Your mind is the scene of the crime.

Woven into the writings of the Scriptures we find the concept that the mind is a battlefield. The epic wars between good and evil, better and best, the flesh and the spirit – all rage in our inner thoughts. The fight begins in our center of consciousness, but its outcome has the power to determine our destiny and expresses itself in our words and actions. Jesus addressed the legalism of His generation this way:

²⁰He went on: “What comes out of a man is what makes him ‘unclean.’ ²¹For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, ²²greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. ²³All these evils come from inside and make a man ‘unclean.’ “  -Mark 7

The word “inception”, for the purposes of the Leonardo DiCaprio film, is defined as the process of “planting” an idea into the mind of a target subject by “breaking into” their dreams. If done properly, the mark would accept that idea as their own. In a debate about whether this was actually possible, one character explains that it is almost impossible because “the mind can always trace the origin of an idea back to its source.” The movie also describes an idea as the most powerful force in the universe – like an unstoppable virus it consumes the subject and forever changes them.

Consider for a moment that power – the ability to plant the seed of an idea that grows into an all-consuming passion – a simple suggestion that becomes the only reality that matters to your victim. How could an evil mind take advantage of such power? And how could you ever hope to defend against it?

The characters in the movie decide that, in order for the idea to take root, they would have to use the simplest version of the thought possible and use the subject’s fears, joys, relationships, and history to embed it as deep as possible. They battle the subject’s “projections”, who attack them to protect his mind. SPOILER ALERT: they succeed.

I found myself thinking of another “thought criminal.” At the dawn of the world, in the bliss of the Garden, the Serpent planted the simplest seed of rebellion possible: “Did God really say that?” For the balance of human history, to this very day, we fight to find the origin of that one thought. Its consequences color our every waking moment. Its outgrowth has warped the very fabric of the Creation itself. We are no longer who we were created to be, and we are weighted down by the notion that this is exactly how we want it. It is always there, tickling at the corner of our mind – “Did God really say…Did God really mean…Is God really God?” For the most part, we have no clue our thoughts have been tampered with. We can’t trace the origin of the idea. We are victims of a universal felony, and our minds are the scene of the crime.

Those of us who have been rescued by Jesus from “death into life” still fight the same battle. The difference is that we have been awakened to the presence of an intruder in our own psyche. We see that the enemy is within – plying the same trade, tilling deep to plant the same fabrication. Elemental to our survival is discerning the truth from the fiction, and to do so, we are taught to take our own thoughts prisoner:

⁵We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. (2 Cor. 10)

We can’t simply assume that our thoughts are our own. We must capture them, interrogate them, and determine their genesis; “Where do you come from? Who do you work for?” We must remain continually vigilant, always aware that the nemesis of our souls is at work in our old nature, attempting “inception” at every point of weakness. And we must discipline our minds to focus on truth, beauty, humility, and light.

⁸Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. (Phil. 4)

Personal story time: The Bible calls Satan “the accuser of our brothers.” In the battle of the mind, I have had one consistent recurring experience: when I am tired, overworked, hurting, lonely, or otherwise weak, I will suddenly remember a moment of personal failure. Often it will be something I haven’t thought of for years, or an event I barely remember. The accusing memory is almost always something I have repented of and committed to Jesus, not something I am being newly convicted of. It is sudden, acute, and always accompanied by a crippling sense of guilt and worthlessness. It overtakes my thoughts and becomes the center of my attention.

For years I struggled to “shake it off”, to try to forget, to “get past it.” To ignore it. But that proved only a short term solution, and in quiet moments, the accusation would come flooding back. It’s not enough to ignore the thought – you have to confront it. You have to back it into a corner at gunpoint and ask “where did you come from?” And don’t take “Orlando” for an answer. I’ve learned you have to then overwhelm guilt and fear with thoughts about truth, forgiveness, beauty, and prayer. This is the fight – it is active, visceral, and more real than the air we breathe.

Learning to live like Jesus begins with a change of heart and mind. A new thought. A beautiful, powerful, all-consuming reality: Grace. It is unmerited favor. Forgiveness. True freedom. Real peace. These are our new realities. We think on them to combat the distortion. God did say. God is. And we are His. In so doing we train our mind to recognize truth and to seek out and attack the lie, like so many mental white blood cells.

I encourage you to train your mind, to take up the fight. To test every thought. And to go see “Inception” in IMAX, because…wow! It will make your brain hurt, but it’s worth it…

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I have another post for viraljesus almost fully cooked, but thought I would leave it another week while this one percolates…I will also be speaking this Sunday at Redwood Hills – come on by if you’re in the area…

Jon

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One week from tomorrow, God willing, we will welcome a fourth girl – Ella Rae – into our family. I was thinking tonight about the years we ached for just one child and the task we have now undertaken – raising 4 girls. It’s more than I ever hoped for, but now I’m praying (as I think all parents must) that it’s not more than I can handle…

As I think tonight about the mysteries of fathers and daughters, I randomly remembered this music video from our old pal Lindsay Lohan, back when she was a young starlet with a bright future. I don’t know how much of this is embellished and how much is autobiography, but I do remember how I felt when I saw it for the first time: physically ill. And maybe a little angry. And I am thinking now about the tragic turns her life has taken, and thinking that maybe we should have seen it coming back then.

I dream of another you, one who would never.
Never, leave me alone to pick up the pieces.
A Daddy to hold me, that’s what I needed.

Haunting. Especially for us father-types. When I see LiLo in a news story, I don’t see a hedonistic Hollywood celeb or a cautionary tale or a target of ridicule. I see the scared, angry, hurting little girl in this video. And I think two things:

One: Lindsay, you do have a Father dying to hold you, whole will never leave you alone, who will pick up the pieces. And He’s close. And it’s never too late.

Two: Dear God – make me like You so I don’t mess up my girls.

It’s not that I’m worried I will wake one day and realize I have suddenly become a violent alcoholic. Through the Spirit I’ve spent a lot of years of my life nailing a lot of natural inclinations (like bad temper and addictive personality) on a lot of big gnarly crosses. I’m also not thinking I will ever be perfect. I know I have a lot to learn, and that I’ll probably figure most of it out just in time to walk them down the aisle and hand them off to some other dude.

What I am concerned with is the thousand tiny steps from here to there – the millions of moments that make up the relationship between daddy and daughters. I want to get those right more than I get them wrong. I am a little worried I might wake up one day and realize I have suddenly become that distant, irrelevant, cold persona so many young girls see their father as. And I am hoping my concern is good proof that I’m on the right track.

So for what it’s worth, here’s what I think I know is important so far. I will be completely and uncomfortably transparent and tell you these are my prayers at the moment:

1. Four girls, a wife, and a neutered cat will live at my house. As the only dude in residence, I want to be a man, in every sense of the word, so my girls will know what that looks like. And so their future boyfriends fear for their safety. I pray I can learn from Jesus’ example how to be aggressive when it’’s needed and lamb-like when it’s not, and what true masculinity is all about, beyond anatomy, meat-eating, and love of engine repair.
2. The prophet said of Jesus “a bruised reed he will not break.” As His disciple, I pray for a gentleness and discernment that will help me not crush the sensitive spirits of little girls with harsh words, impatience, or even good-natured teasing. I pray for the Holy Spirit to physically beat me senseless when I’m being a jerk to my wife or my girls. Maybe a tree could fall on my head from time time. That would do it.
3. I pray for eyes to see the unique gifts and greatnesses of each of my girls. They are all so different – the nature and nurture debate is settled for me – their personalities are hard-wired! And they all need to know they are just as God intended, that different is great, and they are fearfully and wonderfully made. Some people call that good self-esteem, I think of it more as healthy self-image – seeing who I am in through the eyes of the One who made me. I pray for the right words to encourage and build up and “fan into flame.”
4. I pray for the ability to provide security and stability for my family, so they can grow up without fear. I am also praying that God will help me rely on Him for security, stability, and provision, not just try to do it all myself. I’m still learning to trust. And I pray I win the lottery, even though I don’t play it. Or that at least one of them can get a football scholarship.
5. I pray Jesus will help me learn how to be a better husband. Fourteen years have come and gone, and I still don’t know what I’m doing. But my girls need to grow up with a real, live, functional “in-love” married couple living in their house so they know that it’s possible. It’s something I didn’t have modeled for me, and I am always needing the Spirit’s help to figure out how to make it better.
6. I pray God will keep me from sin and stupidity and boredom and idle hands. It would just be the absolute worst for my girls to have a hard time trusting or believing in God because I preached the Gospel then had a massive moral failure.
7. I pray my greatest achievements in discipleship would be leading Janae, Corinne, Maya, and Ella to become followers of Jesus – that they would not only be my daughters in the flesh, but my daughters in the Faith.
8. I pray I live a good long healthy  time so I can take my kids’ kids to Disneyland. And since faith without works is dead, I also pray for the discipline to get my sorry carcass back on the treadmill and to “just say no” to leftover Easter candy before I start losing appendages to retinopathy.
9. I pray all of my faults, weaknesses, and shortcomings would nullified by the grace, love, acceptance, and forgiveness of Jesus, shared freely in our home. I want our house to be a place of healing and hope. And I want my girls to rest knowing their father on Earth loves them, but their Father in Heaven loves them perfectly.

Maybe some of you older dads of daughters out there can give me a number ten – nine just seems incomplete. Or maybe you can just start a 12-step group for us. I’ll bring the brews.

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I’ve also been studying to teach about some of the “Hard Words of Jesus” at Redwood Hills. The upshot of both of those efforts is that I have been thinking a lot about Jesus’ ministry on a practical level – His words, His way of doing things, and how it affected the first generation of His disciples. A million deep thoughts come from that, but here’s one for today:

It’s hard to be like Jesus.

Anyone who’s known me for longer than 30 seconds knows I love Rich Mullins – even now so many years after his death, his words teach me. He wrote a song called “Hard” that addresses this very thing – it’s easy to get over-impressed with my general goodness – my Judeo-Christian American roots. My work ethic. the things I do and don’t do because I follow Jesus.

Well I do get a little much over-impressed
’til I think of Peter and Paul and the Apostles.
I don’t stack up too well against them, I guess,
But by the standards ’round here I ain’t doing that awful.

It’s hard to do what we know we should; it’s even harder to do it with the right heart, but that’s what Jesus asks of us. It is hard to be like Jesus. And I know I can’t even approach it on my own. Only the Holy Spirit, working in and through me, makes it even possible for me to do ONE right thing for the right reasons.

It’s a lot easier to stop at “legal” or “enough” or “acceptable.” It’s easier to justify, to forget, to judge others. It’s easier to lose track of days than it is to redeem the time.

But as I read the hard words of Jesus and the wisdom of Paul for young overseers, I want to do better, to reach farther, to try harder, to be a little more like Jesus every day. Not because it will make me successful or famous or even make me feel better, but because He is everything that is whole, healthy, beautiful, and right with the universe. If faith is a journey, I want to at least know that my chosen destination is a heart like his.

It’s a bit of a wistful rant, I know, and it’s nothing earth-shattering – just my thoughts today. I hope it encourages at least someone. It’s hard to be like Jesus. But He’s all I want to be. So no matter how hard, that’s what I’m going for. and through a thousand tiny corrections and revisions of heart and spirit and focus and action, may we each get a little closer every day. Oh – and here’s the lyrics to ponder – thanks Rich.

Well, I am a good Midwestern boy
I give an honest day’s work if I can get it
I don’t cheat on my taxes, I don’t cheat on my girl
I’ve got values that would make the White House jealous

Well, I do get a little much over-impressed
‘Til I think of Peter and Paul and the apostles
I don’t stack up too well against them I guess
But by the standards ’round here I ain’t doing that awful

Lord, it’s hard to turn the other cheek
Hard to bless when others curse you
Oh Lord, it’s hard to be a man of peace
Lord, it’s hard, oh it’s hard,
You know it’s hard to be like Jesus

And it’s hard to step out on them waves
Hard to walk beyond your vision
Oh Lord, it’s hard to be a man of faith
Lord, it’s hard (hard), Lord, it’s hard (so hard),
Oh Lord, it’s hard to be like Jesus
Don’t you know it’s hard (hard), oh it’s hard (yeah hard),
Oh Lord, it’s hard to be like Jesus

Well, His eye’s on the sparrow
And the lilies of the field I’ve heard
And He will watch over you and He will watch over me
So we can dress like flowers and eat like birds

And it’s hard when your soul had been stripped bare
Hard to lift your eyes toward Heaven
Oh Lord, it’s hard to be a man of prayer
Lord, it’s hard, oh it’s hard,
You know it’s hard to be like Jesus

Lord, it’s hard to be a man of peace
But it’s hard (so hard), ain’t it hard (hard),
You know it’s hard to be like Jesus

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As I prepare to share the story of how our family came to be this Sunday at Redwood Hills, I am thinking about one of the main questions we get asked a lot: are fertility treatments consistent with Christian ethics (or more like “are Christians allowed to do that kind of thing?”)? It’s a great question, and one we have spent plenty of time wrestling with. I won’t have time to go into any detail on Sunday, so I thought I would blog it here for you three readers (yes, we are up to three now ). Let me first lay some ground rules.

This is not the Law from Heaven on fertility treatments. It’s also not my attempt to help you circumvent the process of wrestling with this question. If you are facing it, you need to. To me this is not a political issue or a morality tale, it’s simply an intensely personal choice we had to apply our faith to. We hope we got it right. We did our homework. We prayed for wisdom. We believe we were heard.

THE STORY
After trying to conceive for something like 6 or 7 years, our doctor scheduled a surgery for my wife Stacey. He had seen a couple of possible issues on an ultrasound, but needed to operate to find out what was really going on. The surgery took an hour or two longer than it was supposed to. Instead of an outpatient, go home that night event, it ended up being a several day hospital stay. And we received our first real diagnosis: Endometriosis, which had badly damaged the fallopian tubes. “I just don’t think it’s going to happen.” That was the summary.

After recovery time from the surgery, we were presented with three options: 1. Keep trying and see what happens. 2. Adopt. 3. Look into IVF (in vitro fertilization – read up on it if you are unaware of this procedure – I will refer to a lot of things without explaining them all). Since our early 30’s were passing us by quickly, we chose to discard option 1 and evaluate the other two. Both presented a long and expensive road ahead with no guaranteed outcome. In the end we decided to exhaust whatever medical options we had that were consistent with our faith. This part of the decision was fairly subjective and personal – we believe in adoption and respect those who adopt, we simply wanted to keep trying to conceive first, then pursue adoption next.

As we investigated IVF, we carefully examined each part of the process and subjected it to some tests. The main principle we judged everything by was “can this be done in a way that is consistent with the value God places on human life?” The second part was “will our actions have any unintended consequences?” Third, “is this part of the process creating life (or ‘potential life’ for those who like to split hairs)?” If so, how is that life (potential life) treated?

Another principle was what I call the “Dr. Frankenstein test.” “Is this process or procedure attempting to “play God” and mess with the natural order of Creation?”

It sounds silly, but that last one is a rhetorical minefield. In reading lots of opinions, I found that there are good Christian folk who believe most modern medicine fits the Dr. Frank definition – we are playing God by keeping people alive in general. Not being a member of a cult, I reject that, but there has to be SOME ethical limit to medical science, right? Where is the line?

Maybe I can help advance that conversation by telling you what we decided would be consistent with our faith when approaching the IVF process:

1. We felt the process in and of itself is not evil, but could be used for evil.
2. Family planning in general is a decision to create or not create life based on a couple’s will. Since we don’t believe it is is evil to choose to get pregnant or prevent this creation of life through non-destructive contraception, it is not evil on its face to pursue fertility treatments that assist in conception (drug treatments, ovulation prediction, etc.).
3. Using modern medical techniques to circumvent a damaged reproductive organ (in this case fallopian tubes) in the pursuit of restoring a normal bodily function (reproduction) is not dissimilar to the use of an artificial heart or a thousand other medical techniques we accept as ethical.
4. Embryo creation, care, and handling would be the most critical ethical decisions we made, and we insisted on working with a doctor who allowed us to make every decision related to embryos.

I have to stop here and elaborate on some specific choices we made regarding embryos. We have long held that life begins at the point of conception. We read the words of many well-respected Christian thinkers and writers who prefer to say that “potential life” begins at conception, since an embryo cannot become a viable fetus without gestating to a minimum term. They would argue that viable life is created later, possibly at implantation into the uterine wall, possibly later. I concede that important point and respect their rhetorical stance. But rhetoric and theory take a back seat when you have to deal with potential life and death decisions, and for me I think this is one of those areas where we should err on the side of caution. Science apart from faith tells us that something unique happens when two reproductive cells combine to form one organism, and it is at this point that our ethics must be well thought out and carefully considered. And there’s only so much we as fallen humans can really know. Jesus teaches us to go beyond the Law to seek out true righteous acts. So just in case, we decided to treat embryos as de facto life and accord them respect, prayer, and careful handling. This led to a few other decisions:

1. We would only allow embryos to be created from our eggs and sperm, and only for implantation, not for research or donation. On the subject of donation, we really felt that if the eggs or sperm were not viable we would essentially be “adopting” someone else’s cells, and it would be better to offer a home to a child in need of adoption than to pursue donor cells. We also were not comfortable with the idea of donating embryos, as they would then leave our protection and we would have no guarantee they would be treated ethically.
2. We would use every embryo created, no matter how many rounds of IVF this required. This was a big decision, as it is common to harvest and create from 10-15 embryos each cycle. Most of these do not reach the stage where they can be implanted, but they could. We decided that if it were in our power, no viable embryos would be destroyed.
3. We prayed that we would have the wisdom to make the right decisions and that life would be honored with our choices. We felt great peace that God had heard and we were not disobeying Him or rationalizing, so we proceeded.

These decisions led us to ask lots of questions and deal very directly with our doctors. They also closed some doors for us financially (if you are willing to donate eggs, there are programs where the recipients pay for your IVF treatment, which can cost upwards of $15,000-$30,000). We also had to be very sure the tubes were the only issue and that pregnancy was otherwise possible.

We were blessed with doctors who were not only good at what they do, but listened to our concerns and complied with our wishes. We did two rounds of IVF. Both resulted in pregnancies (twins, then a single).  Both times, the doctors were unable to locate Stacey’s left ovary, so only a limited number of eggs could be harvested. In round one, we ended up with four viable embryos. In round two we had three. In both instances we implanted all of the embryos.

Implantation is a big day in IVF. It’s basically setting the embryo down in the uterus in hopes of it finding a home to grow, just like in the normal process. The doctors do all they can to prepare the body to receive an embryo with drugs and hormones and bed rest. But in the end, they can only create the conditions where it is likely. There are no guarantees.

Before the implantation, the embryologist gives you a blown-up microscope image of the embryos. He talks a lot about science and numbers and grades and ratings, but I didn’t pay much attention. To me, I was holding my babies’ first baby pictures, and that was a weighty moment.

Embryologist Guy then leaves you to your thoughts in the hallway while the procedure is happening. Those were profound moments for me as I walked the halls, gripping that photo and committing first four, then three potential lives and their safe keeping to my Father. After all the processes and all the procedures and everything modern medicine had to offer, we still came down to a moment out of anyone’s control.We could only ask God for help.

But for me, that’s how it had been all along.

Let me close by saying this is not a manifesto or meant to be an indictment of anyone’s choices in this realm. These are hard decisions, and we all have to make them the best we can. God is gracious and compassionate and faithful to lead us through the tough decisions. This is how he lead us. Would love to hear your story.

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There is none righteous.

Jesus came for one purpose – to fulfill the righteous requirements of the Law on our behalf. The Law was true, and just and good, but we were incapable of fulfilling it. The Law puts into writing the metaphysical reality of the universe as God created it – sin must be atoned for by the shedding of innocent blood. And  “when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.” The single greatest truth in all of human history.

But the people of Jesus’ day missed the point, and many times we still do today (that’s a corporate “we” – meaning all of us, especially me). They missed that those “under the law” needed to be redeemed as much as everyone else. They were continually peppering Him with questions about the interpretation of the Law on specific points. In modern times, we dub this “legalism”. It is a perpetual obsession with the question: “How far is too far?” Or “Is it legal?”

In American society, we ask this question all the time. In business, sports, or relationships, what is the limit? What constitutes cheating – in my marriage or on my taxes? Is all really fair in love and war? What is “ethical” or “unethical.”

For the most part, we fall back on the rules. “Technically, my company does not prohibit X, so it is not wrong.” “No one directly asked me just the right question, so I didn’t lie.” And so on. When faced with the Word in the Flesh, the questions were similar:

Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?

Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?

Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!

One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:”Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the “sinners” and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and ’sinners’?”

These are questions dripping with self-righteousness and self-justification. “I follow the letter of the law, so I am right.” This in a culture where following the Law was the only path to salvation. They forgot that Abraham was justified by his faith BEFORE the law (but I digress, read Hebrews and Romans for more on that). To Jesus, “right” was simply not enough:

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: ‘The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy loads and put them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.  Everything they do is done for men to see…

‘Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.  Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.’

We are increasingly interested in legalism. Both wings of Christianity use it to justify their actions. “The Bible doesn’t say this is wrong specifically, so it’s okay for me to do whatever I want.” TRANSLATION: “It’s not against the rules.” On the other end, “You don’t follow every rule in the Bible the way I do or think you should, therefore you are wrong, and I have moral authority.” TRANSLATION:  “I am right because I follow the rules better.”

The religious people of Jesus day relied on their own righteousness. Jesus taught that “right” just wasn’t enough. You have to be redeemed. And reborn. To the religious, he says:

I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.

To the libertine he says:

Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.

And then launches into a series of teachings (Matthew 5-7) on how to have a righteousness that exceeds legalism.

To us all, He says:

“‘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. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

For my part, I have lived in both extremes – I grew up in a world that valued outward piety and regard for “the rules”, with little thought of the heart and no room for failure or forgiveness. I have also at times believed the lie that “if it isn’t in the rule book, it’s okay to do and be proud of, even if it violates my conscience” is a valid way to see the world. So you see, I really am talking about me .

This Christmas, as I think about the Baby who came to save us all, I am praying He will save me from legalism – both self-righteous brands of it – and free me to live in forgiveness, grace, and true right acts and attitudes. The promise of the Manger and the Cross are that we can be released from our sin and guilt and free to learn to live like Jesus. If we are truly free, then, let’s not create chains of legalism for ourselves – even if it affects our free time activities or sense of smug self-worth.

Oh – and Merry Christmas!

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A decade ago the Christian Church in America was at the apex of a movement to seek more relevant ways to engage our culture and put more keisters in our buildings every Sunday. That last part sounds cynical, but it’s the best way I can describe it. That was the point – to grow our attendance. And that was important, because most of us had some buildings to fill, and those gigantic mortgages don’t pay themselves. As a result, we engaged in market research and applied countless business methods to our ministries, all in the hopes of reversing what we had just then realized was a steady decline in attendance.

I won’t bore you with the details of everything that came from that, but I will oversimplify: The “seeker-sensitive” movement led to the founding of mega-churches, which led to the “emerging church” movement (define that however you like – I can’t anymore), all of which were centered around the relentless pursuit, as near as I can tell, of the answer to this question from the 90’s:

Q: How can we present the Gospel in a way that is acceptable to present-day Americans?

A: (If I may be so bold) You can’t.

 

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean that you can’t create a church that non-churchy people will like. I think it’s entirely possible to create a social organization that attracts people of all stripes. And it’s frankly not that hard. I have some good marketing books you can read. Build or rent a building. Make it like a community center or a mall or a performing arts center. Then put on lots of free or cheap events and start a lot of programs. Make sure you avoid anything that looks or feels remotely religious or Christian or “Churchy”. Adopt the culture’s fashion, media, catch-phrases, consumption habits, and political points of view. Loudly proclaim these as proof of your hipness. Get a few tattoos.

If you want to go all the way, you will also need to develop a keen sense of the stupidity of church culture (even that of your own church) and blog about it. A lot. Self-deprecating online humor is extremely important - you want to make sure the online culture knows that you know that they think you’re idiots, and you pretty much agree.

It’s all marketing. Viral marketing, direct marketing, plan ol’ marketing marketing. It’s all putting lipstick on a pig (to turn a phrase in hopes of getting unrelated Google click throughs). And it all may very well be a waste of time. Because the pig in this metaphor is the Gospel. And ain’t ever gonna look too purty to some folk.

 

After buying the program, participating in, propagating, preaching, and purveying the ridiculous notion that the Gospel can be made palatable through proper packaging, I have decided we have believed a lie. And we should have known it all along. The generation before us thought political action could make God’s laws into America’s policies (think Moral Majority, Religious Right). Our generation believed cultural relevance would draw the world to our edifices (think rock and roll worship and social justice). But Paul gave us the score two millennia ago. We just didn’t want to believe it. We still don’t.

“…Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

- I Corinthians 1

If you’ve read anything else I’ve ever written, you know I don’t think relevance in and of itself is a bad thing. Neither is alcohol. But they’re both pretty destructive when they become the center of your existence. It’s all about the focus – are you a culturally relevant individual who has surrendered to the message of Jesus and now is trying to love your community and preach the same message to your culture? Great. Are you a culturally irrelevant person trying to be hip so that people will think you are cool and (by extension) so is the gospel? Not great.

A Personal Story to Make the Point

I grew up poor. And nerdy. And socially inept. In the 80’s. As we all know from John Hughes films, the one thing that could propel you from geek to chic in that era was the right clothes. Name brand clothes. So when I started making money for myself (paper route in the 40 below zero winters of central Montana), I bought the right clothes. The right shoes. The stuff everyone else had. Didn’t help. Was still a geek (back when that was a bad thing). Still am (though we geeks now run the world, so it’s not all bad anymore ).  No amount of proper clothing could change the fact that I was a brainy, sheltered, non-athletic, poor kid from the trailer park, and therefore very uncool. I got beat up just as much in my Nikes as I did in my Kmart brand shoes.

Some of you are thinking “Aha!” He’s just bitter because of Junior High! Trust me – I’m over it. But I do really wish I had learned the lesson of so many years ago and applied it to church philosophy a lot sooner.

We Preach Christ…

“We preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews (the religious) and foolishness to Gentiles (the intellectual).” Those words haunt me these days. As I look back over the years I realize we have preached Christ a lot of other ways.

We preach Christ the problem-solver. Christ the relevant. Christ the political activist. Christ the community organizer. Christ the Conservative. Christ the Liberal. Christ the weak. Christ the strong. Christ the best friend. Christ the personal choice. Christ the judge. Christ the path to success. Christ the rich. Christ the poor.

Christ the crucified is foolish to the intellectual. He doesn’t fit the Messiah image of the religious. He is too Liberal for the Conservatives. He is too Conservative for the Liberals. He is too demanding to the self-centered. He is too gracious to the self-righteous. He is too ambiguous to the fundamentalist. He is too specific to the libertine.

In a word, He is offensive.

This is the wonder and beauty of the Cross. That is God on that Cross. So powerful he can kill us all with a word. So gracious He allows His own death. If I believe that anything I have ever done, thought, said, or worn means anything in light of the Cross, then it’s time to go back and look again.

I am not arguing for an irrelevant church culture. I am arguing for the abolition of church culture. Let’s stop trying to be attractive. The Cross isn’t. And it is the single defining reality of our new existence – the beginning point of our journey.

I am convinced that true followers of Christ have all been captured by the Cross. We have all come to the understanding that our life, accomplishments, righteousness, possessions, and even our relevance are filthy rags in light of that sacrifice. We have found peace, grace, forgiveness , and hope at the Cross. And no one who has yet to be so captured, wrecked, and ruined will ever understand that. To explain our new life, all we can say is “Christ, crucified.” This is our only remaining credential. Our only word. Our only answer. Our only interest.

Here’s my thought. Let’s stop trying to be relevant. Let’s embrace the truth – the Cross will never be beautiful. Except to us.

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Evil.

There are some who disagree. They say this was justice – payback for years of American Imperialism and greed – some even say God’s judgement against us. If you want to decide what’s God’s judgement and what’s not (say for instance you’re John Piper and you like to interpret the weather), more power to you. I don’t claim that prophetic authority, and it is God’s to judge the merits of those who do. For me, one thing was abundantly clear: brutally murdering thousands of men, women, and children is evil. Cowardly, vile, despicable, murderous, and evil.

Many debate the existence of evil. Still others accept that evil exists, but contend that it can be reasoned with and convinced to be less evil-y. The Bible sees evil as a cancer, to be rooted out and purged. Willfully attacked and eradicated. Stood against. Hated. It teaches us that sin entered the world through the partaking of fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Every one of us is born with the innate ability to understand right and wrong, good and evil, righteousness and sin. And god calls us to hate evil and cling to what is good. Without apology, I hate what was done 8 years ago today.

I think my news radio habit started that day. For weeks after, we had the radio playing most of the time at the office, hearing the latest updates from three ground zeroes, hearing the latest speeches and announcements and casualty reports. To this day scarcely a day goes by that I don’t listen to or watch news and talk programs (much to the dismay of everyone who has to ride in a car with me).

This morning as I drove into Seattle in the pre-dawn hours, many had already gathered in New York City to remember 9/11. when I turned on the radio, they were reading the names of every victim, firefighter, policeman, and hero who died that day. I was struck with that remembrance, 8 years later. Not one is forgotten. Not one is left out. And in that recitation I heard the heart of God, who remembers every victim of evil, from the blood of Abel to the end of the age, and promises to never leave us, and that someday this too shall be made right. I was comforted by these words from Isaiah 43:

“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
       I have summoned you by name; you are mine. 

 ² When you pass through the waters,
       I will be with you;
       and when you pass through the rivers,
       they will not sweep over you.
       When you walk through the fire,
       you will not be burned;
       the flames will not set you ablaze.

Not one who suffered from the evil of that day or any other is forgotten. God promises that when we face evil, He is with us. And the story of the Bible begins and ends with a promise – evil was never meant to rule us, and it will someday be destroyed.

Billy Crockett wrote a song a long time ago inspired by the act of partaking in the Lord’s Table (Communion). His words are appropriate for today (transcribed the best I can remember it):

Pieces of life laid on the table
Here is the bread of life offered for us
Fill this cup, raise it up
Here’s to the Day- remember.

Can you sing for the ones whose voices are silenced?
Can you sing for the ones who’ve never been free?
Can you pray for peace, ache for peace?
Here’s to the Day that’s coming
God speed the Day…

Here’s to the Day – remember.

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I'm Kind of a Big Deal

At last we come to the end: Act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly. Now for the “walk humbly” part.

It would be hard to argue the fact that Will Ferrell’s supreme gift is his ability to create  characters that are big, loud, dumb - yet somehow lovable - horse’s rear ends. In so doing, he exposes the tendency in us all to think a little more highly of ourselves than our actual greatness merits. The prima facie case, of course, is his ass-ertion in “Anchor Man”:

“I’m not sure how to say this, but I’m kind of a big deal.”

I think most of the time I’m painfully aware of my own weaknesses and shortcomings. But there are days. Days when it’s easy to believe you are the sharpest crayon in your little box. Which reminds me of a North Dakotan joke (we tell those in Montana): What do you call a North Dakotan with half a brain? A genius. You see what I mean? Now I’ve isolated my North Dakotan readership with arrogant presumption and derision of their mental proficiencies. If they have finally gotten the Internet there, I’m hosed!

And God asks us to walk humbly with Him. Which leads the finite logical mind to start down a road of self-justification. We ask:

“Why does God care if we are humble? If He’s so great and we’re so..not great, what’s He trying to prove? Does He need us to grovel to feel good about Himself? Does He just want us constantly reminded we are less than navel lint? Is He that insecure?”

There’s a whole school of thought in Christianity that focuses squarely on one core truth, first and foremost: all of humanity is sinful, fallen, broken, perverted, lost, and incapable of even the slightest shred of decency. This fact is driven home with endless lists of why, how, and for which of our acts we are eternally fallen beyond all repair. Jonathan Edwards delivered the master thesis on the subject, and though many others have followed, few have matched his rhetorical sound and fury. Here’s a fun quote:

O sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in: ’tis a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hand of that God, whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you as against many of the damned in hell; you hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe it, and burn it asunder; and you have no interest in any mediator, and nothing to lay hold of to save yourself, nothing to keep off the flames of wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you ever have done, nothing that you can do, to induce God to spare you one moment.

The thing is, Edwards and his ilk are totally right. We are scum. And outside of life in Jesus, incapable of any goodness of our own. But this is not the core message of the Gospel. Else wise (to use the olde English) it is not that great of news. It’s like having your death sentence commuted to life in solitary confinement. You’ve escaped death, but to live what kind of life?

Even Edwards did not focus entirely on God’s wrath (though he and the other Awakening chaps seemed a bit obsessed with the subject). The insanely good news the Gospel represents, as we have said before, is that we are freed from death to life. Real, complete, and full life. In redeeming us from our sins, God is acting to set the world right – to operate as He intended, in relationship with us.

So back to walking humbly. I think it’s about balance (surprise, surprise). Our focus is not on how sinful and hopeless our nature is (though we agree it is). Jesus died for our sins so we can be free from them and their guilt. But our eyes are also not fixed squarely on just how special we are because we have been brought to the truth. We are no better in and of ourselves, but we also no longer rely on our own goodness alone.

On the other end of things from those who flog their congregations weekly with just how rotten they are (not a hard hypothesis to support) are the equally imbalanced Christian Tony Robbinses (is that the plural of Robbins?) who tout the greatness of themselves, their church, their teachings, and so on.

Not long ago I saw a TV commercial for a church showing good looking, young, suburban hipsters sitting at church together and having many good times reading the Bible. The voice over was a pastor saying how the people of the church were “cool, and smart, and good looking.”  I am not making this up. Translation: Jesus makes your teeth whiter and your clothes hipper and your IQ higher. As if. And monkeys might…

The grunge / indie / urban / emergent / emerging /  new skool / postmodern – whatever you call the Christians with their finger on the pulse of American culture (I can’t keep the names straight) – dudes now have an even newer twist on this old trend: putting together websites to critique the ridiculousness and excesses of other Christians, or even rate their churches. Translation: the idiots we write about are lame, but we know they are, so we are not lame. We are cool Christian people who are hip and with the times. You know – like all the guys back in high school who had to tell you they were cool and / or not lame. Those guys rocked!

And here I am blogging about how much better I am than them, because I have seen their hypocrisy. Oops.

You see the problem, right? Both ends suffer from a Ron Burgandy brand of narcissism. “I’m kind of a big deal.” And God reminds us to walk humbly – to remember that we are capable of excess, and capable of excessively critiquing the excesses of others. To recall the state we were rescued from, and to remember that apart from God’s grace we’d slide right back into it. And to put our sin in its place – not as the center of our every conversation, but nailed to the Cross.

 And nothing rings more true in my own soul than this great truth: “In Him we live, and move, and have our being.” That is, everything on earth draws its life and breath and existence from God Himself. And in realizing that I am utterly dependent on Him, not only for salvation, but for my daily existence, I find the most profound peace and comfort. I am not a big deal. But I know someone who is. And for now, He covers me.

It’s pretty easy for me to think I’m a big deal. It’s also pretty easy for me to become obsessed with my own shortcomings, replaying my own “fail blog” in my my head in the darkest hours of the night. But God invites me to walk humbly with Him. Not on my own with my issues, not full of my own greatness. With Him. And I really like that idea.

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 I was born in Turkey, but only because my father was in the Air Force. We moved to Montana when I was a year old (they have lots of missile silos there), and I graduated from Great Falls High. So now you know two important things: I grew up in a military family and a fairly small, reasonably isolated city in the middle of the plains (the only thing historically notable about my home town is that Lewis and Clark had to take their boats out of the Missouri there and portage around the giant waterfalls).

I’ve spent the last 16 years of my life in Western Washington, mostly in the Seattle area. So in the next two years, that balance will tip, and I will have spent half my life in each place – both of which have radically different views on America and what it means to be an American.

You also know (unless this is your first visit), that I am a disciple of Jesus and have spent the last 16 years pursuing and practicing pastoral ministry. So I have what may be considered three potentially conflicting views on the nation I didn’t choose to be born in, but am proud to call my country.

It’s popular today to say incendiary things about America. Phrases like “imperialism”, “injustice”, “oppression” and “downright mean” have been used to describe our nation. On the other side of the fence are died in the wool patriot types who respond with, “America – love it or leave it!” and the like. As followers of Christ, we can find in our ranks those who adhere to each extreme – those who see America as a land of great evil and injustice, and those who see her as God’s new chosen people, incapable of doing any wrong.

I don’t identify with either extreme. I love America, but my devotion to my country is limited by the nature of what America is – a human nation. While I could make the case that the American Experiment is one of the freest, fairest, and just forms of government ever conceived, at the end of the day, it is still only an earthly kingdom.

As followers of Christ, our first allegiance is not to a country, a flag, a system of government, a history, an ideology, a political party, or a group of people – it is to the Creator and His kingdom. This is why Jesus taught us to pray for His kingdom to come and why he actively rejected the zealot and nationalist arguments that His purpose as Messiah was to overthrow Rome and “restore the kingdom to Israel.” His mission was to open the doors of the Kingdom to come to everyone who would hear, receive, and live by His words.

As such, our primary concern is for ALL the people of the world, not just the people of America. Our mission is not to propagate a government, a culture, or a way of life. It is to carry the life-giving words of Jesus to the ends of the earth, to make disciples in every nation, and wait expectantly for the return of our King.

This does not mean, however, that we disconnect from our country or culture (as so many Christians have tried to do). It does not mean that we can’t see the positive in our nation and celebrate its strengths. It DOES mean that this are not the things we live and die for.

So this doesn’t get TOO long, allow me to post some random rants in the form of bullet points – here is what I am thinking:

• Americans have a free and prosperous culture. This is a potentially great benefit to the cause of Christ. I believe we who are given such incredible resources should not feel guilty, but rather blessed and also do everything in our power to maximize the resources we have been given to serve the cause of Christ. The New Testament teaches us the we are all given different measures of grace, and those who receive much will be held responsible for what they do with it. This is a great privilege and a great responsibility.
   
• America is not without faults and far from perfect, and pointing out that fact is not un-patriotic. In a free society, we should hold our leaders to a high standard and speak out when they deviate from that standard.
   
• Our goal as people of faith is not to make a “more Christian” nation – it is to use the freedoms we have to tell everyone we can of true freedom and hope in Jesus – to use our freedom to fulfill Christ’s commands. From that perspective, I am thankful to be an American and have the immense opportunities we have.
   
• Jesus did not die to form the United States. We, like every other nation, will be judged by our actions, and must walk humbly in light of that.
   
• As a follower of Jesus, I do not revel in or celebrate war, I pray for peace. But I also recognize that in a fallen world, the use of force is sometimes necessary to prevent or combat evil. I actively pray that world leaders, including our leaders, will know the difference.
   

I love being an American. I believe our founding fathers truly acknowledged God’s existence, and that led them to form a nation with freedom and responsibility. Not perfect, but perhaps the closest human governments have ever come to a free, fair, and open society.

I also believe that America, like every nation before it or to come after, pales in comparison to the Kingdom to come. I believe Paul when he reminds us “this world in its present form is passing away.”

I got to see Rich Mullins in Seattle before he died suddenly in a car wreck. It was a moving experience. He was so humble and genuine and loved Jesus in a way you could hear in his music, but feel when you saw him in person. It was a free show at SPU. At the end of the concert, the crowd, like crowds do) chanted for an encore. Rich came back and led in some popular worship tunes from his guitar. At the end of one the whole crowd sang together a Capella, and when the sound died down and the song was over, we looked up and he was just gone.

I say that to say this – to me, no one has captured the balance, the weightiness and wonder of what it is to be an American and a Christ follower better than Rich Mullins. He expresses both the greatness and imperfection of our country, without resorting to bitter vitriol. I leave you with the lyrics of “Land of My Sojourn”. The best way I can think to explain how I feel is this line :

 
“Nobody tells you when you get born here
How much you’ll come to love it
And how you’ll never belong here
So I call you my country
And I’ll be lonely for my home
I wish that I could take you there with me”
 

Enjoy. And happy Independence Day.

“And the coal trucks come a-runnin’
With their bellies full of coal
And their big wheels a-hummin’
Down this road that lies open like the soul of a woman
Who hid the spies who were lookin’
For the land of the milk and the honey
And this road she is a woman
She was made from a rib
Cut from the sides of these mountains
Oh these great sleeping Adams
Who are lonely even here in paradise
Lonely for somebody to kiss them
and I’ll sing my song ~ and I’ll sing my song
In the land of my sojourn

And the lady in the harbor
She still holds her torch out
To those huddled masses who are
Yearning for a freedom that still eludes them
The immigrant’s children see their brightest dreams shattered
Here on the New Jersey shoreline in the
Greed and the glitter of those high-tech casinos
But some mendicants wander off into a cathedral
And they stoop in the silence
And there their prayers are still whispered
And I’ll sing their song, and I’ll sing their song
In the land of my sojourn

Nobody tells you when you get born here
How much you’ll come to love it
And how you’ll never belong here
So I call you my country
And I’ll be lonely for my home
And I wish that I could take you there with me

And down the brown brick spine of some dirty blind alley
All those drain pipes are drippin’ out the last Sons Of Thunder
While off in the distance the smoke stacks
Were belching back this city’s best answer

And the countryside was pocked
With all of those mail pouch posters
Thrown up on the rotting sideboards of
These rundown stables like the one that Christ was born in
When the old world started dying
And the new world started coming on
And I’ll sing His song, and I’ll sing His song
In the land of my sojourn

And I will sing His song
In the land of my sojourn”

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It’s easy to see why. There is a lot of unavenged evil in the world. Sometimes it seems like the purveyors of injustice get a free pass. And it’s easy to believe that it would be nice to see some “enforced justice” handed out. Like the Charles Bronson / Dirty Harry / Punisher sort.

In American Cinema, this is a much-celebrated concept – the lone hero who, avenging the murder of his wife / girlfriend / niece / distant cousin, metes out justice from the barrel of a .45. The judge, jury, and executioner who prowls the city looking for evil-doers and gives them what they’ve got coming. The Paul Kersey, Wyatt Earp, Rifleman,  Regulators, William Munny, most of Schwarzenegger’s characters, and Denzel Washngton in “Man on Fire” – types. Guys who know how to set things straight.

And always the unspoken rule of film vigilante justice is this: If sufficient cause can be established, no amount of punishment is excessive. For catharsis to be cathartic, it has to be limitless in its brutality. After all, the bad guys had it comin’ (say it with me, “we’ve all got it coming, kid.”).

Sometimes we people of faith don’t veer far from this script. We know from God’s words that He hates sin and injustice. So do we. We’re sure there is a special place in hell for the perpetrators of evil. Murderers, rapists, child molesters, investment bankers – all have a day of reckoning ahead. We tremble with anticipation at the thought. Some day, this too shall be made right. We envision the Action Avenger Hero Jesus, dispatching the wicked to the lake of fire with a pithy send-off line (“You’re fired!” or “The heat is on!” or “If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen!” I’ve got a thousand of these).

That’s why it’s such a big let-down when God doesn’t take the kill shot.

We have this heart in common with Jonah. You know – “Go to Nineveh! No, I will run away! (Jaws music). Big fish digestive tract. Okay I’ll go! Fish blows chunks” – that Jonah. My favorite part of that story is not the barfing fish. It’s the tantrum in Jonah 3-4.

  ¹⁰ God saw what they had done, that they had turned away from their evil lives. He did change his mind about them. What he said he would do to them he didn’t do.

^1-2Jonah was furious. He lost his temper. He yelled at God, “God! I knew it—when I was back home, I knew this was going to happen! That’s why I ran off to Tarshish! I knew you were sheer grace and mercy, not easily angered, rich in love, and ready at the drop of a hat to turn your plans of punishment into a program of forgiveness! ³“So, God, if you won’t kill them, kill me! I’m better off dead!”

Up to this point, it’s a pretty good film script. Sort of “Jaws” meets “The Perfect Storm” with a promise of a disaster movie finale (think “Armageddon” if the nukes hadn’t saved everyone because the asteroid was heading for ancient Assyria and Space Shuttles, nukes, and Aerosmith hadn’t yet been invented). Then God has to go and NOT take out the bad guys. It’s like the Dark Knight has the Joker cornered and Jokie says “you know, I’m really sorry for what I’ve done” and Batman says, “oh, well in that case, go about your business. See you at the company picnic.” Good film. Bad ending.

The analogy fits because the Assyrians (Nineveh being their capitol) were no slouches in the “perpetrating evil” department. They were well-known for their brutality, and Israel had most likely just recently thrown off their domination. Jonah is sent to tell his former oppressors they can be saved from judgement. He’s hoping to be an abject failure in persuading them to repent.

But the hero of our story is not the amoral avenger. He is not the merciless exacter of punishment. He is not a blunt instrument of vengeance. He is not Klaatu, sent to dispassionately wipe us out for our naughtiness. He is our Father, and we are His children.

Detractors to faith often say they have a problem with the Old Testament “fire and brimstone, bloody God” who kills at a whim and spares no one. But the crux message of the prophets was not God’s judgement, but the possibility of God’s mercy. Not a judgemental God, but a relenting God. We miss this because of our modern American narcissism and over-wrought self-esteem. We place the burden of proof on God – prove to me that I am worthy of judgement. The Old Testament writers presumed the opposite, that since the Fall we are all guilty. Getting what we deserve is a metaphysical inevitability, as sure as “what goes up must come down.” God NOT judging us is worth taking note of.

And He wants us to love mercy because HE does. You would think He, like us, would love judgement, because it sets things right. But it doesn’t. It never could. Because that’s not the way He built the universe. He always wanted to be our Father, to gather us close, to shelter, protect, provide, and give and receive love. But we would not. We ran. He pursued. We fought Him. He gave everything to buy us back.

 Jonah ends abruptly with God justifying his kindness (“Should I not be concerned about that great city?”). What a weighty thought – that God would have to explain that He is actually being good for not wiping out a city. What does a deity have to do?! But not so surprising really. Maybe our greatest modern sin is that we have conjured up a vengeful, spiteful God, then cursed Him for not living up to our expectations. We shake our heads at His perceived blood-thirst in the Old Testament, then shake our fists because He has not eradicated evil in our day.

The truth is that He is holding off on judgement as long as possible because He loves mercy. And so should we.

I am praying that I will see the world like Jesus. Not like Jonah. Or Charles Bronson.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Here’s where this particular sub-thread began – it’s kind of a serial-blogging (or serial killing of the concept of blogging), so I like to link back to touchstones…

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Global justice is a big chalupa. Economic, social, political, and religious inequities abound. I am increasingly convinced that during this moment of grace we live in – somewhere between the Resurrection and the Final Judgement, injustice will continue to abound. This is not to say I am fatalistic about the subject. God commands us to pursue justice, and we must, even if we can’t fix it all. 

But I find in Scripture a profound emphasis on another term that find itself in vogue today – personal responsibility. Simply put, justice begins with me. God’s heart is that I first and foremost consider my own actions. Have I marginalized, oppressed, manipulated or misused? Have I gone out of my way to use money, position, relationship, and authority in ways that honor, benefit, and respect others? Some proof texts are included below.

There is, however, a seemingly subtle yet vital distinction that could be a danger here. We must seek to rid our lives of prejudice, bigotry, hatred, and injustice. But we must not define these concepts or allow them to be defined by our own experience, pre-conceived notions, or soceital norms. Our culture does not define justice. Justice does not conform to our personal history, moral equivalence, social contruction theory, or any other relativistic norm.

God defines justice.

In this area, we are most fortunate, as we have been given ample evidence in the form of Scripture to help us understand how God sees the world. He teaches us to love people and use money, not the other way around. He teaches us to be always mindful of the poor and weak and do what we can to help. He commands us to defend the powerless.

And for the most part, He begins and ends the discussion with each of us, individually. John the Baptist criticized the local governor for his sexual immorality (and was imprisoned an eventually executed because of it), but he spent most of his time talking to individuals about repentance and personal change (Luke 3). Jesus skillfully and purposefully skirted questions about the evils of government systems and insisted on focusing hearers on the one thing they could control – their own actions (Matthew 17:24-26, Matthew 22:16-22, Matthew 5-7). The New Testament writers taught their readers to do good, obey those in authority, and concentrate on individual righteous acts (Romans 13:1-8, Titus 3:1-8, 2 Peter 2:13-25, and pretty much the rest of the epistles).

I am not saying that we should not concern ourselves with global issues. We should. I am not saying we should not be aware of political issues, form opinions, and support causes. We should. I AM saying that our causes, opinions, and actions proceed out of the understanding of what God’s view of justice really is, as demonstrated in Scripture, and begin with our own family, friends, and sphere of influence.

And the Bible makes it clear that God will judge the nations. The powerful New Testament imagery of that judgement involves sickles, winnowing forks, fire, wheat, chaff, and the like. Jesus promises “…the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done.”

If we pursue justice individually, we are able to provide to others an example of how God sees the world and how the Kingdom of God operates. And the world around us may well change. To that I say  Amen (let it be so).

A disturbing trend I am noticing, however, is that some people of faith are more concerned with public opinion or cultural relevance than actual Scripture-centric justice.

For instance, the fact that I do not agree with our culture on a certain social or political issue does not, by definition, make me a racist, sexist, bigot, hatemonger, or otherwise unjust person. It does not mean I am marginalizing someone else, even if my culture accuses me of it. It simply means that God’s laws are in contradiction with culture’s rationalizations. When questioned, I have to point this out.

This also does not mean we are called to crusade against culture. We are called to love, extend grace, and practice mercy. We love people. We accept everyone. When we have to speak the truth, we do it with gentleness and respect. But within our communities of faith, we also seek to establish norms of righteous behavior. Not everything is up for interpretation.

I am really arguing for balance here. There is a whole other discussion to be had about how moral issues should be approached with those who are not Christ followers and those who claim to be. Paul says we should not, for instance, blindly ignore egregious, public  sexual sin perpetrated by a fellow believer in the name of being gracious ( “I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler.“ ), but makes the distinction that this “hand them over to Satan” approach is NOT for those outside of faith (“I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— ¹⁰not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral…In that case you would have to leave this world… ¹²What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? ¹³God will judge those outside.“).

But beyond that debate, when we talk about justice, I have two great concerns:

1. We must understand that justice, in God’s eyes, begins and ends with me and the things I have power over.
2. We must not allow culture or experience to dictate what is just. We must seek to understand God’s view of justice.

You may be thinking that I got off of the subject of justice and strayed into the minefield of morality, culture war, and church discipline haphazardly and incongruously. But I am seeing these things are becoming increasingly intertwined in our world.

“Social justice” as defined outside of a framework of faith is being used to normalize abhorrent behavior, and many well-meaning Christians are co-opting these ideas in an effort to be culturally relevant, to have a voice in the dialog. I understand the arguments and empathize with the desire to love the world without judgement and condemnation, just as Jesus did. But that desire can’t translate into a normalization within communities of faith of practices the Bible specifically calls out as sin or the celebration of culture that promotes them. We must affirm within our communities that certain things are wrong and those who practice them within the community should be confronted, and those who do so outside the community should be invited to become disciples of Jesus so that they may be freed from such bondages. And I use the word bondage on purpose – the Bible uses the same terms for sin – bondage, slavery, etc.

Social justice that normalizes and elevates to acceptability destructive, sinful behavior is the worst kind of false hope – it promises freedom and delivers slavery and death.

You will note that I have carefully not mentioned specific issues. This is because the issues themselves are so controversial, mentioning them would distract from the point I am making. In conclusion, I should restate that point:

We must, as people of faith, seek justice. We must speak out against injustice perpetrated by individuals as well as by our and other governments. We must attempt to affect positive change. The basis of our understanding of what is just must be what God has said, not what our culture says. And the most important concern for each of us is what we can best control – how we treat those in our direct sphere of influence. That last part I am praying a lot about. Here are my questions, in case they are any help to you:

• Do I love people and use money, or love money and use people?
• Do I make judgement calls about those around me based on race, sex, creed, or past actions? If so, are these in line with Scripture?
• Have I taken advantage of others, or gone out of my way to treat others fairly?
• For those whom I occasionally employ, do I compensate fairly and deal honestly?
• Am I complying with both the spirit and the letter of the laws of our land whenever possible (except in clear cases where the law contradicts God’s law, and in those cases is my response or resistance in keeping with Biblical teaching)?..and the most important question of all:
• Have I just lied about, mis-stated, justified, rationalized or otherwise been less than entirely honest about any of these issues?

That is our journey as sinful, fallen people in a sinful, fallen world – try to find out what God is like and be like that. Here’s to the Day.

I hope someone out there agrees or disagrees with something written here and posts a comment (hint, hint, whine, sniffle sniffle, guilting) .

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Continuing a thread about what I think we oughta be thinking about (See this post for the intro to this section). This is a direct follow-up to the last post (aren’t they all?). I seem to have painted myself into a bit of a corner on this one. The first item in this list is justice, a huge concept to be sure, and one I have been actively working to understand in the last year. You should know I have written and re-written this post many times, and I’m not sure I even like this final result. That’s why we call it “Raw Thoughts ”.

I could cheat and go on to kindness – a lot easier to dissect – but justice comes first in the list, so I have to deal with it. Two months of no posting is too much time, so I am going to try to take this in small chunks. Just for fun, I’d like to propose a bunch of questions I’m not sure I know the answer to, then propose a bunch of answers I’m not sure I agree with. Sound like a good time? Here…we…go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have been stuck on the question of justice in a global sense. As I become more aware of the social justice movement, both inside and outside of church-folk circles, it has become apparent that “justice” is far more than a buzzword – it is a rallying cry. To be sure there is a lot of evil and therefore a lot of injustice in the world. Think sweat shops, political and religious persecution, caste systems, racism, child and sex trafficking, abortion, ethnic cleansing, and on and on. And it is clear from Scripture that God cares very deeply about justice – I don’t think I need to proof-text that one. We are clearly called to pursue justice and come to the aid of the helpless, powerless, and marginalized.

The thing I am having a hard time figuring out is the line between justice, fairness, and equal results.

Fairness is a bit arbitrary – we all have thoughts as to what is fair and what is not (ask any three year old). Justice is clearly a matter of right and wrong. But is it possible that some people confuse fairness with justice? One diagnostic question for me is “What is the end game?” If we had out way, could snap our fingers and make justice a reality, what would that look like? Some things that might be nice:

• Everyone would have the same amount of wealth (or poverty).
• The Star Trek Utopian Model – no money needed.
• Everyone would have the same opportunities.
• No one would suffer.
• All nations would have equal standing, wealth, and power. There would really be no need for separate nations, since all would be the same.
• There would be no difference between genders, races, colors, etc.
• No masters or slaves (also no labor or management).

I think the world Jesus and His followers tell us to look forward to contains these features and more than we can imagine. But the world God has left us in is very different. And that’s where I am grinding gears trying to get traction on this thing. Here are some questions:

• Does God expect us to act as though that world has already come, or are there different realities in the presence of an evil, fallen, sinful planet?
• Why does God give gifts, abilities, and grace in different amounts? Some have more talent. I am a classically trained vocalist, but I’ never make it to Hollywood Week on American Idol – the limits of my natural ability would stand in the way (plus I’m too old now, and not nearly cute enough . Why are some blessed with greater ability or more money or better opportunities?
• If I achieve a level of success in position, wealth, or authority, have I by definition marginalized someone else (since I now have more than them)?
• If we are to pursue justice, can that pursuit always be perpetrated in the absence of physical force? Is it not sometimes necessary for the strong to protect the weak forcefully?
• Is the existence of suffering inherently unjust? How can anyone who is being violently marginalized and exploited believe in a just God?
• What is God’s definition of equality (thanks to Rex for adding that one to my overfull head).

There. That should be enough to make my head explode (and maybe yours). I don’t propose that I will satisfactorally answer all these questions, but I am going to publicly process some of them. You are welcome to comment as well. I want to listen…

Next post – the things I am mostly almost pretty sure are true about justice. Maybe.

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In the Church world, we obsess about sin. Sin is the subject of our programs, policies, and procedures. Identifying and confronting the sin in ourselves and others is our chief industry and most common consideration. We spend a lot of time talking about who is wrong in their beliefs and practices and making sure ours are not also wrong or sinful. We can study, dissect, and disseminate the minutia of sin. We’ve got that kind of time on our hands.

It’s almost like we think Jesus died to keep us in the sin business.

I don’t mean “the business of sinning.” I mean the study of sin. How to avoid all sin. How to show others they are sinful. I think I take issue with that obsession. If I understand what Jesus said about the Holy Spirit, I think it was primarily His job to convict the world of sin and righteousness. I am not saying we should never say “that is wrong.” For sure Jesus teaches us to correct one another (provided we have first removed the plank in our own eye) But if that is all we spend our time on, we may just have missed the point of the cross.

There’s no good acronym for “justice, mercy, humility.” JKH wouldn’t look good on a t-shirt. But it’s what God wants. He lays it out in Micah 6:

What God Requires of Man

    ⁶With what shall I come to the LORD
         And bow myself before the God on high?
         Shall I come to Him with burnt offerings,
         With yearling calves?
    ⁷Does the LORD take delight in thousands of rams,
         In ten thousand rivers of oil?
         Shall I present my firstborn for my rebellious acts,
         The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
    ⁸He has told you, O man, what is good;
         And what does the LORD require of you
         But to do justice, to love kindness,
         And to walk humbly with your God? 

Put it this way – Jesus died for our sins so we could get back to the real reason we were created.

Do justice, love kindness,
         And walk humbly with your God

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If the economy continues to collapse in America, a lot of our mega-church and mega-ministry institutions will likely collapse with it – since they are built on the same principles (if you rely on donations to support your bloated, unwieldy organization, things will be getting tight for you very soon, I fear. Some TV preachers might have to sell their Bentleys). The measure of success for everyone in America - even those with a faith-centered worldview – is being severely tested, and will be even more so in the days to come. America is enduring much upheaval, precipitated mostly be events in our economic sector. You could argue that the foundation of our national stability has been our financial system, which seems to be rapidly morphing, maybe even collapsing. For many of us, the foundation of our personal lives is also our financial system, and the cornerstones of that foundation are the value of the house we own and live in and our source of income. And those are in jeopardy too. And things could get a lot worse. Maybe.

One of the things you learn in survival training is that the sooner you accept the traumatic event you have been faced with, the greater your chance of surviving it, especially if you have considered the possibility of it happening before it does (thinking the unthinkable). One author calls this ”hugging the monster.” Or as Steve Buscemi so succinctly put it in ”Armageddon” – “It’s time to embrace the horror!” 

So let’s hug the monster. Let’s ask the big question. What if it all collapses. What if we lose everything?

My parents are from a different generation than the parents of most of my contemporaries. While I grew up with the children of late Boomers (born after WWII), my dad was 40 when I was born, which means he was born in the mid 1930s, which places him squarely in the “Builder” generation. So I grew up hearing first-hand accounts of the latter part of the Great Depression (he was just a kid, but remembers it) and the World War II era. It’s amazing how bad things were – not just in folks’ personal budgets, but all around. We can all imagine not having enough money to buy a hamburger, but what if the stores had no hamburger to buy, even if you had the money. Just one example of a reality I’ve never had to consider that they dealt with all the time.

What you learn from those stories is that people are profoundly resilient, and that in times of great suffering the things that are really important – family, faith, community – become the focal point of our lives again. The simple answer is, if everything collapses, we will suffer greatly, but we will also find out matters most, cling to what is good, find a way to survive, and probably be better people because of it all. That’s what my parents’ generation did, and so will we.

Adversity breeds character. Unfettered prosperity often breeds complacency and corruption.

Now for what I really wanted to say (yep, that was just the intro). I was backing up a hard drive yesterday and saw a song I haven’t thought about in awhile. It’s a very short tune by Jason Upton, no more than a couple of minutes long, jammed in between epic 10 minute tunes on one of his albums. Its words are appropriate and haunting:

There’s a power in poverty that breaks principalities, brings the authorities down to their knees.
There’s a brewing frustration, an ageless temptation to fight for control by some manipulation.
But God of the kingdoms and God of the nations, the God of Creation sends this revelation,
Through the homeless and penniless Jesus the Son: ‘The poor will inherit the kingdom to come.’

Where will we turn when our world falls apart, and all of the treasures we’ve stored in our barns can’t buy the Kingdom of God?

And who will we praise, when we’ve praised all our lives men who build kingdoms and men who build things, but Heaven does not know their names?

And what will we fear when all that remains is God on the throne with a child in His arms, and love in His eyes…

And the sound of His heart cry.

Those words are true to the teachings of Scripture (email me if you need the chapter and verse), and they inform the rest of my thoughts. We have lived for most of my lifetime in relatively uninterrupted prosperity as a nation, with a few short exceptions. Unfortunately for my family, one of the worst economic periods since the Depression was the late 70s, and that’s when we were forced to sell our house (unemployment was high, interest rates were high, inflation was high, and my Dad left the Air Force in ‘79, we lived in Montana - the perfect storm) and move our family of four into a 16×80 mobile home, where we lived from my first grade year on, and where my parents still live. We had very little, and sometimes we weren’t sure where the next meal was coming from, but by the time I graduated high school my Dad had gone back to college, entered a whole new career at the ripe young age of 50, and the folks had climbed just enough above the poverty line to keep me out of the running for the best government grants and assistance for college available to a lower income white kid. Except for the loans, of course. They’ll always saddle you with the loans…

Some people say today is like back then in the 70s. Some say it’s heading towards being like the 30s. I say it could be either. Or neither. No way to know for sure – and it’s really out of our hands. Whatever happens, we’ll have to hug the monster and make it through.

So in my life I’ve seen days of plenty and days of destitution. Both have their teaching moments. Sometimes I think it’s actually a lot harder to learn to live as a follower of Jesus when you are in a season of prosperity. Jesus seemed to think so. Thus His whole “rich man entering the Kingdom vs. camel going through the eye of the needle” metaphor. That’s not to say I want to go back to the “easy” way. I think I’d rather try getting my keister to thread that that needle…

But I am thinking a lot these days about the “homeless and penniless Jesus the Son,” who God sent to teach us how to live. By every standard we judge success – including those we use in Church-land, He was a spectacular failure. Which tells us that we are still measuring the wrong things. He did not own a home. He did not succeed in business. He did not overthrow the oppressive political regime of His day or effect even a small amount of political change during His lifetime. He didn’t even have enough money to pay taxes and his treasurer was embezzling what little there was (which makes Him a bad CEO – He allowed financial corruption at the highest level of His organization).

And He changed the world.

I’m not enjoying all the stories I am reading of churches and church organizations struggling to make ends meet and having to downsize, sell off, and shut down. But I’m not surprised. Our organizations and buildings and structures and soul-making machines have mirrored our society. When it begins to contract, fail, implode, and collapse, so will we. All my life we have worshipped large ministries (TV ones when I was a kid, mega-churches from college until today), great organizations, and larger-than-life public personas.

But whose names does Heaven know? It’s not always the winners we revere, but the “least of these” who act out faith, hope, love, mercy, and justice in Jesus’ name every day. I think we’re entering an era where the “bigger is better” mentality will be exposed for the hollow. self-congratulatory philosophy it is. Something new will emerge from the decimation of our man-made view of the Kingdom.

I don’t know what it will look like – large or small, buildings or rented spaces, underground or mainstream – and I’ve given up trying to guess. All I really want is to stop praising men and their kingdoms and go back to praising Jesus and studying His way of living. All I really want is to find my faith fully invested in the homeless Son of God, who taught us that children know more about these things than PhDs. All I want is to be known in Heaven, counted among the faithful, one of nameless mass of “others” Hebrews 11 says the world was not worthy of. All I want is a life that matters, not just to people on this planet, but to its Creator.

Whatever it takes to make that happen, I’m ready to hug that monster. Here’s hoping he’s not too slimy…

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Also in that intervening time I have been putting much thought and action into these faith concepts. Since not many people currently read this and no one is dying without new content, I am finding it more important to write something well-crafted than to just write something. But I am also going to try to keep these shorther – people got lives .

All preliminaries out of the way – I have been thinking a lot of how Jesus teaches us to do good things. It seems from the things He says that He is not only interested in what we do, but why and how we do it. Here’s an example:

Matthew 6

Giving to the Needy

 ¹“Be careful not to do your ‘acts of righteousness’ before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

 ²“So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. ³But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, ⁴so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Obviously it’s impossible to do every act of righteousness in complete secrecy. But the intent is clear (from this and many other verses) – Jesus’ command is that we think carefully about our motives for doing the good we do.

This is what makes people of faith so different than other activists. Our primary audience is Jesus, not public opinion. While we are certainly interested in teaching others to participate in the same activities, this is not our primary purpose for doing it. And whether or not someone participates in the same activities does not change our opinion of their importance – we are doing what Jesus told us to, not what we in our infinite wisdom have decided is important.

As such, it becomes very easy to recruit others to the same world-view – it isn’t ours, so we don’t have to be defensive, reactionary, or militant. We simply show by our humble service a better way to live and interact with the world as God intended. And that is not only radical and revolutionary, but also very infectious.

Let me give an example from a completely unrelated field that should bring this into sharp focus. There are three main rivals in the computing platform space – PCs running Windows, PCs running Linux, and Apple computers running the Mac OS. For the sake of argument, let’s leave out the open-source guys and compare the two you have to pay for (oooh – maybe I’ll get flamed by Linux enthusiasts!). Most Windows users use Windows because that’s what the computer came with that they were provided for work or school or from grandma for Christmas. Most Mac users use a Mac very deliberately – they have specifically chosen to spend more on the hardware and software and deal with lack of Mac support in the business space because they want to own and use a Mac.

Both have their reasons, but since Mac folk have made a conscious choice, they tend to be far more opinionated on the subject. This has lead to the birth of many a “Mac Evangelist”, most famously skewered in what is arguably the best Simpsons episode ever. 

I have no issue with Mac. In fact, I have great appreciation for the platform, the hardware, and salivate when I see an iPhone (curse you, two year contract with another cell phone company keeping me and iPhone coolness apart!). I do, however, use PCs exclusively in my work, and do so by choice, even though I work in the graphic design / video production / web world, and two out of three of those worlds are primarily peopled by Mac dudes and dudettes.

I have my reasons. First, I was too broke and too cheap in the beginning of my career to afford Macs. Now that I can, I have too much invested in PC software and gear to switch over (cause I’m still cheap). And in the Web space, which occupies 90% of my time now, there are a lot of things you just can’t do on a Mac (unless you boot it into the evil Windows OS).

These arguments hold no water with the Mac pushers. They openly mock my choices and deride my sad subservience to the evil, monolithic Microsoft Corporation (’cause Apple is far more open-source and non-monopolistic, unless of course you want to use your iPhone on another cell phone service. But I digress). Their scorn of my non Mapple-ness (see Simpsons clip above) does not make me want an Apple more. It makes me want to defend my lack of one. And it leaves a little twinge of unhappiness, cause if I could, I would join the club.

I don’t spend a lot of time trying to evangelize people in the way of the PC. Since you can get one almost for free these days and everybody’s got ‘em, I don’t have to. I also don’t actively look around for Mac users to tell them how silly they are for using a platform I don’t. But if someone observes the work I do, and asks me what I use, and then asks me why, I am glad to give my reasoned defense. And I often have more productive conversations in that scenario than I do trying to defend myself from angry Mac-abees, flaying me with their white iPod earbuds, because a person who asks a question is usually interested in the answer.

I think the reason so many folk think people of faith have a “I’m better than you because of the good stuff I do” attitude is because…well…we sometimes do. Rather than beat people over the head and try to advance our own sense of self-worth by displaying our righteous acts like an iPhone whipped out at a client meeting, the goodness God calls us to is to be evident to everyone, but the main target audience is Jesus Himself. It can’t be hidden, but we also can’t do it just to be seen. In the process of living like Jesus taught us, lots of folk will see it and ask questions. and then we have the chance to have a real conversation with someone who wants to know, not just an innocent PC-toting bystander.

This is of course where the analogy falls a bit short – we are also instructed clearly to purposefully go out and make disciples, which means we have to do more than passively do good and hope someone will ask about it. But most of our evangelizing is wasted on those who aren’t listening, and some attention to soil preparation and tactfully waiting for the right moment wouldn’t hurt our chances – might help quite a bit.

Long way to say a simple thing. But that’s how I roll. Gotta go reinstall Windows on a PC with the blue screen of death now. Stupid PCs.

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DISCLAIMER: Just about everything in this post is mostly for me. I am not writing to anyone external, I am writing to myself. If you find yourself in the same boat, so be it. And I don’t think I am doing ANYTHING right on this topic in my own life. Think of this as sermon to me, at the end of which I responded to call to repentance and said “yep, that’s me. I suck.”

The early church in Jerusalem for a time had a very communal approach to life. There isn’t definitive evidence that the extreme level of sharing they were practicing extended to every community of faith, but it IS very clear from Church history that concern for the needs of others – especially “the poor” was paramount. Paul even recounts Peter, James and John’s only instruction to him, when they gave him the right hand of fellowship (a phrase we really ought to revive) was to “remember the poor“.

The debate now is fascinating – many Christians have come to believe that a government that cares for the needs of the “poor” or “poorer” (however you define that) by means of taking money from the “rich” (however you define that) is a righteous form of government, and making sure our leaders push through that agenda is more important than any other moral issue. Many Christians believe helping the poor should be the work of the Church, so government should stay out of it and leave the giving to us. Inexplicably, many of the people in camp #2 fight for less taxation and then do very little or nothing at all to directly help the poor (beyond small donations to their local church or some other “distance giving” activity). Which makes the people in camp #1 think the gov. should take their money so they would be forced to do the right thing.

I think both entirely miss the point. It doesn’t really matter to Jesus what your government does. It matters what you do. Let us go to the tale of the tape (old school football reference, y’all):

Luke 14:12-14 (New American Standard Bible)
 12And He also went on to say to the one who had invited Him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, otherwise they may also invite you in return and that will be your repayment.  13″But when you give a reception, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind,

 14and you will be blessed, since they do not have the means to repay you; for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

And then there’s this one:

Matthew 5:40-48 (New American Standard Bible)
 40″If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. 41″Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two.  42″Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you.  43″You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.’  44″But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.  46″For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?  47″If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?

Jesus’ very simple assertion is that the kind of life that marks the sons and daughters of God on the earth is one that does more than is required. And He defines the kinds of actions that cause Him to know us in strikingly specific detail:

The Judgment
31″But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. 32″All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; 33and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left. 34″Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35′For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; 36 naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ 37″Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? 38′And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? 39′When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ 40″The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’

 41″Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels;

We all know the rest. The bad guys did NOT do all that feeding and clothing and visiting. A few conclusions we can draw:

1. Jesus cares very deeply (in an eternal fire sort of way) about how we treat the hungry-thirsty-naked-stranger-sick-prisoner types.
2. There seems to be no discussion of the worthiness of the beneficiaries of this care, and no consideration of what everyone else was doing to alleviate their suffering.

In America, we make these distinctions. First, those who get help must first be worthy of it. We think what Jesus really meant was “I was hungry – even though I have a job and work really hard everyday for minimum wage, I was sick – but not the kind of sickness caused by my own bad choices like aids or cigarette-induced lung cancer, I was in prison – but I was wrongly convicted or I was rightly convicted but I’m really sorry and trying to change my ways.”

Some of us think the “brothers” Jesus is referring to are people who believe in Him – hey Bible scholars – can any of you lurkers out there prove He was only talking about Christians? Or that He wasn’t?

Some of us think He meant “I was in need and no one else was trying to help me.” Those of us in this category think that our responsibility begins where there are gaps in government programs. We adopt the Ebenezer Scrooge mentality that says the poor should avail themselves of the services provided, and if there are no services, we can then be asked to help them (“are all the poor houses out of business?”).

Even more of us think the help should be conditional and, we say, redemptive. We don’t want to just give handouts to those who do not work, because then they will always rely on handouts. We don’t want to enable and perpetuate their negative cycle.

All of these things are fine and well when discussing public policy, but that is not what Jesus is discussing. He is discussing you. And me. And our private policies. And He is telling us to act like God does.

And God does what He does not have to. He goes beyond what is required. He sets up a universe with laws and consequences for actions, and when we choose death, he allows the laws to remain and destroy our bodies, but gives His only Son to save our souls. He sends rain on the just and the unjust. He freely gives mercy to those who will openly mock it and reject Him. He loves those who hate him. He redeems those who have made themselves His enemies, not by accident, but by conscious choice.

Jesus is saying that caring for others is not about what it does for THEM, it’s about what it makes YOU. It makes you like Him.

It’s easy to see what we ought to do, then. I think we should all discuss openly the role of government in our lives, since we live in a democracy and have that right. And after we have cast our votes and paid our taxes, we should take some of the resources Uncle Sam leaves us and use them to invite strangers to our homes, and the poor to our parties, and visit the sick and imprisoned, and clothe the naked.

Of course we must attempt to bring about real change and redemption whenever we can, but we must actively seek out those who do not deserve our help, who do not qualify for our programs, who can give us nothing in return – not even the self-satisfaction that we have helped someone get their lives straightened out with our giving. Jesus said we would always have the poor with us. Because there will always be junkies and criminals and fools and drunks who just can’t seem to get it together. And to love them, with no hope of seeing anyt change in their condition is to hear the heartbeat of God and become His sons and daughters.

Many will say, “Jon, you can’t help people who don’t want help.” I agree. You can’t make anyone do anything. “Aha!” you will then say, “so shouldn’t we focus our finite resources on those we CAN help?” Only if you believe that the goal of Jesus’ story was to get us into the business of rehabilitating the least in our society. But I don’t think so. I think He wants us to do these things to rehabilitate US.

How about this: rather than decide who to show compassion on, let’s decide first to show compassion, then ask God to show us who the target is. You might be shocked to find He picks some very undeserving, unrepentant, unfix-able folk. Don’t worry about that. That’s his problem. The same God who told Hosea to marry a prostitute who would be unfaithful to him the rest of his life might ask you to take care of someone who never says the Sinner’s Prayer. The time will not be wasted. It’s about His agenda, not yours.

In part two, we will discuss how to do all this without becoming self-righteous (or at least attmepting not to become so). But to summarize part one, Jesus commands us simply:

In loving others, go beyond what is required (or even reasonable).

And that can and must be done under any government – socialist, Marxist, totalitarian dictatorship, left-wing, right-wing, Republican, Democrat, Utopian, or even Roman. Because love is not against the law. And loving like Jesus makes us more like Jesus. And that is His point.

As always, if you disagree (heck, even if you agree), puh-leeeze post a comment.

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Is there any word in English that has a more negative connotation than “preach”? Okay, I can think of a few (and no, I am not going to list them here – the internet is forever). But no one ever says “I wish someone would preach at me.” Movies that are too heavy-handed in promoting an agenda are called “preachy.” When I was a kid there was even a song by Madonna (sing it with me…”papa don’t preach…he’s been good to me”…HA! Now that is stuck in your head!).

So I will use the word tell. But I mean preach. In a less negative context. I hope.

The signs of the times…

That’s the problem – we people of faith have gotten the connotation way wrong ourselves. I was at a Seahawks game a couple of weeks ago. As my friend and I walked through the mass of screaming, chest-beating, liberated Seattle-ites (Hawks games and WTO meetings are the only times Northwesterners are allowed to express emotion) along the side of the stadium, looking in vain for a souvenir that cost less than my house, we saw the “you’re going to hell” sign guys. To be fair, I don’t remember what their signs said, but it was something like that – maybe “trust Jesus” or “John 3:16.” But a big sign being held by a strange-looking dude. We’ve all seen these guys. We’ve even seen the more festive variety that shouts the good news at you on the way by.

And on Sundays we assign preachers to preach sermons to us. Some are more entertaining than others, but all follow a familiar format – a lone gunman lecturing the masses, firing shots of truth across our bow, occasionally hitting near the heart. The distinct advantage Sunday Preacher has over Sidewalk Preacher is the willingness of his audience – most of them chose to be there. But to the casual outside observer, both are similarly didactic – telling us what we ought to do, know, and act like.

Preaching has a bad rap on several fronts. For one thing, a lot of those we assign to the task lack the preparation or the aptitude to deliver compelling, informative orations and end up about as effective as Reverend Lovejoy on the Simpsons. On the other end, there are a lot of crazies out there who think preaching as a public contact sport will be effective in modern American culture. And in an increasingly secularized, post-modern culture, the idea of sitting down to listen to someone tell me what’s what is losing traction – we want to be heard and have our ideas on things (no matter how uninformed our opinions) given equal weight with the words of the dude upfront.

Just words…

Sometime soon I will spend some time on the irreplaceable value of gathering together and preaching / teaching in that context. Short version – it is vital. But each of us as individuals has a greater responsibility to tell others the story of Jesus. We have long relegated the task of “telling” to the professionals. But I don’t think that was Jesus’ intention.

Each of us has a unique path in life – we all have a different sphere of contact and influence. And our journey through life makes us unique. In the mosaic of people of faith, there are a million stories of how we came to believe there was a God and accepted His revelation of Himself through Jesus. Some of us came through logic, others through emotion. Some surrendered to Jesus at the top of our game, some at the bottom of the pit. And Jesus’ command was to go into the whole world and make disciples, teaching them to do do what He said. All of us.

The purpose of pastors and teachers is to equip us for such activities – they are to study and prepare and teach us what the Bible says and what it means and how to grow in our faith so we are armed with knowledge, wise from our experience, and ready to tell others who Jesus is and why we serve him. OUR words – not just the words of vocational ministers – are powerful in this regard. Many who will never set foot in a church will come in contact with us, and we may be the only voice amongst thousands they hear that speaks of the truth we have come to know.

People get ready…

We must, then, be educated. We must be seeking more and more knowledge and depth of understanding and wisdom and insight and maturity. And those gifted to the church as pastors and teachers must be focused as well – not on teaching us how to get people to come to church (many never will, many more would be more confused if they did), but teaching us how to tell our story, explain our faith, point to our Savior, demonstrate a living Jesus. As Peter puts it:

Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, 16keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.

How can anyone believe without a preacher? How can anyone preached to receive unless the message comes from someone they know and respect (I know, there are exceptions to this, but the norm is also important)? So number four – we must  – ALL of us – find a way to tell.

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Now Dog is not always what you would call a sympathetic character. He dresses oddly. He makes baffling hairstyle choices. He and his entire family are arguably three fries short of a happy meal. He vacuums for fun. He has been recorded using racial epithets (an item near the top of the list of  ”public persona unforgivable sins” – a list that does not seem include cheating on your wife or driving while drunk. But I digress).

There are a million things I could say to mock Dog. Most of them are far too obvious to make it worth the time. And for the record, I am not a hard-core Dog-fan, Dog-defender, Dog-catcher, Dog-pound member, whatever you want to call it. I couldn’t tell you when the show is on or what channel. But since confession is good for the soul, I have to admit that on at least four occasions, I have been flipping by that channel and been drawn into an hour of Dog-watching. And he always makes me want to cry.

Let the mocking begin.

The Weird Arm of the Law

Let me give you an example of what gets me every time. Dog and the family chase down some criminal. The entire show they’re cussing him out, angry that he keeps evading them. This particular guy is a smackhead who is selling smack, so they really want to get him. And they finally do. When the bring him out, a number of people from the apartment complex he has been holing up in gather around and start chanting to have him thrown out. Like Dog, they think this guy is scum and they want him out of their neighborhood.

But things have changed for Dog. As soon as he gets the cuffs on whoever he is bounty-hunting, his heart kicks in – it’s amazing to watch – like someone else is suddenly inhabiting his body. And this someone understands redemption. Dog walks over to the crowd and gathers them in a circle. He says (I will paraphrase – I don’t own the DVD box set), “He’s a bad guy and he’s going to jail. I know you want him out of your neighborhood and I agree, but I know you don’t want him dead. So I’m going to bring him over here so you can tell him you forgive him.”

Come again?

If you’ve ever seen the show, you know Dog’s ride to jail after catching a perp is epic. He lets them have a smoke. He lets them call whoever they want and let them know they’re okay. He prays with them. He promises to get them help. He basically gives them dignity and respect and grace and talks non-stop about redemption.

On this day, he brings smackhead scumbag over and lets the people of the neighborhood talk to him. And something amazing happens. They start to show mercy and compassion and talk about redemption.

“I lost my dad to drugs, and I don’t want to see that happen to you.”

“I’m raising my kids alone ’cause their mom had to go to jail.”

“We’re glad you got caught but we hope you get some help.”

And the guy starts to cry and tells everyone he’s sorry. And then Dog has them join hands and he leads in prayer.

Grace is Only for the Truly Sorry. And People With Good Jobs.

That’s not how we do redemption in church. In the first place, only people who have it all together have the right to tell other people to stop doing wrong.  Dog doesn’t qualify. And those be-suited better-than-thous know one thing – you can’t just forgive people and hope they’ll reform. You tell them what they did wrong, tell them how to get things straight, then wait for them to do so. If they change their life, you can embrace them as part of your community.

Dog says “we hate what he did, but we don’t want him dead.” Later that night after catching “Patty”, he goes home to his 7 year old, who is excited that we “got Patty.” Dog pulls her aside and says “Patty is really sad tonight cause she had to go to jail. So when you pray before bed you need to pray for Patty.”

The work of Jesus on the cross was to purchase our redemption. Redemption in its simplest sense is exchanging the valuable for the worthless, and in so doing making the worthless valuable again.

Galatians 4:4-6 (New International Version)   
4But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, 5to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.

1 Peter 1:18-19 (New International Version)
18For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, 19but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.

Dog understands that that kind of redemption doesn’t begin with people on the right path. It starts with all of us as fugitives, running form God, running from truth.Until someone chases us down and throws us into the SUV and asks if we want to call our Mom before we head to jail. The story of Scripture is the story of a God who pursues us, chases after us, gives His Son to die for us – whatever it takes to win us back (if you want to see a gut-wrenching glimpse into the heart of God, read Hosea, which begins with God telling Hosea to “take an adulterous wife”).

He also understands that it begins with the redeemer, not he redeemee (that second one is not a word, I know). It starts with loving the unworthy, pursuing the evil, and giving dignity to the undignified.

Now lest you think that I think Dog is the perfect example we should all try to emulate, I don’t. But truth can be found in the strangest of places,  and every time he sits a crackhead down and makes them cry with his kindness, I see Jesus in that mulleted whack-job, and it reminds me that redemption is messy work, and not a black and white encounter. We are accepted long before we do anything remotely worthy of it. While we were still God’s enemies (fugitives from Dog for the dyslexic), Jesus died for us.

And He invites us to participate in the work of redeeming the world – not just to receive redemption, but to help redeem others. He asks us to understand and strive to have His heart, the heart that relentlessly pursues then relentlessly loves the most wretched among us. Jesus even tells us countless parables to help us understand He feels this way about every human being on the planet – The pearl of great price, the treasure in the field, the lost sheep, the lost son, and so on, and so on.

He also teaches us that receiving grace and giving grace are tightly linked. Remember the unmerciful servant? Sure, Jesus didn’t save me from my life as a street pimp. But there’s evil in my heart, just under my middle-class clothes. And the God who redeemed me wants me to assist in redeeming others. Which means I have to forgive and love and pray for the worst of the worst. Cause I’m one of them.

Thanks, Dog.

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• One: Repent.
• Two: Believe

Since One was “repent”, I think I should. I have neglected blogging (this is bad for me, not for you necessarily). I am trying to be more disciplined in weekly schedules and such. The advent of a new baby on the way and some big work projects (plus summer in general) have held me up a bit. To repent is to turn from your current path, so my deeds showing my repentance will be blogging in nature…

The second thing I think God asks of use is to believe. And I think these may be in reversed order. Maybe you have to believe first, otherwise repentance is fairly hollow. You don’t have to repent if you don’t believe in moral authority. If “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom,” then acknowledging God exists has to be the starting point of our approach to Him.

And that’s the real issue, isn’t it? God seems to have made a frustrating decision to base most of our interactions with Him on faith alone – not observable, provable, scientific-y stuff. “Why for?” you may ask (and I have done so many times).

Here’s what we know – the Bible lays out the case that one of God’s key desires is for us to have faith in Him. The highest concentration of knowledge on this single subject, arguably, is contained in Hebrews 11. Side note – good to think about the target audience of Hebrews – namely the “Hebrews” . The writer takes great pains to remind the targeted Hebraic folk of the importance and centrality of faith. One would assume the entire basis of the Jewish faith is..well…faith. And yet the writer (we don’t know for sure who wrote the thing) spends a good percentage of the book encouraging his readers not to lose faith, including this entire chapter. Curious, isn’t it? We’ll come back to that. But I digress…

“And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”

God insists that we believe He exists in order ot draw near to Him. Faith being defined here as “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” combined with Paul’s assertion that “…hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has?” leads us to this conclusion: God asks us to believe in Him, and makes no promise to prove His existence first.

This is the sticking point for most folk these days. We take the Han Solo approach -

“Kid, I’ve flown from one side of this galaxy to the other. I’ve seen a lot of strange stuff, but I’ve never seen anything to make me believe there’s one all-powerful Force controlling everything. There’s no mystical energy field controls my destiny! It’s all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense.”

(Which is not as fun to quote as these.)

We all learned the scientific method: “To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning.”

And God does not fit into our box. Or our test tube. He rarely does the same thing the same way twice. Moses learned all about that – he tried to repeat a miracle with disastrous results. God refuses to be quantifiable. He refuses to do what we tell him to. We lay in bed at night and say “God if you’re real, turn my lights on right now” (come on, you know you did). Or “if you’re real, help me out with my major problem”.

T’would be a lot simpler, twouldn’t it, if God would just prove Himself by our methods? But He instead chooses his own proofs. Rocks and trees and planets and the wonders of the world around us (the “things that have been made“). A still small voice in our most desperate hours. The knowledge of right and wrong hard-wired into the fiber of our being. That lingering feeling we all wrestle with – the one that says there must be more to the universe than what I can taste and touch and see and hear and smell.

But these are not proof by our definition. And in the end God leaves us just short of being able to test, observe, and repeat. And then tells us to have wisdom and knowledge and really see Him, we must first believe. And then tells us that if we would just believe, we will receive all the proof we need.

I don’t know what it was that made me first believe. Probably the same reason I believed in Santa for a bit and the tooth fairy ever so briefly (until the cheapskate didn’t pay up) – I was a kid and someone told me it was true. The good news for me is that I got over the big hump – just believing – due to ignorance and innocence. And God delivered. Santa and the other fairy tales dried up, but God was different. I have seen miracles. I have heard God speak. I have observed the impossible (and never repeatable). And in the depths of my soul is the eternal, inescapable witness that He is, and that He rewards those who look for Him.

But I can’t prove it. Neither can you. A lot of Christians spend their lives trying. Not to say that apologetics is a bad thing. You can get very close with logical arguments, ontology, cosmology, and other -ologies. But you can’t get the whole way. God has left a gap that can only be closed by accepting that there are forces in the universe that don’t fit into my methods of proving.

And God is the ultimate example. He chooses to be so. He chooses to reveal himself to us personally, intimately, uniquely, inescapably, unequivocally, and unprove-ably (hey ma – I made up a word!). We say the proof of God is in our changed lives – and we are right, but that can be explained away. Many atheists and agnostics are fond of saying that religion is good thing because it makes people do good things. in fact, they will say they support your beliefs if they cause you to act in a socially responsible way. But they do not prove God exists.

Jesus tells a fascinating story about faith. A rich man dies. He is in torment in hell. He asks that first he, then someone else be sent to warn his brothers. Abraham tells him “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” That doesn’t compute. Most people today say “I won’t believe unless I see something miraculous.” Jesus says you’re a liar. You’d explain that away too. So would I. Unless I choose faith.

So what makes us leap from disbelief to faith? I think the answer is different for all of us. Sometimes a convincing argument, more often an experience – good or bad. The birth of a child, the death of a friend, the ups and down and ins and outs of life that make us stop and think about the weightier matters. But whatever it is, there is one thing that is clear – we have to leap. And leaping requires the humility and honesty to say “I’m not Han Solo. I haven’t seen it all. There might be more to life than I know.”

It’s utter vulnerability, really. A huge risk. It’s different than challenging God (“prove yourself if you want me to believe in you”). God chooses to miraculously prove Himself to some people some of the time (no, I don’t know whay some people get the “special” treatment). But for most of us, we have to set aside our overinflated view of our own ability to figure stuff out and decide to just believe.

And that’s where it all starts.

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