Enchanted Community

BLOG 11/19/16. “ … TOO WILD AND FREE FOR THE TIMID.”

A generation ago, novelist Madeline L’Engle was asked if she shared her Christian faith with here literary colleagues in New York. She whimsically responded (in her book: Walking on Water) that she did not because “Christianity is too wild and free for the timid.” I think that we need to stop and remind ourselves, from time to time, that being a follower of Jesus Christ is not for the faint of heart, … nor is our participation in the Christian community, if we have any integrity of understanding of what that community is to incarnate. There was that time when Jesus reminded those inquirers after him that “unless a man forsake all that he has, he cannot be my disciple.” Or on another occasion when Jesus intervened in a dispute among his curious audience by saying: “… unless you eat of the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. … Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day …”

Result? Many who had been his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. Yes: too wild and free for the timid. This account does not provide some polite liturgical metaphor for our partaking of the bread and wine of the Eucharist. It is rather that we identify with the radical design of his New Creation, and the whole counter-cultural calling to have his own life incarnated in ours as those persons who are dynamically transformed by his New Humanity. Or, maybe, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it: “When Jesus calls a man, he bids him come and die.” Or (one of my favorites from The Chronicles of Narnia) as Mrs. Beaver responded when the Pevensie children inquired about this mysterious lion, Aslan, as to whether he was ‘safe’ or not: “Safe?” said Mrs. Beaver …”Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.” Yet, it is a perennial temptation for those of us who form the community of Christ’s followers to want to create a ‘safe’ and aesthetically pleasing ‘church experience’ in which we hang-out with nice churchy people, and do religious stuff … rather than ingest Jesus’ teachings about the Kingdom of God, and to always be seeking obedience to such. We want a ‘Christian nation’ and the societal assurances of our freedom to exercise our religious Christianity in tax-exempt Christian institutions that somehow have never “eaten of his flesh and drunk of his blood,” i.e., have never come to grips with the fact that: “If the world hates you, know that it hated me before it hated you.” The Kingdom of God is, as Donald Kraybill entitled it: The Upside-Down Kingdom—radical stuff. It has a price. Jesus never downplayed this fact. It is not comfort-zone religion. It is entered only through the narrow gate of repentance and faith, which means we are willing to engage in whatever eating his flesh and drinking his blood implies, having his divine image formed in us.

If this recent election in the United States has taught us anything, it has taught us how superficially and mindlessly many who profess to be followers of Jesus Christ really are, how radically different is our DNA, how international and free from hatred and selfishness and prejudice. We are a servant people. We are rather to be the “sweet aroma of Christ” right in the midst of the stink and stuff of daily realities. We are those who embrace his counter-cultural life, and are certainly not those intimidated by all of the wild and free implications of true faith in the Lamb of God.

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[Be it known to my faithful readers and subscribers that I do appreciate your comments and refinements. This blog is a part of my own pilgrimage and my sharing with you some of those insights that continually challenge me. Some of these are found in my several books as I continually grapple with the integrity of the church as the colonies of God’s New Humanity. I also appreciate it when you recommend to your friends that they subscribe.]

BLOG 11/15/16. “… I WILL FEAR NO EVIL, FOR YOU ARE WITH ME …”

I don’t mean to be overly dramatic, … but the events of this past week have left me a bit  frightened, more than a little unsettled. I have been reflecting on that. I live very comfortably and secure. I have a modest but adequate income, but even that modest income makes me to be among the 3%-5% wealthiest people in the world. I have well-furnished home in a great neighborhood, and in a larger community that provides utilities and police protection, and so much more.  In the larger scene I have trusted in the security of a stable democratic government with reasonably gifted leadership. But then … I was undone by the election. I am a student of American history and I know that there have been all kinds of erratic and controversial episodes from the very beginning of the republic. But suddenly my world was uncertain.

Then I was reflecting the reality that the huge majority of this world’s population live incnstant fear, and so that what is happening is that I am now sharing, in a very minor way, with the majority of the human community a life that is filled with fears, uncertainties and tragic events. Just consider that there are today over 65 million refugees, many of whom have been uprooted from their jobs, their traditional cultures, their homes and events far beyond their control. I think of the refugee camp in East Kenya with something like 300,000 inhabitants, i.e., a population the size of the city of New Orleans. I think of my Christian brothers and sisters who have been the target of radical Islam and driven out of their middle eastern homes where their families have lived for centuries, … and so many more in so many nations.

Or the victims of earthquakes in Nepal, or New Zealand. Or those whose homes have been destroyed by forest fires, or hurricanes. Lots of folks in this world who have had their worlds disturbed by events not of their making.

Then I thought of the Psalmist:

“Even though I walk through the

valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil,  

for you are with me …”

(Psalm 23)

Or, …

“God is our refuge and strength,

a very present help in trouble.

Therefore we will not fear though

The earth gives way,

Though the mountains be

moved into the heart of

the sea.”

(Psalm 46)

And in reflecting, I was rebuked. I realize that it is this very broken world that Jesus came on his cosmic ‘search and rescue mission,’ and has called upon me as one of his followers to be like him, and to be emissaries of the love of God, and the humanitarian ministries of mercy and hospitality and gospel among the community of, very often, frightened, hopeless, and despairing men and women who have no sense of security, no sense of the  God who is their ultimate refuge and strength, … who do fear evil when they walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

So, I will fear no evil, … and with St. Francis, in the midst of my own fearfulness:

“Lord, make me an instrument of your peace …”

BLOG 11/12/16. THE LAST GASP OF THE ‘BOOMERS’?

In this recent (and very controversial) election, the pundits focused on the economic and racial components of the campaign, … but let me add in my own hunch that it may have been the more generational component that deserve attention. Generational cultures are very real, while their boundaries are malleable (and there are occupants in each generational culture who either belong to a former generational pattern or a to a coming one in their expressions of character). Several decades ago, a couple social scientist by the names of Neil House and Bill Strauss wrote incisive studies on these emerging generations, which first alerted me. Today you can Google ‘generational cultures’ and get good digests on the characteristics of these.

The Baby Boomer generation was that large generation that came into being after World War II. They were the children of ‘The Greatest Generation’ which had endured and survived the Great Depression and World War II, and were staunch traditionalists. Their children, the Boomers, sought for a time to throw off the traditionalist patterns of their parents, and rebel against authority, and enjoy the post-war prosperity of their parents. This is the generation that produced the ‘free speech’ and ‘free sex’ movements, and also initiated a popular drug culture. Many were social radicals, and came to their moment of fame in the Woodstock Music Festival in the late 1960s.  They were also the basis of much of the protest against the Viet Nam War … But when they had spent their energy, and gotten it out of their systems, they again sought the security of their traditionalist parents’ culture, and became quite conservative economically (and racially?).

Where I am going with this is to say that this Boomer Generation has been the generation that has been, and still is, the dominant order of today in politics, and in the church. They are desperately seeking to reclaim the culture of their parents, of yesterday and yesterday’s children (note: “Make America Great Again”).

Please note that I am making sweeping generalizations here, caricaturing unapologetically for the sake of my thesis here.

But time doesn’t stand still. The Boomers produced Generation X (born late ‘60s to late ‘70s), which generation were disenchanted with their parents’ culture, and became described as basically cynical, disillusioned, transient, somewhat pessimistic (… and Republican?). Their voice in music was heard in musician Kurt Cobain. But they were also the generation which opened much of the door into information technology. (Gates and Jobst came out of this generation). They were followed by the Millennial Generation (GenY), born in the early 80s to the mid 90s. They were the obverse of the GenXers. The Millennials were (and are) a “we can fix it!” generation. They saw beyond what was, to what might be. They were technologically savvy, and with them the whole information technology took quantum leaps: Google, Facebook (Zuckerberg), Amazon, artificial intelligence, robotics, etc. They are also a generation detached from the traditionalist constraints of yesterday. The Millennials are a creative force worth watching (and they are followed by GenZ or the iY generation, who are still emerging).

Ah so! But the political structures (such as our congress) of this nation (and of the church) are still dominated by the Boomers, who are now becoming elderly. This was hugely obvious in this election. The younger generations are much more open to racial and sexual inclusiveness. They are not idolatrous about the past. You saw this in the appeal of Bernie Sanders, and to a lesser degree with Hillary Clinton, … a younger generation looking for hope, for new options, and for deliverance from ‘what was’ in order to make tomorrow’s a better world. Their world is global, and justice issues are high on their agenda. (… And they see the 65 million refugees which this nation cannot ignore.) Hopefully, this election marked the dying gasp of the Boomer generation’s quest for yesterday.

BLOG. 11/9/16. “ … BOW DOWN AND HEAR OUR CRY …”

On this  frightening (to me) and unimaginable day, I can only offer to my Blog readers this hymn-prayer written by G. K. Chesterton about a century ago:

O God of earth and altar,
bow down and hear our cry,
our earthly rulers falter,
our people drift and die;
the walls of gold entomb us,
the swords of scorn divide,
take not thy thunder from us,
but take away our pride.

Tie in a living tether
the prince and priest and thrall,
bind all our lives together,
smite us and save us all;
in ire and exultation
aflame with faith, and free,
lift up a living nation,
a single sword to thee.

… and then the liturgical response to the prayers of confession:

Lord have mercy! Christ have mercy! Lord have mercy!

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BLOG 11/5/16. SEEKING TO RETRIEVE A TERM: ADORATION

This may be a bit of a stretch, but there’s so much confusion in our culture about the concept of God (if indeed folks even give it a thought) … but there is a term that I need to, at least, seek to re-introduce: adoration. I keep in my own prayer journal a quote on the place of adoration in our prayer life that pertains here:

“And if there were a higher stage than all it would be Adoration – when we do not think of favors or mercies to us or ours at all, but at the perfection and glory of the Lord. We feel to His Holy Name what the true artist feels toward any unspeakable beauty. As Wordsworth says:

I gazed and  gazed,

And did not wish her mine.”                (from P. T. Forsyth, The Soul of Prayer)

Or perhaps the lyrics of a praise song popular in some circles a few decades ago:

“Lord I praise you, because of who you are
Not for all the mighty things that you have done
Lord, I worship you, because of who you are
You’re all the reason that I need to voice my praise
Because of who you are.”

Hopefully, this points us in a direction, at least. In a culture that is so imbued with a secular mentality, which secular teachings are that the very notion of God is dismissed, and even morality is to be based on regard to the well-being of humankind in the present life to the exclusion of all considerations drawn from belief in God or the future state. Or perhaps a more grassroots practice of creating our own designer gods, where we fashion “our own god that I can believe in.”

Or another option, which reminds me of a humorous interchange reported to me a while back. There was a humorous, rustic, popular and undeniably brilliant pastor-theologian in North Carolina by the name of Carlyle Marney. He had given a lecture at a local college after which he was accosted by a brash young student who asserted: “Dr. Marney, I don’t even believe in God. I am my own god.” To which Carlyle Marney, pulling his glasses down on his nose, responded: “Son, say that again so that I’m sure I got what you said.” “Yes, I don’t even believe in God. I am my own god.” Marney is reported to have chuckled and responded: “Well, son, all I’ve got to say is that you’ve got one helluva poor one.” Seeking to be one’s own god is the inarticulate and unconscious position of a whole lot of folk, … but it leaves an aching void, that haunts them periodically.

But then there are those who profess to actually believe in the God revealed in Christian scriptures and in Jesus Christ, who reduce God to a utilitarian God, who conceive God in terms of what he can do for them. This is a distortion also. If you only want to know me for what I can do for you, and not for who I am, then that creates a very limited friendship – even a distorted one.

Adoration, then, is that discipline that puts the focus back on who God is, how he has revealed himself, and making his being and the heralding of his divine nature the center, the creative source, the authority, the creative source, the guiding line, and the final goal of our lives.

Adoration! Intimately knowing God, and growing into that intimacy in New Creation lives. Therein lies true life and true freedom and abundant life.

BLOG 11/2/16. QUASI-CHRISTIANITY: “NO SPERM, NO EXCREMENT, NO BLOOD”

Sometimes one wonders why, given the seeming omni-presence of ostensible Christian communities, there is not more cultural impact or transformation? Perhaps one factor would be that for those who teach, who otherwise are zealous for the message of Jesus, and for the authority of Christian scriptures, an inadvertent lapse into something of a modern counterpart of the ancient heresy of Docetism, which error denied the real humanity of Jesus. To say, that it is one thing for Christian teachers to seek accuracy in expositing a passage of scripture and to seek skill in exegeting its meaning, … while it is another thing at the same time failing to connect that passage with the existential application, its flesh-and-blood application in the lives of those listening.

It rather reminds me of the concluding reflections of the narrator in Nikos Kazantzakis’ classic work: Zorba the Greek.  The narrator is a Greek intellectual who seeks to escape the bookish tedium of academe, and signs on the re-open a mine on the island of Crete. Along the way he becomes dependent upon the boisterous, lascivious, mysterious, un-inhibited Zorba, who has a zest for life. At the end of his reflections, he looked at his own life in contrast with the free spirit of Zorba. He contemplates: “For the first time in my life, it all seemed bloodless, odorless, void of any human substance. Pale-blue, hollow words in a vacuum. Perfectly clear distilled water without any bacteria, but also without any nutritive substance. Without life.” For him life had turned into a lucid, transparent game, unencumbered by even a single drop of blood. No blood, no sperm, no excrement.  Everything turned into words … into musical jugglery … decomposing the music into mute, mathematical equations. Alas!

This stings. It describes so much of the preaching I have heard in my life, and the subtle tendency I have tried to resist in my own career as a teaching-pastor in the church, i.e., to be satisfied with an orthodox exposition of a Biblical text with no attempt to relate it to the “blood and sperm and excremental” realities of the very human persons to whom that teaching of mine, or others, is addressed. It is one thing for me to give an accurate explanation of the words of Jesus’ great commission, and yet not somehow engage my hearers in the passion of Jesus to seek and to save those very persons with whom all of us rub shoulders every day, persons struggling to survive, to find meaning for their often messy lives, seeking to be their own gods, and to find in themselves the resources, the relationships, the hope that is just beyond their finger-tips. This not to mention the huge ethical decisions that may be lurking here and there which we cannot escape.

It becomes apparent when scriptures become ‘devotional’ and church assemblies become ‘worship experiences’ that don’t enflame us anew with a passion to be the incarnation of Jesus and his New Creation in the midst of all the often intractable and excremental realities of our human sojourn. I have often noted this in well-meaning expositions of the Sermon on the Mount, which make those Beatitudes into some kind of subjective experience, without realizing what a radical (and often dangerous) set of ethical guidelines they are, and how costly—how they are reduced to devotional meditations that have no costly immersion into the blood and sperm and excrement that so often confronts us in daily life and decisions.

It becomes apparent when, so often, church communities advertise the ‘perks’ and social advantages, and activities of their community. To become a follower of Jesus is to engage reality at a very profound level, and to engage others redemptively, and it is very costly, and it is lived with a zeal and a passion to be engaged with Jesus in causing his kingdom to come and his will be done on earth … even at the risk of one’s life. It is anything but bloodless, sperm-less, without excrement ‘devotional religion’. It would be a favor to one’s teacher for one to ask: “So what?” when the application is obscure. The word of Christ is not bloodless or odorless. It is to throb with life in the lives of those who embrace it. Take it from there, and run with it. OK?

BLOG 10/29/16. UN-TRIVIALIZING BAPTISM: “… HE BIDS US COME AND DIE.”

When I went into the hospital recently to have a procedure done on my heart, the hospital staff came into my room and presented me with a: Statement of Consent form. It essentially said that I was placing my life in the hands of the cardiac surgeons to accomplish that which would, hopefully, make my life much healthier, but that I also knew the risks.

Shifting gears, then, let me move to the Christian rite/sacrament of baptism. As both a pastor and an observer of adult baptisms for a long time, it so often seems to be a sweet but ever so much of a casual rite, and yet most of the adult baptismal vows in major Christian traditions are an awesome ‘consent’ to have Jesus come into one’s life and to radically recreate it into the image for which it was originally intended. Those formulae usually begin with one’s belief in the trinitarian God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But then they move to a renunciation of all that is evil, of Satan, of our sinful quest for autonomy, … and of a joyous ‘consent’—even an embrace of Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord, and of the risks—to henceforth live in and for Jesus and his Kingdom of Light.

It is, then, basically a Statement of Consent to have Jesus come and radically recreate our lives. It is a response to (as Dietrich Bonhoeffer so graphically stated it): “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” But, … I’m not too convinced that most of us taking those vows have the remotest notion of how total those vows are. It seems, so often, that they are a ‘hoop’ we have to jump through in order to become a member of the church, … rather than a death to all that was ones former self-focused life, and the acceptance of, and entrance into, a new authority, a new center, a new creative source, a new guiding-line, and a new ultimate goal for our lives. Such vows are a vows to become a joyous participant in God’s in-breaking new creation, and it makes us inevitably counter-cultural and at odds with the  dominant social order—but always creative, loving, purposeful, focused, and available to our chosen Lord to be agents of his Kingdom and will—of God’s extravagant love and  good purpose for the realities of this world.

Then, too, I think that so many church assemblies do not give occasion to their constituents to revisit those vows , those consent vows, and to re-confirm them regularly enough. Church communities that observe the bread and wine of the Eucharist weekly may, or could make that weekly identification with the body and blood of Jesus such a reconfirming time, … but then such usually falls short of having to sign that Statement of Consent weekly, to have Jesus live out his life in my life with whatever consequences might follow. Our captivity to our own autonomy dies hard. To be reminded that Christ calls us to ‘come and die’ sounds dramatic and spiritual, but its practical consequences are huge.

If we were to keep those baptismal vows next to our hearts day by day, it would give us an irresistible New Creation identity that liberates us from all of the cultural idolatries and counterfeit religions, and be irresistibly conforming us to the image of Christ (which is the reason for our calling according to Romans 8:24ff.).

Bottom line? Add my voice to those who would like to de-trivialize baptism and to make those vows an ever present guiding-line. What do you think?

[Correction to a former blog: one of my readers reminded me that the good wizard in the Lord of the Rings trilogy was not Saruman, but Gandalf. Bingo. Thanks for keeping me accurate.]

https://www.amazon.com/Enchanted-Community-Robert-Thornton-Henderson/dp/1597526657

BLOG 10/26/16. “IN HAUNTS OF WRETCHEDNESS AND NEED” – REFUGEES

Periodically, in recent news articles, we have been reading about the deaths of the last of the Jewish survivors of the Nazi holocaust, and of the death camps in World War II. We have also been belatedly ‘beating our American breasts’ with our confession of how insensitive we, in this country were, to the pleas of so many of those Jewish folk for asylum in this country at that time. It is too late to lament that we did not do enough then. But before us right now is a human tragedy that dwarfs all of the horrendous atrocities of that tragic period of recent history. Today there are 65.3 million refugees, their lives endangered, torn from their secure homes, their traditional cultures, their security, and their roots, by terrorism, warfare, ethnic hatred, and that myriad of circumstances totally out of their control, … and set adrift on a journey into an unknown perilous world with only what they can carry with them. This is the largest number of refugees in the history of the world!

There is a hymn that was once a prominent part of our hymnology (but which doesn’t appear in many more recent hymnbooks): “Where cross the crowded ways of life, where sound the cries of race and clan … In haunts of wretchedness and need, on shadowed thresholds dark with fears … we catch vision of Thy tears.” I read the accounts of those migrants seeking to survive amidst all of the circumstances, to survive in near impossible settings, to endure the contempt of other nations reluctant to receive them … and I catch “the vision of Jesus’ tears.”

I read these accounts of Syria, of South Sudan, of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, of so many nations, and I read them in the comfort and security of my own wonderful home with heat and air conditioning, with three meals a day, with good neighbors, with a civic government that is humane and which provides security in positive ways, … and I think: How am I to respond to that colossal human need, and that flood of refugees that is too staggering to comprehend? What do I do? How can I remain passive in the face of such?

All of those decades ago, in that tragic period of World War II, Albert Einstein (himself displaced) said: “Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.” And to put feet on that conviction he was instrumental in founding the International Rescue Committee, whose well established ministry to this day is a major provider of resources for refugees across the globe. The United Nations High Commission on Refugees has the backing of that international organization and access into the scenes of the deepest hostility and need like almost no other. I am a fervent supporter of Doctors Without Borders because they are ‘Johnnie-on-the-spot’ when disaster strikes, (and in recent times have taken the loss of critical medical personnel themselves due to misguided military action). There are wonderful other agencies also engaged in these ministries that are hugely commendable.

Some of my sincere friends say to me: “But those aren’t Christian agencies!” To which I respond that when Jesus said that: when we clothed the naked, fed the hungry, took the homeless into our homes, visited the prisoners, etc. … that in ministering to them, that we were, in fact, ministering to Him, … it says to me that these are ministries of mercy and humanitarian urgency that are dear to his heart. I believe that in seeing these “haunts of wretchedness and need,” we ought to catch the vision of His tears. And while there are significant Christian ministries at work, for which I am thankful, I don’t think Christian profession is the priority in meeting such immediate and pressing needs. To do nothing, then, makes one culpable in this moment of such overwhelming urgency. Jesus said to those he rejected, that when they did it not do it to the least of these, that they did it not to Him. “Only the life lived for others is a life worthwhile.” I hope my readers hear the cry of my own heart, and join me in doing whatever we can to bring some hope to those 65.3 million fellow humans adrift in the unknown places into which they have been thrust, not by their own design. Lord have mercy!

BLOG 10/23/16. “ … IT SMELLS LIKE AN ORC!”

Remember The Lord of the Rings trilogy?  A couple of decades ago it was the ‘must’ reading of the avant-garde. It was the classic battle between good and evil played out in Middle-earth. In that epic, the dark lord was Sauron, who was the 1^st lieutenant of Morgoth, who was behind all of the works of darkness. O.K. So Sauron employs, among other agents, a whole hosts of malevolent humanoids called orcs and who always stunk with a foul odor, who generally lived in subterranean habitations, … but occasionally emerged and took on human form in order to deceive those who were agents of Saruman the White, who was the wizard sent to Middle-earth, to resist the destructive workings of Sauron.

Here’s where I’m going: When the orcs took on human form for their evil designs, they may have looked like humans, but they still smelled like orcs, by which they could be recognized in their counterfeit roles. They looked like humans, but they smelled like orcs. Got it?

What’s that got to with my Blog? Take note of how often Jesus made the point that those who were to be his disciples were those who manifestly did his will, who obeyed his teachings, who demonstrated his character in their daily lives, who lived out the Beatitudes. … and, as the apostle would say: exuded the ‘sweet aroma of Christ’ in their daily human lives.

In these recent months there have been all kinds of calamitous controversies, not only in politics, but in so many dimensions of our present tense global scene. In the midst of this there are those who would try to defend a position by misappropriating the magnificent designation of ‘evangelical’ in order to give legitimacy to whatever position they were espousing. Or, public figures will seek to identify themselves with a Christian denomination, or some religious community to seek legitimacy. But as for myself, as one who professes to be a follower of Christ, I want most fervently to insist that those who are Christian, whatever their particular label, are those who are doers of the word of Jesus, they have his DNA determining their behavior and thinking. They are those who are peacemakers. They are those who are champions of the poor and oppressed. They are agents of justice. They are those who seek to bring healing, who give refuge to strangers and the homeless, who feed the hungry, who are agents of mercy, who are willing to pay the price / suffer for righteous causes. They are those that others can see and know by their works and daily lives that they are the children of God—Roman Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, Pentecostal, Independent, Orthodox … whatever.

So when advocacy groups, or political segments identify themselves as ‘evangelicals’, or as ‘Christians’, or whatever, … but smell like orcs, i.e., live and do the works that are counter to that which Jesus did and taught, then write them off as imposters who have never gotten the message of Jesus, that Jesus who came to make all things new, and to conform his people to the divine image in athe totality of their lives, and thinking, and works.

In this often discouraging, secular, and frequently meaningless society, the followers of Jesus are to be the aroma of Christ, they are to be the walking, talking, loving, unselfish servants of righteousness that bring streams of living water into their daily lives and neighborhoods. Contrariwise, those who do the works of darkness, who smell like self-aggrandizement, loveless-ness, injustice, and self-serving, etc. …though they may call themselves the ‘good guys’ but they smell like ‘orcs’. ‘Nuff said.

In the Rings trilogy, the followers of Saruman the White prevail, and their world, and the Shire, are restored to pristine harmony. So with the followers of the Lamb of God, he who must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. And so comes his warning that many shall come in the last day and put their orthodox claims in their “Lord, Lord” profession before him, but to whom he will say: “I never knew you. Depart from me you workers of lawlessness.” What a tragic end!

http://wipfandstock.com/the-church-and-the-relentless-darkness.html

BLOG 10/19/16. FAITH: WOULDN’T IT BE ‘WILD’ IF …?

Given all of the mindless religious claims floating around in this confusing political season, I have to ponder: Wouldn’t it be totally ‘wild’ if all the people who profess to be followers of Jesus actually lived out his teachings in their understanding of life, of his role as the inaugurator of a New Creation, his patterns of behavior (righteousness), and his relationship with God the Father? Just think of it! Jesus stepped onto the stage of human history as a non-descript peasant from a small Palestinian town with little fan-fare, … and within a couple of years had launched a new reality, a community of followers which would spread into most of the known world within a century. Why? How? I mean, … the world was full of religions of all sorts to attempt to satisfy the spiritual vacuum of the masses. But his summons was into a counter-cultural movement that was unlike any other.

He appeared in the rural countryside teaching that the Kingdom of God (whatever that was) was at hand and that folks should have a total change of mind, and should believe this new reality. Face it: that’s a lot to swallow. And yet … something about him was so compelling that a few who heard him asked him: “Teacher, what gives with you? Where do you live? What’s this all about?” His answer: Come and see. So they followed him. His summons to others was, likewise, obviously, compelling: Follow me. But soon he dropped the other shoe: If anyone will come after me, let him forsake all that he has and follow me. Or, If anyone wants to be my follower and is not willing to let go of his father, his mother, even his wife and children … he can’t be my disciple. It gets even more intense: Unless you eat of the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. (That ‘did it’ with a lot of his followers, and they went away.)A normal response to such nonsense would be: “Yuk!”

Yet, the crowds following him multiplied, even when his teachings began to sound serious and make such costly demands. Still … we, today, need to remember how tragically we have muted Jesus’ teachings. After all, he came to inaugurate God’s promise to make all things new. There was no cheap way to accomplish such a counter-cultural movement. For one to come to Jesus, one must be utterly-totally convinced that he is who he says he is and that he will do exactly what he promises that he will do, … and the consequences of our responses can be either radical new and selfless life of love and good works, … or in refusal: death.

One classic theological definition of true faith is that such is composed of three responses on our part (in Latin): notitia, assensus, fiducia, or: knowledge, assent to its truth, and a whole hearted embraced of self-renouncing trust—“But to all who did receive him … he gave the right to become the children of God.” That sounds forthright enough … but to assent involves (in genetic terms) having the genome of Jesus implanted in our human lives so that it determines who we are and how we respond. Jesus becomes my identity, determines my priorities, forms my behavior, shapes the stewardship of all of my life … so that I/we literally incarnate Christ when and wherever I am. Such response is an intentional act of our wills. We believe and begin to live under new authority. It is never something one, if sane, would ever pursue lightly. It is anything but polite church membership. It has a cost that is total. But those who understand Jesus, know that all things exist by and for him, that in him is ultimate meaning, hope and love. It produces true joy even in the most desperate of settings. His calling is likened to a treasure found in a field, or a pearl of great price for which a person will forsake everything else to obtain it.

Wouldn’t it be wild if ….?

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