My 2016 Lenten Journey--Day 34

March 14, 2016 ~ Day 34

My 2016 Lenten Journey: Exploring the Gospels to discover what following Jesus and becoming more like him would look like? ‘And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32 NRSV).

Matthew 10:1-15 ~ The Commissioning of the Twelve

We can get hung up on some details; and, to be sure the details are important at some level. For example, why did Jesus tell the twelve not to go among the Gentiles or among the Samaritans, but only to the “lost sheep of Israel?” [We’ll discover later that in his humanity Jesus’ faithfulness led him through several levels of understanding his own calling. One such movement can be seen in his early intention to go only to the “lost sheep of Israel” and his subsequent understanding that he is sent to all people.]

I know. Some will say it’s blasphemy to suggest Jesus was ever anything less than omniscient. That’s why we won’t go into detail at this point.

There are other distracting details. What grabs my attention is the open-ended instruction to “proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’^” (vs. 7). What does that mean? I’m pretty sure I know what those who heard it thought it meant: they thought it meant they were about to go to war with Rome, and that Messiah would lead them to victory and restore the kingdom of Israel to the glory it enjoyed under David.

What Jesus really meant probably never will find consensus agreement among Christians.

Maybe it doesn’t need our consensus. Maybe it just needs our obedience. Is it possible that the meaning of the ‘kingdom of heaven’ is so many-faceted that it can have a variety of applications? Is it Possible that the Baptists and the Presbyterians and the Catholics and the Pentecostals all have valid proclamations?

In the context of this passage of Scripture, I think the least we can infer is that in the kingdom the sick will be cured, the dead will be raised, lepers will be cleansed and demons will be cast out. Moreover, in the kingdom, those who serve will do so with no guarantee of success or even of compensation. Those who serve in the kingdom are instructed not to linger over failures; instead, shake the dust off your feet and move on.

It’s not anything at all like they expected: a restored kingdom of David. It’s something totally new; in fact, it’s never been tried before. It’s been preached for centuries by the prophets; but it’s never been tried.

If I am to follow Jesus, it will have to be on the same basis: no guarantee of success or even of compensation. For me, the hardest part might be to refrain from pouting when I’m not successful. But, Jesus didn’t send the twelve out to be successful. He sent them to be faithful. God will take care of the harvest.

Whoever has seen me has seen the Father (John 14:9 NRSV)

‘And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32 NRSV).

That's the way it looks through the flawed glass that is my world view.

Together in the Walk,

Jim

Change? (Gasp!)

Beyond the gospels the central and dominant figure in the New Testament is, arguably, Paul (nee Saul of Tarsus). Before his conversion Saul had studied the Scriptures under the best of teachers. He was convinced that to be faithful he should commit violence in God’s name. He felt certain that for the survival of Judaism this Christian heresy must be rooted out.

“After his encounter with Christ, and his experience of healing and enemy love from Jesus’ disciples (Acts 9:11-18), Paul needed to completely reassess how to understand the same Scriptures he had read previously in such a toxic and violent way. The change produced a radically different understanding of God’s will, and a radically different way of interpreting those same Scriptures.”[1]

NOTE: Nothing in the Scriptures changed! It was only Paul’s way of reading the Scriptures that changed! Nothing is more central to my Lenten Pilgrimage than this distinction!

I would say virtually every person of faith at some point along the journey of life comes face-to-face with the possibility that our understanding does not mesh with the reality presented in the sacred writ. Not every person has the strength and integrity to confess, “I was wrong.”

Martin Luther had such a confrontation with his own faith while he was reading the Epistle to the Romans. It was during the reading of that same epistle that I had my first conscious realization that what I had been taught was not consistent with what I was reading.

It’s a terrifying realization. But sometimes integrity demands that we go a different way.

As Derek Flood points out, for Paul, of utmost significance may be not so much in what he says as in what he doesn’t say. It is revealing to note how he deals with violent passages in the Old Testament—texts that call for killing Gentiles.

In Romans 15:8-12, for example, Paul quotes several Scriptures to make his point that Gentiles “may glorify God for his mercy” because of the gospel. Note what he doesn’t include in those Scriptures:

 (NRSV) For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God’s truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, ⁹ and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written, “Thou didst make my enemies turn their backs to me, and those who hated me I destroyed. They cried for help, but there was none to save, they cried to the Lord, but he did not answer ... For this I will extol thee, O Lord, among the nations[2], and sing praises to thy name.” (Quoting Psalm 18:40-49) Again, it says, “Praise his people, O you nations; for he avenges the blood of his servants, and takes vengeance on his adversaries, and makes expiation for the land of his people.” (Quoting Deuteronomy 32:43)

Within Paul’s change of Scriptural understanding is his re-contextualizing of these passages; instead of focusing on violence against Gentiles he declares God’s mercy in Christ for Gentiles. Not only does this represent a reinterpretation of the relationship of faith to violence, it constitutes a major redefinition of how salvation is understood. Instead of meaning God’s deliverance of Israel from its political and military enemies, Paul now understands salvation to mean the restoration of all people in Christ, including those same “enemy” Gentiles.[3]

                                                                                                               

Now, instead of excluding Gentiles, Paul embraces them within God’s mercy; indeed, he is singularly committed to taking that message of God’s mercy to them. Now, instead of using violence to purify the world from them, he is exposing himself to violence in order to include them. Such is the nature of radical commitment to the gospel—not the exposure to violence, per se, but the radical shift from rabidly narrow exclusion, even violent elimination, to universal, merciful embrace. The violence is the byproduct of resistance to change.

Note again, however, that Paul’s personal shift did not indicate in any way a shift in Scripture, itself. Indeed, the precedent had been set at least as early as Isaiah’s metaphor of Israel as a “light to the nations” (Isaiah 49:6). Paul could easily have used these more pastoral texts from the Hebrew Scriptures. Perhaps he was being intentional in using and reinterpreting passages that previously had been used to justify violence.

In the same spirit of Jesus’ teaching, “You have heard… but I tell you…” Paul is moving faith to the next level, and it is a move for which he paid a high price.

I suspect that Paul sensed the futility of trying to move his Jewish community to this new understanding and chose, instead, to align himself with the new movement. Cultural and ethnic exclusivism is nowhere as strongly rooted as in the sanctions of religion, and most especially within the ranks of fundamentalist expressions of religion. And Paul should know. He was a Pharisee.

And so, where does all this bring me in my Lenten wandering through the wilderness of my own temptation? I am torn between the desire to lash out at (for example) terrorist extremists to who are inflicting blasphemous atrocities on other humans in the name of God, and the knowledge that violence breeds violence and does not bring lasting peace. But most of all, I am conflicted over my growing awareness of the value and effectiveness of non-violent confrontations and my knowledge that those who practice it frequently end up being crucified.

That’s how I see it through the flawed glass that is my world view.

Together in the Walk,

Jim

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[1] Derek Flood, Disarming Scriptures: Cherry-Picking Liberals, Violence Loving Conservatives and Why We all Need to Learn to Read the Bible Like Jesus Did (San Francisco: Metanoia Books, 2014), Kindle edition, Location 781

[2] The word also is sometimes translated “Gentiles,” and “heathen”.

[3] Derek Flood, op. cit., Location 797.

Balance

I’m wearing my preacher’s hat today.

Although most of us want balance in our lives, history is more like a pendulum swinging from extreme to extreme. Historically, the church has mirrored secular culture and more closely proclaimed political party talking points than it has preached and lived the kingdom.

My own awareness of church/cultural dynamics dates back to the 1960's: "flower children", bell-bottom pants, sideburns and peace symbols. My ministry was emerging, and the church whose call I answered was more about social relevance than about stained glass and brass plaques; more about justice than doctrine. Matthew 25 and Luke 4:16-28 were frequent preaching texts, often to the neglect of more personally edifying texts.

Were things better then? No. It was a time when part of the Church neglected crucial elements of faith and practice, like evangelism and spiritual discipline; and in our concern for being non-judgmental we diluted views of morality and erased some lines that should never have been crossed.  Much lost ground was never recovered.

Perhaps the greatest fault of the church in that era was the rigid, non-negotiable lines that were drawn between various manifestations of the Body of Christ. In the last six decades the church has sinfully wasted much time in-fighting over specific differences, instead of finding common ground and working from there to build up the kingdom. “Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand” (Matthew 12:25 NIV). That may explain the six-decade decline of the North American Church. A partially united kingdom is better than a broken, divided one.

So, were the 1960's worse than today? No. The social consciousness then was a needed corrective to a tunnel-vision evangelicalism that was suffocating the church. It presented the church as hardly more than an ecclesiastical maternity ward: its only purpose to get people "born again." But if the Church prior to the 1960's was too narrowly defined in terms of maternity, many churches of the 60's and 70's closed down the maternity ward altogether, and attempted to define the church more like an ecclesiastical Department of Human Services.

Again, both are good and necessary dimensions of Christian Disciple­ship. On balance Jesus talked more about ethics than about prayer; more about money than about salvation; more about social justice than about heaven. His kingdom parables were filled with images and metaphors of justice; and, he more frequently spoke of just and ethical relation­ships than of prayer. The Hebrew prophets consistently called God’s people to repent from two sins: idolatry and the unjust treatment of the poor.

But to diminish either focus is to weaken the Gospel, and the pendulum of history brims with correctives that become more destructive than the evils they were designed to correct, and each swing of the pendulum provokes its own hostility. The rigid moralism of Victorianism led to a reactionary swing to "19th century liberalism". When liberalism seemed harmful enough the reactionary swing was toward biblical literalism, which, in turn, created yet another reactionary swing into the 1960's cry for relevance.

NOTE: each reaction was a valid corrective, but when each became an end in itself, rather than a means toward a more balanced, holistic end, it became counterproductive to the Gospel.

Today, for the first time in the church's history, the pendulum may have stopped, and nobody seems to know what to do. An emerging generation is sick and tired of watching people "play church"; sick and tired of watching people who call themselves Christians fighting with each other over style and semantics; sick and tired of seeing Christ represented by people who come across as judgmental and intolerant.

What a wonderful opportunity for the church to become real again! What a wonderful time for the church to hear, as if for the first time, the Word of the Lord:

"Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?  Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard." (Isaiah 58:5-9 NIV)

And what a wonderful time to acknowledge that the same Bible also says,

"I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit.  Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.' (John 3:5-7 NIV)

And that same Bible says,

Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. (1 Thessalonians 5:17-18 KJV)

And,

If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.  But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.  For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man.  For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. (1 Corinthians 15:19-22 NIV)

What a wonderful time to proclaim the balance: the Word of GRACE that leads to the peace and wholeness that is God's Shalom (salvation); the PROPHETIC Word that calls God's people to repent and to seek justice and to love mercy; the INSTRUC­TIVE Word that teaches God's people how to walk in the ways of the Lord; and the Word of PROMISE that fills us with hope. I believe it is only through hearing and believing and living such a balanced diet of God's Word that Jesus' words make any sense:

"You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.  Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.  In the same way, let your light shine before everyone, that they may see your good deeds and praise God in heaven." (Matthew 5:14-16 NIV)

And that’s how I see it through the flawed glass that is my world view.

Together in the Walk,

Jim

This Is My Father's World

Yesterday I did one of my favorite things with my favorite person: we took a foliage drive through the Ozark and Boston Mountains in NW Arkansas. It was our “welcome home” gift to ourselves.

We left home driving west on I-40, and when we reached Arkansas Hwy 23 (known as the Pig Trail because it used to be the preferred way to travel from Little Rock to Fayetteville for Razorback football and basketball), we turned north.

I grew up in west Texas, where autumn foliage was something we read about in geography textbooks. We had a lot of Mesquite trees (most were just big bushes) that didn’t turn colors in the fall. The leaves just fell off. And on the few scrub oak and other hardwood trees out there the leaves just turned brown before they fell off. The first real color I saw was in Quantico, Virginia when I was in Marine Officer Candidate School when I was 26 years old.

It was the same way with mountains. I still remember the first time I saw real mountains: it was on a trip into New Mexico with my uncle’s family when I was nine. I guess that dust-bowl-flatland environment of my younger years is what’s behind the awe I experience in the mountains today. I loved living in northwest Arkansas, and still love driving through that area. I love to vacation in the Rockies; and I grieve at the end as I watch the mountains fade in the rear-view mirror.

So yesterday’s trek with my spouse was very special.

And people were talking about the “polar vortex” as the first wave of frigid air moved into the area. The season is changing—just like it does every year about this time. The earth wobbles on its axis and the northern hemisphere leans away from the sun and we drag out our lawn rakes and leaf blowers—every year about this time.

Will Rogers said, “If you don’t like the weather here (Oklahoma), just wait a minute.” Most states have adopted that axiom as if they originated it. The truth is that it’s a universal phenomenon.

And isn’t that wonderful?

Order. Symmetry. Rhythm. Dependability. All these are attributes of a system that reflects the faithfulness of its creator. “For everything there is a season,” wrote The Preacher (Ecclesiastes 3:1). And he concludes, “(God) has made everything beautiful in its time” (vs. 11).

Brilliant ambers, yellows, oranges and reds of every tint lined the hills and dells of the Mulberry River Valley, and the bluebird sky provided the perfect backdrop. The leaves will fall soon, and their decay will enrich the soil and nourish the very trees from which they fall.

Every year about this time.

I think I feel a “Doxology” coming on!

And that’s the way I see it through the flawed glass that is my world view.

Together in the Walk,

Jim