Being The Body

Jesus and Geography

2012-01-15T17:38:00.001-05:00

Robert Pattinson

The Pentagon

Obama

Alaska

Japan

Oval office

Capitol Hill

What do all these have in common?

They give is a concrete picture, an image we can see in our mind.

Names like praetorium Golgotha and Antipas were loaded with meaning in Jesus time.

Who was the king who committed to try to kill baby Jesus?

Herod the Great

Herod Antipas was his son. He came to power when Herod died.

That's when the Angel told Joseph that it was safe to return to Jerusalem with Jesus.

They settled in the town of Nazareth in Galilee.

That is about the time Herod Antipas began his rebuilding and expansion project for the city of Sepphoris...

Sepphoris has been revealed as a cosmopolitan city of great wealth and beauty, the largest and most important city in all Galilee (according to roman historians). Even after Herod built Tiberias and moved his capital and residence there, Sepphoris continued to be a prominent and influential city.

Sepphoris was "perched like a bird" on a four hundred-foot hill. The city commanded a panoramic view of Lower Galilee, including the towns of Cana, and Nazareth, four miles to the south. The Jewish historian Josephus called it "the ornament of Galilee."

Sepphoris boasted a 4,000-seat amphitheater, built into the eastern side of the hill. Its stage was 156 feet wide and 27 feet from front to back. Herod’s rebuilt city included his palace, an upper city and a lower city, a new city walls, an extra large market place, a colonnaded street, and a residential area. Several large cisterns (like water towers of today), one holding a thousand gallons, supplied running water for the city. It was a fancy sophisticated and rich place.

During Jesus’ early years, Herod Antipas was restoring, developing and fortifying Sepphoris. It served as his principle residence and the administrative center of Galilee, until he built Tiberias in A.D. 18-20.

Why are we talking about Sepphoris?

Well it was less than 4 miles from a tiny village named Nazareth.

Jesus father, Joseph, was identified by the word tekton.

This word was used to identify, a carpenter, a builder, or any craftsman.

This would mean that they were construction craftsmen, skilled in wood and or stone work. Since it was the practice of a father to teach his son his trade or skill, and since we don't see Jesus studying under a rabbi (remember he got his authority at his baptism) Joseph probably trained Jesus for this vocation.

Nazareth was a very small village, presumably lacking in the kind of construction projects that would provide sufficient work for skilled builders. With extensive building in progress less than an hour’s walk away, it is likely that Joseph and Jesus would have been employed in Sepphoris.

There is evidence to lend credibility to this theory because Jesus was well acquainted with much of the predominantly Greek and Roman culture.

When He used the word "hypocrite" for instance:

The word Hypocrite means actor or pretender, literally "one acting under a mask," . It is a Greek word, not Jesus native Aramaic, and would be primarily used to speak about the actors in a Greek style theatre. Such as the one built at Sepphoris around when Jesus would have been a teenager.

So Herod the king who's father had committed genocide, and who maintained his power with the roman military muscle ran the kingdom from his fancy city on a hill.

Imagine what it would feel like to look up at the spectacle from the poor little village of Nazareth below it. Only a few hundred people lived in Nazareth, it had no civic structures... People still went to a well for water...

Herod then built another huge town called Tiberius (named after Ceaser and built on a grave yard).

So what does all this mean...

Jesus is recorded as going to Nazerath,Cana, Capernum (a small village next to Tiberius) and all kinds of other places around this great wealth and power. But he never goes to these places during his ministry. He never goes to the capital to lobby or seek an audience with the powerful folks there who were running the day to day political operations of that whole region.

In fact the text is very careful about where he goes and what roads or paths he takes to get there. He always avoids the places of imperial power. Although he does go to the places of religious power (as we have seen at the temple and we will see with pagan temple at cessarea philipi)

By the lake in the area of Zebulun and Nephtali these were land allocations given by God to the former Egyptian slaves (not the fancy Greek names provided by the empire). By using these names the text is underlining the fact that the land is Gods not the empires.

Jesus reminded people why they had come to the desert in the first place. They could gone to Sepphoris the theater... and watched a great play about a girl who meets a boy who happens to be a vampire and who's vampire family takes her in and defends her against other vampires, culminating in a fiery battle inside a dance studio... until she wakes up in the hospital with a broken leg...

Sorry that was totally uncalled for ;-)

They could have gone to tiberous to lobby the rich rulers and advisers to the king to "take their countyr back to its religous roots...

But they came to the desert to seek a new way to live, to seek a truth that was/is deeper than the plastic and fake ways of the world. They came out because they has a sense that a new world was possible and they needed to see/hear that a new world that was emerging.

Luk 7:24
After John's messengers left, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: "What did you go out into the desert to see? A reed swayed by the wind?
Luk 7:25
If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear expensive clothes and indulge in luxury are in palaces.
Luk 7:26
But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet.

This takes place at Capernum just a stones throw away from Tiberius (Herod's new shinier imperial city) where John sets on death row waiting to be beheaded...

Why didn't Jesus rush to save John?

Shut your mouth...

2011-07-30T14:57:00.005-04:00

Paul taught his disciples to shut up about the moral decay in their culture.

The story of the riot in Ephesus: In Ephesus Paul finds disciples who are eager to learn, they receive Christ and are baptized. Paul speaks publicly and from house to house, night and day making disciples and sending them out for perhaps three years . The city is shaken to its foundations as great numbers of people believe and join Paul in the work of making disciples. Many of them burned their books of magic and abandoned idol worship. From Ephesus Paul was able to direct a great disciple making movement and churches were founded in cities for up to 100 miles around. Ephesus rapidly became the leading center of the Christian world. In all respects Paul had a successful public ministry in Ephesus.

But the idol makers, seeing a decline in their business, incite an immense mob to riot against Paul and these new churches. They chant their slogan, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians,” over and over as they drag leaders of the church into a giant arena filled to capacity with idol worshipers. The Mayor then steps in and disbands the crowd by saying “You have brought these men here, though they have neither robbed temples nor blasphemed our goddess.” The crowd leaves because no one in the crowd can argue with the Mayor’s points.

It is important here to look carefully at what the Mayor said. The words “robbed temples” are the Greek word hierosylos and it means stealer of things from a temple, or one who desecrates and commits sacrilege. The word blaspheme is the Greek word blasphēmeō and it means: to insult, slander, curse, to use malicious talk, or defamation of character. The Mayor challenges the mob to bring one witness who has heard the disciples of the way say anything negative about Artemis, or one person who has witnessed them desecrate an idol. No one from this massive crowd has any evidence that Paul or his fellow Christians have said or done anything slanderous to the local religious traditions.

We know Paul was not shy about his beliefs. All of the evidence tells us that Paul was at the center of this movement writing letters and teaching in public places. Paul is training and sending others out to speak for Christians as well. Scholars believe that several of Paul’s epistles, including a letter to the church at Corinth, were written and sent while Paul was in Ephesus. In many of Paul’s other ministry journeys he is recorded as giving speeches to large crowds. Paul is even anxious to get in front of this huge mob to speak to them.

Paul is not vague, but also not confrontational, about the difference in idol worship and worship of the one true God. In the letter to the Corinthians Paul says, “An idol is nothing at all in the world” he goes on to call them “so called gods.” He does not call on the Corinthian disciples to publically criticize the idol worshipers. In fact, Paul talks about them eating food sacrificed to idols in the idol’s temple. He does not chastise them for associating with the idol worshipers, it even seems expected that they would be in close contact with nonbelievers and new believers. At Mars Hill, Paul uses the idols of the local populace and even quotes one of their poets. He then turns these things on their head to teach the crowd about Yahweh but, he never once insults these cultural icons.

We know that Paul was not quiet about his beliefs regarding idols and idol worship. We know Paul had tremendous influence. We know there were thousands of Christians in and around Ephesus who had regular contact with the Ephesian people. Despite all of this, no one can recall a single time the Church was disrespectful or publically ridiculed the pagan worshipers. Paul never called on the church to make signs and form a protest line at a concert or speech. Paul never called on the church to stage a book burning. Paul never instructed the disciples of the way to pester and ridicule their friends, family and coworkers about the decline of their culture. Paul does not instruct the church to endorse a particular political party or candidate.

Paul is an excellent example of how Christians should carry on in the face of cultural resistance. He knew that to engage in hierosylos and blasphēmeō damages one’s witness. Because we have failed to listen to Paul, the world today knows more about what the church is against than what it is for. How then should we conduct ourselves in a culture of moral decline and idol worship? What should be the churches public response to having less of a cultural influence than other religious traditions or new age spiritual practices? We must find ways to lead people into experiencing redemption in Christ that don’t involve a bullhorn. We must find ways of helping broken lost people find redemptive love without shame and condemnation. We must live amongst the people of our culture and love them as Jesus loves them.

http://www.being-the-body.blogspot.com/

Who's theology?

2011-03-16T22:05:00.003-04:00

What is Theology?

The word theos is Greek for “God,” and -ology which is from the Greek word logos meaning study of or “word.” Most literally then the word theology means "study of God" or “words about God” (not to be confused with the words from God). It is the articulation of an individual's or a community’s beliefs about God.

As such theology will always fall short from a complete & accurate description of the God of all creation. Despite the fact that our theology falls short, and sometimes entirely misses the point, it is still a necessary way to provide an anchoring point. When it is done well it is our humble attempt to explain what we mean when we confess that “Jesus is Lord," and when we say that it should subvert and redefine what the we count as “rational.”

Just as a toddler tries to form sentences, and she can’t quite get her mouth around the words, so it is with us trying to communicate who God is and what the kingdom of God is like. But just as we take great delight in hearing our tiny children talk about things they can not yet understand, God takes pleasure in us, with our halted uttering and incomprehension, trying so hard to grasp the infinite mystery with our finite comprehension.

It is destructive then for us to treat out theology as if it is written in stone. We are at our worst when we fail to to leave room for possible errors in our theology, we risk making our theology an idle. When we build our theology up and act as if it is somehow written by God himself, when we fail to see how our theology falls short, we fail to recognize our own humanness. After all our best guess is probably laughable from God's point of view.

How we develop and treat our theology has massive implications for how we live. Theology is a practice and a craft that is rooted in the other practices of the Church (e.g., mission, evangelism, worship, communal prayer, preaching, hospitality to the poor and the stranger, living life together, service to our neighbor, nonviolent encounter/witness to our enemies...). Our theology should help us to be the church, and it should push us to more faithfully be a community of disciples of the way of Jesus in our time and in this place.

When we as the church are at our best, we recognize that people will always be in process and no one individual's theology will completely line up with our communal theology. We celebrate this diversity as a strength that brings a balance to our understanding of God. Our tradition is a wide stream that allows much room for how we try to articulate our understanding of God.

As such we should constantly be on the look out for new and different ways to speak the message that has been entrusted to us. We should pull words and phrases from our culture and turn their meaning on its head, just as Jesus and the early Church did.

Blessed are the...

2011-03-11T10:20:00.004-05:00

We would like invite you to take a fresh look at the beatitudes with us in the hopes that they will lead us to be the "salt of the earth" and the "light of the world".

“(the beatitudes) give us not only a way to see God, but a way to see our world, and they give us something concrete to do about what we see, as they call us to participate in God's kingdom.” -Anne Howard

"Blessed are the..."

Lets stop right there. It is easy to read into something a meaning that is not there, without a proper understanding of the context in which it is said. Or we could say we cannot get a proper understanding of Jesus message if we do not understand what exactly he is saying.

The word Blessed is the Greek word makarios, and it means blessed or happy.

However this makarios is not a word used in asking for or even invoking blessings, such as "Lord I ask that you bless this person," or "We ask God to bless this ministry." That word would be eulogeō, and it (eulogeō) does not appear anywhere in the beatitudes.

Raymond Brown describes makarios as "not part of a wish list and not to invoke a blessing. Rather it is to recognize an existing state of happiness or good fortune."

Kenneth Bailey further adds "We could say it affirms a present reality or it points out a state of spirituality that is already present."

The beatitudes are the first and longest message of Jesus that we have a record of. Up until this point, Jesus has been announcing that the kingdom of heaven was, near and at hand, He had been calling for people to repent to re-orientate their lives. Now, in what could be described as a manifesto of His kingdom, Jesus unveils the foundations and character of life in that kingdom. Here He teaches the ethical guidelines for life in His kingdom; and the guidelines point to the quality of righteousness that characterizes life in the kingdom, here and now as a present reality not as something God left us longing for.

It is not asking for a blessing but neither is the second line a reward for the first line. "Jesus does not say you will be blessed if you..." We could say it like this: "Joyful is my friend Neil because he will inherit his family's business." Neil is already joyful and will eventually inherit the business. There is nothing for him to do. The first statement affirms his joyful state and the second presents a future that allows him to even now to live a life of joy.

Jesus goes on to affirm that these makarios blessed ones make up the membership of the kingdom of heaven, which is already theirs.

With this firmly in hand let us gather together and read Jesus words with a fresh understanding of what kind of blessings we have and what kind of lives we are called to live.

What you look for you will find (or where is heaven?)

2011-03-03T20:05:00.008-05:00

When you picture heaven what do you picture?

Go ahead and close your eyes and try to visualize it now...

You may think of Angels floating on clouds playing on harps (because everyone loves harp music). Or you may think of a place where dis-embodied spirits float to and fro, perhaps you envision mansions and streets of gold. But these fanciful images are placed into our collective mind by culture not by scripture.

"Think of all the jokes that begin with someone showing up at the gates of heaven, and st. Peter is there, like a bouncer at a club, deciding who does and who doesn't get to enter. For all of the questions and confusion about just what heaven is and who will be there, the one thing that is the generally agreed-upon notion that heaven is, obviously, somewhere else. And so the questions about heaven often have an otherworldly air to them."-Rob Bell

Where and how you begin the story, and where and how you end the story, shapes and determines the story you’re telling.

One way to look at the big picture of the Bible is to see how scripture follows a story-arc, we call this narrative theology. It traces through the bible building as it tells the story of God and his creation which was broken and he how seeks to restore it. From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible is one story of the Kingdom of God coming near and it culminates with Heaven and Earth merging into one when God and humanity dwell together in the Resurrection.

But this is not how we tend to tell God's story. We tell a story of brokenness and sin. We talk about how this world is broken and marred by this "original sin." We tell our story of being "born into" this sin. This has become the dominate way to tell the "Christian" story.

There is nothing wrong with telling the story of how sin entered the picture, and how it effected all of creation. Indeed it is important to acknowledge the fact that sin still infects creation to this very day. But, when we begin with sin when the fall is the starting place, and the death of Jesus on the cross is the ending, then our story becomes one of escape instead of restoration.

The story begins in Genesis 1 NOT in Genesis 3. The story begins with a good and loving God creating and stepping back and declaring "it is good." And then this good and loving God then creating us in his image. Our story starts in the Garden, with everything just as God intended it to be, with God walking with the man and woman...

And

The story does not end in some sort of tribulation period and great climatic battles...

The story ends in Revelation 21

"Then I saw 'a new heaven and a new earth,'for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them.”

If you took out sin from the Bible you’d have a four page pamphlet, kinda like a Gospel tract. But, unlike a tract it would be a story we would want to read. You’d begin with Genesis 1 and 2 and end with Revelation 21 and 22. You begin with a perfect garden and end with a perfect city. Genesis 1 and 2 paints a picture of a participatory lifestyle where God and man co-habitate the same time and space.

Revelation 21 and 22 paints a picture of a participatory lifestyle where man engages with God and they co-habitate the same time and space. There’s no distinction between heaven and earth in Genesis and the fusion of heaven and earth at the end of Revelation leaves no distinction between the two.

All things have been made new, and the story ends here….on earth, the same place it began.

A story that begins with Genesis 3 begins with sin, and if you start with this premise in your story then your goal is the removal of sin. To get rid of the problem. But a story that begins at Genesis 1 the goal is “how do we get back” to shalom and restoration and peace. What is the larger story that you are telling? Is it just how to get rid of sin?

"A proper view of heaven leads not to escape from the world, but to full engagement with it, all with the anticipation of a coming day when things are on earth as they currently are in heaven." - Rob Bell

Heaven is where God is storing Earth’s future, bringing hope not rooted in escape but engagement, not evacuation but reclamation, not in leaving but in staying and overcoming.

Or to put it another way materiality is not the issue, rebellion is the issue.

"When Isaiah predicted that spears would become pruning hooks, that's a reference to cultivating. Pruning and trimming and growing and paying close attention to the plants and weather they're getting enough water and if their roots are deep enough. Soil under the fingernails, grapes being trampled under bare feet, fingers sticky from handling fresh fruit... For there to be new wine someone has to crush the grapes. For their to be no more war someone has to take the sword and get it hot enough in the fire to hammer it into the shape of the plow." - Rob Bell

So go back and read Genesis 1 and 2 and then read Revelation 21 and 22 and think of what heaven will be like. Read the prophets when they reveal glimpses of what God has in store for the world:

Isaiah 2 & Isaiah 11 & Isaiah 25 & Amos 9 ...

"By the way when the writer John in the book of Revelation gets a current glimpse of the heavens, one detail he mentions about crowns is that people are taking them off, chapter 4. Apparently, in the unvarnished presence of the divine a lot of things that we consider significant turn out to be, much like wearing a crown, quite absurd." - Rob Bell

Now what do you think heaven will be like?

Final note

"On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there." Revelation 21:25 .

What are gates for? Gates are for keeping people in and/or out... Hmmm

Also check out my "official" review here.

Love wins Redux

2011-02-28T11:22:00.007-05:00

Ok so a few things...

1. Yes I have the book so quit asking (photo provided)

2. No the book is NOT for sale

3. Saying mean things about my family or myself will not get your comments posted nor will it stop this book from getting published (and adding "I mean this in Love" does not make your post Christ like).

4.The book is biblically based and includes EVERY reference to Hell in the bible. So please stop trying to post anonymous references that only include a bible verse describing Hell. I have read them before and they are all included in the book.

5. As you can see from the picture this is an uncorrected proof. I find it important to say verbatim what it says, so I am not going to correct its grammar, thats the job of the editor who I'm sure will correct it before you buy it.

OK so with all that out of the way I’m not sure I want to go too in-depth about the book because I think it is important for folks to explore it for themselves. As you would expect the book, much like the video, is full of questions (more so than answers). I am fighting the urge to do a more extensive review before it is published because I think people should read it and wrestle with the questions themselves.

When I say he lands on solid orthodox ground I don't mean this has been some sort of bait and switch and he ends up just agreeing with the neo-Calvinists (As Julie Clawson points out there is a sometimes huge difference in evangelical orthodoxy and Christian orthodoxy). What I mean is he always uses The Bible as his reference point, He does not end up saying Jesus was a space alien or some other ridiculous thing. To put it more simply I can not find anything in this book that contradicts the Nicene Creed (though again I'm sure there are scores of folks who will disagree).

In describing the history of the Christian church and what Christians have believed over time he says:

"...however you answer these questions, there is a good chance you can find a Christian or group of Christians somewhere who answer in a similar way. It is a wide stream we are swimming in."

I will say that in the same way He writes about angels and animals in “Sex God” (speaking about abstinence and self indulgence) he explores the issues of Heaven and Hell, Judgement and Eternity. He avoids buying into the traditional narrow views on both sides and delves into scripture, inviting the reader to question, explore, and make their own judgments.

Here are a couple of other reviews by others who have also read the book (but again don't take our word for it read it yourself):

“In the current religious climate in America, it isn’t easy to develop an imagination, a thoroughly biblical imagination, that takes in the comprehensive and eternal work of Christ in all people and all circumstances in love and for salvation. Rob Bell goes a long way in helping us acquire just such an imagination. Love Wins accomplishes this without a trace of soft sentimentality and without compromising an inch of evangelical conviction in its proclamation of the good news that is most truly for all.” – Eugene H. Peterson, Professor Emeritus of Spiritual Theology, Regent College, and author of The Message and The Pastor

“Love Wins is a bold, prophetic and poetic masterpiece. I don’t know any writer who expresses the inexpressible love of God as powerfully and as beautifully as Rob Bell! Many will disagree with some of Rob’s perspectives, but no one who seriously engages this book will put it down unchanged. A ‘must read’ book!” – Greg Boyd, senior pastor at Woodland Hills Church and author of The Myth of a Christian Nation

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Love-Wins/Rob-Bell/e/9780062049636/?itm=1&USRI=love+wins+a+book+about+heaven+hell+and+the

Love Wins

2011-02-26T23:03:00.010-05:00

A number years ago I read a blurb from a well known preacher who quoted a book called Velvet Elvis and explained why the author is a heretic. This well known preacher explained that the author said directly that he did not believe in the virgin birth. He even provided a chapter and page number.

I took this well known preacher for his word and decided to not read the book. Then several months later one of my mentors suggested I should read books by people who I disagreed with as it would help me sharpen my understanding of what I believed. So of course I picked up Velvet Elvis straight away.

I found that what the well known preacher said was true the author DID say exactly what was claimed on the exact page where he claimed it was. HOWEVER it was used in an example of doubt, and two pages later the author said he fully affirmed the virgin birth and orthodox Christianity!

This left me in a very interesting spot. This well known preacher had ether prejudged the book and author with out reading the book (sloppy at best) or he had purposely lied and used the quote out of context to discredit the author (dishonest and self serving at worst).

I have gone on to read every thing the author has ever published, watch his thought provoking videos, and listen to his weekly sermons . This author has had a profound effect on my life and my ministry.

It would seem the same folks are at it again. In a blog post and a series of tweets they are using social media to attempt to discredit the authors latest book, and most people are ignorantly copying and reposting what they have to say. Here are a few of the comments that people have copied and re-tweeted over and over again:

@JohnPiper: Farewell Rob Bell.

Rob Bell's following deserves the death it has received from swallowing the poisonous pill of theological liberalism. #RobBell

There's nothing loving about preaching a false gospel. This breaks my heart. Praying for Rob Bell

#Robbell. Sad and its's leading people astray from Truth

The sad thing here is that NONE of these folks have actually read the new book, it is not even out yet. They are taking a blurb from a marketing guy at a publishing house who has probably never met the author and a very short video that simply asks a few questions (but provides no answers) and holding them up as proof.

I HAVE READ THE BOOK!

As a book seller I received an advanced pre-pub review copy. The author does go in the direction that this well known preacher claims. But, he once again does it to cause us to ask serious questions, to dig deep and wrestle with our beliefs. The author then lands on what I consider solid orthodox ground (though I'm sure the well known preachers legions of minions will disagree).

I wanted to wait until I could do a proper review of the book to do it justice, but I guess I'll just post verbatim where he lands so every one who cares to read what he actually says can. (note the author works through this at length and I highly suggest you get a copy of the book when it is out and judge for yourself)

First he articulates what ALMOST seems to be a universalist point of view:

"Could God say to someone truly humbled broken and desperate 'sorry too late?' Many have refused to accept the scenario in which somebody is pounding on the door apologizing, repenting, and asking God to be let in only to hear God say through the key hole 'Doors locked, sorry If only you had been here earlier, I could have done something but now its too late."

But he then goes on to give a brief over view of Revelation and focuses on the last few chapters. He lands with this:

"... In speaking of the expansive, extraordinary, infinite love of God there is always the danger of neglecting the very real consequences of God's love. Namely God's desire and intention to see things become everything they were intended to be. For this to unfold, God must say about a number of acts and to those who would continue to do them 'Not here you won't.'

Love demands freedom. We are free to resist, reject, and rebel against God's ways for us. We can have all the hell we want."

I certainly hope all those who saw fit to re-tweet this garbage tweet an apology after they calm down and get a chance to actually read the book.

**P.S. (or a note added afterward) I welcome comments, even thoes which disagree with me. However if you wish to try to convince me of the state of my or my families salvation, call into question my personal theology, or simply try to be rude I will not post your comments.***

Please See also My edits and notes about this post Love wins Redux And for further quotes please see What you look for you will find (or where is heaven?)

New Economics

2011-01-25T21:31:00.005-05:00

When you think of the early church what do you think of?

Many Christians sight the church as recorded in the book of Acts as a kind of model for the way a community of believers should function. But, they almost always read it through a different lens, placing emphasis on some parts and completely ignoring others.

Often the text that is sighted reads:

They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayerEveryone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles....

Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. -
Act 2:42-34, 46-47

The last line is usually held up as a standard and the rest of the text is picked apart and broken down as a how to manual.

Some read that they broke bread and ate together simply as communion.

Others say it was a meal and place emphasis on the fact that they shared it in homes.

Most point out that they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching but, have trouble agreeing on exactly what was being or should be taught.

Some believe miracles and signs MUST accompany every sanctified gathering.

Others believe these signs and wonders stopped happening long ago.

And while many of these may be important points they are not a full reading. They miss something important. The verses most over looked and least often sighted read:

All the believers were together and had everything in common.Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Act 2:44-45

Now these words appear right smack dab in the middle of the first and second set of text we looked at. But they are not quoted on church websites, or listed in most doctrinal statements.

WHY?

I believe it is because it make us uncomfortable.

In our have it your way culture it is almost a sin to say you have to share. The prevailing attitude is "I have worked hard for what I have and no one is going to take it from me."

A bit later in the story this idea of sharing of possessions is affirmed.:

After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly. All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need. -
Act 4:31-35

The early Church took this idea of sharing of resources seriously.

So did the monastic communities that sprung up a few hundred years latter.

So did the Celtic Christian communities that sprung up after them.

And the early Anabaptists, and the catholic worker movement, and Mother Teresa's Missionaries of charity, and the new monastic movement today.

They all read this text and took it seriously.

So why don't we?

There is a story of an elderly Rabbi who is known for communing with God. One day his disciple says "Rabbi I have a question, Why does God allow all the poverty, war, and human suffering in the world to exist?"

The Rabbi says "You know I have often wanted to ask God about that."

"Then why don't you ask him then?' responded his disciple

Looking at the ground the Rabbi responds "Because I'm scared."

"Rabbi Why are you scared?" asks the disciple.

"Because I'm scared he will ask me the same question."

http://being-the-body.blogspot.com/

The sins of Sodom and Gomorrah

2010-12-07T09:56:00.006-05:00

Mr Mike Timmon's recent letter (Your opinions: Column is light on scripture) caught my attention. While I do not know him and thus cannot pretend to know his theology I think some the bible verses he pointed out are indeed very relevant to our time. I however, am a text guy and so I prefer to read the text for what is is instead of reading my own cultural ideals into it.

The story of Sodom and Gomorrah is found in Gneisses and according to the text God judges it for being wicked and immoral. The scripture Mr. Timmon's quoted in Jude does indeed speak about the story however it does not say anything at all about homosexuals. In the original language and most translations It actually reads "They indulged in gross immorality." If we really want to know what the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah were perhaps we should consult the bible itself. Speaking through the Prophet Ezekiel God says:

"Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen." - Eze 16:50

In the original language the word translated as "detestable things" (tow`ebah) is used elsewhere to speak of of eating shellfish, wearing clothes made of mixed fabrics, and interracial marriages.

In a time when our country forcefully occupies two others, where we have an epidemic of obesity, and record numbers of families loosing their homes to foreclosure perhaps we should be reading the story of Sodom and Gomorrah with a little more interest in what it actually identifies as wickedness.

As for the rest of the scripture Mr Timmons used, is there any solid evidence that the gay teenagers were indeed married since that is what those texts are about? If not then the text once separated from the rhetoric is at best unrelevant.

Most Christians in the west focus on personal guilt and judgement. The common theme seems to be "If everyone would just be good enough, then God would come back and take us home." This is a dangerous stream of thought professed most notably by the Pharisees of two thousand years ago. I believe the Phrase Jesus used was "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye"

What does it really mean to "have it all?"

2010-11-29T16:12:00.012-05:00

What does it really mean to "have it all?"

Some of us might answer that it involves a house furnished with a big screen TV, a car in the driveway and perhaps even a boat in the garage. Or a cushy job making six of seven figures, invites to exclusive lavish parties, and extravagant vacations to exotic locals around the globe. Success, especially in America, is often equated with massive monetary gain.

As Americans we are culturally indoctrinated to think of more money as good, and less money as bad. So then it is no surprise we're so easily blindsided by an unusual verse in the Book of James:

"Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes.Your gold and silver are corroded.Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days.Look! The wages you failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxuryand self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter."

The Apostle James Brother of Jesus (as recorded in The book of James chapter 5)

Rich people are told to "weep and wail" because of the misery that is coming upon them?

What kind of "misery" could financial wealth possibly bring?

At this point, it would be easy enough to tread the familiar modern interpreters path that money is not evil in and of itself; it's the love of money that is evil, stuff isn't bad just don't idolize it. Then we could back it up by sprinkling in a verse or two like 1 Tim. 6:10, and quoting the prayer of Jabez (Lord increase my lands...). But, what if we were to take it a step further. What if instead of dismissing this passage because it is culturally uncomfortable we were to unpack it, explore it, and trust the spirit to guide us through it?

Since the text wasn't written in English (I know thats shocking to some folks) lets look at a couple of key pieces of language here.

"…weep and wail…" is actually the words klaiō ololyzō

klaiō is a sign of pain and grief and ololyzō is a loud cry or a lament

This is no small regret (like oh I wish I had gotten my new SUV in Forest Green instead of Metallic Blue). It is a call to shrieking loud lamentations. (like the Middle Eastern Mourners as they carry a casket through the streets crying out and loudly lamenting a life and all its possibilities that have been lost forever).

Wealth is the word ploutos

ploutos is an abundance of external possessions

And is found elswere in scripture:

1Ti 6:17

Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment

Hbr 11:26

He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward

Rev 18:15

The merchants who sold these things and gained their wealth from her will stand far off, terrified at her torment. They will weep and mourn and cry out: " 'Woe! Woe, O great city, dressed in fine linen, purple and scarlet, and glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls! In one hour such great wealth has been brought to ruin!' "Every sea captain, and all who travel by ship, the sailors, and all who earn their living from the sea, will stand far off.

The phrase "lived on earth in luxury" is the words tryphaō and spatalaō

tryphaō is to live delicately, luxuriously, to be given over to a soft and luxurious life.

spatalaō is to lead a voluptuous life, to give one's self to pleasure

They are only used once in the whole New Testament. The use of them together suggests softness of luxury and or a breakdown of moral restraints; going beyond pleasure. Together these phrases picture a life without self-denial, which offers no resistance to any hunger or craving, and promises comfort and enjoyment despite the cost to others.

This was writen in the early days of the church. In such a time a person could display his wealth in basically three ways: by means of food, clothing, or possessions, particularly if they were made of precious metals. Those who were wealthy ate well, dressed extravagantly and spent lavishly, but James says these things will rot, be eaten, or corrode.

"You have lived on earth in luxuryand self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter."

But, we are also creatures shaped by our culture of greed and self loathing.

We long for the things that are out of our reach, things that are just a little better than what we have now. Those things that we are told will satisfy our cravings, and make us better, more fulfilled, more well liked people.

And we are urged, by subtle and not so subtle messages, to look the other way over some injustice here or there to get these things (the ends justify the means right?).

But, everything eventually turns to dust and rust

We live in a culture that promises to fulfill that yearning that need for Glory in a million ways. It has been said marketers can invent a new way to fall into debt every single day. That is they are skilled at convincing us that they have tapped into a new way to find fulfillment and happiness...

But it is all Dust and Rust! Even if it provides us that fulfillment for a short time it always fall short in the end.

One of the central, if not THE central claim, of Jesus is this...

Gods Glory has come to earth! The fulfillment of the very things we long for the very things that our culture trys to sell us, but always falls short, is present and is at hand. It has arrived and is available for anyone who is willing to accept it.But only if you are willing to let go of all the lies, of all the dust and rust that our culture sells us!

Because you can't grasp what has been offered if your hands are still full of the shopping bags.

Redefining Lostness

2010-08-21T12:16:00.001-04:00

We have been looking at the parable we often call the parable of the prodigal son. We have unpacked quite a bit already and we are only half way through. What we have learned so far is good and right and true, and I affirm it. But, I believe we will find the second half of the parable far more challenging. And so I decided we should back up just a touch and examine the context in which Jesus gives this parable, in order for us to better understand the message Jesus is giving.

Lets back up to the beginning of the chapter Luke 15:1

Now the tax collectors and "sinners" were all gathering around to hear him. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, "This man welcomes sinners and eats with them." Then Jesus told them this parable:

Who are these parables aimed at?

Well they are about lostness and there are tax collectors and sinners present... so it must be Jesus preaching to the lost.

But what does the rest of the text say? Who else was there?

When the text says “Jesus told them this parable” what is that in response to?

Jesus begins telling these parables in response to the Pharisees and the teachers of the law...

So I ask again, who are these parables aimed at?

See we know Jesus came here to seek and save the lost. Jesus himself says so more then once. But I wonder do we really understand lostness?

One of the dangerous traps we can fall into is to think Jesus spent all his time with tax collectors and prostitutes and said things like its not the healthy that need a doctor but the sick...

But Jesus recognizes another kind of sickness too. But its a little more subtle... See Jesus spends time with these religious elite, these Pharisees and the teachers of the law.

Luk 7:36

Now one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, so he went to the Pharisee's house and reclined at the table.

Luk 14:1

One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched.

Mar 7:1

The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus and

Mar 7:2

saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were "unclean," that is, unwashed.

So when Jesus tells these Parables he has a mixed crowd of listeners in mind, and he tells them in response to the religiosity of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law

Now with that firmly in mind lets listen to the first parable found in Luke 15:

"Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.'

Now to us at first glance this parable appears to be about The good Shepard Jesus rescuing a poor lost sheep. But remember the context is important. Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, folks who have the scriptures memorized. And they have a firm tradition involving these Sheep and shepard immages:

God speaks through the prophet Jeremiah and says:

"My people have been lost sheep; their shepherds have led them astray and caused them to roam on the mountains. They wandered over mountain and hill and forgot their own resting place.”

And again later God speaks through the prophets

Therefore this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says to the shepherds who tend my people: "Because you have scattered my flock and driven them away and have not bestowed care on them, I will bestow punishment on you for the evil you have done," declares the Lord."I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them and will bring them back to their pasture, where they will be fruitful and increase in number.

He's talking about the priests and false prophets of the fallen kings of Judah and Israel. God calles them shepards who led astray and poorly cared for the sheep entrusted to them.

And who does does Jesus cast as the shepherds in the first parable?

In response to the Pharisees and the teachers of the law questions he says “Suppose one of you”

Now if your in this position what do you say?

Jesus has just publicly put them in the place of their ancestors and given the chance to monday night quarterback.

Of course they are going to say they would go after the sheep, after all sheep are dumb animals. So, its not the sheep's fault it got lost.

Then Jesus continues:

"Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Does she not light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.' In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."

Who wouldn't search for a lots coin?

Again its not the coins fault it got lost!

But Jesus is not so much trying to teach in these first two parables as he is trying to set them up for his final Parable.

Jesus continued: "There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, 'Father, give me my share of the estate.' So he divided his property between them. "Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. "When he came to his senses, he said, 'How many of my father's hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.' So he got up and went to his father. "But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. "The son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. "But the father said to his servants, 'Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' So they began to celebrate. "Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. 'Your brother has come,' he replied, 'and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.' "The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, 'Look! All these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!' " 'My son,' the father said, 'you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' "

Who is lost?

The younger son certainly, but is he alone in his lostness?

And its not as if he is a dumb animal or a simple coin... So, who's fault is it that he is lost?

Jesus set the religious folks up so that they would see themselves as the older brother...

And if we take the father figure to be God, as I believe Jesus intended, who are you?

I know we like to say “I was the younger son...”

But what about the Older son?

How do you stop a man from walking down that road?

2010-05-11T09:31:00.003-04:00

How do you stop a man from walking down that road (or how I hit a man).

As evening approached I reflected on what a good day it had been. I had taken a Sabbath rest and felt refreshed, but also felt the pressure of the world returning. I had to preach the next morning and still needed to rework my notes, check my sermon for length, and do a test run.

After bedtime stories and prayers with my three kids, I decided to go out and pick up milk and donuts for breakfast hoping to smooth out our morning and give myself a little more time to prep.

It was a rainy evening and as I drove home my mind kept going over the text I was given to work on for the sermon. I decided to turn off the radio and try out some of the wording I was playing with. By this point I knew the text from memory and not having the wording on paper it felt right to just talk out the phrasing.

As I got closer to home the rain stopped and the traffic lightened.

I was still talking out loud when I saw him. A dark figure, it was more like a flash than any defining features. He stumbled out into the road just in front of me. Instinctively I slammed on the breaks and laid on the horn. I cut the steering wheel in the opposite direction he had come from. But in a matter of seconds I watched his head collide with my windshield and then disappear again...

My van came to a stop and for a brief second I couldn't breathe, my body was stuck in neutral as my brain tried to process the last 30 seconds. Then all at once the adrenalin kicked in and I jumped out of the van.

The van was parked across one and a half lanes partially blocking traffic, and a man lay five or six feet in front of it. Cars began trying to drive around the van nearly running over the man in the road. I quickly stood in the lane and flagged the cars down until one of them stopped to block the traffic.

I enlisted the help of a second motorist to find someone with a cell phone and get help. Then I knelt down next to the man. He was bleeding from his mouth and the top of his head. I silently cried out to God "This is an emergency, if there is someone else in line to speak to you then you need to ask them to step aside because we need you NOW!"

The man began to stir and I gently put my hand on him. "What is your name," I asked.
"Arthur," he replied. He then began trying to sit up and asked, "Where's my beer? I need my beer." I replied with as much authority as I could muster "NO... Arthur what you need is to lay down right here." He reluctantly complied.

I'm not sure what came over me as I'm not usually pushy in my evangelism. But, I looked into his eyes and asked, "Arthur do you know Jesus loves you..." He said he had heard that before and wasn't interested.

I admit at this point I had no sense of time it felt as if it had been an eternity. It must not have been more than a minute or so though because the driver who had stopped to block the other lane arrived from her car with a blanket, and the other driver I had enlisted to find a cell phone reported rescuers were on there way. Help had arrived in the form of other motorists, but professional help was no where in sight. I couldn't hear any of the sirens that I expected should have been screaming our direction.

Arthur's objections about our lack of concern for his beer subsided, he closed his eyes and lay his head down. This did very little to calm me... With my hand still on his arm I closed my eyes and began to pray fervently for the Lord to keep Arthur with us, and to speed the rescue workers. The smell of spilled beer and blood heightened the desperation of my prayers.

As the first officer arrived I felt the life draining out of me. I fell back and just sat there on the ground muscles shaking and mind reeling. What had just happened to me, to Arthur... Where was God at this moment?

It was then that I felt a hand on my head and heard the prayers of the woman who had blocked the other lane and brought the blanket. I couldn't tell what she was saying but in that moment I had a very real sense that Jesus was there on the road with us, laying next to Arthur (despite Arthur's objections), sitting next to me (despite my disbelief), working in and through this woman. I'm not sure how long I sat there on the wet asphalt, just existing in this sacred moment in presence of Jesus.

I heard more commotion and looked up to see and hear the paramedics saying "hang in there buddy..."
"His name is Aurthur," I found myself saying more forcefully than I intended.

By this point there were several police officers all around blocking traffic and securing the scene. An older officer with stripes on his sleeve walked up to me and offered his hand. I reached out and he pulled me to my feet. Firmly gripping my hand he placed his other hand on my shoulder in a reassuring gesture.

He looked into my eyes and said, "You are going to be OK, Arthur is going to be OK. This was not your fault..." He handed me his blackberry and said "call your wife, dispatch has already called but she will be worried and need to hear from you." There was Jesus again speaking to me reassuring me, and reminding me of of those closest to me.

Then my friends arrived with a much needed hug. One scooped up the groceries I had been allowed to retrieve from my van and carried them back. The other walked me to her car slowing her pace to match mine, which was painfully slow probably due to still being in shock. I cracked a joke about the messiness of her car and the usual energetic smile returned to her face as she also joked about it. Somehow even though I knew nothing was OK yet, I felt everything would be OK.

I preached the next day, a shorter sermon than I may have had I had time to lengthen it. And attempted to visit Arthur in the hospital. After some initial denial from security we found Arthur not in the morgue or intensive care as I had feared, but resting peaceful on the second floor. He had a few bandages but no visible trauma. I prayed for him and left him a bible and our phone number.

Exactly one week latter and less than a block from the scene I stopped my van and watched in disbelief. What I saw just didn't make sense. There was Arthur walking not across the street but down the middle of a lane. At first I wasn't sure what I should do, but disbelief quickly turned to frustration and inaction became a non-option.

I rolled down my window and yelled "Arthur, Get out of this road... Your going to get hit by a car AGAIN." Arthur looked at me with a blank uncaring look and continued down the middle of the other lane.

I believe many people are affected by traumas and have the scars to prove it yet they continue to walk down roads they know are dangerous.

So the question that is burning in me is this:
How do you stop someone from continuing down the wrong road?
If people are not willing to be awakened by a traumatic event such as being hit by a car, what are we to do to shake them out of their sleep?

Fish and loves and storms?

2010-03-17T08:38:00.006-04:00

I've been reading Mark 6 over the last couple of weeks. A little part of this story has troubled me since I stumbled upon it. 6:52 "for they had not understood about the loaves; their hearts were hardened."

What has that got to do with being afraid of being in a boat in rough weather and seeing a "ghost Jesus" walking on water? I thought heart hardening is something that happens to slave keeping Pharaohs and ruthless killer Kings, not disciples of the bread of life who are charged with ushering in the Kingdom of God.

"They had not understood" is the words syniēmi. It is actually used twice here "syniēmi syniēmi." When something is repeated in the ancient world it is the writers way of saying it is important, as in "Saul Saul why do you persecute me..." And " Holy Holy Holy is the lord God Almighty."
Syniēmi means to put a perception together with the thing perceived.

And when the text speaks of hearts being "hardened" it is the word pōroō.
Pōroō means to grow callous become dull and lose the power of understanding.

The disciples could not put together what they were seeing with what they knew, and so they were becoming dull or loosing their power of understanding.

The obvious meaning of this "not understanding" verse seems to be that the disciples were too hard hearted to realize that Jesus had the power of God. If He could multiply the bread, surely He could walk on the lake and calm the wind.

But, Jewish Patriarchs and Prophets had done many miracles in Israels history and historians like Josephus tell us that there were Jewish "wonder workers" or miracle workers at that time too. And Jesus had already shown his power over nature by calming the storm in Mark 4.

So, maybe there was more that they "had not understood" about those loaves...

John records a detail about the "feeding of the five thousand" that Mark does not:
Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples. The Jewish Passover Feast was near. When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, "Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?" He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do. - John 6:2-6

In Mark 7 Jesus refers to himself and or his healing power as bread as he deals with the Syrian Phoenician Woman and her daughter. there is a hint of this being a test for his disciples, but more on this in another post.

A little farther in his narrative Mark tells us Jesus recounts the incident with his disciples:
The disciples had forgotten to bring bread, except for one loaf they had with them in the boat. "Be careful," Jesus warned them. "Watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees and that of Herod." They discussed this with one another and said, "It is because we have no bread."Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked them: "Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? And don't you remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many basketful's of pieces did you pick up?" "Twelve," they replied. "And when I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand, how many basketful's of pieces did you pick up?" They answered, "Seven." He said to them, "Do you still not understand?" - Mark 8:14-21

You can almost feel Jesus frustration, "Do you STILL not understand!"
They didn't syniēmi syniēmi (understand) about "The Bread".

There is this other time Jesus tried to teach something else about "Bread" too...

While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, "Take it; this is my body." Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, and they all drank from it. "This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many," he said to them. - Mar 14:22-24

This time Jesus doesn't hint around, he comes right out and says my broken body and spilled blood will be a new covenant for a new kingdom. He goes on to instruct the Disciples to "Do this in remembrance of me..." He knows that his time is short and he passes the baton to them.

So Now back to our original text... In light of all this talk of bread, and seeing how Jesus uses bread to represent the coming of the kingdom in other places. How does this help you syniēmi syniēmi what is going on here?

Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. After leaving them, he went up on a mountainside to pray. When evening came, the boat was in the middle of the lake, and he was alone on land. He saw the disciples straining at the oars, because the wind was against them. About the fourth watch of the night he went out to them, walking on the lake. He was about to pass by them, but when they saw him walking on the lake, they thought he was a ghost. They cried out, because they all saw him and were terrified. Immediately he spoke to them and said, "Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid." Then he climbed into the boat with them, and the wind died down. They were completely amazed, for they had not understood about the loaves; their hearts were hardened. - Mark 6:45-52

We understand His body was broken so that the nourishment He had to offer could feed our souls. Or at least we think we understand. But, are we more like the first disciples than we care to admit?

Jesus is not trying to teach about HIS power! He is trying to teach the disciple about their power through him.

Think about it...

He was asking them to test them about the loaves and fish after already showing HE had the power to multiply the loves. He purposely stayed on the mountain and sent them into the storm after already showing HE had the power to keep them safe in the storm. He traveled around with them teaching and healing then sent them out in twos and threes to do the same.

He knows they believe in him, but he wants to know if they believe in themselves. Do they trust in the power of the kingdom of God even when they cannot see Jesus?
Do we still not see or understand?
Are our hearts hardened?
Do we have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear?
And don't we remember?

Lack of faith = lack of power?

2010-01-13T17:40:00.007-05:00

Jesus left there and went to his hometown, accompanied by his disciples. When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed. “Where did this man get these things?” they asked. “What's this wisdom that has been given him, that he even does miracles! Isn't this the carpenter? Isn't this Mary's son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren't his sisters here with us?” And they took offense (skandalizō) at him. Jesus said to them, “Only in his hometown, among his relatives and in his own house is a prophet without honor.” He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. And he was amazed at their lack of faith. Then Jesus went around teaching from village to village. Mar 6:1-6

Jesus came to his Home town the folks that should know him best show that they have heard of the miracles and teachings he has been doing by the nature of their questions.

So why the doubt?

Although many people believe his power was limited and he couldn't any miracles because Jesus was met with disbelief, I don't think this was the case at all.

Mark uses the word skandalizō here. We find Jesus using the same word in a couple of other places...

Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy.
But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly Fall away (skandalizō). Mar 4:16-17

"You will all fall away (skandalizō)," Jesus told them, "for it is written: " 'I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.'
But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee."
Peter declared, "Even if all fall away (skandalizō ), I will not."
"I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "today-yes, tonight-before the rooster crows twice you yourself will disown me three times."
But Peter insisted emphatically, "Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you." And all the others said the same. Mar 14:27-31

Jesus was able to do miraculous things with and even through his disciples, and yet he clearly says they will all skandalizō.

And while we are talking about doubt I seem to remember an incident involving walking on water in which there was some degree of doubt...

Its interesting to me that Mark places this story here in the text. It is a sharp contrast to the healing of the bleeding woman, raising of the dead girl, calming of the storm, and healing of the deamon posest man. In all of these other examples Jesus appears to have tremendous power.

So are we really looking at a lack of power?

Often when someone asks me why Jesus would say he is the only way I feel as if they are asking why some are excluded. I have however found that their question seems to be framed a little wrong.

They are viewing Jesus statement as if he is some kind co dependant God. Like he is saying love me or else I'm going to punish you forever.

But that's not what he is saying at all.

In a house fire children tend to hide from firefighters. The house is smoky and hot, there are probably loud fire alarms going off and the firefighters are wearing Darth-Vader looking costumes. In this situation a firefighter may come crashing through the door and reach out for the child saying “I'm here to save you.” if the child resists the firefighter may say “The house is on fire, come with me or you will die.” The firefighter is not saying “If you don't choose to hang out with me I'll kill you.” He is saying “I've come to help you, there is no other way out, no one else can come in here to get you.”

Jesus is saying “This world is burning up, I'm here to save you. I'm not going to force you to come with me. But you need to know I'm the only one coming for you, there is no one else...”
I think the same kind of thing is going on in Mark 6. God desires restoration physically and spiritually. But he won't force his will on anyone. Those who are rocky soil, who fall away, who lack faith may not fully enter the Kingdom of God and receive that restoration.
As the pithy christian saying goes “God loves you but he won't force you to love him.”

http://being-the-body.blogspot.com/2010/01/jesus-left-there-and-went-to-his.html

Our goal as Christ-followers is simply not to be good at the great commandment, but to be great at it

2010-01-05T12:31:00.000-05:00

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment."

With this simple quote from Jesus Mark Batterson (no relation) begins to unpack what it might mean to really begin believing Jesus not just believing in Jesus. He invites us to cut away the politics and the unnecessary drapery (some of which is beautiful), and simply explore what following Jesus is in the simplest, rawest, purest form possible

Primal takes you on a journey to rediscover the true meaning of the great commandment.

Mark asserts "The truth is that most of us are already educated way beyond the level of our obedience." In essence he points out that we tend come up with a list of “dos” and “don’ts” and “OKs” and “not OKs” to show that we are different and hold that up to the world as Christianity.

He also writes “I couldn't’t help but wonder if we have diluted the truths of Christianity and settled for superficialities. I couldn't’t help but wonder if we have accepted a form of Christianity that is more educated but less powerful, more civilized but less compassionate, more acceptable but less authentic than that which our spiritual ancestors practiced.”

Mark concludes that "Our goal as Christ-followers is simply not to be good at the great commandment, but to be great at it."

He ends the book with an invitation to all people to become part of the next reformation movement. A reformation that consists of being “a part of something that is bigger than you, more important than you and longer lasting than you.” It is an invitation to rediscover and rejoin the movement that turned the world upside down two thousand years ago.

Have you been disorientated lately

2009-08-15T10:29:00.006-04:00

Mar 4:9 Then Jesus said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
Mar 4:10 When he was alone, the Twelve and the others around him asked him about the parables.
Mar 4:11 He told them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables
Mar 4:12 so that,
“ ‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving,
and ever hearing but never understanding;
otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!' ”

This is a hard story to unpack. Well its not hard to unpack, but its implications are hard to swallow.

The crowds have come out to hear this infamous rabbi who teaches with a new authority.
But he refuses to just give them the rules.
There is no 5 steps to a happy marriage
No 13 steps to health and wealth
No lists of do's and don'ts

Jesus keeps challenging them with strange stories that appear to be metaphors...

But why?

If Christ is truly God, the creator of all that is seen and unseen, is there not something more important for him to communicate to us then stories of weeds, yeast, and mustard seeds?

Dan Stiver suggests in his book, Theology After Riceour, that parables contain “a surplus of meaning” AND are a “catalyst of new meaning.” emphasis mine.

In other words parables do not simply instruct, they teach.

Jesus's parables demand mental, spiritual, and emotional struggle and energy. As Ricoeur suggested the parables require a “re-orientation by disorientation”

Jesus's parables are not just truth claims to be mentally assented to, they draw the us in and make us re-examine our understanding our actions our very lives. There is personal development that the parable demands. Which is perhaps what we could miss if we are "ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding..."

The things Jesus is teaching are impossible to articulate literally. The thoughts we arrive at through wrestling with the parables are just glimpses of the Kingdom of God. The dreams of God are so great that words just fall flat. Like trying to explain a sunset to a blind man Jesus attempts to shed a small light on our understanding of the way God intends things to be.

The parable transcends a set of rules and commands that can be handed down through the generations. Rules and commands can not get us close to where we need to be. That's the problem we have faced since the beginning. Adam gave Eve rules without helping her to think about them. (compare what Eve tells the serpent in Gen 3:2-3 with what God tells Adam in Gen 2:16-17)

The human mind needs to discover truth on its own merit. A parable, in a unique way, guides us down a path only to leave us at the doorstep of a newly discovered truth. If we just glance at it we miss the deeper reality Jesus is trying to show us. The parable invites us to question and explore the teaching and thoughts.The truth within a parable has to be discovered.

Be careful that you don't try to boil a Parable down to try and set a new rule or static teaching...

I play bass guitar. I often play with other musicians, guitarist mostly. When I play with a guitarist I need to be able to listen to a cord as they play it and pick out the root note (usually the lowest note). To do this I need to listen carefully hear the several notes being played and pick out the right one to play with.

The right note for me may not be the right note for another guitar player who is playing along with us. He may be listening to the cord and playing several of the notes in the cord, one note at a time, as a scale. His notes are not better than or more correct than mine. He is listening and playing from a different circumstance.

This gets infinitely more complicated if we add a totally different instrument such as a piano, or saxophone or even the human voice. All of which will hear the cord differently because of their need and subjective experience, and thus use the original guitarist's cord slightly differently.

It occurs to me that no one ever says "your not playing the same notes." We are all aware that we contribute to the music together in our own unique way... As long as we stay in the same rhythm and stay in the right key, we all remain true to the music.

So it is with Parables. We can find many meanings and applications hidden in Jesus Parables. When we listen to a parable we need to know Jesus is giving us several notes, and the spirit may make anyone of them, or any combination of two or more of them, come to the forefront in the time and place we find ourselves in. In this way the Parable can speak truth to our life and current circumstance.

Also interesting to note here...
The 12 were not the only ones who Jesus gave his secret to!
4:10 says
"Twelve and the others around " (NIV)
"Later, when Jesus was alone with the twelve disciples and with the others who were gathered around" (NLT)
"As soon as He was alone, His followers, along with the twelve," (NASB)

Jesus waited for those who only wanted to glean a set of rules and or who were just out to see the new hip Rabbi who was shaking things up, to go away.
He waited until only those who were serious about wrestling with the issues he was raising were present.

How can we know they were serious?
They are the ones who stayed behind and asked him...
And then he answers them.

And verse 12 is a reference to Isaiah 6... Which is God warning the overly religious, yet shallow, people that he is far from happy...

http://being-the-body.blogspot.com/

Jesus was not Mr Rogers...

2009-07-09T15:38:00.003-04:00

Jesus was not Mr Rogers
And we do him a great disservice when we act like he was some Mr. Nice guy...

the greek word praotēs:
“A settling down and quieting of anger”

The Greek word orgē:
"burning anger, accompanied by pain, for an apparent injustice … done by someone who was not entitled”

What makes you angry?

There are 2 main types of anger in The Greek Language are:

1. eris - contention, strife, wrangling, seeks revenge

2. orgē - anger, movement or agitation of the soul, deep hurt

Mar 2:23
One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain.
Mar 2:24
The Pharisees said to him, "Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?"
Mar 2:25
He answered, "Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need?
Mar 2:26
In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions."
Mar 2:27
Then he said to them, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
Mar 2:28
So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath."
This bread Concreated holy was only to be eaten by the priest and only in a holy place (lev 24)

David was chosen by God to be King. There was only one problem... Saul still wanted to be king.

So David and his men were on the run. And Saul was trying to kill them at every turn. They were considered enemy's of the state.

Its hard to get much to eat when your wanted in every village, town, and city.

So one day David went to the temple and asked the priest for food. The priest had none, so David ate, and shared, the Concreted holy bread.

-----------------------
Jesus and his disciples were traveling and being hungry began to pluck and eat the grain in the fields they were walking through.

Who were the pharisees?

The Pharisees considered this threshing wheat, a Sabbath violation.

This was a natural thing to do and should not have drawn much attention. The problem was not theft. The law had a provision for this.

Deu 23:25
If you enter your neighbor's grainfield, you may pick kernels with your hands, but you must not put a sickle to his standing grain.

But the Pharisees were so legalistic that they claimed this was a violation of the Sabbath observance.

And so Jesus uses this Judo kind of move...

Mar 2:25
He answered, "Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need?

Of course they had heard... Remember these were the best of the best students. They had memorized the scriptures. They knew the story of King David by heart.

Mar 2:27
Then he said to them, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

Bam!
The reason for the rules is to give people a rest, not make them work harder to avoid breaking the rules.
And then as if to twist the knife a little deeper he adds

Mar 2:28
So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath."
Son of man is a title given to the mesiah. He's telling them he has the athority to make the rules, not them.

Mar 3:1
Another time he went into the synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there.
Mar 3:2
Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath.
Mar 3:3
Jesus said to the man with the shriveled hand, "Stand up in front of everyone."
Mar 3:4
Then Jesus asked them, "Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?" But they remained silent.
Mar 3:5
He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored.
Mar 3:6
Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus.

Which type of anger is Jesus displaying here?

1.eris - contention, strife, wrangling, seeks revenge

2. orgē - anger, movement or agitation of the soul, deep hurt

If the man has a shrivled hand he faced all kinds of challenges.
He would be outcast from much of socity for his deformity...
Remember they had no toilet paper, so what hand does he wipe with, eat with...
This would have made it hard for him to get married or have a family
It probably would have made it hard for him to own or work land or a business.

Jesus had a Popeye moment!
“That's all I can take, I can't takes no more!”

He had lots of these, and we'll be looking at some of them in the coming weeks.
It should kinda reminds us of the prophets...

Isa 58:1

Amo 5:21
"I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies.
Amo 5:22
Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them.
Amo 5:23
Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps.
Amo 5:24
But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!

What are some examples in modern day life of these two types of anger?

Who can never be gorgiven?

2009-07-06T11:50:00.004-04:00

So another thing to unpack in my journey through The Gospel of Mark...-

Mar 3:29 But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin."

First lets look at the setting...

Jesus said this in response to the Pharisees, the religious elite, who were calling the Jesus and the spirit he was infused with a demon or unclean spirit (see Mar 3:22). We can also see that this is one of the popular responses to what He was doing and saying because his family had come down "to take charge of him, for they said, "He is out of his mind." (see Mar 3:21)

Often what happens is this verse is taken out of context and used to mean "if you have said somthing bad about The holy spirit, Jesus, God, the Church, The Pope, (or what ever other ax the person speaking has to grind) then God will turn his back on you and you get the punishment you deserve...

But we can see from the preceding verse that Jesus is not talking about this.

Mar 3:28 I tell you the truth, all the sins and blasphemies of men will be forgiven them.

Which harmonizes well with the other things Jesus said:

Jhn 6:37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away.
Jhn 6:38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.
Jhn 6:39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.
Jhn 6:40 For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day."

When Jesus said this to the religious elite he did so knowing they had an excellent knowledge of scriptures (most of them had them memorized). So when he uses the term Blasphemies he is drawing on a very specific understanding of what it means to blaspheme..

Which brings to a more important point...

What does it mean to use the Lord’s name in vain or blaspheme?

This is a question that might seem self-evident to most people in western society. Whether you are religious or not, you would probably not even hesitate with your answer...

I often struggled with how to reconcile my faith in God with my occasional under my breath damming of something or other. So I've done some researched on the original words used, naqa (vain), I read several commentaries, researched on-line, and prayed. These are the best explanations I have found.

Some people believe the reason why this is a violation of the third commandment is because people are using God’s name in a “vain,” “worthless,” or “empty” way. In this case, to say “God damn it is not the same as seriously calling upon God to damn something or someone. For these people, if you say it seriously, fine, but if you say it casually, then you have used His name in an empty way and thereby broken the third commandment.

If the principle that we are going by is that we are not to use God’s name and not really mean it, then I believe that we are very inconsistent in what we take offense to as a culture.

Why don’t people get offended when others say “God bless you?”

Do you think that every time someone says this that they really mean it?

Do you think that in their mind they are talking to God, beseeching on your behalf for a blessing?
Just about every email I get ends with the phrase, “God bless.” I seriously doubt that that person actually said a prayer for me before he or she hit send. If this is the case, then why is saying ”God bless you” not just as much a violation of the third commandment as saying “God damn you?”

Is it more biblical to ask for God’s kindness or judgment?

I don’t think anyone who is honest with themselves can say that they are consistent in this regard. Saying “God damn it” and not meaning it should be just as bad as saying “God bless you” and not meaning it.

This is the most important reflection so I have saved it for last. In fact, if what I am about to say is true, then other arguments really don't make any difference.

The question is this: What does it mean to use God’s name in an empty or vain way?
OR
What does the third commandment really mean?
Or
What would the orginal hearers have understood it to mean?

It is hard to tell from a simple word study on the Hebrew term naqa (vain). Also our understanding of a “name” and what it signifies is much different than what it meant in the context in which this commandment was given. What we have to do is to try to understand what it meant then, so that we can understand what it means now.

It does us no good to anachronistically impose our understanding upon an ancient text. This is exegesis (reading into the text what we presuppose), not exegesis (letting the text speak on its own terms).

This is what my studies have shown.

The nations to which the Israelites were going had many gods. They were highly superstitious. Their prophets would often use the name of their god in pronouncements. The usage could be in a curse, hex, or even a blessing. They would use the name of their god to give their statements, whatever they may be, authority.

To pronounce something in their own name would not have given their words much weight, but to pronounce something in the name of a god meant that people would listen and fear. They may have said;
“In the name of Baal, there will be no rain for 40 days.”
Or
“In the name of Marduk, I say that you will win this battle.”

This gave the prophet much power and authority. But, as we know, there is no Baal or Marduk. Since this is the case, they did not really make such pronouncement and therefore the words of the prophet had no authority and should neither have been praised or feared.

God was attempting to prevent the Israelites from doing the same thing. God was saying for them not to use His name like the nations used the names of their gods.

He did not want them to use His name to invoke false authority behind pronouncements. In essence, God did not want the Israelites to say that He said something that He had not said.

This makes sense. God has a reputation to protect. He does not want anyone saying “Thus sayeth the Lord” if the Lord had not spoken. All of you have experienced this. You have had people say you said something you did not say. This can be very damaging to your character.

It is very destructive to your name. Why? Because it makes you out to be something that you are not. How much more important is it for God to protect His character? It is fitting that God would have put this as one of the ten most important commandments as the nation of Israel moved towards Canaan.

What does this mean for us?

Well, for starters we understand that the third commandment is certainly not focused on something so trivial as saying “God damn it!”

The funny thing is that while some people may never think of using that phrase, people all over the Christian religious landscape are breaking the third commandment every day, damaging the Lord’s reputation. “Thus sayeth the Lord . . .” “God told me to tell you . . .” “God says that if you send in money to build our minstry you will be blessed.” I could go on and on, but you get the point.

Using the name of the Lord in vain means that you do damage to His reputation and character through false and unsure claims. This is what Blaspheme is all about.

They were trying to speak for God and comdeming the spirit that was in/working through Jesus.
And Jesus lets them know that what they are doing is highly offensive to the trinity...

It has nothing to do with you having said somthing bad about The holy spirit, Jesus, God, the Church, The Pope, (or what ever other else people try to use this passage to mean)

http://being-the-body.blogspot.com/

Finding ourselves in the wilderness...

2009-06-29T10:35:00.002-04:00

I have been meeting with a group of folks and sharing communion and life together. Our little ekklēsia (ek-klā-sē'-ä) has decided to begin reading the gospel of Mark together and discuss its implications as a community. Its kinda like open-source theology (open-source meaning anyone may contribute and theology meaning words about God).

It sounds easy enough, I've read and re-read the Gospels tons... But as always happens when you undertake a serious reading of scripture, and approach the text with an open mind, new things crop up that you have never seen before and they can lead to questions and doubts and hopefully, in the best of circumstances, new understandings about how God moves in our world.

This part of the story has really caught hold of me over the last week:

Mar 1:12 The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.
(ESV)

Mark uses a very active verb to describe what happened to Christ after his baptism in the Jordan.

Matthew and Luke both have Jesus being "led" by the Spirit into the wilderness, but Mark doesn't paint the picture as something gentle. Mark has the Spirit driving, thrusting, propelling Jesus into the desert, the wilderness, the barrenness.

Mark's statement "The Spirit immediately drove Him," makes it feel almost as if Christ went against His will...

Jesus story begins with a Divine affirmation, a reunion of the trinity, a granting of authority but immediately leads to an extended even forced stay in the wilderness. But we find historically He is in good company:

Abraham, wandered in the desert between the promise and the birth of Isaac.
Israel wandered between the liberation from Egypt and the entrance of the promised land.
David hid in desert caves between finding God's favor and stepping to the throne.
Elisha dwelt in the wilderness between receiving Elijah's spirit and bringing God's word to his people...

You get the point.

So what if bouts in the wilderness are an essential part of life in the Spirit?

Could the desert wilderness represent the barren and harsh places in our own lives?

Are they the places of trial and abandonment where we are forced to realize that we are not in control?

Is the wilderness a terrifying space where we are able to realize we are completely vulnerable and completely dependent?

Since we were banished from the Garden the wilderness has been a part of our journey.

But this doesn't fit with much of what we are told in Western Christianity, does it?

We are led to believe that "life in the Spirit" means constant joy, peace, happiness, and smugness (knowing all of the answers without even asking the questions). We are left to assume that any period of doubt, sadness, or just general unjoyfulness is the result of Satan's activity or OUR OWN sin's alienating power.

But what if that's not always the case?

What if there are seasons when the Spirit drives us out?

What if there is a Divine Wisdom in wilderness that can be learned nowhere else?

What if seasons in the desert are simply part of the path we are on following Jesus?

What if the wilderness is an essential part of life in the Spirit?

What if robust faith lives somewhere between absolute trust and deep doubt?

What does it look like to really embrace our wilderness, not just endure it, or pray to be out of it, but to accept it and allow it to shape us.

Where are the wilderness places in my journey, in your journey, in our manifestations of ekklēsia, in our world?

What does it mean for us to embrace them?

What do we have to learn from them?

And what might the spirit be preparing us for?

It's been a week of hard driving and penetrating questions for me as I wrestle my own theology and hope to see the word with new eyes and hear it with new ears...

Please share any thoughts, questions, or answers from your own journeys.

http://being-the-body.blogspot.com/

Are your prayers awe-full

2009-06-03T16:17:00.010-04:00

I have spent a lot of time studying Jesus and teaching about the actions of this infamous rabbi and the unpredictable way he moved in this world. But in doing so I have neglected much...

Looking at the history of the human race reveals just how often we totally miss the point and mess everything up.

God gave Mankind a new creation and we couldn't handle it. We build structures and accumulated wealth and power by violence and oppression.

And each time God tried to help us, tried to show the human race a better way to live we managed to muck it up.

Take Noah, If anyone had a chance at moving us in the right direction it was this guy. He had a freshly power washed earth, he and his family were the only people around and he had a direct line to God (God spoke to him and he to God). And yet he dies drunk and naked.

The Israelites, having been rescued from slavery in Egypt, knew first hand the dark side of human power and how centralized human control can be corrupted. And yet they cried out for a human King. Eventually their kings used slave labor to build massive temples and palaces, horded 666 tons of gold (an interesting amount), and used their wealth and power to fortify citys and build armies to the point they were importing and exporting weapons (we would call them arms dealers).

And those are just the highlights!

So when God announces through his prophets that he is going to enter the world and help guide us we should take note...

And when He does show up in the flesh we should listen and do everything he says...

And so with-out further wasting words from me lets get on with the studying of what he said.

First lets look at His teachings on prayer (being that this may be the single most important spiritual discipline).

Mat 6:5
"And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.

What is a hypocrite?

hypocrites - Greek for One who plays a part, The classical word for an actor.

Why would they stand?

If you were in a noisy room and want to get everyone's attention what would you do? You would probably raise your voice and maybe even stand up to make people look and see what you are doing. this is why they had the Reader of the scrolls stand in the synagogue...

Mat 6:6
But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Most of the folks Jesus was teaching were poor fishermen and peasants (If you follow Jesus travels around on a map you will see he carefully avoided the shiny fancy city's and stuck almost exclusively to small poor villages). They mostly lived in small one or two room houses. The only interior door was to a small store room where they could lock away their family's most prized possessions. I imagine the most beautiful and tragic things happened in those closets...

Mat 6:7
And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.

The Romans considered Caesar a God. This is how they addressed him:

"Emperor Caesar Galerius Valerius Maximianus Invictus Augustus, Pontifex Maximum, Germanicus Maximus, Egyptiacus Maximus, Thebaicus Maximus, Sarmaticus Maximus (five times), Persicus Maximus (twice), Carpicus Maximus, Holder of Tribunician Authority for the twentieth time, Imperator for the nineteenth, Consul for the eighth, Pater Patriae, Proconsul."

This was done to impress Caesar and make him feel important. If you addressed him well he would more disposed to grant your request or show you mercy. But if you botched it or rushed through it it was not going to be a good day for you.

But Jesus says You can't impress God. He doesn't care about all your titles. This harmonizes with what the writer of Ecclesiastes suggests about appraoching god.

Ecc 5:1-7 Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong. Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few. As a dream comes when there are many cares, so the speech of a fool when there are many words. When you make a vow to God, do not delay in fulfilling it. He has no pleasure in fools; fulfill your vow. It is better not to vow than to make a vow and not fulfill it. Do not let your mouth lead you into sin. And do not protest to the temple messenger, "My vow was a mistake." Why should God be angry at what you say and destroy the work of your hands? Much dreaming and many words are meaningless. Therefore stand in awe of God.

So from 1-3 we see We should- listen, be patent,use few words... We should not- offer sacrifices, or speak with out thinking

Then in 4-6 we are warned against trying to make a vow (a bargain with God)

and in 7 the writer sums it up with the best way to approach communication with God "Stand in Awe"

And these attitudes also harmonize with Jesus parable on prayer.

Luk 18:10"Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men-robbers, evildoers, adulterers-or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.' "But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.' "I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."

Mat 6:8
Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

What is 6:8 all about?

**Just a note I don't have a "prayer life." I have a life, and I pray. I reject any idea that the two should be seperate which is probably not what was meant when the phrase was first coined, but that is what it has become for many.**

Jesus is awakining an army of insurgents to raise Hell.

2009-05-27T16:12:00.005-04:00

Close your eyes and picture a church...

What images do you see?

To understand Jesus vision of the church we need to explore what Jesus taught his first disciples about his ekklesia (Church).

The first place Jesus ever uses the word ekklesia is in Matt 16...

Background:

Jesus has called these disciples to follow him. They are mostly young guys who were learning the family trade, because they did not make the cut to study under another Rabbi. So When this crazy Rabbi with a new yoke tells them to drop everything and follow him they do.
But remember how young they were, and the influence their culture had on them.

Mat 16:13
When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?"

What was Caesarea Philippi?

Caesarea Philippi was a place outside of the religious culture the disciples were use to. It housed large shrines to pagan Gods, but more on that in a minute.

Caesarea Philippi's location was especially unique because it stood at the base of a cliff where spring water flowed out to feed the Jordan river. At one time, the water ran directly from the mouth of a cave set in the bottom of the cliff. Now the water no longer gushes from the cave, but only seeps from the bedrock below it.

The pagan people commonly believed that their fertility gods lived in the underworld during the winter and returned to earth each spring. IE the winter comes and plants die, animals migrate and or stop reproducing “the fertility Gods must have left us...”

They saw water as a symbol of the underworld (hades) because it mostly came up from springs or people dug wells down to it. And they thought that their gods traveled to and from that world through caves.

The Hebrew word for hades is SHEOL. Both the Hebrew word SHEOL and the Greek word HADES are often translated Hell in English.

Sheol" is a Hebrew word used for the abode of the dead. It is thought of as a place situated below the ground (e.g. Ezek. 31:15), a place of darkness, silence and forgetfulness (Job 10:21; Ps. 94:17, 88:12). Although the dead in sheol are apparently cut off from God (Ps. 88:3-5), he is not absent (Ps. 139:8), and is able to deliver souls from sheol (Ps. 16:10).

Worship of the god of fertility Pan was centered at the cave and the spring at the high rock bluff. Several niches carved into the rock are identified as being dedicated "to Pan and the nymphs."

* the image of Pan is where most contemporary art depicting the devil comes from *

To the pagan mind, then, the cave and spring water at Caesarea Philippi created a gate to the underworld. They believed that their city was literally at the gates of the underworld—the gates of hell. In order to entice the return of their god, Pan people would come to Caesarea Philippi and engaged in horrible deeds, including prostitution and sex between humans and goats.

So are locked in to what the disciples must have thought they were seeing?

When Jesus brought his disciples to the area, they must have been shocked. Caesarea Philippi was like a red-light district in their world and good young Jewish boys would have avoided any contact with the area and its people at any cost. They would have been more likely to eat burning coals than go there.

It was a city of people eagerly knocking on the doors of hell. A huge cliff with nitches carved out to hold idols.Feasts, festivals, and rituals to pagan Gods abounded.

It is located twenty-five miles north of the Sea of Galilee where Jesus did most of his ministry. Can you imagine the conversations that must have taken place among the disciples on the way up there.

Standing near the pagan temples of Caesarea Philippi, Jesus asked his disciples “Who do you say that I am?”

Mat 16:14
They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets."

Mat 16:15
"But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?"

Mat 16:16
Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."
We like to think “Peter boldly replied, you are the Son of the living God.” but it is more likely that he said it so that the crowd would not hear...

Mat 16:17
Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.

Mat 16:18
And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.

Jesus continued, You are Peter and on this rock I will build my church...

Christians have debated the meaning of those words for a long time. In your bible it may even contain a foot note saying that Peter means rock. Remember that this is a foot note added later by a well intentioned monk or scribe. The word Jesus used for Peter is Πέτρος (Petros) a proper masculine noun, and the word Jesus uses for the rock is πέτρα (petra) a feminine noun. It seems to be more a play on words than a doctrinal statement.

But in this context it IS pretty clear that Jesus words had symbolic meaning.
This understanding harmonizes perfectly with Jesus teaching style. He is always using real word pictures to reveal truth to the folks he is teaching.

"The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed...""Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees...""Take this bread..."

So Jesus is saying his church will be built on THIS rock?
of Caesarea Philippi?

A rock literally filled with niches for pagan idols, where ungodly values dominated?

Further more didn't Jesus know that gates were defensive structures built to keep invaders out!

By saying that the gates of hell would not overcome was Jesus suggesting that those gates were going to be stormed?

Its also interesting to note that this is the first time Jesus speaks of his establishing a church. Until this point the disciples must have believed that they would follow Jesus forever...

Jesus presented a clear challenge with his words at Caesarea Philippi:
He didn't want his followers hiding in a building. In fact there is clearly a lack of any kind of building structure in Jesus vision, the only structure are the gates and they belong to another army...

He has commissioned us to build an ekklesia (Church) that will storm the gates of hell, and rescue those held there.

Are you part of Jesus ekklesia?

What images do you see when you think of church?

http://being-the-body.blogspot.com/

Just be a good citizen and pay your taxes?

2009-05-13T12:31:00.011-04:00

Whats your favorite commercial?
Why?

Do you have any money with you?
Take it out and examine it...
Write down what you see.

Mat 17:24
After Jesus and his disciples arrived in Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma tax came to Peter and asked, "Doesn't your teacher pay the temple tax

Adult Jewish males throughout the Empire paid an annual two-drachma tax based on Exodus 30:13-16, for the upkeep of the temple. Priests were exempt from the two-drachma tax, but even more significant here, dependents of a king were naturally exempt from his taxes... But lets roll on here.

Mat 17:25
"Yes, he does," he replied. When Peter came into the house, Jesus was the first to speak. "What do you think, Simon?" he asked. "From whom do the kings of the earth collect duty and taxes-from their own sons or from others?"

Notice that Jesus doesn't need to ask Peter what the men wanted. They did not approach Jesus directly, even though they obviously knew he was back in town, but choose instead to try and collect from one of his disciples. What do you think that means?

One has to wonder if they somehow felt subbed. How could this famous (or rather infamous by this point) Rabbi come to their town and not come to see them? Didn't he know how important they were? Didn't he know that they were the pious ones? Not only that but he had not even paid his taxes yet...

Mat 17:26
"From others," Peter answered. "Then the sons are exempt," Jesus said to him.

At this point Jesus could have left it alone... Or He could have kicked the door open and laid the smack down (We know he was not afraid to do just that). But He chooses a different option.

Mat 17:27
"But so that we may not offend them, go to the lake and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours."

First notice Jesus and his disciples are without money...

And what is this coin in a fishes mouth?
And note that the fish has just enough money for the tax not a surplus...

Lets look at another time Jesus interacted the powerful and talked about taxes (and or mass media)...

Who were the Pharisees?
Who were the Herodians?

The Pharisees thought conspiring with Rome was tantamount to treason against God. And the Heordians got their power because they continued to conspire with Rome.

Mat 22:15
Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words.

Mat 22:16
They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. "Teacher," they said, "we know you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren't swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are.

The pharisees would not be seen in public with the herodians, so they send their disciples... (we see this in modern culture when a political party sends its public relations folks out as media pundits and experts of one kind or another)

Mat 22:17
Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?"

Mat 22:18
But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, "You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me?

Mat 22:19
Show me the coin used for paying the tax." They brought him a denarius,

Funny again nether Jesus nor any of his disciples have a coin on them...

They think they have devised a clever trap for him:

If he sides with paying taxes to Caesar then all of the people he has been traveling with, healing, and teaching are left out to dry. He would be endorsing an unjust system.

or

If he says don't pay your taxes then he is guilty of conspiring against Rome.
* this is one of the reasons they give Pilate to have Jesus put to death.Luke 23:1-2

But Jesus sees this as a trap from the minute they open their mouths...

Mat 22:20
and he asked them, "Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?"

If you live in a world with no TV or Radio or any other form of mass media, How do you get your message out across a wide geographic and economic spectrum of people?
How can you make everyone remember it?

Who uses Money? Everyone
Who knows what is on a bill?
Have you ever seen someone check a $100 dollar bill?
They hold it up to the light to look for special threads and water marks, they feel the paper for the right thickness and texture, they may even have a special pen or marker that changes color when the bill is real...

Caesar minted coins. The only official coin of the whole empire. These coins had his image on them. And they had his Gospel.

The root of the word evangelical, evangel, is derived from the Greek word euangelion which is often translated as “good news.” From that same word, we derive the word gospel. In the ancient Roman imperial world, the “gospel” (euangelion) was a proclamation that the “kingdom” of Caesar was at hand and that Caesar was the “Savior” who had established peace and security, this was accomplished by military invasion and subsequent crucifying of anyone who opposed Roman rule.

Mat 22:21
"Caesar's," they replied. Then he said to them, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."

What does that last line mean?

Is it a reference to Gen 1:26:
Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."

Also notice Jesus doesn't say then pay the Tax, he says give back to Caesar what is his, all of the coins have his image and inscription on them!

Mat 22:22
When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away.

Its almost like an inside joke at this point... Can you hear the disciples snickering and saying "remember the fish"

What was Jesus saying to the Pharisees and Herodians?

Often these text are interpreted as Jesus saying "Just be a good citizen and pay your taxes." But That complete misses the point here.

Because coins were the mass media of the first century, Jesus is essentially saying reject and give back this false image, this false gospel, that has been handed to you. And Give to God all of yourself and all of creation, because God will settle nothing less...

Remember that list I told you to make, at the begining of this post, of the things you saw on the money you have with you?

Whats on the list?

Does the fact that someone consciously borrowed Gods name mean the money is any less secular?

Who does that money belong to?

What do commercials teach you?
Is it God honoring?

http://being-the-body.blogspot.com/

What does it mean to follow Jesus ion the Emerging post-modern culture we find our selves in?

2009-05-07T10:23:00.008-04:00

What does it mean to follow Jesus in the Emerging post-modern culture we find our selves in?
I have wrestled with this question for quite some time now... I found inspiration (in a book, big surprise for those of you who know me) from Phyllis Tickle’s extraordinary new thoughts in "The great Emergence."

Let me take a stab explaining at a new incite I gained from her...

What is Emergent? It depends on where you are comming from, or rather what your perspective on following Jesus is.

Lets start with a picture of concentric rings (five circles ones inside the other like a bulls eye) and a metaphor of inheriting a house:

There are some folks, on the outer most ring, that will not change anything ever. the furniture and even landscaping will always remain the same. to even suggest that there is anything wrong with the house they inherited from their grand -parents is tantamount to treason.

The next group of folks, on the next ring in, are willing to redecorate, get new furniture, plant new flowers and maybe pave the driveway but nothing to extensive. They view the house as fine just a little dusty and dated.

The next group of folks, on the next ring in, are willing to gut the house and do a total remodel. The house and land are an important inheritance, and they have fond memories, but they also recognize that the house is not functional (because it was built by their ancestors and added on to by several successive generations).

The next group of folks, on the next ring in, are going to bulldoze the house! They see the land as a heritage and have a firm grasp of their roots. But they know that the house is not the treasure but the land is. They will build new structures and seek new ways to use the land.

The last group of folks in the center is going to burn down the house and walk away from the land. They will become nomads, because they only remember the abuses and negative things that happened in the house. They will carry with them their inheritance in their hearts and minds.

Now each group sees everyone else who is farther inside of these circles than they are as emergent (which is just a way to describe a new form of Christianity).

So the question has become where are you?

That will help you discover how you can follow Jesus in these new (some would say ancient) things he is doing.

Does that make sense?

http://being-the-body.blogspot.com/

Who was John the Immerser

2009-04-29T16:40:00.002-04:00

Who was John the Immerser

Luke 1:39-45
39At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, 40where she entered Zechariah's home and greeted Elizabeth. 41When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. 42In a loud voice she exclaimed: "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! 43But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. 45Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!"

So john knows Jesus In the womb

Matt3
1In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the Desert of Judea 2and saying, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near." 3This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah: "A voice of one calling in the desert, 'Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.' "[a]
4John's clothes were made of camel's hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. 5People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. 6Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.

John was a prophet. Why was he sent?
Why were people coming out to the desert to see him?

Matt3
7But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. 9And do not think you can say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. 10The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
11"I baptize you with[b] water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. 12His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire."

What did he expect would happen?
What did he expect Jesus to do?

13Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. 14But John tried to deter him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?"
15Jesus replied, "Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness." Then John consented.

So john endorses Jesus In the again!

John 3
22After this, Jesus and his disciples went out into the Judean countryside, where he spent some time with them, and baptized. 23Now John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because there was plenty of water, and people were constantly coming to be baptized. 24(This was before John was put in prison.) 25An argument developed between some of John's disciples and a certain Jew[i] over the matter of ceremonial washing. 26They came to John and said to him, "Rabbi, that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan—the one you testified about—well, he is baptizing, and everyone is going to him."
27To this John replied, "A man can receive only what is given him from heaven. 28You yourselves can testify that I said, 'I am not the Christ[j] but am sent ahead of him.' 29The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom's voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. 30He must become greater; I must become less.

So john endorses Jesus In the again!

Matt11
1After Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and preach in the towns of Galilee.[a]
2When John heard in prison what Christ was doing, he sent his disciples 3to ask him, "Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?"

What is going on here?
John Knew Jesus in the womb, he endorsed him 3 times...
Why is John Doubting?

So Jesus gives his credentials.

Matthew 11
4Jesus replied, "Go back and report to John what you hear and see: 5The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor

which is a direct reference to:

Luke 4
16He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read. 17The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: 18"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, 19to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

Which is a direct reference to:
Isaiah 61:1,2

But John knew all that... In fact that was the problem.

Matt11
2When John heard in prison what Christ was doing, he sent his disciples...

Jesus is not the messiah john expected... He did not come in the political way the Jewish people expected.

Jesus did not fit who they expected the Messiah to be. In fact, most of what Jesus did ran contrary to their view of the Messiah.

The Old Testament Scriptures do contain a multitude of prophecies about this Messiah who will come as ruling, triumphant King and set up his kingdom. And so they of course envisioned a ruling king who destroyed his enemies...

They had been looking forward to a political Messiah, one who would finally, and forcibly free them from conflict with other nations. In Jesus' time the Jews were under domination from the Romans. And many Jews were hoping that Jesus was the Messiah who would overthrow the Roman government and make THEM rulers of the world.

They did what we as humans tend to always do...
They remembered the best of times and forgot the bad parts...
This is the problem with the "good old days" they were not so good.
They remembered the splendor and power of Solomons Kingdom.
But they forgot about the forced labor and amassing of wealth, and the military buildup...

They are trying to make Jesus fit into the mold of their view of who the Messiah is and how he should operate.

But what is this last line all about?

Matt11
6Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me."

Jesus knows what john is expecting...
John knows who Jesus is...
John is hearing about all the things Jesus is doing...
John's disciples must have heard Jesus teaching about the kingdom of God being "at hand"

But Jesus is saying to John, yes I am who you think I am, but I'm not going about things the way you think I should.
or to put it another way
I'm not coming there to bust down the door and rescue you John. And you will be blessed if that doesn't make you loose faith.

See God doesn't always rescue us from bad things...

Matt11
7As John's disciples were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: "What did you go out into the desert to see? A reed swayed by the wind? 8If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear fine clothes are in kings' palaces. 9Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. 10This is the one about whom it is written: " 'I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.'

Jesus is reminding the people that they went out of the centers of power into the desert. They did not find what they were looking for in the culture they lived in. Herod and the Romans had brought great luxury and shiny new things to Jerusalem, they build new city's and made centers for entertainment. They brought commerce and relative military security (even being on the low end of the totem-pole in the roman empire meant some protection from raiding bands of barbarians).

But Jesus reminds the people that ultimately that doesn't satisfy the deep longing of their souls...

Jesus has come to bring another kind of kingdom...

Final thoughts

Have you ever longed for the good old days in your life?
Have you ever wondered why God allows you to suffer through things?
Have you ever wondered why God allows suffering in our world?

Getting Stoned (not the contemporary kind)

2009-03-31T13:22:00.005-04:00

The back story (round 1) John 7:37

37On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. 38Whoever believes in me, as[c] the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." 39By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified. 40On hearing his words, some of the people said, "Surely this man is the Prophet." 41Others said, "He is the Christ." Still others asked, "How can the Christ come from Galilee? 42Does not the Scripture say that the Christ will come from David's family[d] and from Bethlehem, the town where David lived?" 43Thus the people were divided because of Jesus. 44Some wanted to seize him, but no one laid a hand on him. Unbelief of the Jewish Leaders 45Finally the temple guards went back to the chief priests and Pharisees, who asked them, "Why didn't you bring him in?"

46"No one ever spoke the way this man does," the guards declared.
47"You mean he has deceived you also?" the Pharisees retorted. 48"Has any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed in him? 49No! But this mob that knows nothing of the law—there is a curse on them."
50Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier and who was one of their own number, asked, 51"Does our law condemn anyone without first hearing him to find out what he is doing?"
52They replied, "Are you from Galilee, too? Look into it, and you will find that a prophet[e] does not come out of Galilee."

So in round one:

Jesus is in Jerusalem, celebrating the feast of booths, and the Pharisees are like who does this Rabbi think he is?

He is changeling them on their own turf...
He can't talk like that!
We have to stop him!
So they round up their thugs and send them out to arrest Jesus so that they can privately quiet him.

Perhaps they thought a few days in jail would cool him off a little.
The leaders in the south thought the same thing about Martin Luther King Jr. too. But that's where King wrote some of his most famous material (such as his letter from Birmingham Jail).

But the Thugs show up and are struck by what Jesus is teaching, even they are transformed by what hew has to say...

So the Pharisees next devise a plan to confront Jesus publicly...
They set a trap, to embrace him into submission or get him killed.

Getting stoned (round 2)

John 8
1But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4and said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?" 6They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.
But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." 8Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
9At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"
11"No one, sir," she said. "Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin."

If they could humiliate Jesus in public by posing a question about the scriptures that Jesus could not answer (without destroying what he was teaching) then his popularity would fade.

So that night they arrested a woman "caught in the act of adultery." And held her until the morning when Jesus came back.

Jesus could have avoided the temple, he must have seen the thugs who had come to arrest him the day before. But he must have also known that there would be considerable confusion among the people he had taught the day before. He chose to walk back into the temple despite the fact that the religious elite would be gunning for him.

According to Jewish law the day after any major feast has to be observed as a Sabbath. So no work was allowed.

Jesus shows up and sits down (as any good Rabbi should ) before he begins teaching.

Only then did the Pharisees make their move. They could have tested him at the gate, but they waited until they had LOTS of witnesses.

so they bring out the woman "caught in the act of adultery"
which raises some questions:
First
"how/where do a group of religious leaders find/catch a woman in the act of adultery?"

Second
Adultery is rather hard to do by ones self...
"Where is the man?"

The Law dictated that both should be stoned Lev 20:10

In round 1 the leaders had invoked a curse on the crowds for not knowing what the law said... Now they are acting as if they only know part of the law...

It is the same today as it was then...
People tend to highlight the parts of the bible that they like and ignore the parts that they don't...
Can you think of an example?

Back to our story...

The religious elite are clearly only concerned with beating Jesus and preserving their own status and power.
The woman is just a prop in their plan...
Just as humans tend to do, they have forgotten her humanity...

But there is something else going on here as well. If they can't get their local thugs to arrest Jesus then they will have to get some one else to do it.

Around three sides of the second story of the temple was a Long covered walkway. Connected to and overlooking this walk way was a military fort built by Herod the Great. He knew that civil unrest often began in the temple area.
The Jews were not allowed to sentence anyone to death (that's why the religious leaders drag Jesus in font of the Romans, but we're getting ahead of ourselves in our story).
Roman soldiers would have had a clear view of what was going on in the temple area that day.

4and said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?"

They are quoting Moses directly and then asking Jesus to agree or disagree...

So if Jesus follows the letter of the law and sentences the woman to death by stoning then :
1she dies
2the incident would cause an outcry from the people Jesus was teaching
3the soldiers will see the incident (the stoning and the outcry) as an uprising and the religious leaders would point to Jesus as the one who started it.

But

If Jesus breaks with the Law and tradition and says that the woman should be forgiven:
1 the religious leaders can discredit Jesus as a heretic for ignoring the law, they would have called him a coward, and said things like "are you unwilling to pay the price for our freedom?" ;-)
2

SO it seems that their trap has left Jesus with no where to turn.
Moses or Rome?
Dammed if you do and dammed if you don't

The people were listening, the Romans were watching!

The religious elite are so sure of their victory that they planed this confrontation in public on their own turf!

The question is about Justice...
The religious leaders see justice as a strict (public) application of the law.
Jesus sees justice by looking at the woman as a human in need of grace...

6They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.
But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger.

Remember this is a Sabbath?
The primmer requirement of the Sabbath was to refrain from doing work.
Jesus is a rabbi...

The Pharisees had determined that writing could be considered as work for a Rabbi.
But this required that they define what writing was.
They had settled on writhing as making some kind of permanent mark like putting ink on paper.

So what does Jesus do?
This is so brilliant...
He bends down and begins writing in the dust!
This is not a permanet mark... Its gone as soon as the wind blows.

He is making it clear to them that he is familiar not only with the written law but also with their interpretation and man made rules surrounding it!

Remember in round 1
They said "Are you from Galilee, too? Look into it, and you will find that a prophet[e] does not come out of Galilee."

Jesus is saying look I'm no country bumpkin.

So what does he write?

We don't have a definitive answer on this...
But his following words presuppose that he probably wrote something that would give the men pause, since they didn't start throwing stones straight away, and still gave a strict observance of the Law. perhaps he wroteLeviticus 20:10 :

'If a man commits adultery with another man's wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death."
Where is the man?

Then Jesus announced the method of execution...

7When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her."

Jesus calls them out!
"Which of you is willing to step out and claim that they have never sinned?"

And remember the Romans are still watching...
If one of the leaders steps up and throws the first stone they will be the ones arrested!

Jesus pulls the ultimate Jujitsu move and traps the Pharisees in their own trap.
Now they must admit that they are ether sinners or are heretics for ignoring the law, and/or are unwilling to "pay the price for their freedom."

8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. 9At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there.

Interestingly Jesus is not interested in gloating or bringing further shame on them. He does not want revenge! He doesn't stare them down or watch as they withdraw. He refuses to "twist the knife."
He bends down and continues writing in the sand, giving them the chance to change their mind (and perhaps their hearts).

10Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"

Imagine being this woman...
She has been arrested in the middle of the night and kept in jail until the morning. She knew what the penalty was for her crime. She had spent the whole night knowing she had committed a capital offense and would be stoned... She was dragged in-front of a mob of people and the religious folks condemned her with scripture on their lips...
Brutal violence could only be next, and she had had all night to think about it!

But then this crazy Rabbi shows up and transfers the anger of the religious folks from her to himself. Her terror must have slipped away as she saw the humiliated men one by one dropping their rocks and quietly slipping away.

What a cost this man has paid, shifting the anger of such powerful men from her to himself. And he doesn't even know her name. What will he want in return? How will he treat her?
11"No one, sir," she said. "Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin."

Jesus is the one without sin! If anyone could condemn her it is Him!
Jesus nether condemn her no overlooks her self destructive lifestyle.
The woman's past in no way diminishes his willingness to save her.
He sets her free
The woman is able to walk away, from the incident but also from her former life.

Do you you see a pattern emerging?
Jesus is taking the pain and anger of the world upon himself.
And
He is setting captives free
And
He is giving the powerful a chance to change their path as well...

Do you play the part of Jesus in this story, offering grace to the wonam and the judgemental religous folks?
or
Do you play the prt of the woman needing grace and repentance?
or
The Religous leaders being scandelized by the people Jesus lets into the kingdom, and yet being offred a chance to change your ways?

oppressed and oppressor Pt2

2009-03-18T14:49:00.004-04:00

The second story takes place on the other side of Jericho.

Luk 19:1
Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through.

Remember part 1, when we talked about how the visiting Rabbi would have been expected to stay for a banquet, and perhaps teach a little? But our story affirms that Jesus was Just "passing through."
Imagine how the disappointed the community is...
But then...

Luk 19:2
A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy.

The tax system in place was called Tax farming. The local person who acquired the right to collect the taxes was expected to turn over a set amount to the authorities. The tax collectors were often the only ones who could read Greek and had precise knowledge of the tax laws. This system naturally promoted and produced economic injustice.

It was bad enough that Zack was a tax collector, but we are also told another seeming small detail. He had become rich in the process. So of course the people hated him.

Luk 19:3
He wanted to see who Jesus was, but being a short man he could not, because of the crowd.

Zack's problem was that he was short AND hated. If he were a respected and rich man people would have made way for him. The culture required it.

Zack dared not even mix with them... If he was short and surrounded in a crowd of people who hated him, the quick flash of a knife, a cry that wouldn't be heard over the excitement of the crowd, it would all be over for him.

Luk 19:4
So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.

He does two things that powerful men in his culture would never do.
1 He ran...
2 He climbed a tree
Both of theses are/were cultural taboos that would bring public shame

Sycamore trees have large leaves and low branches. They are easy to climb and offer a good hiding place among their thickly clustered broad leaves.

According to the laws the sycamore trees were only allows to be planted out side of town. they were to be grown fifty cubits out side of town.

This is because they have wide spread branches. And the Pharisees regarded them as a kind of then tent. They sighted the old testament law that said that if you were in a tent when some form of uncleanness happened it was automatically transferred to you. So in the Pharisees interpretation of the law if a tree in your back yard had branches that hung over into your neighbors yard then you were responsible for the sins they committed too.

So Zack ran outside of town hoping that the crowd would disperse so that he could get a good look at this Rabbi who was causing such a stir. And when he saw that the crowd was still with him Zack hid in a tree.

Luk 19:5
When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, "Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today."

How did Jesus know Zack's name?
Think about this...

The crowd has just watched Jesus side with the oppressed. They are all fired up, here is the liberating King, the son of David. It is passover after all, the day they celebrated their political liberation from the empire of Egypt.

And here is an oppressor, a guy who collects more than the fair share of taxes for the oppressive empire that is holding them down now. Many of them would have fresh memories of stepping into Zack's office and begging for a break or a reduction in the overwhelming amount they were required to pay. Perhaps some of them even knew neighbors who had been arrested or lost their homes for non-payment...

And now they have him up a tree. They are a name less faceless mob of people. Anyone can shout from the crowd using any four letter word they want. One insult stimulates another, and another, and another... The atmosphere quickly darkens and produces a whiff of anticipated violence.
Jesus sees this and decides to intervene...

The crown expects Jesus to side with them against the oppressor, but Jesus again defies their categories.
Having before signaled that he does not intend to stay for a banquet in the town, Jesus now says
"Zack I'm coming to stay at your house!"
And Zack's response?

Luk 19:6
So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.

Well duh... Jesus decides to save Zack from an ugly situation, of course He takes it. I mean we're talking about a guy who has not hesitated to line his pockets whit the money of his fellow Jews. His life until now has been about seizing opportunities.

Luk 19:7
All the people saw this and began to mutter, "He has gone to be the guest of a 'sinner.' "

The word guest here is the word: katalyō
which means: to halt on a journey, to put up, lodge

Jesus has just transferred all of the peoples anger to himself.
How will Zack respond?

Luk 19:8
But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, "Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount."
OK so
Everything he has is because he has cheated someone.
if he fives Half of his money to the poor, that leaves him with 50%.
If he then tries to repay everyone he has cheated four times what he has taken...
He will quickly run out of money!

Luk 19:9
Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham.

After receiving such love acceptance and grace from Jesus Zack will never be the same...
Jesus says salvation has come to Zack... Even though he has not given out the money yet. Zack has not arrived, he has a long process ahead of him.
But Jesus takes the hostility of the world upon himself, and watches for the change to occur in Zack's heart. And then Jesus says good job Zack you get it. salvation has started here and now. Your life is somehow different...
Zack has the remainder of his life to live out that salvation.
Jesus salvation includes a radical transformation in Zack, his entire life will change...

Luk 19:10
For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost."

Jesus once again affirms that he came for the lost not the religious people.
He is always saying things like "its not the healthy who need a hospital but the sick."

Jesus sides with the oppressor, and gives him a chance to repent, that is to change his ways.
Jesus also rejects the idea that the problem of oppression can be solved with violence!

Preaching?!?

2009-03-06T09:45:00.001-05:00

These thoughts may sound a littled jumbled... Sorry

Preaching and teaching is important for our congregation today not only because we have a powerful message that needs to be herd, but because we have entrusted to us the word of life that matters urgently in a society bent on self destruction. We can see in our culture on a large scale, but also in our own city and neighborhoods, the downward spiral towards apathy and darkness.

With the disestablishment of Christianity and the collapse of the supremacy of the christian world view in our culture, the formation of a distinctive community of praise and obedience now becomes more urgent than it has ever been. If the body of Christ is not to evaporate into an ocean of consumerism and anti-neighborly individualism, then our summons to an alternative community is necessary. The idea of an alternative community requires an offer of a choice and the requirement of a decision that is Scripturaly rooted and that touches every facet of the life of the community and its members.

Transformation is what lies at the heart of my motivation for preaching and teaching.There are only rare texts in the bible that are holding actions, everything else in the bible urges us to move towards an alternative to the dominate culture. People do not transform their lives because someone explains an abstract theological point to them. But people can and do in fact engage in transformation through the hearing and living out of the message. We do not need to adjust our theology to match our practices, but we need to adjust our practices to match our theology.

The act of preaching and teaching is a powerful act of imagination, an offer of a new image through which perception, experience, and finally faith can be reorganized in alternative ways (not of this world but in it). Preaching and teaching to me is primarily a chance to summon and nurture an alternative community with an alternative identity, vision, vocation, preoccupied with praise and obedience toward the God we know fully in Jesus of Nazareth.

The next year will be filled with all the challenges of the last year, but will also present us with a new challenge. The challenge of discovering this alternate community among ourselves... This will require being open to transformation in every aspect of our lives as individuals and as a community. It will require listening more than we speak, to God, to our community, and to each other. We must learn to reject as false the wicked spirit that whispers selfishness into our soul, and leads to apathy and death. This is not "My church" but is Jesus body. This must become more than an abstract theological point for us!

If we are to be active partners with Christ in the rescue mission he has given us (go and make disciples) we must surrender our vision for our church and accept His vision for His bride. We live in a culture that is crying out for help, it is unthinkable that we would retreat into our building as if it is a fortress, and bemoan our cultures decent into darkness. If we are to be a shinning city on a hill attracting weary travelers who are stumbling through the darkness, then we must together hold our light high.

oppressed and oppressor

2009-03-05T10:00:00.004-05:00

Jesus loves the Oppressed and the oppressor

WE tend to see the world as black and white, us and them, Your ether with us or against us... But Jesus doesn't see it quite that way.

Two stories that take place at the edge of Jericho provide us with an opportunity to see how Jesus seeks a third way, a way to rescue the oppressed and restore the humanity of the oppressor.

The first:

Luk 18:35
As Jesus approached Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging.

In the middle east village people show honor to an important guest by walking a distance out from the town to greet and escort them into the village. The popularity of the honored guest can be measured by how large the crowd is and how far they walk. Large crowds have been known to walk up to ten miles for political and religious leaders.

In 1972 the united states lost the Olympic gold in basketball for the first time ever (and under a dark cloud)... Basketball had been invented in the united states and was as popular as soccer is in most of the rest of the world. So when The original U.S. basketball Dream Team dominated the Olympic competition, beating their eight opponents by an average of 44 points and won the gold medal at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona. They captured the attention of the world. More important to my point here, when they came home people came out to the airport to greet them, And not just to wait in a line to politely wave at them... It was chaos as excited fans screamed, cried, waved flags...

But back to our story...

Part of the tradition would be to welcome the guest with a banquet and public celebration. The famous Rabbi would be expected to stay the night and perhaps teach a little.

Jesus turns this offer down, but that's more important to the second half of our story.

Luk 18:36
When he heard the crowd going by, he asked what was happening.

The beggar hears the crowd and asks whats going on.

Luk 18:37
They told him, "Jesus of Nazareth is passing by."

Luk 18:38
He called out, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!"

Son of David? Where have we heard that before?

The beggar is asking a question...

"What kind of son of David are you?"

"Are you like Solomon who ignores the cry of the oppressed,

"Are you the kind of son of David the prophets talked of"

Luk 18:39
Those who led the way rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, "Son of David, have mercy on me!"

Mark records the crowd as saying Shut up! and also says the mans name is "Bartimaeus" which means son of filth...

Jesus stops and commands the beggar to be brought to him...

WHO has to bring the beggar?

One would expect Jesus to stand up on a large rock and yell "You idiots, don't you know I'm here for the poor, the sick, the lost... Stop demeaning this man, get out of the way so that he might find me."

But he doesn't!

He makes the very people who were insulting the beggar escort him through the crowd to Jesus for an audience.

Jesus makes people see and touch the oppressed, he brings them into a place where they have to serve them.

And one might think the story ends there, the man has found Jesus...

But once the beggar gets to Jesus, he is forced to face an exam, a pop quiz.

Luk 18:41
"What do you want me to do for you?" "Lord, I want to see," he replied.

The question seems heartless,

Duh Jesus THE GUY IS BLIND! What do you think he wants you to do?

BUT

In traditional middle-eastern society beggars are recognized as an necessary part of the community, they are seen as offering a service to it.

NOT like today when we may say something like "Get a job"

In that culture Pious people are expected to give to the poor.

The traditional beggar did not say "excuse me mister can you spare some change for a crust of bread?"

Instead he would sit in a public place and challenge passersby with something like "Give to God"

He is really saying "My needs are beside the point, I am offering you a golden opportunity to fulfill one of your oblations to God (a mitzvah), furthermore in this public place everyone will see you and you will gain a reputation as an Honorable and compassionate guy."

If the beggar receives money he usually proclaims in a loud voice the givers greatness. " this is the most noble and generous person I've ever met."

The important thing with this profession is that some handicap be visibly present. In fact the worse the condition the better... A man with one leg or arm would get by.

But a blind man was golden to those who needed to be seen giving.

Being blind meant that the man would have been left out of the educational system, he wouldn't have inherited his family's land/home, he wouldn't have been trained in a trade... His only means of supporting himself would have been begging, which would require being blind.

If hes healed his only means of self support goes out the window.

Whats he going to do?

He can't beg anymore...

He has no education...

He has no employment history...

He has no employable skills...

Every hope for food, housing, survival is tied up in his blindness.

And Jesus asks "What do you want me to do for you?"

The man doesn't even hesitate

He responds "Lord" acknowledging Jesus's authority, and moves from requesting a vague "mercy" to expressing a yearning need to be healed of his blindness.

Luk 18:42
Jesus said to him, "Receive your sight; your faith has healed you."

Jesus sides with the oppressed beggar, but who is oppressing him?

Who has lost sight of his humanity and is using him as an object to boost their own standing?

The crow, the people of this town who are trying to shove the beggar away the way you would shoe a dog who is begging for food at the table.

They assume the beggar is only wanting this traveler to give him a few coins. And they think they are already giving Jesus honor, which they think is greater since they are giving it. So they tell the man to shut up!

And so Jesus gives the crowd a verbal slap, by making them bring the man to him. He gives the oppressor a chance to be transforms , to repent, to change their direction in this matter...

And they do

They join their fellow human being in celebrating and praising...

Luk 18:43
Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus, praising God. When all the people saw it, they also praised God.

The inner struggle

2009-02-17T09:02:00.017-05:00

We are frequently in conflict with our own nature... We have an instinct to stand up against oppression, to cheer for the under dog, to reject marginalization, and shout at the top of our lungs when we see injustice.

But

We are also creatures shaped by our culture of greed and self loathing. We long for the things that are out of our reach, just a little better than what we have now. Those things that we are told will satisfy our cravings, and make us better more fulfilled people. And we are urged, by subtle and not so subtle messages, to look the other way over some injustices to get these things (as if the ends justify the means).

An Inner voice can urge us to dive into an icy river and save a child from drowning. Another inner voice can urge a us to pocket a bracelet from a jewelry box when visiting a forgetful elderly relative.

Learning to tell these voices apart is the work of a lifetime, because the selfish voice can mimic a very convincing imitation of the other when we are willing to let ourselves be deceived. The Problem is our deep longing for Glory...

Yes thats right GLORY... But what is Glory?

Is it one of those things that you sing about, read about, maybe even talk about, especially if you have been around a church for any length of time. But what does it mean “Glory to God in the highest?”

To help us unpack this a little lets look at the word Glory a little, as it appears in the scriptures.

The word glory is a very complex nuanced sort of word...

Psa 19:1
For the director of music. A psalm of David. The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

The Hebrew word for Glory is the word kabowd (kä·bode')
and it means :
honor, glorious, abundance, riches, splendor, glory

And it comes from the root word kä·bad'
Which means to be heavy, or weighty

The heavens declare the Kabowd of God ?

If you want to get a good perspective on this spend some time looking at the stars , maybe through a telescope, or watching an eclipse or mediator storm.

When I was a kid my dad took me out in the country away from all the man made lights to watch a mediator storm first hand...

I was struck by the idea that these rocks, which use to be part of something else much larger, and had been flying through space for who knows how long, were crashing into our earth our home. They had traveled perhaps millions of light years, much farther than even our strongest telescopes can see. And now they were burning up in our atmosphere.
Which is another good point, we live on a planet that is designed to protect us from all of this floating space junk...

Do you get a feel for how big the universe is?

Kabwod is heavy, signifying that other things are light, temporary, Its as if the wind could blow at any minute and they would be gone...

Dust & Rust
Everything eventually turns to dust and rust

Advisers spend a lot of energy convincing us that we will be happy if we just buy that new shiny car... But after a few years, especially if you live in a cold climate where they spread copious amounts of salt on the roads, it starts to turn into rust.

This is the case for everything we lust or long for. (even other people) They always return to Dust or rust.

Kabowd is like the kick drum of the universe, its what happens when you come face to face with the bigness of the universe and you are reminded of the proper proportions of the universe and that you are not the most important thing in it!

But the scriptures have a little more to say about Us (humans) and Glory...

Psa 8:3When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,Psa 8:4what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?Psa 8:5You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.

We are crowned with Kabowd?What does it mean?This is why when you hear a story, like of slaves beining set free...

Like of homeless people being fed and clothed...

Like of a community garden where people work together shoulder to shoulder and then give the extra food to people who are hungry...

This is why you feel that leap in your heart, why you are like,

"YES NOW THAT IS WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT."

We are hard wired for Kabowd...And yet we continually seek that feeling in so many other ways...

And we live in a culture that promises to fulfill that yearning that need for Glory in a million ways. Marketers invent a new way to fall into debt every day. That is they try to convince us that they have tapped into a new way to find fulfillment and happiness...

But it is all Dust and Rust!

It should not be lost on us that the neon lights and the bright security lights drown out the stars.

If you want to see the stars, to be reminded of the Kabowd of God, you have to escape all of that.

So one of the central if not the central claim of Jesus is this...

Are you willing to let Go?

Re-animated?

2009-02-12T10:26:00.005-05:00

"A little church on Sunday morning is a negligible thing. It may be the meekest, and least conspicuous, thing in America. Someone zipping between Baltimore’s airport and beltway might pass this one, a little stone church drowsing like a hen at the corner of Maple and Camp Meade Road. At dawn all is silent, except for the click every thirty seconds as the oblivious traffic light rotates through its cycle. The building’s bell tower out of proportion, too large and squat and short to match. Other than that, there’s nothing much to catch the eye.

In a few hours heaven will strike earth like lightning on this spot. The worshipers in this little building will be swept into a divine worship that proceeds eternally, grand with seraphim and incense and God enthroned, “high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple” (Isaiah 6:1). The foundations of that temple shake with the voice of angels calling “Holy” to each other, and we will be there, lifting fallible voices in the refrain, an outpost of eternity.

If this is true, it is the most astonishing thing that will happen in our city today."

- Frederica Mathewes-Green

This is an amazing concept... How much have we missed the wonder of what happens in our presence as we encounter His presence?

How much have we dismissed the gathering of believers, because it seems to be a dead ritual?

Yes many, perhaps most, times it is dead or dying. The Church in North America is constricted with atrophy. But The spirit of God desires to break through and reanimate us.

The real question is do we desire it?

Will we be an outpost of eternity?
Or
Will we just do business as usual?

2008-12-05T10:01:00.005-05:00

I have had the topic of the Church's misuse of money come up in several conversations, and often places like the Crystal Cathedral are brought up.

This is often countered by another person referencing the stories of the women/woman anointing Jesus's feet with oil (the disciples say that this could have been used to help the poor, but Jesus corrects them.)

Well first we need to look at these events in the context of Jesus life and message...

Jesus made social injustice a focus of his mission. Jesus came off his throne to enter this world physically and to be raised in a poor family.

His mother spoke of her “humble state” Luke 1:8

His parents temple offering for him was a poor person’s offering 2:24.

Jesus told his disciples to drop everything and follow him.

He had “nowhere to lay his head.” He and his disciples traveled about, engaged in loving and healing activity, while dependant on the hospitality of others.

In fact, Jesus’ first sermon emphasized “good news to the poor” Luke 4:18, his first beatitude begins, “Blessed are you who are poor” 6:20

And his first woe with, “Woe to you who are rich” 6:24.

Social justice issues center around the haves and have-nots. Those with money and resources tend to have power, and those without money and resources are left powerless. Economic inequalities lie at the root of most, if not all, social injustices. Given this reality, there is no wonder that one in seven verses in the Gospel of Luke address money or material things.

So in this context what does Jesus say but Jesus says...

Mat 26:10 Aware of this, Jesus said to them, "Why are you bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing to me. 26:11 The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me. 26:12 When she poured this perfume on my body, she did it to prepare me for burial.

or

Mar 14:7 The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. Mar 14:8 She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial.

John gives the woman a name Mary ( of Mary and Martha fame).

And Luke adds a detail we may miss on the first pass. He says the woman lived a sinful life. And everyone knew it, so it was a public sin...

Tradition tells us that the woman was a prostitute.
And as such the perfume and or oil she poured out on Jesus was a tool of her trade. She is basically saying I recognize you as the liberating King, and I am repenting of my lifestyle.

And whats the reason Jesus says its better to pour it out rather than sell it?
"she did it to prepare me for burial. "

So I guess its ok to donate to the Crystal Cathedral if the money is given to prepair the building "for burial."

Bring on the wrecking ball.

Sorry this is a little sarcastic at the end. I believe the answer to this is rooted in the this commandment. I won't go in depth here but I offer an extensive explanation here:
http://being-the-body.blogspot.com/2007/08/are-we-vain.html

Basically I offer a historically and cultural accurate reading of that commandment that leaves televangelists in trouble.

I doubt it

2008-12-01T18:36:00.002-05:00

A religious person is a person who considers whether a fact is acceptable to his religion before he explores it. As opposed to a person who has faith, who explores first and then considers weather or not he wants to accept the ramifications.

I think faith is strong enough to be open to explore ideas that religion doesn't permit.

My point is that just because someone holds certian ideas to be "necessary" to faith, doesn't mean God agrees with their interpertation.Who gets to decide what is foundational? After all we are only human.Our best guess is probably laughable from Gods view point.

For example a person living in the southern parts of the US 200 years ago would have believed that slavery was a foundational christian belief! I believe they would have a stronger (and better) faith for questioning that "fundamental truth."

Questioning our religious beliefs and doubting our man made doctrine is a far cry from doubting God. It is perfectably acceptible, maybe even nessasary to question the thoughts, opnions, and understandings that past generations have fromed into religious doctrine.

2008-07-25T08:54:00.003-04:00

Thanks to another blog, For Whom Does ‘The Bell’ Toll?, I stumbled on some more info about Rob Bell’s upcoming book, Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for the Church in Exile, due to be released October 2008 (pre-order now from B&N). This promises to be a great read, as both of his previous books have been but this one is especially interesting to me because he gave us a preview in the form of a sermon series on this a awhile back that was awesome.

Here is a brief description of the book that can be found on Zondervan’s website:

There is a church not too far from us that recently added a $25 million addition to their building.
Our local newspaper ran a front-page story not too long ago about a study revealing that one in five people in our city lives in poverty.
This is a book about those two numbers.
It’s a book about faith and fear, wealth and war, poverty, power, safety, terror, Bibles, bombs, and homeland insecurity. It’s about empty empires and the truth that everybody’s a priest, it’s about oppression, occupation, and what happens when Christians support, animate and participate in the very things Jesus came to set people free from.
It’s about what it means to be a part of the church of Jesus in a world where some people fly planes into buildings while others pick up groceries in Hummers.

P.S. You can listen to an audio podcast of Rob talking about the book here.

A flawed Eschatology

2008-06-06T10:34:00.002-04:00

In an era when to say that you don't believe in the pre-tribulation rapture of the church is tantamount to abandoning orthodoxy altogether I think it's necessary to stand up for what is right... I work in a bookstore where, because of the recent events of terrorism and war in the middle east, many are coming in and asking about books about the end of times. When handed End Times Fiction most are immediately reluctant to even consider to possibility that the views they espouse are unbiblical.
Why? Because these days the Christian sup-culture is awash in "End Times Mania" But what passes for "solid" Biblical teaching is not so solid after all! The false teaching of the "pre-tribulation Rapture" followed by an "earthly millennium" is excepted as fact by many well intentioned Christians.
Scripture isn't as esoteric as some try to make it out to be. Nor is it as convoluted and spooky.
The problem is that fiction is a great thought-conveying medium. And Left Behind
has become the vehicle for indoctrinating millions of believers into an end-time theology that was
invented in the nineteenth century.
So many today make the assumption that there will be a "rapture" before a seven-year tribulation period, that Russia will attack Israel, that there will be a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem, and that there will be one person called the Antichrist that will lead a one-world government. They believe that the seven churches in the first chapters of Revelation correspond to different periods in the church age rather than actual churches that were in existence at the time the book of Revelation was written. It would be rather eye-opening to many people to see that these interpretations are a modern fantasy and have very little support in the actual text of the Bible. Ultimate validation should be found through interpreting end-times passages in light of the whole of Scripture. When compared with what the Bible actually teaches, the theology that undergirds the "Left Behind" series and pre-tribulation rapture is found seriously flawed.
What is more, many in the secular world, because of the popularity of this doctrine (and it should be noted that popularity is never a measuring stick for truth), are coming to equate to whole of Christianity with this flawed "Armageddon Theology." Consequently, we are presenting a wonderful opportunity for the world to "throw the baby out with the bath water" and discount Christianity altogether, despite the fact that the Scriptures nor the majority of the Church's testimony maintain such theories.

*Warning the remaining portion of this is full of sarcasm, and probably quite mean too*

Check out this site devoted to End of times stuff...

http://www.youvebeenleftbehind.com/index.html

Whoever subscribes to this site doesn't HAVE any unbelieving friends anyway! So who are they going to put on their list? (Probably family members that they have already repelled and alienated by condemning them their whole lives)
I, of course, will be going straight to heaven, so I'll need the services of youvebeenleftbehind.com to send emails to all my friends and family who aren't QUITE as holy as I am. According to the website:
"There will be a small window of time where (your loved ones who have been Left Behind) might be reached for the Kingdom of God. We have made it possible for you to send them a letter of love and a plea to receive Christ one last time."
Ha! Ha! I can't wait to see the look on all my “unsanctified” friends' faces when they get my snarky I-told-you-so messages seven days after I've been taken up in the Rapture!But wait! There's more!
You will also be able to give them some help in living out their remaining time. In the encrypted portion of your account you can give them access to your banking, brokerage, hidden valuables, and powers of attorneys' (you won't be needing them any more, and the gift will drive home the message of love).
Nothing drives home the message of love quite like the gift of things you won't be needing anymore!But there's an even better reason to entrust your account numbers and power of attorney to youvebeenleftbehind.com's encrypted website: If you don't,the Government of the AntiChrist gets your stuff, unless you make it available in another way.

*End of sarcasim*

please check out the following links...
http://www.reformationtheology.com/2006/06/pretribpremillleft_behind.php
http://www.youtube.com/user/wevebeenleftbehind

When will they hear us?

2008-05-14T09:26:00.006-04:00

C. S. Lewis once said: "the world [won’t] hear us until we’ve publicly disowned much of our past. Why should they? We’ve shouted the name of Christ and enacted the service of Molech."
Lev 18:21
Lev 20:2
1Ki 11:5
2Ki 23:13
Now I know what you are thinking. “Detestable God, come on how bad can it be...”
Sacrifice to Molech, at least in some cases, involved human sacrifice. A relief was found in an area historically known for worship of Molech showing a priest holding a child. Also uncovered was a sanctuary comprising a cemetery with thousands of burned bodies of animals and of human infants, dating from the 8th century BC down to the destruction of Carthage in 146 BC. Archaeologists have identified the site as a tophet (Tophet or Topheth (Hebrew - tōpheth) is believed to be a location in Jerusalem, in the Valley of Hinnom, where the Canaanites sacrificed children to the gods by burning them alive. After the practice of child sacrifice was outlawed by King Josia, the valley became a refuse site where animal carcasses, waste and trash were dumped, with fires permanently burning to keep disease at bay. Tophet became a synonym for Hell.) Most of the children's bodies appeared to be those of newborns, but some were older, up to about six years of age.
So Molech was a God who said “If you want me to love you, you will sacrifice the things you love (your children) to me.

Many terrible things have been done in the name of Christendom. And I believe Lewis exhortation that we need to repent and ask for forgiveness is spot on.
Don Miller was a student and campus ministry leader at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, a decidedly secular and highly intellectual place that Princeton Review named "the college where students are most likely to ignore God." In his book Blue Like Jazz, Miller tells of an unlikely event that introduced him to the mysteries of spiritual transformation.

"I said we should build a confession booth in the middle of campus and paint a sign on it that said "Confess your sins... We are going to confess to them. We are going to confess that, as followers of Jesus, we have not been very loving; we have been bitter, and for that we are sorry. We will apologize for the Crusades, we will apologize for televangelists, we will apologize for neglecting the poor and the lonely, we will ask them to forgive us, and we will tell them that in our selfishness, we have misrepresented Jesus on this campus. We will tell people who come into the booth that Jesus loves them."

What followed was a beautiful time of reconciliation, where the barriers to the good news were broken down. I'm sure the “Gates of hell” shook that day.

How can we apologize to the world with our lives?

P.S. For the full story of the Reed College Confessional read Donald Millers book Blue Like Jazz
P.P.S for a good excerpt read this.
http://www.injoy.com/Newsletters/catalyst/Full/default.aspx?article_id=1

Brother Bonhoeffer

2008-04-03T16:17:00.000-04:00

No abyss of evil can hide from [Jesus] through whom the world is reconciled with God. But the abyss of God's love encompasses even the most abysmal godlessness of the world.
- Dietrich BonhoefferMeditations on the Cross

have you seen my friend?

2008-03-14T22:54:00.003-04:00

12My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. 14You are my friends if you do what I command. 15I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. 17This is my command: Love each other. Jhn 15:12 - 17

Friends, friendship, interesting terms aren’t they? What do they mean, really? Have we ever thought about them before we use the terms?

For some of us, “friend” means an acquaintance, someone we have met but know little about, like a MySpace friend. For others, the term “friends” takes us back to our days in high school or college where we banded and bonded with like minded comrades. The TV series by the same name was so popular, in part because I think so many people long for what the characters seemed to possess as friends. And for yet others of us, “friend” refers to a very specific person who has seen us at our best and worst and stills chooses to hang out with us anyway. Go figure.

When students were following a rabbi, the last thing they would have thought was their teacher was their “buddy”. Their relationship was quite formal. It would have been more appropriate for the followers of a rabbi to think of themselves as servants. Not in terms of being butlers and maids, but more as caregivers of their teacher. We see in the life of Jesus how his disciples were tasked with caring for the finances, providing food, acquiring transportation, and procuring a place to stay.

Can there be “love” between a servant or caregiver and their master? Of course. But certainly that love is different than the love between friends. Is a person is more likely to willingly sacrifice for their friend than a slave for a master? Certainly, no master would ever sacrifice for his servant. Jesus says the acid test of love is this; dying for the one you call a friend. Clearly Jesus did that, as the disciples watched over the subsequent hours.

But Jesus had to make sure that there was a significant change in the disciple’s mindset. I no longer call you servants… How odd that had to sound to the disciples ears. Well beyond paradigm shift, this would have been a cultural abnormality. Instead, I have called you friends… Love was the basis of their relationship, not service. The disciple’s relationship was not based on what they could do for him, but what he would do for them out of His love.

Now that is all quite fabulous. We could extract hours, even days of warm fuzzy off that truth. But it gets even better. This sacrificial love is a relationship of choice.

Now I was not a very athletic kid growing up. I know it is difficult to imagine given my current physical prowess. I’ll wait while the laughter subsides. One the childhood traumas I had to endure was being selected last or next to last when it came time for games. I wasn’t popular or talented, so there was no reason to pick me. I wasn’t the brightest or the best at anything.

Neither were the disciples. But, they loved Jesus. They wanted to be with Him. They chose to leave their families and businesses to be with Jesus. Jesus rocked their world, blew them away when he told them, “I chose you”. To be chosen as a friend, not a servant? I image the disciples sat there agape. What would that mean to someone who had never been picked for anything? What would that mean to someone who had nothing to offer anyone?

I was chosen. You were chosen. We were picked, not because we were the brightest and the best, not because of our talent or training. We were chosen because we were loved. We were selected to receive a gift we didn’t ask for or even deserve. Jesus picked me to be His friend.

I needed to hear that today. My screw-ups are many. My mistakes are obvious. My lacks are huge. But Jesus didn’t pick me because of what I could offer Him. He chose me because of what He could give to me – love, forgiveness, relationship, purpose, mission.

“Ok, friends, it time for us to play a game. It’s called discipleship. The object of the game is to tell others of My love for them. To tell them I have chosen them to be My friend. I need to pick a team that will carry this new game on to others. I choose…” Jesus picked you.

Following by Example

2008-03-05T10:21:00.004-05:00

1Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ. 1Cr 11:1 ( NIV )

Paul knew personally the key to discipleship. It is following. It is about following Christ and following those who are following Christ.

Paul had heard and seen, up close and personal this Jesus who is the Christ. From the Scriptures he had read and memorized, Paul discovered the flesh and blood revelation of God’s Savior for mankind. Paul had also experienced the relational aspect of discipleship, from his rabbi Gamaliel and his brother in the Lord, Barnabas. Both men poured their life into Paul; one in the sense of following Judaism; the other in the sense of following Messiah.

Paul understood, from what he saw of Christ’s life, what he saw in the Holy Scriptures, what he had experienced from Gamaliel and Barnabas, discipleship is about following. But following what, following who?

Everyone is following something, even leaders. The best lessons we learn are the ones we “live through”. You may forget a seminar, a book or a speech, but you’ll never forget what you’ve lived through. We follow by example. It is awkward grammatically, I admit; but it is true none the less. We choose people we admire or look up to. We find people whose lives we seek to emulate. We see people we love and desire to be like them. We start to mimic them. Dress like them (that is why we choose eyeglasses like Rob Bell).http://www.marshill.org/about/rob/
Read what they are reading. The list goes on and on. We see children do the same thing with their parents or grandparents. We follow by the example we see.

How do we choose whose example to follow? Well, Paul would be a good one. Authored more than half the New Testament, planted who knows how many churches, lead untold thousands to Christ. But notice Paul immediately points to the one he is following; Jesus. Paul is saying, “Watch me, do what I do, because I am watching and doing what Jesus is doing. We are following the same Lord.” No matter how many generations of disciples we make, we/they are all following the same Christ. What did Jesus say? “I only do what I see the Father doing. I only speak what the Father is speaking.” (Jhn 5:19 , Jhn 12:49 )

We need, all of us, to step back into the gospels and immerse ourselves in the life of Jesus. We are His followers, are we not? What did he say? What did he do? How did he live? He has so much to show us, so much to tell us. So let’s start with getting to know Jesus. Not the Sunday School Jesus; not the Institutional Christ; but the Jesus of the Scriptures. Allow the Holy Spirit to teach you; open your eyes and your heart to Jesus’ life.

As you are doing that, look around you. Who do you see that looks like the Jesus of the gospels? Look for the person who has Christ being formed in them by the Holy Spirit (Gal 4:19 ). Let them be your example with skin on. We need to follow the Jesus of the scriptures. We also need to follow those who are living Jesus’ life in the world.

Some of us have said to others, “Follow my example as I follow the example of Christ.” It was difficult to say, even awkward. Some have said yes; others have left us with silence. That’s ok. Remember, it is a prepared work.

Show them your Master. Show them how to follow.

Have you checked your feet lately?

2008-03-04T13:23:00.005-05:00

12After washing their feet, he put on his robe again and sat down and asked, “Do you understand what I was doing? 13You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and you are right, because that’s what I am. 14And since I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash each other’s feet. 15I have given you an example to follow. Do as I have done to you. 16I tell you the truth, slaves are not greater than their master. Nor is the messenger more important than the one who sends the message. 17Now that you know these things, God will bless you for doing them. John 13:12-17 ( NLT )( Jhn 13:12 )

Anybody who has ever been in a men’s locker room or raised teenage boys knows what “sticky feet” is all about. There is really no description for the aroma that assaults ones olfactory senses from the sneakers and socks of an athlete. Well I’ll go you one better.

In Jesus’ day, sandals or bare feet were the rule, not the summer time exception. Closed toe footwear or socks were unheard of. We all have sandals or Tevas, so that is no big deal. However, the sandal covered feet of Jesus’ day were walking on dirty, dusty, possibly stone paths or muddy trails. These were the same “roadways” that the animals took. Horses, donkeys, camels, goats, cattle, and sheep, to best of my knowledge, were not house broken during that time or even now for that matter. So dust and dirt of the road was the least of travelers’ problems. The Department of Public Works didn’t keep the streets too clean; that was left to a good rain storm. EEEEeewwwwweee.

It was a standard hospitality practice in Palestine to offer a visitor a basin of water to wash their feet when they came to your home. That’s a big no kidding; who would want someone walking through the house with those dirty feet; certainly not my mother. In wealthy homes, the lowliest of the servants was given the task of washing the visitor’s feet.

Jesus said, “Now that I your teacher and Lord have washed your feet, you are to do that for one another.” Do we even have a clue? Our garage-door-opener-fenced-in-back-yard-stick-to-our- computer-monitor lives can’t begin to image that kind of personal, almost intimate, contact with someone. Is Jesus asking us to be space invaders with each other? I’m pretty sure He is. How can we really disciple someone unless we are willing and able to wash their feet? Will we wade into the mud and muck of what they have walked through in their lives?

I have seen God do some powerful stuff when people have literally washed one another’s feet. As I have been blessed to see and participate in this awesome practice I have often wondered who is this more humbling for, the washer or the washee? In either case, the heart must be vulnerable, open, even exposed.

The one that extends the foot and the one who receives the foot, each must be willing to expose themselves to each other. Please notice; Jesus began by stripped down to undergarments. Jesus became vulnerable first. We must lead the same way in washing one another’s feet. We can convey safety and vulnerability by stripping away all pretense, and masks and stuff that gets in the way of us being in real relationship with one another. It will be much easier for someone to expose their filthy feet to someone who is kneeling before them in their skivvies.

I think that you and I would agree, in principle if not in practice, that it is easier to give than to receive; especially in foot washing. Is it possible for someone to wash your feet? Will you expose the mud and the dung you have walked through in your travels?

One of the things that the Catholic Church has gotten right is the confessional. We Protestants tend to run from anything Catholic just in principle without really examining what we are running from. Confession is cathartic. It is meant to be way. Yes, we confess our sins to God and He is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us (1Jo 1:9 ). But, what about James 5:16 (Jam 5:16) ? “Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.” How many times have we not felt forgiven, not felt cleansed, after we have confessed our sins to God. Confession, to one another, is healing.

When we extend our foot to the one who washes them, we are saying, these are my sins; these are my burdens. There is an important transaction between us and God, and the foot washer and the one whose foot is being washed. It is sacramental, because grace is conveyed between us and God, between each other. Boy, do we ever need that kind of grace.

So you want to be disciple makers (Mat 28:19) ? Carry a basin and a towel. You’ll need it.

Day of Rest

2008-02-28T15:44:00.000-05:00

Where have I witnessed God working lately?
I have been sick (influenza). Now you may be expecting a message about how God healed me, saving me the anguish of this terrible virus. But that is not what he had in mind. I say He had in mind because that is exactly what I had in mind...
Instead I went to see the doctor who prescribed me Tammiflu and put me out of work for four days. Now the Tammiflu does a fantastic job of knocking the flu down to size. I felt much better in about 24 hours, not 100% but better. However a combination of the Tammiflu and the still active influenza made me drowsy and not just a little scatterbrained. And that is really where my lesson began.
The Lord said to Moses, "Come up to me on the mountain and stay here, and I will give you the tablets of stone, with the law and commands I have written for their instruction." Exd 24:12
I have heard/ been taught the Idea of taking a sabbath many times. But I recently heard this and it finally stuck, that is it finally made sense to me. God told Moses to “ Come up to me on the mountain and stay here...” What a strange way for God to phrase walking directions. I mean when your on top of the mountain, your on top of the mountain right? But there is something more to it. See God knows the human mind, and so He knows that our nature is to begin planning and preparing our way back down as soon as we get to the top of the mountain. So God knows that in this process Moses won't be mentally present on top of the mountain, and he'll miss it. And God wants Moses to be fully present resting and aware of what God is doing.
So back to me and the Tammiflu...
On the second day I was mentally alert enough to feel like I should be accomplishing something. I mean I have lessons for the youth to write, I have a stack of books I need to have read, I have pod-casts to catch up on, I have disciples to catch up with, I have a blog that needs another entry, e-mails to catch up on, dishes stacking up in the sink, work schedules to write for 40+ employees, a new store manager to train... I have a lot on my plate!
But each time I tried to do something, I just couldn't stick with it. My reading was at best schizophrenic with four books and the bible going in one hour alone. I couldn't stand long enough to do any meaningful amount of dishes. The notes I tried to type for my blog were not coherent (not that they always are under normal circumstances). I couldn't concentrate long enough to dig through any significant amount of e-mails. I would loose track of what was being taught in pod-casts... Do you get the idea?
In the mist st of all this my wife was trying to take care of our sick family. She was taking the kids to different doctors appointments, dropping off prescriptions, picking up prescriptions, dispensing medicine, cleaning and disinfecting the house, doing all of the shopping & cooking... All in all she was being super Mom!
So I finally gave up and just sat down on the couch and said “God help me do SOMTHING.” And then it happened... My 18 month old daughter curled up in my lap and just held me, just stayed there with me for I don't know how long. I felt as if God was saying “stay here.” Of all of my children I think she and I have the worst relationship. I know that sounds crazy because she is only 18 months old. But my son and I wrestle and play and have had a lot of alone time in his almost seven years,. And my three year old daughter cooks with me almost daily, invites me to play dolls far to often, and always gets herself involved in what ever I'm doing. But my youngest daughter and I don't have that kind of relationship...
It dawned on me that I was missing it. I felt God slowing me down and saying, “Don't get so caught up in doing that you miss the gifts I have given you.”
So thank you God for influenza!

The Myth of the Social Gospel

2008-02-26T15:58:00.007-05:00

The social gospel is a myth A boggy man in your closet. For 1500 years there was only one gospel. The social aspects of the gospel are part of a more holistic Christianity. If you find this concept foreign try reading the writings of the early church fathers.

After the Apostle Paul presented his understanding of the gospel to the church leaders in Jerusalem, the only thing they asked was that he continue to remember the poor (which he was already eager to do). Christians in Rome took it upon themselves to rescue newborns routinely abandoned in the city dumps, and it was Christians who finally succeeded in putting an end to the gladiatorial games.

And so it has gone on for almost 20 centuries Christians taking up the causes of the weak and oppressed. Christians led the fight to end slavery, first in Europe then in the United States. Christians led the fight for civil liberties. Christians are currently fighting slavery in India and Asia.

But in the last 500 or so years there is a growing movement among Christians (most predominately in the west) to separate the message of Jesus. They have developed a personal salvation plan, and tried to over look the rest of the message. Probably because it is easier to live a life of comfort, most likely because it politically suited their personal needs. I find this so sad because even a cursory reading of the gospels dispels this myth.

Jesus announced the start of his ministry in Luk 4:17 . Why did he say he had come?
Now I know what the greatest the greatest Bible expositors, commentators, and Theologians of modern generations say. They will tell you Jesus is speaking of the spiritually poor and spiritually blind, and those oppressed by sin. Which in and of itself is true but is only part of the message... When John the Baptist sends one of his followers to ask Jesus if he is “the one” What is Jesus reply? Luk 7:20

And look at Mat 25:31 through 46... This Jesus explaining how he will judge the world. See the same things crop up again and again, and again...

And as it that were not enough to make you wonder... Take a look at how Jesus spent his time here on earth. He was healing the physically sick, living the the physically poor, setting the those held physically captive free. Oh and the end of Jesus mission statement in Luk 4:19 "to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.” is a direct reference to jubilee Lev 25:10

A Step Towards “Practicing Resurrection”

2008-01-03T15:25:00.000-05:00

Over the past 10 years, The Simple Way Community has been trying to reclaim abandoned spaces and trash-strewn lots in their neighborhood. There are two lots on the 3200 block on Potter Street that have formerly been scars on their community as they accumulate trash, dead animals, needles from heroin use, broken glass… Just all around bad stuff. The Redevelopment Authority has agreed to donate the lots for $1 each (can’t beat the price), so they are excited to begin “practicing resurrection” there. Folks in the neighborhood are excited to begin gardening with neighbors and friends, and now have a financial gift that makes it possible to pay one of the young men in the neighborhood a living wage for gardening.

Check this out...

http://www.gunstoplowshares.com/blog/

We need to do something like this in our neighborhood.

Jesus Was Homeless

2007-10-29T11:29:00.000-04:00

A little story about the "Jesus was homeless" shirt…as told by Shane Claiborne...

City of Brotherly Shove

Jesus teaches that it is nothing extraordinary to love our friends and relatives, people who think and look like us. He says, "Even the pagans and sinners love their friends" (Matthew 5). But we are to be extraordinary; we are to love people who don't think and look like us, even our enemies.
One of my favorite passages is where Jesus tells us how to throw a party in Luke 14, only he doesn't actually call it a "party." He's talking to a bunch of religious folks, so he calls it a "banquet," but he's talking about a party. He says, "When you give a banquet do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind, and you will be blessed." I had never really been to a party like that. All the parties my friends threw, Christian or not, were ones where you invite people who are like you – friends, relatives, rich neighbors, yep. We must have not highlighted that verse. Here's Jesus telling us not to throw parties like that.
A few years ago, I caught a glimpse of this kind of party, although it got us into some trouble. Philadelphia had begun to pass anti-homeless legislation, making it illegal to sleep in the parks, illegal to ask for money, illegal to lie down on the sidewalks (which they chose to implement on Dr. King's Birthday!). Ironically, the hub for many of these laws was Love Park, which is a historic site in Philly known for its skateboarding (which was also made illegal). Love Park was a place where homeless folks hung out. It was visible, safe, and central. Folks knew they could go there to give out food or clothing to folks on the street. It's where we used to go back in college, and there are some nice steam vents that kept people (and some big rats) warm. One of the boldest moves of the city was passing an ordinance that banned all food from the park. It specifically reads, "All persons must cease and desist from distributing food." And they began fining those of us who continued to share food. We started wondering what in the world it meant to love our neighbor as ourselves, when they were being jailed for sleeping and eating. As St. Augustine said, "An unjust law is no law at all." What did it mean to submit to authority and yet uphold God's law of love? Either we had to invite them into our home (which reached capacity), or we wanted to be out with them, in solidarity. So we threw a party in Love Park.
About a hundred of us gathered in Love Park with homeless friends. We worshiped, sang, and prayed. Then we served communion … which was illegal. With clergy and city officials there in support, and police and media surrounding us, we celebrated communion. Most of the police sat back and watched, not daring to arrest anyone, especially during communion. Then we would continue the "breaking of the bread" bringing in the pizzas. It was a love feast, and we then slept out overnight in the park with our homeless friends. We did that week after week, with police watching over us and media standing by. And then one night after the worship, as we slept under the "Love" sign, which we had covered with a big question mark, the police circled the park and came in and arrested all of us there. Not the best wake up call. We were taken to jail in handcuffs. Many of us continued sleeping out over and over and were arrested over and over. Sometimes the police were very sympathetic and agreed that we should not be arrested for sleeping.
A bunch of big-wig lawyers called offering to represent us. We were very thankful and invited them to come and support us, but we decided to be represented by a homeless friend, who might not have fancy lawyers had he been alone. So our buddy, Fonz agreed to be our spokesperson.
As we stood before the judge, I wore a shirt that read: "Jesus was homeless." The judge asked me to step forward, and I did. He read my shirt aloud, and said, "Hmmm. I didn't know that." I said to him, "Yes sir, in the Scriptures Jesus says that 'foxes have holes and birds have nests but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.'" Then the judge paused pensively and said, "You guys might stand a chance." And we did.
As we went before the court, we read all of the Scriptures where Jesus warns the disciples that they will be dragged before courts and jails and they had new meaning. He warned them not to worry about what to say so we didn't. When the time came for us to testify, Fonz stood up in court and said, "Your Honor, we think these laws are wrong." We said "Amen. What he said."
The prosecutor had her stuff together. In court I accidentally called her the persecutor. She was not amused. The District Attorney was not joking around. We faced numerous charges, jail time, thousands of dollars in fines, and hours and hours of community service (imagine that!). The judge said to the court, "What is in question here is not whether or not these folks broke the law, that is quite clear … what is in question is the constitutionality of the laws." The DA shot back, "The Constitutionality of the law is not before this court." And the DA threw her papers on the table. The judge retorted, "The Constitutionality of the law is before every court. Let me remind the court that if it weren't for people who broke the unjust laws, we wouldn't have the freedom that we do have. We'd still have slavery. That's the story of this country from the Boston Tea Party to the Civil Rights movement. These people are not criminals; they are freedom fighters. I find them all not guilty, on every charge." The papers called it a "Revolutionary Court Decision." And the judge asked us for a "Jesus was homeless" t-shirt.

Thanks Shane

http://www.thesimpleway.org/

God's Mercy or God's Justice

2007-10-23T10:03:00.000-04:00

He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.
-Micah 6:8 NIV

Imagine standing by a river and seeing a person struggling in the current. You find a way to rescue the person. then, moment later, you see another person in danger of drowning, and then another, and another, and another... Each time you pull a person out of the river, you are showing mercy. But eventually, someone needs to say, "we need to sent somebody upstream to see who is throwing people in the river." When we take action to stop people from being thrown in the river, we are doing justice. -Jim Wallis

We as Christians need to stop blaming people for their situations.... In the last 200 years western Christianity has taken a wrong turn. Most Christians in the west focus on personal guilt and judgement. The common theme seems to be "If everyone would just be good enough, then God would come back and take us home." This is a dangerous stream of thought professed most notably by the Pharisees of two thousand years ago.

This time Mr. Piper has missed the point...

2007-10-04T18:09:00.001-04:00

" 'Christ unites; doctrine divides.' Those who say this have simply replaced a proposition with a word, and they think they've done something profound...and fresh. But in reality, they've done something old, and stale...and deadly." -John Piper

At first it almost seems as if John Piper has said something quite profound. And maybe he has if you are an English major... However if your more concerned with theology then Mr. Piper has completely missed the point.

The point is stated much better by Pope John Paul II,

“Further along, the council remarks that the catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these (other) religions. The church has a high regard for their conduct and way of life, for those precepts and doctrines which, although differing on many points from that which the church believes and propounds, often reflect a ray of that truth which enlightens all men. However, the Church proclaims, and is bound to proclaim, that Christ is “the way the truth and the life” (John 14:6), in whom God has reconciled everything to himself. The Church is guided by the faith that God the Creator wants to save all humankind in Jesus Christ, the only mediator between God and man... The holy Spirit works effectively even outside the visible structures of the Church.”

-Pope John Paul II Crossing the Threshold of hope

The popes approach seks to avoid twin dangers . On the one hand he avoids a relativistic solution. He doesn't say "Everybody's okay, it doesn't matter what you believe - just believe somthing." On the other hand, he seeks to avoid a divisive tone. This is essential because in a world torn by division and hatred, people instinctively feel that a faith that adds to the division , that fules the hatred, that erects barriers rather than bridges, is part of the problem not the solution.

The goal is not doctrine! And one of the worst things we can do as humans is think we can build a doctrinal structure that can hold the creator of the universe. Seriously do you believe we can completely understand God? And even if we could (which we can't), do you believe we could flawlessly put it on paper and teach it to others.

Now some make the argument that the bible as Gods divinely inspired word describes God. But the bible is not doctrine! The Bible is the story of God reaching out to humans... Doctrine is our attempts to reach him, our Tower of Babble .

Deadly indeed, Deadly to our institutions. But it is a breath of fresh air for the organic church.

** Please note this is not a jab at John Piper. After reading some of his other books I believe his heart is in the right place. However Like most of us sometimes he misses the point.**

We die for love!

2007-09-07T10:10:00.000-04:00

The body’s failing, and my heart is breaking

Hell is awakened, the souls it’s taking

We’re taking back where they belong

You cannot make us stop You’ll never make us stop

It’s not about the songs, it’s about our God

Who will stand and rise against injustice?

Take up the cause of the unwanted ones?

Who will stand to fight against us?

We live, we fight

We live, we die

We fight for love

We live, we fight

We live, we die

We fight for love

Church windows breaking from people living outside the walls The bride must be ready for Jesus’ imminent return

Disciple Lyrics
"Disciple Fight For Love lyrics"

LOVE WINS

are we "vain"

2007-08-09T08:40:00.000-04:00

What does it mean to use the Lord’s name in vain? This is a question that might seem self-evident to most people in western society. Whether you are religious or not, you would not even hesitate with your answer...

I often struggled with how to reconcile my faith in God with my occasional under my breath damming of something or other. So I've done some researched on the original words used, naqa (vain), I read several commentaries, researched on-line, and prayed. These are the best explanations I have found.

Some people believe the reason why this is a violation of the third commandment is because people are using God’s name in a “vain,” “worthless,” or “empty” way. In this case, to say “God damn it is not the same as seriously calling upon God to damn something or someone. For these people, if you say it seriously, fine, but if you say it casually, then you have used His name in an empty way and thereby broken the third commandment.

If the principle that we are going by is that we are not to use God’s name and not really mean it, then I believe that we are very inconsistent in what we take offense to as a culture. Why don’t people get offended when others say “God bless you?” Do you think that every time someone says this that they really mean it? Do you think that in their mind they are talking to God, beseeching on your behalf for a blessing? Just about every email I get ends with the phrase, “God bless.” I seriously doubt that that person actually said a prayer for me before he or she hit send. If this is the case, then why is saying ”God bless you” not just as much a violation of the third commandment as saying “God damn you?” Is it more biblical to ask for God’s kindness or judgment? I don’t think anyone who is honest with themselves can say that they are consistent in this regard. Saying “God damn it” and not meaning it should be just as bad as saying “God bless you” and not meaning it.
This is the most important so I have saved it for last. In fact, if what I am about to say is true, then other arguments really make a difference. The question is this: What does it mean to use God’s name in an empty or vain way? What does the third commandment really mean? It is hard to tell from a simple word study on the Hebrew term naqa (vain). As well, our understanding of a “name” and what it signifies is much different than what it meant in the context in which this commandment was given. What we have to do is to try to understand what it meant then, so that we can understand what it means now. It does us no good to anachronistically impose our understanding upon an ancient text. This is eisegesis (reading into the text what we presuppose), not exegesis (letting the text speak on its own terms).
Briefly, here is what I believe your studies will show. The nations to which the Israelites were going had many gods. They were highly superstitious. Their prophets would often use the name of their god in pronouncements. The usage could be in a curse, hex, or even a blessing. They would use the name of their god to give their statements, whatever they may be, authority. To pronounce something in their own name would not have given their words much weight, but to pronounce something in the name of a god meant that people would listen and fear. They may have said, “In the name of Baal, there will be no rain for 40 days.” Or “In the name of Marduk, I say that you will win this battle.” This gave the prophet much power and authority. But, as we know, there is no Baal or Marduk. Since this is the case, they did not really make such pronouncement and therefore the words of the prophet had no authority and should neither have been praised or feared.
God was attempting to prevent the Israelites from doing the same thing. God was saying for them not to use His name like the nations used the names of their gods. He did not want them to use His name to invoke false authority behind pronouncements. In essence, God did not want the Israelites to say that He said something that He had not said. This makes sense. God has a reputation to protect. He does not want anyone saying “Thus sayeth the Lord” if the Lord had not spoken. All of you have experienced this. You have had people say you said something you did not say. This can be very damaging to your character. It is very destructive to your name. Why? Because it makes you out to be something that you are not. How much more important is it for God to protect His character? It is fitting that God would have put this as one of the ten most important commandments as the nation of Israel moved towards Canaan.
What does this mean for us? Well, for starters we understand that the third commandment is certainly not focused on something so trivial as saying “God damn it!” The funny thing is that while some people may never think of using that phrase, people all over the Christian religious landscape are breaking the third commandment every day, damaging the Lord’s reputation. “Thus sayeth the Lord . . .” “God told me to tell you . . .” “God says that if you send in this much money, you will be blessed.” I could go on and on, but you get the point. Using the name of the Lord in vain means that you do damage to His reputation and character through false and unsure claims. Think again before you say “God said . . .” Make sure that He has really said it. If you are unsure, make your statement reflect your uncertianty. Saying “I think God is telling you to . . .” rather than “God is telling you to . . .” may not be as authoritative, but it will keep God’s reputation safe and keep you from breaking the third commandment.

A parable of and by the emerging church

2007-07-16T19:12:00.000-04:00

If the people who built the railroads in the united states were actually interested in transporting people, they would now own the airlines. But they don't! The industrial historians tell us that the reason for this is that once the railroad companies had completed the huge task of driving the lines across the US, they lost their focus. Instead of continuing to pioneer ways of allowing free movement of people, they lost sight of the key end and focused internally on the one means to that end that they had made.

For a century or so, this was no problem because the rail road was still the best way to get around, but with the advent of the airlines the railroad companies were overtaken by a mode of transportation that was massively better. And their customers flocked to it.

Or at least most of them did. There were still a few old romantics who just loved the railroad and who continued to dress up in their finery, climb aboard, and drift along gently, talking to each other about how the railroad was the PROPER way to travel. About haw much better it was than this fancy airline stuff. They assured each other everything was going to be just fine, while the planes full of people shot by overhead.

New wine is currently being waisted by ruptured wine skins. And it outrageous to ask the workers to keep pressing the grapes when the vineyard keeps pouring it into old old skins, allowing them to rupture and spill the newness into the drains.

NOTE: This is a widely circulated parable among the emerging church movement. As far as I can tell it's author is unknown. I have heard it told several times, sometimes on podcasts sometimes in person. It has even been included in the forward to at least one book. But each time the storyteller explains they heard it from someone else... I believe this a mark of the emerging church, that we share stories and ideas freely. The ultimate goal is the healing of our world through the expansion of "The Kingdom of God."

Erwin

2007-07-14T10:44:00.001-04:00

“The church is not here to meet our needs. We are the church here to meet the needs of the world.”- Erwin McManus

war and hate

2007-07-13T12:45:00.001-04:00

Any view we take concerning the use of force to resist evil must have a deep and comprehensive view of the reality of evil in this world. It would be comforting if we could find refuge in a principle like “it is absolutely wrong to kill” or “it is absolutely right to kill in self-defense.” But the reality of this fallen world makes such certainty impossible.
While almost all wars have been immoral (just as many police actions and acts of personal aggression are immoral), it is not possible to demonstrate that all acts of aggression are immoral.
Most wars are an abomination in the eyes of God, and, regrettably, many Christians have identified themselves with many of them. I believe this greaves God... However, under certain circumstances, there seems no alternative than protecting the innocent against evil.One of the most serious mistakes that Christians can make is to believe that participation in a "just war" is grounds to ignore Jesus’ command for them to love their enemies (Matthew 5:43-47 ). Wartime propaganda always tries to arouse hatred towards the enemy by portraying them as unqualifiedly evil.

I believe when Jesus said love your enemies he didn't mean from 10,00 feet while dropping bombs on them...

I believe Jesus presented us with a third way.

Jesus calls us to turn the other cheek. Not pick up a sword and retaliate. But turn the other cheek is not just lay down and take it pacifism. See Jesus is giving this concept in the context of first century Jewish culture.

Money is the root of all evil?

2007-07-11T16:35:00.001-04:00

Money is the root of all evil

This expression stems from the biblical phrase that says, "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils" (1 Timothy 6:10). There is a big difference between the two statements. Money is neutral and can be used either for the good or for the bad. Money of itself is not evil, yet the love of it is the root of all kinds evil, like greed...

And really do you thing money is the root of ALL evil?

What about war (murder)? I know some wars are fought about money. But more are fought for territory or power. And while that can be closely related to money it is not the same thing. In fact I submit to you that instead they booth have the same root cause.

Evil says I need a bigger house, a faster car, more expensive clothing. While most of the world lives in shacks, walks miles for clean water, and only receives one pair of shoes a year.

Evil says my comfort is more important than anyone, or any thing, else.

Evil says as long as I can consume more then it doesn't matter if the rest of humanity suffers.

I believe the root of all evil is selfishness!

A terrable Paradox

2007-07-02T21:41:00.000-04:00

So I took my kids to the neighborhood park today. It was filled with kids running, swinging, sliding, laughing, and playing.

The beautiful scene was broken when a marine helicopter flew over head. All of the climbing, swinging, sliding, laughing, and playing stopped. Some of the kids pointed, there were a few ohs and ahas, most just stared. One boy made machine gun sounds... And I was struck at the great and terrible ugliness of it.

Later in the day as we were leaving grandma and Grandpa's house we found their neighborhood had been converged upon by a dozen or More balloon crews. they laid out the hot air balloons in the front yards. The neighborhood kids gathered and laughed and played. They watched as these huge balloons filled and gently floated into the sky. Neighborhood children ran back and forth screaming with delight. No machine gun sounds this time. I was struck again by the peace and beauty of the whole scene.

Later upon reflection I felt God showing me a bigger picture... What we put on the horizon, the next generation sees. It's up to us to decide what kind of world we want to create. It's up to us what kind of world they will dream of. A world filled with beauty laughter and wonder... Or fear terror and war.

Another World is Possible..... http://www.awip.us/

2007-06-30T08:23:00.001-04:00

Can we please put to rest the war between Science and Faith?

Have you ever forgotten anything - an appointment, an important birthday, something at a store, where you left your wallet or keys? Have you ever had an automobile accident that was your fault - due to a laps in attention or judgement? If your mind is capable of having important memory lapses or being responsible for serious accidents, how do you know when you can trust it?

Is it possible that you're really insane, so insane that everyone knows it but you? Is it possible that everyone is just humoring you, pretending that you're normal, but you are actually out of touch with reality? Or maybe you are just dreaming,. Maybe you're a character in someone elses dream, and of course this whole thing seams real, since the other persons imagination wills you to think it's all real. How do you know these possibilities aren't true?

The Eskimos, I'm told, have dozens of words for snow. They would never think of saying, "its snowing," any more than we would say, "Weather is occurring." The statement is to general to be of any use. The specificity of their language causes them to see differences among types of frozen crystalline precipitation that are lost to the rest of us. Is it possible that your language similarly blinds you to many important spiritual distinctions and realities that others, who don't limit themselves to what they can describe or have personally experienced, can see clearly? And is it possible that all human language guides our thoughts into ruts that keep us from knowing reality in other, perhaps fuller, ways? Is it possible for out minds to go beyond the normal limits of our languages?

In ancient times everyone "knew" the earth was flat. Before Galileo's day everyone "knew" the sun rotated around the earth. Before the Civil War many people"knew" that slavery was completely justified. How do we know that many of the things we think we know today won't be shown to be false in the future?

Scientific knowledge is based on repeatable experimentation. As data increases, as hypotheses "work" under repeated testing, one makes an inductive leap form specific results to generalizations, which are accepted as "knowledge" or as "fact." There is a great little handheld game called 20Q. The makers of the game claim that if you think of an object and answer the games questions it will untimely correctly guess what you are thinking. And the game has done just that millions of times for hundreds of thousands of users. However there is a flaw in the game. If you think of gazebo, the game will not be able to guess it... Which raises a great question. Is something true just because it works consistently?

Consider for a moment the thoughts of Albert Einstein:

As far as the propositions of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain , they do not refer to reality.
- Ideas and Opinions

The supreme task of the physicist is the search for those highly universal laws from which a picture of the world can be obtained by pure deduction. There is no logical path leading to these laws. They are only to be reached by intuition, based upon something like an intellectual love.
-The World as I see It

The mechanics of discovery are nether logical nor intellectual. It's a sudden illumination, almost a rapture. Later, to be sure, intelligence and analysis and experiment confirm (or invalidate) the intuition. But initially there is a great leap of the imagination.
-Crossan, The Dark Interval

"A sudden illumination, rapture, intuition, intellectual love, a great leap of the imagination"... They sound like the words of a poet or prophet, not a scientist. But science is a creative process involving many faculties in addition to cold hard reason. The popular MYTHS of the objectivity and certainty not withstanding, knowledge and belief are not enemies. They are partners in the search for truth.

What then is the relationship between faith and knowledge? What if faith, instead of being a step back from the limits of our ability to know and understand, could actually be a flight beyond the rim? What if the word "knowledge," used to denote certainty gained by rationalistic and empirical means, is actually only appropriate foe mundane facts, pedestrian inquiries, common commodities? what if there is another category of reality in the universe, no less real just because it doesn't it doesn't shrink itself to our instruments and portals of "KNOWLEDGE"? What if that category, call it mystery or spirituality or even faith, dwarfs all of our knowledge, just as space dwarfs our little earth? Are we humble enough to look up from the little things we are so proud of comprehending and controlling, to face massive realities and humbling mysteries greater than ourselves, and therefore greater than our ability squeeze into out little boxes of "certainty" and "knowledge"?

Are you willing to step off the narrow ledge of knowledge to soar into broad spaces of faith?

*** If this has helped you in any way, then please consider watching Rob Bells "Everything is spiritual DVD, and or reading Finding faith by Brian McLarian. Both of these resources help me in the shaping and direction of this post.***

2006-10-13T17:13:00.000-04:00

Please read Being the body before responding to this post. These are not the only questions these chapters rase but I thought they would get the conversation started. Please feel free to answer any of them, or skip them all. And please add your own questions...

How has the misconception that the church is a buliding hurt us?

How can we help people, believers and missing people, turn this arround and view the church as the body of Christ?

How do you feel about the statement "Paradise is not achieved by anything we can do-Spiritually, politically, or otherwise- But by the gift of God."

What is your gut reaction to the fact that that nearly 50 Percent of highly commited evangelical Protestants agreed with the statement that many religions can lead to eternal Life?

How do feel about what the Barna polls that show 41 percent of church goers said their congregations did nothing over the prior twelve months to adress issues raised by the 9-11 attacks?

What is our responsibility here?

How has the reign of individualism effected the church? How has it effected your personal faith?

Why do we (North Americans) act more like consumers and less like commited Disciples ? What can we do about that?

What do you think of the prison story?