Enchanted Community

BLOG 2/9/18. “BE READY … REPROVE, REBUKE, AND EXHORT/TEACH …”

There are a couple of most practical texts in the New Testament that don’t get much press:

• “… be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.” (II Timothy 4:2)
• “Declare these things; exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you.” (Titus 2:15)

These became existential with me in my early pastoral years when I inherited a very small-minded, vocal, and destructive person, who also happened to be an Elder in the congregation. He had been responsible for all kinds of conflict in that small church, and was something of a self-appointed judge of everything, including me. But, by the grace of God, I also had a wonderful and encouraging and wise friend who happened to be a mid-life convert to Christ, and who happened to be a tough labor-negotiator for an international labor union. I was running by him my dilemma with this troublesome personality, and asked what he thought I should do. He, thereupon, quoted to me that II Timothy passage (above) and said: “Bob, it may be out of season, but you need to confront him and rebuke him unmistakably.”

I took his advice, and with stomach-in-mouth invited this guy for coffee and laid it out for him. He seemed not to even have heard what I said, but only asked what we could do for the good of the church. I told him to stop sowing discord. He smiled and thanked me for coffee as though deaf to my word, but later that year he and his wife quietly left the church.

Another illustration that was helpful to me was that in the very early days of television, before the days of mega-churches and evangelical superstars on television, there was Monsignor Fulton J. Sheen. Sheen was a Jesuit priest with a rapier sharp mind, and on a television set against a plain curtain as background, would without notes, quietly stride back and forth, piercing eyes always on the camera, but giving these remarkable Biblical insights into the ethical, social, personal, and political facets of real life, and could gently rebuke and reprove most helpfully. Years later, I was invited, with a few others, to have breakfast with (by then) Archbishop Sheen and saw what a profound person he was, and to learn of his personal disciplines that focused on the body and blood of Christ. (His fellow Jesuit, who is now Pope Francis also has a gift of boldly confronting and rebuking those in high places who are engaged in highly questionable decisions.)

So, when I read in the news this week that the Washington group of Christians which has sponsored the Presidential Prayer Breakfast for 66 years had invited our unbelieving, amoral, untruthful president the courtesy to be a speaker, I was chagrined. Somehow that organization seems to have lost its integrity. Their best ministry to the president would be, perhaps, to invite him to be their guest, but to invite as the primary platform speaker who could in love offer the president the ministry of rebuke, reproof, and solid teaching.  That’s my reaction. I could be wrong. Naïve? Maybe. But I don’t think so. I would love to hear from others. It may be “out of season” but such spiritually, morally, and truthfully unfocused, and contrary to the teachings of Christ, leadership does, indeed, need the blessing of godly rebuke.

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BLOG 2/6/18. HONESTLY, ALL OF CHRIST’S PEOPLE ARE IMMIGRANTS!

There is so much political flap these days about what to do with the surge of immigrants and refugees, what with so much total insensitivity to the humanitarian needs and the sheer tragedies that have provoked such…that is those of us who intend to live faithfully as the followers of Jesus and his teachings need to take a deep breath and remember that we are all of us fall into this category, according to the New Testament documents (I Peter 2:11 in loc.).

There is a historical document from the 2^nd or 3^rd century, The Letter to Diognetus, that reminds us that from the very beginning Christians were often in dispersion as misunderstood strangers in the various localities of the Roman Empire. The writer explains to his superior: “For Christians are not differentiated from other people by country, or language, or customs, you see, they do not live in cities of their own. … They live in both Greek and foreign cities, wherever chance has put them. They follow local customs in clothing, food, and other aspects of life. But at the same time, they demonstrate to us the wonderful and certainly unusual form of their own citizenship. They live in their own native lands, but as aliens, as citizens they share all things with others, but like aliens, suffer all things. Every foreign country is to them as their native country, and every native land as a foreign country.” [Readers can Google the rest of this letter].

We keep forgetting this reality. Those of us who are Christ’s followers in these United States are not primarily citizens of this nation, but are citizens of the kingdom of our God and of his Christ. Our primary allegiance is not to this earthly nation, even though it is our calling to live out the ethics and lifestyle of God’s New Creation responsibly as we engage this place of our sojourn. What I am saying here is not a new thought. A generation ago, William Willimon and Stanley Haeurwas co-authored a whole book that spelled this out marvelously (Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony).

This has got to be a self-conscious understanding for us who are Christ’s followers in this confusing political and social moment of United States history. A current author (David Cay Johnston) has lamented that not only have the highest officials of this country lost their way, but that so many of those in the legislative branch have “lost the moral compass.” It is fitting in this Black History Month to recall what a magnificent model Dr. M. L. King, Jr. was of this understanding. When he was challenged that his protest movement violated the laws of the community/land, his response was: “But I appeal to a higher law!” Yet with that declaration of Kingdom of God loyalty, the problem only got worse and he was vilified, and many of his followers suffered. So, … we are aliens and exiles. We are not always appreciated. And after Dr. King became a Nobel laureate, he challenged this nation’s disastrous involvement in the Viet Nam War, and was further vilified. Yet these generations later his statue stands in the Washington Mall as a reminder of moral courage.

Christ’s followers, in the midst of the often/usually complex social and political realities of our place of sojourn, need to have our moral compasses finely-tuned to the ethical teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ. Only so are we those who the incarnations of his New Humanity, and are the salt and light of the world. … We must never forget that we are aliens and exiles, but called to live-out his New Life where we are and at this moment.

And, to conclude, we must pray for a new generation of leadership for this nation, who are people of moral courage, and who are committed to peace, and order, and justice. Amen!

BLOG 1/30/18. RESPONSE TO RELIGION: DISMISSIVE DIS-INTEREST

I have sometimes written that the dominant religion among the emerging generation is self-satisfied humanism. Maybe I need to revise that and designate it as dismissive disinterest. The fact stares one in the face all the time. ‘Religion’ doesn’t even register with such a huge swath of the emerging generation. It doesn’t matter if they have grown up in the proximity or the context of some Christian institution – even if they were baptized in infancy, they can be totally ignorant of the data of the Christian faith, but even more, not at all even interested in it. They are more likely to be consumed with their iPhones, or in a culture that has little place for contemplation of history, or of the meaning of life, or ultimate reality.

A couple of generations ago, British missionary Lesslie Newbigin (whom I quote in the blogs frequently) returned from a fruitful career in South India to England, and observed that it was much more difficult to communicate the gospel in the West than in India since the West had known the gospel, had built up anti-bodies against it, and were now seemingly impervious to it. But even before him, British World War I chaplain and poet G. A. Studdert-Kennedy, said it more colorfully in a poem entitled: When Jesus Came to Birmingham (England):

When Jesus came to Golgotha, they hanged him on a tree.

They drove great nails through hands and feet and made a Calvary;

They crowned Him with a crown of thorns, red were his wounds and deep,

For those were crude and cruel days, and human flesh was cheap.

When Jesus came to Birmingham, they simply passed Him by.

They would not hurt a hair of Him, they only let Him die;

For men had grown more tender, and they would not give Him pain,

They only just passed down the street, and left Him in the rain.

Still Jesus cried, ‘Forgive them, for they know not what they do,’

And still it rained the winter rain that drenched Him through and through;

The crowds went home and left the streets without a soul to see.

And Jesus crouched against the wall, and cried for Calvary

Here we are again—a generational culture so often expressive of this dismissive dis-interest. It is quietly and perniciously invading and infecting what one would assume were places of Christian influence. Professing Christian parents don’t guarantee immunity to this cultural darkness. We need to be realistic about this, but not succumb to helplessness. The Spirit does create curiosity and spiritual hungering through the lives that incarnate God’s love and good works, and their knowledge of God’s New Creation (even though these dismissive and disinterest persons may have no category with which to process it).

At the same time, there is no guarantee that a ‘Christian church’ or a ‘Christian home’ will produce Christian faith. Somehow, those living in such churches and homes need to be intentionally informed about: 1.) the tribal religions of one’s cultural setting; 2.) the basic data of the life and teachings of Jesus and the implications thereof; and 3.) or have their eyes opened to the fact that they are drifting rootlessly in conformity to so much of the rest of humanity, whose response to Jesus is to “simply pass him by” with dismissive dis-interest. Stay tuned …

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BLOG. 1/23/18. OUR OBLIGATION TO MUSLIM NEIGHBORS? LOVE AND HOSPITALITY.

I am constrained, what with the remarks by some prominent national leaders (not to mention some ostensible Christians of prominence) making prejudiced and demeaning references to Muslim immigrants as well as to Muslim nations as though they were the source of wickedness.  To be sure, there are some in minority Islamic sects who engage in extreme behavior, … but then there are those within the Christian orb who are also engaged in behavior that is an embarrassment, alas!

Such demeaning and prejudiced references need to be challenged forthwith. Our discipleship, as Christ’s followers, is that of responding to the New Creation that he inaugurated by his life and teachings, and his cross. We are those who are the followers of him who came to “seek and to save the lost” after all. We are those who live with his commission to make disciples of all nations (people and ethnic groups). And did I miss something? … Was it not our Savior responding to a God seeker assuring him (and us) that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him shall be saved”?

… or that we are to love even our enemies?

… or that Christ’s followers were to literally live-out the Beatitudes, even is what is so often a totally inhospitable world?

… and that those Beatitudes include one that asserts that we are blessed when others revile us and persecute us and say all kinds of evil against us or his account?

… or that his kingdom people are always to be peacemakers.

… and that we are to minister to strangers in his name.

… and that our daily armor is to include having on our feet the gospel of peace.

There are in this world of ours 1.6 billion Islamic people, those heirs of Abraham, Isaac and Ishmael. They are distributed over a score and more nations across the world. Most are sincere, god-seekers who respond to their culture–all they have ever known–in which they are formed by the teachings of the Prophet Muhammed (just as our western culture is formed by Hebrew-Christian traditions). It is all that they have ever known. They have produced remarkable cultural contributions. Not to menion that western-Christians, who have lived in Muslim-dominant countries, have often testified of how hospitable their Muslim neighbors have been to them.

Now, with the turmoil in that whole area of the world where Muslims have lived, there is a surge of migrants seeking a better life, and our country is frequently their goal. Then there is the omni-present influence of social media, so that Islamic people are not isolated from what is going on elsewhere. So, we now find that Islamic/Muslim folk are our neighbors, that they are the clerks at the check-out counter, staff for those companies that provide us services. There are mosques springing up in our American cities. More American people are curious about the Quran, and about the vast diversity of the Islamic community in the world, about the Shia and Sunni divisions that determines so much of the turmoil in Islamic nations.

What then is to be our response to Islam? to our Muslim neighbors? My answer that is that it should be the same as to all: love and good works, genuine hospitality—especially hospitality. Invite your Islamic neighbors and friends to your home for tea. The quest for God, for meaning, for a center and some creative source is true of them as it is for us. Yes, we believe that the Islamic faith is based on fulfilling their law, and that God, in Christ, came in grace bring forgiveness and acceptance through Christ. But our Muslim will discover that primarily if they see it demonstrated in us, in our caring lives of love and good works. … Stay tuned.

BLOG 1/16/18. KINGDOM OF GOD: LIFESTYLE AND LOVE, …  THEN WORDS

The overwhelmingly dominant theme of the New Testament is that of the kingdom of God. That being so, there are more garbled interpretations of that theme than are imaginable. People who regularly pray: “Thy kingdom come …” do it, almost rote, but never stopping to contemplate the radical and pragmatic implications of it. Jesus inaugurated his public ministry “… proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom” (Matthew 4:23), and then toward the end of his earthly ministry: “And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then will the end come” (Matthew 24:14).

So, what is the kingdom of God, and how is it to be proclaimed to every ethnic group/nation? Seems like a reasonable, even insistent, pair of questions that God’s people out to be continually searching into. Right?

That terminology: “the kingdom of God” would have been somewhat familiar in the Hebrew community, since there were all those prophesies in its history about God in the fullness of time “making all things new” and coming to inaugurate his everlasting kingdom. But when the gospel moved out of the Hebrew community and into the Grecian-Roman world it was translated by its proponents in various terms: eternal life, salvation, new creation, the gospel of peace, or sometimes as righteousness. These designations are all nuanced and synonymous with the kingdom of God.

Then, so much of the confusion comes when this is all looked at as totally future, as some expected return of Christ to set up a future kingdom, or as of having to do with going to heaven when we die … something of God’s design out there somewhere. Ah! But Jesus was insistent that in his coming the kingdom was present. His whole teaching is to the effect that in himself God kingdom, God’s new creation, God’s eschatological design for his creation was actually being inaugurated, and would be dynamically present as his Holy Spirit empowered its growing presence, until that Matthew 24:14 mission is fulfilled.

OK, so how is that to be accomplished? What does it mean to be born again into God’s kingdom? How is the proclamation to be carried out? How is this to be done in a context that is hostile from the beginning? What is role of the most humble, modestly gifted, lacking in status, believer in Christ in this mission? Look at what follows in Matthew’s account of Jesus’ coming and proclaiming the kingdom of God (4:23). The very next account (5:1 ff) tells of a large group gathered on a hillside, and Jesus spells out for them what is to be the contagious response to his message and it does not have to do with words—now note—but with a lifestyle of love and righteousness that people can see in them.

Just look at the beatitudes: blessed are those who identify with the helpless poor, and the mourning, and who are self-effacing. Yes, and blessed are those who are zealous proponent of justice/righteousness, who are filled with mercy for those in need. Blessed are those whose motivation toward serving God is without guile. And in this world of continual strife and hatred, blessed are those who are peacemakers, and are even willing to suffer for these causes. Jesus taught those hearers that these are the evidences of the New Creation lives that others could see, and know that God was at work in them (and maybe ask questions).

The proclamation of the gospel of the kingdom into all the earth, whether in the midst of our post-Christian culture of dismissive disinterest, or the Islamic culture where severe sharia laws are imposed … begins with our lifestyle and our love, not with argument or words. Our lives are to be the demonstration of God’s already-but-not-yet kingdom. They are the leaven that permeates cultures, quietly and beautifully. … and maybe make others curious? Stay tuned …

BLOG 1/12/18. “I AM NOT SOME OTHER REAL OR IMAGINED SAINT …”

Did you ever have some self-doubt about who you were, or what was your place in God’s design? I have. I was the little brother behind two very gifted older brothers, and was always being compared to them, which created in me something of an inferiority complex. I was also a dreamer, which caused my mind to wander in school classes. I am also an introvert, but as a pastor-teacher in the church for over half a century, that thrust me into an extrovert role. I am also something of futurist, which plays on my ‘dreamer’ proclivity. I was always dreaming about what I wanted to be and how far I fell short. I read of the lives of many of the renowned Christians, the saints, in the church’s history, and wondered what formed them and how I could, somehow, become a fruitful saint in my own right. All the while, I was journaling my prayers.

Somewhere, about twenty years ago, some thoughts came together about who I was. It was provoked by a reflection by the space-traveler, Ransom, in C. S. Lewis’ science-fiction Perelandra, and which appears in the prayer that follows at the end of this reflection in a para-phrased form (in case some of you recognize Lewis fans recognize it). I am taking the liberty of sharing this with you, which I rehearse at least once a week. I hope it may help some of you.

I am not some other real or imagined saint, …

I am myself in Christ, unique child of the Father …

Not somehow, somewhere, not when or if,

Not there or then …

But here and now,

These circumstances,

These persons,

This place and this moment. 

This is when and where

I am to be the very glory of God,

His enchanted, truly human person,

This moment, then, is a sacred time and place,

This moment in which I find myself.

It will never return. Life is today.

Come Holy Spirit!

Hallowed be Thy Name.

I’m quite certain that I am not the only one of God’s children who has struggled, and does struggle with the mystery of one’s place in God’s design. Maybe some of you can comment on your response to this reflection. I would so appreciate it.

BLOG 1/9/18. THE ENIGMA (TO ME) OF CLERGY

Coming out of me, this may sound weird … but I have a lot of trouble with the whole notion of clergy, even though I have flown under this designation for over 60 years. I suppose the main reason is that, as it is popularly conceived, I simply don’t see it in scripture! In Christ’s church, his communities of the New Humanity, we all become a kingdom of priests, we are all called upon to “teach and admonish one another” (Colossians 3:16 ff.) and to be those in whom the Word of Christ is to dwell richly. There is no special class of God’s people who exist in some special spiritual category. All are to be being formed into the image of the Son of God (Romans 8:29 in loc).

Jesus, himself, did not come as a clergy, but as an itinerant peasant preacher, though with a divine calling unique to himself. He did not spend his time ‘hob-nobbing’ with the temple officials and with the priesthood. As a matter of fact, they were his worst critics. Jesus came into public in out of the way places, and when some got curious and ask leading questions, he invited them to come and be with him. So, for those many months he let his followers/disciples get close and know him, and to see his true humanity. Yes, he was always a mystery to them, but he also reproduced himself in them.

Paul, to prolific writer of most of the New Testament documents would write to the followers of Jesus in Philippi: What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God peace will be with you (Philippians 4:9). Or, to all of the community of Christ’s followers in Corinth: Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ (I Corinthians 11:1). The word or concept of clergy never appears. Paul was something of lay missionary. He had a trade and could support himself. He could travel and make contacts and disciples in a multitude of places, but his only approbation was that the apostles in Jerusalem had declared him to be true to the mission of Christ.

But down the road (maybe with the reign of Constantine) there came the notion of a priestly class in the church who were set apart as clergy, who (maybe) dressed differently, and seemed to be other. I admit, that I was initially alerted to this aberration by the French theologian-sociologist Jacques Ellul in his book: The Subversion of Christianity. There he names the clergification of the church as a major subverting factor.

There were, of course, leaders (elders, or bishops/overseers) in all of the local communities of disciples, but they seemed to have been those who were the most mature and exemplary in their faith. The community chose those from among themselves who were the most trustworthy teachers and examples of God’s design (cf. I Peter 5:1-5).

But as things unfolded, and a clergy-class emerged, there also came the notion that an academic degree could constitute one equipped to be the leader of a congregation. So, I went to seminary, as all those who had a desire to become clergy did. There I took all kinds of good courses, and learned the demeanor of being clergy. We were all encouraged to take on a clergy persona. Then after gradation we tended to become something of a clergy-seminary sub-culture.

When got into the pastoral trenches, however, I learned that I only became authentic as I put away that persona, and proved myself as a skillful disciple-maker and engaged the folk on their turf and learned their lives, and became an authentic model. This took some doing. One of my mentors spoke of disciple-making as spending so much time with others that you reproduce yourself in them, and this would necessitate letting them get close. Not clergy, but disciple-makers, authentic New Humanity models formed by the word of Christ. To be continued …