John 1 part 3

AND NOW WE HAVE SEEN HIS GLORY

glory - At once the Jewish reader would have thought of the Tabernacle. The place where God would concentrate Himself and where His glory would dwell. There were times that Moses and the Priests had to back off because the glory of God was shining so bright in this place. They had to be careful with the glory. ‘Shakeena' or 'God’s glorious presence’ is the word the Priests would use to refer God’s glory. And Jesus’ flesh now becomes the new Shakeena.

“Shine Jesus shine, fill this land with the Father’s glory” - But there is just one problem to that lyric...

Throughout the rest of the Gospel, John describes the central exhibit of Jesus’ GLORY as the fact that He was killed. In John 12, Jesus finally tells us that His hour has come - up to this point John has been foreshadowing the cross saying that His hour had not yet come - And remarkably Jesus says at that time that the hour has come for the Son of Man to be GLORIFIED! "Truly I tell you that unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single grain. But if it dies, it produces many grains."

Immediately we step back and ask ourselves: how can this be. We are surely not use to seeing the death of our champion as glorious. Only a racist heart glories in the death of a Martin Luther King Jr, only an evil heart glories in the death of a President Lincoln... We are not use to thinking of our champions death as glorious.

Jesus died on the cross, and His followers looked on. He died on a torture instrument that the Romans adopted in order to terrorize their enemies. The Romans took Jesus’ life and His dignity through a state sponsored terror event that was meant for anybody who could see or hear saying to the onlookers -- Cesar is lord and don’t you forget it!

Now where is the glory there? Glory on a cross?? A closer analogy to the onlookers of that day could possibly even be Glory through drug overdose... Glory on an electric chair??

But the Gospel finds glory there! Because the death of Jesus Christ will feed whole nations with the Bread of Life. Jesus body sown like a grain into the ground will send its roots down and its stock up until He bursts from the ground with life. For everybody who will believe in Him, who will believe that He saves...

This is what the Gospel cries out from that day of Resurrection to today. God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.

John 1 part 2

John 1

THE WORD BECAME FLESH AND DWELLED AMONG US...

The Tabernacle is now Jesus' flesh. It is where God concentrates Himself, it is where people can hear God speak. And 'the Word' can speak God's words because He is here. Immanuel, God is with us! The disciples probably knew 'the Word' when He was sick. And Joseph and Mary knew 'the Word' when He was so young He could only babble or on a day that Jesus cut a board too short and was not too happy about it. 'The Word' became flesh, now He could embrace His followers, laugh with His friends, and ask for a second helping of food...

And now He could suffer terribly because He has got a neck and a back and the back’s of His

thighs are crisscrossed with nerve endings that scream when He gets whipped... He’s flesh. So He probably forgot stuff. On some days He might say something and then on the next day He might say ‘Oh I am sorry I meant to say something else.’ He’s flesh. He wept, He got tired, He prayed before calling His disciples and then got Judas as one of the answers to His prayer. He is flesh. He said there were things He didn’t know, like when the end of the world would happen. He is flesh after all.

But He is also God of God and Light of Light. What you see in His life is the MOST remarkable display of the heart and mind of God the earth has ever known. He has the power to send demons away, He has the power to send sickness away, and the power to send sin away and He does it!

And He has the power in the very next chapter, to turn water into wine. Jesus is at a wedding in cana, Jesus’ mother notices a wine shortage, and Jesus goes to work. He makes about 150 gallons of wine. He does, as what Pope Gregory the Great said in the 7th century , “a speeded up version of what God does all the time.” Every Fall God turns water into wine, in the Napa Valley, in the Cayuga Valley. Jesus does a small speeded up version of what God does in the wedding at Cana. So you can say that Jesus speaks for God, but we will see that Jesus keeps on doing what God does, or to use another metaphor - Jesus as the deed. And He does it in the Flesh. And so you now you have the feet of God taking Him to the shack of a leper, and the hand of God reaching out towards flesh that nobody else would touch, and the knees of God that bent as He washed the feet of His disciples, an act that they would not have dreamed of doing for each other, and you got the arms of God stretched out to be nailed for our sins, wounded for our sins. It’s as if the terrifying work of atonement cannot be done without God becoming flesh.

THE WORD BECAME FLESH AND DWELLED AMONG US... Words don’t have meaning until we see action, until there is flesh and blood executing the deed.

"A young man during the Civil War was watching Abraham Lincoln coming into a Hospital Ward as he sat down by a boy that was dieing. The Secretary of War and some Generals wanted to move him on, but he wanted to stay. And so he did, talking to the boy about his home on the Sangamon River. He sat with him two hours before the boy died. The young man commented later, ‘You know I had a good home, I knew from church that God had compassion, but that day when I saw the sadness in the President’s eye and saw the weariness in his face I came to know something about God that I had never known before. Compassion has to have flesh before we can really understand what it truly is, what the Word truly means in our day, the Word becoming flesh."

John 1 part 1

John 1

THE WORD is like a metaphor for Jesus. Jesus, in a sense, speaks for God.

Jesus is God all over again, Jesus is a chip off the ol’ block... He sounds just like His Father. When someone appears in a place unexpectatly, Jesus says what God would say, “Don’t be afraid.” When Jesus is confronted by religious leaders Jesus said what God would say, “Woe to you! You give your money, but you neglect justice! In fact you run widows right out of their houses.” Jesus speaks for God. At least 5 times Jesus says none of His words come from Him, everything He says He has heard His Father say.

AND THE WORD BECAME FLESH...

He is God, absolutely... and He became flesh.

CS Lewis once wrote, "you want to get the smallest of glimpses to see what this might mean for the Son of God to stuff Himself into human form? Imagine yourself becoming a slug. Your activities would be limited and restrictions would apply."

HE BECAME FLESH AND DWELT AMONG US...

Actually, the Greek is a little sharper than this. The Greek says He tented with us. We are like Israel in the wilderness.

God wants to be with them there so He has them make the Tent of Meeting, a place for Him. It’s got holy places in it and what not, but the basic idea for it is that Israel is going to be okay when God is in His tent and His people can worship Him. In fact, “tenting” becomes part of God’s ID in the Old testament, ‘Who is Israel’s God? Well, He is the one that "tents" in Zion!’

Then at the end of the Bible, John sees a vision beautiful enough to break your heart (in Rev. 21). At the end we don’t go to Heaven, Heaven comes to us! The City of God descends to us, so God can TENT with us here.

Jesus' thoughts on the Bible - How Can We Hear from God, Part 4

John 5:31-47

(4) How can we hear God? Jesus argues to see everything in the Bible as pointing to Him- He is the TRUE Joshua, the host of the armies of the Lord; He is the TRUE Jonah, the prophet who died for His people who was kept in the belly of the Earth for 3 days...

Until you see every passage of Scripture about Him and not about you... until you read the Bible NOT for information but for formation... until you read the Bible to meet Him you will be reading it just like the people who end up killing Jesus.

The Gospel (the Good News in which Christianity stands on) is NOT that you do things and you offer them to God, BUT that God sent Jesus Christ to live the perfect life and that it is His standing that is now offered to you. If that truth reforms, or in other words, remakes you, then you are starting to stand in what Jesus accomplished in His life. God then sees you as perfect and as blameless as Christ.

Every other religion says that it is your job to rise up and live a divine life... the Gospel says that Jesus came down and lived a human life and did what we were supposed to do for us. When you are united with Him you are accepted through that. If you don’t believe that the story is true, then what you really believe in is a lot of principles that you have to live up to. BUT if you see the story as true, then you can read everything in the Bible as being about Jesus and not about you and what you must do. If it is all about you, you will be mechanical and rigid and will miss the point and will not have internal character change. The weight of the principles will either be absolutely crushing or they will serve as a source and excuse for self-righteousness and ignorant arrogance... If you read it as about Him the love of God will dwell in you (V38).

PLEASE self give the Bible authority over me!! In the areas I don’t want to hear. If I don’t then how can God ever heal me in tough times!! - If He doesn’t have authority over me now then what is going to happen in my life when my heart is broken or when I feel like a failure... when our hearts condemn us the Bible says that God is greater than our hearts BUT how can God be greater then my heart, how can God come in and give me hope and love unless I give the Bible full authority over me in all things. I can't just pick and choose these things creating a god of my own choosing, can I??

For those of you who have Jesus’ “view of the Bible”... how are you reading the Bible? Are you reading it for information or formation? Read it to its logical conclusion. Can you earn your salvation or do you need a savior?

Jesus' thoughts on the Bible - Why we don’t hear God speak, Part 3b

John 5:31-47

2. Not only did these people miss the purpose of the Bible, but they missed the POINT

Jesus says the Bible testifies about Him like John the Baptist did... During his life, people asked John the Baptist; ‘Are you the one?’ He adamantly said, ‘NO, I am pointing to something beyond me, I am baring witness to the one, I am not the one.’... When Jesus says the Bible is just like John the Baptist I think this is what it means: if we are not seeing in every single part of the Bible pointing beyond itself to Jesus, just like John the Baptist, then we are lost. We are missing the point.

Let’s look at the story of Joseph in Genesis. What is the story of Joseph about? He is sold into slavery. He triumphs through it because he trusts in God. Incredibly at the end he saves the lives of his family because he is at the right hand of the Pharaoh and forgives them... What is that about? Most people would say that the story is pointing to Joseph - ‘If I try hard, no matter how bad people treat me or who betrays me, I can get through it. If I just believe in God I can do anything. If I try hard enough I can forgive.’ If you read it that way you will either become smug and self-righteous OR you will be crushed with despair.

BUT if every part of the Bible is saying, ‘I am not the one, I am pointing to something beyond me!’... There was a real Joseph who was sold and was betrayed by the people that should have loved Him, and He brought about redemption not just in spite of His suffering but through His suffering and now He is seated at the right hand of the Father and He has forgiven us... Until you see yourself as the recipient of what the TRUE Joseph has done you will never have the heart to be able to forgive other people. If Joseph is just an example he will crush you. If He is pointing to Jesus then suddenly there is liberation.

Every part of the Bible is the same...

Look at the “Golden Rule” in Leviticus 19. Anybody who says, ‘we don’t need Jesus, we just need to live by the ‘Golden Rule’ has never really listened to the Golden Rule because it is impossible to keep by itself. The Rule says that you have to meet the needs of other people with all of the creativity, power, and joy that you use to meet your own needs... Do you know what that means?? The ‘Golden Rule’ is saying I AM NOT THE ONE. It is testifying! - It is saying, ‘If you think you can obey me, you are crazy! I am here to show you (as Paul says in Romans 5) that the Law is a school master here to bring you to Jesus.’ If you say I can obey the Law if I try hard enough then you are NOT even listening to the Law because the Law is pointing beyond itself. If you look at the Law as an end and not a means to the end as leading you to the need of a Savior then you are deaf to the great things that God is saying. And I don’t think it really matters if you claim belief in the “inherency” or “infallibility” of the Scripture!

The Bible was meant for the Gospel to be seen in every part of it. Jesus declared that to be so here in John, in Luke 24, in many other places.

Here is another example: in the Garden of Gesthamine Jesus is telling His disciples, ‘I need you to stay awake.’ After three times seeing them asleep He is not irritable at all, He wakes them up, and goes to meet the Roman soldiers... I use to read that and say I need to be like that. I need to not be irritable! But yet I continue to find myself irritable with people who are not meeting the standards I have set for them everyday... There is liberation to the degree that I have meditated and know that that I am not Jesus in this story but am the disciples that fell asleep... If you see Jesus as simply a model of forgiveness (Even forgiving on the cross!), His example will crush you. But IF you see Jesus dieing and forgiving you for YOUR sins, that melts your self-righteousness and it gives you a desire to forgive others’ sins, but only because you have been built up.

Jesus said the Bible will get up on the last day and judge us - even those who have studied it, who know it inside out, and, I think most importantly noteworthy, who have read it for information and NOT for formation. Read V37-38. The very authors of the Bible will judge those who who read the Bible for information and rules and without seeing it pointing to Jesus.

Jesus' thoughts on the Bible - Why we don’t hear God speak, Part 3a

John 5:31-47

(3) Why do we not hear God speak?
On the last day, Jesus says here in John that Moses and the writers of the Bible will call you into judgment because “you did not listen.” Remember who Jesus is talking to - serious Bible students. This is VERY FRIGHTENING to me and it should to churches across America. Jesus says that it is very possible to believe in the “infallibility”, “inerrancy”, and “inspiration” of the Scripture AND be as deaf to what God is saying as if you did not believe any of it at all. Jesus is telling this to the people that have ‘the right view!’ He is criticizing their use of scripture. In a sense Jesus is saying that although you may have the technical view of the Bible, it can be for naught if you do not use the scripture in the right way.

Jesus is telling the Bible students how they are missing the Bible in 2 ways:

1. They are missing the whole purpose of the Bible. V39 Jesus says that the Pharisees believe that the study of Scripture and the knowledge of the Scripture is how people are going to get favor with God. I would say that this view is NORMAL today. Many people starting out in Christianity often say something like, ‘I am going to be really good now - I am going to start reading the Bible. I am going to read it everyday and then I am going to know that God is in my corner. I will study, read, memorize, know the Bible...’

I am not saying you should not be studying the Bible. I just remember how many times I have gotten up in the morning, or sat down throughout a day, and I would feel so much better after simply doing the deed. It would not be because of a meeting with Jesus or having the Holy Spirit work on my heart, it was often simply that my conscience felt better. I thought I was more in tune with God and that I had more sway with God and that only then would He be answering my prayers and, honestly, only then that He was pleased with me. I was really not doing anything with the Bible, I was not learning, growing, seeing the point... I felt that just by searching and studying the Bible that I would be okay and that God would love me then... and only then.

Do you see how dangerous that is?

One BIG, HUGE reason why people today don’t believe the Bible is because of how conservative Christians use the Bible. Conservative Christians use the Bible in a certain way because of how they study the Bible. The study the Bible like this: to feel good about themselves, to feel superior about themselves, to feel that God must love them because they know the Bible so much... People who study like that cannot judge the central to the less important things in the Bible and so they get into all kinds of theories and calculations about creation or about the ‘end times’ and then fight for absolutely every little bit of ‘their view.’ They buy more into their view of the Scriptures rather then the Scriptures themselves. They hit people over the head with it. They study the Bible simply for facts and information and not for the gist and for what it is really teaching.

This is a very dangerous approach. I should know. I was and still can be there.

Jesus' thoughts on the Bible - How God Speaks, Part 2

John 5:31-47

(2) How God speaks.
* (Quick Disclaimer - if you have a hard time with this post PLEASE wait until the next post to see it in its context before judging it)

Out of the three evidences the scripture is given the lion’s share of weight. It is the only one that is claimed as the “Father’s testimony.”

We learn important things here about Jesus’ view of scripture. It is a little indirect but it is there. Directly He is attacking the Pharisees/these "Bible studiers" use of scripture but in the process we get Jesus' view of scripture.

We get at least two things:
1. Jesus said that the scripture is Divine and not human. He does not say it was not written by human beings (“Moses wrote of me”), but in V34 He says that human testimony is not enough and so then in 37 He says He is going to give the Father’s testimony and then in 39 He gives scripture.

The Bible often is declared as man’s search for God. Jesus says it is from God. ‘Yes Moses wrote it, but it is actually the Father’s testimony.’ This is not man reaching up for God, it is God reaching down to us.

In Matthew 19 Jesus quotes God and what He quotes is Genesis 2:24. But if you go back to Genesis you will see that the author of the book wrote that, not God, as a comment on what just happened. But Jesus can quote what the author of Genesis wrote as from God just like He is doing here with Moses. ‘It is the Father’s testimony.’

2 Peter 1:20, 21 - “no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

Jesus and Peter are both saying that what you have in the Bible, though humans wrote it, is the testimony of God.

2. Another thing Jesus says is that not only is this a divine revelation, it is the most sure divine revelation. Jesus is saying that ‘you have not heard His voice nor seen His form... yet you have the testimony.’ Or in other words, you have never had a vision or heard God’s voice, but you have His testimony anyway.

In 2 Peter 1 - Peter is saying a few verses before twenty that He heard a voice, He saw a vision, but yet the scripture testimony is more sure. Paul in Galatians 1:6-9 says that even if an angel from Heaven came and declared a different message you can dismiss it if it is against Jesus being our full and complete atonement. You can just throw the angel out at that point, even with the ground shake and lightning coming down from the sky!

Jesus, Peter, and Paul are saying that the Bible is better than a vision. I think because honestly there are only three possibilities if you have such a vision: 1. It is a human source, you are making it up in your head or it is a fraud; 2. It can be supernatural outside of God; or 3. It can be a supernatural source from God. If you have a vision or hear a voice you only have a 1/3 chance that it was not a mistake. But with the Bible you are batting 1.000. Jesus is saying you have the real testimony of God in the Bible.

(On my next post, I will get into the fact that you cannot bat 1.000 by simply using the Bible if you use it as an end in itself and not a means in pointing beyond itself or in other words if you don't see the point of the Bible...)

And if this the Scripture sits in judgment against voices and angels from the sky then you have to ask yourself this question: Is your heart going to sit in judgment against the Bible or is it going to sit in judgment against your heart? Listen closely to the authority that Jesus gives the Bible.

Jesus is saying that this is the only way you can really know that God is speaking. What this means is this: You cannot have relationship without believing in the complete authority of the Bible.

I am finding that many people today talk about the Bible like this: ‘If you think of the Bible as truth then you are not having a conversation or intimacy with God because the Bible just has a lot of laws and rules and you cannot have intimacy or a conversation with that. Let us realize that the Bible is not always true, we are enlightened today and we are able to now judge on what parts of the Bible are right and wrong, and only when we do that can we actually have real intimacy or a real conversation with God.’

The Stepford Wives movie is a good example of a point here. I saw the remake years ago. The movie was not good, but I think a good principle can be taken from it. The movie is basically about the husbands of this town are replacing their wives with robots. The robots are programmed to be the ‘perfect’ wife. Relationship and intimacy are the farthest things away from what those couples in the movie had at that point... When you have people that you can turn off whenever they say something that offends you, when you are surrounded by people that only say ‘Yes dear’, when you are surrounded by people that never contradict you, that never challenge you - then you are NOT having a conversation, you are NOT having intimacy. You are not having a personal relationship at all.

When you come to something that offends you in the Bible and say in a sense, ‘I can’t believe in a God that would send people to Hell, I can’t believe in a God that would say that is wrong!!’ When you get to a place where God contradicts you in the Bible, but then say I can’t accept that because it offends me, what you have then there is a Stepford god. It is a god according to your rules, how you think. If you don’t take the Bible as anything but Truth you will not have a conversation, you will not have intimacy.

You cannot ‘know’ Jesus and not have His view of the Bible? Jesus’ view of the Bible was the very foundation on which His entire life was based. He is constantly saying: “It is written...” or talking about the scripture being “fulfilled” while dealing with temptation in the desert, to Peter before the Roman soldiers who are about to take Jesus away... with the cross on His back (Luke 23), on the cross as He is dieing (Psalm 22).

If you say you want Jesus AND you DO NOT want a Bible that you have to obey no matter what it says, what you are really saying then is that you don’t want the real Jesus, you want a Jesus that you can make up, that you can program and turn off. You can’t have Jesus and deny the very basis of His life. Jesus says that the Bible is TESTIMONY - it is personal to Him, testimony is a personal account.

Jesus' thoughts on the Bible - God Speaks, Part 1

Jesus argued. He often picked debates. I think He had to do this because Jesus said, in a sense, that we do not have a category in our heads for Him and so it would not have worked if He had just said “Think about this”. That is the reason why He argued. We need to look at the hard sayings because we are not perfect, we need to be shaped by the weighty things of God. It is time for me to pay serious attention to this truth myself (I feel a bit foolish that I have had a CS Lewis quote that speaks to this very topic on this blog since day 1 but yet have hardly scratched the surface).

Jesus is arguing about the Scripture here. It is surprising here because He is going after diligent Bible students. I am sure at least thousands of people are meeting in “Bible studies” in our country today. They are diligently studying the Bible. That’s good, right??

Jesus comes here to possibly the most diligent Bible students in the history of the world and He says that, ‘You are as dead wrong as people who don’t even believe in the Bible at all.’ He faces down people here who have a high orthodox view of scripture. That shows us that we have listen to this argument of Jesus’ very carefully because He is speaking to all of us, and more emphatically to those that assume that they have the very view of God... He is zeroing in on "bible-studying, God-believing Christians"...

I think Jesus is telling us in John 5: 31-47four things about God speaking to us: (1) God does speak to us, (2) How does God speak to us, (3) Why we don’t hear what God speaks to us and (4) how we can hear God speaking to us.

(1) The passage here speaks to the fact that God speaks to us.

At the beginning of Chapter 5 Jesus healed a paralyzed man, but He does it on the Sabbath. The Pharisees confront Jesus about His work on the Sabbath and Jesus responds with claims about Himself that must have been absolutely shocking to them. In 5:20 they say horrified to Jesus saying, ‘You are claiming to be equal with God!’.

In our passage Jesus agrees and continues that He does not want them to believe the claim just because He said so. He says He wants to point to testimony or evidence for the claim that He is God, which in turn tells us three ways in which God speaks to us. It is interesting because these three things are evidences that any American has access to today.

I think Jesus is also saying that Faith in Him is more than thinking, but it is certainly not less. It is more than examining the evidence, but it is not less. If you cannot believe in Jesus you have to ask yourself, ‘Have I looked at the evidence?’ Or if you say ‘I don’t hear God speaking to me’ you need to ask yourself, ‘Have I gone to the places where Jesus has said that God speaks? Have I exposed myself to the testimony that God [supposedly] has sent?’

Jesus says here don’t believe just because I am asserting it. Look at the evidence:
1. The first evidence He gives is human. Jesus points to John the Baptist. John was a ‘burning and shining light.’ He is looking to John as, not the prophet, but a radiant human being and a great man who was a burning and shining light. The first way God speaks to us is through personal relationships, through His work through another human - people who point to Christ and whose lives are radiant. There is integrity, an unaccountable radiance there. Unless you have known people like that you have not heard one of the main ways how God gives evidence that He is there.
2. The second is empirical. Jesus says that God has given Him works to do. He is talking about His life, His claims, His miracles, His resurrection.
3. The third is scriptural.

You have not put yourself in the places where God speaks if you have not exposed yourself to these three areas.

Order out of Chaos - Part 2 (the brokenness and true diversity of culture)

2. We also learn about the brokenness of culture in Isaiah.

I think we first see it here in Isaiah by the way of contrast. We have a perfect culture here. Everything is working right (18 and on): no violence, no exploitation, all of the races are getting together and working together so there is no class, racial conflict, there is no sorrow... but we know that our culture is filled with that.

Why?

Not because cultural activity is wrong, but it is because of the way it is being done, the way it has been done throughout history. The reason why this cultural picture in Isaiah is perfect is because all of the collective cultures are bringing their riches to God and they are doing their work for the glory of God.

The alternative to this can be seen in Genesis 11, where the first city (at least the first the Bible speaks of) is being built - the Tower in the city of Babel. There was nothing wrong with the architecture, the economics, the art, or the physical sciences it would have taken to build it. A city was being built and all of these activities were good, but yet Genesis 11:4 says the reason this was done was so that they could make a name for themselves....

Obviously our work is important to human fulfillment - if God is a worker, and God’s spirit does what it does, and we are made in His image, then doing my job well is crucial to my fulfillment as a human being made in the image of God.

BUT if you get to the place where your work and your job is the only way that you know that you are important or that you have value - when that begins to happen you begin to see destructiveness in the culture. It is natural to say that a job is part of who you are. But when you get to the place where you look at your job and say NOW I know I am important - as you look at your status, your money, what you are doing - then it destroys everything else because you will walk over anything and everyone to get what you think makes you significant... Men and women do not back down lightly when they think their whole reason for getting out of the bed in the morning is compromised.

Maybe I am cynical but I don’t think people become doctors to primarily relieve suffering, but to bring their families up in the world. People become lawyers not because they have a passion for justice in the world, but to bring their families up in the world. We might start off with the noble idea, but if we are honest, I think we would see that the very dark places of our hearts pervert those good intentions quickly and easily.

I think it is worthy to note here an interesting story I have heard about soldiers on the allies side in WW2. It was surprising to hear how some of these people were happy for the very first times in their lives as soldiers. Why? Because, according to their own accounts, for the first time in their lives they found themselves not doing something for the pay, for social standing, but for the sake of working together to get something done that benefited everyone. In a small way, during this war, these soldiers experienced a bit of shalom. Instead of working just to make money, to get ahead, they began to work together for the flourishing of the human community. It was a major step away from making a name for themselves. They found themselves happy, and then helping...

Daniel Bell, writer of the Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism has written that economic growth is fueled by thrift, honesty, and delayed gratification. Without getting into it too much here, I think the basic point has some validity here in that those who invest in the community and those who see that there are things more important then individual profit fuel profitableness. They are the ones not walking over everyone else. And they do this when profit is not ultimate or does not define who they are. When profit becomes an end in itself, and not used within the means God created it for, it creates our brokenness.

But if and when you get an identity, a sense of being a special creation of God and a sense of being loved, that is so deep, that is a part from your work; and if and when you get an allegiance that is above and beyond making a profit and finding societal status the way you do, your work will begin to renew your community. We cannot bring in utopia, but if you are able to change in these areas you will become part of cultural renewal. The way in which you manage people, the way in which you treat your own money...

here is an example of how i think this might work: why do we hold onto our money? Because we ‘need’ to live in certain places and we ‘need’ to have certain things, so we can feel a certain way about ourselves because we are not totally secure on the inside with who we are. We have to let people and societal status give us our place in the world. But when God becomes your God, rather then money or when God becomes your security, your identity, your validity, your beauty, then money just becomes money. And then you can give it away, and that brings about justice, that brings about the flourishing of the human community - the culture is broken at its heart and we can begin to be agents of renewal.

3. There is a true diversity of culture in the end. An intriguing thing about Revelation and Isaiah 60, is that national, racial, cultural distinctions are sustained in the renewed earth. “Every tongue, tribe and nation” in Revelation, are now “in the city of God”. There are different tongues, tribes, peoples, and nations here. And notice that every culture brings something different. In Isaiah 60 some cultures bring the herd, some bring the gold, some bring the incense.

Why? What does it mean?

This must mean at least two things:

(1) that God has put His common grace into EVERY single culture, so that every single culture has certain themes and certain strengths and contributions to make to the ENTIRE flourishing of the human race that cannot be replaced. We need them all. God DOES NOT want cultural homogeneity.

And yet, on the other hand, they must bring it all to the Lord. I think this is what this means, (2) every culture has a strength, some the individual is emphasized, some the family, some power, some wisdom, some tradition, some skepticism and questioning, but when these things become ultimate in a life, when they are made into an idols, made into gods, THEN they become destructive. God says that you must be converted in heart, and make Him the center of your life and THEN culture will work the way it is supposed to work where you will be making a contribution rather then basically hurting the human race by the idolization of your particular strength....

Someone might say after this, ‘So even though all of these cultures are good they still need to be converted? That is the trouble with you Christians, you are always trying to convert people, and you must not impose your culture on somebody else by trying to make them a Christian.’

Lemin Sanneh, an African professor at Yale, would like to challenge that. What you seem to be saying is that Christianity belongs to some cultures and not all.

Lemin wrote a book called ‘Whose Religion is Christianity?’ Although I have not read it (it is on my ever growing list of books I need to read) I have read excerpts where Sanneh is very tired of people saying to Christians that they ‘mustn't impose your culture on them, you mustn't try and convert Africans because you are trying to destroy their culture.’ In other words, Sanneh says, ‘you are saying that Christianity belongs to certain peoples and not others.’ HE is upset, HE is offended. In one excerpt of the book he says that every culture has a base line narrative. Paul in the Bible said that the Jews want power and the Greeks want wisdom. Every culture has them, even today, every culture has certain things that they are after. Sanneh says that the African culture knows that the world is filled with spiritual forces, especially dark forces. And so they have asked, as a culture, how are we going to address that? They looked at their tribal religions and although they believed in these forces, they had no answer on how to overcome them. And they looked at the modern secularism that was coming and saw that it laughed at their Africaness because it said that they couldn’t believe in miracles, they can’t believe in demons. He mentioned that that is “cultural totalitarianism”. And then they looked at Christianity, and this is what Sanneh has said has been happening, “Christianity answered the great cultural challenge of our hearts. People sensed in their hearts that [Jesus] did not mock their respect for the sacred, and he did not mock their clamor for an invincible savior, and so they beat their sacred drums for him until the stars skipped and danced in the skies. And after they danced the stars were not little anymore, Christianity helped Africans become renewed Africans, not remade Europeans.”

There is a true cultural diversity here in Isaiah and Revelation. God does not want cultural homogeneity. But He also says, ‘Come to me! And then the great grace that I have given to every single culture, the plot line of the story I have given to every single culture will find its happy ending.'

praying isaiah 1:11-18

“what makes you think i want all of your sacrifices?”

because I am the one doing something about all of this now. i am trying to fix my own mistakes. i am trying to help fix others. i am godlike in that i have sacrificed my time, my money, my goals... for you!

“i am sick of your burnt offerings”

but i burn them, i hurt when they burn. it is not like this is neglect. i have sacrificed a whole lot!

“when you come to worship me, who asked you to parade through my courts with all of your ceremony?”

i do it for you though! when i have the time to celebrate you, i celebrate you. when i have time to live for you, i do!

“stop bringing me your meaningless gifts; the incense of your offerings disgust me!”

how can you say they are meaningless?! its my life, i need them to mean something! why are you condemning ME!?

“I hate your... celebrations... they are a burden to me. I cannot stand them!”

but i love you in them. i love how i feel in them.

“When you lift up your hands in prayer i will not look.”

then i will beat my hands bloody until you listen

“Though you offer many prayers i will not listen”

jesus... why?

“for your hands are covered with the blood of innocent victims. Wash yourselves and be clean!”

where can i wash myself then?? in my church? in the lake? in my bed?
how?? what can i sacrifice? what can i do? should i pray ‘forgive me’ more? should i give more? should i work more? should i feel more? should i love more?

‘“Get your sins out of my sight. Give up your evil ways.”

... i feel i am god at times....

“Learn to do good. Seek justice. Help the oppressed. Defend the cause of the orphans. Fight for the rights of widows.”

i will prove that i can love you! poverty will end in my lifetime!! ... i am sorry. go on. how can i do this?

“Come now, let’s settle this!,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, I will make them as white as wool.”

it is not about me and what i must do. it is about you and what you have done.... thank you, thank you, thank you....

Order out of Chaos - Part 1

Isaiah 60 and Revelation 21, 22.

Cultural Renewal. Inside the Christian church the phrase might sound unspiritual. Outside of the church it could sound sinister, referring to a takeover of some sort. I think though it summarizes somethings that I have been learning from reading the Bible recently, listening to Tim Keller speak on the Bible, and reflecting on a discussion about related issues with my awesome wife.

Isaiah the prophet is prophesying in chapter 60. What is he prophesying about? It may at first seem to be of some future time where Israel and Judah have a great deal of economic and political power and wealth. It does indeed talk about the wealth of the nations coming and rulers who ‘used to oppress you’ now are coming to them. But if you look closer at this chapter you can see that it is not only referring to something that has never happened in history, but as far as we know could never happen in human history. Notice v 8-10. The view point of the prophecy is standing out and looking at the ocean. Across the whole horizon something white appears. Not clouds, birds, land, but the most massive of fleets. These names don’t mean a lot to us today, unless you do a little study, but Tarshish was the farthest thing West that anybody knew about, Midian and Sheba are lands to the South, Ephah was to the East, and Kedar was to the North. This is saying literally that all the wealth of the nations at this time is streaming into Jeruselem for the honor and glory of God. And not to make money! Over and over it says all of this is coming to proclaim the praise of the Lord (v. 6) and to the honor of the Lord your God. That has never happened and we cannot imagine it ever happening within human history. And then at the end of the passage (v. 18) it talks about a society where there is no violence, disorder, crime of any kind, no more war, no more sadness... and then (v. 19) this place does not even need the sun or moon anymore. I think at that point we can see that we are looking here at the renewed heavens and renewed earth in the future. At the end of Revelation John has a similar vision from God of the same time.

John and Isaiah (the whole Bible as a matter of fact) are unanimous on the future of the human race. What is heaven all about? What will we be spending the rest of eternity doing? Cultural activity. This society is filled with cultural activity here and I think we can at least see 4 things in the Isaiah chapter.

1. The goodness of culture, 2. The brokenness of culture, 3. The true diversity of culture, 4. And How culture can be redeemed

1. Let’s stand back and see what is being said here in Isaiah. Here we have the future state. There is commerce, architecture, science, art... in the future we have all of the cultural activities going on. Why? Because our future is a material future. The book of Revelation is very clear that at the end of time we don’t see God’s people as individuals leaving the material world and going off into spiritual bliss, a disembodied spiritual realm. Instead we see God coming down to cleanse and perfect THIS material world. Look at Jesus after the resurrection eating with his friends, where He was felt and spoken to. We are not going to be balls of light or points of conscienceness. We are going to hug and be hugged! We are LITERALLY going to eat, drink, and dance in the kingdom of God.

At the beginning of the Bible you have God with His hands in the soil making us. Also, keep this in mind here, Eastern religions have always said that the material world is an illusion, that it is not really important, and Western religions (the Greeks and Romans at least) thought the natural world was defiling and debasing. The spirit was good, the body was bad, and the dirt was worse. Unprecedented, compared to the worlds religions, we have God with His hands in the soil making us. And He makes us as gardeners! A gardener cultivates the land, which can also be said like this: a gardener cultures a piece of land. To cultivate or to do cultural activity is to arrange what you are working with in such a way as to draw out all of the enormous potentialities of it for the flourishing of human beings and the human community. For example, we need beauty - there are flowers. We need food - there is vegetation. A gardener is cultivating these things. This is cultural activity.

Mark Noll, a Christian historian, has a great list that is relevant to look at here: “Who formed the world of nature which provides the raw material of all of the physical sciences [which is a cultural activity by the way]? Who formed the universe of human interaction which is the raw material of politics, economics, sociology, and human history? Who is the source of all harmony and narrative patterns which is the raw material for art? Who is the source of the human mind which is the raw material for philosophy and psychology? And who moment by moment maintains the connection between our minds and the world beyond our minds? God did and God continues to do.”

The ‘land’ was and continues to be arranged so it brings forth ‘food’ which we need for the flourishing of human beings and human communities. Let’s continue the list: ‘What’s music? The raw material of sound is fashioned into music. What’s writing? What’s theater? It is taking the raw material of human experience and fashioning it into narrative and story.’ The human race cannot live without stories, beauty, art... these things give our life meaning... This is the same thing as gardening. We are taking the raw material of creation and drawing its potentialities out for the flourishing of human beings and especially for the human community. Even to the point of when someone combs another’s hair they are brining order out of chaos, same as the work of the Spirit in Genesis 1. We are unable to flourish unless someone cleans a house, maintains a car, sweeps the sidewalks - so called “menial work”...

When God, who originally started the world with His hands in the soil and who made the first human beings gardeners, when He became a human being He did not come the way a Greek god would have come, as a philosopher, or the way a Roman god would have come, as a General, but He came as a carpenter. The Biblical worldview has the HIGHEST possible view of the most “menial work” because everything from gardening to combing hair, to even investment banking is cultural activity. It is something that God is most concerned in doing. Starting in Genesis 1, the Spirit bringing order out of chaos, is concerned about creation, over and over again the Bible shows how the Spirit loves creation and cultivates creation...

What do I mean by creation? God existed, and then God decided to take the breath of life, which He alone had, and put it in some other being so there were other personal beings. And He gave them freedom. Knowing that by putting something that He had into these people, allowing them to see the light of day, and giving them free will, He knew that it was going to be incredibly costly. The investment was going to incredibly costly, infinitely so. And so why did He do it? Will it be worth it in the end - to have a whole universe filled with angels, humans, and who knows what else? All loving and praising! I definitely think so. God is actually the ultimate investment banker. Because what He did was He took His resources and risked them, and at infinite cost did something that actually expanded the beauty and glory of the universe.... By the way, when an investor sees a human need and sees a talent to meet that need and then risks their resources to create an enterprise that meets that human need and creates jobs and creates human flourishing - that is not just godly that is God-like...

The American church is continually perpetuating the deception that clergy and pastors are doing God’s work and others work solely to to give money to the church because they are doing God’s work and the people out in the ‘world’ are not. As capitalists they certainly have interest in doing so, but what Revelation and Isaiah are actually saying (as well as the rest of the Bible) is that the purpose of ‘saving souls’, all of the ‘spiritual’ work done in the church, is for the renewal of creation! When we get to the new Heavens and new Earth pastors will be out of a job. All of the souls will be saved, but we will still need musicians, architects, investment bankers... If the spirit of God is a preacher, proclaiming God’s word (John 16), He is also an artist (jeremiah 10:12), a gardener (Psalm 104:30). The spirit is saving souls, but ALSO committed to creation, committed to renewing creation, investing in creation, and drawing out its potentiality. And if the purpose of saving souls is to renew creation, then how dare we say that the church is doing God’s work and the rest are JUST there to give money to the church. How wrong is that?? There is no religion that gives you more reason to do cultural activity then Christianity. Do you know why? There are religions that say this material world isn’t real, others that say it is debasing, and the ‘secular’ that says that the world is eventually going to burn up, but the Bible says that cultural activity will go on forever. And that this is even what that Christianese word ‘redemption’ is about - to get back to the place where we really do the work that God gave us originally to do (cultural activity) - endlessly, unfrustratingly doing our art, doing our business, doing our music, doing our carpentry...

"Justice" in the Bible and a problem in translation if we read it with our American worldview

The NIV Bible has a word count of 127 for the word "justice". The idea and theme is spoken about a lot more... Does the American church have the right idea when speaking about "justice"? What does the Bible mean when it speaks of ""justice"?

According to the Old Testament, God’s justice means to share food, shelter, and other basic resources with those who have fewer of them (Is 58:6-10.) Injustice happens when people are barred from fair wages and therefore from the same goods and opportunities afforded others. (Lev 19:13, Jer 22:13.)

In Proverbs 3:27-28 it says:
"Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it. Do not say to your neighbor, Go, and come again, tomorrow I will give it--when you have it with you."

When you take your time, effort, money, skills - when it is in your power to fill the need of your neighbor, you are doing justice. This is the Biblical understanding of the word.

The Bible says to do good is to use what is in your "power" to do. The skills, time, money, and education that was GIVEN to you by God is this "power". Others have not been given the same "power" as you. You are commanded to give to them what is in their right to have. That is how you do "good". The Christian is in a sense commanded to ask and act on the question: What do I have that enables others to flourish? If we fail we fail on doing justice.

It is worded this way in another translation: "Don't withhold good from them which is their right."

Modern Americans have an incredibly individualistic approach to everything, if we are successful then we think that are success is the product of our individual choices... but let's think this through to the end. In reality, who you are is mainly the product of your community, your family, etc. A number of factors that are outside of our control (If you disagree, the first retort that comes to my mind is to have you think about how far your hard work would take you if you were born on the mountains of Tibet or the streets of southeast Fresno or Anacostia in D.C.... The reality is that a number of things have already gone our way in order for any of our hard work to pay off).

When modern Americans think of justice, they almost exclusively think of it in terms of individual rights. The idea is the opposite of the Biblical understanding of the word. It is the idea of removing individuals from networks so that they can do whatever they want to do. It's actually unraveling people from each other - "you have a right to do whatever you want; you should not worry about family commitments, you should not worry about anyone else, you have to worry about you want to do".

The biblical understanding of justice is that we OWE one another what we have. If I have been given by God education, money, and skills, I then owe it to my community to spread it around. If I hold it in I am actually tearing the very fabric of my community. It is the right of those that do not have that I do this. That is what Proverbs is saying here.

An American might object, 'I worked for my money! I have worked for what I have got! What do you mean it is their right?! Let them work for it, let them do what they want to do! People choose to be poor!'

An American MIGHT have some sense in saying this, but the church does not. We need to stop acting like Americans and start acting like Christians because the reality of the situation is this: (here is one example of reality) millions of kids around the world are stuck in neighborhoods and schools that are absolutely incompetent. By the time that they are in, say, High School they are illiterate, they have no kinds of skills that could make them any decent money in our economy and basically their lives are in a lot of trouble... Why are they in this condition? The answer is argued about by liberals and conservatives, but no one ever blames it on the kid! The truth is that my children will have an infinite amount more of a chance to succeed then these. The world is FULL of these inequitable distributions of resources. That is a fact and it is not the kids' fault! Some may argue that it is the families' or others that it is systematic racism within the city, but it is never the kid's fault. They never have a chance to choose the life they have! The never had a chance to "earn" another life! And if I don't use my "power" to plow into my neighbors (which is of course not meant as a geographical neighbor as we see in the Good Samaritan story) that are without, which is their right according to Proverbs, and say they can pull themselves up by their bootstraps... then I will be faced with the sobering reality that I did not pull myself up by my bootstraps. I worked very hard with what I HAD! I got so much and they got so very little. Americans are the last people in the world to see this... and Christians should be the first to see this. Because Christ came down and invested and plowed Himself into us. If we really believe that we are sinners saved by grace, then we will see how God knew that we could not pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. As Christians we have to identify with the poor because Jesus came down to identify Himself with us while we were poor, while we were lacking. If we don't see this, that all we have is an incredible gift and nothing of it was earned, then we don't have a saving faith (1 John 3:16-17; James 1-2), and we can just go about as all Americans do, fighting for our individual causes of "justice".

A failure in all of this is not just a lack of compassion, not just stinginess, it is a lack of justice. And the Lord of justice will judge with justice in the end...
A parable from Jesus (Matthew 18:23-34) describing the kingdom of God ends with - "Then his master summoned him and said to him, You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you? And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt."

We are called to follow the lead of the one only who was fully just, the one who invested everything in us through His death, that gained Him nothing, except for the opportunity to bring us back to Himself...

reading - day 3

DISCLAIMER - Today is the third of "ten days" where some people, including myself, are going to try and read through the whole Bible where we hit the 'highlights' in a sense. The third "day" (I guess I should say time period) is scheduled below. This is just a post so we can have a discussion group on the comments section. Everyone feel free to join the discussion at ANYTIME and about ANYTHING (small or big) in the reading.

1 Kings 3, 6-12
1 Kings 17-19, 21
2 Kings 1-2, 6-7, 11-12
2 Kings 17-23
1 Chronicles 15-17, 21-22, 28-29
2 Chronicles 5-10, 14-16
2 Chronicles 24-26, 29-35

Yikes! I know almost nothing about these 4 books... It is funny, I am at the same time both afraid of this reading session to be a trip through Yawnsville and wondering if a thought like that makes any sense if this book indeed contains the very word of God... hhmmmmm.......... Here is to not judging a book by its cover and actually trusting God that He knows what He is doing.....

Reading - Day 2

DISCLAIMER - Today is the second of "ten days" where some people, including myself, are going to try and read through the whole Bible where we hit the 'highlights' in a sense. The second day is scheduled below. This is just a post so we can have a discussion group on the comments section. Everyone feel free to join the discussion at ANYTIME.

Let's stretch this second day into 2. That was a lot of reading last night and it made a bit tired. This can also be so anyone at anytime can join the "discussion". I will try to put out more questions this time around than points.

Day 2 - Tuesday, October 6 and Wednesday October 7
Joshua 1-6, 23-24
Judges 1-4, 13-16
Ruth 1-4
1 Samuel 7-10, 12
1 Samuel 15-20, 28, 31
2 Samuel 5-8, 11-13, 15, 18

The walls of Jericho go tumblin down by the sound of the Israeli band... I know Ruth's story... I know there was a judge named Gideon and there was a lady judge... I know Samuel was important.... but other than that there is not much else I know before hand about this section in the Bible. This shall be very interesting.

reading

DISCLAIMER - Today is the first of ten days where some people, including myself, are going to try and read through the whole Bible where we hit the 'highlights' in a sense. The first five days are scheduled below. This is just a post so we can have a discussion group on the comments section.

To begin with, here is a general invitation to anyone who would like to join us at anytime, describing what we are trying to do.
Hi everybody. I have wanted to do this for quite sometime and thought today was a better day then ever to start. I have never read the Bible all of the way before, but am dieing to read it through to understand the arching story of the Bible better. To begin the journey, I am planning to go through the Bible first by hitting the 'highlights' I suppose, in 10 days. The plan is below. This I feel can give me at least a very general sense of the story line. I would be more inclined to actually do this if people actually did it with me. The more the better. I hope this can jump start a fire to burn in us for what's in that book. The very act in itself of course will not do it, but stepping out is the first thing, at times, to do before the Spirit takes a hold of you. 10 days to wet our appetites for a life time in the scriptures and a life desiring God... only by His help. only at the point in which He decides... Feel free to join the discussion that will start today in the comments section.

I think this section in John is relevant as we start in Genesis today:
John 5:39-47 - ³⁹ “You search the Scriptures because you think they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to me! ⁴⁰ Yet you refuse to come to me to receive this life. ⁴¹ “Your approval means nothing to me, ⁴² because I know you don’t have God’s love within you. ⁴³ For I have come to you in my Father’s name, and you have rejected me. Yet if others come in their own name, you gladly welcome them. ⁴⁴ No wonder you can’t believe! For you gladly honor each other, but you don’t care about the honor that comes from the one who alone is God.^e]">[e] ⁴⁵ “Yet it isn’t I who will accuse you before the Father. Moses will accuse you! Yes, Moses, in whom you put your hopes. ⁴⁶ If you really believed Moses, you would believe me, because he wrote about me. ⁴⁷ But since you don’t believe what he wrote, how will you believe what I say?”

and this one in James because reading the Bible does not allow us to just check off our God box for the week, as we read I pray that God will inflame us with what he has in store for us in our actual lives...
James 2:21-24
²¹ Don’t you remember that our ancestor Abraham was shown to be right with God by his actions when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? ²² You see, his faith and his actions worked together. His actions made his faith complete. ²³ And so it happened just as the Scriptures say: “Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith.”^g]">[g] He was even called the friend of God.^h]">[h] ²⁴ So you see, we are shown to be right with God by what we do, not by faith alone.

THE SCHEDULE
Day 1 - Today, October 5
Genesis 1-3, 12, 15, 22
Exodus 1-5
Exodus 12-14, 20
Leviticus 1, 10, 16, 25
Numbers 3-4, 6, 11-14
Deuteronomy 5-8, 28-31, 34

Day 2 - Tuesday, October 6
Joshua 1-6, 23-24
Judges 1-4, 13-16
Ruth 1-4
1 Samuel 7-10, 12
1 Samuel 15-20, 28, 31
2 Samuel 5-8, 11-13, 15, 18

Day 3 - Wednesday, October 7
1 Kings 3, 6-12
1 Kings 17-19, 21
2 Kings 1-2, 6-7, 11-122
Kings 17-23
1 Chronicles 15-17, 21-22, 28-29
2 Chronicles 5-10, 14-16
2 Chronicles 24-26, 29-35

Day 4 - Thursday, October 8
Ezra 3, 6-7
Nehemiah 1-2, 4, 6
Esther 1-4
Job 1-3, 38-41
Psalms 1, 8, 19, 23
Psalms 51, 100, 103, 139

Day 5 - Friday, October 9
Proverbs 1-3
Ecclesiastes 1-5, 12 and Songs 1-2
Isaiah 1-2, 6, 40, 52-55
Jeremiah 1-5 and Lamentations 3
Ezekiel 1-3, 18, 33

Genesis 1

20, 21 - Then God said, “Let the waters swarm with fish and other life. Let the skies be filled with birds of every kind.” So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that scurries and swarms in the water, and every sort of bird—each producing offspring of the same kind. And God saw that it was good.




click on one of the pictures if you have not yet

Coffee - exhaling after being inspired by Anne Lamott

Let me tell you about my day... Let's do it thematically - 1. Coffee, 2. Letting things go, 3. Sympathizing with addicts because I am one, 4. Feeling like I need to go on a run

1. Good coffee tastes like hot earth. Medium temperature coffee is just that - medium, average. It's like: 'Ok... I guess I just drank some coffee, but I might as well have been drinking air.' Medium temperature coffee makes the coffee not important, taken for granted. Hot coffee makes you say something like, 'I have something here... it's hot and significant!'

The taste of earth, I mean coffee, makes me feel like I am walking the streets of Toronto like I did one day last fall with Dani, like I am waiting to see Arcade Fire in Berkeley, like I am traveling across country...

My coffee is already cooling now. It's hard to appreciate things that are average. Instead of having something else say - "Stop and take notice!!", you are then responsible for your own awareness, your own savoring... See! Even after I just wrote that I downed the rest of my coffee.

2. I am not working today and I did not work yesterday. This is significant because this has not happened for sometime. Yesterday and today I have actually kept myself quite busy with many things, too much left-over anxiety from my now old Preschool teaching job. The day was finally too unaverage though for me not to take notice of it. My body feels good, my head in particular after having an earlier headache. It feels as good as a head does after a brain freeze. The juxtaposing normality of it feels so sweet. Like salt bringing out flavor.

3. I am just beginning to fight off the lingering effects of my Preschool/Bright Horizons teaching anxiety. It had started to feel so normal, like an old comfortable, reliable shoe, but yet even thinking about the job now makes my eyes glaze over. It had been hard to even drink the air that was in front of you.

Not too far away from me are nine kids sitting, standing as though they were taking up space at a high school between classes. They are talking but their only distinguishable words from my distance are: 'sucks', *uck', and 'dipsh*t'. That is honestly all I am hearing right now! 3/9 are smoking. A skater kid comes by. Now its 4/10. 1/10 looks like he is in 5th grade and 5/10 look like they could be aged 14 or 32...

I wonder if cigarettes taste like earth. I wonder if a good cigarette can be savored if it is significant enough. I am thinking certain words of theirs are being decibally emphasized because those are most significant... As I savor coffee I am more inclined to savor life. Cigarettes are at least 10 dollars (I don't know how much they really cost) of significance, and that is a lot for a high schooler the last time I checked. Maybe one of them is the working mom/dad and the cost is not that burdensome... some of them could honestly be in high school or not by a decade...

4. I think we innately look for significance in life. We seek it out. Some might be tired of looking and have momentarily stopped, but to the degree that you are alive, to that same degree we all want our coffee to be hot. In this we are made aware, in this we start breathing the oxygen instead of being forced to down it.

I want God to weigh on me right now because He is the most significant thing I know of, but I don't know how to make it happen because it usually does so unexpectedly - like in the shower, after running recently to where my lungs hurt, in the middle of tending to three kids crying for three different reasons at the Preschool, etc... But it does happen. God does show up and wakes me up. His significance floors me and for that moment, at least, I am undone. For that moment I am opened up to the world because I am not standing in the way, I am on the ground. I am made aware of what is already happening...

God is the hottest coffee I know and my truest parts are addicted to that significance. I often lose my train of thought though and get distracted. I often like less significant things because they feel more comfortable, but then more significant things wake me up to my senses, to more of what is going on... And since I can't control God to have Him weigh on me in a moment's notice, I have decided that I am going to try to have things I have read from the Bible recently weigh on me today because they have reminded me of God's significance and not my own, that significance/glory that moves you into His movement, His shalom (I talked about shalom last post so I won't get into it now)... And one more thing before I list weights I want to put on myself today, I think most things that make me forget about myself are tangible movements of God/His visible glory (I have talked about glory also in other posts...)

1. Jesus said once that you won't understand what He was saying until you actually did it
2. Isaiah 58:6b "remove the chains that bind people"
3. Duet. 7 - God loves His people just because He loves them
4. the end of Job, Job 40:2
5. Psalm 103

I don't have much that I have to for the rest of the day and I am still awake from the coffee to feel like I actually want to go for a run. I did recently run into God (no pun intended) on a run, so I am thinking that is a good place to start??... I am told though that God is everywhere and so then maybe the times when His significance bares down on us so that we are made to feel His glory are moments His of grace. Grace for our heads to be forced up and out of the pit we dig ourselves into in the hoe-hum, comfortable, easy lives we lead.

I want to be ready. I want to be ready for these moments of grace. I want to always have my cup ready. And I think I know its God when He does not let me keep my cup full, but helps me pour it out on others, knocking it out of my hand if He must, because coffee becomes cold if you keep it too long, if you just hold on to it...

I think the Bible is kind of like a coffee sleeve. It keeps me holding onto the significance until it is time to be poured out. I am sure God's significance is everywhere, but only in the Bible have I been able to find a way to make sense of all of that significance and find a way to pour it out to where it's not just about me and my cries of significance as I spill the hot coffee all over me (if I don't have the coffee sleeve) saying, "WOW, OW! That was significantly hot!!" I am sure many others may believe it was hot for me, but nothing felt hot to them. I am sure the temperature was very average without feeling the coffee and the sounds somewhat annoying... I don't know why, but I have found God's love to cry out to be communal, the love loses significance if it is just for me or about me... maybe it is because of God's trinitarian nature...

Lord, your significance burns me. I am scared of myself comfortably numb and neutral to life, the way I often find myself in, because in that I don't really feel love for others, I am mainly thinking of myself, not aware of what is around me. But when your significance burns me, I burn for others... Maybe this awareness is a moment of your grace. Maybe you are weighing down on me right now... All I know is that I feel like I am burning for other people right now, and I don't know how to not keep it just to myself. Break me, burn me, and leave a mark so I cannot help but display your significance... I am sure you would never leave me or anyone to keep your significance to their selves and I am sure I am just saying this for my own benefit... (maybe that is the essence of prayer, an exercise in becoming aware of you Lord, maybe prayer is moments of grace from you... thank you, thank you, thank you...)... ok... I think I am going to go running now.

Shalom, Justice, and Grace

Isaiah 58:1-14

In verse 2 God begins to describe a particular group of people “seeking” out God. In this it is talking about those worshiping God, going to Temple, the sacrificial system, prayer... These are people that are very diligent in seeking out God, not just a burst and then its over. These are people that sustain. “They seem eager to know my ways.” contrasts with verse 1 and so the translation tries to come to terms with it. In Hebrew, though, it actually says that they are passionate to know my laws. Verse 3 tells us, in spite of the fact that they are religiously diligent, that God is not answering their prayers. Bad things are happening to these people. ‘God, why aren’t you helping?’ they say...

God’s response is startling: ‘Let me tell you what a fast is. Let me tell you what worship is. Let me tell what it really means to seek me. Is it not to loosen the chains of injustice, to untie the cords of the yoke and set the oppressed free, to share your food with the hungry, to provide the poor wonder with shelter, to see the naked and clothe him.’

Matthew 25 draws greatly from Isaiah 58, but also from many other places in the Old Testament. Proverbs 14:31, 19:17... According to Matthew 25, this is what God will say to the people who are lost on the last day: “Depart from me you who are cursed into everlasting fire for I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was naked and you did not clothe me, I was a stranger and you did not give me shelter, I was sick and imprisoned and you did not look after me. ‘Lord when did we see you in these conditions?’ they will say. And the Lord will say what ever you did not do for the least of these you did not do for me.’

Summary: God says, ‘If you do not love the poor, the hungry, then no matter what you say you don’t love me. You do not have a relationship with me. It is a formal relationship full of compliance and ordinances, but you really don’t have a relationship with me. The way you treat the poor tells me the reality of how you regard me. Or a deep social conscience and a life poured out in deeds of service to others, especially the poor, is the inevitable sign of real faith and a real connection with God. This is a real index of the condition of your heart. In other words, justice is the grand symptom of real faith, of a real relationship with God. It will be there, maybe slowly, but it will develop. If it never develops in your life then you don’t have the relationship you think you have.

This is at the heart of Biblical faith.

In Isaiah 1:17 - Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow... If you don’t do this you don’t have me He it in a sense says. ‘You may think you do, but you don’t’ God says in a sense.

The big question we need to ask and eventually answer in some way is why would God say that a deep concern for justice for the poor goes together with a love relationship with Him? that it is the inevitable sign of a love relationship with Him?

Let’s talk about this word ‘justice’ that we see in our Old Testament, that we see in Isaiah 1, 58. We don’t have quite the same definition for justice orignally intended as we do in our western culture. What does the Bible mean by justice? I think we kind see a definition if we look at Isaiah 58 a bit more.

Behind the biblical idea of justice is the rich concept of shalom. Verse 7 - provide the poor wonderer with shelter... What is a poor wonderer? It is more sharply defined as a stranger. According to the Hebrew commentators, a poor wonderer was basically an alien from another country who came into your country with virtually nothing. A refugee basically... Later in the verse it says do not turn away form your own flesh and blood, your own blood relatives, your family. But how can God apply this to a refugee of another race?

In ancient times, family was everything. You never conceived of your individual progress and happiness apart from your family. If your family wasn’t moving ahead in the world then you couldn’t. It was impossible. That was good in a way, but in another way it led to tribalism and racism because blood was everything in this world. And here God is saying that another from a different race who is hungry and poor in your neighborhood, that person is as much your flesh and blood as if you were related to them by blood. God says, ‘I hold you responsible for them’. There is a solidarity between you two that your idolatrous cultural attachment to race and blood has blinded you to, but I am not blind to it.

Shalom is at the very core of the Old Testament, of the whole Bible in fact. Shalom means peace. But it means something much more. God created the world to be a fabric woven together, interdependent. The Bible says that all of the entities of the world were meant to be in a beautiful, harmonious, interdependent, knitted webbed relationship to each other similar to fabric threads stitched and woven together in hundreds and thousands of ways.

3 examples to more clearly define shalom: (1) the human body. When all of the parts of your body are working harmoniously together you experience health. But if you have cancer, it means that part of your body was not working with other parts of your body and you experience the unraveling of physical shalom. Death is the total unraveling of physical shalom. (2) your inner psyche. If your conscience, reason, and feelings are all working together you experience inner shalom. But if your feelings really want something that your conscience says is wrong you experience guilt, the unraveling of psychological shalom. Anger, fear, meaninglessness, emptiness are other expressions... (3) When people have money and resources and they invest it into the human community, into the parks, schools, and community places, the strong social fabric created is social shalom. But when those that have ignore those that have less or none and hold onto everything then the social fabric or shalom unravels.

In It’s A Wonderful Life - George Bailey, head of a family who has been pushing, sharing, and investing their resources into their town for many years meets an angel named Clarence. Clarence shows George what his town would be like if it were without him. Bedford Falls becomes Potterville. When George is taken out, the rich people of that town hold on to their money and the result is the social fabric falling apart.

A definition of shalom as used in the Bible - the webbing together of God, humans, and all creation in equity, fulfillment, and delight

We translate shalom in the Bible as peace. It means a lot more then that. Universal flourishing, wholeness and delight, a rich state of affairs where natural needs are satisfied and natural gifts are faithfully employed all under the arc of God’s love. In other words, shalom is the way things ought to be.

This is different then Western culture’s idea of justice. With justice you think of individual rights. Justice as freeing an individual from the constrictions of the group. Freeing individuals to do what they want no matter what the group says. Biblical justice is different. It brings people to see that your stuff is not just yours.

I read in a commentary of Proverbs that whenever your read righteous and wicked here is what you should think if you want to read how it was intended to be read: the righteous people are those who disadvantage themselves for the community and the wicked people are those who see their resources as belonging to just them. Your reading of the Bible dramatically changes when you put that definition in place of our stagnate, just scratching the surface English words of righteousness and wickedness.

According to the Bible, to do justice means that you go to the places that the fabric is breaking down, where the weaker members of the society are falling through, where the interdependence is not happening. Look at the place where it says share your food with the hungry (in Isaiah 58). Hebrew commentators point out that this more sharply means ‘to serve and wait on the hungry’. This is an example of doing justice according to verse 6. If you don’t share your food with others it is not just stinginess, it is unjust. And this is NOT just saying to give money so that somebody else can serve the food. This says literally to get involved. In other words, to do justice means that you take all of the threads of your life (your emotions, your body, your time, your stuff, your money) and interweave it with people through thousands of involvements. Over, under, around, through.... shalom...

In many cities around the world, you have children growing up in which the combination of their families and school put together creates illiteracy. And when you get to High School age in this state this kids are ruined. It is nearly impossible for social and economic flourishing at that point. They are locked into poverty for the rest of their lives. Why is this happening to possibly millions of children around the world? There is a liberal analysis and a conservative economic, political analysis. The liberal would say that is happening because of unjust social structures. The conservative would say that it is happening because of the breakdown of the family. But nobody says it is the kid’s fault. Nobody is saying that the 7 year old should move themselves to another school district, should make sure that their parents read to them at home. It is not their fault. But the simple fact is that my child will have a potentially insurmountable greater percentage of chance of social and economic flourishing (and happiness in general) then those kids in those neighborhoods. This is proof of the enormous inequitable distribution of resources and opportunities in this world. This is just one example of how the shalom of this world has been broken, of the injustice of this world... If I do not share the advantages that this unjust world has shared with me with them then that in itself is unjust.

Isaiah 58 also talks about injustice as a yoke. A yoke is something you put on an animal. This is God talking about unjust situations like the previous situation of kids growing up illiterate. It is a yoke. They are being ground down by this social structure like an animal... Notice also that it says don’t just loosen the yoke, but break the yoke. It does not just say get those kids out of those schools, it says change those schools. Change those neighborhoods. It is not enough to just do individual charity. You have to handle social structures. That is what the Bible says...

Are you feeling guilty yet?

Guilt blows over though. You get use to it. It does not last. As a motivation it does not last. And it will never make anyone do justice as the Bible talks about justice. Guilt will not be enough....

So then what will be enough? What will make a person really do justice?

To answer that question let’s first answer this question - Why would Jesus say (in Matthew 25 and many other places): if you really have a love relationship with me you will care for the poor?

Let us be very careful here. When you look at the three passages that I have written about Isaiah 58, 1, and Matthew 25, you may see it as just another addition to the to do list to get God to answer your prayers, to have Him give you the life you want, to have Him bless you, to have Him take you to Heaven... If that is what you think (and this is what I have ALWAYS thought) then you have missed the whole point of these passages. This is a critique of that kind of religion. What is wrong with the people from Isaiah 58:2-3 is that they are trying to put this pressure on God. They are saying that, ‘We have lived a very good life and now you owe us.’

If you say ‘now I am going to be biblically orthodox, religious, personally moral, I am going to worship and pray, and now I am going to give my money to the poor then God will bless me and take me to Heaven...’ If you do this you have not only done zero to change the fundamental self-absorption of your heart (the self-centered default mode of the human heart which is making this world the unjust mess that it is) then you have made it worse! Now you have hidden it under the guise of religion! Think about it, if you live a moral life, if you read the Bible and pray, you are not doing it for God’s sake, the poor’s sake or even for goodness sake, you are doing it for you. You are being good out of self-absorption. That does not help a thing.

Most of the way we get people to be good is through this way, through self-centeredness. We increase their self-centeredness to make them honest. We use fear and pride. Fear based ways: ‘Be honest and you won’t get in trouble.’ ‘Be good or God will get you.’ Pride based ways: ‘You don’t want to be like those awful people who tell lies do you? You are better then that!’ But why is it that people lie? Because of fear and pride. When you use fear and pride in this way you are nurturing evil in another’s life. You have not changed the heart, you have only restrained it. That will never produce anyone who does justice the way the Bible pleads for it, says how it ought to be - full of radical sacrifice, radical giving, plunging oneself into thousands of involvements into ones community.

What will change soneone then to do justice??? Beauty

The very end of the Isaiah 58 passage speaks of beauty saying when the Sabbath day (a worship ordinance) is done out of delight, not because you have, but as an end in itself, and when your joy is in the Lord...

Why do I like to sit by the lake, listen to music, watch a great movie... Because it is beautiful, because it is satisfying in itself. It is a delight in itself. It is not a means to an end, it is an end...

How can we get to the place where we obey God and love the poor and do good for God’s sake, the poor’s sake and not for our sake? You have to have an experience of beauty.

Overwhelming beauty can get us out of ourself and can distribute our attention to those around us. Beauty can stop us, transfix us, and take us away from our preoccupation with ourself and prompt its distribution to others.

When Jesus says when you love the poor you love me and when you step all over the poor you step on me - it is saying that God identifies with the poor. What does that mean? Is it just empathy, feelings, and sympathy? Only Christianity tells you how far God really went to identify with the poor. When God came to earth He was born in a feeding stall. He grew up as the poorest of the poor (his parents sacrifice during his circumcision was only 2 pigeons which delineated that they were the poorest of the poor). He was essentially homeless at least during the last three years of His life. He ate His last meal in a borrowed room. He died and was buried in a borrowed tomb... God became poor...

God also became oppressed. Centering solely on His final night you can see a blinding example of injustice.

Author JoAnne Terrell - grew up quite bitter, living a life filled with injustice being a black American woman. She wrote about suddenly realizing that Jesus Christ did not just suffer for us, He suffered with us. Jesus Christ had been lynched, lynched by a corrupt justice system. Jesus knew what it was like to be under the lash.

“I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the cross... In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it?” - John Stott

Only Christianity says that God was not. Only Christianity says that on the last day, if we say, ‘When did we see you hungry, thirsty, a prisoner?’ Jesus will say, ‘They cast lots for my clothes, while I was naked. I cried out ‘I thirst!’ I was imprisoned, I was beaten, I was flogged.’ God literally became one of the oppressed. He literally went under the yoke. Why? Jesus said, I who deserved justice got condemnation so that you who have torn the shalom of this world to bits, who deserve condemnation get pardon and justice.

Jesus plunged Himself into our lives. He took all of the threads of His glory, at infinite cost to Himself, and threaded Himself into our lives and saved us.... and that is the beauty that will get you out of yourself.

When you see what He did for you that gets rid of your fear - He died for you so what is there to fear... It gets rid of your pride - He had to die for you so what makes you think you are anything but a sinner. And when the fear and the pride go away and all you see is the beauty of what He has done... now you can love Him just because He is beautiful. Because of all He has given me. You can say that you don’t have to do anything to get anything. You just want Him. And in this you can love the poor for the poor’s sake and you can love God for God’s sake. That is the beauty that can change your heart and not just restrain it. That is the beauty that will get you out of yourself forever.

And through this most profound experience of grace, I personally have found myself finally seeing justice for the first time.