tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-66459957823562151862024-02-19T00:08:24.226-08:00DirtScribbleJesus bent down and scribbled with his finger in the dirt. - John 8:6TheDenlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06653458927879936025noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6645995782356215186.post-31445832217037232762020-06-26T15:28:00.002-07:002020-06-26T15:28:54.102-07:00American Individualism is Destroying the Church (and America)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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America has long prided itself on its embrace of individualism. Through its celebration of ideals such as the “self-made man”or its affirmation of individual liberties, it has fostered, nurtured, and established a society where ultimate importance and focus lies on the individual and in one’s self-fulfillment over-and-above the protection and support of the community as a whole. However, whereas the original founders’ intent assumed that people would, outside of government influence, be bound by a personal commitment to “the public good” (and thus advocated for minimal government oversight, trusting people would care for the greater community on their own), the reality of this assumption has only proved to deteriorate over time.<br />
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America has demonized any framework that encourages reliance on or care for the community above the individual. Anything that remotely encourages sacrificing comfort for others is labeled as “socialist” or “tyrannical” and is outright disregarded as an infringement on one’s personal rights. For example, in today’s pandemic climate, there are many within America who refuse to wear a mask in public because it “infringes on their rights” — a deep reaction and opposition to anyone “telling them what to do.” Their personal liberty, in their mind, is more important than the protection and safety of the community as a whole. As antithetical to love as this is, this is a celebrated trait of what it means to be American. “Self before others.” And it stems from America’s insistence on individualism.<br />
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Let me be clear: individualism, at its core, is not bad. As a mental health therapist, when I work with clients I start with the establishment and nurturing of individual self-love. However, the purpose of this is not for the client to become self-sufficient in their isolated individualism but precisely that they may integrate into community knowing full well that they are worthy of such relational intimacy and pursuit. As Jesus put it, “love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22.39), which necessitates that you know how to love yourself before you can genuinely love others. If you do not know how to honor and affirm your own wants and needs, any relational sacrifice will not be out of love for the other but out of perceived requirement. Without differentiated individualism, we either lose ourself by sacrificing that which makes us us (our wants, needs, desires, thoughts, opinions, etc.) as a means to avoid conflict and mitigate the possibility of turning the other away from us (e.g. we sacrifice relationship for proximity), or we abandon relationship all-together out of a mistrust that anyone is safe and therefore we are the only one we can trust to care for our wants and needs. The latter is reflective of America’s deteriorating trust in the government as well as its own failure to embrace the pursuit of “the public good.” To continually emphasize the self is to eventually internalize that the other is not to be trusted with your care and inflates one’s ego into believing that you always know best. This safety in one’s self continues to move America toward isolated individualism instead of integrated individualism.<br />
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The American Church, most unfortunately, has not been immune to this embrace of individualism. A defining framework for Christianity in America is an emphasis on one’s “personal relationship with God.” Being a follower of Jesus is less about how one is a member and participant of a new kind of community and more about how one is nurturing a one-on-one relationship with God. This is encouraged and nurtured by the structure of a Sunday morning that is more consumer rather than communal, where the church needs people to “sign up” to be relational agents who greet people at the door—betraying a great possibility that the church would not greet without these sacrificial volunteers.<br />
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Almost the entirety of the Sunday gathering is spent in non-engagement with the people around you (save for the brief “greet your neighbor” time), focused instead on individual learning. Any attempt to invite a communal dialogue is dismissed as either disruptive or deemed inappropriate because it makes others uncomfortable (an actual excuse I was told when I worked within a church and encouraged structuring services to be more relational and conversational). Such relational engagement is said to be designated for “Life Groups” or “Small Groups,” which are presented as optional side-gatherings apart from the primacy of the Sunday gathering culture knows as “church.” Thus, relationship is optional.<br />
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Even though the Sunday gathering is not (and should not be) the sole-definer of what it means to be a member of the Church (big “C”), it is often the sole experience that visitors have with the Christian community as well as, more likely than not, the only engagement during the week that Christians themselves have with the community. Therefore, how we structure Sunday morning is deeply important in revealing and inviting into what Christianity is all about. And with Sunday morning being focused around the sermon rather than the table, the central emphasis presented on what it means to be a member of the church is that you know and believe the right things, which in and of itself is a private affair and requires no engagement with the community. In fact, believe the wrong thing and the community (to the extent that it can be called one) may kick you out.<br />
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I understand that there are Christian communities and churches out there that are doing wonderful, beautiful, creative things to nurture communities of people who are deeply relational, loving, and sacrificial. However, we must paint in broad strokes in order to speak to the general experience of the American church, of which I do not believe my examples above are even that wildly broad to the general experience. Nor am I saying that the church’s increasing embrace of individualism leaves the church completely devoid of relationship. As it is said, a broken clock is right twice a day. However, even in this regard, a focus on individualism will lead to conditional communities—communities where “relationship” happens so long as one’s individual freedom is not asked of them and such participation in the community individualized. Unfortunately, this is not the kind of community Jesus established. Jesus did not come to save your individual liberties but to ask them of you (see Luke 9:57-62).<br />
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Jesus said he came that we may “have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10b) and if we take a look at the Gospels we find a ministry constantly inviting people away from individual security and into sacrificial relationship. The lost sheep is independently and individually important but the shepherd seeks it out in order to bring it back into the fold (Luke 15:1-7). The prodigal son has every right to take his inheritance and run off with it. His “liberty” allows him that. However, life is not found in isolated, self-preservation but in the welcoming embrace of the community (Luke 15:11-32). And this is seen in Jesus’ Parable of the Rich Fool who, in his own right, hoards up his fortunes to establish security and control over the rest of his life, yet loses his life (figuratively and literally) in isolation (Luke 12:13-21). How difficult it is, Jesus declares, “for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:24b), not because riches are bad, but precisely because riches invite a self-reliance that removes one’s trust and dependence from the community. And this, according to Jesus, is contrary to what it means to have life to the full.<br />
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Ultimate fulfillment being found in self-reliance is the great deception of American individualism. To not need anything from anyone is heralded as a state of “making it.” Yet, the irony of this is visually played out in that the more you “make it” the more gated and private your home and life becomes. This individualism fails to disclose that the more “secure” and “in-control” of your life you become, the more isolated you become—because the greatest state of control is isolation. Individualism feels safe because it’s under your control. It’s predictable because you create and define it. Within the church this great deception reveals itself as a security in one’s salvation through “believing the right things” rather than, as Paul describes, “work[ing] out your salvation with fear and trembling [read: humility]” (Philippians 2:12), which he had already described in the relational terms of “do[ing] nothing out of selfish ambition or empty pride, but in humility consider[ing] others more important than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Philippians 2: 3-4).<br />
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For both Jesus and Paul, salvation was less about securing some intangible state in the afterlife through one’s own isolated means and instead was about stepping into a new kind of life, here and now. They believed that there is something about the way humans are wired, being made to be like an inherently relational God, that binds the fullness of life to relationship and the experience of isolation to death. This is why relational disappointment hurts so much: our very being longs for connection. Our disappointment reveals our desire. But to pursue such desire, to work out your salvation and step into such life, is a risky endeavor because it involves another you cannot control. Any attempt to control the other is the moment you sabotage your own longing for authentic connection. Salvation through “believing the right things,” however, feels safe because it’s static. You can do it on your own and no relationship, even with God, is required. You hold the keys to your own salvation (freely given, of course…). The thing is, you’re holding keys to a gift that is made to be enjoyed with others now.<br />
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American individualism, to the extent America has embodied it, is destructive to the very core of what it means to be human. It creates a callousness toward others because anything less is to risk security, while within the church it creates an illusion of eternal security through individualized cognitive assent without any real invitation into the salvific nature of vulnerable relationship—which is what the church is called to embody. American individualism, on the whole, is destroying the Church and America. As Jesus (and Abraham Lincoln) said, “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand” (Matthew 12:25). Any system that focuses on the individual over-and-against the community as a whole turns individuals of that system against each other. Within the church, individualism leads to an isolated Christian experience devoid of community and therefore devoid of the very salvation Jesus says is available to us now. America cannot survive so long as the individual is seen as more important than the collective whole. Nor can the church survive when it fails to transform individuals into relational beings.<br />
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Calvin Miller, in his mythic and poetic retelling of the New Testament, perhaps says all of this best. In his trilogy <i>The Singer</i>, <i>The Song</i>, and <i>The Finale</i>, Miller describes the Antichrist as “The Prince of Mirrors” who, in his hatred of humanity, seeks to destroy it by convincing people to turn away from each-other and instead embrace the security of, what we have called, individualism. Miller writes:<br />
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“Look!” the Dark Prince cried. “Come wear the chain and seal. Look…” he repeated pulling a mirror from his tunic. “In this glass lies the hope. Behold your face and live.”</blockquote>
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For the Prince of Mirrors, to destroy the church—to destroy humanity—is to turn it in on itself; to convince individuals that life and security is to be found in themselves and themselves alone. That the individual knows best and relationship is dangerous.<br />
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May we choose, as the Prodigal Son did, to <i>teshuva</i> (repent)—which means “to return.” May we not find security in our own self, but return to community and find life in vulnerability.TheDenlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06653458927879936025noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6645995782356215186.post-2057685041115171312019-04-10T14:26:00.000-07:002019-04-10T22:04:55.551-07:00How to Feel Your Way Into Relationship<style type="text/css">
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In my previous trilogy-post <a href="https://dirtscribble.blogspot.com/2015/07/gods-humanity-and-open-eyes-part-1-gods.html" target="_blank">God(s)</a>, <a href="https://dirtscribble.blogspot.com/2015/08/gods-humanity-and-open-eyes-part-2.html" target="_blank">Humanity</a>, and <a href="https://dirtscribble.blogspot.com/2015/11/gods-humanity-and-open-eyes-part-3-open.html" target="_blank">Open Eyes</a>, I showed how relationship is central to our being created in the <i>imago dei</i>—the image of God. Everything in life is either a movement into relationship or a movement away. A movement into life or a movement into death. Because life is intrinsically found in inter-connectedness with others, with creation, and with God. We long to be connected to others, to be seen and accepted by others, <i>precisely because</i> <i>we’re created to be.</i> It’s where life is found. But beyond this simply being a theological argument, both psychology and biology back up the fact that we are wired for relationship. For <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/born-love/201003/touching-empathy" target="_blank">example</a>, infants deprived of touch will stop developing and eventually die due to lack of intentional, loving touch, even if provided with proper nutrition. And, as this post will explain, the human experience of emotions, I argue, serves to draw the individual into relationship with others.<br />
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Human connection is essential to human survival and so inherently wired within the human person is a system of emotions that read a given situation and both inform and invite the individual into deeper relationship. Emotions are a natural response within the human person that draws us toward human connectivity—toward relationship. <i>All</i> emotions. Including the emotions that have been given a negative wrap, like anger and shame, because most of our experiences with them—as well as Hollywood’s portrayal of them—have been of unhealthy emotional expressions. The core purpose of emotions, beyond providing color to life, is to inform you how to connect even deeper with the people around you.</div>
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According to Pia Mellody there are <a href="http://changingminds.org/explanations/emotions/basic%20emotions.htm" target="_blank">eight</a> core emotions: anger, fear, pain, joy, passion, love, shame, and guilt. All other emotions are derivatives of these eight and all eight categories of emotions are only fulfilled in the joining with and sharing with another person. Take joy for instance: when you get accepted into the college of your dreams or get the job you had worked so hard for, the first thing you want to do is <i>tell somebody. </i>Because to hold joy without the ability to share it with another makes joy painful. Fear also invites you to seek relational connection. Think of horror movies: when confronted with danger, sure our amygdala fires in our brain and we instinctively respond by seeking to get away from the danger (which may be another human being), but the emotional response of the victim usually sends them yelling and searching for help. Fear is a natural emotion that informs the individual that they cannot or should not handle something on their own and should seek help from another. An invitation to human connection.<br />
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Other emotions are easier to see how they draw people into relationship: love is all about inter-connection, passion sweeps people up together in shared experience (think of someone who is super passionate about Harry Potter [“What?! You’ve never read it?! Here are my books…] — all they want is for others to experience and share their passion for it), pain invites you to receive care from another, guilt invites you to mend a relationship. But what of anger and shame?<br />
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Anger is one of the most important emotions in sustaining relationship. However, most of our ideas and images we conjure up around anger are of an anger that is destructive and detrimental to relationship: vases being thrown against the wall, harmful words being spewed at the other person, physical harm. All of these are unhealthy expressions of anger that stem from a mistrust of relationship — a mistrust that the other will genuinely care for them when they vulnerably express their frustration and hurt (because anger almost always stems from pain). Thus, unhealthy anger shows up as a means to weaken relational attachment and to separate us from the other because we believe the other won’t work on things with us and instead will use our vulnerability to harm us more. However, this only leads to unresolved pain.<br />
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Anger is a natural response within us that illuminates a tension or issue within the relationship that needs to be resolved because the issue is <i>causing relational distance.</i> Again, we are wired for relationship and emotions inform us about interference to relational bonding. However, anger inherently is vulnerable because anger points to something outside of our control — something we cannot fix ourselves and requires another to meet us and work with us on it. This terrifies many, which is why anger so often is engaged unhealthily. Anger at its core gives us the strength to speak up, yet, if we are unwilling to engage the vulnerability found within it we use it to “protect” ourselves because it provides a boundedness (think of clenched fists) that elicits a sense of control over a situation we have no control over. To seek control over the other is to avoid intimacy and vulnerability and only serves to create more relational distancing. However, a healthy engagement of anger invites the other to care for you and work through the issue that is causing relational distancing in order for the relationship to grow closer. This “invitation” is often experienced as shame.</div>
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Shame is a healthy emotional response that leads one toward relational restoration through containment. Shame is what is experienced on the receiving end of anger when the anger is illuminating how you may have caused pain or relational tension. A healthy engagement with shame allows you to recognize how you may have negatively impacted the relationship and reigns in your actions or behavior to better facilitate healthy relational bonding. For example, at a party your spouse gets frustrated and tells you you’re becoming too wild (causing her to want to distance herself from you), and so you experience shame, which offers a containment and a healthy humility that keeps you in relational closeness. Nevertheless, shame, like anger (and all the other emotions for that matter), can lead us into relational isolation if we mistrust the motivation of the other.<br />
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Shame can lead us into thinking that “we are bad” or “unwanted” if we mistrust that the other is for us. Instead, we hear the anger as an attack on our being rather than a desire to be close in a situation that isn’t inviting closeness — which can either cause us to shut down or stand our ground, missing the invitation for relational (re)connection. When we fail to bear our own shame (ownership of how we are impacting the relationship) we hand our shame over to the other, which is experienced by the other as worthlessness. An “I am not worth having my discomfort cared for by my spouse,” which, again, fuels relational disconnection but <i>begs</i> the individual to return to anger and once more illuminate the now growing issue at hand that is causing separation. It is especially important for anger to show up in situations of shamelessness and feelings of worthlessness because anger inherently validates an individual’s value — it declares that “no, this is not ok; I am worth being considered” and it invites the other to move in toward relationship.</div>
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All emotions lead us into deeper relationship. Every emotion contains within it an invitation to relational connection and informs us what is needed in a given moment for such a connection to take place. Because without authentic, caring, vulnerable relationship we would die (looking at you Gen. 3). It is wired within us — whether you look at it theologically in being created in the image of a relational God or psychologically and biologically — we <i>need</i> relationship to survive. But not just to survive: to truly live. Jesus said he came to give us life and “have it to the full” and throughout his time he called people to “repent,” which in Hebrew is <i>teshuvah</i>, “return.” Come back.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Return from relational mistrust and emotional isolation and come back to vulnerable connection. Reconnect with the core way in which you were created to be and experience life in this world. Return to relationship.</div>
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So may you listen to what your emotions have to say and learn to hear how they are inviting you into deeper relationship and connection with those around you.<br />
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May you<i> teshuvah.</i></div>
TheDenlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06653458927879936025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6645995782356215186.post-38737174425772215412016-10-14T12:27:00.001-07:002020-09-20T11:38:02.132-07:00The Samaritanizing of Politics<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Let’s begin with an activity. In the following passage are blank spaces with numbers. When there is a _____<u>1</u>_____, insert the political party you identify with. When there is a _____<u>2</u>_____, insert the political party you oppose. As you begin reading, if the passage seems familiar, don’t stop. In fact, I encourage you to read the passage out-loud with your insertions so that you may hear the words around you.<br />
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Just then a _____<u>1</u>_____ political scholar stood up with a question to test Jesus. “Teacher, what do I need to do to live life in its fullest?”<br />
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He answered, “What’s written in God’s Law? How do you interpret it?”<br />
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He said, “That you love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence—and that you love your neighbor as well as you do yourself.”<br />
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“Good answer!” said Jesus. “Do it and you’ll live.”<br />
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Looking for a loophole, he asked, “And just how would you define ‘neighbor’?”<br />
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Jesus answered by telling a story. “There was once a _____<u>1</u>_____ traveling from Washington D.C. to Baltimore. On the way he was attacked by robbers. They took his clothes, beat him up, and went off leaving him half-dead. Luckily, a _____<u>1</u>_____ congressman was on his way down the same road, but when he saw him he angled across to the other side. Then a _____<u>1</u>_____ senator showed up; he also avoided the injured man.<br />
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“A _____<u>2</u>_____ traveling the road came on him. When he saw the man’s condition, his heart went out to him. He gave him first aid, disinfecting and bandaging his wounds. Then he lifted him into his vehicle, brought him to a hotel, and made him comfortable. In the morning he took out his wallet and gave all the money he had to the manager, saying, ‘Take good care of him. If it costs any more, put it on my bill—I’ll pay you on my way back.’<br />
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“What do you think? Which of the three became a neighbor to the man attacked by robbers?”<br />
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“The one who treated him kindly,” the political scholar responded.<br />
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Jesus said, “Go and do the same.” </blockquote>
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Now, for some of you, even reading a parable where the opposing political party is hailed as the hero has probably made you cringe. You may, like the 'political scholar' in the passage, have found that saying, through gritted teeth, "the one who treated him kindly" was easier to say than saying that the one who was in the right was the _____<u>2</u>_____.<br />
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This visceral resistance to the opposing political party is what I call the "samaritanizing" of politics. In this political season it has become abundantly clear that we have lost the ability to hear the other side. We refuse to give up any room for the possibility of the other side holding or offering anything "good" and we demonize them as being wholly bad. In fact, the parable above doesn't actually capture the gravity of our polarized political system at the moment because in the parable the _____<u>1</u>_____ was actually able to grant, even if not by directly naming, that the _____<u>2</u>_____ was the one who was correct.<br />
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Take a look at your Facebook Newsfeed and find the comment section of any political post (I know, there are many). Can you find a dialogue that is respectful of opposing opinions? A dialogue in which one is able to hear the opposing side and is open to being changed? Can you find a conversation that actually stays on topic and doesn't try to bring in other items in order to detract from the topic at hand?—which usually means one can't defend the current topic but is unwilling to say so and must then either defend their party as a whole or attack the other. It would be as if the political scholar of the parable ignored Jesus' question and responded "well, sure, the congressman and senator didn't stop, but..."<br />
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We find ourselves within a culture that cannot allow for the opposing side to hold any goodness, nor for our own side to hold any wrong. And so, we demonize, dehumanize, and "other" the opposing side to such a state that everything they do, everything they say is to be rejected. The further we remove the other side from our reality, the easier it is to reject them, despise them, and even hate them. They become the reason for everything wrong. They become the reason for why things don't work and why our current lives are not going as well as they should. In psychology this is known as projection—where we project onto the other the bad within ourselves so that we may not feel the weight of its shame and allows for a means to indirectly reject that which we despise and fear within ourselves.<br />
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We are a culture that cannot bear our own brokenness.<br />
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In Jesus' day, this polarization was immediately seen between the Jews and the Samaritans. These two groups <i>despised</i> each other—and even that is saying it lightly. You can see that this ill-will extended beyond a mere dislike of the other and into a realm of dehumanization in passages like this:<br />
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My whole being loathes two nations,<br />
the third is not even a people:<br />
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The inhabitants of Seir and Philistia,<br />
and the foolish people who dwell in Shechem. (Sirach, 50:26-26)</blockquote>
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For the people of Seir and Philistia, there was mere dislike: An "I don't like them, but I'll acknowledge their existence." However, for the people of Shechem, the capital city for the Samaritans, they were not to be seen as human beings. This is the hatred the Jews held for Samaritans and this dehumanization allowed for them, including the disciples of Jesus, to wish the worst upon them:<br />
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When the days drew near for Jesus to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him, who went and entered a village of the Samaritans, to make preparations for him. But the people did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. And when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, <b>“Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?”</b> But he turned and rebuked them. (<span style="text-align: right;">Luke 9:51-55)</span></div>
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By removing the humanity of the other, we psychologically create space to hate without limit. We also remove our ability to listen and hear the other. To see the goodness in the other. To acknowledge the bad within ourselves. To be changed and to offer change.<br />
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There are many political conversations happening that are only being presented and heard as attacks on a party as a whole, rather than as individual events in need of discussion. The inability of a party to name their own wrong without jumping to excuse it or demonize the other side as worse will forever leave us unable to become better than we are. We must learn to acknowledge and sit with our own brokenness. We must be able to label things as wrong and leave the conversation at that. And we must be able to acknowledge and name the goodness found in the other side. Because no side is wholly bad or wrong.<br />
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In John 4, Jesus speaks not only with a Samaritan but with a Samaritan woman (gasp!) — a conversation that left people "marveled" (John 4:27). Because to come across a conversation where two opposing sides are actually respecting one another, hearing one another, respectfully pushing back on one another, and being changed by one another is so foreign these days (and, apparently, then) that all one can do in witnessing it is marvel. Yet, it is this kind of interaction that Jesus invites us into.<br />
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As this political season continues, may we learn to truly hear one another. May we see the humanity in the other side and may we begin to name and own the brokenness within our own party. May we come to know that neither party is wholly good or wholly bad and that Jesus is not afraid to cross party lines. And, ultimately, may we come to see the _____<u>2</u>_____ as our neighbor.TheDenlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06653458927879936025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6645995782356215186.post-91879640372203412812015-11-07T19:59:00.002-08:002021-01-24T19:07:00.221-08:00God(s), Humanity, and Open Eyes — Part 3: Open Eyes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Welcome to Part 3 of God(s), Humanity, and Open Eyes! If you haven’t already read <a href="http://dirtscribble.blogspot.com/2015/07/gods-humanity-and-open-eyes-part-1-gods.html">Part 1: God(s)</a> or <a href="http://dirtscribble.blogspot.com/2015/08/gods-humanity-and-open-eyes-part-2.html">Part 2: Humanity</a> (or if you read them a long time ago because I take forever to write blog posts and you may have already forgotten that which has lead us to Part 3, which, let’s be honest, you could have read them yesterday and already forgotten) then go ahead and skim back over them and come back! This post will still be here.<br />
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Welcome back!<br />
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Let’s jump right into it.<br />
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Chapter 3 of Genesis is the climax of the creation account’s “cold open” (don’t know what this means? That’s because you didn’t go back and [re]read Part 1). This is the turning point of the story and provides us with an understanding of why the story, now, doesn’t look like the story of Genesis 1 and 2. Why the world, which was carefully created to look and operate one way, now “makes no sense," as the author of Ecclesiastes writes.<br />
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The scene opens up with a serpent dialoguing with Eve and Adam (see v. 6b. Though Eve is the only one recorded responding in the conversation, the serpent’s questions are always framed in the plural — it is always speaking to “you both"). The serpent questions humanity’s understanding of the boundaries God has established. Eve responds with the prohibition given in Genesis 2:16: they are able to eat the fruit of any tree in the garden, save for the tree “in the midst of the garden” — and adds a further prohibition that they must not touch it either — or else they will die. The serpent ignores Eve’s additional prohibition and instead seeks to challenge humanity's understanding of death.<br />
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The serpent (correctly) informs humanity that this death does not mean they will immediately cease to exist but, rather than providing a definition for what type of death will be experienced, the serpent distracts humanity from such a thought and instead informs them they will actually "become more" in that their “eyes will be opened” and they will “be like God.” And the part that should upset them? God has known this and has kept this from them.<br />
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The serpent casts God in the role of deceiver: not only has God been untruthful about the consequence of breaking established boundaries, God has actually been keeping humanity from what is good. The serpent plants a seed of doubt in humanity’s mind that God should, maybe, not be trusted. That God doesn’t actually love them as much as they think. That God doesn’t actually know what is best for them. Why would God prohibit something that will actually make them more like God? Isn’t that what humanity is supposed to be?: “More like God”?<br />
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Adam is silent. No objection on his part. Maybe the serpent is right?<br />
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Thus, both Eve and Adam take hold of the forbidden fruit because it is seen to be “good for food, . . . a delight to the eyes, and . . . [capable of making] one wise.” All life-giving characteristics: food sustains, delight enlivens, and wisdom expands discernment. All good things, right? All things God supposedly desires for humanity, right? So Adam and Eve eat the fruit. And what happens?<br />
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Nothing.<br />
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And that is precisely what causes their eyes to be “opened."<br />
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In the absence of death (as they understood it), Eve and Adam’s doubt of God is affirmed. Their mistrust of God is validated and the serpent is understood as speaking truth. “God said we would die — we are still alive. The serpent was right. What else is God keeping from us?” Something takes place in the space between verse 6’s “she took of its fruit and ate . . . and he ate” and verse 7’s “then the eyes of both were opened.” The fruit, itself, did nothing. God could have prohibited any of the trees in the garden and the result would have been the same. What opened up humanity’s eyes was the acting on their doubt and mistrust of God in a way the moved them out of relationship. And because they did not understand death as God did, what they experienced was an affirmation of their own ignorance at the expense of trust that God was and is for them.<br />
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However, humanity’s relationship with God was not the only thing affected. Once Eve and Adam’s eyes were opened they immediately “knew that they were naked” and sought to cover up.<br />
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Queue humanity’s introduction to shame.<br />
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As noted in Part 2, the concept of nakedness becomes the definition of a relationship without shame. Nakedness embodies a relationship of total vulnerability (physically, emotionally, spiritually) and of mutual giving and receiving. It is a relationship typified by trust that the other will love them and care for them well. Shame introduces mistrust into the relationship.<br />
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Adam and Eve’s rush to cover up their nakedness extends far beyond their physical appearance — it is an indication that they no longer trust the other will hold and care for them well. It is the opening of eyes to seeing that the other is <i>capable of harming them</i> (physically, emotionally, spiritually). That this is even a possibility. They are the only humans in existence and they do not trust that the other actually wants them or loves them fully.<br />
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Doubt.<br />
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Doubt leads to mistrust which moves one out of relationship and into a state of self-preservation. If the other is not to be trusted then who can I count on? I must care for myself. I must discern for myself what is good and right.<br />
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You see this distrust in the immediate conversation God has with Adam and Eve.<br />
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God’s calling out “where are you?” implicitly contains a revelation of separation between God and humanity. When God confronts humanity about their newfound way of viewing the world, both Adam and Eve immediately turn to blame in order to preserve their innocence. Adam blames Eve but ultimately God for giving him Eve in the first place (can you hear Adam denying his inherent relational identity and proclaiming that it would have been better to have remained alone?!). Eve blames the serpent. Neither take ownership of their decisions (because if they are found to be in the wrong, what will God do to them? Even this is mistrust of God’s love for them) and instead cast the other as unreliable and ultimately the source of problems. This blame game only further distances one from the other and further solidifies a belief that the other is not actually “for them” and will not care for them in their time of need. In fact, the other will ultimately harm them. Throw them under a bus. Leave them to reap the consequences of their action: death.<br />
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And here we arrive at the current state of creation.<br />
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What is introduced in “the fall” is technically a “falling out of relationship.” Part 1 establishes our understanding of God as a God of love and relationality in order that we understand in Part 2 that humanity, which is made “in the image of God,” is created to find life in the engagement of love and relationship. That life is found in the nakedness. In the vulnerability. In the mutual giving and receiving in trust. What Part 3 introduces is that when we move out of our created identity — when we move out of love, relationship, and trust — we move away from life and we move into death.<br />
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Thus, “sin” becomes understood as ultimately being found in a relational mistrust that further removes one from relationship with God, creation, and/or one-another and the story of scripture becomes one of God’s continuous pursuit of humanity and calling it back into relationship. Back into our created identity. Back into life.<br />
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Jesus (the ultimate manifestation of God’s pursuit of relationship with creation) invites humanity into an experience of the Kingdom of Heaven — that heaven (the way God intended for creation to be) could, in fact, be experienced now. Jesus continuously invites people into relationship with God and with one another. That the key to life, and life in its fullest, can ultimately be found (and summed up) in loving God and loving others (Mark 12:30-31; Matthew 22:37-40). In intimate, vulnerable relationship.<br />
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This is the story we find ourselves in.<br />
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In understanding the beginning of the story, we better understand where we find ourselves in the story, where the story is headed, and how we are called to participate in bringing the story to its redemptive conclusion. We understand that we were created to be in relationship with one another, with creation, and with God and that the story has taken a turn away from relationship by the introduction of doubt and mistrust. Our mistrust of God and one-other drives us away from relationship as we seek to look after ourselves and in doing so, moves us away from the relational image of God we were created in. This moves us away from the experience of life.<br />
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The sabbath, as mentioned in Part 1, is a weekly reminder that we were created to be in relationship with and trust that God is for us, that creation will continue to do what it was created to do, and that the people around us will care for us in our need. It is a reminder that we don’t hold everything together. That are not on our own. That we shouldn't be. Nor were we created to be.<br />
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May we risk and find life — and life in its fullest — in the pursuit of relationship with God, creation, and one-another.TheDenlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06653458927879936025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6645995782356215186.post-67110652044227628972015-08-26T12:20:00.003-07:002015-11-07T20:00:38.837-08:00God(s), Humanity, and Open Eyes — Part 2: Humanity<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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As we saw in <a href="http://dirtscribble.blogspot.com/2015/07/gods-humanity-and-open-eyes-part-1-gods.html">Part 1: God(s)</a>, the opening chapter of scripture is a poetic description of the creation of the world which highlights the character of God. It introduces us to a creator God who is a multiplicity of being—and thus inherently relational—who then creates a “good" creation (thereby a world that God wishes to maintain and not destroy) and invites it, and specifically humanity, to join with God in continuing to add to it’s beauty. The poem builds, day by day, into greater, more complex and beautiful creation—culminating in the introduction of humanity. Humanity is a unique creation within the poem as it is brought about not by God speaking it into existence but by God intimately forming it.</div>
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God, from the very beginning, is intimately bound in relationship with humanity, creating and forming humanity after God’s own likeness.<br />
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Which brings us to <b>Part 2: Humanity</b>.<br />
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The second chapter of scripture provides another depiction of the creation of the world. However, unlike the first chapter, this depiction is in the form of a narrative that focuses on the character of humanity. In this narrative, humanity is the first creation formed to inherit what was, at that time, a formless, empty world — unlike chapter 1, in which the entire creation is created by the time humanity is formed.<br />
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To argue which temporal created order is correct is to miss the point of the story. What chapter 2 highlights is that creation was created <i>for</i> humanity. Whether God prepared creation prior to inviting humanity into it — as one prepares gifts for arriving guests — or invites humanity into existence only to then lavish gifts of love upon them, the outcome is the same: creation is a gift of love to and for humanity, intended for their enjoyment and their participation in keeping.<br />
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A uniqueness that chapter 2 offers is that humanity gets to watch the creator at work. Can you imagine how amazing that would be? Not only would such a display of power be awe inspiring and bring about much joy (think of the joy and surprise each new firework explosion produces in you — and you expect these displays! How much more would the creation of new, good things illicit such childlike joy? "Do it again! Do it again!"), such a display would also be an introduction into what it is to follow in the likeness of the God we are created to be like.<br />
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God shows us the goodness of creation — a creation that not only serves a purpose (e.g. food for sustenance) but is also “pleasant to the sight," a characteristic simply added for humanity’s enjoyment. God then invites us to “keep” it — to join in the furthering of and maintaining of the goodness of creation.<br />
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Yet, all of this is not forced upon humanity in such a way that they have no say in the matter. By God inviting humanity to enjoy creation while also placing boundaries on what should be enjoyed and what should be avoided reveals the ability within humanity to do otherwise. Humanity is created with the capacity to disobey. It is always within them to say no to God. Humanity is created with the capacity to <i>choose</i> whether or not they will be in relationship with God — or with one another for that matter. Yet, to choose to reject God’s invitation is to invite a certain kind of death — to step out of the life we were created to be fulfilled in.<br />
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Because to reject God is to reject the likeness of God within us. And life is intimately found within that likeness. It is the very breath breathed into our being. The very spirit that makes us “alive.”<br />
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As noted in Part 1, humanity is created in the image and likeness of a God(s) which, being an inherent plurality, instills an inherent relational characteristic within humanity. God acknowledges this wiring within humanity when he proclaims that “it is not good that a human being should be alone” (Gen. 2:18). Up until now, chapter 2 has presented humanity as a singularity and not a plurality — though, the relationship and invitation this singularity is invited into can be read the same for humanity as a plurality. The term used for the creature, <i>ʾadam,</i> contains both singularity ("human being") and plurality ("humanity").<br />
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God thus seeks to remedy this relational deficiency by showering the human being with more living creatures. However, it isn’t until God forms a second being who is like the first that a “helper” is found — which is not a term used for subordination but is the very term used throughout scripture for God and God’s own <i>saving</i> characteristic (which I would argue is best defined here as "making whole"). The second human is, like the first human, made in the image and likeness of God and is made in order for the fullness of life to be experienced. Humanity as singularity needs plurality in order to fully step into their identity as relational beings made in the image of God. And, like the relational characteristic found within the multiplicity of God, such relational holding of the other must be held in equality and not domination.<br />
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When the human being is presented with the woman (the first reference to gender) the human proclaims such equality along with the recognition of the uniqueness the other offers:<br />
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“This at last is bone of my bones<br />
and flesh of my flesh;<br />
she shall be called Woman,<br />
because she was staken out of Man.” (Gen. 2:23)<br />
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Adam declares both a recognition of equality (“bone of my bones” and “flesh of my flesh”) as well as of uniqueness (“she shall be called <i>ʾisha</i>, / because she was taken out of <i>ʾish</i>”) by providing a name to differentiate the separateness and difference between the two.<br />
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This becomes the defining characteristic of relationship absent of shame. For, immediately following, the narrative names that "the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed” (Gen. 2:25). This nakedness not only speaks to humanity's ability to physically present themselves to each other in nakedness but also the ability to be emotionally and spiritually vulnerable with the other in full assurance that the other will hold them well. There is a mutual holding of the other in equality and celebration of the uniqueness the other offers. There is no question of whether or not the other will care for them well because this equality is equally self-sacrificial. And there is no questioning of one’s value or worth by being different from the other because such uniqueness is celebrated and makes the other more full.<br />
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Thus, Part 2 ends, leaving us with a depiction of what it is to be fully human. Humanity is invited to participate with God in being like God as well as caring for and facilitating the continuation of creation. To continue to gift existence with beauty. And at the core of being human is that we are inherently wired for relationship in a way that holds the other as equal and yet unique. Selflessly giving and receiving of the other in mutuality. This is where life is. This is where we come alive.<br />
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However, today, such a picturesque existence seems to have been lost. Life isn’t so easy. And the creation account, as a "cold open," still has something to say about how things have turned out the way they have.<br />
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Next up: <a href="http://dirtscribble.blogspot.com/2015/11/gods-humanity-and-open-eyes-part-3-open.html">Part 3: Open Eyes</a><br />
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TheDenlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06653458927879936025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6645995782356215186.post-34322537640686068642015-07-31T15:45:00.000-07:002015-08-26T12:21:29.015-07:00God(s), Humanity, and Open Eyes — Part 1: God(s)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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There is something immensely important about understanding the beginning of a story. The beginning sets the stage for where the story is headed and provides a foundation for understanding why things are the way they are. If the scriptural narrative is a narrative about the history of creation, and thus a story that we currently find ourselves within, then it is imperative that we understand where it all begins. </div>
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Genesis 1-3 provides us with this beginning.<br />
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The first three chapters of scripture—known as the creation account—act as scripture's "cold open,” or teaser (in a movie, this is the opening scene prior to the title and opening credits). It sets the stage for the rest of the story and provides necessary insight into character and plot development. This scene of creation can, itself, be broken into three parts: God(s) (1:1-2:3), Humanity (2:4-25), and Open Eyes (3:1-24). Each of these parts offer something unique to the understanding of the story.<br />
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Part 1 introduces us to God(s) and its relationship with creation<br />
Part 2 expands on the creation of humanity and what it means to be human<br />
Part 3 provides the presenting problem that disrupts the state of things established in Parts 1 and 2<br />
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With this opening sequence in mind, we can jump into the rest of scripture (as well as find ourselves in its ongoing story) with a better understanding of what story is at play. For example, in the movie UP, it is critical that one sees the opening scene in order for the rest of the movie to be understood. The opening scene introduces us to Carl, the main character, and then to his partner Ellie. The scene establishes a deep-seated desire within them for adventure while also walking us, via montage, through the history of their relationship together, which ends in Ellie’s passing (an interesting progression: man alone | man and woman | introduction of disruption/death. Sounds familiar ;). This opening scene serves as a necessary introduction for explaining later events. Without understanding Carl’s deep love for Ellie—as well as the unfulfilled commitment to go on an adventure, revealed in the montage—one will not understand Carl’s motivation for relocating his house to Paradise Falls, the supposed location of their childhood hero, Charles Muntz. In the same way, if we are to better understand the story we find ourselves in, we must understand the beginning of our story.<br />
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So let us begin.<br />
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<b>PART 1: GOD(S)</b><br />
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“In the beginning, God(s) created the heavens and the earth." </div>
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- Genesis 1:1 </div>
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The opening chapter of scripture (technically, 1:1-2:3) is a poetic description of the creation of the world (if you would like a better feel for its poetry, read it as a poem in my post <a href="http://dirtscribble.blogspot.com/2011/04/genesis-creation-account-in-poetic.html">Genesis Creation Account, In Poetic Fashion</a>). Its focus is on God(s) and its relationship with the creation it is creating. The character of God(s) becomes illuminated and the intimate relationship between God(s) and creation becomes the framework by which the rest of the story resides. As Walter Brueggemann puts it: “This [relationship] is the presupposition for everything that follows in the Bible. It is the deepest premise from which good news is possible. God and his creation are bound together by the powerful, gracious movement of God toward creation” (<i>Genesis</i>, 1982).<br />
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Part 1 provides us with a founding picture of who God(s) is/are.<br />
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As hinted by the parenthetic addition to my use of the term God, from the very beginning God is defined as a plurality. “In the beginning God(s) created the heavens and the earth.” The word used here for God is <i>ʾelohim</i> which literally means “gods.” However, within the Hebrew tradition, this term, though plural in form, is to be understood as singular in meaning. From the very start, we are presented with a God who is one, yet characteristically plural. Christianity later defines this plurality within God as the Trinity: God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—three manifestations mysteriously maintained as a singular God. This Trinity can be seen within the first three verses of Genesis: God the being (Gen. 1:1), creates by speaking (Gen. 1:3) (which John 1:1 explicates as "the Word," otherwise known as Jesus), while the Spirit hovers over the waters (Gen. 1:2). God(s), thus, becomes understood as a being that is inherently relational — constantly in union and relationship within the plurality of itself.<br />
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God(s) is also depicted as creative and inviting. God(s) finds enjoyment in the creation of new, good things and progressively creates spaces (days 1-3a) in order to fill those spaces with new creation that bear an invitation to participate with God(s) in the activity of creating (days 3b-6). Such is not a relationship of domination but is, as Jürgen Moltmann states, an invitation "to participate, and to enter into the mutual relationships of the living things” (<i>God in Creation</i>, 1985).<br />
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God(s) is relational, creative, and inviting — seeking to be in relationship with creation rather than dominating it.<br />
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This becomes key to our understanding, not only of God(s)’s relationship with humanity throughout the rest of the story, but of the characteristic identity humanity inherits.<br />
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The last portion of Part 1 leads to the climax of creation, which necessitates further illumination in Part 2: God(s) creates a being in its own image. Creation culminates in the creation of beings that embody the characteristic identity of the God(s) that created them: “Let us make humanity in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth” (Gen. 1:26). Again, note the plurality within the language. God(s)—a plurality—creates humanity—a plurality—in order to embody the characteristic image of God(s).<br />
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God(s) calls humanity into creative partnership, to do as God(s) does, to create and to control. Humanity is wired for relationship with each other and with a God(s) that longs to join and enjoy life with its creation.<br />
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Though the rest of creation is invited into the creative participation of furthering creation (plants bear seed in order to create more plants; creatures, birds, and beast are invited to “be fruitful and multiply”), it is only the humans who are invited to bear God(s)’s image and join with God(s) in the furthering of and the sovereignty over creation. It is only with the humans that God(s) speaks directly to, in relational I-You dialogue. God(s) essentially creates humanity and joyfully proclaims “Join me! Do as I do! You were created to be like me!"<br />
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Thus Part 1 closes with a relational God(s) taking a step back, admiring the beauty of a creation that will continue to expand and grow and add to its splendor, and has this God(s) resting from work. The fact that God(s) rests reveals a trust in its creation. That life will continue and creation will do as it was created to do—continue. Humanity, being made in the image of God(s), is invited into that promise and invited to find rest in the trust that God(s) is with them and will hold life together when they pause. Once again Brueggemann puts it well when he says that Sabbath is “an assertion that life does not depend upon our feverish activity of self-securing, but that there can be a pause in which life is given to us simply as a gift."<br />
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Sabbath embodies a trust. A trust in God. A trust in creation. A trust in others. It is a proclamation that we are not on our own and do not have to hold everything together because we are created in the image of a God(s) that operates out of trust. And thus, so we are created also to trust.<br />
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It is this trust that we will find threaded throughout the creation narrative and which will ultimately come to a head in Part 3. For, in Part 1 we are invited into a framework of trust: God(s), a plurality of being in mutual trust and reciprocity within itself, creates a creation that works in unified partnership within itself (e.g.: the sun participates in providing light for the growing of plants, which will continue to produce more and provide nourishment for the living beings that will continue to produce more and ultimately look after the creation that it is nourished by), and creates humanity to embody such relational trust. It is a framework that is held together by love. A network founded on the full belief that the other is for you and, in turn, the offering of yourself for the other.<br />
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Part 1 introduces us to the creator. To a deeply relational, creative, inviting God(s) and its deep relationship with the creation it creates. Humanity is the pinnacle of creation, and the next character(s) in the development of the story. And as such, it is deserving of a second chapter.<br />
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___<br />
Next up: <a href="http://dirtscribble.blogspot.com/2015/08/gods-humanity-and-open-eyes-part-2.html">Part 2: Humanity</a>TheDenlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06653458927879936025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6645995782356215186.post-83091824875244334752014-07-16T20:13:00.000-07:002015-08-01T21:46:13.311-07:00Theology of Soccer: How Soccer Explains The Fall<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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At the beginning of the bible is a story about the creation of the world, how it was meant to be and how it has come to be the way it is. In the book of Ecclesiastes, Qohelet (“the Teacher”) provides a description of the broken state of the world when he states: “Here’s something that happens all the time and makes no sense at all: Good people get what’s coming to the wicked, and bad people get what’s coming to the good. I tell you, this makes no sense” (8:14, MSG). Yet, when compared to Genesis 1-2, where God created a world in which there was harmony between humans and all of creation as well as between humans and God, something seems to have disrupted the way things were created to be. This disruption is commonly referred to as “The Fall,” which takes place in Genesis 3. However, the Fall is commonly interpreted to be a fundamental change in the way things are—that once Adam and Eve ate of the fruit, the entire world fundamentally changed in character. I would like to propose that this is not the case. When Adam and Eve ate of the fruit, nothing changed except for their perception of the world. And the best way to explain such a shift in understanding is to use The Beautiful Game: Soccer. #BecauseFutbol.
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First, let’s take a look at what could be called The Beautiful Creation. In Genesis 1, in what could only be expressed through the beauty of poetry, God creates a world in which realms are created and then filled with all sorts of life, culminating in the creation of humans. Genesis 2 goes deeper into the story of the creation of humans and expands on the initial call of Genesis 1:28ff for humans to partner with God and continue doing what he has been doing: creating. Humans were created to participate with God in enjoying the goodness of creation while furthering creation through “tending and keeping it” (Gen. 2:15) and being “fruitful” and “multiplying” (Gen. 1:28). Inherent within humanity is to be in partnership with God, with each other, and with creation. This is what is is to be created in the image and likeness of a God that is love: to live selflessly and in harmony with God and creation. Like the game of soccer, creation in its purest form is found when all of creation is in right relationship with one another, selflessly working with and serving the other.
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The Beautiful Game, in it’s purest, most alluring form, resembles the beauty of creation. It is a game of creativity and creation. A game in which the players of each team work in harmony with one another in order to achieve their goal. A game in which a player may do much work in order to create an opportunity, only to selflessly pass the ball to his teammate to receive the praise of scoring a goal. A game in which each player is intimately linked to one another and move as a team. The Beautiful Game finds its beauty in the selfless, relational, harmonious quality of the game—just like creation. At least, prior to Genesis 3.
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In Genesis 3 you have the introduction of sin. However, this introduction isn’t a disease that begins to transform and destroy creation but, rather, is the product of our own decision making brought about through the “opening of our eyes” (Gen. 3:7). This is more in line with the Jewish tradition, which holds that there is no such thing as “The Fall.” Nothing within the relationship between Adam and Eve and between humanity and God changes after the eating of the fruit except for the way we perceive and engage it. Let’s take a look at the relationship between humanity and God surrounding the event of the Fall.
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Before the event, God speaks to and works alongside humanity. Then after Adam and Eve eat of the fruit God goes into a wild frenzy and never speaks to humanity again. JK. After Adam and Eve eat of the fruit, God walks into the garden “in the cool of the day” in order to spend time with them as he, assumedly, always did. When he finds them, he does not reject them or freak out but instead talks with them and helps ease their experienced shame by making them clothes. In fact, post-Eden you <i>still</i> have God walking with and working with humanity (Gen. 4:9, or the rest of the bible for that matter). So what changes?
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This is where soccer may help.
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The game of soccer has its own Genesis 3 “Fall,” which, interestingly enough, is aptly named the Flop. Or Dive. Or, more technically, Simulation. However, the Flop is not anything in and of itself, but, like the Fall, is a decision that is made by a player that breaks from the essence of the game. As stated above, soccer is a team sport that works its best, like creation, when the team works in relationship with one another. The Flop, however, is an idea that emphasizes the individual over the team. It is as if, when placed in the story of Genesis 3, the serpent informs the soccer player that there is another way to play the game. That The Beautiful Game doesn’t have to be so orchestrated and team-centric but that the player could play for himself and achieve glory above and beyond the team. That “if <i>you</i> go down, then <i>you</i> can get a penalty kick, and <i>you</i> can score, and <i>you</i> can win the game.” The Flop opens the player’s eyes to the possibility of individual advancement and in the process dirties up the beauty of the game.
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Upon eating the fruit, Adam and Eve’s eyes are, likewise, opened to self pursuits. Immediately following the act, Adam and Eve hide from one another. The only humans in existence, at the time, hide from one another. This is the first experience of shame—Adam and Eve could no longer stand in intimate vulnerability with one another for fear of what the other would think or do. Again, nothing has changed. They were always naked. But now they understand and perceive nudity in a new way—that it can be used to control and to shame—and so they hide. When God enters the garden, Adam no longer perceives God as a loving being who is <i>for</i> him, but instead views God as a threat to his existence. When God asks where Adam has come to perceive creation in this new way, Adam, in a move of self preservation, blames Eve and then turns and blames God for giving him Eve. When God turns the question to Eve, she, likewise, protects herself by blaming the serpent.
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Adam and Eve reveal a new way of being within creation: no longer fully united with the one-another and no longer in harmony with creation, Adam and Eve shift their focus to primarily looking after him- and herself. The Beautiful Creation, which in its fullness possesses harmonious relationality within the realms of humanity-God, humanity-humanity, and humanity-creation, is affected when we break relationship within all three reams in order to look after ourself.
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Soccer can further be used to explain God’s curses in Genesis 3:14-19, which, I argue, should not be seen as prescriptive (God does not create the curses effects) but as descriptive of a life under such a perspective. All of the curses reveal the effects of broken relationship. For example, when God states to Eve that “Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you” (Gen. 3:16b), God is not saying “this is how I am changing the way you will relate,” for God is not <i>doing</i> anything, instead God is informing them that their selfish drives will result in frustration. Similarly, a curse could be said to the soccer player that “because you now see flopping as an option, there will be enmity between you and the referee.” Any time the player goes down he will expect the referee to call a foul, and when it does not happen, anger will arise. Alternatively, if the player flops and the call is made, like Qohelet’s statement of injustice at the start of this post, the opposing player, who has played according to the beauty of the game, is wrongfully penalized. The beauty of the game begins to diminish as players begin to perceive and engage the game outside of the way it was intended to be played. The game in-and-of itself does not change, only the way the players engage it. Likewise, creation does not change, only the way humanity engages it. However, disunity and broken relationship transforms the experience of creation—and the game.
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This is why the story of Jesus is so fascinating. Jesus does not tell us that the way creation was meant to be lived is unavailable to us—as if the introduction of sin has fundamentally transformed creation into a diseased state. Instead Jesus announces that the way in which things were created to be is “upon us”—it is available to us now. And not only does he say it, he reveals it through the way in which he engages with people and with creation. His selfless love for the other reveals the healing, transformative characteristics inherent within our being created in the image of God. Jesus reveals that to love God and to love others is the way into the fullness of life—not by looking after one’s self. As the disciples begin to change their perception of the world and return to a right understanding and engagement of how things are created to be, they begin to bring the same restoration into creation as Jesus did. A team that plays with deep unity and refuses to allow the idea of flopping to enter into their style of play, can reveal just how beautiful soccer can be. Likewise, when we move from selfishness into selfless relationality, we begin to see a creation that looks a lot more like Genesis 1-2.
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May we come to see the world as it was intended to be.
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">*Full disclosure: I am a fan of German soccer, which is much more team-centric as opposed to South American soccer which emphasizes individual flair. Both of which are beautiful to watch. However, I would still argue that South American soccer is performed at its best when the team does not rely on a single individual, but operates as a unit. Albeit, a unit with lots of flair.</span></i>TheDenlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06653458927879936025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6645995782356215186.post-52514649539316937452012-10-11T17:16:00.000-07:002014-07-16T20:12:53.103-07:00The Beautiful Diversity: What A Church Shopping Culture Reveals About A Broken ChurchA little over a month ago I moved up to Seattle, Washington to attend graduate school at <a href="http://www.theseattleschool.edu/">The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology</a>. After leaving the communities I was a part of in Reno, I found I had left a piece of myself behind with the people I love: with a youth group I had worked with in a church of people I had known since its inception and before; with a house church comprised of mentors and friends I had known since I was a child; and with a community of friends I had had the pleasure of living with leading up to my move. I yearned for such a community here in Seattle and thus began the common sojourn of church shopping.<br />
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Just like the last school I attended, The Seattle School encouraged everyone to spend a period of time visiting different churches. Different denominations and traditions. Experiencing different forms of worship and community. There is a goodness in experiencing the diversity of the Church, especially if one has found himself within a single tradition his whole life. The Church (the “big C” unified, global body) is beautifully diverse and yet extremely segregated.<br />
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Like a glass ball that has shattered into numerous fragments, so the Church finds itself broken and disjointed.<br />
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The Church, rather than being a unified-whole, celebrating diversity in thought and practice, has become fragmented and comprised of groups that seek to protect their own way of thinking by isolating themselves from the beliefs and practices of other fragments. Thus, we have created a Church of this-or-that. Traditionalism or progressivism. Hymns or contemporary music. <i>Lectio divina</i> or sermon. Generational integration or separation. Grape juice or wine. Free donuts or holy water.<br />
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This fragmentation, rather than celebratory unified diversification, has created a culture of church shoppers. Where people shop for the church that fits their wants-and-needs and if they don’t like it, they are free to leave and find another. Church has thus become a product and the churchgoer a consumer. This consumerist mentality made me uneasy every time I visited a new church. I would visit a body of people I did not know; experience their expression of what “church” is; and leave, dialoguing with my friend about what I did and did not like about their gathering. I found myself treating the church as I do a future purchase: test-driving, weighing the pros and cons, reading reviews, comparing to similar products, and making a decision for or against.<br />
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Because this is what a church shopping culture forces us to do: decide which fragment we side with.<br />
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“No, I’m not a newcomer, I’m just church shopping.” Therefore, what do you have to offer? Sell me on your product or else I’m going to another church. How wrong does this sound? And yet, this is exactly what we do. “My church got a new pastor and I don’t like how he teaches, so I’m going somewhere else.” “I visited a friend’s church and love their music, so I’m going there now.” “This church has more beautiful, single ladies. I’m sold.” All of these examples, which I have heard time and time again — and, unfortunately, have thought myself — relegate the church to the sphere of self gratification. The church becomes about me and what I can get out of it, rather than a community that I can give myself to in mutual reciprocity.<br />
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It is here that I find a fundamental flaw in churches in general. Churches have created communities of loosely associated people rather than communities becoming churches. A church becomes an additional community to one’s life, rather than the community one finds himself in containing the church. To bring this idea into context let me describe my current situation. I attend a school where we are constantly wrestling with scripture and asking questions about faith. When I am not in school, I am meeting and living life with these friends — enjoying one-another’s company and finding in the other someone I can wrestle with life’s questions. Among these friends, are professors, mentors, and wise people that I feel free going to for advice and guidance on items my friends and I wrestle with and desire more learned input. Why then, would I drive 45 minutes away to a church in a neighboring town—simply because it’s the only one in which I “connect with”, yet comprised of people I do not spend my daily life—and consider that my church community? To make it not as extreme, why would I see church as a separate community from that which I spend my daily life, simply because it gathers under the banner of “church”?<br />
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I recognize that my situation is unique in the sense that my schooling is geared towards creating a faith-based conversation, but this uniqueness need not take away from my example’s general truth: we are surrounded by people in our daily life that wrestle with the question of faith and have unique input for such an ongoing conversation. Take away the school-spurred conversation and my classmates are still the same friends I spend my time and life with. They are diverse and so I am challenged in my conversations with them to see outside of the trench of understanding I place myself in. Despite my attending a “seminary” my classmates and friends are comprised of atheists, agnostics, conservatives, liberals, progressivists, emergent advocates, traditionalists, and more. And it is precisely the mixing of such divergent voices that has created such a rich dialogue. A richness I do not want to lose by “choosing my brand of church” and homogenizing the voices offered.<br />
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There is something wrong with seeing and experiencing the church as a community outside those you live your day to day life. If Jesus is the head of the Church, as Paul says in Colossians 1:18, then a physical representation of such a relationship can be seen between Jesus and his disciples. It is a community of day to day relationship. A community of dialogue and questions. Of differing views and arguments. Of over-confident idealists and doubters. Of zealots and pacifists. Of sinners and saints.<br />
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A beautiful diversity.<br />
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When a community becomes the church, you no longer have cookie-cutter churches that follow a static pattern of worship because what a living community needs one week may not be what it needs the next. What a community of grad school seminary students—who spend the the week listening to lectures, wrestling with scripture, and dialoguing with one another about faith—may need is not another “lecture” but a space to come together and just “be” or perhaps an outlet to put into practice all that they are learning. And if the church is not something separate from the community of grad school students and the people they live life with, then such a space can naturally take place as the community serves one another. Those struggling by the weight of life would already be known by the others in the community and support would be given. Those desiring to engage in deeper intellectual stimulation would be engaged and challenged. Time to just “be” together would take place as needed. Time to put to practice all that is being discussed would naturally come about. And time to learn from one another—in all its diversity—would happen constantly.<br />
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Because the Church is a living community and not one that comes to life only on Sundays.<br />
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And if you don't like what the Church is doing, you can't just walk away because the Church is precisely the people you live your life with. Thus, you are forced to engage the community and wrestle with what is bothering you, allowing the community to see where it may be failing as well as challenging you to see whether or not your position is misguided. A dialogue is brought forth and all voices are present within it. Changes are made or space is created for the beautiful diversity.<br />
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So may we begin to see that the Church is all around us. That the Church is already present within the community we find ourself. May we begin to see the beauty found when all the fragments of glass come together to make a diverse whole. And may we come to find that we ourselves are an important, unique voice in the ongoing dialogue of faith.<br />
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<br />TheDenlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06653458927879936025noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6645995782356215186.post-19824376910114028422011-11-08T10:49:00.000-08:002012-01-13T09:50:13.333-08:00The Kingdom Of Heaven Has Suffered (Our) Violence<br />
This past weekend I was up in Seattle visiting The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology as a prospective student. During my stay I sat in on a class and was brought to reflection as a dialogue played out before me between a student and the professor, Dr. Dan Allender. The dialogue was about whether or not hatred always manifests itself in the physical realm or if it is possible to internalize the emotion. Dr. Allender went on to explain that hatred will always show itself physically but not necessarily toward the object of hatred or even in a revengeful, physically harmful way. It may present itself through the act of biting one’s nails or through the way one organizes their sock drawer. That an outlet of hatred may be revealed through the way someone controls the things of their life--be it the organization of clothing in their closet or determining the precise order of ones family vacation. Whatever it may be, these passive outlets of hatred affect those around them. A family is affected by a mother that is overly controlling. A weaker, younger brother may be the recipient of the outflow of anger an older brother has for someone he cannot confront. Or, as was shared, a father’s insatiable desire to be on time to church may result in his kid one day coming up to him to say “your inability to show up to church late was the leading cause of me questioning eternity.”<br />
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“We are violent human beings.”<br />
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However that violence reveals itself harms those around us to degrees we may not see or understand because of its manifestation through passive, commonly deemed “non-violent” acts of control. It is in how we control our environment and the environment around us. How we begin to push our personal kingdom--the realm of which we are king--onto others.<br />
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This got me thinking about the kingdom of heaven.<br />
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In light of the conversation unfolding before me, my mind went to a verse in Matthew: “From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force” (11:12). What is the violence the kingdom of heaven is suffering? Who are the violent taking it by force? What does that look like? Thinking about this I was struck by the idea that maybe we are the ones inflicting violence on the kingdom of heaven. Not directly with violent intent but passively through unwitting avenues of hatred.<br />
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This can be illustrated through an example of one coming home from a hard day at work, desiring a nice, peaceful evening only to have it violently ripped away by loud music being played next door. A passive, inadvertent act of control on the part of the neighbor has done severe violence to the worker’s peaceful kingdom. In like-manner, sometimes our actions violently rip away pieces of the kingdom of heaven from those around us. The kingdom of heaven is invading! And yet, how are we hindering its arrival? How are the ways in which we control our own environment doing violence to those around us and to the kingdom of heaven? How is our control on the timing of arrival causing violence to our kids’ experience of Jesus and His kingdom and reign?<br />
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Because how can you help bring a kingdom of patience when you, in controlling situations, show little?<br />
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This is difficult to assess because, as noted above, many times we don’t realize our actions and their affect on those around us because they aren’t all-out attacks. They are subtle. They are passive. And yet, they are violent. And by them we inflict violence on the kingdom of heaven and through them portions of the kingdom are held captive. When our control overflows onto those around us, we do violence to others’ experience of the kingdom of heaven--because Jesus is no longer the one on the throne, we are. If our actions do not fall under submission to Jesus’ reign then our control does violence to Jesus’ kingdom. We become the ones attacking it, rebelling against it, and taking it by force.<br />
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Like an internal revolt.<br />
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So maybe another way at looking at this verse is not in an active, aggressive manner--viewing it as a mob of people from without, attacking a fortified kingdom city of God. But maybe we can view it more along the lines of members from within that city setting fire to it from the inside. <br />
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Because sometimes it is us who are at odds with the kingdom of heaven. Sometimes it is us who keep people out because we place drapes over the kingdom and present something out of our own control. Sometimes it is us who begin to build our own kingdom within and start dismantling the kingdom around us in order to do so.<br />
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How are we controlling situations? How are we controlling the environment around us? And how is our control taking the kingdom of heaven by force--like a bully taking a kids toy--and keeping those around us from experiencing the joy and life of Jesus’ kingdom? It may start with humility and humbly asking those around you how you have showed yourself to be controlling. And it may take some deep soul searching in order to find the origin of that control as an outlet of masked hatred.<br />
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And then, maybe it will start with showing up to church late. Because God’s kingdom isn’t going anywhere. And no matter the amount of violence we inflict on it, it will always be moving forward despite us. But may we join with the King in advancing his kingdom, rather than inflicting violence to it. May we be open to seeing the ways we are taking the kingdom captive by our own control. And may we be moved to find healing in His reign of love to extinguish the hatred and violence within us.TheDenlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06653458927879936025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6645995782356215186.post-80104905806032295232011-04-04T23:48:00.000-07:002011-05-15T16:53:07.369-07:00Genesis Creation Account, In Poetic Fashion<div>The Genesis 1 creation account was originally written as a poem. In order to recapture its essence, I rewrote it in poetic fashion.</div><div><br />
</div><div>It should be noted that ancient Hebrew poetry did not use rhyme, but rather just used rhythm. My recreation, however, does use rhyme in order that we, who typically associate poetry with rhythm and rhyme, read it in the same light that the original readers would have read it.</div><div><br />
</div><div><b>genesis</b></div><b>one</b><br />
At the start of it all, before anything existed,<br />
God brought forth out of nothing<br />
both the heavens and the earth, of which he gave birth<br />
by the words in which he was speaking.<br />
<sup>2</sup>But the earth at first was nothing more<br />
than a blob, shrouded in darkness<br />
and the face of the deep was never alone<br />
As the Spirit of God would bear witness<br />
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<sup>3</sup>God rolled up his sleeves as he got to work<br />
on reforming the blob so dull.<br />
As He said, “Give me light!” and there was light<br />
<sup>4</sup>And he said, “That’s wonderful.<br />
Now let me separate these two, this dark and this light<br />
to govern and create what I say.”<br />
<sup>5</sup>And there was darkness and light,<br />
which he called “Day” and “Night”<br />
and thus created the first day.<br />
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<sup>6</sup>Then God stood back and looked at the blob<br />
now brilliantly lit up and blue<br />
And he said, “A sky! Let’s create a sky!<br />
That will split up these waters in two!”<br />
<sup>7</sup>So the sky appeared and the waters divided<br />
one above and one below<br />
<sup>8</sup>And the sky became known as the atmosphere<br />
and the days became a duo.<br />
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<sup>9</sup>Now God set his sights on the blob itself<br />
and began stage three of his plan.<br />
He read it out loud and gave a great shout<br />
<sup>10</sup>as the waters became oceans and land.<br />
“Delightful!” he cried, <sup>11</sup>”Now lets cover the land<br />
with greenery, flora, and trees!”<br />
<sup>12</sup>So the land shot forth a regenerating sort<br />
And quite satisfied <sup>13</sup>he ended day three.<br />
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<sup>14</sup>”Now back to the sky! Let’s give it some lights<br />
to establish both signs and times!<br />
<sup>15</sup>Let the lights be beyond the atmosphere<br />
and let their refulgence brightly shine!”<br />
<sup>16</sup>And so there appeared a sun for the day<br />
and a moon and some stars for the night<br />
<sup>17</sup>set high above all, <sup>18</sup>dividing day and night fall.<br />
<sup>19</sup>How day four finished in marvelous light!<br />
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<sup>20</sup>At the moment the earth was empty of life<br />
so God got busy and said:<br />
“Let the waters be filled with all sorts of things<br />
and let birds now fly overhead!”<br />
<sup>21</sup>And so there became an array of living things<br />
each according to its kind and way,<br />
And God, quite happy, to the animals exclaimed:<br />
<sup>22</sup>””Multiply beyond <sup>23</sup>this fifth day!”<br />
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<sup>24</sup>But the animals thus far were just in oceans and sky<br />
so God thought to himself to do more.<br />
And in an instant there became a myriad of beasts<br />
when God said “may the earth produce more!<br />
<sup>25</sup>Oh, how good it is for the earth to be full!<br />
In all its water, sky and its land.<br />
<sup>26</sup>But there is still one more thing that we must do,<br />
for, in our image let us create man.<br />
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Let humanity have authority over this world<br />
and all its animals from ocean to sky.”<br />
<sup>27</sup>So God fashioned two humans both a man and a woman,<br />
<sup>28</sup>and blessed them: “be fruitful: multiply!<br />
<sup>29</sup>As for food, look around! All the plants and fruit are yours!<br />
<sup>30</sup>As for the beasts, they’ll feed in the same way”<br />
<sup>31</sup>And God, taking in all the creation he had made<br />
With great satisfaction ended the sixth day.<br />
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<div><b>two</b><br />
<sup>1</sup>And so in six days the heavens and the earth<br />
were created with the heavenly soldiery<br />
<sup>2</sup>And on the seventh God was finished,<br />
And resting <sup>3</sup>God then blessed it,<br />
As a day sacred for he spent it leisurely.</div>TheDenlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06653458927879936025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6645995782356215186.post-66435415755133116642009-12-23T01:54:00.000-08:002011-05-15T16:49:35.637-07:00The Loss of True Christian Identity<div style="text-align: justify;">Christians have lost their audacity to proclaim themselves as living examples of Christ on earth – to say “if you want to know what Christ was like, and the life he has to offer, look at me.” Many would recoil at the thought of stating such a bold claim because they wouldn’t want to give a “false picture” of Jesus and the Kingdom of Heaven—and many rightly so. But why is this? Why is it that Christians can’t confidently declare themselves as precisely the meaning behind their title? They can, with one breath, claim ownership of being a “Christian” but deny that they are “Little Christs.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I would venture to say that this is precisely because in today’s Christian culture our focus has gone from desiring to create disciples of Christ to a focus of acquiring Christian “converts”. But to understand why this is detrimental to being a people who take upon Christ’s name, we must understand the difference between the two.<br />
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The New Oxford American Dictionary defines “disciple” as: “a follower or student of a teacher, leader, or philosophy” while it defines “convert” as: “a person who has been persuaded to change their religious faith or other beliefs.” One is an <i>active</i> pursuit of someone in order to become like that person, while the other is a <i>one-time</i> change of beliefs or opinions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: right;">The title of “Christian” has become more of a declaration of “belief”</div><div style="text-align: right;">as opposed to a declaration of life transformation.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">But Christianity isn’t about “believing the right thing,” it is, rather, allowing the love of Christ to transform our entire being into one that breaks free of the bondage of this world and experiences heaven here and now. “The kingdom of heaven is at hand!” Jesus proclaimed, not “when you die, if you believe the right things about me.” Jesus’ whole ministry was about saving people in the here-and-now—healing people of sicknesses, giving hope to the hopeless, loving the unloved, feeding the hungry—and yet, all <i>we</i> seem to care about is one’s afterlife. For, if we merely convert someone by getting them to “believe the right thing that they may be saved” then we have (by general belief) solidified their post-mortem salvation (and possibly a seat in our church building) but have done nothing for all the problems, struggles, addictions, and destruction they currently experience in their everyday life—as all too often a verbal commitment of belief is where the ‘conversion’ ends. In fact, if being a Christian is all about solidifying one’s afterlife salvation, then Jesus is a cruel man for keeping many people alive after they had already died or were dying (Mk. 5:21ff; Lk. 7:1ff; Lk. 7:11ff; Jn. 4:46ff; Jn. 11:1ff).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">But, of course, Jesus did not come to hand out tickets to an after-life party, but came to offer life in its fullest, truest form—a life saturated with Him. In a sense, he came to invite people to a party happening <i>here and now. </i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">The kingdom of heaven is at hand!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Jesus was precisely drawing people into that kingdom—into a world where God reigns and love and joy can truly be experienced. It isn’t brought about by believing the right things but by <i>actively</i> pursuing the life Christ has to offer. In fact, believing “the right things”—which varies in each of the 30,000+ Christian denominations (“How lucky you are that you happen to be in the one that is right!” – Argentinean evangelist Juan Carlos Ortiz)—will, in and of itself, do nothing for anyone other than give them head knowledge of the historical personage of Jesus.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Now, one side of conversion is merely getting one to believe the right things about Jesus that they may be saved from an afterlife hell (“repeat this prayer after me”) – this, we must understand, does not make someone a Christian (a “little Christ”). Whether or not this saves someone in the afterlife is up to God but Jesus never came to save people “in the afterlife,” he came to save people “<i>in their life</i>” (although, if you understand that eternity starts now, it is connected). The other side of conversion is proclaiming that the gift of life Jesus has to offer in the here and now, can be acquired by merely believing in Jesus. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">“All this can be yours for the low, low price of a prayer!”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">But one real look at the gospels and the epistles will show that that is not the case. Peter puts it plainly in his second letter, that “to obtain these gifts, you need more than faith; you must also work hard to be good, and even that is not enough. For then you must learn to know God better and discover what he wants you to do” (1:5 LB).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: right;">An active pursuit.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">A Christian, as properly understood, is one who follows Jesus, learns from Jesus, and becomes like Jesus. He doesn’t merely believe in Jesus. For, I can believe that Barack Obama is my president and still not follow him just as much as I can believe Jesus was—and is—the Messiah and still not follow him.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: right;">The Church today has become saturated with</div><div style="text-align: right;">those who believe and do not follow.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">A convert, by definition, does not need to follow Jesus but merely needs to believe the “right things” about him. However, this leaves “many people who are Christians by certain identifiable <i>human</i> standards—say, by baptism, church membership, having ‘prayed to receive Christ,’ or regular partaking of the sacrament—still lack[ing in] the inward ‘circumcision’ of which Paul…” speaks of in Romans (Dallas Willard, <i>Knowing Christ Today</i>, 180).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">You can believe all the right things,</div><div style="text-align: justify;">and do all the right rituals,</div><div style="text-align: justify;">and still miss the boat.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Many Christian converts do earnestly believe that Jesus can work in the here and now—not just the afterlife—yet, when converting to Christianity and experiencing none of the promised gifts of life, they walk away from the church honestly feeling like they gave Christianity a chance, and it failed them. They expected—and were told—that by believing in this Jesus, their lives would be transformed; that once Jesus “made a home in their heart” he would begin renovating their life, all the while they would just have to sit back and allow the transformation happen.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Isn’t that how we advertise Jesus today?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: right;">Turn on the TV and watch a televangelist.</div><div style="text-align: right;">“God wants you to be happy, wealthy, and free from sin.</div><div style="text-align: right;">So just say this prayer, do your duties as a Christian—</div><div style="text-align: right;">by tithing and going to church—</div><div style="text-align: right;">and you, too, can have a transformed life in Jesus.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Now, I admit, even Christians dislike televangelists, but can we honestly say that this message isn’t also found within the church? That there aren’t people in the church who are there because they have been told that <i>believing</i> in Jesus will fix their broken lives?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Because of this, many have found that</div><div style="text-align: justify;">mere conversion leaves people hurting.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Mere conversion leaves people wanting.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Mere conversion leaves people walking away from Christianity</div><div style="text-align: justify;">believing they have “given it a shot.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">C.S. Lewis, in his book <i>Screwtape Letters</i>, shows how conversion without discipleship very often results in abandonment of Christianity when Uncle Screwtape reproaches an apprentice demon for permitting his “patient” to become a Christian but nevertheless says that “there is no need to despair; hundreds of these adult <i>converts</i> have been reclaimed after a brief sojourn in the enemy’s camp and are now with us. All the habits of the patient, both mental and bodily, are still in our favour” (emphasis mine). Conversion does not change habits, just belief. Discipleship—actively pursuing Christ, learning from Christ, and seeking to become like Christ—dramatically changes habits and transforms lives.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">In a related train of thought, if the church progressively becomes filled with converts, rather than disciples, then the church will become more and more the downfall of its own existence, as it proclaims a redeeming Christ, but produces very few who show a redeemed life. DC Talk, in their hit album “Jesus Freak,” has a great quote that hits on this that goes “the greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians, who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and walk out the door and deny him by their lifestyle” (track 4). Gandhi also reveals a disconnect with Christians and Jesus when he says, “I like your Christ, but I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: right;">How can that be?</div><div style="text-align: right;">How can one be a “little Christ” and not be like Jesus?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Because we are told that all we need to do is “believe.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">“Have faith.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: right;">We must reexamine what truly makes a “Christian.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">We must abandon a “convert” mentality if we truly desire the Church to be what it is supposed to be—the body of Christ—a.k.a. Christ on earth. We must understand that it is not mere belief that makes one a Christ follower, but becoming a disciple—“a follower or student of a teacher, leader, or philosophy.” The story of the rich young man in Matthew 19 shows a man who knew all the right things and did all the right things (in Christian terms let’s say he was baptized, went to church every Sunday, tithed, etc.) and yet Jesus says he still lacks—though, when Jesus tells him what it is, it is not poverty that Jesus really asks of the rich man, it is that he <i>follow</i> him. Wealth was merely what kept the rich man from doing what was truly necessary—becoming a disciple.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">With this, we must also understand that one can become a disciple <i>without</i> believing all the right things. As a prime example, it is arguable whether Jesus’ closest disciples (‘The Twelve’) even believed “the right things” about him until after he rose from the dead and slapped them around a bit with some fish.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">It is in the pursuit that we are transformed,</div><div style="text-align: justify;">and many times, it is in the pursuit that we believe.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Rob Bell, in his book <i>Velvet Elvis</i>, gives a great analogy between a “believe the right things” mentality and a “willingness to examine and question” mentality by comparing a brick wall with a trampoline—which I won’t get into; you should just go read the book. But what I will say, is that he makes an excellent point, in that, with a trampoline, you can invite people on to jump with you that they may experience the trampoline and come to understand the trampoline through experience.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: right;">You can experience Jesus before you believe in Jesus.</div><div style="text-align: right;">You can participate with Jesus before you become like Jesus.</div><div style="text-align: right;">And you can become a disciple of Jesus before you become a “little Christ.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Christianity is not a belief; it is a transformation.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">May you come to find the pursuit of Jesus transforming and life giving, may you invite others to experience Jesus with you, and may you come to have the audacity to proclaim, as Paul did, “be imitators of me, as I am a ‘Little Christ.’”</div>TheDenlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06653458927879936025noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6645995782356215186.post-29166675094346158442009-09-03T21:24:00.000-07:002011-05-15T16:53:52.291-07:00The Dual Nature of Commitment<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The other day, as I was riding back from the lake with my good friend Faith, I shared with her about my family, my view on "once saved always saved" (a topic for another blog post...), and about my previous summer. And through the intricate workings of those three topics together I came to learn something about myself which gives me more clarity on how I responded to my faith crashing the previous summer.<br />
<div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>First, let me set the foundation for this realization.</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>For those of you that did not know, last summer I nearly gave up my faith. I entered that summer closer to God than I had ever been. I had just gotten through a year where half was spent in Jerusalem studying Jesus on-site, followed by a semester where I started an on-campus house church that completely blessed me. My relationship with God was never better.</div><div><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">And then it all came crashing down.<br />
<a name='more'></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
<div style="text-align: left;"> Halfway through the summer I began reading a book, which I thought was on the emergent church and how modern church today isn't connecting with American culture, but came to find it was something completely different. The book completely reinterpreted Christianity and left it a shell of what I knew it to be.</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: right;">And the thing is, I couldn't disagree.</div><div style="text-align: right;">The author just made sense.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I had no arguments against his. I didn't want to believe him, and yet, I couldn't help but be drawn in. He was slowly getting me to question away my entire faith. And by the end of the book, I literally set it down and said out loud, "I do not know what I believe in anymore."</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>I</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>do not</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>know what</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>I believe in anymore</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: right;">I do not know what I believe in anymore?</div><div style="text-align: right;">21 years of my life at that time had been spent</div><div style="text-align: right;">believing whole-heartedly that this</div><div style="text-align: right;">Jesus movement was true...</div><div style="text-align: right;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: right;">Not anymore.</div><div style="text-align: right;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I had never thought that my faith foundation could be rocked to the point of me questioning my faith. But lo and behold, there I was, questioning it all. On the verge of giving it all up. Half of me screamed for me to ignore the book and hold true to my roots. But the other half could not let go.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">Two feuding halves.</div><div style="text-align: center;">One emotion based.</div><div style="text-align: center;">One knowledge based.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: right;">This was the epiphany I had in the car with my friend.</div><div style="text-align: right;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>There is a dual nature to commitment. After reading the book, everything I knew was challenged. Everything I believed to be true was questioned. And the knowledge side of me did not know how to handle it, other than to say "I do not know what I believe in." The emotional side, however, clung to what I felt to be true, what I had come to know, emotionally, to be true for the past 21 years. But without a union between emotion and knowledge, my commitment to Christianity waned.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I came to find that when I am fully committed to something, I am invested both knowledgeably and emotionally. I may first commit myself through knowledge -- questioning it and challenging it -- and when I find that it is worth pursing intellectually, then, depending on how well I <i>know</i> it to be worthwhile, I will invest in it emotionally. I will <i>feel</i> it to be true.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: right;">At least, that is the order of approach</div><div style="text-align: right;">I take in regards to Christianity.</div><div style="text-align: right;">I'm pretty sure I will emotionally fall in love</div><div style="text-align: right;">before I <i>know</i> it is worthwhile :P</div><div style="text-align: right;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>After reading the book, the academic side of me abandoned Christianity, but my emotional side held on. But just as a fire cannot survive without its fuel, my emotional commitment to Christianity lost its most definitive characteristic: passion.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">I lost all passion in my faith.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Even as what was left of me emotionally prodded my knowledge-side to rebuild the pieces, I did so emptily. There was no excitement in my faith. There was no excitement in coming to terms that "this is what I believe, and this is why I believe it." As I did begin establishing that Christianity <i>is</i> what I know to be true, my emotional attachment to Christianity had snuck out the back door. Like a lover wanting her abandoning spouse to realize their relationship is meant to be, but not being ready to emotionally commit when her spouse comes knocking again.</div><div style="text-align: right;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: right;">Emotionally I was not ready to commit to Jesus again</div><div style="text-align: right;">while knowledgeably I was.</div><div style="text-align: right;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I did not want to suffer again the pain I had experienced emotionally when the main thing I was devoted to in my life came crashing down. When all I had believed and followed disappeared. That is an emptiness I do not want to experience again. And as a safety-mechanism for my emotions, I would not emotionally invest in my faith again, until I <i>knew</i> that this was the real deal. That this is what's worth living for.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">That Jesus was worth living for.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>That investment, that passion, did not come about until this summer. A whole year after I read the book. A whole year of passionless faith. Sometimes time is all there is for emotional healing. But I thank God I am emotionally invested in him, again. Life committed -- <i>fully committed,</i> both emotionally and knowledgeably -- to Jesus is so much more joyful and fulfilling than not. I will always remember the emptiness I felt when I nearly lost all faith. When I began to see life as pointless, where there was no God, and no saviour to live for.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">May I never experience that again.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">And may we see commitment as something so much more</div><div style="text-align: center;">than mere belief, but knowledge -- both emotionally and intellectually.</div>TheDenlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06653458927879936025noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6645995782356215186.post-25742853150445221962009-08-24T16:05:00.000-07:002011-05-15T16:54:57.237-07:00Cracker-Shot Snacks and Covenantal Communion<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>This past Sunday I had the opportunity to teach in a youth group and ended up speaking on a topic I enjoy talking on, and that topic is that of covenantal communion. I enjoy teaching on it because it changes the way I view communion -- adding meaning to a practice many, if not most people see as a mere "reflection" of who and what Jesus was and did.<br />
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<div style="text-align: right;">When did communion become a solemn, cracker-shot snack</div><div style="text-align: right;">rather than the full-fledged "love feast" celebration it once was?</div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">Actually, the answer is almost 200 years after Jesus,</div><div style="text-align: center;">as Rome's pagan religious rituals influenced Christianity</div><div style="text-align: center;">to adopt "rituals" of their own.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">Thus, the bread and wine were stripped from the meal,</div><div style="text-align: center;">even to the extent of making the original "love feast" illegal.</div><div style="text-align: center;">Then jump ahead to the middle ages and you've got yourself crackers.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">Way to go. (1)<br />
<a name='more'></a></div><div style="text-align: right;">(yes, that is a footnote in a blog)</div><br />
<div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Funny how I criticize how pagan culture took meaning out of original church practices when I am about to talk about how communion has so much more meaning when viewed through the lens of a pagan ritual. Make up your mind, Steve :)</div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I have come to find that when you view communion through the lens of the ancient practice of "blood covenants" it becomes something so much bigger. So, let me show how the last supper's act of communion falls within that ancient practice, and hopefully you will never see communion the same again. Hopefully you will see it as so much more than just a time to remember Christ -- which is huge -- but also as a declaration that we will pick up our crosses and follow Christ into his Kingdom. That we will become one.<br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In ancient days (the "ancients" refer to Greeks and Romans, but I am speaking more along the lines of Abrahamic days), a blood covenant was constantly used as a means to bind tribes, and/or people groups together into a covenantal relationship. When a covenant was being made both parties would go to great lengths to define the relationship of the agreement and each tribe's respective roles. They had to consider the costs of the agreement -- what they would gain, what they would lose, etc.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Once an agreement was made, blessings and curses would be placed upon it. This was in order to bring the god's into the pact by having them be 'watch' over the two sides. If a side were to fulfill their obligations then the gods would bless them with, say, abundant harvest, prosperity, good health, many descendants, etc. If, however, a side were to break the pact, then curses were instated, such as sickness and disease, poverty, famine, and/or death.<br />
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<div style="text-align: right;">Usually a breach in a blood covenant meant that</div><div style="text-align: right;">the other tribe had the right to exterminate the other.</div><div style="text-align: right;">Having the gods also play a part through curses added</div><div style="text-align: right;">security that if one tribe were to break the covenant,</div><div style="text-align: right;">without the knowledge of the other tribe,</div><div style="text-align: right;">the god's would be watching.</div><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Once all was squared away, each tribe would select a representative of their tribe to participate in the covenantal process on behalf of each tribe. The representative was to be the person who best reflected that tribes attributes, whom the entire tribe could identify with. Once a representative was selected, then a date and a location would be selected in which both tribes would come together, in their entirety, to witness the "cutting" of the covenant.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>At that ceremony, sacrificial animals -- many times ones that produced the most blood -- would be cut in half (down the backbone) and laid opposite each other, creating a walkway of blood. Each representative would walk down the walkway, becoming soaked with the blood of the animal up to their ankles -- even getting blood on their garments -- and meet in the middle to perform symbolic acts of covenantal acceptance. They would exchange their coats, which signified the strength and the authority of the representative as given by the tribe -- thus each tribe gave the other their tribe’s authority; and they would exchange their weapons, which signified that each tribe would come to the aid of the other tribe in battle, fighting as brothers as if they were their own tribe. They would, in a sense, become one tribe.<br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In Genesis 15 we see this event unfold. You have Abraham cutting up animals and laying them side by side, and then you see a flame, which represents God, passing between them.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">But there is a twist.</div><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In this blood covenant, Abraham is not an active participant; he is just an observer. God passes through the animals, but Abraham does not. Thus, we see God entering into a covenant, but not Abraham. God is binding himself to a promise while Abraham is free. Why is this?<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">Because we would fail.</div><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>God is basically saying, “I will uphold my end of the deal, but you, I know you would fail so I will not let you bind yourself to its ramifications.” God binds himself to his promise -- that he will make Abraham’s offspring numerous and they will inherit land -- but allows Abraham to reap the benefits without the consequences of not-fulfilling the stipulations.<br />
<div><br />
<div style="text-align: right;">(you can see the stipulations given Abraham’s offspring in Exodus 20-24 at Mt. Sinai. And then you can continue reading to see how they constantly fail to live up to them, and yet, God continues to show mercy).</div><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Back to the blood covenant, once the symbolic acts were accomplished, both sides would recite the conditions of the covenant for all to hear -- in order that no one have an excuse -- binding the tribes into a covenant forever. Both parties would swear to uphold the covenant and then would recite the blessings and curses -- many times stating that “if I am to break this covenant, may I become as this sacrificed animal.”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Once all was said, each representative would receive an incision -- typically either on their wrists or ankles -- and would then place the wounds together, many times binding them for a period of time, creating a blood-pact. The scars would serve as lifetime reminders that a covenant had been cut between them.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Following the ceremony the tribes would partake in a covenantal meal and at the meal there would be served bread and wine. The bread was seen to represent the body and the wine was representative of the new, shared blood of both men. In the ceremony the blood was seen to have inter-commingled and thus, the two spirits had now become one. Often times, when the incisions were initially made, blood from both representatives would be captured into a small goblet and mixed with the wine. The representatives would drink from the goblet and as each did they would say, “Drink my life’s blood as I drink your life’s blood… I see you fulfilling all the terms of the covenant as I fulfill your life.” Then, both representatives would reach over the table, take a piece of the bread, and lifting it to each other’s mouth they would say, “Take me -- all that I am. Eat of me, I am yours.”<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">Hey wait a second. This sounds familiar….</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">Exactly.</div><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In Matthew 26, Jesus is dining with his disciples and says very similar things about the bread and wine. He says, “Take, eat; this is my body” and “Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” Jesus is not merely giving his disciples a new way to look at bread and wine; he is bringing his followers into a blood covenant with him. Just as the ancient blood covenant saw the blood as the life of the participants, so it is seen in Jesus’ covenant.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Leviticus 17 reveals the belief in Israel and of the people of God that blood was the life force of any living being, and thus they were commanded not to drink any of it. And yet, you have Jesus telling his disciples to “drink of his blood.”<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">Jesus wants his life to be inter-commingled with ours.</div><div style="text-align: center;">That our spirits be one with <i>his</i> spirit.</div><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Jesus completes a blood covenant that was left unfinished a couple thousand years before. A blood covenant that began with God passing through halved animals, declaring blessings on Abraham and his offspring, and ending with Jesus -- the most perfect representation of all that is God -- eating a covenantal meal with his disciples, offering up his body and blood as a means for his followers to enter in to a covenant with him in which they become one with Christ.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>When we take communion we enter in to that covenant. We declare that we deny ourselves and pick up our cross in pursuit of Christ. In pursuit of becoming more like him. In desire that our life be his life, our spirit his spirit, our body his body.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">May we, whenever we take communion, not see it as some solemn occasion to merely reflect on what Christ did for us on the cross, but rather may we see it as a <i>celebration</i> of what Christ did for us <i>and</i> as a covenant binding us to him, merging our life and spirit with his.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">Merging our tribe with that of heaven.</div><br />
-------<br />
Footnotes:<br />
1. The Council of Carthage in AD 397 made the original method of celebrating the Eucharist within a celebratory feast illegal. For more information on pagan influence on church practices, see Frank Viola's "Pagan Christianity."</div>TheDenlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06653458927879936025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6645995782356215186.post-52405612368976587362009-07-27T15:08:00.000-07:002011-05-15T16:57:24.438-07:00Jesus the Pagan Sacrifice<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I am someone who dislikes "Church answers." I don't think that they, in the long run, are the best for the questioner, as it leaves them with a hollow answer to a question and positions the questioner for failure when presented with a "real" answer that opposes what the "Church" offers. There are many questions that have crossed my mind throughout the years in which I have not received, what I feel is, an adequate answer that could withstand criticism--specifically, my own criticism.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">Belonging to the church, I am very critical of it --</div><div style="text-align: right;">desiring that it be what Jesus meant for it to be,</div><div style="text-align: right;">and thus critical of it when it fails to offer substantial answers.</div><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>What is there to hide? If we truly believe what we believe, then we should be able to say "I don't know, but let me wrestle with it with you" and have faith that there is an answer that will adequately tackle the issue -- without weakening Christianity in the questioners mind by providing a superficial answer to a deeper issue.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">I do not know <i>a lot</i> about Christianity.</div><div style="text-align: center;">But I have faith that the answers are there.</div><div style="text-align: center;">That the <i>substantial</i> answers are there.</div><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>One such question I have wrestled with for the past three years is the reasoning behind why Jesus had to die -- specifically, why did Jesus need to be a "sacrifice" for the forgiveness of sins?<br />
<a name='more'></a>A core belief within Christianity that rarely receives a deeper answer than "because someone had to pay for our sins," "because God is a just God," "because Jesus was a ransom," or "because Jesus loves you." But there is a lot that I have problems with in these answers. And that's because they don't answer the underlying question: why must Jesus be a “sacrifice”?<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Why is that such a hard question? I mean, you have throughout scripture Israel seeking forgiveness for their sins through the act of sacrifice, and Jesus merely came as an ultimate sacrifice to atone for all--forever--in a single act.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>But that is, actually, precisely why I have a problem with this question.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">What?</div><br />
<div style="text-align: right;">There is no problem with this if you</div><div style="text-align: right;">do not question the validity of the sacrificial system.</div><div style="text-align: right;">I question this validity.</div><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Sophomore year I wrote a term paper on the influences and origins of the sacrificial practices of Israel. What I came to find, astonishingly, was that Israel was not "given" the sacrificial system by God; they adopted it from the surrounding cultures -- specifically the Canaanites.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Israel picked up aspects of all the different sacrificial systems of the time and created their own system of sacrifice. Why? Because that is all they knew of god worship. They lived around societies that worshiped their gods through a sacrificial system and Israel wanted a system for themselves that they could use as a means of communion and atonement with God.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">But did God want this?</div><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>When I read through the Old Testament, one of the things that stands out to me most are the declarations by prophets and others that "God does not desire sacrifice," and that true redemption is found through a "broken spirit" and a "repentant heart" (Ps. 51:16-17).<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">“For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,</div><div style="text-align: center;">the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings”</div><div style="text-align: center;">Hosea 6:6</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">“With what shall I come before the LORD,</div><div style="text-align: center;">and bow myself before God on high?</div><div style="text-align: center;">Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?</div><div style="text-align: center;">Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams[?]</div><div style="text-align: center;">[…]</div><div style="text-align: center;">He has told you, O man, what is good;</div><div style="text-align: center;">And what does the LORD require of you but</div><div style="text-align: center;">to do justice, and to love kindness,</div><div style="text-align: center;">and to walk humbly with your God?”</div><div style="text-align: center;">Micah 6:6-8</div><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Scripture is littered with declarations that it is not the sacrifice that brings atonement, but it is the state of the heart. David hits this point in Psalm 51 when he declares:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">“You [Yahweh] do not desire a sacrifice, or I would offer one.</div><div style="text-align: center;">You do not want a burnt offering.</div><div style="text-align: center;">The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit.</div><div style="text-align: center;">You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God.”</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>David seeks—and finds—forgiveness through prayer, with a broken spirit and a repentant heart. Without a repentant heart, the act of sacrifice is merely an act—and an act to be rejected. The prophets speak out against sacrifice when Israel performs the act merely because it is “the law” rather than because their hearts are in a state of repentance.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">God wants transformed hearts,</div><div style="text-align: right;">not burnt offerings that have no meaning other than</div><div style="text-align: right;">the fact that it is following the rules.</div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">Sacrifice is worthless if the heart is not in it.</div><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The way I see it, God never wanted Israel to have a sacrificial system. God always desired that they commune directly with him and find atonement through a repentant heart rather than through a pagan practice. But Israel never seems to want to do things the way God desires, do they? WE don’t ever seem to want to do things the way God desires, do WE?<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>God wanted to commune with Israel directly, but instead Israel had Moses commune on behalf of them all (Ex. 19:11, 20:18-19).<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>God wanted to be Israel’s only king, but instead Israel wanted a king “like all the nations” (1 Sam. 8:5).<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>This list could go on…<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>But what does God do in all these instances?<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">He allows for our hardened hearts to have its desires,</div><div style="text-align: right;">whether or not it is what God ultimately wants for us.</div><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Take for instance the topic of divorce. God did not intend for there to be divorce, but as Jesus says Matthew 19, “Because of [our] hardness of heart Moses allowed [us] to divorce [our] wives.”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In the same way, I see God allowed Israel to adopt a sacrificial system—a system they were familiar with in association with communion with gods—as a means to prepare their hearts for repentance. As a tool to bring ones heart at a state of repentance.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>God allowed it, even if he never intended for them to have it.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>So this brings us to the initial question: If sacrifice is a pagan practice adopted by Israel and redemption was found in a repentant heart and not the sacrifice, why did Jesus have to enter into this pagan practice and become a sacrifice in order that sins be redeemed?<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">If the sacrifice was never the point,</div><div style="text-align: right;">but rather, the state of one's heart was,</div><div style="text-align: right;">why did Jesus have to become a sacrifice?</div><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>That is the question that had hung me up for years. Writing Jesus off as a necessary sacrifice did not answer for me the problem of him entering into a pagan practice—a practice God never wanted for his people anyway—in order to become salvation. Heck, John 3:16 itself doesn’t even associate sacrifice with salvation—rather salvation comes through faith in Jesus.<br />
<br />
In a heart turned towards God.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>A couple weeks ago I brought up my issue with Jesus as a pagan sacrifice to a church community I am a part of and got into a great discussion with a friend of mine—which mostly consisted of him asking questions trying to understand where I was coming from and me trying to clarify myself from different angles of the issue. What resulted from that dialogue is, what I feel, a more substantial answer as to why Jesus had to die than I have ever received before.<br />
<br />
And it is so simple.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>If God never desired Israel to have the sacrificial system, what is the best way to make the system null and void? How do you succinctly destroy something that has become a part of a culture’s DNA?<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">You enter into it and stop it on its own terms.</div><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>What is the only way a sacrificial system could come to an end <i>on its own terms</i>?<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">Supply a perfect sacrifice.</div><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The sacrificial system is built upon the premise that sins could only temporarily be atoned for by the sacrifice of animals because animals are imperfect. Thus, the only way the system could naturally come to an end, is to present a perfect sacrifice—which could only be God himself.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">Jesus entered in to the sacrificial system</div><div style="text-align: right;">as a perfect sacrifice in order that his people</div><div style="text-align: right;">be freed from a system they were never</div><div style="text-align: right;">intended to be captivated by.</div><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Jesus does the same thing in regards to the other examples I provided where Israel went against God’s ultimate desire for them: Jesus opens up direct communion with his people by actually entering into our world and communing with people in the flesh, and Jesus destroys kingship rule over us by anyone other than himself by becoming an “eternal king.”<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>God never wanted us to commune though any other means but direct communion – thus he sent Jesus to commune with us face to face.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>God never wanted us to have a king other than he himself – thus he sent Jesus as an eternal king.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>God never wanted us to have a sacrificial system – thus he sent Jesus as a perfect sacrifice to effectively end the practice.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">When the sacrificial practice became the means to the end,</div><div style="text-align: right;">rather than it being the instrument of heart transformation it was <i>allowed</i> to be,</div><div style="text-align: right;">it needed to be destroyed.</div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">For, we are saved through faith, not through works.</div><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>This is a timeless truth. Not just a truth initiated within the New Testament, or an enacted truth post-Jesus’ sacrifice. For Paul writes in Romans 4 that Abraham was not justified through works (sacrifice does in fact fall under this category), but rather, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness” (4:3).<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">Sacrifice was never needed when a heart was faithful.</div><div style="text-align: center;">When a heart was repentant.</div><div style="text-align: center;">When a heart became the sacrifice.</div><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Jesus died in order to set things right—set things the way things were meant to be from the start. Yes God is a just God and Jesus died for our sins. But maybe our forgiveness does not lie in the fact that Jesus himself was a “sacrifice” per-say, but in that, through his death, we no longer put stock in a pagan system to atone for our mistakes, but look directly to God, with a “broken spirit” and “repentant heart” and there find our forgiveness.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">The way it was meant to be.</div><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Maybe we all need to take another look at Jesus’ command when he says “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’” – Matthew 9:13<br />
<div><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">May our hearts be transformed.</div>TheDenlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06653458927879936025noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6645995782356215186.post-26357136369273077692009-07-24T00:20:00.000-07:002011-05-15T16:57:53.724-07:00Finding God in the Daily GrindAs I read through a Molskine of mine, I stumbled upon an entry I wrote from a staff retreat while I was a resident assistant at Westmont College. The entry was an account of a hike I took in which God revealed to me the need to seek after Him, rather than wait for him to seek after me. I feel rewriting this here is a good way to start my online blog.<br />
<div><br />
</div><div>-----</div><div>Saturday, September 27, 2008</div><div><br />
</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I am still trying to decipher the symbolic-ness of my quiet time. God led me on an incredible journey and I know that there is much more to be learned form it then I can already tell.</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In my quiet time I hiked a hill. As I hiked, I questioned God as to why he has not revealed himself to me, why he has kept me feeling so far from him; basically questioning him as to why HE has not done anything -- therefore casting all blame as to why I have felt separated from God on God himself.</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Along my walk I would periodically stop as God spoke truth into my life and revealed to me things that have been separating me from him -- the greatest truth spoken in me:</div><div><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">What are YOU doing to find ME?<br />
<a name='more'></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">What have I been doing to seek God, know God, be close to God?</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: right;">Nothing.</div><div style="text-align: right;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">I have not, really, opened up my bible at all this year to get to know God or to seek him out. Yeah, sure, I have been reading Timothy Keller's "The Reason For God in an Age of Skepticism" in order to get the bad aftertaste out of my mouth, after reading Spong, maybe once a week. But honestly, after reading Spong and having my faith crash, I have not done anything to seek God out. I have been stubborn and have put all responsibility on God to pull me from my lack of faith.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: right;">A wilderness state does not necessarily mean that</div><div style="text-align: right;">God is going to take you by the hand and walk you through your struggle,</div><div style="text-align: right;">but may mean that God is out there waiting for you to find HIM,</div><div style="text-align: right;">in order that he may explain to you all you have been through.</div><div style="text-align: right;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">. I walked on .</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>God began revealing to me things in my life that were keeping me from finding him:</div><div style="text-align: right;">.. Lustful eyes ..</div><div style="text-align: right;">.. Messed up priorities ..</div><div style="text-align: right;">.. Work ..</div><div style="text-align: right;">.. Too much time w/ technology ..</div><div style="text-align: right;">.. Desire for a relationship w/ a girl, but not w/ God ..</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">.. May the list </div><div style="text-align: center;">continue to be revealed ..</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I would hike, and I would stop. I felt as if my times stopping were like periods in my life where I would become comfortable with where I was, despite the fact that God desired me to go farther. That God KNEW that what was up ahead, just a little farther is where I needed to be -- where I was meant to be (at least for a temporary time) -- not where I was waiting and resting at the moment.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: right;">I cannot see what</div><div style="text-align: right;">lies ahead over the top of the hill--</div><div style="text-align: right;">But God could.</div><div style="text-align: right;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The path I was hiking up was the tire marks through brush of an ATV. Not much of a trail, just a hint that there would be, at some point, a final destination.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">This hint of a trail is where I find myself at the moment.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Times in life, like I feel now, I am left on a mountain, or in a meadow with no trail or road to be seen, except for a hint of a trail that I chose to take in faith -- that it will take me where I need to go. A trail of bread crumbs that God has left for me in order that I may find him.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>As I followed the bread crumbs I eventually ran into a road.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">If we have faith on the small bread crumbs</div><div style="text-align: center;">that God leaves for us, He will</div><div style="text-align: center;">eventually bring us to</div><div style="text-align: center;">the road he's paved</div><div style="text-align: center;">out for us.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>This entire time, hiking up the hill, God filled my mind with men of God found in the Old Testament. My questioning of why God has me be an RA at this point in my life brought about God's response that almost everyone he called to do his work either felt inadequate, not ready, tried to talk their way out of it, or even ran away. Hiking up the hill, as I am in desire to find God, brought about Moses and Elijah and Abraham who all hiked up the mountains to meet with God.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">I, too, hike up the mountain to meet with God.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>As I hiked up the new found road to the top of the peak I was presented with a 360° view of everything around me. And God, knowing my heart and its thought of an altar being atop a hill, seemingly brought that thought to life by providing a pile of rocks and wood in the center of this round plateau that immediately made me associate it and treat it as an altar.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I looked around me -- many small dwellings were spread out amongst the hills of this desolate, secluded area -- some houses, some trailers, some tents, some junk yards, some dwellings with lots of supplies, and some way away from others.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I began to see these as times in my life (even the junk in my life). The places I have been to get me to this point. Sometimes I would be in a location only temporarily before moving on. Other times I would build a house, satisfied to stay where I was. Other times I would be meant to stay temporarily but would build up reserves of supplies trying to stay as long as I could. Sometimes I would be close to the path, while other times I would be way far away.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>There are moments in my life to be embraced, held on to as my story and how I got to the peak, the plateau on which I found myself.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I looked at the altar. The thought of the story of Abraham and Isaac entered my head -- that Abraham, when told by God, was willing to climb a mountain and sacrifice his son atop an altar there.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: right;">What did God desire for</div><div style="text-align: right;">me to sacrifice on that</div><div style="text-align: right;">altar... on that hill?</div><div style="text-align: right;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I sat. I wrote the barriers in the way of God and me -- what kept me from seeking and finding God -- on a piece of paper, and I sacrificed those barriers atop that altar. Proclaiming that I would move beyond, no, destroy the barriers keeping me from God.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: right;">May my sacrifice on that altar be</div><div style="text-align: right;">accepted by God,</div><div style="text-align: right;">and may my sacrifice</div><div style="text-align: right;">not come back to life.</div><div style="text-align: right;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">As I looked around, I could see the road continue on. Where I was was not the final destination. I am to continue on. Not stay in that place forever, but to take rest in God, and continue on the constant pursuit of him.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I left my sacrifice at the altar and retreated back to our yurt, having to take my sandals off on the way in order to make it down the hill (holy ground, getting rid of comfort/securities, etc.)</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">Symbolism.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>So much symbolism can be pulled from my quiet time. God speaks, but not necessarily through words. God has been leaving bread crumbs in my life since (and before) I read Spong, and this quiet time was my next crumb. Keller's book has helped me with Spong's arguments against current Christianity, and today God revealed the next stage in regard to seeking and finding him.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">I can't sit and wait for God to satisfy my desires, I must make the effort and seek him out.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">May I never stop.</div><div style="text-align: left;">-----</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">"God speaks, but not necessarily through words." A reminder to find God in action, in experiences, in the daily grind. God is teaching us all, and teaching us all all the time. And in pursuit of all that Jesus is seeking to teach and reveal, I begin this blog -- because some things need not be said, but scribbled.</div>TheDenlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06653458927879936025noreply@blogger.com0