Thursday, December 23, 2010

With?


Emmanuel...

God with us is a title that we struggle to understand. It can mean so many different things, depending on how we read the word ‘WITH’...

God has joined us, living, breathing, struggling in the natural?

God is amongst us, making his presence known, felt?

God is working to see his redemption dream come to realization and is doing so using Us...




If you google,
‘man with shovel’ you will get 1,180,000 image results in 0.40 seconds.
‘man with hammer’ you’ll get 7,910,00 image results in 0.41 seconds.
‘man with saw’ you’ll get 174,000,00 image results in 0.44 seconds...

There’s no way of googling it, but if you could somehow load in
‘God with man’, the number would presently stand at around 7 billion in this instant.

God with us.

If we take this thinking further, however, recognizing that every ‘image’ on the internet has been uploaded there over the history of the Net, how great would the number of pictures of God With Us be since that moment when he stated emphatically: “This is very good.”

The choice is ours, how actively we mean to be employed by God specifically towards the realization of his redemption dream.

'Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel has come to thee, O Israel!'

Thursday, December 2, 2010

spiritual pretending




















confession time.
i take advantage of darkness to do something i would never think of doing in the light.

in those times when i wake up early in the dark, before the sun comes up even, and am immediately aware of something having gone dreadfully funkified in the kitchen garbage, i will run that garbage out to the dumpster wearing only the boxers and t-shirt that i've been sleeping in... i won't even put on shoes. i do so because i know that no one will see me in the dark.

interesting how taking the garbage out under cover of the darkness perpetuates the illusion of having created no garbage.

'those people are so clean. so... NOT wasteful'

I saw some good intentions at leadership conventions
But intrinsic motivations lead egocentric nations
Someone cried 'over here' and where the mud had cleared
Were names and dates all written- drowned like unwanted kittens

Don't stray from the rhythm
Don't fall out of tune
The good book says that dead flies
Taint the richest perfume

darkness is something that people have used since the beginning of time to cloak their actions- particularly the less-than-honourable ones. those who hold public office or who are otherwise always under the character scrutiny of the public eye often find the pressure of living up to the expectations implied in their callings burdensome and suffocating. over time, many fall into self-justified 'reward' behaviours which are not only unbecoming, but inappropriate and self-destructive. the whole 'holiness by day and hedonism by night' inconsistency has created many a charicatured non-example of how to live life inspiring to man or glorifying to God because this kind of thing always seems to surface. no matter how carefully the esteemed leader, pious preacher or public servant has been at hiding the evidence of his or her folly, eventually garbage day comes, the full dumpster is emptied and the truth is known.

spiritual pretending is one of the things that drove Jesus crazy.

Monday, November 8, 2010

the contrarian way

Contrarian:
  • a person with a preference for taking a position opposed to that of the majority (wikipedia)
  • a person who takes an opposing view, especially one who rejects the majority opinion (dictionary.com)

Jesus was a contrarian.
his way was and is the contrarian way.

It's no accident the New Testament was written in the simple language of the marketplace rather than classical Greek- which was far more eloquent but way beyond the grasp of the common man.
It was all part of God's plan to make the inaccessible accessible. When Jesus burst onto the stage, he confronted a religious system that saw God as anything but accessible. Spirituality was reserved for the elite- those with pedigree, education, and a commitment to rigid self-discipline. He countered this with a different path, one that farmers, fishermen, carpenters, even little children and sinners could follow. He raised the bar of righteousness but he lowered the bar of entry.
(larry osborne)

what we read in Jesus' words of blessing, woe and enemy love is his contrarian manifesto. he is at work establishing a new order- one that is designed by God to supercede the old, taking the spirit of the law handed down to Moses and turning up the intensity and the implication of it.

he challenges those who follow him to go beyond being a people set apart for God to being a people engaged by God to realize his intended order: LOVE.

Jesus speaks
blessing upon his followers when people hate, exclude, revile and defame them ‘on account of the Son of Man.’ he says his followers should rejoice with dancing when we are attacked.

why? because there is reward someday?
no- Jesus didn’t seem to be much into the whole reward thing. the business of eternal reward seems to be a bonus to sweeten the deal a little.

why then?

why should those who follow him with the desire of participating in the realization of the new kingdom coming dance for joy when people throw stones through their windows or spray paint defamatory remarks or symbols on their houses, cars and churches?

because this kind of friction is an indicator that his followers are still edgy;

that they haven’t started to blend in;
that there is conspicuous difference and that this difference makes others uncomfortable- not because these followers are lording judgement over people or otherwise rubbing others' faces in their own iniquity and selfishness, but because the way of love creates an awkward tension in the loveless... always has.

could it be that love itself is contrarian?

Monday, November 1, 2010

come down from that tree!


















why do some climb trees?
depends on who you are...

the incredible tree climbing goats of morocco climb the argan trees searching for food

i used to read books and eat apples up in a tree.

michael jackson had his ‘Giving Tree’ where he wrote hit songs.

in a well-known gospel story, zacchaeus, one of the chief tax collectors in jericho, climbs a sycamore-fig tree because he wants to see Jesus. for him, a few issues have piled up on each other and have made seeing Jesus so difficult that he must climb a tree
  • his basic stature: he is vertically challenged.
  • his occupation: a chief tax collector would bid against others with the romans for the right to collect taxes from the people, and would probably have employed 'collectors' to do his dirty work- he has power but he probably doesn’t have strength...
  • his wealth: even with outbidding other collection agencies and paying his ‘staff’ (all with the taxes collected from everyday hebrews in rome-occupied jericho) he is still described as wealthy, rich, quite rich, or very rich (depending on the translation)
  • his social standing: remember the paralytic whose friends carry him up onto a roof and lower him down for healing? zacchaeus has no one. he has to run ahead and climb his own tree. his only peers are other chief tax collectors, and you know how they can be...
so, being short on scruples (conscience), caring trustworthy friends (community) and inner peace (comfort), zac establishes a worship scaffold that allows himself to see Jesus without having to change/approach/connect or otherwise interact with anyone, not even Christ...

but Jesus seizes the teachable moment- again. he is on his way somewhere else at the time, yet this poor little rich goat up in a tree receives immediate attention. why?

main reason: it falls under Jesus’ personal ministry mandate. Christ has come to seek and to save the lost and he's been talking about it for awhile. recently he's shared a pretty memorable series of parables which all deal with something precious lost and someone going to find it because it matters- whether it is a sheep or a coin or a person.

the encounter between Christ and the guy in the tree plays out famously. Jesus looks up, using his authority voice, calls him by name and makes him a strongly worded offer he cannot refuse: ‘Come down from that tree immediately- I must stay at your house today.”

then the drama begins. this outcast comes down and obediently takes Jesus into his house. for all we know, the tree is, like the one michael jackson wrote songs in, in his very own yard. whatever the case, this event is an enactment of a bunch of Christ’s teachings that have been delivered to the same crowd left standing outside zacchaeus' house as sinner and saviour retreat from the sight and earshot of the crowd for an undisclosed amount of time. apparently, when the great shepherd leaves the ninety-nine, they don’t take it well. they begin to mutter among themselves the way they have done previously when the master has shown kindness and mercy to sinners and others. from the outside, they observe and have opinions about it all.

there is no account of what takes place in there.
Jesus alone is welcomed into zacchaeus' home.

however, when zac actually says something that can be heard and written down, he is a new man. he has the strength within himself to rise to his feet and demonstrate through his life from that moment on that salvation has indeed come to his house. no facade need be in place. no scaffold supports him and separates him from real life and real people- from knowing and being known. he stands on his own.

the details of restitution are not complicated. they actually fall in line with old testament law... what is powerful is that, in front of everybody who knows this man and his treacherous infamy, Jesus welcomes him back into the family and, one by one, the goats in the crowd start hopping down from their own worship scaffolds.

Monday, October 25, 2010

goofus and gallant go to church

there's this story that Jesus tells about two guys in church. one is all puffed up and pompous, full of self-justifying contempt for others. just the kind of charicature we're used to seeing portrayed in churches. at first glance, however, the other doesn't seem to really belong there either- he IS a new testament other and approaches God with reverence and fear, for where the first has self-justification, this one has self-knowledge.

it reminds me of a series of moralist cartoons that appeared in Highlights Magazine when i was a kid... Goofus and Gallant were two boys who would be placed in the same situation. goofus always did the wrong thing (which always appeared to be the more natural thing as well) while gallant always did the right thing. it became a bit too predictable to be entertaining, even for a well-intentioned sunday school kid. however, the whole thing clearly got under my skin because i was quite troubled when the pretty new school librarian who was from australia and probably had limited experience with that particular children's magazine started to call me 'goofus,' even in her comments on my report cards. although it was a term of endearment (how many teachers call their students by a nickname in official communications?) i wondered what negative truths were inherent in this name that somehow, despite my best efforts, i seemed to have earned.

anyway, Jesus' story is a typical goofus and gallant scenario with the classic Jesus twist: the pious poser is clearly goofus, while the reverent reprobate is gallant.

at least, that's what we were taught in sunday school.

upon reading this story recently in preparation for a talk, however, i didn't really feel like i was either character in Jesus' story; not specifically. when the circumstances are more general and the lines of life are softer, it can sometimes be tricky to know what to take from scripture. what do we do then?

go deeper, i suppose.

there is still a word there for those of us that feel we're somewhere in between the extremes. it has to do with basic perspective.

see, the problem with the big self-important guy is, of course, his pride. all that thanksgiving about having not been as bad as other people? all that boasting about fasting and tithing? if Jesus had been a singer, he might have burst into a song that george harrison would write nearly 2000 years later:

All through the day I me mine, I me mine, I me mine.
All through the night I me mine, I me mine, I me mine.
Now they're frightened of leaving it
Everyone's weaving it,
Coming on strong all the time,
All through the day I me mine.

I-I-me-me mine,

All I can hear I me mine, I me mine, I me mine.
Even those tears I me mine, I me mine, I me mine.
No-one's frightened of playing it
Everyone's saying it,
Flowing more freely than wine,
All through Your life, I me mine.

I-I-me-me mine,

All I can hear I me mine, I me mine, I me mine.
Even those tears I me mine, I me mine, I me mine.
No-one's frightened of playing it
Everyone's saying it,
Flowing more freely than wine,
All through your life I me mine.


for this guy, life
is about him.
even other people's misfortune, pain or depravity
is about him.
everything that is and everything that isn't
is about him

placed at a beeblebroxian centre of the universe, he and those like him enjoy viewing the swirling, ever-expanding universe from from its heart. pride is placing oneself there.

put that way, that's most of us.

it might even be the other guy- the reverent one,
the one that has the word gallant written beneath his mugshot.

he, like the goofus next to him, sees the world from his own vantage point. however, unlike that guy, from here he sees how unworthy his worship is compared to the eloquently resonant prayers of the saint next to him. from here he sees how unrighteous his life is compared to the piety demonstrated and confessed by the godly man next to him. he is so spiritually and socially intimidated that he laces his reverent humility with caution, lest he approach the throne of grace incorrectly.

with all this comparison, he is incapable of truly understanding the grace that he seeks.

comparison rarely offers us the kind of spiritual insight we seek. comparison certainly does not afford us God's perspective because God's perspective is purely objective. God loves all people uniquely and yet equally. God's love is not enhanced or diminished by genuflection or prayer posture or worship dancing or intercessory weeping. God's approval is not gained or lost by the things we do or the things we can do... remember paul's words about body parts?

God doesn't love me more than you or you more than me.
It's not like that.

God loves me as me and you as you.

free of the need to compare ourselves to each other, we are released from the pressure of those comparisons and, by this release, can enjoy freedom to pursue the realization of God's dream for our own lives.

***





lest the point of this video clip featuring 'the tick' be lost, focus on the big blue superhero as he is pressed by the interviewer to identify his super powers... the interviewer lists all these cool things and the tick- very mighty and very very blue- seems to be diminished in his person each time he answers 'no.' any resemblance to real persons living or dead OR spoken of by Jesus is purely coincidental.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

silly songs from a bygone past


By the rivers of Babylon where we sat down.
There we wept when we remembered Zion.
When the wicked carried us away in captivity, requiring of us a song.
Well how can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? (psa137.1-4)

May the words of my mouth
and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable in thy sight... (psa19.14)

it wouldn’t be the first time or the last that a pop song would capitalize on the strength of scripture for lyrics. the psalmist writes of being in exile and having nothing but faith to sustain. the psalmist writes of being chided by the inhabitants of the land to sing the silly songs of a bygone past... primarily because of the hopelessness that nostalgia can bring on.

BUT... the exiles draw strength from the song. strength to carry on, even in exile, awaiting the time of hope and freedom. awaiting the day of the Lord.

what about us? when we find ourselves being chided by the powers of this world, daring us to live a song of worship, do we back down powerlessly? are we intimidated to point of denial? where does my help/hope come from?

eugene peterson translates the apostle paul's words on this present darkness this way:
This is no afternoon athletic contest that we’ll walk away from and forget about in a couple of hours. This is for keeps, a life-or-death fight to the finish against the Devil and all his angels. Be prepared. You’re up against far more than you can handle on your own. Take all the help you can get, every weapon God has issued, so that when it’s all over but the shouting, you’ll still be on your feet.

Q: can’t we just preach Jesus Loves Me?
A: yes, but that’s just a piece of the peace.

Friday, September 24, 2010

the management that matters





















(continued from the previous- the story of the film so far...)
in the last post i kinda went on and on about how to try to apply a meaningful hermeneutic to a confounding passage of scripture... the bit in question was an illustration of Jesus involving a shrewd manager.

so anyway, as far as the narrative of Jesus' life is concerned, he tells this story having already endured a fair bit of bump and grind from the established order. his willingness to break with some religious tradition regarding holy jewish sabbath; to hang out with ceremonially unclean people; to scandalously enjoy a good meal and even a drink with these same social undesirables and yet also dine at the house of a prominent pharisee does much to remind all present that, as apostle paul would say later, 'God is no respecter of persons' or practices, but desires that this kingdom of God which is so often the main topic of Christ's speaking is to be a place and time of holy levelling.

so this session with Jesus seems to feature a mixed crowd: up close are 'tax collectors and sinners' but within earshot are the muttering pharisees and teachers of the law. it is in this environment that Jesus launches into one of his most famous talks... the LOST trilogy.
  1. LOST sheep... leaving the righteous, secure already in faithful living, in order to save the lost
  2. LOST coin... searching obsessively for a lost possession because it is of great value and is part of a set which suffers when incomplete
  3. LOST son... warmly receiving the repentant while challenging the cold, shortness of sight of those whose righteousness is presumed simply due to their lack of willful rebellion.
see the transition?

this talk begins by targeting the lost, but slowly moves into a message for the righteous who may possibly represent a greater spiritual challenge due to a hardness that has come from years of being religious and faithful to the letter of the law while denying, to some degree, its spirit.

by the time Jesus moves into the story of the shrewd manager, he has been talking for awhile, and has worked and warmed with words even the toughest clay in the crowd. it's time to address the righteous who have been blessed with incredible grace and have concluded that the blessing has come as reward, rather than as responsibility.

see, Jesus always preaches 'the kingdom' with special focus on the hope that is afforded the hopeless... a continuous reminder that it is not religion but redemption and realization that God is obsessively pursuing. this odd parable is just part of that lengthy dialogue that is ongoing between God and man through Jesus (as we refer to him at Christmastime: Emmanuel, 'God with Us'.)

in this epic love poem from God, intended to woo back to himself his beloved, this parable is but a word in a very well-written line.

the story of the shrewd manager is challenging because it is almost a bizarro world chronicle- a photographic negative of many of Jesus' other stories involving masters and workers. in this one, the worker is guilty of time theft as well as poor stewardship of the master's resources. he recognizes that he will very shortly be carrying a shoebox full of his personal items out into the parking lot, past his company car which remains parked in what was once his executive parking spot, and across the street to the bus stop. because he has nothing to lose, he calls each of the master's debtors to him and, by misusing the authority entrusted to him, reduces their debts on paper, instantly making friends 'on the outside' in preparation for his dismissal.

and if this isn't weird enough, in Jesus' story the master commends the guy for it.

but within Jesus' very large and very consistent message, there are some things that we need to note in order to figure out just what lesson Christ is actually teaching here, lest we become lost in our own defaults.

first, this is an earthy story. it says that dishonest people do dishonest things and other dishonest people commend them for it. the turn is when Christ delineates a difference between being people of the world and people of the light. he elaborates upon this further by tying this light to eternity with a logical thread, urging his listeners to do their investing in commodities that are going to be around for awhile, rather than in those things that are subject to rust and robbery. this illustration that seems, at first glance to be rather inconsistent, is consistent with the word that Jesus speaks in many other contexts.

there is another key idea here, though.

in Christ's story, there is a marked social difference between the manager and the debtors. the master is the master, but there seems to be a line between the 'haves' and the 'have-nots'... the manager is currently on the one side, but seeks to soften his transition to the other rather than seeking to improve his relationship with the master. regrettable, as that seems to be the way things make sense in all places and ways outside the light.

theologian, john wesley, observed that:

We are indebted to God for all we have. Although a debtor is obliged to return what he has received, yet, until the time of payment comes, he is at liberty to use it as he pleases. But it is not so with a steward; he is not at liberty to use what is lodged in his hands as he pleases, but as his master pleases.


he goes on to say that the master has the right to ask:


How did you employ your soul? How did you employ the body with which I entrusted you? How did you employ the worldly goods which I lodged in your hands? Did you employ your health and strength in a vigorous pursuit of that better part which no one can take away from you? Above all, were you a good steward of my grace, going before, accompanying, and following you? (John Wesley)


all the resources available to both sides are the master's first. the key difference is the relationship. whereas the debtor is simply owing, the manager is in the master's employ. the debtor is called to account and to pay, the manager is called to a reckoning and is required to account for how the resources of the master have been directed to do the master's work- the furtherance of his light, his intended way, his kingdom.


in the kingdom of light, the master seeks to see his grace put to work to build relationship between himself and those owing debts that are impossible to repay. this is what the manager is supposed to be all about.


this is the only management that ultimately matters.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

everything is informed by everything else




















not everything written in the bible actually happened.
sometimes we forget that.
sometimes we think that everything Jesus said was true.

we forget that Jesus was acknowledged as a rabbi,
and that rabbi means master teacher.

Jesus was such a good teacher- in particular, such a good storyteller- that sometimes we find ourselves reading the stories Jesus told and dissecting them as faithfully recounted historical events, not illustrations told by a teacher to drive home the central idea of a lesson. and because Jesus told so many stories, many of which having similar characters or symbols, we sometimes mistakenly default to some presuppositions about the symbols and characters in this story based on similar ones in that one.

in many of Jesus parables (described by my someone in my childhood as 'earthy stories with heavenly meaning') socioeconomic roles are fleshed out as context and example of a lesson about the kingdom of God. in stories about workers and masters, the 'master' is usually God and the workers are usually people who are seeking to live lives glorifying to God. the stories often push back against the social and religious mores of the culture and the day because the lessons themselves are timeless and are meant to have meaning and significance both within the culture Jesus was immersed in and without it.

however, there is one story that G. W. H. Lampe calls 'the most difficult of all parables' with 'no interpretation (being) wholly satisfactory.' it is the one about the shrewd manager.

but what do we do with this one? if it fits the template, then the master who commends the manager for justifying the means with the end is God and the manager is any charlatan evangelist who can lie and embezzle in good conscience because the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ is being shared... and if it doesn't fit the template, then we have to find some way of figuring out what it means and why it is in the bible. this one is tough sledding- even illustrious, credentialed scholars like dr lampe confess.

maybe it would serve us to look at something easier first.


when we, as children, are learning to read and are given a sentence with an unfamiliar word in it, how do we discern its meaning? by context clues, right? in order to pull the meaning of a single unfamiliar word out of a sentence, we look at the words that surround it, gaining a picture of the broader idea first, and then look at the role of this term within that broader idea. context establishes meaning.

in order to ascertain the suitability of a house, we look at the surrounding community, recognizing that together all these houses make a neighbourhood, and that it is pointless to consider the house or determine its value in a vacuum.

speaking of houses, think of it this way: for us to jump into luke 16 without considering the story so far, in particular the direction of the larger talk that Jesus is delivering at the time (of which this particular parable is only one part about 2/3 of the way in) is like popping in scene 2 of episode 3 of disc 4 of season 5 of 'House' and trying to figure out what's going on. i mean, we'll pick up some basic plot, but are in danger of missing the significance of many things in the overall story arc. everything is informed by everything else.

so when we look closely at this story told by Christ, taking into consideration the larger message of God as communicated through the life, death and resurrection of Christ, not simply his teachings, what meaning does it hold for us now?

(to be continued)

Monday, September 13, 2010

bakery

























so i'm going to jump ahead of the backlog of would-be posts that have yet to be finished, and just post this fabulous vid by malvina reynolds

the story of the little red hen reminds us that if we want to claim any right the enjoyment of the bread, we need to find our place in the bread-making process.



paul writes of reward, and the fact that the only reward worth worrying about as a believer in Christ is being allowed to offer people hope, free of charge. being that the prophet micah writes that the promised messiah would come from bethlehem to bring peace and hope to all, the fact that Bethlehem means 'house of bread' is a rich reminder that when God chooses to analogize, his analogies go deep.



Saturday, September 11, 2010

ebike


















i call it the 'anti-hog'
it's everything that a hog isn't.
small, clean, quiet, green, cheap, slow...
everything a hog isn't.

still, no one said it was meant to be anything else.

why is it that we are so good at comparing things and people to other things and other people, rather than simply gauging their worth (if that's what we need to do) by identifying why that person or thing was called into being and then attending to its 'effectiveness' according to that calling.

we don't like doing that.

we don't like doing that with an ebike because we have bought someone's rant that anything with two wheels should be a hog or a crotch rocket. it's more fun to just compare the ebike to the touring bike or the cafe racer or the speedster and laugh because it just doesn't measure up. it's comforting, somehow, to find someone or something that seems even more poorly equipped for life in this intimidating world than we are.

the insecure bully within us all...
weird.

see, i think the ebike is uniquely equipped for life in today's world for exactly the same reasons that we laugh at it. it is small, clean, quiet, green, cheap, slow... everything a hog isn't.

it is so small and clean that i can park it inside the lobby of the church if the rain clouds are starting to appear on the horizon. very convenient. it is virtually silent because it is battery operated, and as such is environmentally responsible, not contributing to global warming or the depletion of nonrenewable resources like fossil fuels. this has the added bonus of being really cheap to operate. it is emotionally satisfying for one who hates spending money on consumables to silently coast by gas stations with petrol pumping people topping up their tanks with something that they're just going to burn up... my cash can go into things and people that are going to be around for awhile.

a surprise has come, however, in seeing being slow as an asset. although it is still much faster than walking or even cycling, the pace of the ebike is relaxed. riding it is stress free. put the iPod on 'shuffle' and see how many songs you can fit in before you get to your destination. no point in road raging it up when you can only go a maximum of 37km/h on a straight stretch. you just leave earlier and enjoy the ride... and it's surprising how often, like the tortoise in that old children's story, you find yourself peacefully weaving through the parked cars past the vehicles qeued at lights during rush hour, engines running, clocks ticking, going nowhere.


nope. the ebike was never meant to be a hog. its strengths exist in direct contrast to those of a really great motorcycle- it's just that nobody but ebike riders are even aware of them.

i wish that i had understood this simple joie de vivre much earlier in life. i could have been enjoying inner peace, rather than trying to be someone or something i wasn't.

see, i have spent most of my life comparing myself to others, coveting their strengths rather than celebrating my own. for some reason, i was always ready to believe that, whereas what others could do was essential, the areas that i excelled were merely ornamentation.

in an informal show of hands during a talk i was giving recently, i discovered that there were many like me who, in a lifelong quest for legitimacy, had wasted time, energy and emotion trying to somehow measure up to standards that were not reasonable or God honouring.

God honouring?
what does any of this have to do with God?

God has called each of us into existence and has equipped us with some basic gear. beyond this, however, we have each been entrusted with some special equipment and programming that is essential to the realization of the bigger actualization dream: God's desired picture of the world- the restoration of Shalom. burned into our DNA is arguably our place in the cosmos and to turn away from this in order to try to be like someone else is to say, in effect, that God doesn't know squat about anything that's really important. hardly God honouring.

God makes a tree and is glorified when that tree grows and bears delicious apples for kids to eat while they sit up in its branches reading books, dreaming dreams or stealing kisses. unlike tolkien's ents, real trees don't have any thinking, decisions or active involvement. they just are what they have been created to be and in so being, bring honour and glory to the creator.

so what is a man to be?


Tuesday, August 3, 2010

when i realize what 'mine' is


apparently, it's an old problem that continues to this day...

in regina leader post, a story ran just tuesday morning about an inheritance dispute that 'exploded into violence.' the fact that one of the scriptural passages we looked at on sunday includes a person in the crowd audaciously interrupting Christ's lesson in order to get some help resolving a similar issue just serves to remind us that Jesus' words in response still pertain to our lives today.

Jesus, as any great teacher does, recognizes that there is a teachable moment here. he recognizes, as any great teacher does, that this guy (and probably others affected by the same situation or one just like it) won't really hear anything he is trying to say (especially a lesson about the intrinsic value of people and God's provision for them) until the burning question is addressed. he recognizes, as any great teacher does, that if he's paying attention to his pupils then they will ultimately pay attention to him and gain from the interaction.

in this case, the burning question is simply:
'when am i gonna get mine?'

in this case? we still have trouble hearing God's words to us about our value and his provision when our entitlement buttons are being pushed by circumstance... even more when they're being pushed by people's decisions.

now, inheritance is a rather hot topic for a 1st century jew to interrupt the rabbi with. the nation has been waiting for an inheritance for awhile- waiting for the promised messiah and the 'day of the Lord' that will accompany his arrival. the fact that someone has to die in order for someone else to inherit anything seems to have escaped many- both before and since.

in any event, Jesus responds by telling a story with an unexpected twist. in it, the main character does everything right and knows it. he has attended to everything that is controllable and has set himself up with a solid business plan and some stable investment portfolio options for his retirement. he fails to spot one rather wild piece of quantum data: the number of his days. that's one fairly intense probability factor that remains undisclosed for us all. Jesus wraps up the anecdote with a reminder that our focus should really be outward, rather than inward- that we should be directing our attention and energy towards building God's kingdom, not our own.

but we forget this sometimes. especially when we are trying to deal with life left vacant by one deeply loved. amidst the shock, the stages of the grieving process and whatnot, people start looking for compensation. the entitlements that rise to the surface are pretty typical. quite regularly we try to fill a something-shaped hole with a something-else.

however, when Jesus resumes his talk on the inherent value of his listeners and the importance of not worrying because of this value in the eyes of God, his words are informed by the interruption and its response. he realizes that everyone has been listening and is now considering the number of his or her own days, and challenges his audience to seek first the kingdom of God, that everything would fall into place within it.

Q: when am i gonna get mine?
A: when i realize what 'mine' is...

that it isn't something that i can possess, but someplace that i am called to occupy, engaging with the world around me and shining the light of God's good news into the faces of those within proximity- illuminating them and affording them greater opportunity to know and to be known by myself and others as a result. it's where i fit in the larger scheme of things.

dare i say, it's where we all do?

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

making the highlight reel


























faith fills the space between believing and receiving...

Wide receivers... are among the fastest and most agile players in the game, and they are frequent highlight-reel favourites. (Wikipedia)

God’s biblical highlight reel begins with some words on faith... all that stuff about 'the essence of things unseen, the substance of things hoped for...' then, as example or evidence to be considered, the writer of the letter reminds his readers of their faith history, giving particular attention to the great patriarch, abraham... the one to whom God made the big promise: to make of him a great nation of descendants of greater number than the sands of the seashore, through whom the hope of the world would be realized.

abraham receives this promise from God, and is required to act upon it, leaving his home and his people with very little direction as to how it is all going to play out.

this whole thing can, perhaps, be compared to the work of the wide receiver in a football game. i mean, this player is required to do the ridiculous- to leave the rest of the team brawling at the line of scrimmage and run as hard as he can down the field as if he already has the ball. having run the designated distance, he angles slightly inward or outward, depending on the play called, and turns his head a bit in expectation: he has been told that he will receive the ball here somewhere and resume his run with it in his possession towards the goal line.

abraham seems to have been one of God's wide receivers- a man of significant faith. faith fills the space between believing and receiving.

just looking at one particular play in the sequence God is calling at the time is fairly telling (genesis 18.1-18)

this is the 5th time God appears to abraham. each time the ball moves further down the field, and each time momentum builds. however, there is a problem. the clock is running and the team is getting tired. abraham is now a really old guy, with his wife sarah not far behind him in years, and they still don't have children... a fairly large pushback on the whole 'descendants too numerous to count' bit of the promise.

in their passion to get the ball moving, team 'ben-Terah' has even tried calling a running play of their own involving a handoff to hagar, one of sarah's servants, but this is whistled down on a technical and results not only in a loss of yards but a fairly significant break in morale and momentum.

so when three heavenly representatives of Almighty God appear through the heathaze as abraham is in a time out, they are a welcome sight.

in the huddle, abraham humbly offers some refreshment to them, for he recognizes who has just appeared on the field. sarah, having not yet encountered God in this way, acts out of natural disbelief, laughing out loud (just like Abraham a couple plays back in genesis 17.17)

however, the play is called, the huddle breaks and faith fills the space between believing and receiving.

the ball is snapped and the 100 year-old wide receiver bursts off the line once again, as if he has the ball the whole time. of course we know how the play ends because we've seen the glorious catch on God's highlight reel.

faith is the reason the wide receiver makes the big catch, time after time. he runs as though he already has the ball... he acts upon his belief that there is a point to his running. every step is marked with expectancy as he executes his part of the larger play with speed and agility... and because his belief in and commitment to the plan is demonstrated in these steps, he is exactly where he needs to be in order to receive the ball and carry it to the goal...

okay... all football analogizing aside:
Q: what are we doing with the promises of God in our own lives and relationships? are we walking blamelessly, doing what is right and speaking the truth from our hearts? (psalm 15.1-2) or are we testifying with our inner laughter and our cynical perspective that we have either never encountered God, or have forgotten what it was like because it was so long ago?