Meditational Thought #2

I found this a very interesting thought. I hadn't ever thought of the Resurrection in quite this way before.

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How is the Risen Christ Seen as Subversive and Hidden?

Jesus is among us now in a new way as the Risen Christ, the Christ who is everywhere, beyond all limits of space and time. On Good Friday we saw the relationship of all humanity to God: We kill what we should love. On Easter Sunday we celebrate Jesus coming back into a world that rejected him.

Jesus knows we didn't like what he had to say the first time. We weren't ready for that much freedom or that much truth. Humankind can't bear that much reality in one moment of history. So God had to come back in a disguised form. God had to come back, as it were, secretly, as a subversive, hidden—the Risen Christ.

Meditational Thought #1

Recently I've started receiving daily meditations from Richard Rohr and the Center for Action and Contemplation. Rohr is the author of several ridiculously good books and a Franciscan monk. I thought that instead of always sharing thoughts of my own I would share on occasion some devotional thoughts from Rohr. 

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How is belief in Jesus different than belief in Christ?        

Christ is not Jesus’ last name. Christ is a much more inclusive title, which we so consistently tack onto the name Jesus that we think Jesus Christ is his full name! There is a wonderful and correct phraseology in Peter's first sermon after the Pentecost event; he says "God has made this Jesus whom you crucified into the Christ" (Acts 2:36). That would probably be the correct way of starting to understand what we mean by the Cosmic Christ. Most of us have believed in Jesus, but we have not necessarily believed in Christ.

When we believe in Jesus CHRIST, we’re believing in something much bigger than just the historical Jesus. The entire sweep of the meaning of the anointed one includes us and includes all of creation. Many people have a personal relationship with Jesus, but have almost no relationship with what we had relationship with—which is the full Christ Mystery! Maybe this is the major reason that so much Christianity is so individualistic and sometimes even petty. We know and love Jesus but not Christ.

On Forgiveness...Part Two

Now, I can hear you up in the balcony section hollering about the Lord’s Prayer and how it isn’t wrong to ask for forgiveness. If you will pipe down for a minute I’ll get to your argument.

First, let me say that out of habit I still ask for forgiveness and I don’t believe God preps the lighting bolts for us when we ask Him to forgive. I don’t believe it’s wrong in the sense that sin is wrong. I believe it is unnecessary and would love us to come to a place of deeper trust in the atoning death of Jesus. I think we ask for forgiveness because it is our way of confessing to God that we have fouled up the works somehow. It is our way of alleviating some of the guilt that comes as a nasty by-product of sin. By asking God to forgive me I’m acknowledging that I’ve sinned. What we are dealing with here is a misunderstanding perhaps of a proper confession—simply telling God what we’ve done and moving on with our lives. Partly I believe we ask for forgiveness because it makes us feel more contrite somehow, more repentant and sorry for what we’ve done. This is why I’ve done it and continue to do it.

Secondly, I would like to quickly address the portion of the Lord’s Prayer where Jesus tells us to pray, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” It has also been translated “forgive us our sins,” which would seem to blow apart my entire train of thought. Honestly, it might do just that. Let me say two things and then I’ll wrap up this overly wordy, two-part post: 1) I’m always a little weary about constructing theological arguments based on one isolated text, instead of looking at the whole of Scripture. Proof-texting  doctrine has caused more problems (a lot of them) then it has solved (which is none). Basing an assumption that we need to ask in order to be forgiven by taking one part of one prayer out of context is sketchy at best. 2) Here’s my admittedly unproven, possibly inaccurate, opinion: I think this part of the prayer is about asking for the capacity to forgive others as God forgives. The Lord’s Prayer is a prayer, above all other subjects, about asking God for daily needs. It is a daily need that we ask for the capacity to forgive. I’m no Greek scholar (I actually got a C+ during one semester of Greek in college), and perhaps “forgive us our debts” means exactly what it says. However, I’ve been around the Bible long enough to know that our English translations don’t always convey the whole intent of the writer.

Listen, I don’t have all the answers on this, nor do I pretend to know the mind of God, “whose ways are not our ways.” My point in bringing this up is to make us more aware of the totality of God’s forgiveness. You’ve been forgiven whether you ask for it or not. The confession and repentance of sin is of vast importance because we recognize that a problem exists, that a wrong has been committed and we can begin the process of healing, repairing broken relationships, and living in the bright reality of the forgiveness that was ours before we asked for it. 

p.s. props to my brother for the original thought for this post.

shalom, matt

On Forgiveness...Part One

Few of Jesus’ teachings carry a higher degree of difficulty than forgiveness. This is due mainly to his insistence on, and example of, forgiving the people we would rather curb-stomp and groin-punch. Forgiving people you like is a piece of cake. Forgiving people you despise and who despise you in return is a whole different matter all together.

It’s not a new idea that forgiveness is more about the forgiver than the forgivee. In forgiving, in truly letting go, we are freeing our self from the need to hold on to parasitic bitterness and anger, the need for revenge, and the need to control the outcome. The response of the forgiven is not of the utmost importance (read that last sentence again…I’ll wait…). They may choose to reject that forgiveness, to not live in the freedom of a forgiven reality, but they nonetheless remain forgiven. This is crucial. The value of forgiveness is not based upon the acceptance of the receiving party; it is based upon the character of the offended or injured person.

Let’s examine this in terms of God’s forgiveness. If we hold to the belief that Jesus is the image of God in human flesh (John 1:14); that he is everything God is, a perfect reproduction (Col. 1:15); that, as he told the Apostles, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9), then we have to believe that Jesus’ actions, attitudes, emotions are those of God. So it stands to reason that how and who Jesus forgives is how and who God would forgive also. The following passage is interesting:

Jesus stepped into a boat, crossed over and came to his own town. Some men brought to him a paralytic, lying on a mat. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven." At this, some of the teachers of the law said to themselves, "This fellow is blaspheming!" Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said, "Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts? Which is easier: to say, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up and walk'? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins...." Then he said to the paralytic, "Get up, take your mat and go home." And the man got up and went home. When the crowd saw this, they were filled with awe; and they praised God, who had given such authority to men. __Matthew 9:1-8__

Nowhere in this passage do we find the man asking for forgiveness, yet Jesus gives it to him anyway. In fact we can assume that the man was brought for healing, not forgiveness—he receives both. On one level we can take this as our way of forgiving others: completely, totally, without condition or need for response. On a deeper level this gives us a picture of how God works in the world: unasked for, undeserved forgiveness. Look at the cross, the supreme ugliness of the world’s sins against God and man placed upon one innocent man. On that cross we hear Jesus pleading to God for his executioners, and, I believe, for the world: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Could there be a less deserving group of people than the Roman and Jewish authorities who killed Jesus? Yet, he implores God to do just that: forgive. It was not asked for and we don’t even know if it was received, but it was granted nonetheless.

As disciples we are expected by Jesus to forgive completely and unconditionally (Colossians 3:13), keeping no record of wrongs done to us (1 Corinthians 13:5), and forgiving a limitless number of times (Matthew 18:22). For some reason though we don’t believe that God acts under that same standard. We teach that we have to ask for forgiveness in order for it to be granted by God. Our standard is to forgive without being asked. Doesn’t it stand to reason that God would forgive by the same standard He set for us, or, even exceed that standard? Against logic we have placed a double standard on God, only allowing Him the capacity to forgive when we ask Him. While I don’t have the direct quote on hand, I believe it was Oswald Chambers that asserted our asking for forgiveness shows a tremendous lack of faith in God and is, in effect, an insult to God, who, in His gracious love forgave us through the blood of Christ. Asking Him for forgiveness shows that we don’t really believe the sacrifice of Christ was enough to forgive every freakin’ sin we commit, nor that it dealt with Sin as a whole.

...to be continued...

Ahhh...Truth

see more pwn and owned pictures

How could we endure to live and let time pass if we were always crying for one day or one year to come back—if we did not know that every day in a life fills the whole life with expectation and memory and that these are that day?

__from Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis__

A pleasure is full grown when it is remembered. You are speaking…as if the pleasure were one thing and the memory another. It is all one thing…. What you call remembering is the last part of the pleasure…. When you and I met, the meeting was over very shortly, it was nothing. Now it is growing something as we remember it. But still we know very little about it. What it will be when I remember it as I lie down to die, what it makes in me all my days till then—that is the real meeting. The other is only the beginning of it.

__from Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis__

Evangelism

Good article on evangelism from the blog Open-Source Theology.

shalom, matt

Methods and Message

This way of thinking is why most youth pastors (including my-own-self) don't survive in evangelical churches. Whether we can articulate it or not we intuitively understand that the method you use to convey a message IS THE MESSAGE ITSELF. The methods we use to attract people to Jesus do matter because they are the message that people subconciously receive. I might write some more on this later on sometime. 

This is genius stuff.

Why Church Bothers Me (Sometimes), or How Not to Suck -- Part Two

(Fourth): Speaking of conclusions—you can stop making them for me every Sunday. I need something to think about during the week, something to make my own. It’s okay to leave me with some questions. You don’t have to draw everything into a nice neat conclusion, like a Greek tragedy. In fact you under nourish me when you make conclusions for me. I have nothing to wrestle with during the week. I know you’re afraid to let go of that control, being able to determine what I take away from the message. Trust the Spirit to lead honest questioners to the Truth, to the conclusions and discovered implications that He desires me to see. They may be different than what you intended. Great teaching begins the discussion; it does not end it. Jesus was the master of leaving people scratching their heads at what he meant. What he said is instructive here: “He who has ears, let him hear.”

(Fifth): Your worship services are, um, shall we say, less than engaging. Stand. Sing. Sit. Repeat ad nauseum. That’s the extent of the engagement. I want every part of me to be involved in worship, not just my voice: mind, body, spirit, heart. I want my five senses involved. I want to see, touch, smell, taste and hear God. I want to connect with the saints and creeds of the early church I want to light candles in prayer, smell the incense of my praise as it rises to the nostrils of God. I want to meditate on words, images, and icons and hear God speak to me in them. God gave me my five senses, emotions and my mind—engage them.

(Sixth): We claim that nothing is more crucial than the Eucharist, the holy sacrament of communion, the actual presence of God in our hands. However, in our services communion commands the least amount of time and is treated like a ritualistic afterthought, something we mindlessly attend to with little thought as to its reality and depth of meaning. We need communion to be central to our worship. De-emphasize the spoken word (sorry Preacher, most people don’t pay attention much beyond 15 minutes or so anyway). Instead of word-centered services we need Body-and-Blood-centered services. How much more spiritual growth could be achieved by meditation upon the life of Christ as we partake of Him, bring His life into us in the elements?

Here’s the thing: ultimately, church isn’t about you and me. The first followers of Jesus existed for one another and for others. That was church for them. Their singing, praying and instruction were secondary to the life they lived in the world. Following Christ was “church” for them. It was a gathering of people from the known world, Jew and Gentile alike, with the common bond of Jesus Christ and the singular mission of the Kingdom Come.

May our churches be the exact same way.

shalom, matt