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.

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.

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.

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.

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)

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.

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?