cairns

I think this book is going to be an excellent read.  It has definitely started well.

One early section (p 53) references a story of hypnotizing chickens from Gordon Mackenzie ending with this quote.

The same thing that happened to those chickens can happen to you.  When you join an organization, you are without fail, taken by the back of the neck and pushed down and down until your beak is on the line — not a chalk line, but a company line.  And the company line says things like, “This is our history.  This is our philosophy.  These are our procedures.  These are our politics.  This is simply the way we are.” 

Frost follows with the observation, “How easy it is for the church to be pushed down by our host culture — pushed down the chalk line and made to embrace the philosophies, procedures and politics of that empire.”

It is a valid observation and well said.  But, right now I am more personally concerned with this chicken abuse within the organization that is the church!  In my own history, small churches have abused their members just as seriously as large ones in this area.  And I am tired — tired of being expected to follow the church’s company line, philosophies, policies, procedures, and politics.

I would rather follow Jesus.  Thank you just the same.

peace

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I am still wondering about the “by one man” parallels between Adam and Jesus.  It isn’t just idle wondering the more I discover about the literary patterns used in scriptural passages.  It doesn’t seem likely that this pair would have one half that means something entirely different from the other.

If “by one man” death/judgement/curse fell upon the Earth with no option for individual choice later on, it seems a mismatch to claim that “by one man” life/justification/blessing came upon those select ones born into cultures which teach His book and who decide to choose His ways.  There is something basically wrong with the theology which claims one is universal and one is selective.

So I keep pondering

If I knew for sure that everyone was going to “make it,” that we are all eternal and NOT damned;

Would I invite others to my church?  Would I give them Bibles?  Would I still introduce people to as much of Jesus as I know?  Would I still go to Haiti and Africa?  So, far it is “yes” to most of those.  But I am pondering.

peace

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In one wonderful sharing session this weekend, my African friends were sharing about a time of reconciliation they initiated with African American colleagues.  They began the time by apologizing for the role of their ancestors in selling their own into slavery.  (To tell you the truth, that side of the issue had never dawned on me as existing in a way that might need reconciliation!)

In that process, Deo said that he saw his American relatives as Joseph and his own people at home as the brothers who sold him.  Now they came to beg forgiveness and reunification.  It led to some wonderful discussion and relationships.  I was told that it also prompted a response from at least one American questioning whether they had ever lived up to the role of Joseph in providing for the family who sold them!?

What I am contemplating is my role as an Egyptian in the tale interpreted this way.  Is it true that we grew wealthy as a result of their coming here?  I think there is strong evidence that the answer is yes.  Is it true that we then grew to despise them as they grew in number and strength?  I think that is clear as well.  Has our society chosen to force them into the worst labor and to live by policies which kill their male sons?  I am afraid that is abundantly clear as well.

Which leaves me with a question.  Will we repent or choose the plagues?  This month and next everyone in public schools speaks about Dr. King and those who have invited us to a higher path.  I wonder if we will truly follow that path or turn back to find our own Red Sea ending.

peace

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Yesterday I was listening, painfully, to my friend give another ill prepared sermon on the temptation of Jesus.  I could write quite a rant, but I will refrain.

Anyway, at one point he started reducing the whole thing to having and showing us how to have a “good moral compass.”  That’s when it hit me.  Jesus didn’t teach a higher moral standard.  That was the Pharisees.  The difference between an internal transformation to become a God-child walking in awareness of the kingdom led by the very indwelling Spirit of God and being one more “good” boy or girl with a newer and shinier scouting toy….

PTL He came to set us free form the moral majority.

peace,

Greg

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My sixteen year old looked like she was bouncing right back, then her stomach revolted.  Home the rest of the week, doctor and meds yesterday, trying to eat today…one step away from being admitted for loss of fluids and nutrition.  Going to try and go along to see our African friends tonight and get out of the house.

Meanwhile the oldest is waiting on the arrival of funds to cover the cost of a vehicle she already paid a deposit to hold and they appear to be in cyber limbo — out of one account but three days later not deposited in the target account.

Masters students waiting until the last minute to submit work, ask for help on work, say they need extensions on work…

One daughter calling about unexpected death in an acquaintance’s family.  Another daughter moping to not miss the attention or something.  Wife showing symptoms again as soon as antibiotics ran out…

Makes me wonder where we ever got the illusion of living as anything but helpless and small. 

Where do we get the illusion that we control life?  What is it like for our brothers and sisters who live outside the hedge of our economic privilege?  How can the theology of my youth possibly be attractive to them with its no-doubts tolerated everything works just like this ‘as long as you have faith’ lies?  What world were my elders preparing me to live in? 

I choose the one I am in!  God, grace, truth, and my brothers and sisters live here.  Keep the flannel boards.  I’ll bring some gas and a match (and some marshmallows, chocolate, and graham crackers) for the next time we meet.

peace

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So it happened again last night.  A sixteen year old daughter is dumped by a boy who swore he would love her forever.  With four daughters, it has happened before and it is always bad.  This one has a miserable school, no youth group, and feels very isolated to add to the misery.

All of which brings me back to my musings on Genesis and God.  This is where things matter.  How do we become small enough to weep with a child in true understanding and acceptance and strong enough to promise hope? 

The mystery of the incarnation becomes deeper not less as I understand it more.  This combination of divine power and human frailty is so much more than our explanations.  And the call of it, to be perfect by becoming more human…to be truly human by recognizing the divinity in all life…to be present for others in the form they need…is beyond everything I have known up to now.

Last night it meant holding a 16 year old crushed on the very evening she just got her driver’s license and letting her have the bed with her mother.  I don’t have anything more profound than that this morning.  Be there for somebody today.  They may not have anyone else.

peace

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It seems to me a very similar thing happens when the creation myth is read from honor/shame.  Here are the newly arrived creatures, blessed with everything but warned of one dangerous item, scheming to become gods.  When they taste of full knowledge, they are ashamed of their nakedness.  Could it also be their smallness?  Smallness compared to creator and creation?  Smallness in terms of ingratitude and selfish desire in the face of great hospitality?  At any rate they are clearly ashamed.  Is their shame great enough to kill them?  Are they in common terms “embarrassed to death?”

This path to reunification by God looks a lot like the discussion before.  Like the prodigal’s father throwing all propriety aside, He bears the shame to restore honor to creation.

Now the bigger questions for me really begin as I contemplate what these views may be calling me to…to smallness, powerlessness, shame instead of greatness, competence, and honor. 

What might this mean as I work with young students?  What would these divine footsteps look like down the hallways of public education?  What do they look like as I continue, at least for now, to interact with my mega-church?  It is so easy to critique their trappings of power and grandeur, but what does it look like if I respond without resorting to the same methods?  How do I decrease to a point of contact?  (Part of me hopes it is to decrease to a point of exit!) 

 But, I am seriously looking into this delicate mirror.  How do I give up grand prophetic imaginations of teaching them something, revealing great truths, shaking foundations and consider the footsteps of a God who becomes small enough for greedy interloping creatures to be saved from our own weakness and shame?

Is this the New Testament confession of “I must decrease.  He must increase?”  What is the mystery of this powerless/omnipotent savior?  How is it that the Author of all things maintains His subject position while assuming a position of object of human power and disgrace? 

I have at times been given the grace of experiencing it with young students.  There have been the magic moments of teaching best by allowing them to emerge as my teacher.  There have been those healing relationships of inviting them to become themselves by admitting my own powerlessness over their lives and choices.  But, those were always situations where I held the adult/child, teacher/student, superior/inferior position as determined by our social setting.

What does it look like in other settings like church where I am placed in the child/student/inferior position?  What does it look like anywhere if the footsteps are truly followed?  What am I being called to?

I do not know.  But I love the path, the journey, and above all the One who made it.

peace

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Thinking of Muller’s worldviews of fear/power and shame/honor again as I read Genesis.  It makes for interesting possibilities.  For me, its not that the guilt/justice model is incorrect as much as realizing that all theologies fall short.  So new views may open other aspects of God and our relationship to the Divine.

Thinking of the fear/power view, what if God meant, “The knowledge of Good and evil will scare you to death?”  In the text He warns not to eat or they will die.  I know I am stretching a bit.  But, what is their immediate response but fear?  They hide.  What if God knew these humans he made did not have the power required to handle full knowledge and the result would be deadly fear?  And saddest of all, the fear would be of Him who is powerful. 

The story from there to the incarnation unfolds differently if we view it as God becoming closer and closer to us in ways which will allow us to grasp the Truth without being scared to death.  Makes sense that He had to be born poor, naked, and homeless and die the same way if He is becoming human and weak enough to to rejoin us and show us the way to life.

peace

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Here is my initial response:

There were one or two statistics like only 1% of consumer goods still in use 6 months later that made me wonder exactly what all was being counted.  But over all, it is time we start paying attention, not arguing politics, but looking at alternatives to destruction.  There is good evidence that the gods of the current system are fueling the current debates about causes, because as long as we argue true causes nobody moves ahead to solutions that may damage their positions of power and affluence.  But then, my views have often been labeled extreme and I usually keep them to myself especially around our church friends.  They do not find them suitable for consumption! peace

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What if John 3:16 means exactly what it says — that would out literal my fundamentalist literalistic background!  What if He loves and saves the “world?”  What if its not just the proper doctrine world, or the dunked world, or the 4-laws world, the informed world, the western world, the repentant world, or any qualified and limited world?  What if it means what it says?

I know all the verses and passages we use to claim that it is exclusive to whoever we choose to define as worthy of the club.  I know them well.  But, I am currently contemplating the possibilities of having missed something significant.  When I was a child we spoke of how the Jews of Jesus day focused on only the kingly prophecies and this missed the suffering Messiah.  What if we are the ones doing that?  What if we are focusing so much on passages calling men directly into the kingdom life, that we are missing whole passages on God’s plan to bring the whole world into worship of Him — and salvation?

[Saturday morning: for example this morning i have been following the ideas of God's redemption and jubilee through the Bible.  These threads speak more of God's redemption based on God's character not ours -- and it includes the land!  Sunday morning: does the Mathew 20 account of the Vineyard owner paying the late recruits the same wages out of his own generosity belong here?]

We have no problem saying by one man sin and death entered the world, and most of those I have spent my life among have no problem saying it applies to all with no action on our part required.  We are simply damned as part of Adam’s fallen offspring — evil by nature.  Even within that view, why should God’s salvation be less inclusive than His judgement?

What if God meant it when he reviewed His handiwork and said, “It is good,” and still does?  What if the whole judgement/punishment/payment model is in fact our chosen not His given view (or at least not only view)?  What if the incarnation/crucifixion/resurrection was indeed a rescue mission of God’s good work – all of it?  Does a lifeguard stop to see if the swimmer wants to live or loves the lifeguard?

What if nature is also included?  We have no problem including it in the fall.  All the evidence of life’s hardships seems to confirm it.  Why would it not be included in the rescue by a God who notes the status of every sparrow?

What if….

Would we object to God giving grace beyond our theologies?  Would we be offended?  Would we stop sharing the news of this rescue if we learned it was not fire insurance?  Would we love God less for loving all of His handiwork?  What if God does indeed run to embrace the starving reprobate?

I haven’t really changed views — at least not completely. I would be dishonest to claim otherwise.  But, I am constantly confronted by a God who is bigger and wilder than anything I imagine.  And I am visiting with Him in the possibilities beyond my childhood views.

And, I have to say, I like what I am finding.  I would not cease to share this message that we have been rescued.  I would want others to experience the joy of the kingdom that has already come upon us.  I would ask others to consider how our attitudes toward this planet match those of the God who saves.  Would we so easily be able to claim we walk in His footsteps?

I do not need the answer.  I only need the God who is bigger than all I imagine, the God who loves beyond my capacity, who saves men without merit throughout the Bible narrative, who dances with me in the mystery.  I hope the universalists are right.  See you all at the party!

peace

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