A Week's Descent

When it rains, it pours.

I have never been of the mind that those who would follow after the way of Christ would never fall, but I would (subconsciously, at least), expect things to land better.

Let me outline my past week...

Seeing leads to serving

Last night in Life Group, our topic was centered on how we view people in our life as opportunities to serve God in mission.

A phrase that stood out in our lesson was that "seeing leads to service", and that the spiritual discipline of service is a matter of developing our senses to look beyond ourselves to find ways to live in Christ's way. We don't have to do extraordinary acts of healing, but begin with an awareness of how the people in our immediate vicinity form the context for us to serve in the way of Christ.

My Favorite Christmas Song (Two weeks too late)

As a child, I remember my mom reading a story at Christmas time about the animals in the nativity. There is also a poem called “The Friendly Beasts” (or, alternatively, “the Song of the Ass”—thank you, Wikipedia) that draws upon these same themes. Maybe growing up around animals (and being a Shepherd) impressed this imagery upon me? A song that I have been listening to this year has been similar and I declared today that it will be my favorite Christmas song of the year. I do not have a particular fondness for Christmas music either…

Last year, one of my favorite bands—mewithoutyou –put out an album which was a clear evolution from their original sound (which could be best summed as strange). It’s All Crazy! It’s All False! It’s All a Dream! It’s Alright! draws upon horticulture and Sufi folktales for inspiration and unexpected acoustic instruments and clever lyricism to tell their stories.

Their song, A Stick, A Carrot, and String (listen here) is my official Christmas song of the year, to be played for all twelve months, per my decree. Here are the first few lines which have been an inspired, imaginative Christology for me through the year. Amazing how a lyric can penetrate layers of reading, study, and formulation to stick with you.

Enjoy…

The Horse's hay beneath His head our Lord was born to a manger bed,

that all whose wells run dry could drink of His supply.

To keep Him warm the Sheep drew near, so grateful for His coming here:

You come with news of grace, come to take my place!

The Donkey whispered in His ear: Child, in thirty-some-odd years,

You'll ride someone who looks like me (untriumphantly).

While the Cardinals warbled a joyful song:

He'll make right what man made wrong, bringing low the hills, that the valleys might be filled!

Merry Christmas!

A Faithful Rain

One thing that I am going to miss about this house is the sound it makes when it rains.

We do not have an attic here, so when I am sitting at my desk upstairs, I am literally a foot away from the rooftop. The constant pecking at the roof is very soothing to me, as I combat a sore throat, impending essay deadline, and the anxiety of handling all of the logistics and financials in relocating this week.

I have always been drawn to storms.

Our first winter living on the Oregon coast was during 1996 and El Nino storm pattern. We lived in a 2-bedroom house on top of a hill that overlooked the ocean (for anyone who went to our wedding, it was between the hill we sat on and the field we had people park in). This sounds like a peaceful, relaxing setting, except when you factor in 90 mph winds, inches of rain daily, and a house which was built/maintained with a lot of "volunteer" labor. We had two sliding glass doors (which the wind blew around), an opening underneath the house facing the ocean (which the wind blew up through the flooring), and a wood-burning, iron fireplace (which the wind blew down and suffocated any fire).

Still, I would love to go running down the hill in the face of the rain and wind and be pummeled by nature. I would come back home muddy, swollen, red-faced, dripping wet, and exhausted. There was some comfort in being able to interact with nature as a tangible force. The earth is not simply scenery to be observed, but has a life unto itself that is meant to be explored.

We would have storms every winter and I would enjoy them, but none were ever quite as thrilling as those when we lived in the little shack on top of the hill. It was only two winters before we had out house built in Cloverdale, inland from the ocean bluff.

The other storm which looms in my memory is a stretch of the rainy season when I was living in Kenya. It was a bit out of season as it usually runs roughly March-May and this was in July. The building that I lived in was completely covered with metal roofing, and my door faced into the center of the building, creating a cacophony of sound from each drop that fell. With regularity, the entire sky would light up with a flash and the rumble of the thunder would shake the night air. Even the crickets would stop their chirping to respect the sky.

This storm was a reminder of my insignificance.

I had come to Kenya with wide-eyes and an open heart to do something (anything, really) to address issues of HIV-AIDS within a community. I had become involved with an organization doing a phenomenal ministry of rebuilding ruptured lives and was thrilled to be living an adventure in ministry. In the months leading up to this storm, I had been teaching at the high school, presenting curriculum in the Democratic Republic of Congo, walking the streets of Mathare in Nairobi, guiding teams from the US, coordinating a VBS, preaching a circuit of local churches, and loving the kids and families who we were able to serve.

For as much as I was able to do, however, this rain did so much more.

In a district dependent upon the cultivation of maize, beans, and peas, the rain is a necessity for the presence of life. What I was doing with a small handful of people, the rains were doing for an entire region. Not the same, I know, since rain cannot pay school fees or provide medicine, but it does give the tangible reminder of the provision of God, and in turn, hope.

Even though I was not a farmer in Ukambani, the rain gave me a reminder of home. A mother and father on the other side of the earth in Oregon, a wife living in Central America. A brother studying in Oxford. All of us separated by distance. Yet God's provision is to bring them all near to my heart. To establish community among his people in whatever locale I may find myself. To be reminded that I am never alone, because ultimately he is with me. This awareness of God's provision is laying the groundwork to be able to withstand future adversities. Knowing God is with us, we have ridden the swells of graduation, marriage, new chapters in life, new jobs. We have plunged the depths of estrangement from family, loss of work, unknown illnesses, and death.

At the dinner table, we pray thankfulness for the meal which we have, conscious of how God continues to provide. On most nights, it feels like an hollow repetition, a ritual phrase, but the awareness has penetrated my mind and allowed me to see God's faithfulness in so many ways in spite of the challenges which we face.

On most nights, my prayers coil like smoke and vanish into the night. But, on nights like tonight, the rain answers back.

Thankfulness

Happy Thanksgiving.

364 days out of the year, thankfulness seems like a foreign concept. We are inundated with marketing blitzes, commercials, new products, all designed to prey upon a sense of dissatisfaction with our present situation. There is a dark sense of foreboding that Black Friday sales seek to quench any sense of thankfulness with sheer, unabashed, unapologetic materialism. With all of the scheming that Black Friday planning requires, we don't even get a full 24-hours of gratitude before we pick up the chains of consumerism.

Beyond Black Friday, there is a perpetual dissatisfaction with life that we are sold solutions to through newer cars, bigger houses, better appliances, and shinier jewelry. This will come into clearer focus as we enter the Christmas season. Our own bodies are treated as commodities, as we are sold self-improvement techniques, diet plans, gym memberships, and promised a life of perpetual youth. This chase after an aura of affluence is especially apparent in Orange County, but representative of the country as a whole.

To live in a posture of thankfulness is one way in which the life in commitment to the way of Christ is in opposition to the dominant culture. Each week, we gather together and are reminded about how we have been invited into a relationship with God through the life and teaching of Jesus. This grace is nothing that we can earn or improve, but simply accepted with gratitude. The relationship grows deeper, surely, but the commonality between Christians is that they are on the journey together, all undeservedly.

Comparatively, all other blessings are subsidiary and secondary to this relationship. I am thankful for many things today: family, friends, fulfilling work, opportunity tot attend school, our economic situation, a growing community at Rock Harbor Fullerton, and health. I remember these things today for Thanksgiving, but my desire is to remember through the rest of the year and to let this seep into my consciousness and live out of a reality of abundance, relationship, and grace rather than dissatisfaction, competition, or inadequacy.

So today, but more importantly tomorrow, December, and the coming year, what does it look like for us to live in the posture of thankfulness?

To re-orient our identity

We all have had songs stuck in our heads (for Dayann yesterday, it was a medley of Lionel Richie’s All Night Long and Strangelove’s I Want Candy… Her mind is not a playground for the timid) and these songs can seriously affect the way that we think throughout the day. If you have a good song, it is like the soundtrack of your life that keeps you moving.

My brother posted a line from a song that means a lot to me. The simple lyric opens up the rest of the song and the melody keeps replaying through my head. This song re-orients my life to the subject and brings me back into rhythm with the community seeking the kingdom of God. Even though it was written in the 18^th century, its simplicity continues to speak powerfully…

O to grace how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be!

Let thy goodness, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to thee.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love;

here's my heart, O take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above.

This past week in our life group, we talked about the messages that have shaped our identities. Parents, siblings, teachers – knowingly or not—form the manner in which we view ourselves and that baggage can take years to unpack. Whatever is ingrained in us, especially negative, becomes our default response for interpreting our circumstances. If someone doesn’t return a phone call and I don’t know why, it is probably because they found better friends and moved on from me (or so the rationalizing goes). Maybe my experience of meeting thousands of people over the summer during camps established this thought pattern? That experience is not in itself, negative, but can affect my relationships negatively if I am not consciously aware of it moving forward. What do I think what Dayann doesn’t return my phone call or God is silent in prayer (as is often the case)?

The ongoing work of the spirit of God is in developing us into a people who are utterly renewed into the reality of life in relationship with God. This requires reshaping (and reversing in some cases) those images we have inherited and indulged. This is the reason to study scripture, meditate on the gospel, listen to each other’s stories, pray in earnest, and join a community in song. The combination of lyric and melody allows the penetration into our heart, soul, and mind, allowing us to respond in faithfulness with all of our being.

What has shaped your identity (whether positively or negatively)?

What methods are best suited to re-enforcing your true identity as a child of God?

A Crucified Culture

This past Sunday, I was asked to teach at Lake Elsinore Christian Church, in place of my friend, Trevor Smith. He has been teaching through the epistle to the Galatians and I continued his progression into chapter three.

A word about the church in Galatia, reading through the epistle (which doesn't take long. Go do it. I'll wait…), Paul is obviously upset. Something has happened to this church while he is away that has supplanted the message that he taught them when he was present. No small part of this may be the result of what Peter writes about in one of his epistles, "Some things Paul writes are difficult to understand. Irresponsible people who don't know what they are talking about twist them every which way. They do it to the rest of the Scriptures, too, destroying themselves as they do it" (2 Peter 3:16, one of the "other" 3:16's worth memorizing).

After establishing his position as a trustworthy communicator of the Christian message in chapters one and two, Paul begins chapter three with some fire:

"You crazy Galatians! Did someone put a hex on you? Have you taken leave of your senses? Something crazy has happened, for it's obvious that you no longer have the crucified Jesus in clear focus in your lives. His sacrifice on the cross was certainly set before you clearly enough.

"Let me put this question to you: How did your new life begin? Was it by working your heads off to please God? Or was it by responding to God's Message to you? Are you going to continue this craziness? For only crazy people would think they could complete by their own efforts what was begun by God. If you weren't smart enough or strong enough to begin it, how do you suppose you could perfect it? Did you go through this whole painful learning process for nothing? It is not yet a total loss, but it certainly will be if you keep this up!"

The issue that Paul is taking the Galatians to task for is constructing a different image of Christ than the one which was presented when the originally believed. Specifically, they were now believing in a Jesus who had not been crucified. That is what I want to ponder for a few moments, is what difference it makes to believe in a Jesus sans crucifixion.

Images of Jesus abound, and the manner in which we view him will determine the response that we make to his life and teaching. There are several perspectives that do not require any element of crucifixion. Jesus never actually existed in history, but is the mythological creation of a community, in the same vein as King Arthur or Robin Hood. Jesus was an ethical and moral teacher the demonstrated compassion for the poor and neglected in society. Jesus was a political leader who sought to revolutionize the underclass (meek, poor, etc.). Jesus was a prophet/spiritual leader who taught an understanding of God in relational terms. Jesus was an apocalyptic Jewish rabbi who was mis-identified by his followers as a messianic figure.

To reach the above conclusions is perfectly reasonable, considering the assumptions that one begins with and the basis of evidence which they choose to believe.

The importance of Jesus being a crucified leader is essential to Paul in this instance because it cuts to the heart of the issues disabling the Galatian church. In each chapter of this letter, reference is made to Jewish influence upon the Christian community: Paul's practice of Judaism (1:13), description of Peter's hypocrisy in practicing Jewish customs selectively (2:11ff), reference to Abraham (3:7), reference to Hagar and Sarah (4:21ff), the symbolism of circumcision (chapter 5), and 16 quotations or allusions to Hebrew scripture.

The teachers in the community were teaching a gospel life that had co-opted Jewish cultural values. Jesus was, after all, Jewish, so to follow after him would entail living like him in every way possible. Jesus is presented as one who fulfilled the fullness of Jewish religious/cultural expectations. To be crucified, however, would have repudiated the honorable life that he had built under Jewish practice. To follow after a crucified leader would negate all of the hopes and dreams assumed by the Jewish culture. The execution was a shameful demonstration of the powerlessness of the god of Jewish nationalism to keep his promise to the descendants of Abraham. To call the death of Jesus a disappointment would be an understatement, perhaps debasement would be a better term.

This is why a non-crucified Jesus can be so appealing. It allows us to respect the life and teaching of Jesus without having to confront the difficulty in reconciling that with his demise. In my own development, I spend much more time reading and preaching the gospel of Luke and Jesus' teaching that is directed towards social inequality and oppression.

What is still lurking in our hearts is the desire to replace the call which a crucified Jesus has on our lives with the fulfillment of our cultural values and definitions of success.

This is where an unfortunate translation issue steps in. In verse three, the word sarx is used in contrast to the word numa. Numa is in reference to the Spirit of God, so good Platonist disciples throughout history have translated sarx to be flesh, with a sinister connotation. The New International Version even supplies a note reading: "In contexts like this, the Greek word for flesh (sarx) refers to the sinful state of human beings, often presented as a power in opposition to the Spirit."

But what if we can translate sarx to mean our particular culture-- culture which is neutral but has the capacity for both positive and negative. This is more in line with the translation of the passage above (which is a reason why a chose the translation to quote, and another example of how every translation is an interpretation) and provides us with a framework to deconstruct our own cultural influences in the attempt to form a coherent, cognizant Christian expression of faith.

A crucified Jesus does not measure up to any culture's expectation of greatness. The images of success in our culture (sports icons, CEOs, politicians, entertainers all) are images of triumph over adversity and exceptionalism. This grandiosity would ridicule the man who was executed shamefully outside the gates of Jerusalem. And so it is appropriate that Jesus developed a "cult following" as acceptance by the mainstream culture was incomprehensible.

And so we can choose to live by the Spirit of God, leading us to a knowledge of God through the roadblock of a crucified leader, or we can live by our culture which demands that we perform continually. But in light of what God has done for us in reconciling us to him, what can we possibly hope to add? God's response to us has already been established in the crucifixion event and the fork in the road that we have is whether we reject this image of Christ or allow him to redefine our values, behaviors, and beliefs that we have inherited in our cultural systems.