The Seven in Eleven Challenge

A new challenge for the new year.


For the first two decades or so of my walk with Jesus I read the Bible intensively – the Old Testament several times a year, the New Testament on average once every two months or so. The last ten years it’s seemed time to slow down a bit and do some savoring, which has been wonderful.

But this week it hit me just how refreshing it would be to aim for mulitiple readings of the New Testament again – in fact, to read it through cover to cover seven times in 2011.

Want to join me?

Here are the facts: there are 260 chapters in the New Testament, 7956 verses (depending on who’s doing the counting and which translation we’re talking about) and 138,020 words. But break it down. To read the New Testament through seven times in ’11 will translate into reading on average five chapters a day. At this rate you will finish each read through in just over a month and a half and averaging about 30-45 minutes a day; I imagine I will miss some days entirely, and on other days I’ll read whole books in one sitting just because I can – and that’s the best way to read them anyway. The purpose of this kind of reading is grasping a more panoramic view rather than in depth studies – but plenty will pop as you go along.

And how about taking that panoramic view from several different angles – mix it up and choose a different translation for each read through.

I think my reading menu will be:

1. Greek New Testament (UBS text)

2. ESV

3. Message

4. KJV

5. Da Jesus Book

6. The Jewish New Testament

7. Greek New Testament (Majority text)

Make up your own menu – and if seven times sounds too ambitious (or not ambitious enough), do your own calculations and set your own goal. But whatever you end up doing, how about we all as radical followers of Christ make the commitment to do our part personally to stamp out biblical illiteracy and be avid readers of the Book this year? Savor each Jesus metaphor and story and parable as it passes; adventure with Luke through Acts, look over Paul’s shoulder in the epistles, ask John “Sir, just what are you on?” when you get to Revelation; watch for each glimpse of Him and the Way. And even as you pass over it at high altitude and at higher speeds, watch for those times when he calls you to take a flying leap of radical life change and application.

Let the Word make a fresh impression on your mind.

Read this year. Come on.

And let it – Him – shape your heart and soul as you do.

Are you game?

On building bridges...and blowing them up

Warning: major spoiler alert if you haven’t seen the movie…

The headman of a village in Ceylon surveyed the huge, awesome new bridge that had finally been completed in the rugged jungle. The people of his village had helped build it. Fearing evil, the village’s devil dancers had performed ceremonial rites on it, priests had murmured incantations, coconuts had been broken on it, limes squeezed on it, drums beaten, and streamers of betel leaves hung – all to drive the devils away from it. “Now,” the headman told Hollywood producer Sam Spiegel for whom the bridge was built, “the spirits will preserve your bridge for all time.”

There was an irony in his words beyond the headman’s comprehension. How was he to understand that Spiegel and a large, expert crew had dedicated themselves wholly to blowing up this bridge – stupendously, magnificently – for the climax of a new motion picture, The Bridge on the River Kwai.

All the labor of eight months – cutting down 1,500 giant trees in the jungle, shaping them into pillars, loading them onto the backs of forty-eight elephants to be dragged to the building site, pile-driving them into the ground to create a structure larger than any in Ceylon (425 feet long and 90 feet high) at a cost of over $250,000 – was to go, one week after the headman spoke, to providing one thirty-second scene in which 1,000 tons of dynamite would destroy the bridge at the precise moment when a railroad engine pulling six cars was crossing it.

At Kitulgala, after the bridge had fallen in ruins, the souvenir hunters swarmed over the wreckage. Some took undamaged timber for practical purposes, like building fences and sheds. Parts of the train were gathered by junk men for scrap metal (after sixty-five years in service the engine had been completely refurbished for its 30 seconds of glory in the finale). The torrential river swept away a good deal of what remained. As for the natives, it is reported that many still go to the site of the bridge and gaze at it. They look at the scene and still cannot comprehend why anyone would want to build a bridge and blow it up, carve a road through the mountainside, and then abandon it. The headman of the village, who predicted long life for the bridge, still presides over his village’s life and activities. No reporter has asked him to comment on the explosion.  – from the original The Bridge on the River Kwai souvenir book, produced in 1957

I so love this film, even after the umpteenth viewing a month or two ago, that I preordered the deluxe blu-ray as soon as I saw a release date for it on Amazon. The book inside was worth it. I had never read the story of the bridge before – or about the genesis of the film. I read it from cover to cover several times right after opening it. The story excerpted above about the headman of the village praying over the bridge is classic.

It’s a real life parallel to the one of the key kingdom lessons for me in the film:

Don’t get too attached to the things we build, whether it’s a physical structure or a philosophical or theological one.

Nicholson was obsessed with his bridge.

He was obsessed with building a “proper bridge” that would show “these barbarians” what the British soldier was capable of doing. It became for him a monument to his culture and his people – as well as the crowning achievement of his career. It gave his men a point of focus, it restored their morale and discipline, and he revelled in the fact that “the people who use this bridge in years to come will remember how it is built and who built it; not a gang of slaves, but soldiers, British soldiers, even in captivity.”

The exchange with his engineer officer epitomizes his obsession:

Reeves: “Oh by the way, sir, I meant to tell you. There are trees in this forest very similar to elm, and the elm piles of London Bridge lasted nearly six hundred years.”

Nicholson: “Six hundred years, Reeves?”

“Why, yes sir.”

“Six hundred years. That would be quite something.”

This fixation on the bridge resulted in some of the most delicious ironies of the film: to finish his bridge on time, Nicholson ends up doing the very things his captors had threatened to do. The great conflict occupying the first hour or so of the movie over whether the British officers have to do manual labor is finally won by Nicholson. But he utlimately puts all of them to work himself. The Japanese commandant, Saito, threatened to close the hospital and send the sick to work. Nicholson called it blackmail – but in the end empties the hospital himself so the sick can engage in “light duties” in finishing the bridge.

And all the while he forgets one very important wee detail: he is building a bridge for his enemy as part of a railway that will supply the invasion of his beloved India.

The irony is indeed delicious. The point simple – delivered by the one truly sane person in the entire story, the British doctor, Clipton: “Madness!” How easily reality gets turned every which way not only in war but in all of life. How attached we get to our buildings, our achievements, our systems. How quickly our identity becomes inseperable from them. We want to build churches that will last. They won’t. We want to build small groups that will ever end. They will. We construct theological systems of doctrine and belief that will provide the ultimate bridge taking us and generations to come all right to the shores of heaven. But before you know it, some new team of commando reformers will blow it to kingdom come as they then erect their own bridge in it’s place, only to have another upstart do the same to their work, and so on and so forth.

How attached we get to the things we build. How loosely we need to hold them.

The greatest structures – the most useful bridges we build today for the kingdom – potentially become the greatest detour in enemy hands even as faithful generations in later years desperately try to maintain them and defend them. What was an Ebenezer becomes a Nehushtan. You remember Nehushtan, don’t you? “Nehushtan” was the name Hezekiah gave to the famed bronze serpent that Moses made at the Lord’s direction generations before. That “snake on a stick” had served as a means of healing as grumbling and snake-bitten Israelites looked to it with faith that they would recover. That’s in Numbers 21. Nothing more is said about it until the reference in 2 Kings 18:4, possibly over 700 years later. It was no longer the bronze snake that was a means through which healing came to a generation. Now it was an idol among many in the temple to which incense was burned. But to Hezekiah it was just “a thing of brass” (=Nehushtan). And he smashed it to pieces.

Building is good. Many of us in this current generation have become experts in demolition. We blow up the traditional and church institutions as well as traditional systems of doctrine and theology. That’s not always a bad thing! Shame on us for perpetuating something that has lost it’s way rather than being prepared to blow it up ourselves and begin anew. Shame on us for desperately clinging to our structures, for fighting those who show up to demolish them, for ignoring the fact that it may be divine orders sending them to do it in the first place. But all that being said, all too often those who blow up bridges that have ceased functioning as useful bridges or that in fact are now being used by the enemy to advance his agenda, have no idea what to build in its place. Building is good.

It’s just that we need to always build with an anticipation of blowing it up eventually.

God tends to build temporary bridges. He lives in tents more than he does in temples. And in point of fact, he blew up the temple he had built for himself. Twice. And now he lives in a people that are on the move (but oh how we are driven to build ourselves a permanent home!) even as He Himself is constantly on the move like the wind that no one knows “where it’s coming from or where it’s going” (but oh how we are driven to confine that wind in our own familiar and safely constructed boxes, rather than enjoying its sound in the trees and in the singing of the chimes!).

So build wisely, build well – even build a “proper bridge.”

Just remember it’s temporary, and be prepared to blow it when its time has come.

And when it is blown, may we rejoice as the locals swarm over its ruins and find all kinds of constructive uses for the debris from what we have built – even if it was the largest structure on the little island of our generation.

Ten Suggestions on how to clothe yourself in humility

Someone sent me to this YouTube link of Mark Driscoll sharing ten suggestions on how to practically clothe yourself in humility. Driscoll blesses me anyway, even in his famous (or infamous) rants, but this was especially refreshing! If you hate Driscoll, please look beyond the messenger to the message. It’s worth the 6 minutes or so. I’ve summarized the ten suggestions below from the video with some of my own elaborations, and some of his that were simply too good not to put in print. Others speak nicely for themselves.


Follow the truth wherever it leads.
If it leads you to change your church, change your mind, admit you are wrong, admit others are right…

Invite and pursue correction and counsel.
Usually correction is something we only want to give to others...but wise people love receiving it, even gift-wrapped under the tree -- especially from other wise people (as opposed to wise guys).

Learn from everyone.
Religious and irreligious, Calvinist and Arminian, dogmatic and mystic, Rohr and Piper; maintain a wide  bandwidth; read across that bandwidth not to disprove, but to learn. Humility assumes there is always something to learn, and the greatest lessons will often come from voices we normally would never listen to…and also learn from the idiots who criticize you, if only how to grow in greater grace and patience. Remember, it was an ass that finally got through to Balaam...

Repent quickly and thoroughly.

Seek and celebrate God’s grace in other people.
Yes, even people outside of your church, theological, ethnic, political, socio-econmic or racial grouping…

Cultivate a spirit of thankfulness.

Listen to Scripture more than yourself.
This one is really tricky, especially since our major tendency is to listen to Scripture for others as we keep hearing the same message we’ve programmed into our head confirmed there over and over again; let God in His Word challenge your well-worn doctrinal ruts…stop replaying the same favorites.

Exalt the name of Jesus in all you do.

Laugh.
Proud people cannot laugh – especially at themselves. Proud people have no sense of humor. We need to know that we are ridiculous. “How dare you mock me!” I have to, you’re ridiculous! The material is begging for use!

Sleep.
Proud people don’t sleep well. They’re worried, “How will this work out? What are people thinking? What are people saying? What are people doing? How are people perceiving me? How are people responding to me? What do people want from me? What will be the result for me?” They are so worried. Reminds me of the cartoon – the husband late at night refusing to come to bed because there are more errors to correct in these blog comments!

Humble people seek to honor Jesus in others. They know they are in process. They know they have not arrived. As a result, they go to bed and sleep well, simply acknowledging that God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble, and eventually Jesus will work it all out. It’s time for me to sleep in faith.

Shepherds today

Just in case you didn’t see this article from USA today this week, here’s some excerpts from it (see the entire article at http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2010-12-23-1Ashepherds23_CV_N.htm).


It was prominently featured on the front page, and the heading caught my attention immediately – since I am by vocation a shepherd or pastor. I offer it here for any readers who are pastors or parents or small group leaders – I see certain parallels from all three perspectives.

Except perhaps the castration of lambs with your teeth.

No wait, never mind – actually there are parallels there too. I don’t want to draw out the parallels and lessons. I’d rather leave that for you to discover and explore – perhaps after a reading of John 10.

And as you contemplate those shepherds 2,000 years ago outside Bethlehem, think of these in our own backyard right here in Canyon county.

Feliz Navidad!

Today's shepherds are alone on the range at Christmas

This Christmas they are out there still, watching their flocks at all hours, in snow, rain and fog, so we can eat our lamb and wear our wool. They are from places you might expect — the Peruvian and Chilean highlands, mostly — working in a place you might not, here in the USA. About 1,500 shepherds will spend Christmas in the deserts and valleys of the Mountain West, working and living in conditions not that different from those of first-century Judea. They will be on foot and in the open, alone except for a few dogs and 2,200 sheep. They will sleep in cramped, battered trailers lit by kerosene lantern or candle, without electricity, running water or toilets.

It has been a half-century since Americans were willing to trail sheep on the open range, a job the writer Robert Laxalt has called "the region's most denigrated occupation." So ranchers import men on guest visas to work three-year contracts and then leave the USA when their contract is up. Some shepherds return after signing up for another three years. Like the Spanish Basques who preceded them as shepherds, the Andeans are considered hard working, stoic and resourceful. Unlike the Basques — because of post-9/11 immigration policy — their toil will not earn them a "green card" and the right to stay in this country. So they come for the money, which ranges from $1,400 a month in California to at least $750 a month elsewhere. They get two weeks' vacation, which most take as pay; health and life insurance; and board and room — "big room," as the old sheepherder's joke has it, "200 miles wide."

Because these men are on call every hour of almost every day, the pay works out to far less than the minimum wage. But the $20,000 they can save over three years is far more than they could earn at home. It's enough to build a house or educate the children or start a small business. For that, they put up with the loneliness, the boredom, the occasional terror — a sudden blizzard, a pack of wolves. For that, the Peruvians who work for the Soulen Livestock ranch resign themselves to another Navidad amidst the sage brush and cheat grass of southwestern Idaho. It will be the fourth for Marino Llacua, 49, husband of Rebecca and father of six; the 10th for Ruben Santiago, 39, husband of Magda and father of eight, including a 4-month-old; the second for Walser Vilcampoma, 39, husband of Santa Anna and father of four. Despite their bosses' attempts to give them Christmas cheer, "It will be a normal day," Vilcampoma says in Spanish. He explains, with no apparent regret: "I have to be with the sheep."

Tough job, tough life

In popular imagination, the shepherd is a bucolic figure, leading contented, obedient sheep across the pastoral landscape. Reality is something else, according to Cesar Ayllon, the 41-year-old Peruvian émigré who is the Soulen ranch foreman: "There is so much that can go wrong." The good shepherd must study the sheep, worry about them, care about them. He must protect them from mountain lions and toxic plants, be sure they don't eat too much alfalfa or swallow a frozen apple. The good shepherd sleeps lightly and rises early. He talks to the border collies and listens to the guard dogs, 120-pound, white-coated Akbashes. An aggressive low bark means coyotes but a cry means wolves, and that is why the shepherd has a rifle.

The good shepherd knows how to castrate the lambs the old-fashioned way — with his teeth. On the open range without clean water "it's quicker, easier and more sanitary," says Margaret Soulen Hinson, co-owner of the third-generation family ranch business. The good shepherd notices when a ewe is limping, possibly from mud frozen in her hooves that must be cleaned out. He is oblivious to the job's most appealing benefit — the view.

Sheepherding in America has always been an immigrant's job, too dirty, too cold and too lonely for anyone with options. Today's shepherds are men with rough hands, jet black hair and brown, weathered faces. They wear layer upon layer of old faded clothes and thick rubber boots. They were subsistence farmers, miners, laborers, carpenters. They grew up around sheep, but many never even saw a band of 2,000, and none ever led one worth $300,000 on a year-long, 380-mile circuit from desert to city (Caldwell, pop. 43,000) to Alpine forest, an altitude change of 5,000 feet. The sheep are always moving — through federal, leased and ranch-owned land — because they are always eating, and seeking warmth in winter and cool in summer.

In the colder months, two men live together in a 7-by-14-foot trailer (called a sheep wagon or campito) that periodically is moved up the trail by a ranch pickup. It contains a platform bed for two; a pull-out table; a 5-gallon water container; two bench seats; and an ancient, cast-iron, wood-burning stove that vents through a pipe in the roof. In the mountainous summer range, herders move by horse and sleep in tents. They often work alone and might go a week without seeing another human being. They're able to take only sponge baths, and they bury their excrement with a shovel.

Christmas will find America's shepherds camped across the West, from the Mojave Desert in Southern California to Wyoming's Painted Desert. The Soulen flocks will be in the Snake River plain — "tranqulido," Llacua says, except for the coyotes. "I will do my job, and wait." Llacua says that when he's out with the sheep he feels closer to God…

-- Rick Hampson, USA Today

I date models

The Church gives us not a system, but a key; not a plan of God’s City, but the means of entering it. Perhaps someone will lose his way because he has no plan. But all that he will see, he will see without a mediator, he will see it directly, it will be real for him; while he who has studied only the plan risks remaining outside and not really finding anything. Georges Florovsky

 

It’s a great line from an Andy Stanley podcast someone recently shared with me:

 

Date your models, be married to your values.

 

Stanley presents it as an organizational principle – one pointing to our great need for flexibility when it comes to organizational systems and procedures and policies. His point is to know and hold to your values without wavering, but to hold your models, your systems, your policies loosely, because the latter are subject to change depending on how we need to apply and live out the former.

 

Great principle! It’s one we often fail to recognize, and when that happens we can actually find ourselves with a system that is working counter to the very things we stand for – like the Pharisees of old upholding a tradition/system of offering that ended up flying in the face of a key value on which the people of Israel were founded (see Mark 7).

 

Makes me wonder. Just what is it that I’m married to? While this isn’t an exhaustive list, this is how I’d summarize where my non-negotiable commitment lies:

 

I am married to the One, the Only, the Trinitarian God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit;

I am married to the Story of the Great Rescue he has accomplished in the Son and is bringing to completion as “all things are summed up under one head, even Christ”;

I am married to the Book that faithfully tells this Story.

 

That’s not exactly how Paul sums it up in 1 Corinthians 15:1-8 or in Ephesians 4:1-6, but it’s an accurate description of where I’m planted.

 

It’s taken me thirty years to finally get something of a grip on what it is that I’m married to – chiefly because during the first two decades of that thirty year journey I didn’t date a model, I married it. The model masqueraded as the Mate and I was so taken in by it that I truly lost sight of the Groom altogether. In many ways, I had failed to see Him at all due to the veil of the model I married.

The “model” or system was one that I was taught as being identical with the Book; if you loved the Book, if you took the Book seriously (and thus took God seriously) then this is the model you would hold to. The model literally wrapped itself in the Book – verses everywhere to be memorized and repeated. It was solidly Arminian (a heavy nod to man’s free will, to “whosoever will”) and decidely anti-Calvinist. I learned the TULIP of Calvinism by heart to defeat it: “This is what Calvinists say (false teachers all!) and here are all the verses that clearly defeat their great errors, their gross and falacious so-called ‘reasonings.’” This model taught me that Christendom as a whole was lost and in the wilderness of false teaching (like Calvinism) and denominational error. The model’s prime directive: to expose the errors of Christendom at large and “restore the ancient order.” Billy Graham was a false teacher. Oral Roberts and his kind were heretics riding an emotional rollercoaster straight to hell unless we could convince them of their error. Protecting our “flock” from all this error became a key focus. We regularly taught about the evils and errors of Mormonism, JW’s, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Baptists (we really didn’t like the Baptists!) just to name a few. This model taught its people to know the “truth” (which only we possessed) and to refute error (which everyone else was stuck in) so as to “snatch some out of the fire.”

The model was ultimately founded upon the belief that the Bible could only be correctly understood and applied through a system of authority that the model claimed was inherent not only within the Bible but within the very thought processes of humanity. Command, approved example, necessary inference and a host of subordinate system laws (law of inclusion, law of exclusion, law of expediency, et al) were absolutely essential to “rightly dividing the word of truth” and avoiding the fires of hell.

Wow, what a trip down memory lane this is!

But over a period of several years, I had an awakening. I realized that I had, in fact, married a model and missed the very One, the only One I was to be married to. What I thought was a secure bridge collapsed right beneath me. It was just a bridge, a model, a system of thought, an effort to “get it right” and to keep people on the right path. And while it had moved me forward towards Christ and had been instrumental in instilling in me a deep love for the Book that continues to this day, when it collapsed I found myself awakened to the Reality it had ultimately obscured as much as revealed.

 

So I have repented.

 

No more marrying any models.

 

Now don’t misunderstand, models are good, necessary even. It’s difficult not to develop a system of thought and theology to try to explain what we see in the story. The most dangerous and seductive model of all is the one that we deny even exists; the most divisive creed the one that is never committed to writing. One of the surest signs you’ve been sucked into marrying a model? To say you don’t have a model but that you just believe and practice the Bible, which is just another way of saying your model = truth (that Arminianism or Calvinism or Pentecostalism or Evangelicalism or Fundamentalism or whatever other ism = Christian/salvation/truth). Game over. Freedom gone. You’re toast. You’ve married the model and will likely, eventually, inevitably miss the Man.

 

I chose to marry the Man and date models. Whether models or systems of thought presented by Augustine in his Confessions or Thomas Acquinas in Summa Theologica or Calvin in his Institutes of Religion or CS Lewis in his God in the Dock (what I’m currently reading) or Bishop Kallistos Ware in his The Orthodox Way (another current read) or even Brian McLaren in his A New Kind of Christianity, I will only date them and the system of thought and theology they embody. Some may have flashes of brilliance, shining a bright light on the face of Jesus and His kingdom; others may leave me shaking my head or gagging – and in fact all of them will do both to one extent or another. Exposure to different models so as to truly understand and see from the perspective that each model in turn offers is one of the best means of insurance against becoming overly committed to any one of them. Checks and balances. Seeing through another model’s eyes can do wonders in exposing the blind spots of the model with which we are currently “going steady.” Currently I’m experiencing this through reading Bishop Ware’s book The Orthodox Way. How illuminating to view the same Trinitarian God, the same Story of Rescue, the same Book through Eastern as opposed to Western eyes. To deny there is a difference between the two is to be doubly blind – and is to flash your wedding band placed on your finger by your current (probably) western model.

Marrying a model is not all it’s cracked up to be.

And so, if you dare, date.

 

Stay loose.

 

Play the field.

And marry the Man and his Story of rescue – and the Book that proclaims Him.

Laughing at myself...

Laughing at myself today…

I was reminded today of what has been one of my life verses (or, more accurately, life paragraphs) made dear to me years ago when experiencing heavy duty judgment and labeling by those who were close friends and family when we dared step outside our former church box.

Laughing at myself for forgetting all too readily just who I am. Servant of Christ – literally his under-rower, his attendant waiting at his beck and call. “Economist” – his “dispenser” of the goods (the Message/Mystery) as he dictates and determines. Forgetting too easily what matters, forgetting whose opinion matters, forgetting how unqualified I am to even render judgment concerning myself (and yet I do it all the time, usually with pretty low marks). Presuming to be in a position to render that judgment concerning others far too readily. Cringing or sulking when those I perceive as religious or irreligious bullies all too eagerly presume to take that position with me based on little more than a few passing remarks (if that much). What utter absurdity – both on their part to so judge and on mine to care.

Laughing at myself – and breathing in the fresh air of freedom in Jesus that Paul invites us all to inhale into the very depths of our being.

So here it is, five times over from ancient to modern, from literal translation to free. Read it. Ponder it. Breathe it. Deeply. Exhale it into all of your doings and comings and goings.

And perhaps you’ll find yourself joining me just a bit in laughing at ourselves…

1 Corinthians 4:1-5

So a man guess us [So a man guess, or deem, us], as ministers of Christ, and dispensers of the mysteries of God. Now it is sought here among the dispensers, that a man be found true. And to me it is for the least thing, that I be deemed of you, or of man's day; but neither I deem myself. For I am nothing over-trusting to myself, but not in this thing I am justified [Soothly I am nothing guilty to myself, but not in this thing am I justified]; for he that deemeth me, is the Lord. Therefore do not ye deem before the time, till that the Lord come, which shall lighten [alighten] the hid things of darknesses, and shall show the counsels of hearts; and then praising shall be to each man of God. Wycliffe NT

Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful. But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man's judgment: yea, I judge not mine own self. For I know nothing by myself; yet am I not hereby justified: but he that judgeth me is the Lord. Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God. KJV

This, then, is how you ought to regard us: as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the mysteries God has revealed. Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful. I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of the heart. At that time each will receive their praise from God. NIV

So look at Apollos and me as mere servants of Christ who have been put in charge of explaining God’s mysteries. Now, a person who is put in charge as a manager must be faithful. As for me, it matters very little how I might be evaluated by you or by any human authority. I don’t even trust my own judgment on this point. My conscience is clear, but that doesn’t prove I’m right. It is the Lord himself who will examine me and decide. So don’t make judgments about anyone ahead of time—before the Lord returns. For he will bring our darkest secrets to light and will reveal our private motives. Then God will give to each one whatever praise is due.  NLT

Don't imagine us leaders to be something we aren't. We are servants of Christ, not his masters. We are guides into God's most sublime secrets, not security guards posted to protect them. The requirements for a good guide are reliability and accurate knowledge. It matters very little to me what you think of me, even less where I rank in popular opinion. I don't even rank myself. Comparisons in these matters are pointless. I'm not aware of anything that would disqualify me from being a good guide for you, but that doesn't mean much. The Master makes that judgment. So don't get ahead of the Master and jump to conclusions with your judgments before all the evidence is in. When he comes, he will bring out in the open and place in evidence all kinds of things we never even dreamed of—inner motives and purposes and prayers. Only then will any one of us get to hear the "Well done!" of God. MSG

stoma pros stoma

It's a good email...

Hello Mike,  

Please, allow me to remind you: "Haver" British usage: "to hem and haw." Scottish: "to maunder, to talk foolishly, to chatter, talk nonsense, to babble." Jewish: "a friend, chum, mate" - specifically someone willing to partner with you in grappling with truth and Word and life. Yep, I'm setting a high bar here... " I confess, out of everyone you were the man I felt I could speak to and talk with about hard sayings. Today, I must attest to the continued un-soundness I see in your reasoning at your blog. I am amazed at your gross errors as well as your refusal to engage others in debate about what you yourself have publically said. I am wondering why you never answer anyone on your blog who has challenged your words (like Concerned Citizen) or themselves made gross doctrinal errors(like Val). After all you are a pastor......aren't you?

It’s a good email from someone I won’t name, someone who knows where I am, has the number, is probably no more than a fifteen minute drive away, if that, but who has refused thus far to come over and allow a face-to-face discussion and exchange to take place – and I’m offering to buy him a cup of coffee, no less!

But it’s a great email.

It points out the context in which cyperspace interaction ultimately has to connect if it’s to be healthy. When blogging and Facebooking and emailing is done in the context of face-to-face relationship and exchanges, it can be healthy and add to those growing relationships and to a mutually shared journey of truth and faith.

Without it, it can degenerate into little more than anonymous sniping behind screen names and avatars.

It’s a great email because it offers a wonderful opportunity for truly defining this fine art of “havering.”

Havering – chattering and babbling and grappling with truth – is ultimately and ideally intended for a face-to-face setting between people who love God and truth and each other enough to actually take time to see one another and then really hear one another, thus providing the opportunity to learn from one another.

What I love about blogging this past year is the number of face-to-face conversations and discussions it has stimulated and occasioned. Conversations digging into the Word, give-and-take, iron-sharpening-iron type of conversations. What has been the greatest challenge for me has been monitoring comments. I just haven’t been able too. Some of my face-to-face conversations have referenced online conversations in the comments – which has been cool to hear about! I love that people are interacting there, but my involvement in three weekly small groups and daily conversations in the bookstore or at Starbucks (or wherever) leave me little margins for hunting for conversations among online comments that are often by anonymous people who don’t identify themselves. Whatever works for them – but I think I’ll keep choosing to invest in the face-to-face interactions – and in time actually reading the Bible and communing with the Father! For me it literally comes down to that choice.

So do I set up the blog without comments? I could figure out how to remove that feature, I suppose, but evidently some do enjoy grappling there, so I suppose I’ll leave it as is for the time being and risk the accusations of not caring about God and truth. Accusation is bad havering anyway. I suppose that’s why the enemy of all our souls is called the Accuser! Christ in us calls us higher and deeper.

So no, don’t expect me to frequent the comments. If you are commenting there to get a rise out of me or to correct me, you best email me (mike.freeman@vineyardboise.org) and then we can see about pursuing further conversation – which would hopefully be face to face if possible – and I’m buying the coffee! I feel no need to monitor the comments for gross errors – others are evidently doing that plenty already, and I’ll leave that business in their most capable hands – and in the hands of the Holy Spirit!

I will continue to choose the better part.

Stoma pros stoma.

That’s what the apostle John calls it. It literally means “mouth to mouth,” but we usually translate it in "paraphrases passing for Scripture these days" face to face.

The two shortest letters in the New Testament, in fact, the two shortest books in the entire Bible, were written by John the Beloved who made a quick end of those letters with the sentiment along these lines: “Though I have much to write to you, I would rather not use paper and ink. Instead I hope to come to you and talk face to face (stoma pros stoma), so that our joy may be complete.”

Now there’s an attitude and heart to download!

About half the New Testament (actually, the half I’ve memorized over the past 30 years) is letters (wish I’d chosen the Gospels instead back in the late 70’s!). Letters that were written, for the most part, because Paul or Peter or James or John or whoever couldn’t be there in person. They wished they could be – witness Paul’s angst over the Galatians: “Brothers, how I wish I could be present with you now and change my tone, because I am perplexed about you!”

Writing such letters was a necessity due to the writer’s physical absence – but the writing was nearly always preceded and followed up by personal, face-to-face interaction and fellowship.

To settle for anything less – or worse, to choose pen and ink or keyboard and comments – over face-to-face interaction is not only bad form and bad havering.

It is perhaps the grossest error of all.

you give them something to eat

Think back through the story Mark has just told us. Herod is off in his palace, probably far to the south of the Sea of Galilee, carousing with his cronies, winking at pretty girls, beheading prophets. His henchmen on the ground are grasping bullies. Here are his people, desperate for leadership. And here is a young prophet to whom they flock. Is he the king-in-waiting? That’s the echo we must hear behind this story. N. T. Wright, Mark for Everyone

Restorers respond to brokenness as if they see right through the moment into a future that bears a mystical resemblance to the pristine state of the past. Then they work to create that future. Their unique vision enables them to face some of the greatest problems in our world without even a flinch. Gabe Lyons, The Next Christians

I have received no assurance that anything we can do will eradicate suffering. I think the best results are obtained by people who work quietly away at limited objectives, such as the abolution of the slave trade, or prison reform or factory acts or tuberculosis, not by those who think they can achieve universal justice or health or peace. I think the art of life consists in tackling each immediate evil as well as we can. C.S. Lewis, Weight of Glory

Five thousand men.

Five loaves and two fish.

Everyone eats. Everyone is satisfied. Twelve baskets of leftovers.

It’s a can-do story brimming with optimism, with vision of infinite possibilities.

Up to this point it’s an unparalleled divine miracle. Elisha of old had fed 100 men with twenty barley loaves and some fresh ears of grain — and had some left. Jesus takes a mob of 5,000 men (no doubt plus women and children), organizes them nicely into groups of 50s and 100s (sitting on the green grass no doubt like sections of ripened harvest in the field), and he feeds the equivalent of a small city.

The three quotes above help orient me towards this story and its application. The first by reminding me of the context: the backdrop of the story we’ve just read about the beheading of John at the hands of Herod. This was a leaderless people that to the “leaders” in the land were at best a resource to be utilized and managed, at worst a mob avoided and feared, oppressed and exploited.

 And now Jesus shows up on the shore and he neither avoids nor uses nor abuses them. He has compassion on them. He spends the day with them. He feeds them. First with the living Bread and then with their daily bread. And just how did he manage to get 5,000 men (men!) to actually form themselves into groups of fifties and hundreds? Perhaps that was the greater miracle that day!

The disciples, as is frequently the case, are clueless. They see only the little they have. Jesus sees right through the numbers and the present limitations to that “future that bears a mystical resemblance to the pristine state of the past,” what the New Testament calls the Kingdom of God. And, in what in many ways functions as the first true “communion,” he takes bread. He blesses. He breaks. He gives.

But unfortunately they did not understand about the loaves. John tells us they all showed up the next day looking for more  — of the wrong kind of bread.

It is said that in a triumphal procession, conquering Roman generals were accompanied by a slave who whispered in their ear that “all glory is fleeting.” The rest of this story functions as that servant for us, if we are listening for the whisper.

They want to make Jesus their king — the wrong kind of king — and even plotted to take him by force and begin the revolution. Jesus evades them, retreats up the hill while sending the twelve back across the lake. On the next day, as John tells the tale, that same crowd and more would be waiting for him back across the lake, napkins tucked into their collars, empty plates at the ready for the next feeding. It became what some call “the Galilean Crisis.” As he literally held forth his arms he told them to eat his flesh and drink his blood...they abandoned him in droves. Even the twelve started looking over their shoulders.

The lesson for us, for Jesus “restorers” in a world still filled with too many oppressing Herods and oppressed peoples? Let yourself feel compassion for the crowd. See beyond the numbers and the present limitations around you to the limitless possibilities of the kingdom of God.

Take and bless and break and give.

And don’t expect most to get it.

judgment valley

Consider the kindness and the severity of God. Romans 11:22

Judgment. Hellfire and brimstone. Second death.

Most of us could go all day without dwelling on those words with their harshness, their sobering reality. Surely God has gotten over all that fire and brimstone stuff, we may muse. Angry God has given way to Nice God. Or perhaps we might think we’ve matured in our understanding of God to the point where we see beyond the fiery demonstrations to the kinder, gentler Man behind the curtain.

I would be happy if there were no hell below us. If there were no harsh “Depart from me I never knew you” verdicts. No lake of fire, no second death, no place where “the fire is not quenched and their worm dieth not.” If when caught up to meet Him we were told Hell is cancelled, that grace has finally trumped everything and everyone; no eternal conscious torment for anyone; instead of the lake of fire there’s only the glassy sea…I wouldn’t complain as I snuggled into Abba’s arms.

But the prophet holds a double-edged sword of a future glory and of a gory fate. There is agony and ecstasy. There is delight and bright day as surely as there is doom and damnation. Isaiah has the redeemed of Zion gazing upon the bodies of the slain. Zechariah has skin melting off bodies and eyes rotting in sockets (definitely one of the lovelier pictures from the prophets). Joel sees the nations called to gather in “Judgment Valley”:

"In those days, yes, at that very time when I put life back together again for Judah and Jerusalem,
I'll assemble all the godless nations.
   I'll lead them down into Judgment Valley
And put them all on trial, and judge them one and all
   because of their treatment of my own people Israel.
They scattered my people all over the pagan world
   and grabbed my land for themselves.
They threw dice for my people
   and used them for barter.
They would trade a boy for a whore,
   sell a girl for a bottle of wine when they wanted a drink.

Let the pagan nations set out
   for Judgment Valley.
There I'll take my place at the bench
   and judge all the surrounding nations. Joel 3:1-3, 12

Blessing and curse. Life and judgment. Kindness and severity. Light and darkness. I can’t escape the theme!  And throughout this journey there were plenty of those who wanted to – those generally called “false prophets” by the true, false prophets who beat a drum of “Peace, peace” while the world crumbled around them. Even in Malachi’s day, a people plucked out of the furnace of captivity found themselves gravitating towards a judgment free universe, and God said it wore him out (his first line is a great line for all preachers and bloggers!):

You make God tired with all your talk.

   "How do we tire him out?" you ask.

   By saying, "God loves sinners and sin alike. God loves all."
And also by saying, "Judgment? God's too nice to judge."  Malachi 2:17

Maybe we do want God as the ultimate Santa. Sure, Santa may only leave you coal, but at least he doesn’t turn you into coal! But Malachi quickly turns up the alarm when we’d much rather hit the “snooze” (again) dashing our images of a God “who’s too nice to judge”:

"Yes, I'm on my way to visit you with Judgment. I'll present compelling evidence against sorcerers, adulterers, liars, those who exploit workers, those who take advantage of widows and orphans, those who are inhospitable to the homeless—anyone and everyone who doesn't honor me." A Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies. Malachi 3:5

We can debate about such judgment being temporal or eternal, about the nature of hell (is it darkness, is it fire, are there worms, is it a lake, etc. etc.), whether judgment’s fire is one that consumes or one that purifies or one that torments forever. Maybe it’s none of these. Maybe it’s all of them.

But regardless, Judgment Valley, the Valley of Decision remains before us, the theme picked up by Jesus and the rest of the New Testament. “These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life,” says the Savior to whom all judgment has been given by the Father. And in one of his more extended “rants” on hell, Jesus warns his disciples:

“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea. And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, ‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’ For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, how will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.” Mark 9:42-50 ESV

Still waiting to see these words on a Christian calendar – or featured on a Thomas Kinkade painting. It’s a harsh reality that I see mirrored in the world around us.

True, hell has been used as a manipulative tool of religion to build vast religious empires; and true, we need to pay closer attention to just who consistently is said will be there or who will be judged, whether here or there.

But to take the Book seriously and the vistas it shows, I with Paul and the rest of the prophets find myself compelled to “consider the kindness and the severity of God.” And in so doing I find myself driven headlong into kindness as I step across the threshold of my home onto these streets…

waking up is hard to do

Consider this: there’s not much point to Christianity without Christ, and there’s not much point to Christ without resurrection…Christianity, to put it baldly, is a religion of waking up.
Robert Rowland Smith,
Breakfast with Socrates

“Awake, O sleeper,

        and arise from the dead,

  and Christ will shine on you.”  Ephesians 5:14 ESV

Christianity is a religion of waking up.

I really hadn’t expected deep truths and insights from what I had figured would be a light and entertaining read, but Robert Rowland Smith’s Breakfast with Socrates has been a pleasant surprise. It is light and entertaining, but right there in the first chapter on “Waking Up” (literally just waking up in the morning – the premise of the book is to go through the ordinary activities of our ordinary day accompanied by the wisdom of Socrates and others) I found myself stumbling across some wonderful insights.

"Christianity is a religion of waking up."

Funny thing is that no sooner had I read those words than I picked up the book of Haggai and came across these words:

"Take a good, hard look at your life.
   Think it over.
You have spent a lot of money,
   but you haven't much to show for it.
You keep filling your plates,
   but you never get filled up.
You keep drinking and drinking and drinking,
   but you're always thirsty.
You put on layer after layer of clothes,
   but you can't get warm.
And the people who work for you,
   what are they getting out of it?
Not much—
   a leaky, rusted-out bucket, that's what.

That's why God-of-the-Angel-Armies said:

   "Take a good, hard look at your life.
   Think it over."   Haggai 1:5-7  Message

The prophet Haggai issues a prophetic wake-up call to a generation that has grown lethargic and discouraged. They started this great work of rebuilding the temple, but when opposition appeared (literally, right on the scene) they stopped, and then shifted gears to building everything but the temple they had begun. Fine houses for themselves, fields being farmed and worked, and with each passing day they glance less and less over at the stump that was the temple. The funny thing was, of course, that the harder they worked, the less progress and profit they seemed to make.

Is it just me or does this story have a familiar ring to it? And I was floored by the pointedness of Haggai’s soul-searching questions. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe it’s the holidays.

Then I read on in Breakfast with Socrates and came upon this little gem (still on the subject of waking up):

The word for truth is aletheia,from which in English we get the word lethargy. But see how the Greek word is a-letheia rather than letheia; that is, truth is the opposite of lethargy. And what is the opposite of lethargy, if not waking up? The truth lies in being awake and throwing off the sheets. In a certain sense, you’re the most truly yourself when you awake. It’s hard to wake up inauthentically.

Wow.

What a connection. Truth and being awake -- truth the antithesis of lethargy.

And how we love sleep, turning in our beds like a door on its hinges.

Sleeping brain.

Slumbering heart.

Dreamy dozing – but you can just never remember any of the dreams.

And then comes a tapping. Is it a finger on a table? Water dripping in the sink? Or is it the prophet’s voice repeating over us, “Consider your ways.”

Waking up is hard to do at times – harder for some than for others.

But once awake in this God-alive world filled with its God-inspired colors, hearing the Voice, feeling the Breeze on your face, filling your soul as you are becoming most truly yourself – how utterly impossible to even consider going back to sleep.