below is the last of my 3 sermons this semester. I preached this today (dec. 3) at my church. It has to do with the Advent theme of Joy....hope you enJOY. Leave me your thoughts and feedback, i would like to hear what you think about the topic!
-Justin
Sunday, December 04, 2005
Completing Your Joy
I thought that since Advent was a time of preparation and anticipation for the birth of Christ, that I would get us in the spirit with a well-known poem by Robert Southwell entitled
“New Prince, New pomp”
Behold a silly tender Babe,
in freezing winter night;
In homely manger trembling lies,
alas a piteous sight:
The inns are full,
no man will yield this little Pilgrim bed,
But forced He is with silly beasts,
in crib to shroud His head.
Despise Him not for lying there,
first what He is enquire:
An orient pearl is often found,
in depth of dirty mire;
Weigh not His crib,
His wooden dish,
nor beasts that by Him feed:
Weigh not His mother's poor attire,
nor Joseph's simple weed.
This stable is a Prince's court,
the crib His chair of state:
The beasts are parcel of His pomp,
the wooden dish His plate.
The persons in that poor attire,
His royal liveries wear,
The Prince Himself is come from heaven,
this pomp is prized there.
With joy approach, O Christian wight,
do homage to thy King,
And highly prize this humble pomp,
which He from heaven doth bring.
I like this poem because it captures well what I like best about the Christmas story. It captures the ironic fact that the king of our world was born in unpleasant and unexpected conditions. Here he was, a piece of heaven come down to earth lying in a simple feeding trough.
During the season of Advent we celebrate not only the babe from heaven, but the other pieces of heaven that came with Christ, the gifts of Hope, joy, piece and Love.
Richard spoke last week about the hope Christ brought to our sinful world, and today I would like to speak about the Joy that came with Christ.
We have heard two scripture passages today, the first you read with me in the litany at the beginning of the Service. Since it is Christmas, it is important that we remember the pronouncement to the shepherds of the Joy that Christ brought.
It is only natural that we should speak often of Joy during the Christmas season, but do you realize how often we speak of the theme of Joy?
Let’s look at some of the Christmas carols that we sing:
There’s the obvious:
“Joy to the world the Lord has come”
Even in the second verse, it calls us to “repeat the sounding joy”
How about:
Hark! the herald angels sing
Glory to the new-born King!
Peace on earth and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled!
Joyful, all ye nations, rise,
Join the triumph of the skies;
or,
O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant,
Come ye, O come ye, to Bethlehem
Finally,
God rest you merry, gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay,
Remember Christ our Savior
Was born on Christmas Day;
To save us all from Satan's power
When we were gone astray.
O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy,
O tidings of comfort and joy
And why not sing about joy? It is a great gift to receive. But, what exactly is joy?
Harper Collin’s Bible Dictionary says that joy in the OT came from 3 places:
1) From God’s Love of Israel
2) From the eschatological hope that Israel would be delivered by God
3) And finally in keeping the commandments
It is only natural that Joy be associated with Christ’s birth because he was
1) The manifestation and incarnation of God’s Love
2) He was the Hope of deliverance for all of God’s children
3) And he helped us to keep the commandments, by giving us a new commandment, Love God and love one another!
Look with me at our second scripture that Ann read for us in John 15:9-11.
“As the father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.
If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my
fathers commands and remained in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be complete in you and that your joy may be complete.”
What is joy? It is, like Christ, a piece of heaven sent down to earth. C.S. Lewis said in his letters to Malcolm that “Joy is the SERIOUS business of heaven. Joy is a state of being. Joy is more than happiness or pleasure; it is something that comes only through the presence of Christ in our lives. David M Howard Jr. says this about Lewis’ thoughts on joy.
“He sharply distinguishes “joy” from happiness or pleasure, which are much more oriented to the immediate, to gratifications of various types, most of them instant, and, in the end, not satisfying over a long period of time.”
William Henry Davies agrees with Lewis’ views of joy and pleasure in his poem “The Best Friend”
William Henry Davies
The Best Friend
Now shall I walk
Or shall I ride?
"Ride", Pleasure said;
"Walk", Joy replied.
Now what shall I --
Stay home or roam?
"Roam", Pleasure said;
And Joy -- "stay home."
Now shall I dance,
Or sit for dreams?
"Sit," answers Joy;
"Dance," Pleasure screams.
Which of ye two
Will kindest be?
Pleasure laughed sweet,
But Joy kissed me.
Lewis himself said, “I sometimes wander whether all pleasures are not substitutes for joy?”
Joy sometimes accompanies happiness and pleasure, but joy has the power to endure where pleasure and happiness fail. As an example, Let’s look at joy from Mary’s point of view.
Joy was present when Mary heard the news about carrying God’s only son. Joy was present when she held a newborn Jesus in her arms. Joy was present when Mary watched her son teach great wisdom to larger and larger crowds. Joy was present when Mary beheld the miracles that Christ performed. And somehow, because joy and happiness are not the same, joy was even present when Mary watched her son suffering and dying on the cross. How can there be joy there you ask? Because there was the hope and love of God, and the promise, that Christ would rise again.
Joy is something that we cannot achieve on our own. It is not something we can find, it is like Christ, truly a gift from God! Look closely at our passage in John. Christ speaks about abiding in his and his father’s love. So in order to experience pure joy, we must understand that it comes via the love of Christ. He then speaks about keeping his commands (to love each other). We understand then that joy is a gift of God’s love, and manifests itself in doing God’s work.
So we know that Joy is a taste of heaven; a glimpse of the kingdom of God. Maybe that is one of the reasons that when Christ speaks about the kingdom of God, he sometimes speaks of it being near, or at hand, and sometimes speaks of it as something not part of this world. Christ brought with him a part of the kingdom when he brought with him Hope, peace, Love, and joy.
In addition, like the importance of the angel’s proclamation of joy to the shepherds, What Christ is telling his disciples about joy is something of which to take note. He says that their joy is not yet complete, and it won’t be until Christ’s joy is complete. What is it that Christ had not done to complete his joy? Earlier in this same setting in John, Christ again told his disciples of his betrayal and death. I think that Christ was saying that the full extent and showing of his and God’s love for the world would not be complete until he had died and was raised to be with his father again. In the same way, we could not completely experience the Joy that God gives us until we experience the death and resurrection of Christ. Only then will our joy be complete.
Therefore, Christ is saying, that at his death, and at the full realization of God’s love displayed on the cross, CHRIST WOULD BE COMPLETING OUR JOY!
This is what we look forward to during advent. This is what we sing our Christmas songs of praise about. Joy has come to us, first in the form of a child in a stable, then in the form of a radical teacher, then in the form of our savior on the cross, and finally in the form of our risen Lord! So, unlike the Shepherds who only got a taste of joy, our joy has been made complete! We can both anticipate the coming of this joy during Advent, and reflect on the joy in our lives because of the sacrifice that God made to save us. I don’t know about you, but to me, That is something to rejoice about.
“New Prince, New pomp”
Behold a silly tender Babe,
in freezing winter night;
In homely manger trembling lies,
alas a piteous sight:
The inns are full,
no man will yield this little Pilgrim bed,
But forced He is with silly beasts,
in crib to shroud His head.
Despise Him not for lying there,
first what He is enquire:
An orient pearl is often found,
in depth of dirty mire;
Weigh not His crib,
His wooden dish,
nor beasts that by Him feed:
Weigh not His mother's poor attire,
nor Joseph's simple weed.
This stable is a Prince's court,
the crib His chair of state:
The beasts are parcel of His pomp,
the wooden dish His plate.
The persons in that poor attire,
His royal liveries wear,
The Prince Himself is come from heaven,
this pomp is prized there.
With joy approach, O Christian wight,
do homage to thy King,
And highly prize this humble pomp,
which He from heaven doth bring.
I like this poem because it captures well what I like best about the Christmas story. It captures the ironic fact that the king of our world was born in unpleasant and unexpected conditions. Here he was, a piece of heaven come down to earth lying in a simple feeding trough.
During the season of Advent we celebrate not only the babe from heaven, but the other pieces of heaven that came with Christ, the gifts of Hope, joy, piece and Love.
Richard spoke last week about the hope Christ brought to our sinful world, and today I would like to speak about the Joy that came with Christ.
We have heard two scripture passages today, the first you read with me in the litany at the beginning of the Service. Since it is Christmas, it is important that we remember the pronouncement to the shepherds of the Joy that Christ brought.
It is only natural that we should speak often of Joy during the Christmas season, but do you realize how often we speak of the theme of Joy?
Let’s look at some of the Christmas carols that we sing:
There’s the obvious:
“Joy to the world the Lord has come”
Even in the second verse, it calls us to “repeat the sounding joy”
How about:
Hark! the herald angels sing
Glory to the new-born King!
Peace on earth and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled!
Joyful, all ye nations, rise,
Join the triumph of the skies;
or,
O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant,
Come ye, O come ye, to Bethlehem
Finally,
God rest you merry, gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay,
Remember Christ our Savior
Was born on Christmas Day;
To save us all from Satan's power
When we were gone astray.
O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy,
O tidings of comfort and joy
And why not sing about joy? It is a great gift to receive. But, what exactly is joy?
Harper Collin’s Bible Dictionary says that joy in the OT came from 3 places:
1) From God’s Love of Israel
2) From the eschatological hope that Israel would be delivered by God
3) And finally in keeping the commandments
It is only natural that Joy be associated with Christ’s birth because he was
1) The manifestation and incarnation of God’s Love
2) He was the Hope of deliverance for all of God’s children
3) And he helped us to keep the commandments, by giving us a new commandment, Love God and love one another!
Look with me at our second scripture that Ann read for us in John 15:9-11.
“As the father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.
If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my
fathers commands and remained in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be complete in you and that your joy may be complete.”
What is joy? It is, like Christ, a piece of heaven sent down to earth. C.S. Lewis said in his letters to Malcolm that “Joy is the SERIOUS business of heaven. Joy is a state of being. Joy is more than happiness or pleasure; it is something that comes only through the presence of Christ in our lives. David M Howard Jr. says this about Lewis’ thoughts on joy.
“He sharply distinguishes “joy” from happiness or pleasure, which are much more oriented to the immediate, to gratifications of various types, most of them instant, and, in the end, not satisfying over a long period of time.”
William Henry Davies agrees with Lewis’ views of joy and pleasure in his poem “The Best Friend”
William Henry Davies
The Best Friend
Now shall I walk
Or shall I ride?
"Ride", Pleasure said;
"Walk", Joy replied.
Now what shall I --
Stay home or roam?
"Roam", Pleasure said;
And Joy -- "stay home."
Now shall I dance,
Or sit for dreams?
"Sit," answers Joy;
"Dance," Pleasure screams.
Which of ye two
Will kindest be?
Pleasure laughed sweet,
But Joy kissed me.
Lewis himself said, “I sometimes wander whether all pleasures are not substitutes for joy?”
Joy sometimes accompanies happiness and pleasure, but joy has the power to endure where pleasure and happiness fail. As an example, Let’s look at joy from Mary’s point of view.
Joy was present when Mary heard the news about carrying God’s only son. Joy was present when she held a newborn Jesus in her arms. Joy was present when Mary watched her son teach great wisdom to larger and larger crowds. Joy was present when Mary beheld the miracles that Christ performed. And somehow, because joy and happiness are not the same, joy was even present when Mary watched her son suffering and dying on the cross. How can there be joy there you ask? Because there was the hope and love of God, and the promise, that Christ would rise again.
Joy is something that we cannot achieve on our own. It is not something we can find, it is like Christ, truly a gift from God! Look closely at our passage in John. Christ speaks about abiding in his and his father’s love. So in order to experience pure joy, we must understand that it comes via the love of Christ. He then speaks about keeping his commands (to love each other). We understand then that joy is a gift of God’s love, and manifests itself in doing God’s work.
So we know that Joy is a taste of heaven; a glimpse of the kingdom of God. Maybe that is one of the reasons that when Christ speaks about the kingdom of God, he sometimes speaks of it being near, or at hand, and sometimes speaks of it as something not part of this world. Christ brought with him a part of the kingdom when he brought with him Hope, peace, Love, and joy.
In addition, like the importance of the angel’s proclamation of joy to the shepherds, What Christ is telling his disciples about joy is something of which to take note. He says that their joy is not yet complete, and it won’t be until Christ’s joy is complete. What is it that Christ had not done to complete his joy? Earlier in this same setting in John, Christ again told his disciples of his betrayal and death. I think that Christ was saying that the full extent and showing of his and God’s love for the world would not be complete until he had died and was raised to be with his father again. In the same way, we could not completely experience the Joy that God gives us until we experience the death and resurrection of Christ. Only then will our joy be complete.
Therefore, Christ is saying, that at his death, and at the full realization of God’s love displayed on the cross, CHRIST WOULD BE COMPLETING OUR JOY!
This is what we look forward to during advent. This is what we sing our Christmas songs of praise about. Joy has come to us, first in the form of a child in a stable, then in the form of a radical teacher, then in the form of our savior on the cross, and finally in the form of our risen Lord! So, unlike the Shepherds who only got a taste of joy, our joy has been made complete! We can both anticipate the coming of this joy during Advent, and reflect on the joy in our lives because of the sacrifice that God made to save us. I don’t know about you, but to me, That is something to rejoice about.
Sunday, November 27, 2005
The Advent of Hope
I’ve been thinking a lot over the last couple of weeks about why it is that I am so negative about churches. I mean, I’ve mentioned many things that irritate me about churches, but in this season of advent, where is the hope?
Hope is a hard thing to have, yet it is a fundamental in our Christian beliefs, is it not? Everything we believe revolves around the hope that Christ is who he said he was. It also revolves around the hope that there is something better than this sometimes wonderful, sometimes miserable piece of dirt that we live on. Even more importantly, our faith feeds off of the hope that whatever lies beyond that invisible barrier that keeps us from touching the other side, can no longer barricade our way into the nether and that the “something better” we have been hoping for will finally be ours.
If you ask me, that is a lot for which to hope. However, hope we do, and hope is all we have most of the time. Luckily for us, Christ’s meandering into the lives of you and me, gives some sustenance to our hope, for if he is who we believe him to be, and he did what he and his disciples claimed he has done, then he is the one that helps our hope be more than just a fantasy. Christ is the one that has knocked some holes into the iron curtain dividing life and death. If he is to be believed (and we HOPE he is), then he has given us glimpses of something good after this life. He has given us something to live for, and that something is ironically, hope.
So, there it is. Christ came to give us sinful, arrogant, scared to death of….well death, hope. If we really buy into this whole hope business, shouldn’t our lives and our churches be living lives based on that hope? Shouldn’t we be living like there really is something better beyond the great divide and that that something is worth giving yourself wholly and completely to? Instead, we live as if we have no hope. We gather possessions (yes, I am guilty) and we focus on all of the things that say that we really have no hope at all. If we live a life without hope, meaning that there is nothing to live for, then what becomes the most important thing for us? Our focus stays on the here and now of ourselves. We are focused on turning a good profit, living in luxury, and making ourselves happy.
Instead, if we live by the hope that we say we have, we live life, not for today, but for the day that our hope is fulfilled. In a way, we live for death. I know, that sounds really morbid, but as a Christian, is there a truer statement? We don’t live to make money, because what we hope for can’t be bought. We don’t live for comfort, because nothing here can be as wonderfully glorious as it is there. Instead, we should be so driven by our hope that we strive to do the things that truly matter, like feeding the poor, healing the sick, and visiting with those who have imprisoned themselves to a worldview that does not contain the hope that allows them to truly live life.
Now back to my question, where is my hope? Unfortunately, it is not in the Church. Most of the churches that I see, live as if there is no hope, because it’s people live as if there is no hope. Especially in America, with our capitalist superpower mindset, we can have everything we need and want. When we can ride to Wal-Mart, or (my personal favorite) Target and buy anything that we can think of to want, why NEED hope. There is simply no room for it. Maybe that is our problem. I think that it is part of my problem. We (both people and the Church) have not been without for so long that we have no need for hope; for it is in times of oppression and strife that we most need hope. That was part of the lesson to the Israelites during the exile, that once you have nothing left to lose, all you really want is hope. It is hard to have hope in a church that has grown fat and arrogant on itself. It is hard to believe in an institution that is more concerned about keeping itself alive than it is about giving others hope. That’s just selfish you say, yet that is exactly what most Christians are: selfish! It’s just too bad that the Christian Church is made up of Christians.
But again, I have failed to answer my own question, where is my hope? I believe that my hope is in Christ, and, well…I guess my hope is also that I am wrong. That somewhere those Christians that live by hope will join together and prove me wrong by turning our churches into places that live off of, and disperse hope into the world. It is my hope that one day many of the Christians that I see living selfishly, will once again live for the hope that is in Christ.
Hope is a hard thing to have, yet it is a fundamental in our Christian beliefs, is it not? Everything we believe revolves around the hope that Christ is who he said he was. It also revolves around the hope that there is something better than this sometimes wonderful, sometimes miserable piece of dirt that we live on. Even more importantly, our faith feeds off of the hope that whatever lies beyond that invisible barrier that keeps us from touching the other side, can no longer barricade our way into the nether and that the “something better” we have been hoping for will finally be ours.
If you ask me, that is a lot for which to hope. However, hope we do, and hope is all we have most of the time. Luckily for us, Christ’s meandering into the lives of you and me, gives some sustenance to our hope, for if he is who we believe him to be, and he did what he and his disciples claimed he has done, then he is the one that helps our hope be more than just a fantasy. Christ is the one that has knocked some holes into the iron curtain dividing life and death. If he is to be believed (and we HOPE he is), then he has given us glimpses of something good after this life. He has given us something to live for, and that something is ironically, hope.
So, there it is. Christ came to give us sinful, arrogant, scared to death of….well death, hope. If we really buy into this whole hope business, shouldn’t our lives and our churches be living lives based on that hope? Shouldn’t we be living like there really is something better beyond the great divide and that that something is worth giving yourself wholly and completely to? Instead, we live as if we have no hope. We gather possessions (yes, I am guilty) and we focus on all of the things that say that we really have no hope at all. If we live a life without hope, meaning that there is nothing to live for, then what becomes the most important thing for us? Our focus stays on the here and now of ourselves. We are focused on turning a good profit, living in luxury, and making ourselves happy.
Instead, if we live by the hope that we say we have, we live life, not for today, but for the day that our hope is fulfilled. In a way, we live for death. I know, that sounds really morbid, but as a Christian, is there a truer statement? We don’t live to make money, because what we hope for can’t be bought. We don’t live for comfort, because nothing here can be as wonderfully glorious as it is there. Instead, we should be so driven by our hope that we strive to do the things that truly matter, like feeding the poor, healing the sick, and visiting with those who have imprisoned themselves to a worldview that does not contain the hope that allows them to truly live life.
Now back to my question, where is my hope? Unfortunately, it is not in the Church. Most of the churches that I see, live as if there is no hope, because it’s people live as if there is no hope. Especially in America, with our capitalist superpower mindset, we can have everything we need and want. When we can ride to Wal-Mart, or (my personal favorite) Target and buy anything that we can think of to want, why NEED hope. There is simply no room for it. Maybe that is our problem. I think that it is part of my problem. We (both people and the Church) have not been without for so long that we have no need for hope; for it is in times of oppression and strife that we most need hope. That was part of the lesson to the Israelites during the exile, that once you have nothing left to lose, all you really want is hope. It is hard to have hope in a church that has grown fat and arrogant on itself. It is hard to believe in an institution that is more concerned about keeping itself alive than it is about giving others hope. That’s just selfish you say, yet that is exactly what most Christians are: selfish! It’s just too bad that the Christian Church is made up of Christians.
But again, I have failed to answer my own question, where is my hope? I believe that my hope is in Christ, and, well…I guess my hope is also that I am wrong. That somewhere those Christians that live by hope will join together and prove me wrong by turning our churches into places that live off of, and disperse hope into the world. It is my hope that one day many of the Christians that I see living selfishly, will once again live for the hope that is in Christ.
Sunday, November 13, 2005
In The Midst Of Life
Where does faith happen? Does it happen in a pew, or in a classroom? Does it happen at Church, during a hymn or the pastor’s sermon?
Where does faith come in? Does it come when we or someone we care about is faced with death? Does it come at the gravesite, the funeral, or only after the fact when we have time to think of that person and about our own mortality?
Where is faith found? Is it on the mountaintop or in the valley below? Perhaps it is on the way to Emmaus or on the Damascus Road.
When does Faith occur? Is it in the morning when the sun arises, or in the evening with a bedside prayer?
The truth is that faith can happen at any of these times or places. But then again, faith doesn’t happen, it just is. Faith is a state of being. Faith is a constant consciousness. Faith is more than a feeling, more than a thought, more than any single action. In fact, the feeling we call faith, the philosophical position that we refer to as faith, or any act of faith, is not really faith, but emerges from, or is provoked by faith.
Faith happens anywhere and everywhere. Faith occurs all hours of the day. The faith that is required of us is a faith that never sleeps. It is not an ideology to be applied to situations for a moral outcome. Faith is not simply A way to approach the world, for a Christian, it is THE WAY in which we approach life! There is no line separating ‘secular’ and ‘Christian’. WE try so hard to draw that line, when in fact, that is the opposite of what we are supposed to do. Christ came to create gray areas while we are struggling to maintain black and white. He came to show us that our faith, if genuine, is not a tool to be pulled out when a problem arises, but the constant state in which we live in this world. With true faith, we cannot separate our ‘beliefs’ from reality. Our faith is how we view reality. It is how we approach reality. Faith becomes our reality!
In the same way, we cannot separate ourselves from the world, to do so would be to separate ourselves from life. We emerged fully in life, and, in the same way, we should be fully emerged in our faith. So how does one find this faith? Why, it is elementary my dear reader. Simply, faith is found in the Midst of Life.
PS-> as an addendum check out my old campus minister's blog post on a prayer of St. Theresea
http://revtmnewell.blogspot.com/2005/10/with-kindness.html
Where does faith come in? Does it come when we or someone we care about is faced with death? Does it come at the gravesite, the funeral, or only after the fact when we have time to think of that person and about our own mortality?
Where is faith found? Is it on the mountaintop or in the valley below? Perhaps it is on the way to Emmaus or on the Damascus Road.
When does Faith occur? Is it in the morning when the sun arises, or in the evening with a bedside prayer?
The truth is that faith can happen at any of these times or places. But then again, faith doesn’t happen, it just is. Faith is a state of being. Faith is a constant consciousness. Faith is more than a feeling, more than a thought, more than any single action. In fact, the feeling we call faith, the philosophical position that we refer to as faith, or any act of faith, is not really faith, but emerges from, or is provoked by faith.
Faith happens anywhere and everywhere. Faith occurs all hours of the day. The faith that is required of us is a faith that never sleeps. It is not an ideology to be applied to situations for a moral outcome. Faith is not simply A way to approach the world, for a Christian, it is THE WAY in which we approach life! There is no line separating ‘secular’ and ‘Christian’. WE try so hard to draw that line, when in fact, that is the opposite of what we are supposed to do. Christ came to create gray areas while we are struggling to maintain black and white. He came to show us that our faith, if genuine, is not a tool to be pulled out when a problem arises, but the constant state in which we live in this world. With true faith, we cannot separate our ‘beliefs’ from reality. Our faith is how we view reality. It is how we approach reality. Faith becomes our reality!
In the same way, we cannot separate ourselves from the world, to do so would be to separate ourselves from life. We emerged fully in life, and, in the same way, we should be fully emerged in our faith. So how does one find this faith? Why, it is elementary my dear reader. Simply, faith is found in the Midst of Life.
PS-> as an addendum check out my old campus minister's blog post on a prayer of St. Theresea
http://revtmnewell.blogspot.com/2005/10/with-kindness.html
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
How to Pack a Shoebox
I would like to begin my sermon with a little ditty that I wrote in my free time (meaning while I was supposed to be paying attention in class). It came about as the result of trying to think of Operation Christmas Child from a Shoebox's point of View.
THE LIFE OF A SHOEBOX
I Am A Shoebox!
Out of cardboard I am made
To hold the shoes, not on display
With a price tag I am packed
Onto a truck way out back
With many like me I will ride
My destination: a store’s inside
Nike, Rebook, New Balance too,
I’m only here to hold the shoe.
I won’t be picked out for MY looks,
I wish I could’ve been a book
And when to a buyer I am sold
It’s only for the shoes I hold
If not trashed or tossed am I,
Then put up on a shelf up high
Now I am resigned to fate;
Collecting dust I now wait.
And I wait, and I wait, and I wait….
Then finally, there comes a day
When I descend down from my grave.
A mighty lung blows off the dust
Amidst the Christmas fuss and rush.
With Shiny paper I am wrapped
Stuffed to the brim I am packed
Cards, crayons, dolls or cars
Packed with gifts to travel far
Now, I’m being shipped again
But this time there is a spin!
My destination is not a store,
But a child; one who will adore;
Not just the objects in my insides
But the gifts: Love, Hope, and Pride.
Now I am much, much more
Than I ever was before
Not just cardboard, not just a box
Even if I just hold socks
Now I am a treasure chest
Who’s packed with a love that will not rest!
I AM A SHOEBOX!
NIV Matthew 10:1 He called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and sickness. 2 These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; 3 Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; 4 Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him. 5 These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: "Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. 6 Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel. 7 As you go, preach this message: 'The kingdom of heaven is near.' 8 Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.
Christian commentators have entitled Chapter 10 of Matthew, “Jesus sends out the twelve”. As you might guess from the title, this is the turning point in the role of the disciples. Up until this point the disciples were simply and literally followers of Christ. They really didn’t do that much to help Christ. They mostly walked around with him, listened (and sometimes questioned) his teachings, and watched him perform miracles, some of which they even tried to prevent the person from bothering Jesus with their request for help.
It seems to me, that the disciples were up until now, simply Jesus groupies. You know what a groupie is, right? In music, it is a person who will follow a band around and act as if they are a part of the band, although they have NO roll in the band whatsoever. Yes, they provide the band with revenue from buying tickets to every show; and often times they may provide the band with company (warranted or not). But in all reality, they contribute nothing to the band.
For the most part, that is the role the disciples played…that is, until the events in Matt. 10. Imagine, being one of Christ’s disciples. You are following him around; walking through the towns, stopping when Jesus does, and when he finishes teaching or healing, you quietly get up and follow him back out of town and on to the next destination. However, today is different. Today, you are following Jesus, and he stops, turns, and gathers all of his groupies around. He suddenly says, “You’ve been following me, watching me, and listening to me all this time. But, today’s the day! I am going to be the one to sit here while YOU go out and do all the things that you have seen me doing. I give you the authority, not only to tell about me, but to be able to cast out demons, and heal the sick. You will have the power that my father has given me. Today, you stop being followers, and start acting like disciples.
How scary that must have been to a young angler or a hated tax collector to hear that now he has to preach, cast out, and heal. I’m pretty sure that most of them thought at that point, “this isn’t what I signed up for…all he said was ‘follow me’, and that’s what I’ve been doing. That is all I was supposed to do…but now, he wants…what? This is asking too much. I was not made for this, I can’t do it!
Fortunately, with a pep talk that is worthy of any commander prepping his troops for battle, Jesus gives them their instructions:
“Do not go among the gentiles or enter any city of the Samaritan. Your job, you ask? Go to Israel, go to the lost sheep and preach your heart out. Preach what you have seen and what you have heard. Preach of hope, love, joy, and peace. Preach that I am here, and preach that the Kingdom that they so long for, the kingdom of heaven is near! HEAL THE SICK! RAISE THE DEAD! DRIVE OUT THOSE DEMONS THAT ARE WHISPERING LIES INTO THE HEARTS OF THOSE WHO WANT TO BELIEVE, THAT WANT TO SEEK THE KINGDOM OF GOD! FREELY YOU HAVE RECEIVED, NOW FREELY, YOU MUST GIVE!”
We have been blessed in so many ways. We too have freely received. I know what it is like to be a poor college student, but I don’t know what it is like to live in an impoverished country not knowing where your next meal will come from. Not knowing what the sickness your parents and friends are dying from. Not knowing if the sounds of civil war that haunt you in the night will reach your doorstep the next morning.
Many of you know that I have a love for photography. One of my favorite photographs is an image that will always haunt me. It is a Pulitzer winning photograph that was taken of a child in Sudan by Kevin Carter in 1994. The child has the bloated belly and muscle-less limbs of starvation. He is crouched in a fetal position unable to move for lack of energy. Behind him is a Vulture bigger than he is, and the vulture is patiently waiting for the child to die. Go on and Google it! Type in: Kevin Carter Pulitzer Photo.
These are the types of people that we are sending our shoeboxes too! These are the people that are receiving our gifts. And I hope that we all know that there is more than crayons, coloring books, cars, socks, and dolls that we are packing. No, what fills in the gaps of our neatly packed boxes are the real gifts that a Christian gives. The gifts of Hope, Love, and Joy! These are what Christ was commanding his disciples to go out and spread. Giving freely these gifts that we have been freely given is what transforms us from being a Jesus groupie, and becoming a Disciple of Christ!
Christ can transform our seemingly mundane gifts. Christ was all about transforming the ordinary to the extraordinary. Christ transformed ordinary water into delicious wine. He transformed ordinary mud into a miracle cure. He transformed ordinary human beings into people with the power to preach, heal, and cast out demons. Like the poem in the opening said, he can transform our measly little shoeboxes into the greatest gift a child has ever received!
Christ said: “Freely you have received, Freely give!”
What will you give this year? How many children will you give the gifts of Joy, Hope, and Love?
THE LIFE OF A SHOEBOX
I Am A Shoebox!
Out of cardboard I am made
To hold the shoes, not on display
With a price tag I am packed
Onto a truck way out back
With many like me I will ride
My destination: a store’s inside
Nike, Rebook, New Balance too,
I’m only here to hold the shoe.
I won’t be picked out for MY looks,
I wish I could’ve been a book
And when to a buyer I am sold
It’s only for the shoes I hold
If not trashed or tossed am I,
Then put up on a shelf up high
Now I am resigned to fate;
Collecting dust I now wait.
And I wait, and I wait, and I wait….
Then finally, there comes a day
When I descend down from my grave.
A mighty lung blows off the dust
Amidst the Christmas fuss and rush.
With Shiny paper I am wrapped
Stuffed to the brim I am packed
Cards, crayons, dolls or cars
Packed with gifts to travel far
Now, I’m being shipped again
But this time there is a spin!
My destination is not a store,
But a child; one who will adore;
Not just the objects in my insides
But the gifts: Love, Hope, and Pride.
Now I am much, much more
Than I ever was before
Not just cardboard, not just a box
Even if I just hold socks
Now I am a treasure chest
Who’s packed with a love that will not rest!
I AM A SHOEBOX!
NIV Matthew 10:1 He called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and sickness. 2 These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; 3 Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; 4 Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him. 5 These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: "Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. 6 Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel. 7 As you go, preach this message: 'The kingdom of heaven is near.' 8 Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.
Christian commentators have entitled Chapter 10 of Matthew, “Jesus sends out the twelve”. As you might guess from the title, this is the turning point in the role of the disciples. Up until this point the disciples were simply and literally followers of Christ. They really didn’t do that much to help Christ. They mostly walked around with him, listened (and sometimes questioned) his teachings, and watched him perform miracles, some of which they even tried to prevent the person from bothering Jesus with their request for help.
It seems to me, that the disciples were up until now, simply Jesus groupies. You know what a groupie is, right? In music, it is a person who will follow a band around and act as if they are a part of the band, although they have NO roll in the band whatsoever. Yes, they provide the band with revenue from buying tickets to every show; and often times they may provide the band with company (warranted or not). But in all reality, they contribute nothing to the band.
For the most part, that is the role the disciples played…that is, until the events in Matt. 10. Imagine, being one of Christ’s disciples. You are following him around; walking through the towns, stopping when Jesus does, and when he finishes teaching or healing, you quietly get up and follow him back out of town and on to the next destination. However, today is different. Today, you are following Jesus, and he stops, turns, and gathers all of his groupies around. He suddenly says, “You’ve been following me, watching me, and listening to me all this time. But, today’s the day! I am going to be the one to sit here while YOU go out and do all the things that you have seen me doing. I give you the authority, not only to tell about me, but to be able to cast out demons, and heal the sick. You will have the power that my father has given me. Today, you stop being followers, and start acting like disciples.
How scary that must have been to a young angler or a hated tax collector to hear that now he has to preach, cast out, and heal. I’m pretty sure that most of them thought at that point, “this isn’t what I signed up for…all he said was ‘follow me’, and that’s what I’ve been doing. That is all I was supposed to do…but now, he wants…what? This is asking too much. I was not made for this, I can’t do it!
Fortunately, with a pep talk that is worthy of any commander prepping his troops for battle, Jesus gives them their instructions:
“Do not go among the gentiles or enter any city of the Samaritan. Your job, you ask? Go to Israel, go to the lost sheep and preach your heart out. Preach what you have seen and what you have heard. Preach of hope, love, joy, and peace. Preach that I am here, and preach that the Kingdom that they so long for, the kingdom of heaven is near! HEAL THE SICK! RAISE THE DEAD! DRIVE OUT THOSE DEMONS THAT ARE WHISPERING LIES INTO THE HEARTS OF THOSE WHO WANT TO BELIEVE, THAT WANT TO SEEK THE KINGDOM OF GOD! FREELY YOU HAVE RECEIVED, NOW FREELY, YOU MUST GIVE!”
We have been blessed in so many ways. We too have freely received. I know what it is like to be a poor college student, but I don’t know what it is like to live in an impoverished country not knowing where your next meal will come from. Not knowing what the sickness your parents and friends are dying from. Not knowing if the sounds of civil war that haunt you in the night will reach your doorstep the next morning.
Many of you know that I have a love for photography. One of my favorite photographs is an image that will always haunt me. It is a Pulitzer winning photograph that was taken of a child in Sudan by Kevin Carter in 1994. The child has the bloated belly and muscle-less limbs of starvation. He is crouched in a fetal position unable to move for lack of energy. Behind him is a Vulture bigger than he is, and the vulture is patiently waiting for the child to die. Go on and Google it! Type in: Kevin Carter Pulitzer Photo.
These are the types of people that we are sending our shoeboxes too! These are the people that are receiving our gifts. And I hope that we all know that there is more than crayons, coloring books, cars, socks, and dolls that we are packing. No, what fills in the gaps of our neatly packed boxes are the real gifts that a Christian gives. The gifts of Hope, Love, and Joy! These are what Christ was commanding his disciples to go out and spread. Giving freely these gifts that we have been freely given is what transforms us from being a Jesus groupie, and becoming a Disciple of Christ!
Christ can transform our seemingly mundane gifts. Christ was all about transforming the ordinary to the extraordinary. Christ transformed ordinary water into delicious wine. He transformed ordinary mud into a miracle cure. He transformed ordinary human beings into people with the power to preach, heal, and cast out demons. Like the poem in the opening said, he can transform our measly little shoeboxes into the greatest gift a child has ever received!
Christ said: “Freely you have received, Freely give!”
What will you give this year? How many children will you give the gifts of Joy, Hope, and Love?
Thursday, October 27, 2005
A Whole New World
I have made a humbling discovery in weeks past. My hamster is smarter than I am! It’s true! Not once, but twice Buechner (my Chinese dwarf hamster) has escaped the confines of his cage. The first time it happened was on a night that I had slept on the couch. No, I did nothing wrong and I wasn’t in the doghouse, I was just having trouble sleeping and went to the couch so that I wouldn’t keep my wife awake. In doing so, I moved Buechner's cage to the floor of the office so that, per chance I ever got to sleep, his wheel wouldn’t keep me up.
Well, needless to say, I woke up about 5am and didn’t know why; I had just gotten to sleep. I could have sworn that some noise had awoken me from my slumber. Well, nevertheless, nature was calling anyway, so I got up and went to the bathroom. On my way back to the couch, I heard the noise again. It was coming from the office, and immediately I placed it…it was the sound of Buechner’s metal grate banging against the lid. It had not been latched, and he had found his way up there and squeezed through. By the time I got into the office, he was gone, lost never to be heard from again. Until that night, I never realized how big the room was, or how many rodent-hiding places there were. What do I do? I lost my favorite hamster.
Well, actually not all was lost. You already know that I got him back so he could escape a second time (which we retrieved him then too). I had a trusty little book with all kinds of ways listed in one chapter about capturing an escaped hamster. None of them worked! Then I had this idea. What if I put his cage back on the floor in the office, with the holes on each end opened? That way, at least he could get food and water, and maybe I would get lucky enough to catch him in there.
Not an hour passed when (again on my way to the bathroom) I heard the familiar sound of his squeaky wheel. I opened the door to the office, and he stops running on his wheel and looks up at me. His expression was like, “what? Where did you expect me to be? I mean, why wouldn’t I return to my home…it is all I have ever known.”
Here my imprisoned rodent had found the freedom of the open room that he had so long strived to find, and in the end, he decided he was too scared to stay in that vast uncertain world, so he returned to his small cage and his trusty exercise wheel. He was overwhelmed by the infinite, and returned to the contentment of running on a shallow wheel that never gets anywhere.
I have been thinking a lot lately about how possible it is to change the minds of Christians. I mean that is what I will spend my life doing in the ministry is it not? I would be trying to get people to let go of their version of God in order to embrace an improved version of God. It is not MY version of God, but the version of God that a new perspective can bring. I am talking about seeing God as he is, and as he wants to show us, not the image of God that we have painted to look like…well more like us and less like God. If I were to spend my life in the Ministry, it would be trying to get people to experience for themselves a bigger God than any of us could imagine.
Unfortunately though, just like my hamster who has a pea-sized brain… most people are afraid of the infinite God that we might just see, if we leave our small cage of dogma that we cling to. Why are we scared? Maybe we are scared that if we seek God that we might find him. Maybe we are scared that seeing more of God will leave us with a life full of unanswerable questions. Maybe we are fearful that seeing the perfection of God will leave us even more ashamed of our sinful state. On the other hand, maybe we are just scared that if we truly see the Glory of God, that we would be so overwhelmed, and so in awe, that we might just wet ourselves.
Isaiah saw God. The encounter left him a little sensitive to bright lights, and his burnt lips would never be able to handle spicy food again. However, it also left him with the world, and somehow, after seeing God, the world just wasn’t as beautiful. For the rest of his days he was haunted by that vision, and all he could think about was that if the people that he was prophesying to had seen what he had seen, then they might just take a different tone, and stop to listen to what God was trying to tell them. So, in the end, Isaiah lived for the end. I imagine that his days were spent longing for the day that he would be able to see God again in all of his Glory.
Maybe that is why we are so afraid. Maybe we are afraid that if we let go and try to see an infinite and true God (not our pale image of him), then the world and all that we love in it just won’t be as wonderful as we thought it was. Then, after experiencing that, there is really nothing left on this world to live for. Indeed, we would have to find something else to live for. I think Jesus would call this living for the Kingdom of God.
Well, needless to say, I woke up about 5am and didn’t know why; I had just gotten to sleep. I could have sworn that some noise had awoken me from my slumber. Well, nevertheless, nature was calling anyway, so I got up and went to the bathroom. On my way back to the couch, I heard the noise again. It was coming from the office, and immediately I placed it…it was the sound of Buechner’s metal grate banging against the lid. It had not been latched, and he had found his way up there and squeezed through. By the time I got into the office, he was gone, lost never to be heard from again. Until that night, I never realized how big the room was, or how many rodent-hiding places there were. What do I do? I lost my favorite hamster.
Well, actually not all was lost. You already know that I got him back so he could escape a second time (which we retrieved him then too). I had a trusty little book with all kinds of ways listed in one chapter about capturing an escaped hamster. None of them worked! Then I had this idea. What if I put his cage back on the floor in the office, with the holes on each end opened? That way, at least he could get food and water, and maybe I would get lucky enough to catch him in there.
Not an hour passed when (again on my way to the bathroom) I heard the familiar sound of his squeaky wheel. I opened the door to the office, and he stops running on his wheel and looks up at me. His expression was like, “what? Where did you expect me to be? I mean, why wouldn’t I return to my home…it is all I have ever known.”
Here my imprisoned rodent had found the freedom of the open room that he had so long strived to find, and in the end, he decided he was too scared to stay in that vast uncertain world, so he returned to his small cage and his trusty exercise wheel. He was overwhelmed by the infinite, and returned to the contentment of running on a shallow wheel that never gets anywhere.
I have been thinking a lot lately about how possible it is to change the minds of Christians. I mean that is what I will spend my life doing in the ministry is it not? I would be trying to get people to let go of their version of God in order to embrace an improved version of God. It is not MY version of God, but the version of God that a new perspective can bring. I am talking about seeing God as he is, and as he wants to show us, not the image of God that we have painted to look like…well more like us and less like God. If I were to spend my life in the Ministry, it would be trying to get people to experience for themselves a bigger God than any of us could imagine.
Unfortunately though, just like my hamster who has a pea-sized brain… most people are afraid of the infinite God that we might just see, if we leave our small cage of dogma that we cling to. Why are we scared? Maybe we are scared that if we seek God that we might find him. Maybe we are scared that seeing more of God will leave us with a life full of unanswerable questions. Maybe we are fearful that seeing the perfection of God will leave us even more ashamed of our sinful state. On the other hand, maybe we are just scared that if we truly see the Glory of God, that we would be so overwhelmed, and so in awe, that we might just wet ourselves.
Isaiah saw God. The encounter left him a little sensitive to bright lights, and his burnt lips would never be able to handle spicy food again. However, it also left him with the world, and somehow, after seeing God, the world just wasn’t as beautiful. For the rest of his days he was haunted by that vision, and all he could think about was that if the people that he was prophesying to had seen what he had seen, then they might just take a different tone, and stop to listen to what God was trying to tell them. So, in the end, Isaiah lived for the end. I imagine that his days were spent longing for the day that he would be able to see God again in all of his Glory.
Maybe that is why we are so afraid. Maybe we are afraid that if we let go and try to see an infinite and true God (not our pale image of him), then the world and all that we love in it just won’t be as wonderful as we thought it was. Then, after experiencing that, there is really nothing left on this world to live for. Indeed, we would have to find something else to live for. I think Jesus would call this living for the Kingdom of God.
Monday, October 17, 2005
Explanation
As many of you who read my blog know, the purpose of my blogging at this point in time is to journal and explore some of my theological frustrations with church. So far i think it has been very helpful. Below is a sermon I preached on Oct. 16. The sermon was not meant to be a produt of my blogging/exploration, but i guess when you feel strongly about something, you can't help but let it slip past your guard. I have enjoyed and benifited so much from your feedback, that i now invite you to critique this sermon. Please do not critique grammer/spelling, but i ask you to Critique and add your comments and thoughts pertaining to the overall message being presented.
thanks as always,
justin
thanks as always,
justin
Radical Rebirth
I would like to begin my sermon with a disclaimer. I am not, nor have I ever been a parent. Nor have I ever been present for the birth of a child. My knowledge about childbirth is limited to the stories I have heard from friends and family about their labor, and the video that I can’t seem to forget (try as I might) that we were forced to watch in 11th grade AP Biology.
That being said I would like to paint a picture for you. This image is inspired and partially quoted from Gordon Mackenzie. Imagine if you will, you are a child that has not been introduced into the world yet. It all started 9 months ago where you (over time) began forming fingers and toes. You became aware and comfortable in your dark, warm, oceanic environment. At first, you were tiny, but as you became bigger, your nice warm womb began to become small and cramped. You are now stifled by this confined place, and you realize that you aren’t getting any smaller, and thus you conclude that you will have to move to a bigger place in order to continue to grow.
“After much groping about in the dark you will find an exit; the mouth of a tunnel. “too small”, you’ll decide, “Couldn’t possibly squeeze through there.” But there will be no other apparent way out. So with primal spunk, you will take on your first of many “impossible challenges”, and enter into the tunnel. In doing so, you will be embarking on a brutal, no turning back, physically exhausting, claustrophobic passage that will introduce you to pain and fear and hard physical labor. It will seem to take forever, but mysterious undulations of the tunnel itself will help squirm you through. And finally, after what will seem like endless striving, you will break through into a blinding light!
Giant hands will pull you gently, but firmly into an enormous room. There will be several huge people, called adults, huddling around you, as if to greet you. If it is an old fashioned place, one of these humongous people may hold you upside down by the legs and give you a swat on the backside to get you going.”
You now have officially been born!!
Labor and birth is tough! It is a painful and messy process that one must endure in order to be a part of this world. I am sure that it could be considered a traumatic event for the child; to be taken almost violently from the only home he or she has ever known and force them into a bigger and more uncertain world.
The English poet Thom Gunn puts it this way.
From the private ease of Mother’s womb
I fall into a lighted room
Why don’t they simply put me back
Where it is warm, wet, and black?
But one thing follows on another
Things were different inside my mother
Padded and jolly I would ride
The perfect comfort of her inside
They tuck me in a rustling bed
--I lie there, raging small and red!
Birth is hard! We know this, and Jesus knew this. Maybe that is part of the point he had in his encounter with Nicodemus in John 3.
In this passage, Nicodemus has confronted Jesus in the dark of night. Nicodemus comes as a teacher about God, to confess that Jesus is a teacher sent from God. Jesus’ reply is unexpected and seemingly unrelated to what Nicodemus has just said. “Truly, Truly I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Christ is telling Nicodemus, that if one is to truly be a part of the Kingdom that Christ was building, then he has to be completely reinvented, and in his terms, “reborn”.
So too, for us, if we are truly to be a part of Christ in this world, we must completely and utterly be changed…we must be “born again”.
I must say that I shy away form this phrase: ‘born again’. To non-Christians, this phrase immediately turns them off to any talk of God or Christ that may follow. Allow me an example out of Brian McLauren’s book A New Kind Of Christian. Neo is a Christian who is a high school science teacher. He has been helping Dan, a local church pastor, through some of his theological frustrations. Neo is telling Dan about an encounter that he had just had with a parent of one of his students at that student’s soccer game.
Dan- “Neo what were you just talking to that lady about over there by the concession stand?
Neo- “well Dan it was the strangest, most remarkable thing. We were engaging in idle chitchat: her child, my class, the soccer team, you know! She said that she missed the Science fair finals last spring, and that it was her daughter’s ”big day” because Melissa won 2nd place for a great project on astronomy. Then we started talking about astronomy, and I said that nothing makes me feel the presence of God more than a star-studded night sky. Then she asked me if I was a ‘born-again’. Then she said—
“What DID you say?” [Dan interrupted] you told her yes of course! You shared the Gospel with her didn’t you!
Neo—Hold on Dan! I never know how exactly to answer that born-again question. Obviously, in the way Jesus used the term, I would want to say yes. But to some people, the question means, ‘are you a judgmental, arrogant, narrow-minded, bigoted religious fanatic?’ I remember one of my students telling me once that he wanted to be a true follower of Christ, but hoped never to be ‘born-again.’ I asked him why, and told me of another student who used to be a really nice person, but then she became a born-again, and now she is always criticizing everyone and has become so negative and stuck up, and narrow-minded, that nobody can stand her. So the term has been pretty much ruined by modern Christianity.
Unfortunately, I think that Neo is on to something here, the term “born again” has, to many, become a dirty phrase in our society. But, we can’t just throw the term away, because Christ was trying to teach something important when he talked about being “born again”.
So what DID Christ mean when he told Nicodemus that to be a part of the Kingdom of heaven one must be born-again? Well, the story begins with Nicodemus coming to Christ under the cover of darkness. This has traditionally been interpreted that Nicodemus was a secret follower of Christ and that as a Pharisee; he had to meet with Jesus incognito.
We also know that the Gospel of St. John, is different from the other gospels. Although it is placed among the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, almost everything about it is different from the others. Not only does John have stories (like this encounter between Nicodemus and Christ) that do not appear in the other gospels, but the stories the books do share are different; not only in content but also in chronology. Take for example Jesus’ cleansing of the temple. In the synoptic gospels, this occurs during Jesus’ last week in Jerusalem. In John, Jesus overturns the tables early in chapter 2, long before the Passion Week.
What does this tell us about the book of John? It tells us that John is not concerned with chronology and details as much as he is getting the message and meaning of Christ across to his readers. Yes, John stats that Nicodemus came to Christ under the cover of dark, and, although the reason isn’t stated, assuming he was doing so in order that his true loyalties would not be discovered, is a valid interpretation. However, from the very first verse of the book, John shows a theme that will run its course in his telling of Jesus’ life.
John 1:1-5 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.”
Throughout the Gospel of John, he plays with the theme of Light and Darkness, where Christ is always the light striving to break through the darkness. It could also be interpreted that the cover of dark that surrounded Nicodemus could represent his mindset in relation to Christ. This is reinforced by Nicodemus’ response to Christ’s enlightening statement: “how can one so old crawl back into his mother’s womb?” The darkness here is the ignorance shown by Nicodemus to Jesus statement: “Truly, Truly I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Two things should be pointed out about Christ’s statement. First, the words ‘born again’, can also be translated “born from above”. There is a play on words here, and Nicodemus takes the ‘born again’ translation literally. Secondly, it must be pointed out that Jesus uses the term Kingdom of God. This is a common phrase used in other gospels, but is only used twice in John’s gospel. Instead of the phrase “Kingdom of God”, He uses the phrase “eternal life”! Many interpret John’s choice of phrasing as him differentiating between a kingdom of God that we are supposed to be creating on earth, and an eternal life that happens after our death. Knowing this, we can rule out that Christ’s comment about being reborn is not a birth into an afterlife. Instead, it is telling the Pharisee what it will take to bring about God’s kingdom on this earth.
Jesus is making a radical statement here. One that we modern Christians take too lightly. As I mentioned earlier, birth is a painful, traumatic, and messy process. It is a process that produces a complete change in the person being born, and in the lives of all those around him or her. If birth is like that, how much harder should our rebirth be?
Modern Christianity has reduced this deep principle and marketed it as a catchy phrase to be put on bumper stickers and t-shirts, and has reduced it to a simple sales pitch that we call evangelism. Being ‘born again’ has become more about crossing a line; going from one side to the other than it is about a deep devotion. We say that a person is ‘born again’ once they walk the aisle, say a prayer, and then get dipped, dunked, sprinkled or splattered. However, is this what Jesus meant? Didn’t Jesus mean something more when he had this conversation with Nicodemus? Didn’t he tell his disciples that “if any is to come after me, they must first take up their cross and follow me?” I don’t seem to recall anywhere that Jesus said that becoming a part of the kingdom of God was as simple as shaking the pastor’s hand during the last verse of a slow hymn.
Christ is saying to one who has devoted his life to knowing God, that in order to build the Kingdom of God, you have to unlearn everything about God that you think you knew and begin again as a child, with a childlike faith. No, it won’t be easy, in fact, it should be the hardest thing that you ever have to do. However, to try and build the Kingdom without a radical rebirth is like a contractor building a sky-rise without the blueprints, or like a musician trying to play a masterpiece without ever seeing the music.
I think that this message is just as relevant to us today as it was to Nicodemus. Nicodemus was a Pharisee; and remind me at whom it was that Jesus was always getting frustrated? He was constantly trying to reform and revolutionize the way that the Pharisees, Sadducees, and the Jews viewed God. Who was it that Jesus actually praised for their faith? A pagan centurion who spoke words of faith and respect to Jesus? A person that stretched their arm as far out of the crowd as she could simply to brush Christ’s garment? A Syro-Phoenician woman that dared to challenge Christ by stating that even the dogs eat the crumbs from their master’s tables? These were the people that Christ praised, those that were willing to unlearn everything they had ever known and see what Christ was really trying to show the world.
I think that the Challenge to be reborn is even harder for us who have grown up in church, or have been a Christian many years. We have become the Pharisees of our time! I think that we are the ones that, like the Pharisees, Christ would be getting frustrated with. We would be the ones that he would be saying would need to be reborn. Why?
Because we are stuck in our ways! We are arrogant in our beliefs, and we are close-minded to new ideas about who God is and the vision his son had. For us whom I am referring to, to be reborn, would mean that we would have to unlearn everything that our Sunday-school teachers, pastors, and parents have taught us throughout the years, and try to see Jesus for ourselves; to try to see Christ in new and different ways. It means that we would have to humble ourselves to who Christ truly was, and what it was that he was truly teaching.
Unfortunately, like the Pharisees, I am afraid that the message of Radical Rebirth will continue to fall onto deaf ears. Just like many of the teachings of Jesus, we will get out of this what we WANT to get out of it, and leave behind what Christ is really saying. I think of the man that said that he had kept all of the laws and asked Christ what he must do to enter heaven. When Jesus told him what his life was lacking, the man decided that it was too hard, that it was too high of a price to pay, and so he turned and went away. How sad Christ must have been when the man refused to be radically changed by Christ because of his desire to cling to his precious state of being. How sad Christ must be when we Christians refuse to allow him to produce a radical rebirth in us, because we cling with white-knuckled grips to what we are comfortable with, because we are scared of how hard the process of spiritual rebirth would truly be.
Change is hard. However, as George Bernard Shaw stated, “Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds, cannot change anything.” Christ, through his exchange with Nicodemus is asking us to change. Not just to rethink our position with God, but to allow God to radically reform us, to make us a new creation, and to help us to be reborn. It won’t be easy, in fact it will be the hardest thing you ever do, but understand you won’t and can’t do it alone. Only God can give us the gift of Radical rebirth. And it is only through this rebirth, that we will see the Kingdom of Heaven.
Yahweh, Yahweh/Always pain before a child is born -U2
That being said I would like to paint a picture for you. This image is inspired and partially quoted from Gordon Mackenzie. Imagine if you will, you are a child that has not been introduced into the world yet. It all started 9 months ago where you (over time) began forming fingers and toes. You became aware and comfortable in your dark, warm, oceanic environment. At first, you were tiny, but as you became bigger, your nice warm womb began to become small and cramped. You are now stifled by this confined place, and you realize that you aren’t getting any smaller, and thus you conclude that you will have to move to a bigger place in order to continue to grow.
“After much groping about in the dark you will find an exit; the mouth of a tunnel. “too small”, you’ll decide, “Couldn’t possibly squeeze through there.” But there will be no other apparent way out. So with primal spunk, you will take on your first of many “impossible challenges”, and enter into the tunnel. In doing so, you will be embarking on a brutal, no turning back, physically exhausting, claustrophobic passage that will introduce you to pain and fear and hard physical labor. It will seem to take forever, but mysterious undulations of the tunnel itself will help squirm you through. And finally, after what will seem like endless striving, you will break through into a blinding light!
Giant hands will pull you gently, but firmly into an enormous room. There will be several huge people, called adults, huddling around you, as if to greet you. If it is an old fashioned place, one of these humongous people may hold you upside down by the legs and give you a swat on the backside to get you going.”
You now have officially been born!!
Labor and birth is tough! It is a painful and messy process that one must endure in order to be a part of this world. I am sure that it could be considered a traumatic event for the child; to be taken almost violently from the only home he or she has ever known and force them into a bigger and more uncertain world.
The English poet Thom Gunn puts it this way.
From the private ease of Mother’s womb
I fall into a lighted room
Why don’t they simply put me back
Where it is warm, wet, and black?
But one thing follows on another
Things were different inside my mother
Padded and jolly I would ride
The perfect comfort of her inside
They tuck me in a rustling bed
--I lie there, raging small and red!
Birth is hard! We know this, and Jesus knew this. Maybe that is part of the point he had in his encounter with Nicodemus in John 3.
In this passage, Nicodemus has confronted Jesus in the dark of night. Nicodemus comes as a teacher about God, to confess that Jesus is a teacher sent from God. Jesus’ reply is unexpected and seemingly unrelated to what Nicodemus has just said. “Truly, Truly I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Christ is telling Nicodemus, that if one is to truly be a part of the Kingdom that Christ was building, then he has to be completely reinvented, and in his terms, “reborn”.
So too, for us, if we are truly to be a part of Christ in this world, we must completely and utterly be changed…we must be “born again”.
I must say that I shy away form this phrase: ‘born again’. To non-Christians, this phrase immediately turns them off to any talk of God or Christ that may follow. Allow me an example out of Brian McLauren’s book A New Kind Of Christian. Neo is a Christian who is a high school science teacher. He has been helping Dan, a local church pastor, through some of his theological frustrations. Neo is telling Dan about an encounter that he had just had with a parent of one of his students at that student’s soccer game.
Dan- “Neo what were you just talking to that lady about over there by the concession stand?
Neo- “well Dan it was the strangest, most remarkable thing. We were engaging in idle chitchat: her child, my class, the soccer team, you know! She said that she missed the Science fair finals last spring, and that it was her daughter’s ”big day” because Melissa won 2nd place for a great project on astronomy. Then we started talking about astronomy, and I said that nothing makes me feel the presence of God more than a star-studded night sky. Then she asked me if I was a ‘born-again’. Then she said—
“What DID you say?” [Dan interrupted] you told her yes of course! You shared the Gospel with her didn’t you!
Neo—Hold on Dan! I never know how exactly to answer that born-again question. Obviously, in the way Jesus used the term, I would want to say yes. But to some people, the question means, ‘are you a judgmental, arrogant, narrow-minded, bigoted religious fanatic?’ I remember one of my students telling me once that he wanted to be a true follower of Christ, but hoped never to be ‘born-again.’ I asked him why, and told me of another student who used to be a really nice person, but then she became a born-again, and now she is always criticizing everyone and has become so negative and stuck up, and narrow-minded, that nobody can stand her. So the term has been pretty much ruined by modern Christianity.
Unfortunately, I think that Neo is on to something here, the term “born again” has, to many, become a dirty phrase in our society. But, we can’t just throw the term away, because Christ was trying to teach something important when he talked about being “born again”.
So what DID Christ mean when he told Nicodemus that to be a part of the Kingdom of heaven one must be born-again? Well, the story begins with Nicodemus coming to Christ under the cover of darkness. This has traditionally been interpreted that Nicodemus was a secret follower of Christ and that as a Pharisee; he had to meet with Jesus incognito.
We also know that the Gospel of St. John, is different from the other gospels. Although it is placed among the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, almost everything about it is different from the others. Not only does John have stories (like this encounter between Nicodemus and Christ) that do not appear in the other gospels, but the stories the books do share are different; not only in content but also in chronology. Take for example Jesus’ cleansing of the temple. In the synoptic gospels, this occurs during Jesus’ last week in Jerusalem. In John, Jesus overturns the tables early in chapter 2, long before the Passion Week.
What does this tell us about the book of John? It tells us that John is not concerned with chronology and details as much as he is getting the message and meaning of Christ across to his readers. Yes, John stats that Nicodemus came to Christ under the cover of dark, and, although the reason isn’t stated, assuming he was doing so in order that his true loyalties would not be discovered, is a valid interpretation. However, from the very first verse of the book, John shows a theme that will run its course in his telling of Jesus’ life.
John 1:1-5 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.”
Throughout the Gospel of John, he plays with the theme of Light and Darkness, where Christ is always the light striving to break through the darkness. It could also be interpreted that the cover of dark that surrounded Nicodemus could represent his mindset in relation to Christ. This is reinforced by Nicodemus’ response to Christ’s enlightening statement: “how can one so old crawl back into his mother’s womb?” The darkness here is the ignorance shown by Nicodemus to Jesus statement: “Truly, Truly I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Two things should be pointed out about Christ’s statement. First, the words ‘born again’, can also be translated “born from above”. There is a play on words here, and Nicodemus takes the ‘born again’ translation literally. Secondly, it must be pointed out that Jesus uses the term Kingdom of God. This is a common phrase used in other gospels, but is only used twice in John’s gospel. Instead of the phrase “Kingdom of God”, He uses the phrase “eternal life”! Many interpret John’s choice of phrasing as him differentiating between a kingdom of God that we are supposed to be creating on earth, and an eternal life that happens after our death. Knowing this, we can rule out that Christ’s comment about being reborn is not a birth into an afterlife. Instead, it is telling the Pharisee what it will take to bring about God’s kingdom on this earth.
Jesus is making a radical statement here. One that we modern Christians take too lightly. As I mentioned earlier, birth is a painful, traumatic, and messy process. It is a process that produces a complete change in the person being born, and in the lives of all those around him or her. If birth is like that, how much harder should our rebirth be?
Modern Christianity has reduced this deep principle and marketed it as a catchy phrase to be put on bumper stickers and t-shirts, and has reduced it to a simple sales pitch that we call evangelism. Being ‘born again’ has become more about crossing a line; going from one side to the other than it is about a deep devotion. We say that a person is ‘born again’ once they walk the aisle, say a prayer, and then get dipped, dunked, sprinkled or splattered. However, is this what Jesus meant? Didn’t Jesus mean something more when he had this conversation with Nicodemus? Didn’t he tell his disciples that “if any is to come after me, they must first take up their cross and follow me?” I don’t seem to recall anywhere that Jesus said that becoming a part of the kingdom of God was as simple as shaking the pastor’s hand during the last verse of a slow hymn.
Christ is saying to one who has devoted his life to knowing God, that in order to build the Kingdom of God, you have to unlearn everything about God that you think you knew and begin again as a child, with a childlike faith. No, it won’t be easy, in fact, it should be the hardest thing that you ever have to do. However, to try and build the Kingdom without a radical rebirth is like a contractor building a sky-rise without the blueprints, or like a musician trying to play a masterpiece without ever seeing the music.
I think that this message is just as relevant to us today as it was to Nicodemus. Nicodemus was a Pharisee; and remind me at whom it was that Jesus was always getting frustrated? He was constantly trying to reform and revolutionize the way that the Pharisees, Sadducees, and the Jews viewed God. Who was it that Jesus actually praised for their faith? A pagan centurion who spoke words of faith and respect to Jesus? A person that stretched their arm as far out of the crowd as she could simply to brush Christ’s garment? A Syro-Phoenician woman that dared to challenge Christ by stating that even the dogs eat the crumbs from their master’s tables? These were the people that Christ praised, those that were willing to unlearn everything they had ever known and see what Christ was really trying to show the world.
I think that the Challenge to be reborn is even harder for us who have grown up in church, or have been a Christian many years. We have become the Pharisees of our time! I think that we are the ones that, like the Pharisees, Christ would be getting frustrated with. We would be the ones that he would be saying would need to be reborn. Why?
Because we are stuck in our ways! We are arrogant in our beliefs, and we are close-minded to new ideas about who God is and the vision his son had. For us whom I am referring to, to be reborn, would mean that we would have to unlearn everything that our Sunday-school teachers, pastors, and parents have taught us throughout the years, and try to see Jesus for ourselves; to try to see Christ in new and different ways. It means that we would have to humble ourselves to who Christ truly was, and what it was that he was truly teaching.
Unfortunately, like the Pharisees, I am afraid that the message of Radical Rebirth will continue to fall onto deaf ears. Just like many of the teachings of Jesus, we will get out of this what we WANT to get out of it, and leave behind what Christ is really saying. I think of the man that said that he had kept all of the laws and asked Christ what he must do to enter heaven. When Jesus told him what his life was lacking, the man decided that it was too hard, that it was too high of a price to pay, and so he turned and went away. How sad Christ must have been when the man refused to be radically changed by Christ because of his desire to cling to his precious state of being. How sad Christ must be when we Christians refuse to allow him to produce a radical rebirth in us, because we cling with white-knuckled grips to what we are comfortable with, because we are scared of how hard the process of spiritual rebirth would truly be.
Change is hard. However, as George Bernard Shaw stated, “Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds, cannot change anything.” Christ, through his exchange with Nicodemus is asking us to change. Not just to rethink our position with God, but to allow God to radically reform us, to make us a new creation, and to help us to be reborn. It won’t be easy, in fact it will be the hardest thing you ever do, but understand you won’t and can’t do it alone. Only God can give us the gift of Radical rebirth. And it is only through this rebirth, that we will see the Kingdom of Heaven.
Yahweh, Yahweh/Always pain before a child is born -U2
Friday, October 07, 2005
Fade To Gray
I don’t know about anyone else, but it seems lately that whenever the word Christian comes up in current events, I cringe and try to distance myself from what is about to happen. I think it all started after 9/11 and Jerry Falwell’s comment about God’s judgment on the US for all of its sin. It seems every time that we have some catastrophe happen, especially in the US, some outspoken Christian who has traded in his or her common sense for a television spot, makes the claim that God is sending his wrath upon an unholy America. We saw this with 9/11, as well as with the 2 recent hurricanes. I am not the first to point out, that if this is God throwing darts of judgment on our sin, then He has some poor aim by missing the French Quarter.
You may think that I am being sacrilegious, but the more I study God, Jesus, and the Bible, the more I am ashamed to be known as a Christian. Why is that? Well because most of the Christians getting airtime must not be reading the same Bible that I am. It seems that the only Christians that are getting airtime are the overzealous conservatives. Now I am a person who believes that everyone is entitled to his or her on beliefs, but when someone that is not Christian finds out that I am a Christian, It is automatically assumed that I am a judgmental, outspoken, intolerant, closed-minded person incapable of thinking for myself.
I am afraid that I am more right than wrong when I say that to those outside the Church, this is what they believe the Church to be. No longer is it a place, to seek out a God who is glorious, loving, and forgiving. No longer is it a place of refuge and strength, but rather a place more akin to a courthouse where all who enter (save the guy in the pulpit) is waiting their turn at the defendant’s table.
I am also afraid that many people outside the Church think that they cannot be a part of the Church because their reasoning does not coincide with the proclamations seen on TV. For instance, a person who thinks that women should have a right to choose in the abortion issue, whether they have had an abortion or not, feels like they would have no place in the Church, and would be condemned before they even step into the vestibule. Maybe when we come up with those catchy slogans for the signs in front of our churches, we should say "NOT as seen on TV".
Advertising and business will tell you that if you want to make an impact on your target audience, then you have to pay attention to your Image. What image are we portraying as a local church? If we are not part of the problem, then what are we doing to fix the incorrect image that others have of us. The world unfortunately is not black and white. The Bible (maybe fortunately) is not black and white. Christ, (Thank God!) is NOT black and white. So why should we be? The more I read the Bible, and the more I look towards my savior, the more everything blends and fades to gray! To me this isn’t a bad thing, because it causes me to rely more on the Holy Spirit and less on myself when making decisions. So where do you fall. If we aren’t striving for a better solution, and if we are sitting back doing nothing, then we are just as much a part of the problem as those who are blemishing the image of Christ.
You may think that I am being sacrilegious, but the more I study God, Jesus, and the Bible, the more I am ashamed to be known as a Christian. Why is that? Well because most of the Christians getting airtime must not be reading the same Bible that I am. It seems that the only Christians that are getting airtime are the overzealous conservatives. Now I am a person who believes that everyone is entitled to his or her on beliefs, but when someone that is not Christian finds out that I am a Christian, It is automatically assumed that I am a judgmental, outspoken, intolerant, closed-minded person incapable of thinking for myself.
I am afraid that I am more right than wrong when I say that to those outside the Church, this is what they believe the Church to be. No longer is it a place, to seek out a God who is glorious, loving, and forgiving. No longer is it a place of refuge and strength, but rather a place more akin to a courthouse where all who enter (save the guy in the pulpit) is waiting their turn at the defendant’s table.
I am also afraid that many people outside the Church think that they cannot be a part of the Church because their reasoning does not coincide with the proclamations seen on TV. For instance, a person who thinks that women should have a right to choose in the abortion issue, whether they have had an abortion or not, feels like they would have no place in the Church, and would be condemned before they even step into the vestibule. Maybe when we come up with those catchy slogans for the signs in front of our churches, we should say "NOT as seen on TV".
Advertising and business will tell you that if you want to make an impact on your target audience, then you have to pay attention to your Image. What image are we portraying as a local church? If we are not part of the problem, then what are we doing to fix the incorrect image that others have of us. The world unfortunately is not black and white. The Bible (maybe fortunately) is not black and white. Christ, (Thank God!) is NOT black and white. So why should we be? The more I read the Bible, and the more I look towards my savior, the more everything blends and fades to gray! To me this isn’t a bad thing, because it causes me to rely more on the Holy Spirit and less on myself when making decisions. So where do you fall. If we aren’t striving for a better solution, and if we are sitting back doing nothing, then we are just as much a part of the problem as those who are blemishing the image of Christ.
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Something Just Feels A Little Off...
My wife had one of her most embarrassing moments last weekend. We were at the movies and were running a little late. In fact, the previews had already stated and I don’t like to be late to movies. Well, at Crossroads20 it is convenient to go to the bathroom before the movie because you can go in one door from the main lobby and come out another door where the theatres are. As usual, she told me to wait on her on the other side, but I wasn’t paying attention. A preview in the lobby had caught my attention as she walked away. It was only for a second that I looked away before I continued on to the men’s room (left to go into the men’s’ room, right to go into the women’s).
Anywho, as I walked into the men’s room I thought I caught a fleeting glance at what looked like Alison going into a stall. I could have sworn it was her blue jacket. I said, “Nah,” and went about my business at the urinal.
As I was washing my hands, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it had been Alison that went into that stall. Sure enough in the mirror, you could see her flip-flops and newly manicured toenails under the stall. I didn’t know what to do. I dried my hands and walked out to see the manager of the theater standing outside watching people come out. I decided then and there that I needed to distance myself from the inevitable. People were going to see Alison coming out of the men’s room and I didn’t want to be seen with her!
Sure enough, she comes strolling out, stops looks behind her as the manager and the woman coming out of the women’s restroom start to laugh. Her face turns bright red as she said, “I just totally went to the wrong bathroom, didn’t I?”
We laughed about it for a long time, but I had to ask her how it happened. I mean we go to the movies at that theatre all the time. She was dumbfounded. I then asked her, “when you walked in, I assume that the ladies’ room is the mirror image of the men’s (minus the urinals), didn’t you feel like something was wrong?” She said, “now that you mention it, it did seem a little backwards, but I had to go so I didn’t take time to think about what was wrong.”
I use my poor wife’s experience (with her permission) as an example of how I think I feel about Church. When I look at a church and what it is doing, most of the time I can’t help but feel like something’s a little off, like the way Churches are is a little backwards from the way it should be. I see two kinds of churches mostly: The latent church and the zealous church.
The latent churches have a lot of potential, but are absorbed too much in themselves. Yes, they may get out into the community occasionally to do something, but they are more concerned with people coming to them. Yes, they worship God, and yes, they may have some good programs, but the only access to the church is if you are on the inside. Usually theses churches are focused only on their own needs as a church and simply forget to, or refuse to be a part of the world around them.
Then I also see the zealous church. This is the active church that does as much as it can to convert others to Christianity. They are masters at going door to door, mailing or giving out tracks, or pushing their members at every opportunity to evangelize. These churches acknowledge the community around them, but are a counter-culture within the world. This is where the mass marketing of Christianity comes in. The world is sinful; we must convert the world to our world. This world includes only Christian music, books, fish on your car for every person in your family, Christian t-shirts, etc…
The theory is that the Church will create a world that is more Christian, and we will convert as many people as possible to our counter-culture and they will in effect be a better Christian because of it.
In my opinion, neither is achieving the great commission. I’m not saying that everything that every church does is wrong. Yes, some churches are trying hard to do the right thing. I am also not saying that either type of these churches are without good intentions. But, like Alison I can’t help but get the feeling that something is off, something is backwards.
Which brings me to my previous Blog. The U2 song has really gotten me to think about how I approach the un-churched/non-believer. We try so hard to get people to become Christian, but they can’t believe what we so strongly adhere to because they don’t see the Church fulfilling their needs. Yes, people have spiritual needs, but they also have other needs, and we are so caught up in “being spiritual”, that we don’t even think about dropping crumbs off our table. I can’t say I blame them. If the church is not out amongst the people in the world, if it is creating its own counter-culture instead of working in the world God has given to us, how can we expect to do the great things that Jesus told his disciples that they would be able to do?
“For we speak of signs and wonders
But we all need something other
They would believe if they were able
But they’re waiting on the crumbs from our table”
Anywho, as I walked into the men’s room I thought I caught a fleeting glance at what looked like Alison going into a stall. I could have sworn it was her blue jacket. I said, “Nah,” and went about my business at the urinal.
As I was washing my hands, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it had been Alison that went into that stall. Sure enough in the mirror, you could see her flip-flops and newly manicured toenails under the stall. I didn’t know what to do. I dried my hands and walked out to see the manager of the theater standing outside watching people come out. I decided then and there that I needed to distance myself from the inevitable. People were going to see Alison coming out of the men’s room and I didn’t want to be seen with her!
Sure enough, she comes strolling out, stops looks behind her as the manager and the woman coming out of the women’s restroom start to laugh. Her face turns bright red as she said, “I just totally went to the wrong bathroom, didn’t I?”
We laughed about it for a long time, but I had to ask her how it happened. I mean we go to the movies at that theatre all the time. She was dumbfounded. I then asked her, “when you walked in, I assume that the ladies’ room is the mirror image of the men’s (minus the urinals), didn’t you feel like something was wrong?” She said, “now that you mention it, it did seem a little backwards, but I had to go so I didn’t take time to think about what was wrong.”
I use my poor wife’s experience (with her permission) as an example of how I think I feel about Church. When I look at a church and what it is doing, most of the time I can’t help but feel like something’s a little off, like the way Churches are is a little backwards from the way it should be. I see two kinds of churches mostly: The latent church and the zealous church.
The latent churches have a lot of potential, but are absorbed too much in themselves. Yes, they may get out into the community occasionally to do something, but they are more concerned with people coming to them. Yes, they worship God, and yes, they may have some good programs, but the only access to the church is if you are on the inside. Usually theses churches are focused only on their own needs as a church and simply forget to, or refuse to be a part of the world around them.
Then I also see the zealous church. This is the active church that does as much as it can to convert others to Christianity. They are masters at going door to door, mailing or giving out tracks, or pushing their members at every opportunity to evangelize. These churches acknowledge the community around them, but are a counter-culture within the world. This is where the mass marketing of Christianity comes in. The world is sinful; we must convert the world to our world. This world includes only Christian music, books, fish on your car for every person in your family, Christian t-shirts, etc…
The theory is that the Church will create a world that is more Christian, and we will convert as many people as possible to our counter-culture and they will in effect be a better Christian because of it.
In my opinion, neither is achieving the great commission. I’m not saying that everything that every church does is wrong. Yes, some churches are trying hard to do the right thing. I am also not saying that either type of these churches are without good intentions. But, like Alison I can’t help but get the feeling that something is off, something is backwards.
Which brings me to my previous Blog. The U2 song has really gotten me to think about how I approach the un-churched/non-believer. We try so hard to get people to become Christian, but they can’t believe what we so strongly adhere to because they don’t see the Church fulfilling their needs. Yes, people have spiritual needs, but they also have other needs, and we are so caught up in “being spiritual”, that we don’t even think about dropping crumbs off our table. I can’t say I blame them. If the church is not out amongst the people in the world, if it is creating its own counter-culture instead of working in the world God has given to us, how can we expect to do the great things that Jesus told his disciples that they would be able to do?
“For we speak of signs and wonders
But we all need something other
They would believe if they were able
But they’re waiting on the crumbs from our table”
Sunday, September 18, 2005
crumbs of thought
Hey all,
While working out what my next blog would be about, i decided to take a break and play some guitar. I was listening to U2 and heard this song. For some reason i had to play it over and over agian. I thought i would post the lyrics and get some feedback on the meaning of the song. It spoke to me and my feelings about the the priorities of the Church. I could be way off, but somehow i think that i'm not. IDK! anyway, i think that this will be relevant to my next post so until then, ponder these words and let me know, and we'll see where we get to. more to come!
Crumbs From Yor Table
U2-How to Dismantle An Atomic Bomb
From the brightest star
Comes the blackest hole
You had so much to offer
Why did you offer your soul?
I was there for you baby
When you needed my help
Would you deny for others
What you demand for yourself?
Cool down mama, cool off
Cool down mama, cool off
You speak of signs and wonders
I need something other
I would believe if I was able
But I'm waiting on the crumbs from your table
You were pretty as a picture
It was all there to see
Then your face caught up with your psychology
With a mouth full of teeth
You ate all your friends
And you broke every heart thinking every heart mends
You speak of signs and wonders
But I need something other
I would believe if I was able
But I'm waiting on the crumbs from your table
Where you live should not decide
Whether you live or whether you die
Three to a bedSister Ann, she said
Dignity passes by
And you speak of signs and wonders
But I need something other
I would believe if I was able
I'm waiting on the crumbs from your table
While working out what my next blog would be about, i decided to take a break and play some guitar. I was listening to U2 and heard this song. For some reason i had to play it over and over agian. I thought i would post the lyrics and get some feedback on the meaning of the song. It spoke to me and my feelings about the the priorities of the Church. I could be way off, but somehow i think that i'm not. IDK! anyway, i think that this will be relevant to my next post so until then, ponder these words and let me know, and we'll see where we get to. more to come!
Crumbs From Yor Table
U2-How to Dismantle An Atomic Bomb
From the brightest star
Comes the blackest hole
You had so much to offer
Why did you offer your soul?
I was there for you baby
When you needed my help
Would you deny for others
What you demand for yourself?
Cool down mama, cool off
Cool down mama, cool off
You speak of signs and wonders
I need something other
I would believe if I was able
But I'm waiting on the crumbs from your table
You were pretty as a picture
It was all there to see
Then your face caught up with your psychology
With a mouth full of teeth
You ate all your friends
And you broke every heart thinking every heart mends
You speak of signs and wonders
But I need something other
I would believe if I was able
But I'm waiting on the crumbs from your table
Where you live should not decide
Whether you live or whether you die
Three to a bedSister Ann, she said
Dignity passes by
And you speak of signs and wonders
But I need something other
I would believe if I was able
I'm waiting on the crumbs from your table
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
My Journey
Those of you that have seen me in the last month or so (and those of you who haven't will just have to take my word for it) may have noticed that I have given into the fad of wearing one of those colored oversized rubber band bracelets. No, mine does not show the world that I made a donation to the cause of aids, cancer, children's hospitals, or animal shelters...Nope, mine was actually a free gift with a purchase from Cokesbury bookstore. Although I am not one give into trends, I decided that I would put this band on as a reminder. The band says "My Journey" on it (along with Cokesbury's logo). As was mentioned in the last comment section of my first post, I view the endeavor I am on as just that: a Journey. However, it’s not just A journey; it’s MY journey. My journey differs from your journey, and yours differs from everyone else's.
I love stories! As you may be able to tell from looking at my book Reading links (to your left) I like epic stories. I really love stories about people who have a destiny and go through this epic journey to become the person they are meant to be. Harry Potter, Eragon, and Sonea (The Black Magician Trilogy) are all tangled up in an epic story that has some sort of journey through which they must progress. That is somewhat how I view being a Christian. I view myself as being on this great journey of exploration and understanding so that one day I will finally become the person that God has created me to be! In reading these stories however, I have noticed a trend. Every hero of the story embarks on their journey and meets companions along the way that help him or her become the person they were meant to be. I've come to realize a basic fact of life. Whatever your journey may be, you cannot accomplish it alone; Hence the need for a Christian to be a part of a Christian Community.
What is interesting though about the Christian community is that not only are its members on their own journey, but the organization itself is on a quest. What is that quest? Well it’s the quest of how to do Church of course! See I have this theory. I'm sure that I'm not the first to think of this, and I could be wrong, but I see a trend throughout church history. Here we have the one and only Catholic Church. Then we have a Division in the Catholic Church (Roman v. Orthodox). Then we have the Reformation, denominationalism, 1&2 Great Awakening, Church splits, and the list goes on. I think that all of these events are a direct result of the confusion that Christ left us in when he...well... left! I mean its not like he gave us a Minister's Manual, a guide to running church programs, heck he didn't even leave us with an Order of worship Template (although I think some churches think that he did!) Look at the early Church portrayed in the New Testament. You can't even get through the book of acts without the leaders of the church splitting on the issue of circumcision! Obviously, the Churches that the epistles are addressed to were having trouble trying to "do church".
So what does this have to do with my journey you may ask (or you may not, but let’s pretend you do)? Well my journey keeps coming back to the Journey of the Church. Are we really getting anywhere? Do we really, "do church" any better 2000 years after the first churches began. Do we have any better understanding of what Christ envisioned when he gave us the great commission? I'm not sure. I think we may do some things better, but I feel that there are many things that we are just as lost and confused about as the first Christians were. Will we ever get closer to an understanding of what Christ wanted when he forsaw Christian community? I'm not sure, but for some strange reason my journey keeps overlapping with the Church's Journey, and I can't help and wonder if part of my Journey is to help the Church on its journey. I mean, we both are striving to be whatever it is that Christ is striving to make us in to.
I love stories! As you may be able to tell from looking at my book Reading links (to your left) I like epic stories. I really love stories about people who have a destiny and go through this epic journey to become the person they are meant to be. Harry Potter, Eragon, and Sonea (The Black Magician Trilogy) are all tangled up in an epic story that has some sort of journey through which they must progress. That is somewhat how I view being a Christian. I view myself as being on this great journey of exploration and understanding so that one day I will finally become the person that God has created me to be! In reading these stories however, I have noticed a trend. Every hero of the story embarks on their journey and meets companions along the way that help him or her become the person they were meant to be. I've come to realize a basic fact of life. Whatever your journey may be, you cannot accomplish it alone; Hence the need for a Christian to be a part of a Christian Community.
What is interesting though about the Christian community is that not only are its members on their own journey, but the organization itself is on a quest. What is that quest? Well it’s the quest of how to do Church of course! See I have this theory. I'm sure that I'm not the first to think of this, and I could be wrong, but I see a trend throughout church history. Here we have the one and only Catholic Church. Then we have a Division in the Catholic Church (Roman v. Orthodox). Then we have the Reformation, denominationalism, 1&2 Great Awakening, Church splits, and the list goes on. I think that all of these events are a direct result of the confusion that Christ left us in when he...well... left! I mean its not like he gave us a Minister's Manual, a guide to running church programs, heck he didn't even leave us with an Order of worship Template (although I think some churches think that he did!) Look at the early Church portrayed in the New Testament. You can't even get through the book of acts without the leaders of the church splitting on the issue of circumcision! Obviously, the Churches that the epistles are addressed to were having trouble trying to "do church".
So what does this have to do with my journey you may ask (or you may not, but let’s pretend you do)? Well my journey keeps coming back to the Journey of the Church. Are we really getting anywhere? Do we really, "do church" any better 2000 years after the first churches began. Do we have any better understanding of what Christ envisioned when he gave us the great commission? I'm not sure. I think we may do some things better, but I feel that there are many things that we are just as lost and confused about as the first Christians were. Will we ever get closer to an understanding of what Christ wanted when he forsaw Christian community? I'm not sure, but for some strange reason my journey keeps overlapping with the Church's Journey, and I can't help and wonder if part of my Journey is to help the Church on its journey. I mean, we both are striving to be whatever it is that Christ is striving to make us in to.
Monday, September 05, 2005
Friday, September 02, 2005
Thinking out Loud
I have a problem. I don't know how severe my condition is at the moment, but I have to say it has added much unwanted strife in my life lately. Like most conditions, it started small a long time ago, and the more I ignored the situation the worse it has become. What is my situation you ask... Well it isn't something that I've had professionally diagnosed, but I am sure that any person with a degree in psychology (as my wife has), medicine, or common sense would say that I think too much.
I do! I'm not saying that I am extremely smart, an intellect, or a philosopher. I just like to think. Unfortunately, after a while I begin to dwell on things, and I begin to find things that bother me and/or confound me. I am a dweller. I think I get it from my mother.... But no she's a worrier and I don't think this is the same thing.
Anyway, that is why I have decided to blog. My thoughts are strings of yarn that are winding together and getting tangled up with each other to the point that I can't work through the things that I need to work through. John Mayer would call this a quarter life crisis, and I wouldn't argue. Many of my frustrations are brought on by the fact that life is moving on whether I am ready for it to or not. The end of school is finally in sight, I am facing questions about income, family, and careers. So maybe that is why the crisis decided to pick now to culminate. What is my purpose in life? Does God have a plan for me, or is he as confused by me as I am? I guess the biggest question plaguing me is what is my calling. Unfortunately, in order to answer that question I must first try to untangle the many theological and personal conundrums imprisoned in my cranium.
The purpose of this blog is to share my thoughts throughout this semester; To seek out order, sanity, and feedback on my dilemmas. I will warn you that the majority of thses thoughts will be confined to the area of Ministry and Theology ( I am a minister after all). But who knows where it will take me. Putting some order to my thoughts may take us through philosophy, psychology, common sense, and a lot of ranting and raving. But who knows... Maybe there is something to this after all. Let's call it an therapeutic experiment. Let's call it "being John Malchovich"...No wait that's already taken...Well then how about just "being Justin"! Here's to all going well! Cheers!
I do! I'm not saying that I am extremely smart, an intellect, or a philosopher. I just like to think. Unfortunately, after a while I begin to dwell on things, and I begin to find things that bother me and/or confound me. I am a dweller. I think I get it from my mother.... But no she's a worrier and I don't think this is the same thing.
Anyway, that is why I have decided to blog. My thoughts are strings of yarn that are winding together and getting tangled up with each other to the point that I can't work through the things that I need to work through. John Mayer would call this a quarter life crisis, and I wouldn't argue. Many of my frustrations are brought on by the fact that life is moving on whether I am ready for it to or not. The end of school is finally in sight, I am facing questions about income, family, and careers. So maybe that is why the crisis decided to pick now to culminate. What is my purpose in life? Does God have a plan for me, or is he as confused by me as I am? I guess the biggest question plaguing me is what is my calling. Unfortunately, in order to answer that question I must first try to untangle the many theological and personal conundrums imprisoned in my cranium.
The purpose of this blog is to share my thoughts throughout this semester; To seek out order, sanity, and feedback on my dilemmas. I will warn you that the majority of thses thoughts will be confined to the area of Ministry and Theology ( I am a minister after all). But who knows where it will take me. Putting some order to my thoughts may take us through philosophy, psychology, common sense, and a lot of ranting and raving. But who knows... Maybe there is something to this after all. Let's call it an therapeutic experiment. Let's call it "being John Malchovich"...No wait that's already taken...Well then how about just "being Justin"! Here's to all going well! Cheers!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)