cairns

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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Reconnected with another old friend tonight, a young man I am very proud of — overcame mistakes of youth to build a life and serve others.

Conversation quickly revealed that his early success in life led to some bad decisions, worse results, and (I wish this part was surprising) rejection by his church.  Another group claiming to represent the God who would die to be with us, by refusing to affiliate with somebody honest enough to admit they are not perfect.  The “we” I have been part of most of my life makes me want to puke.  How do we mess the good news of God’s love up so badly and so often?  Do we really understand it in our own lives?

I am playing with a new idea.  I would like to start getting together on some regular basis with this young man, my “red path” friend, maybe the slightly older friend who has so often told me what is around the next bend in the road, anybody honest enough to be themselves!  Instead of a being a “church,” we would just be us.  Instead of trying to “save” each other we would support each other.  Instead of “applying the Bible with love” in order to pass judgment on each other, we would accept each other as we all stumble homeward.

If this sounds interesting to anybody else who lives near Evansville, think about it and let me know.  I am serious about just getting together with some other people who are ready to be real, to be human and humane, to be together.

peace,

Greg

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If you chose to be a soldier, choose to believe your government’s call to kill and be killed, choose to take the small financial enticements, believe the tales of ancient glory, if you choose to be a soldier — I will mourn you in your passing and I will welcome you when you return home.  The God of grace demands it.

But, I will not salute and praise you for merely putting yourself and others at risk.  I will not deify you for believing any line your government gives as if you have no brains or intellect to evaluate the Truth.  I will not praise you for protecting my safety as you blindly stir hatreds that will pay out in evil into my grandchild’s lifetime.  And I will not sing of your glory in the sanctuary of the One who came teaching love of both neighbor and enemy!  I will not call holy your sacrifice defending our abundance in lands where children starve and die from lack of medicine.   You tell me you are brave, loyal, and dedicated to your country; and I will tell you every child of Hitler claimed the same.  I cannot give you my heart and praise for that.  I will save those for Theresa and her sisters humbly picking up the dying.  I will praise God for the servants reaching out to anyone in the madness with a needle, a small dish of food, a healing touch of heaven, not a gun.

I am not big enough to comprehend all the affairs of the world.  But, I understand light and dark, love and hate, service and destruction, and I read the words of He who came to show us heaven’s way with a heavy — heavy heart.

I will grieve you when you pass and welcome you should you return to us.  But, I will not ordain your choice.  The Way of Nazareth is a very different road.

peace

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I am nearing the end of this wonderful book now and it is a definite buy!

Folks from evangelical traditions like my own may be taken back by the author’s love for criminals, aliens, and prisoners and his distaste for our most loved modes of explaining the Gospel.  If they read it from an argumentative position, they may think I have lost my mind to say it is a very important book.

But, if it is read with an open heart and mind seeking a bigger understanding of God rather than a clinging to the image of god we have constructed…well hang on!  This author does a brilliant job of communicating theologies of grace and goodness in terms understandable by the uneducated and disenfranchised (which means the rest of us can understand it too!  So far, only one word I need to look up! HA!).  And it is done with Old Testament texts!

Some of the very same texts which have been used to build the image of judgmental all powerful unmerciful god, are used here to show how they can be validly read as texts revealing God as near and loving, creating mankind as good, seeking to heal our wounds and restore hope with disregard for the apparent worthiness of those in need of help.

Genesis is alive for me in new and exciting ways and now I have to listen to what God has for me in terms of the author’s admonition to follow in the footsteps and reach out to the ‘least’ of my brothers.

peace

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