that once you're saved, you're always saved no matter how you live. There is no seriousness about how you live your lives before God. In Ukraine, we think our daily life shows whether or not we are truly saved. We have to persevere in obedient living in order to have confidence that we belong to God. It's not that we believe we lose our salvation, but that, in obediently following Jesus, we show that we have true salvation. There is no 'cheap grace'."

Somehow Sasha's comments have an apostolic ring to them. We in the USA present a "bar code"gospel (according to Dallas Willard), believing we'll be scanned into heaven when we die--no questions asked. The idea of seriously persevering in the faith (as a good tree bears good fruit) is optional for us because we have a glib "eternity security" rider on our salvation insurance.

Plus, Sasha went on to say, we in America have so many places to go to church. If a church is not to our liking or confronts us because of our sin, we just go down the street to a church that fits our tastes. We can live any way we want. In Ukraine at present, to be called to a holy life is a serious matter because biblically faithful, believing communities are hard to find. Sadly, with the McDonaldization of the church in Ukraine, this will fade. Sasha laments this inevitability.

Perhaps we leaders and congregations in the USAmerican church need to take the warnings, the very real warnings, of the Book of Hebrews to heart.

It's worth pondering.

Two of My Favorite People...and More

2007-02-11T07:30:00.000-08:00

Lillian May Francis

John and Eugene

Julie and I had a great time in San Diego visiting with our family. Little Lilly captured our hearts and so we hugged and kissed her a lot. We enjoyed staying with Elisha and Bryan, Benjamin, Zachary and Lillian. They live in a cute, roomy home in El Cajon.

At the National Pastors Convention I got to meet once again Eugene H. Peterson. He has deeply influenced my vocational identity as a pastor. He also wrote the Foreword to my book Jesus the Pastor: Leading Others in the Character and Power of Christ. In my opinion, Eugene Peterson has more radical ideas about the church than many "emerging" leaders do, and his ideas are mined from Scripture, not culture; from traditions, not trends; and from a thoroughly saturated life in the kingdom of God.

Two other provocative speakers, for me at least, were Ruth Haley Barton who spoke about the priority of solitude in a leader's life (using Moses' life as the example) and Mark Labberton who spoke and wrote about "the dangerous act of worship" (using Daniel and his three friends as examples). Mark is the pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Berkley, CA, and his ideas are riveting as he welds, on solid biblical ground, worship and justice-bringing into a single, unified reality.

As always, it was good to see John Raymond (aka Elvis) of Zondervan. Zondervan is the major sponsor of the National Pastors Convention. John served as executive pastor of Bella Vista Church and is the living expression of a spiritually gifted leader. John is a great companion for the journey into the kingdom of God. Tim and Diane Cosby were also at the conference. Tim serves as the current teaching pastor of Bella Vista Church and is one of the most sensitive, pastorally prophetic pastors that I know.

Julie and I have a few days to recoup and then we leave for western Ukraine for two weeks of ministry to young local church leaders. We leave this coming Tuesday. Pray.

A TASTE OF "EDEN," CALIFORNIA

2007-02-05T08:30:00.000-08:00

PRE-NATIONAL PASTORS CONFERENCE PRAYER

"O LORD, Creator of the heavens and the earth, we thank you for making San Diego, CA, where it is 72 degrees and sunny--just like Eden.

"We thank you for moving in the hearts of those who plan the National Pastors Convention to host the gathering in San Diego, CA. Thank you for their sensitivity to invite us from frozen exile to tropical Eden, at least for a few days. This eschatological experience generates enduring hope in those of us in exile.

In Exile, Michigan today it is minus 5 degrees F with a wind chill factor of minus 21. East of Eden is a cold, chilling life of unrelenting blizzard conditions. Hyperbole is the language of exile.

While in Eden, CA, Julie and I will also spend "grandma and grandpa" time with our daughter Elisha and her family, husband--Bryan, and our grandchildren-- Benjamin, Zachary and very huggable, kissable Lillian.

We return to Exile on Saturday and regroup for our trip together to Ukraine--which, in the Greek, means "the uttermost parts of the earth."

All prayers for us are greatly appreciated and shamelessly solicited.

Pray for all the sad souls who wanted the Bears to win the SuperBowl, for they, too, are feeling the cold especially hard today.

Wedding Guests and Memories

2007-02-04T09:00:00.000-08:00

On an extremely blizzardy night, Julie and I attended the wedding of Benjamin David Chapman and Brittni Li Gilmore. Benjamin is the youngest son of our good friends, Don and Jan Chapman. We've also known Scott and Karen Gilmore and their family for a long time. When I first came to Bella Vista Church, Rockford, MI, Don joined me on staff. We served together for 5 years and have known each other for 26 years.

Last evening, the wedding guests prompted so many good memories of enduring relationships, with the common bonds being our devotion to Jesus Christ, serving in Christian ministry together, and watching our "little ones" grow up and reach the moment when they stand before God and witnesses and say "I do."

Weddings of children whose parents and wedding guests have shared life's journey deeply and enduringly are profound markers of life's wonder. Weddings seem to say: Here's a new chapter in what life is about--God, promise, relationship, life, laughter, love and, most of all, shared meanings at the major intersections.

One young lady, Betsy Velker, who, when she was little, drew pictures for me during my sermons and gave them to me after the service, asked me to dance with her at the reception. We were dancing and she told me, "I'm going to get married a year from this coming summer and you are going to do my wedding." Little Betsy, beautiful young lady, imminent wife of some lucky young man. I know and have served in ministry with Betsy's mother and father.

We saw Dan and Ellen Clark who had four boys who were very close in age to our four girls. Julie and Ellen were pregnant at the same time with their Andy and our Shamar. As parents, we would "arrange" the match-ups. We were not as successful as Jan and Karen were in "arranging" Ben and Brittni's marriage. In a wedding video, Jan and Karen told their story: When Karen first held baby Ben Chapman on a hot Sunday night at Bella Vista Church, she said to Jan "I want this boy." Ben is now Karen's son-in-law. And, of course, Don and Jan have a new daughter as well. By the way, Dan and Ellen's son, Rob married Marie of the Gilmore clan, and had the first girl in the Clark clan in 52 years!

People prompt memories of eras of our lives. Calendars and Blackberries are poor substitutes for crying, laughing, praying, traveling, learning, protesting, serving and growing up together. We don't mark time best by numbers, but by relationships. We saw Ralston and Cindy, David and Ruth Ann, the Stoner family, Jonathan, Mary Kay, Dick and Sara, Steve and Jan, Kurt, Gail and gorgeous Maggie, Mike and Colleen (up from Florida), Tony and Amy, Helen and Denise and some of her family. Denise is now related to the Gilmores, Clarks and Chapmans through the marriages of all these kids.

Life is full of pain, too, and amidst the joy of the wedding lurked memories of shared agony, even horror. Yet, weddings say, "No, evil. You are not welcomed here. You often take your best shots, but in the end, you lose. The wine of joy here is a gift from Jesus--the One who is good and sparkling Light. So, dark evil and your devastation, get out."

Julie and I danced to "I Left My Heart in San Francisco." The DJ had a voice like Frank Sinatra's. A little later, we danced to the song that we first danced in public to: "Unchained Melody." We've seen our daughters grow up, two of them marry and begin their families. We were in a room with people with similar life experiences. The formal attire, the fine cuisine, the music and laughter--all symbols, as Don mentioned in the ceremony to his son and daughter-in-law, that speak profoundly of realities we now barely know.

For a moment last night, we experienced the future...we danced with hope...we drank a wine created by Jesus called "I am making all things new."

The Holy Art of Conversation

2007-02-01T20:00:00.000-08:00

The Holy Art of Conversation
by
John W. Frye

Wrinkles at the corner of the eyes,
a softening inflection of the voice,
a sigh, a slight turn of the head,
a friend speaks to me.
A sacred entity in wearied body
bearing the Image--
priceless, deep imprint of the Other.

Gesturing, fumbling hands,
awkward silences and jump-start
phrases
coming from inside a being,
from a silence unknown to me
except for this series of sounds.

Conversation is a miracle,
a treasure hunt
for meaning, acceptance;
an audio map
Out of the complex wilderness
for two simple, broken wanderers
who drink hot coffee.

Are those wrinkles in the corner of the eyes
or are they branches of the burning bush?
What is this space, other than holy ground?
How is it that our feeble, speaking voices
usher us into the Eternal Silence
where words can't convey this exact moment?

Holy, holy, holy is this moment almighty!
Two beings, coffee on their breaths,
with puffs of air exchange their souls
on wispy sounds, from very deep to deep!

I walk away from the moment
with a new limp
and
with a new hope,
for I have wrestled with God
in another whom I call
"friend."

Suburbia: Out of the Danger Zone

2007-01-31T07:00:00.000-08:00

How much does danger fuel our training of others for kingdom-of-God work?

Oops! Did I write "danger"? What's gotten into me?

In Mark 1:14 we read, "After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee...'Come, follow me,' Jesus said, 'and I will make you fishers of men.' "

John, the forerunner, was imprisoned. Danger.
This triggered Jesus into aggressive calling and training of others. Discipling.

In Mark 3:6 we read, "Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus." A few verses later Mark informs us, "He appointed twelve—designating them apostles—that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons" (verses 3:14-15).

A plot to murder Jesus is hatched. Danger.
Jesus selects and begins training the Twelve. Discipling.

Between Mark 3:6 and 3:13 we learn that people were swarming to Jesus from all over--from the north, south, east and west. The Jerusalem religious mafia was thoroughly informed about Jesus' fame and impact. The danger is taking a life of its own.

But that was then. This is now...

It's seven p.m. The living room is cozy. What is USAmerican discipleship like, particularly in suburbia? How much urgency permeates the process? Is there any urgency at all that is ignited by real danger? We sip our coffee, eat our snacks, and read our "lessons" and fill in the blanks of our cool workbooks, wondering if this will be over before "24" starts. Oh, there's the urgency. There is more danger and urgency in a one hour TV show than there is in a whole year of Americanized, suburbanized discipleship.

Why the urgency and danger in an artificial show like "24"? Probably in order to show that with terrorism lives are at stake. Oh.

Good thing lives are not at stake in Christian discipleship. We can vicariously live urgently and dangerously through "Lost," "24," or "CSI."

Back to our version of dicipleship:

1. Jesus chose how many disciples? ________ Why that number?

[Oooo, oooo, I know. Pick me, pick me!]

2. What does the word "disciple" mean? (circle one)
clergy person/missionary/person likely to get killed

3. Extra credit: who is discipling you?

4. Extra, extra credit: who are you discipling?
[workbooks are for sale]

I smell the coffee. Isn't this fun? What time is it?

Danger? You've got to be kiddin' me. I'm into the pleasure-driven life. Oops! I'm sorry. Did I write "pleasure"? I meant....

Markan Priority: The Power of "Being With Jesus"

2007-01-29T09:00:00.001-08:00

I like Mark's Gospel for the little surprises that he provides about Jesus' life and ministry.

When Jesus selected the Twelve, Mark writes in 3:14, "He appointed twelve that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach..." Do you see the surprise? It's there in the verse and neither Matthew nor Luke offer it. It's the first little purpose (hina) clause "that they might be with him" (ινα ωσιν μετ αυτου).

Ponder what Mark puts first as the purpose of Jesus' selection. Jesus wanted the Twelve to be with him. "Be---with---him." What a thought. Jesus, according to Mark, did not choose only "doers" who would preach the available kingdom and cast out demons and heal the sick. Jesus chose "be-ers" who would hang out with him. Not serve together first, but live together first.

I'd suggest, if Peter is really behind Mark's account, that we're getting a heads up, as Henri Nouwen contends, that intimacy with Jesus is a priority over ministry for Jesus. And the context for intimacy leading to ministry is community (he chose 12).

Intimacy. Community. Ministry.

"Peter, do you love me?" is a question of intimacy--being with Jesus. "Yes, Lord, I love you."
"Then, feed my sheep." That is ministry. "Peter, do you love me?"

Loving devotion to Jesus Christ is the basis of ministry for Jesus Christ. Sure, education helps; certainly skills and abilities help. But nothing replaces "being with Jesus."

Have you marveled at Luke's note in Acts 4:13? "When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus" (οτι συν τω ιησου ησαν).

Uneducated. Ordinary. Unstoppable. Why?

Imagine that.

Boundary Marker Spirituality: A Story

2007-01-26T09:00:00.000-08:00

(musical theme: Dahn, da, daaahn; dahn, da, dahn, da, daaaaaaaaah...)

"The following story is true; only the names have been changed to protect the innocent. My name's Frye-day. I'm a cop. It was late Wednesday night in the city..."

Okay, okay, enough with the Dragnet motif.

I was with a group of people and as the conversation unfolded, I presented a brief summary of bounded-set spirituality versus centered-set spirituality (click here for a more thorough presentation).

Bounded-set spirituality relies on "markers" to identify who's in and who's out. For the Jews in Jesus' day, it was circumcision, dietary code, Sabbath law, racial origin and the like. Bounded-set spirituality when I was a teen included no smoking, no drinking, no movies (in a theater), no dancing, no playing with "devil cards" (though you could kick butt playing Rook). Centered-set spirituality defined by Jesus was loyalty in following him as he demonstrated the life of "the great commandment" (what Scot McKnight presents as The Jesus Creed).

Brent, a man in the group, told me the following: When he was a teenager, he violated a boundary-marker for spirituality. Growing up in a strict religious home and church, it was drilled into him that he could not buy anything on Sunday; he could not even enter a store. It was against the law of God, and severe judgment would result. Christians never bought anything on Sunday.

One Sunday night he was with some friends and they decided to go into a supermarket. He felt jittery, but went along. Here is his description as he walked through:

"As I walked down the aisle, I was really scared. I was afraid, not so much that I was breaking the Sabbath, but I was alarmed by all the people I saw. They were all pagans. They must be, because they were in there shopping. I clutched my wallet because only very degenerate people would be in the store--robbers, drunkards, low-life types. There would not be any good people in a store. I was shocked at how many pagans there were. I was afraid for my life. I didn't want to look them in the eye because I thought they would hurt me and my friends. I felt so relieved when we got out of there."

Because of a religious boundary marker, this man recalls defining a mass of people that he did not know as degenerate, dangerous, and hell-bound pagans. He felt very threatened by them. He knew they were "out." He was "in," even though he was feeling guilty. Boundary marker spirituality turns people into fear-driven, judgmental, character-assassinating homophobes.

I am thankful that Brent told me his story. It helped me understand the fear and hostility that Jesus generated in people by his boundary-breaking love. Boundaries create bubbles and everyone outside the bubble is contaminated. It's not a safe thing...to be a lover of God and a lover of people.

Jesus: Beyond Anger Management

2007-01-23T08:30:00.000-08:00

(picture from google.com images)

We all admit that anger is a tough emotion to handle. Usually, but not always, our anger makes things worse rather than better. Yet, anger is here to stay.

Jesus shows us how anger works for the good. In a Sabbath incident recorded in Mark 3:1-6, we read in verse 5 that "Jesus, looking around at them in/with anger ( μετ οργης ), deeply grieved (συλλυπουμενος) by the hardness of their hearts, said to the man, 'Stretch out your hand!'"

William Lane remarks that Jesus is angry here with "the anger of God." We are not left to wonder if this is "righteous anger." We are honestly reluctant to label our anger as such. James 1:20 is correct that our anger seldom if ever advances the righteous life that God desires.

Yet, note the intentional connection of "with anger" and "deeply grieved." In the Greek text, the two phrases are side by side. This is very instructive. With this insight into Jesus' emotional state, we see anger and grief together: not anger alone nor grief alone.

Rarely am I aware of grief when I am angry. I say and do things that grief wouldn't go near and never prompt. Yet Jesus' anger is a companion to deep grief.

Are grief and anger different? Of course, they are. And grief, when teamed with anger, transforms anger into active, courageous compassion. We see this modeled by Jesus in this Sabbath episode. The religious leaders have schemed to trap Jesus in Sabbath disobedience. Compassion is the last thing in their hearts. Their hearts are calloused; resistant to grace. Is it lawful to kill on the Sabbath? Yet, in verse 6, these leaders on the Sabbath plot to kill Jesus. These so-called guardians of the Sabbath are blatantly disobeying it. How ironic.

Jesus looked at the religious leaders in anger, yet was profoundly grieved by their insensitive spirits. Anger and grief together keep Jesus from being obsessed with the leaders. His anger and grief keep him focused on his mission; on the needy human being--the man with the withered hand. Anger diverts us (usually) from the righteous life God desires. Anger united with grief advances active compassion and brings about the righteous life that God desires.

We need God to transform our anger into grief. Anger alone will harden our hearts and destroy the hearts of others. Anger with grief will prompt us to act courageously and compassionately.

David, who felt the fierce energy of angry hate, prayed this:

Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

Spirit, mix our anger with deep grief for your sake and ours. Amen.

IS ALL DOUBT SIN?

2007-01-20T13:15:00.000-08:00

Scot McKnight has posted some thoughts about "doubt and faith" over at Jesus Creed.

My question is this: Is all doubt sin? I raise the question because, apparently, many Christians think so. They believe that all doubt is from the devil, therefore, all doubt is sin.

As I reflect on doubt, I think there are several kinds.

1. Trivial doubt. For example, you say something to me and I say, "I doubt it." It may merely mean, "I disagree with you." No more.

2. Sinful doubt. This is the kind sown into Eve by the serpent. "Has God really said...?" This is a dangerous doubt and needs to be confronted. It requires obedience to all the New Testament commands to "Be alert!'

3. In-Between doubt. We are living in a world where we know that how things are is not how things ought to be. We ought to live at peace with everyone, not kill them. We ought to have no starving children or orphans due to AIDS, etc. Yet, we do. We struggle with being caught in between our promised future and our present reality. Doubt arises.

4. Finite doubt. We are limited human beings. As glorious as the human mind is, it still is finite, limited, and subject to profound error. At the same time, human beings who bear the image of God have "eternity in their hearts" (Eccles. 3:11). Caught in time and space, we yearn for that which is free and eternal. In this disjunction doubts arise.

So, of the doubts above, only one is sinful: doubt springing from unbelief. The other doubts are here to stay. They are not sinful. They are part of life as it is.

What do you think?

I've Been Tagged: Five Curious Things

2007-01-17T07:45:00.000-08:00

Scot McKnight tagged me. I am constrained to report to you five odd or curious things about myself that you wouldn't know.

Here goes:

1. I was born in Corinth, Mississippi. I was converted to Christ in Zion, Illinois. My mother named me John (God is gracious) because God, in her dream, told her to. What do you know about Corinth, Zion, and John from the Bible?

2. My best meal ever was eating beans and rice with my right hand with rural national pastors in Mozambique.

3. I enjoyed a martini with N.T. Wright at a country club when he came to my city to debate Marcus Borg about the resurrection of Jesus.

4. I have four knock-down gorgeous daughters and four grandsons and two granddaughters. I am a blessed father and grandfather. My wife, Julie, is a beauty, too, and we've been married 38 years.

5. My dream car is a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air, 2 door, hard top (no post) with a 327 engine and Hurst 4 speed and positraction rear-end. That's all.

I tag Evan Haskill, Greg Mutch, Peter Fitch, Ken Kemp and Ben Kraker.

Peter and Mary Ellen ("Sally") Fitch, Eh?

2007-01-16T10:00:00.000-08:00

Mary Ellen and Peter Fitch

God brings good gifts into our lives and into our lives God brought Peter and Mary Ellen Fitch. They feel, and act, just like family. We are comfortable with them as we laugh together, probe life's pains together, eat and drink together, and love and seek to follow Jesus together.

We can discuss Foucault and David Crowder, or the prolific N.T. Wright, we can explore C.S. Lewis's writings and Teresa of Avila's; and we can laugh at "Betty Butterfield" and "R.D. Mercer" and "the little Irish girl's" prank calls. We can enjoy the comedy of mockumentaries (e.g., A Mighty Wind) and the acting skills of Peter Sellers, Will Ferrell, and Ben Stiller (in Zoolander). We can discuss global politics (what do you know of the "Blair papers"?) and economic issues. We can enjoy karaoke at Cheers, we can discern deep theological concepts in the movie Telladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby and the humor in, yes, The Passion of the Christ.

We have a thing for "shiny dimes" (which we need to talk about to you in person).

We like old people like John of the Cross, Bernard of Clairveaux, Theresa de Lisieux and Nicholas Herman. We are fascinated with Jesus of Nazareth.

We love the local church and all things small. Glitz and bigness and noise are uncomfortable concepts ecclesiologically speaking. We like books and a good cup of coffee. Peter really likes duct tape, too, for some unexplainable Canadian reason. Mary Ellen keeps Peter alive. Thank you, Sally. Peter, "Stop it!"

St. Stephen's University in St. Stephen, New Brunswick, Canada, is sought as an effective and beautiful alternative to Christian higher education. Julie and I have been there and it is a wonderful blend of excellent, even demanding scholarship and intentional Christian community. Where is it? Go to the most northern point of northeastern USA and then just one block more. You're in St. Stephen just across the St. Croix River from Calais, ME.

Peter teaches in the university and founded and pastors the St. Croix Vineyard Christian Fellowship.

Peter and I met at Fuller Theological Seminary while doing Doctor of Ministry studies.

Thanks be to God for his marvelous gifts, eh?

Your Rooms are Ready

2007-01-15T07:30:00.000-08:00

I worked hard and had fun at the same time.

Julie was in Nashville, TN visiting her mother and sister. She then went to Haslet, TX (near Dallas-Ft Worth) to visit with our daughter, Leah, and her family.

While she was away, I painted our upstairs bathroom and what used to be Shamar's bedroom. We're making that an area a "guest room" area. I e-mailed the "I Love You" picture to Julie. She thought that I should have left the words there for the Fitch's visit.

Peter and Mary Ellen Fitch from St. Stephen, New Brunswick, Canada came to stay with us as Peter was speaking at a Bella Vista Church prayer retreat. (I was working to get the guest rooms ready.) Peter pastors the St. Croix Vineyard and also is a professor in St. Stephen University (a creative alternative to Christian higher education). Peter and I met while doing our Doctor of Ministry studies in the history and practice of Christian spirituality at Fuller Theological Seminary (1995-1999).

Let us know if you're ever visiting the Grand Rapids, MI area. You have a place to stay.

Gerald 'Our' Ford: A Little Piece of History

2007-01-03T06:30:00.000-08:00

We entered into a little piece of U.S. presidential history yesterday. We visited the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum and passed by President Ford's flag-draped coffin.

We got into the DeVos convention center at 4:00 p.m. and after approximately 3 hours in line made our way across the Grand River into the museum. On our way in, John "Jack" Ford and his wife were coming out and we got to shake his hand. He seemed genuinely thankful for those coming to commemorate his father.

On crossing back over the Pearl Street bridge, we saw that the line was incredibly long and we estimated that people would be in line until about 2 a.m. before they entered the museum.

In the picture above (taken Sunday afternoon), Julie is signing the condolences book. We asked some strangers to take our picture and e-mail it to us. They did, along with some other neat pictures they had taken. On a restaurant window near Rosa Parks Circle we saw a sign that read "Gerald 'Our' Ford." Grand Rapidians are honored by the service and legacy of this good man.

President Gerald R. Ford will be buried in a small grassy knoll flanked by pine trees just to the north of the museum.

Update: The park authorities report that 57,000 people viewed the former President's coffin.

Ancient-Future Hope: Simeon and Anna

2007-01-01T12:00:00.000-08:00

Most of the time we focus on Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus at the Advent season. This is a proper thing to do.

Yet along with this young couple with their miracle baby, two older folk make their way into the story: Simeon (we assume is old because he says he is ready "now" to die after he sees Jesus) and Anna the prophetess that Luke tells us is 84 years old.

Young and old are brought together around Jesus at the Temple. I think this is important to note because of the words of hope and challenge that Simeon utters and that Anna confirms.

For Simeon and Anna, hope is a person; an infant brought to the Temple out of obedience to long-standing Mosaic law. Simeon's and Anna's years of longing, waiting and hoping are brought to completion in Jesus. The "comfort of Israel" is here (see Isaiah 40:1-5) and the "redemption of Jerusalem" is at hand...in a baby.

Think about our world. Young people need the stedfast hope and faithfulness of older people who are surrendered to the Spirit and who, from long years of life in an oppressive world, still bless children and give words of wonder to their parents. They offer a wisdom not jaded by the Fall. Joseph and Mary were stunned by Simeon's prophetic words.

Simeon is a truth-teller. While he has seen the "salvation of the Lord" in the person of baby Jesus, Simeon reports that Jesus is not only the promised deliverer, but he will be a troubling divider. Many will trip and fall over Jesus; others will grasp him and rise. Jesus will be a "sign" spoken against. Love is offered to all, but not all accept the offer. Mary will experience not only perplexing marvel, but searing pain. There will be both a Savior and sword. Simeon speaks the whole truth about Jesus and salvation.

Mary. Joseph. Infant Jesus. Simeon. Anna. Generations brought together in the ancient/future Story of God.

May the older followers of Jesus have courage and grace to speak words of hope and truth; may the younger generation have humility and grace to hear. May all, with Spirit-fired love, serve the LORD's Christ and the world he came to deliver.

ODE TO MERRY CHRISTMAS

2006-12-25T06:30:00.000-08:00

While the world was in a taxed uproar,
unnoticed except by a few,
He slipped in the world's back door.
The Word became dust, like us.

No grand entrance for this King;
making a big show's not his thing.
He likes the quiet margins and shadows,
teaching wonders from the grassy meadows.

Simple folk and simple life,
simple food and oppressive strife,
He walked our way bringing peace,
to those who are the last and the least.

Christmas child, Bethlehem son,
Immanuel, Anointed One
Entered our world in a surprising way.
Rejoice! my friends, he's here to stay.

A SHEPHERD'S DREAM

"My name is Zechariah ben Judah. I am a shepherd. I want to tell you something I have done. I held God in my hands...."

So begins a dramatic monologue I wrote years ago, telling the Christmas Story from the viewpoint of a shepherd. I "performed" it last evening at Fellowship Evangelical Covenant Church where I am interim pastor.

"For unto to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord."

B-A-B-Y J-E-S-U-S: THE OLD EVER NEW STORY

2006-12-18T06:30:00.000-08:00

Bethlehem: Good News of Great Joy!

I'll never tire of seeing wiggly little actors and singers telling the birth of Jesus story. Smiling at mommy and daddy, becoming a star for the first time, sweetly singing o'er the plain "Glory to God in the highest" in high little voices. I melt seeing the wonder in their faces (look at little Jessica with her hands poised in worship). The children are so happy to let us know about a new born baby. Children love babies. And this one is "baby Jesus."

At Fellowship Evangelical Covenant Church (pictures above), the ancient story is told fresh, dripping with the sparkling excitement of "God with us." Mary (Aimee) and Joseph (Clay) are poised over the manger with the baby Jesus there...right there! And as the wee angel choir sings with fuzzy halos held up by wire in their hair, the big people appear--the wise men (Rick is one) bearing their gifts and shepherds (Jack is one) in rehearsed excitement to tell the world the news.

Adults and children are swept up for a moment in more than a story; they are carried on the strong tide of a movement--a new king has arrived and a people will be delivered, discovered. All kinds of people with angel light in their eyes and God-news on their lips, scurry all over the land talking about Jesus of Nazareth, Messiah, Emmanuel, Savior of the world.

During the transition of scenes, a scrambling boy bumps the microphone over and a loud thump! is heard throughout the land. Is that a "Burger King" crown on one of the wise men? Are those Florsheims on the feet of that shepherd? Mary looks so young and pretty and peeks into the box the wise man brought. Shy voices whisper words that have changed lives and nations.

We, the audience, sing songs while wiping our eyes from tears of love and laughter. For this menagerie of happy, squirmy children and willingly-costumed adults tell us once again about the surprising wonder of God's great love.

Tucked away in a little Michigan church far from Hollywood, on a set made of cardboard and straw framed with blazing poinsettias, a cast tells the story. Heaven is hushed; angels (the real ones) peer down and Jesus Himself smiles, I think, at Shelby and Sammy, Ashleigh and Aimee, Jay and Rachel, Jack and Lisa, Dan and Brandon, Clay and little Jessica, and all the rest.

"That is my story," I think Jesus says, "and they are making it their story. Glory to God in the highest."

ADVENT ADORATION in the USA

2006-12-11T10:30:00.000-08:00

Blogger friend-feedback is a good thing.

In my last entry (see December 7) I mused about the "hard" or "dark" side of the American Advent season. I lamented the degeneration of strong words like hope, love, joy and peace into marketing tools to keep the economy strong. I lamented air-brushing the birth of Jesus so that Christmas cards look more like vacation posters than the nitty gritty, earthy, smelly birth that it was in reality. My wife's labor and births of our daughters even in a clinically clean delivery room was messy. How much more for Mary and Joseph bent over in a dark, straw- and dung-filled stable cave!

Yet true biblical lament, in deep trust in God who is always up to something surprising, always gives way to praise. Words like hope, love, joy and peace (symbolized in the candles) can be brushed off, cleansed and polished up. Having become limp and anemic by decades of commercialization, these words grow strong and take life-giving shape in the presence of faith in God.

HOPE

Behind all "hope" is a person or God who keeps his word. You can't have hope in the words of a wishy-washy, willy-nilly talker. Hope is anchored in promise; in God who has spoken and it will be done. When we lose promise, we lose hope. When we lose hope, we are dead while we live. We live best by God promises, not by some Bible-expert's ingenious "biblical principles." God didn't give principles, he made promises. Therein is our hope.

This season don't be a talker. Be a creator of hope in others by using words to promise something. It doesn't have to be a big or expensive promise (though these things are not bad). Each promise you make to someone extends that person's future with a sense of worth and anticipation. A promise personalizes others while mere gifts commodify others. A word spoken and a word kept is a fruitful tree of life in a barren land strewn with disgarded things.

LOVE

I halt at my computer. I'm stymied in the presence of the word "love." Like the Bible, the most purchased, yet least read book, love is the most spoken, yet rarely experienced reality this season. Love masquarades this season as sexy, glittery, rare things (like $50 a pound coffee beans).

Love with no mask is wiping the baby's messy behind for the 30th time today; letting the person go ahead of you at the check-out lane; wanting to be with your spouse more than with anyone else even though you've been together almost 40 years; listening intently and with respect to that relative who keeps repeating the same thing; making a call to someone distant and saying, "I just wanted to hear your voice." Love got down on hands and knees and washed the dirty feet of 12 men. Love, while racked with pain and bleeding profusely on a cross, made a promise to a terrorist about the hope of paradise. Love walked out of a tomb-cave on a Sunday morning and said, "I'm here for you."

JOY

Joy is knowing that the last word said about us is said by God. Joy is knowing that God's last word will be "Come, enter into the joy of your Lord." Joy is that settled assurance that in the worst and darkest place on earth, evil and sin will not have the final word. God will. Joy is a subterranean layer of reality on which the rough and tumble of life is played out. When tears are in your eyes, they still sparkle even in a pitch-black room because the light comes from within you. You spread joy, not by buying things, but by living well; not by seeking another titillating experience, but by stopping and stooping to help another person in need. Joy is the rhythm of God's heart beating in you. Joy is watching people stand at your grave site and saying to one another, "She is not here; she has risen."

PEACE

There is a big difference between "Let me give you a piece of my mind" and "Let me give you peace of mind." God links peace of mind with peace with himself, yourself, others and the created world about you. Peace is not unruffled solitude or inner tranquility. Peace is harmony with and in the deepest, closest, life-infested relationships we have. We often feel more comfortable with strangers than with family and close friends. Why? Because there is no investment in them. We mistake the "comfort" for peace. That is a sad mistake. Peace, the Bible word shalom, is a snuggle word; it works best with those nearest. Shalom will experience, even expect anxiety and agitation in its quest to live rightly with God and others and creation. And wouldn't you know it? Those who pursue shalom seem to be at ease with life and with others. God stands guard around their hearts and minds.

Advent. Let's live in such a way this season that we redeem these mighty words with little acts of love.

Advent Awareness in the USA

2006-12-07T10:00:00.000-08:00

Tiny candle, tremendous light.

An infant arrived, a world altered.

Like so many Christ-followers during Advent, I have had time to reflect on the anticipation and wonder of the coming of the Christ.

We have been lighting the Advent Candles at Fellowship Covenant Church where I serve as interim pastor. Each candle represents the marvel of the character and mission of the coming Messiah, the Savior of the world.

Hope. Love. Joy. Peace. The Christ.

None of these treasures can be purchased, even at Macy's. These things are not acquired by MasterCard and Visa. No credit works.

How many feel hopeless trying to satisfy all the family by buying the things on their gift-list? All that worry involved in creating "holiday cheer." Most hope for early January when the whole mess is over...until they start putting up Christmas decorations next 4th of July!

Where's the love? Fist fights break out in long lines at the stores as customers vie for the "unbelievable sale price." The mantra: "Gotta get my X-box." Police patrol about Christmas shoppers. "Every 'kiss' begins with Kay." Love is a piece of high-priced, pressurized coal. Or, love is the new sexy bra from Victoria's Secret. Yep, love = sex.

Joy. We wish. According to those who know things, this is the most depressing time of the year for many people. Fantasized family happiness when many families are deeply fractured adds incredible gloom to people. "I just can't 'play the game' one more time." Joy comes in a bottle of Jack Daniels as idiotic commercials show husbands' buying sports cars(!) for their wives. "You gotta be kidding." Meanwhile joy is happening on Madison Avenue as merchants see money coming from people's pockets into their cash registers and credit card companies gear up for those 18-21% interest rate "great deals...don't pay until January 2009."

Peace. A pipe dream word. "Peace in the Middle East." Peace in Iraq, in Iran, in North Korea, in American politics, in churches were "emergent" is a curse word. There will be no peace as long as the world runs on money and guns. You don't create peace with a doctrinal statement or a "biblical" view (which usually means "my" view) of the church.

So, we light little candles and long for Jesus to come. The Christ candle. The baby born to those walking with wishes and calling them "hope." To those who violate the old Beatles' song "can't buy me love." To those who with dread or even mild panic sing "Joy to the World." To those who react to the word "peace" as just another empty political cliche.

You may think: John, you sound pessimistic. It's Christmas after all. I know. I have a friend who recently spoke in a Christian college chapel on "Why I Hate Christmas," not on "Why I Hate Christ." Showing Mary's after-birth among sheep dung doesn't sell well on Christmas cards. "The Slaughter of the Innocents" just doesn't push the merchandise. What have we done to the real Christmas, to the words Hope, Love, Joy and Peace that came packaged in human flesh and crying in a feeding trough? Apparently to our sorrow and dismay, we thought we could buy and sell these weighty deliverance words wrapped in colorful paper and tied with a bow.

A child shall lead them...out.

O, Come, O Come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive...USA.

Scot McKnight's Embraceable Mary

2006-12-01T19:00:00.000-08:00

Scot McKnight accomplishes two good objectives with his latest book The Real Mary: Why Evangelical Christians Can Embrace the Mother of Jesus (Paraclete Press, 2006).

First, as the subtitle suggests, Scot wants to take the jitters out of evangelicals who are jumpy about honoring Mary the Mother of Jesus. Some kind of anti-Catholic Protestant Reformation residue lingers on many of us and we find it hard to honor Mary because we might be mistaken for "worshiping" her. Oh, no! With a scholar's keen research, a pastor's concerned heart, and a writer's competent, engaging communication style, McKnight presents a down-to-earth, gospels-based Mary. Young Mary is a true, courageous human being surrendering to her part in the unfolding drama of God's story. Scot doesn't present a religious, stained-glass goddess, but a fiesty, gutsy, intelligent, deeply devoted woman who wrestles with the demands, responsibilities and heartaches of being the Mother of God-in-flesh.

Second, Scot wants the Catholic readers of the book to assess where they may have gone too far in honoring Mary, not so much in practice as in theological pronouncements. This is done, once again, in plain, understandable language. Scot is fair because he shows that some Protestants have misunderstood some basic tenets of what Catholics believe about Mary. I was surprised by how many Protestant "greats" in church history believed in the perpetual virginity of Mary. On the more controversial theological issues, Scot offers in-depth chapters toward the end of the book.

Scot "unpacks" Mary's Magnificat showing the deeply held convictions Mary had regarding God's redemptive work in the world. Scot converses about how much Mary influenced Jesus' own vision and mission of his ministry. The question whether or not Mary had other children is raised and dealt with in an irenic manner.

Remember the scene in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ when Jesus falls under the weight of the cross and Mary, his mother, has a flash-back to when Jesus was a little boy and fell while running? Remember how those scenes made Jesus seem more real, more truly human?

The Real Mary does the same thing. Both Jesus and Mary are incarnate--flesh and blood human beings in a real mother and son relationship. After reading the book, I felt no urge to "worship" Mary, but I felt deeply challenged by her life of courage and devotion.

This book would be a very fitting Christmas gift this season.

Thanks, Scot, for another great book.