cairns

I just hate it when pastors say things that are untrue about God and contrary to the overwhelming evidence of scripture.  Yesterday I heard a local pastor give a mostly very good message about the role of the church in reaching out to others.  But, as he talked about the obstacles to actually getting up and doing something, he repeatedly said that we are not allowed to question God.  Of course, I know his denomination all too well.  They believe God speaks to the body through the staff and elders and what they really mean is, “Do not question what we tell you.”  That is bad enough in my book, but that is not what he said.  He said, “Do not question God.”

The most basic perusal of the Bible narratives will show that this is an unsupported view.  They all questioned God.  Abraham, Moses, Job, the psalmists, the prophets and kings, the disciples, Ananias, (and now us.) The problem is not in asking questions.  The problem comes into the narrative when people do not pay attention to the presence of God at all, or refuse to obey the answers they are given.

People have questions, especially if called to live outside the norms of their own cultural narrative.  Who are they supposed to ask?

Themselves to see if it fits into what their own culture deems normal or acceptable?  That is contrary to the Biblical accounts and leads to inaction — or action that only supports the direction their culture is already traveling.

Their neighbor? I have no problem with this one if the neighbor is a mature person who can help with discernment.  But, it often leads to gossip, doubting, and undermining of valid decisions by church leadership.

God?  I do understand the problem the pastor was getting at here.  We ask our questions through inaction and rationalization.  We talk to the ceiling not truly believing that God has or will speak, and are answered only by our own norms and fears.  Then we fail to live lives of adventure and service.  Or, we word it so that we appear to be questioning (humbly because we are so ‘virtuous’) our own skills, talents, or ‘calling.’  But, we are letting ourselves off the hook of doing and being what we are called to do and be.

No, I think honestly questioning God is exactly what we ARE supposed to do.  Then we are to listen for the answer and obey.  Ananias (called to go cure and witness to Saul of Tarsus) was the example used in yesterday’s text.  Question God is exactly what the text says he did.  It does not indicate that God is offended.  It indicates that God gave a clear emphatic, also read unmistakable, answer.  He went, and the history of Christianity changed.  I see no problem with the asking.  The obedience to the answer is everything.

Even for the pastor giving the sermon, within his “we tell you what God says” framework, would be better off to invite folks being called to do something new TO ask their honest questions of the leadership that claims to speak for God.  If they really are delivering a message true to divine intention, they will have the answers and be able to support their followers into action.

The alternative is well known to anyone who has studied leadership.  If they do not ask you, they will ask somebody else and undercurrents will form.  (I know the military, under the possibility of orders given in battle conditions, does not use this model.  But, they are not the scriptural model and most of life’s situations do not match theirs.)  Or, people will lie awake at night questioning themselves, their faith, their worthiness because they have questions for God and their pastor has told them it is forbidden.  They just will not be free to ask for help, because that would label them as spiritually unfit instead of human like every hero in the Biblical narratives.

The same pastor, in the same sermon, was talking about inviting people into a relationship with God.  What kind of relationship, other than dictatorial, allows for only commands and obedience without questions?  Certainly a relationship with a loving God cannot mimic those demeaning human behaviors.  Relationships call for honesty.  When one party has questions, they should be asked.  Then answers should be carefully heard.

THAT is what the heroes of the scriptural texts DO.  They hear and see, they question, they listen, and they obey.  There is nothing evil or forbidden in that pattern.

peace

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People who stay in people jobs long after they have given up on people, especially ones who work with children –

Conservatives criticizing government for siding with big business after chanting my whole life that what is good for big business is good for America–

Republicans after the Bush/Cheney years claiming the Democrats are too friendly with big oil –

Democrats who are still running away from the label of liberal and trying instead to present themselves as a “reasonable” version of the Republican platform –

How we keep believing that electing people who say they hate the system, but spend a fortune to get into it, will change our lives –

People who trust any talking head of any ilk to speak the Truth when their obvious agenda is building their listener base and advertising take –

People who believe that government, the church, a protest movement, education, or any other organization of man can solve the world’s problems, or even tries to do more than protect and promote itself –

People who believe that multinational corporations are more interested in their well being than their own elected government–

People who still believe there is AN answer to be found that will work for everyone in politics, education, religion, or any other life category–

People who believe school accountability programs which are based on the premise that everyone can be in the top half of any type of category (and after passing fourth grade math class!) –

People who believe that education is the problem with business while all of the jobs are being outsourced to uneducated sectors of the world willing to work as slaves–

Well, most of today’s realities :-/

Things I do understand:

Children love to learn, learn to love by being treated with loving respect, and grow up to be our future.

People deserve the right to be who they really are; their narratives are unique, life giving, and deserve to be honored.

God loves them both, and we have no right to do less.

peace

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My old church is advertising their community Easter event with commentary about the other two crosses.  In part it says, “We do not know what their crimes were.”  And, I confess my first response was, “Because it doesn’t matter!”

However; I was quickly brought up short by my own commitment not to be critical of a place that nurtured my family for years (or any other part of the Body of Christ), by my recent reading of Volf’s book on grace and forgiveness as well as Brueggemann’s analysis of the narratives of the Old Testament, and a blinding flash of the obvious.

The Christian tradition has long emphasized the drama of God on the cross.  I have written in this blog on more than one occasion about God’s ultimate reconnection with mankind in that context.  But, less attention has been paid to humanity on the cross.  Christ, as both perfect God and perfect man, hangs there as both divine and human.  But, it is so easy for us to miss the human side in the wonder that God would do such a thing.  So, there in the narrative are the two thieves representing humanity — clear and obvious.

Once we recognize the thieves it is easy to do what the ad that started this reflection does and focus on the one who experiences union with Christ obviously in the narrative.  I think there is something important about clearly seeing both men there with the Savior.  One recognizes Jesus and asks for His help.  The other is still apparently in unbelief and issues challenges and demands.  If we look at it as a narrative providing metaphor for larger truth than just the specifics of that day, I think the two combine to represent the totality of mankind dying that day with Christ.  On one side we find those whose faith is placed in Christ, on the other those who do not yet know him.  Both die that day.

This morbid thought is important for its life giving conclusion on Easter morning!  We recognize our position as crucified and risen with Christ through passages such as Galatians 20.  But, we tend to limit the death and the life to just one thief — the one we identify with as “saved.”  I now believe there is a clear picture of all humanity in those three crosses, with the hope of resurrection for all humanity implied as well (see passages such as Ephesians 1 discussing God’s plans through Christ to being all things into unity).

Evangelicals may only be able to agree in as much as there was only one crucifixion covering all who died before in faith and all who came to belief later.  In that sense, we were all the thief in the state of unbelief , “while we were yet sinners,” at the time of the crucifixion.  Those with a more universal hope in reading the full narrative of the Scripture will see in the total inclusion of mankind at the cross the promise of the eventual (although mysterious in means and method as God is mysterious) resurrection to Life of all as well.  I clearly see myself in both men — sometimes turning to Christ in faith that overcomes great hardship, sometimes challenging, complaining, and still wanting to be in charge of the world.  My hope is based on the nature of the One on the center cross, not my good or bad days.

And, I now know the crimes of the other two crucified that day.  They are my own.

peace

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After finishing Borg, I just read Tony Campolo’s Speaking my mind.   I think it is far from his best work, but maybe Borg is too tough a competition. Even at less than his best, Campolo’s challenges to the face of modern evangelicalism are thought provoking (and would be acceptable to a larger evangelical audience than Borg).  Of, course anybody in anyway attracted to fundamentalism will find them both intolerable.  I love them.  And the combination of their presentations has provoked this contemplation on universalism/second chances/the ultimate relationship of God and humanity.

What if we read the creation story of Genesis with the end in mind instead of arguing about what is fact, myth, or nonsense about our origins?

What has me going is the idea that humans can reject God and choose to go to hell (whatever we imagine that to actually be).  Campolo gives a reasonably fair discussion of the views that the cross applied to all humanity, and that in the end all will be with God.  Then, he rejects the idea based on the need for justice; the need for a negative choice to make the positive choice real; and Bible verses which speak of judgment after death.  He is mostly trying to cause evangelicals to think enough to admit we may not know everything and quit being so offensive to the rest of the world.

So, back to Genesis!  No matter which approach you take, it is a story of humanity rejecting the instruction of God and trying to become godlike ourselves.  This is very similar to the arguments I just read for eternal damnation — that we are free and capable of rejecting God.  But, that is not how the story of origins plays out.  While God is absent, they are tempted and commit wrong.  And, that is where most sermons focus along with the loss of paradise and the need for a future Savior.

But, something more happens in the story itself.  They only have to hear God coming and they are filled with shame and remorse.  AND, when God calls out to them, they answer!  They accept God’s provision for their shame and nakedness, the consequences of having chosen to know evil, and the promise of deliverance.  I am thinking via keyboard here , but what if we take that as an archetype of the response of humans to actual encounters with the Divine?

When actually brought back into the presence of the Divine; they answer, submit, and live on in relationship with their Creator.  They are saved from themselves and their weakness.  Why should we expect it to be less now or in the future?

Most people I know who reject Christianity are doing exactly that — rejecting a religion and a human organizational structure — not Jesus.  Much of humanity has lived and died without hearing of either Jesus or the Church.  When the gospel has been brought to new groups, it has often been wrapped in the flag of some empire and accompanied by numerous requirements to live like people from the missionaries’ home culture –instead of offering a simple encounter with the Divine Creator, Sustainer, and Finisher of all things.  When they reject our empire, we condemn them to hell as having rejected Christ.

I have a new image as I meditate today (drugs for kidney stones are involved too, so if this is too wild, I have a cop out in place! lol).  Today I am picturing all of us hiding naked in the wonder of this not yet completely destroyed garden of plenty.  I hear God coming.  And I see the natural response of all humans in the actions of Adam and Eve.  We stumble and stutter and try to blame each other.  But face to face with the reality of the Divine (as opposed to the unavoidably flawed face of the human church) I see acceptance of the role of God as God.  I see salvation.

It is no longer a stretch for me to see men and women after leaving this world encountering the Truth that is the loving Creator and worshiping.  I actually find it hard to imagine any other response to coming into the very presence of Life and Love.  I part with my much loved CS Lewis here.  He presented images of people being able to look into that face and be repulsed.   I see them finally having the scales of years of human anti-images of God fall from their eyes and truly behold the face of eternal all powerful Love.  I see them finding salvation.

Others I greatly respect will disagree completely.  It is OK.  It calls me forward not to condemn, but to cease condemning — that is one of the barrier images we have placed between people and God.  It calls me to become closer and closer to Jesus in order to get more and more out of the way of people encountering the Love beyond all reason here and now.  Eternity will take care of itself.  It sits in the hands of that same loving Father.

peace

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Just finished this amazing book by Marcus Borg — amazing because it denies all the things I was raised to believe were literally true factual statements and at the same time affirms all the larger truths about God I have come to treasure along the way.  By escaping the silliness of arguing over whether specific hard to believe events actually happened as historical facts, he goes straight to the level of eternal Truth in the same accounts.  The subtitle of “Taking the Bible seriously but not literally” is exactly what the author does.  And, he goes all the way from Genesis through Revelation in one amazingly clear, logical, and inspiring analysis of how the Bible reveals the potential for relationship between us and God as well as with each other.

If the phoniness of supposed literalists (who always seem to take the commands or criticisms of others far more literally than anything that affects their own lives) has gotten old, I suggest taking time to read this one.  I have no idea how much I agree with (that will take time, contemplation, prayer, and reading the Bible itself), but in this one volume there is more about the God I know than I found in all the dogmas I was raised on.

peace,

Greg

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If you think you understand the story of the prodigal, try reading it while waiting on a single child to return home. You will begin to understand the deep love of the Father who is actually the center of the story.  Then multiply by the total number of humans who have ever lived.  How fast and far can a father run?

I see God starting in Genesis and not finishing until ‘every knee is bent and every tongue confesses’ — until every child is home and talking with Dad.  Now that is a marathon.

More and more this is the only theology I know for sure.  Jesus is the prodigal who spreads heaven’s wealth among us ragamuffins.  He is also the older brother who does his family duty and comes looking for us prodigals, teaching us to help each other home.  And He is One with the Father who comes running down the road to grab us and take us into the party.

If you do not know Him, look around to see who is passing out the gifts, turn toward home and see who is already running toward you, or just stumble along with me.

peace

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What if the story recorded in Genesis, and explained to us as “The Fall,” was from some other culture?

Would we interpret the story as centered on the specific event, or the man vs nature conflict it explains?  If it was not part of our traditional explanation of man’s need for a savior, would we not see in it primitives explaining the difficulty of deriving a living from the soil?

What if that culture was newly emerged from the more lush Rift Valley to the south and now trying to live in the harsher portions of the planet to the north?  Would we see it as cosmic cataclysm, or an attempt to explain how their daily lives had changed from one of easy access to food in a tropical climate, to a the labor of survival in a harsher time and place?

Doesn’t the best evidence now indicate the mankind arose in the Rift Valley of Africa and migrated north into the areas of the Middle East?

I wonder how much of the Old Testament would be clearer if we read it with the same literary lenses we apply to a cultures we do not consider to be the beginnings of our religion?  If we were reading the tribal tales of some other culture would we not explain people with a fear vs power world view working to explain the events of their lives and history?  It seems to me that a great deal of the Old Testament reads very much like primitive fear vs power explanations of personal, family, national, and intercultural events.

I also wonder how differently the New Testament interpretations become if we read them as part a culture that has grown from fear vs power to one of shame vs honor.  Much of what we read as matters of eternal guilt, punishment, and pardon become very different when read through a lens of behaving in a manner which brings shame or honor.  If salvation comes to all through the loving pursuit of man by the Creator, then behaving in an ungrateful manner would surely be seen as a manner of great shame.  And, the parables seem to point to a God who deals with even that shame by rushing out to reclaim us once again and invite us into a party as honored guests.

I am contemplating it a lot lately.  I am re-reading familiar passages through these new-to-me lenses.  And so far, the God I am finding seems a lot more like the One who accompanies me day by day than does the Old Son-Sacrificing Judge I was taught about in my youth.

peace

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Thinking about connections between ideas in different passages that have come up in different contexts, specifically 2 Corinthians 11:14’s angel of light, Ephesians 6’s armor, and Mathew 25’s sorting of the sheep and goats.

It’s on my mind because my mind and heart are torn by the pain of trying to live out the gospel to a person who has done everything in their power to hurt me and has succeeded.  It’s on my mind because I believe that we have power to protect each other through prayer and I thought the battle went well.  Then I went to sleep and was defenseless.  And the wounds were opened deep, old, and rotten.  I have to contemplate it all to find my own way to grace and past it.  I have to contemplate it all to live my beliefs in multiple contexts without allowing one extremely painful arena to destroy so much good in the others.

So I turned some of it outward to general theology instead of painful personal psychology.  And I was thinking about how badly the church hurts the church.  We damage each other at a far greater rate and cause more lasting damage than any outside force ever could.  And I wonder, is it because we let the pretender of light stay in our midst?  We put on “the armor,” but allow the enemy inside our circle of shields.  We read the famous goat passage as if it is a future tense once and for all event, but Jesus declared the Kingdom to already be upon us, and us to be the body.  Maybe we are supposed to be sorting out goats before they drive away sheep.

Problem is we always pick the wrong goats, the ones whose lifestyle we choose to call sin instead of our own, the broken man who confesses his wrongs instead of maintaining the charade of all our perfection, the woman does what it takes to stay alive and feed her kids in the only ways our societies provide (and who has those kids because she believed our pro-life message!)….

The parable says the goats are those who fail to provide love to all in need.  The goats are not those with sin in their life, but the lack of charity.  Maybe we are already sitting on our throne and we are supposed to invite those who do not live the gospel to gather elsewhere than in our midst.  I can promise there would be grinding of teeth.  The uncharitable quoters of scripture and pretenders at discipleship hate nothing more than to be without victims.  As for eternity, that is beyond me.

Caesar comes to mind, ruler of the known world, dying with the words, “Et tu Brute?”  It is the insider who does us in.  The outsider is easily kept at bay, locked out, labeled, abandoned and safe.  And if we do that, we too are goats.  We were supposed to be advancing in love to gather up all those in need of grace!  Instead we gather in our little circles of pretty light and all too often devour each other.

This is becoming circular.

When I find myself goatish I will repent or remove myself from the area where I can harm you, fail to serve you, fail to live out the love.

When I find you goatish, I am going to learn to hold my shield closer to my chest.  And, I may just be willing to watch you walk away into the night and the hands of One better prepared for the battle and the cure than I.

peace

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Sojo posted Colossians 3:4-5 today, and I just had to go back and read the whole selection.

It’s very interesting to me that all of the does and don’ts are book ended by statements that we are already in Christ, who is seated in heaven (3:1-3), and who will give us in the end the reward that He wants us to have (24).  Yes, I know verse 25 is a warning, but look at even it.  It says God treats us all the same.

Already sealed in Christ — now live like it — your reward is sure.  The order is so important.  Christ already sealed us by the virtue of Divine righteousness, not ours.  So, in the middle we are called to live lives of honor worthy of the gift we have been given.  And the final reward is determined by the fact that the Divine wishes to give it, not by our works and stumblings along the way.

Backing up to Chapter 2 makes it clear that the letter is to baptized believers and looks like an escape valve back to the teaching of my youth that the promises are all secure for us lucky elect who heard and received, but not for all.  But, back up yet a bit further and there is this amazing, imponderable, earth shattering passage:

¹⁸ And he is the head of the body, which is the church. He is the beginning. He is the first to be raised from the dead. That happened so that he would be far above everything. ¹⁹ God was pleased to have his whole nature living in Christ. ²⁰ God was pleased to bring all things back to himself because of what Christ has done. That includes all things on earth and in heaven. God made peace through Christ’s blood, through his death on the cross.

I have heard a lot of theological garbage in my life to escape verses like these and assure us that we are more special than the many “thems” who are not us.  But it just is not that easy to explain away.  Paul says “God was pleased to being ALL THINGS back to himself” through Christ, and then in case we are dense he repeats himself “That includes all things on earth and in heaven.”

That’s the God I know.  That’s the God who calls me to holiness.  That’s the God who gives me reason to love those I would rather hate or ignore.  That’s God — beyond my wildest imagining, beyond the theology I was so carefully taught, beyond all things human — Divine Perfect All Encompassing Love.

How can grace include those who have not heard?  I do not know.  I know they are missing the present joy of life in the knowledge of the gift they have been given.  Eternity is beyond me.

How can love include the heinous?  I don’t even know how it can include the irritating, including me.

How can ….. how can I, unworthy adopted child of a righteous magnificent God, even begin to understand perfection?  I am taking the advice of an old song of my generation and heading back to the garden.  I no longer wish to know the what, when, why, and how.  I know the One Who Is.

Come walk with me Savior, choose the path, and I know all I need to know.

peace

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It happened this morning.  I went to a local church because my daughter was in the program.  They stuck to the script; read straight from the Bible, and sang traditional songs.  But, right in the middle of it all, I got smacked by Mathew 1:19.  How many times have I heard that when Joseph found out Mary was pregnant he was going to put her away quietly?  How many times have I even heard that it was out of concern for her and not wanting to disgrace her publicly?  This morning it hit me, the verse says it was “because he was a righteous man!”  Skip forward to Jesus and the woman caught in adultery for what the law said.

The earthly father of Jesus is unwilling to go by the law specifically because he is righteous!  Because he was a righteous man, Joseph was unwilling to subject his beloved Mary to the penalty of law with its public disgrace, and possible death.  It just keeps running through my head, “because he was a righteous man” not a good law abiding believer, but truly a righteous man.  I don’t think we give Joseph enough credit.  What a perfect earthly father for the one who would forgive sin and place love above the law!  Surely when He was old enough, they told Jesus the story.  Later when He was in the center of the crowd with a humiliated woman, was He remembering the lessons of an earthly father as well as the heart of the heavenly one?

Be careful how you react to this.  There is a deeper question hiding in it all.  In Middle Eastern culture to this day, an unwed girl who becomes pregnant is guilty regardless of the circumstances.  In some recent cases, rape victims have been labeled guilty of adultery.  But, Joseph saw her as worthy of protection even before the angel explained what was happening — not because he knew Mary was righteous — because he was (and later found out Mary was as well because the actor in her predicament was God).

If you see where I am going with this, perhaps you are already thinking of passages like Romans 5:15 — If sin could come through one man, how much more righteousness?

And what did Jesus say about the ability of earthly fathers to give good gifts being exceeded by the heavenly Father?

What if the final determinate of whether God is willing to send any of us away to shame and punishment, is not our worthiness but His righteousness and love?  I think there is more Bible to back this up than all of the figurative language and strange  references used to teach me in my youth that most of mankind was bound for hell.  I know it is more in keeping with the God who has accompanied me day by day for half century now.

Will such a heretical (to American legalists) view lead to cheap grace?

Not for me, and I doubt that it would for anyone who truly looked into the abyss and the love.  Love is the only response.  How Mary must have loved Joseph for protecting her from shame before he even knew the details!  How much do we love a Savior who saves us because the Source, Sustainer, and Resolver of all things is righteous and loves us because that is the name and nature of the Divine?  To think that love may finally reach every heart, causing every head to truly bow, every knee to truly bend, and every soul to find its intended end in union with God does not tempt me to rebel.  I doubt that it will anyone else who truly sees its depth, its cost, and its miraculous glory.

peace

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