cairns

My head is still spinning from visiting a China so different from everything I was taught.  So, I continue to process on multiple layers.  This week I have been pondering a possibility that the Communists/Socialists have already learned a lesson we are still struggling to master.

I am pondering it partially because of the extreme anger expressed by the polarized camps over proposed changes in American health care.  It occurs to me, that we are struggling with something bigger than medical care and costs.  Costs certainly do not seem to matter when we choose to destroy people we consider “other.”  I think the real issue just may be the tyranny of grand designs.

Both China and the Soviet Union have already spread power out from one center of control to many localities.  They were in many ways more modern than us in their years of building.  Their true believers thought it was possible to design one system which would work for all people.  They fought for it, killed for it, sacrificed rights for it, and it did not work.  I believe they are ahead of us in the move past it to understanding that man is incapable of creating grand designs that fit all people.

I think our love of individualism and emphasis on individual accomplishment within our system may have blinded us to this same lesson.  We are still arguing about which political party is best suited to creating the country that works for us all.  I think we should look East.  The giant empires are spreading power to smaller units for local control.  There is no longer a faith in human capacity to create plans from the center of power which will work for everyone. We cry out repeatedly that we do not want Washington controlling our lives and choices!  When will we actually listen to ourselves and believe what we are saying?  Creating the one right answer is a task beyond the capacity of man.

Praise God, it was never given to us to do in the first place.  I am not completely post-modern.  I think the Communists still miss the essential fact.  There is One Who Is.  There is a Grand Plan which came into being by the first Word of Being.  The Tao, the Logos, the Word made Flesh contains all the plan the world needs.  We are not capable.  He is. (It’s God’s name after all!)

I hope we learn the lesson before we return to the methods of violence so common to man’s past when any group feels pressed too far, or becomes true believers that their philosophy will be best for all once the opposition is silenced.  The debate was clear and loud at the original US Constitutional Convention — should power be centralized or widely dispersed in the States?  After 200+ years of experimenting, the anger tells me we are not happy with master plans, systems of public welfare, collection and dispersal of taxes, or control of our basic life needs under the control of any far removed representatives.

Perhaps it is time, with faith in a Loving, All Knowing, Victorious God the communists do not know, to follow their lead on human systems and quit trying to build planetary houses of cards.  Perhaps it is time for power and control to be more widely spread, more available to the people who pay for them and depend upon them.  Maybe Washington is never going to be Jerusalem (History clearly shows that there have been people who thought otherwise.)  The Communists are copying us in trying to substitute the God of money even as they break apart the central powers.  We know that path is folly as well.  There is no grand human plan that will save us.

Where should power reside?  How about a manger, a carpenter’s house, an oppressed countryside, a cross, and in glorious mystery both seated in Heaven and enthroned in human hearts?  May we realize again that the power that will decide our fates is unmoved by human whims, votes, Supreme Courts, legislatures, Presidents, Dictators, and tyrants.  The eternal comes as a small child and is still moved by the genuine prayers of a single small child, not decrees of state.

If anybody read all that, thanks for musing with me.  I think we are witnessing the end of the man’s worship of large scale human solutions.  I hope we do not damage each other too much in the process.  I’ll be here with the Babe who made all, sustains all, and completes all.

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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“I’m not a Christian. I just know I am not worthy of all that I have been given and am truly grateful.”

These are the words of my brother, one who consistently fights the good fight for “the least of these.” God forgive us for making our labels so small.

How many do I know who call you “Lord, Lord” and are far less ‘Christian’ than he? Way too many. Forgive us on both counts and lead us to better treatment of each other.
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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Sometimes I think what upsets me the most when people I love make comments that strike me as racist, pro-war, or anti-environmental is my separation from my past.  I sit and wonder how in the world I ended up way over here on my end of the teeter totter alone while friends, relatives, and church members all seem to be rushing off the other side?

My oldest daughter quoted a friend as once telling her its like a marathon — you start out in a crowd and in the course of your life eventually find you are running alone.  I should have spent more time talking with that friend!

I have come up with a few answers that seem reasonable.  In the course of my life I have come to love the under-dog, the working class, the abused, the stranger, peace over war, global friendship over domination, life (all of it, not just embryos), and a God who continues to create and recreate, who calls us out of our past and into transformation.  Most of what I hear American conservatives saying just will not let me join them.

But there is another facet.  The liberals go off the deep end to the left.  A woman should be able to end a pre-birth life for any reason she and her doctor agree upon.  Government is the answer for everything.  More laws will keep people from acting like idiots.  Christianity is evil because it dares to declare that there is Truth which exists beyond our relative positions.  There is a limit to how far I can go down that road.

And I think that is one of the real reasons I lean to the left so often.  There are limits and boundaries to how far I will run with that crowd.  But, the other path; the less government is better camp?  I grew up during the idiocy of Vietnam, the days of lynchings un-investigated, the days of rage, the days of cold war with the real possibility that our government and theirs would blow us all to oblivion, the days of the Beatles, the Stones, the Who, the Zeppelin, and the Dead, the days of Abbie Hoffman and Bobby Seal and there is the rub!  If I start down the path of opposing government, I might return to the zeal of youth.  I might return to the days when my friends and I loved the country and the people but wished the whole government would disintegrate and allow the people to live in peace.  Down that road lies the path to revolution.

So maybe I choose to face to the left as I stand here on the crossbar. When the right takes real action to defend the unborn I step that way.  When the left takes steps to protect the rest of life, I step their way.  When the left seeks minimum standards of care for those I love, I step to the left.  When the right says we cannot pay for everything, I very carefully step that way.  When the right says we should intervene when madmen are killing innocents around the world, I carefully step their direction.  When the left points out that we cannot bring peace with the sword (odd how everybody thinks our new president is a leftist and he accepts the Nobel speaking of just wars…), I definitely move their way.  I agree we just aren’t big enough to rule the world.

And, I find myself standing here on the crossbar looking up to heaven and saying, “Wasn’t taking care of the place your job?  Wasn’t your work finished when it was begun, sealed on the cross, and revealed perfect through resurrection?  I cannot follow these men and women on their teeter totter!  Can I stay here with you, on the cross-bar?”

Maybe that’s when I ran off by myself.  When I intentionally went nuts, chose happiness over logic, gave up on the governments of men, gave up hope in everything except—except the One I met here on the Cross-bar.

peace

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