Brandon C. Jones's Blog, page 18

Requiem for a Ragamuffin

Last week Brennan Manning died. He was many things during his long life. He was once a Catholic priest. Many times he was either an alcoholic or a recovering alcoholic. He was also an author who wrote one of my favorite books,  The Ragamuffin Gospel . I first read The Ragamuffin Gospel when I was a young adult who had never grasped the meaning of grace.
I grew up in a church that spoke much of grace. We were taught to believe in Christ and that by grace through faith in Christ we are saved. We were encouraged to come to the altar (a bench toward the front of a church sanctuary) at the end of our worship services to get saved, rededicate our lives to Christ, or just pray with someone because we needed help. Growing up we learned a lot of stories from the Bible. We were encouraged to invite others to our church services, especially special events like youth camp. We also aimed to live differently than others by our media choices, clothes, and behavior. We put our Bible in our backpacks and would read them. We would pray before meals and sometimes before school started. We made church meetings a priority and, for the most part, avoided typical things that teens get caught up in, if Hollywood teen movies are even remotely true.
Of course, we were not perfect, and we knew that too. We knew it all too well. As many Christians had before us, we struggled finding assurance that God indeed saved us because our performance for him was spotty. Sometimes we would not feel the Spirit’s presence in our lives. Other times we felt so ensnared by our sins that we presumed God could not be part of our lives until we shaped up. By the time we became young adults we had either prayed many times for God to save us, in case previous requests fell on deaf ears, or we rededicated our lives many times down at the altar, in case our private requests needed a public boost. We knew salvation was a wonderful gift, so something must have been wrong with us since we did not seem to appreciate it like we should have. “Maybe I never had it to begin with,” we would tell ourselves late at night, before whispering that familiar prayer once more.
I did not realize it then, but the heart of my problem was that I did not understand grace. By its very definition grace is unfair. When Jesus told a story about God’s grace, he went into details about a business-owner who treated workers unfairly one day. This owner paid everyone the same amount, regardless of how long or how little each one worked. The workers who got there first grumbled about how unfair the owner was, and they were right. That was Jesus’ entire point. Grace is unfair, but in a good way. The workers who came to work an hour and got paid for a day were thankful for their unfair treatment, which is another part of grace’s meaning. The English word grace is a loanword from old French, which comes from the Latin word for gratitude and thankfulness. Grace leads to thankfulness, and the better the grace the more overflowing the thankfulness.
Manning’s book The Ragamuffin Gospel is a one-sided study on the meaning of grace. Manning says over and over again that there is nothing we can do for God to love us any more than he already does in Christ. Manning says repeatedly that salvation in Christ is being captured—literally, seized—by God’s furious love. Manning chose several stories to illustrate the meaning of grace, but I will only share one here: “Let us suppose you advanced me $1 million for my personal needs. A year later, you request that I begin making monthly interest-free payments of $10,000 on the debt. On the first day of each month I sit down to write the check just as the morning mail arrives. You have sent me a $10,000 check to cover my payment. You continue this practice until the full amount of my debt is relieved. I am bewildered and protest, ‘But this is totally lopsided.’    God is enamored with his people and so intent upon a response that He even provides the grace to respond. [. . .]. The love of God is simply unimaginable. [. . .]. Love has its own exigencies. It weighs and counts nothing but expects everything. Perhaps that explains our reluctance to risk. We know only too well that the gospel of grace is an irresistible call to love the same way. No wonder so many of us elect to surrender our souls to rules than to living in union with Love.”
Rules are fair; grace is not. I grew up hearing about grace, but the behavior my church encouraged spoke far louder than those words—the focus seemed to be that we perform according to the rules. Rules are fair. Rules make sense. Rules are not lopsided. When I was discouraged and drifting in my faith, God used Manning to remind me that the gospel is not about rules. It is about God’s gracious love to undeserving sinners. Now that I am a pastor and speaking much in front of people I need Manning’s reminder more than ever. Perhaps you need it too.

Piecing It Together

The world can and often does become a cruel, indifferent place. Nature can scorch or freeze. People can harm and oppress. The very things that ruin us tempt us again and again. We would like to quit. We would like to be better. We would like to change, but not enough to do anything about it.
Some people think the sooner we all accept the fact that the universe is indifferent to us, the better off we will be. But most people have an uneasy feeling that in spite of all the things that are wrong with the world, life should make sense more often than it does. Every day these people sit down to a table of scattered puzzle pieces without a picture to guide them along. And for every piece they fit together, others seem to fall apart. This uneasiness is part of the vocabulary of every language, described partially by words such as despair, ennui, acedia, and so on. Kierkegaard was not satisfied with just one word, though, so he called it the “sickness unto death.”
For this sickness there are thousands of supposed prescriptions. Some things numb the pain, while others distract. Money helps a lot, as does pleasure—regardless of how fleeting it passes. An entire book of the Bible, Ecclesiastes, traces the results of the most popular prescriptions for this sickness and finds each of them to be wanting. Our sickness lies far deeper than we often realize because we do not even want to be cured were we given the choice. Our lives are full of thoroughly mixed feelings.
Sin mixes up our thoughts, our desires, our wills, and our experiences. Sin not only divides us from ourselves, but also from God, other people, and the entire universe. God labels these disastrous results of sin as a curse. If life does not seem to make sense, then welcome to the curse because it shouldn’t. But there is a reason most people feel as if life should make more sense, that it is not just indifferent to everyone and everything. God created us good and has set eternity in our hearts, which means we know the difference between what is straight and what is crooked. We could never straighten things here on earth alone. But we try anyways and end up despairing over our powerlessness to change ourselves, let alone the world.
The good news of the gospel is that God has disrupted our table of scattered puzzle pieces and given us the gift of the bigger picture. This news begins with how God created us good, describes how we chose to sin and brought on a deadly curse, reveals that God has defeated sin, death, and the devil through his Son Jesus Christ, and promises us that one day Christ will return to make all things new.
God does not give people this good news out of the blue. Instead, he uses his people here on earth, his church, to share it. Oftentimes Christians do not know how best to tell people this news. Sometimes we put it on billboards for you to see as you zoom by in your car on the highway. Other times we put it on a sign at a sporting event, hopefully within sight of the television broadcast cameras. Once I saw someone forge it on a coin and throw it on the street at a Halloween parade for kids to collect. If you work in the restaurant business, perhaps you have seen it on a little piece of paper cloaked as a dollar bill. But when Jesus came to preach good news to sinners, he took a different approach.
Jesus’ way was to help people, especially the ones who needed his help the most. He cared about their livelihood. He healed their diseases. And he loved them. By helping people, he was also able to share good news of the bigger picture that would change how they pieced their lives together. Some people pieced it together right away, but others took more time and needed to string together more and more pieces before they finally saw the bigger picture.
On average someone is exposed to an idea several times, even up to ten or more times, before finally coming around to agreeing with it. While God graciously uses his Spirit to convince people of his truth, his Spirit often operates behind the scenes as God’s people faithfully share their lives with those around them. To be sure, we do not have all the answers to life’s puzzles. Sometimes we need help more than anybody else. But we humbly believe God has revealed his bigger picture and orient our lives toward the future he promises that is rich and bright.
This orientation is also known as faith, and a lot of times people misunderstand what it means to have faith. As Arthur McGill describes it: “Faith' is not the possession of a settled world-view, which people can interpose between themselves and the shock of experience, and by which therefore they can keep the world at an arm's length away from them, can solve all their problems, and can arrange themselves with the 'right' attitudes for every situation. On the contrary, 'faith' has the effect of opening a man to the world, to his neighbors, and to himself. It deprives him of all self-conscious postures. It propels him into a living engagement with concrete experience.”
Faith is an invitation to go and help people, proclaiming good news to them. And when you help people you are not merely some impersonal benefactor. You must get your hands dirty and open up your life for all to see. No wonder some Christians would rather resort to billboards and postcards.
If faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ is the only cure for the sickness unto death, then it is worth sharing the right way, Jesus’ way. We share it daily through what we say, how we say it, and what we do. We can share our faith best in the middle of relationships with our neighbors, coworkers, classmates, friends, and even strangers who need our help. We must also share our faith often, knowing that some people will need more pieces to fit into place before they can visualize the bigger picture. A church is not a building. It is not a worship service. It is not a Sunday School program. A church is God’s people on earth coming alongside their neighbors to demonstrate God’s bigger picture. God does not need us to be perfect, just faithful.

New Beginnings

Spring is a season of renewal. The days brighten. The sunshine lingers. All that is brown and sludgy slowly becomes green and lush. And in the middle of it all is our annual remembrance of the empty tomb that points us toward an overflowing future.
Easter always points us forward. On the first Easter morning Jesus’ initial message to Mary was for her to tell his brothers that he was going to go to their Father and their God. Several days later he would tell them that after he goes to the Father he will come back again. But no one knows when, except for the Father, and because it has been a while and there is no way of telling when it will happen we often become impatient—even forgetful—about his promise.
This spring let the renewal happening all around you rekindle the flame in your heart that longs for God’s kingdom. Paul talks about planting and harvesting when he describes how our resurrected bodies in God’s kingdom will compare to our earthly bodies now. When you pickup a seed it may not look like much, and you would certainly never guess what it is capable of producing come harvest time. Likewise, think about what God has promised to spring from this universe and yourself in it. No more pain. No more death. No more isolation. No more addiction.
In John’s vision of the New Jerusalem a renewed Tree of Life stands over a river that flows from God’s throne. It produces twelve kinds of fruit each month and its leaves heal the nations. What a mighty symbol of the kingdom! Let the renewal this season point you toward the future renewal of all things in which there will be no more winter. And that is very good news this time of year to those of us on the northern plains of the Dakotas! I am sure it is good to news to everyone else—news well worth sharing.

Good News for People Who Love Bad News

This week the U.S. Supreme Court is considering a couple legal cases regarding the meaning of marriage. Unfortunately, this is an issue that tends to attract much more heat than light, and people on both sides often attempt to make this matter appear simpler than it actually is.
There are many facets to the discussion Americans are having over the meaning of marriage, including on what grounds it is in the best interest of any government to promote certain relationships between people and not others. One note of clarity on this issue is that it is incorrect to think one side of the debate wants equality for all while the other side does not. Neither side wants the government to promote ALL kinds of consensual, “harmless” loving relationships equally. Rather, both sides want the government to promote certain relationships and not others, and the legal debate is about which relationships should make the cut and on what grounds. In order to address the legal aspects of this issue properly there would need to be a deeper discussion of foundational things, such as basic social ethics (including the idea of the common good), and I will not pursue those aspects of the marriage debate here. For those interested in such matters, three Christian professors address both the ethical and legal areas of the marriage debate helpfully in their article, “What is Marriage?”
What concerns me more as a Christian is a different facet of the marriage debate, which is a fear I sense among many fellow Christians that the Christian gospel (a word that literally means, “good news”) is not really good news for every sinner. In this case, the gospel of Jesus Christ is not good news for some of us who struggle with certain sexual attractions, because it calls such people to give up the only identity they ever knew. As a result, Christians with seemingly good intentions want to say that Jesus’ overwhelming message of love and forgiveness would never ask people to give up so much to follow him, so they have reconsidered what is and is not sin. But Jesus’ own words about the cost of following him in general and his standards on sex in particular reveal that following him means seeing sin, even sexual sin, as evil and the promise of new life as a rich reward worth giving up everything to receive.
Some Christians question whether Jesus condemns certain sexual sins at all, claiming there are only a few obscure biblical passages that speak to the issue of same-sex behaviors, none of which involves Jesus. However, Jesus did have something to say about sex and marriage, and he limited God’s design for sex to be expressed only within a marriage bond God joins between one man and one woman—and nothing else (Mark 10:1-12). Jesus also speaks clearly against adultery several times, including its ugly role in divorce and remarriage as well as its presence amid the deep lusting that pornography and fantasizing often produce. He does not just condemn adultery as an evil thought that defiles a person, but also separately mentions sexual immorality (Mark 7:21-23). Jesus’ stance on sexual sins was so strict that his own followers wondered out loud whether it would be best for them to avoid marriage altogether (Matt 19:10).
Thankfully, Jesus’ preaching against sin was only part of his message to us sinners. The other part, the good news part, was that he came to seek and save sinners. Jesus promises to exchange the penalty of our sins, death, for abundant life through him. He also promises rewards for people who believe in him, but such rewards never include easy living without any suffering, persecution, division, or trouble. In fact, he warns that he will turn loved ones against each other, family members against each other, and close friends against each other. As Paul reveals, Jesus can also turn us against ourselves as we struggle to re-learn how to live our everyday lives in the Spirit rather than enslaved to our mixed-up sinful tendencies (Rom 6-8).
All struggles that come with following Jesus are worthwhile because he promises great rewards for everyone who follows him at a great expense to themselves: “‘Truly I tell you [. . .] no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or [grown] children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first” (Mark 10:29-31).Jesus’ promise is for followers who will now have to struggle against any mixed-up desires God reveals as sinful. These desires include even strong desires people never asked for; desires they always felt were part of who they were because they have had them as long as they can remember; desires they think may never go away (and maybe they will not this side of the kingdom). Jesus’ promise is also for followers who are prone to substance abuse. His promise is also for followers who will now have to decide to no longer live and sleep with their longtime boyfriends or girlfriends. His promise is also for followers whose families and friends will ridicule them—perhaps even disown them—for their newfound faith. His promise is for all of us sinners, because all of us must exchange whatever identity we once had for a new identity in Christ.
No matter what you must give up once you have gained Christ, you have gained Christ. It is not as if the gospel takes from us without giving us back more in return. Or think about it this way, you have gained Christ, which means you are now adopted into God’s family and have a life in union with him through his Spirit. That is not a bad deal for anybody.
We should also examine what exactly the gospel takes from us. God has woven into the fabric of this world proximate grounds for what is objectively good and evil. Sin is evil not because God randomly picked and chose things to be against, but because sin undermines the good nature of this world and ourselves in it. All of creation is groaning under sin’s curse, and Jesus’ response is for us to embrace his defeat of sin through his cross and resurrection instead of clinging to sin itself. In other words, sin works against us for our own detriment, and ancient Christians considered that alone to be one of the chief reasons God hates sin. Jesus does not ask us to give up that which is good to follow him. Rather, he works to extract deadly poison from us.
Likewise, one reason righteous living brings God glory is because it is for our best. God’s righteous standards apply to all people, not just certain people, because his righteous standards promote human flourishing for every human—no matter what desires anyone struggles against both before and after meeting Christ. He never leaves us alone in our struggles against sin, because he graciously gives us himself as our new identity, promising in his kingdom a new kind of life than that which we live now.
When we as Christians start thinking the gospel of Jesus Christ is bad news for certain people because of the difficult struggles they will now face we undermine Jesus’ promise of rich rewards in this life and eternal life in the age to come for his followers who give up much to follow him. The gospel really is good news for all of us sinners. Once you start wondering if it is anything less than good news for some people, what would stop you from thinking it is less than good news for all people?
Jesus said if the world hated him, then it would hate his followers too. And who wants to be hated? I understand the temptation among American Christians to affirm only the parts of Scripture our greater culture agrees with and discard the rest. But once you do that, as Augustine warns, you stop believing in the Gospels and end up believing in yourself. Despite all the wishes and dreams otherwise, you cannot save yourself from your sins. Either you need a savior or you do not. If you do, then Jesus has come to seek and save us sinners, rewarding us richly for giving up everything to follow him. Of course, Jesus was also hated by capable, self-righteous people who, in the words of John Wesley, find nothing to be more repugnant than grace. There is no need to withhold love and good works to anyone made in God's image, and Jesus' personal example of reaching out to the publicans, prostitutes, tax collectors, and other sinners of his day holds true for our day as well.

What we must also remember is that Jesus never refrained from sharing good news to sinners, telling them to go and sin no more. Nowhere is it written that he reconsidered sin itself in light of the difficulties people faced. Instead, he found sin, death, and the Devil to be enemies worth defeating by laying down his perfectly obedient life as a ransom for many. Thanks to his ransom he offers us a new life when we believe in and follow him. And it is never a bad deal to follow Jesus, even if it means you have to give up what you think is a lot—maybe even what you once considered part of your identity—because you will gain a much better identity in Christ.
Notice that he does not include husband or wife in his list here.

The Divine Refund

Spring is upon us, and I hope warmer temperatures have found their way to your area, because we are still having winter in Dakota. Despite the weather, certain American Spring traditions are all upon us: there is Easter—the candy, bunny, and egg holiday—not to be confused with the Christian holiday that celebrates Christ’s Resurrection; March Madness, and tax time. Usually tax time meant a refund of some sort to look forward to when I was younger, but those days are gone.
As excited as we may get when any refund comes our way, David warns of a bad refund in Psalm 31:23b, saying “The Lord preserves those who are true to him, but the proud he pays back in full” (NIV). We do well to consider his warning any time, but especially at the coming of Spring, because Psalm 31 is one of a handful of Psalms the church traditionally focuses on during its remembrance of Holy Week. Jesus even quoted verse 5 of this Psalm when he hung on the cross and said, “Into your hands I commit my spirit.”
Looking at David’s words in verse 23 more closely, a few questions come to mind: What does God owe the proud in the first place? Why does he pay them back in full? Why does David contrast God’s preserving of people true to him with his payback in full of the proud?
C. S. Lewis once said, “there are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, ‘thy will be done.’” What he means is that in hell many people get what they claim they always wanted – existence without God. Lewis’s description of hell includes people living lonely, dark existences by continually moving apart from each other. There is no liveliness. No color. No brightness. Proud people have a tendency to think they earned whatever they have, regardless of whether or not they “earned” the gift of life itself. Proud people can charge God for being unwise, unfair, or just plain mean. David tells us God owes such people only one thing – a response.
His response is to pay them back in full. David describes the proud by their words and actions: they are shameless, they are liars, and they have contempt against God’s people (Ps 31:17-18). But God hears and God responds. Eventually, he will pay the proud back in full, making sure every idle word spoken and worthless deed done is noticed in the end. As unfair as the proud think God is, David claims God will treat the proud with the utmost fairness in the end. He will balance the scales and be sure they are refunded for all they have done in this life, and the divine refund will need no auditing.
In contrast, God treats those who are true to him rather unfairly. Instead of paying them back in full, God preserves these people. David reminds us that grace by definition is unfair. Instead of getting paid back in full, God forgives and forgets our sins—giving us hope that he will preserve us. This is nothing we earned, because it is a gift. Neither can we be proud because we had the sense enough to receive God’s gift because that too was a gift. What we can do is “be strong and take heart,” because we are those “who hope in the Lord” (Ps 31:24).
No matter what life brings your way, no matter how happy your neighbors seem, no matter how discouraged you may get, be strong and take heart my brothers and sisters – because we have put our hope in a gracious Lord.

A Royal Waste of Time

Such is the title of one of Marva Dawn’s books about worship, since people often notice that worship does not seem to accomplish much. In an interview with Time magazine Bill Gates admitted that he found organized religion to be “a waste of time,” because “there’s a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning.” Too many Christians feel the same way, but they keep showing up to worship anyways for all the wrong reasons. Perhaps we need to be reminded that worship is not an array of expertly crafted products to consume, but rather a divine gift to partake of and receive.
As a gift to us, it may not make much pragmatic sense to set aside our time, energy, and resources to worship by singing, praying, proclaiming, reading, eating, and drinking. We Christians like to vote with our feet and mouths, often making ourselves absent when opportunities to worship abound or quiet when gathered with others. We watch the clock as eagerly as an employee hungry for her lunch break. Our approach to worship reveals that many of us would probably prefer a different gift from God. Were it up to us, perhaps we would have come up with something more useful. But God is not one to give cash or gift cards to our favorite stores as presents. He did not give us worship so we could squeeze what we thought were the useful parts out of it and discard the rest. Both in biblical times and today God’s gift of worship starts with what we bring—we bring what is costly and we bring it because we trust God knows what he is doing.
Israel’s worship once involved the slaughter of precious animals for an aroma pleasing to the Lord. Some Israelites thought it wasteful to bring their best animals or grains to God only to be consumed in a priestly fire, so they showed up with blind animals and rotting grain instead. That seemed much more sensible to them, but all it showed is that they did not trust God. They thought they knew best. God reminded them that what they brought to worship reflected what they really thought he was worth. Would they bring such a poor effort to their king or governor? Probably not, but somehow they rationalized that the leftovers and junk among their belongings and least of their efforts were good enough for God Almighty. What was supposed to be a pleasing aroma for all became a dreadful stench. What we bring is the key to worship, and as it was for Israel so it is for the church today.
There is no gray area with worship. If some of it is a waste because it does not fit your personality, it is not your kind of music, you do not like being with those kinds of people, you already know that book of the Bible well enough, you are not comfortable praying with others, you like to sleep in that day, or it is too annoying to prepare for it, then go ahead and just say that all worship is a waste. Worship is either all a waste or not one tiny bit of it is a waste. Not one praise from your lips falls on deaf ears. Not one prayer goes unheard. Not one word of Scripture is proclaimed in vain. Not one morsel of broken bread is eaten for nothing. Not one smile fails to encourage. Not one tear is shed alone. None of it is a waste.
When was the last time you approached worship as a privilege, eagerly receiving it like the royal gift from God that it is? When was the last time you focused on what you brought to it? Are you trusting God by bringing your best or trying to sneak in leftover scraps? We can prepare ourselves for worship by getting plenty of rest in order to share our gifts with God’s family by way of our teaching, prayers, encouragement, time – you name it. Which gifts are you sharing with God and his people? We have regular opportunities to participate in the worship of God, and with every repetition we practice for the great gathering in his kingdom. Which opportunities are worthy enough of your participation? With every repetition we are receiving from God confirmation that worship is to be our way of life, because whatever we do—whether we are at work or at home—we do to God’s glory. Could we possibly be doing something more with our time? 

Psalm 103 – “A Bible in Itself"

For people like me who were raised within a church community, some Psalms become quite familiar during childhood. For example Psalm 23, the one in which David likens God to his shepherd, is quite popular at funerals. Psalm 100 speaks of making joyful noises or shouts to the Lord, and you may hear someone refer to it when they admit being not the best of singers. Psalm 119 is the longest and has a few well-known verses, such as when the author says that God’s Word is a lamp to his feet and a light to his path.
As someone who strives to read from the Psalms daily, I became embarrassed last week at how I had never before noticed the richness of Psalm 103. After meditating on it for several days in preparation of reading it aloud to the church during Sunday worship, I am convinced that Psalm 103 is more than worthy enough to be a famous Psalm; right up there with Psalm 23. Not that psalms are meant to be in competition with each other, but have you ever thought deeply about what David says here? It is nothing short of amazing! At least one other person has noticed this, because over a hundred years ago the great London preacher Charles Spurgeon, while introducing Psalm 103, says, “There is too much in the Psalm for a thousand pens to write, it is one of those all-comprehending Scriptures which is a Bible in itself, and it might alone almost suffice for the hymn-book of the church.” Go read Psalm 103 right now. You will not regret it.
It begins with David telling his soul to praise God. A Lutheran leader once said “to know Christ is to know his benefits,” and David reminds us here of those benefits: “Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits—who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s” (vv. 3-4, NIV). We all need to remember God’s benefits, because we forget them every day—maybe even every hour. He has forgiven all your sins. He heals all your diseases. Of course, we all get colds and as our bodies break down we battle more and more sicknesses. But whenever healing comes it comes from God, and when resurrection comes true healing from all diseases will come with it. Resurrection means no more sin, which means no more diseases. God also lifts us from the pit and does not just restore us to the “un-pitted” life we had before. He crowns us with love, satisfies good desires, and renews our strength. When you think of a pit think of Joseph who was bloodied and helpless in escaping from his pit, crying out for someone to help him, but instead getting sold into slavery by his own brothers. God lifted us out of our pit and exalted us, though we deserve none of it. No sin. No disease. No pit. Do not forget God’s benefits, dear Christian.
David then reminds us that God works for the oppressed, reveals himself to his people, and is forgiving by nature. David writes, “He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us” (vv. 9-12, NIV). Satan is the accuser. We sinners by nature accuse others and ourselves constantly. But God is not by nature an accuser. He is love, and he lovingly separates our sins from us as far as is possible.
God’s love for us is fierce. It is a specific kind of love reserved only for bonds as strong as those between a parent and a child: “As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. The life of mortals is like grass, they flourish like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord’slove is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children—with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts”(vv. 13-18, NIV). Let’s face it; we are small people who live for a short time on a small planet. We should be no more memorable than wildflowers that pepper a field for a few weeks before being blown away. But God loves us so much that despite our humble beginnings and fragile lives he watches over us and our families for years on end. As Jesus says, we are much more valuable to our heavenly Father than birds or flowers.
Why, then, do we take God’s favor for granted and act as if it is worth little to nothing? We seem also to forget just who our heavenly Father is, so David reminds us by saying; “The Lord has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom over all. Praise the Lord, you his angels, you mighty ones who do his bidding, who obey his word. Praise the Lord, all his heavenly hosts, you his servants who do his will. Praise the Lord, all his works everywhere in his dominion. Praise the Lord, my soul” (vv. 19-22, NIV). Even David—a person after God’s own heart—had to tell himself repeatedly to praise God. He is, after all, the ruler of the universe. This is the same God who created the heavens and the earth, before he “made the stars also,” whose praises all creatures sing. Except you and me, we sometimes forget to praise him. We have a bad day, week, year, or decade, and our praise dries up. Our songs become silent. Our prayers, few. Our witness, cold. Maybe we need to join David and tell our souls more often to praise God. Look to him for reasons why.

God and War, Part 2

Two weeks ago we asked, How does Jesus’ example of succumbing to the cross and his teaching about loving one’s enemies square with all the battles in the Bible? In order to answer this question we first need to examine the battles themselves in both the Hebrew Bible and John’s book of Revelation.
In the Hebrew Bible Joshua’s conquest of Canaan is the only series of battles God commanded his people, Israel, to wage. In order to fulfill God’s promise to Abraham and his descendants through Isaac that they would inhabit the land of Canaan, God commanded Israel to battle Canaan’s residents and drive them out. He gave them specific instructions on where to go, what to do, and when to do it. For the most part they obeyed God’s instructions, but every now and then they did not and were punished for it. Battles and wars in their conquest of Canaan were not ends in themselves. Rather, they were the means God decided to use to fulfill his promise made long ago to Abraham.
Once established in their Promised Land, Israel waged dozens of other battles against their foes, but God only delivered victory to them when they battled peoples whom they previously defeated during their original conquest of Canaan. The accounts in the Hebrew Bible clearly give credit for all of Israel’s victories to God himself, not to their military prowess. Often God would direct Israel tactically or even intervene with miracles on Israel’s behalf, sometimes in non-violent ways. The battles Israel lost were most often ones they entered into themselves without any direction or intervention from God.
Some leaders such as David also secured victories through battle, like his famous defeat of Goliath, but God does not endorse everything David and other leaders did on the battlefield. For example, David’s violent ways led to a divided Israel and excluded him from being able to build God’s temple in Jerusalem. Throughout Israel’s history God often linked battles and war to judgment for Israel’s disobedience, despite delivering his people from enemies within and without because of his faithfulness to his promises to them and his unfailing love for them.
When we skip ahead to the battles John describes in his book of Revelation, we once again see God himself initiating and carrying out victory over his enemies. God’s people, the church, are not the primary players in these battles. Instead, God himself fulfills his promise to usher in his kingdom and complete his defeat of sin, death, and the Devil that he started when he raised Christ from the dead.
Throughout the New Testament God tells his people to leave revenge to him alone, like when Jesus tells Peter to put his sword away when arrested by several men. In Revelation God himself wages war against evil and wins. We, as his people, are just along for the ride.
When we consider all the types of battles in the Bible, we can safely conclude that Jesus’ words and witness against violence do not contradict what God previously did through Israel in the Hebrew Bible. The conquest of Canaan was a fulfillment of a promise in which God specifically told Israel what to do. The purpose of the battles was to extend God’s justice over sin, and he happened to use Israel in his judgment. Likewise, Revelation gives accounts of God’s justice over sin. No other battle results well for God’s people, especially the ones they waged without God’s consent. God often associates Israel’s wars and battles with his judgment for their disobedience and the consequences of their battles are often dire for all peoples involved. To be sure, those who live by the sword will die by the sword, just as Jesus said. As followers of Christ we worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, Israel, Moses, Joshua, and David, but our way is never to be one of violence or war. As Paul tells us:
“Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord. On the contrary: ‘If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.’ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:17-21, NIV).
Such is the way of Jesus Christ. Such is the way of the God of Israel. Our lamb has conquered; let us follow him!

God and War, Part 1

On the night before Jesus was crucified, the top religious leaders of Jerusalem dispatched a crowd armed with swords and clubs to seize Jesus. When they arrested him “one of Jesus’ companions reached for his sword, drew it out and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear. ‘Put your sword back in its place,’ Jesus said to him, ‘for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. . . . Am I leading a rebellion, that you have come out with swords and clubs to capture me?” (Matt 26:51-52, 55).
Jesus’ words here about violence and swords agree with what the Gospels record elsewhere when he tells his followers, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for an eye, and tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.’ [. . .]. You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven” (Matt 5:38-39, 43-45a).
That last phrase, “Father in heaven,” is interesting because the Hebrew Bible reveals dozens of battles in which Jesus’ Father in heaven was involved in dozens of violent earthly battles between his people and their enemies. Moreover, John’s vision of the future recorded in the book of Revelation predicts several more violent battles between God and his enemies. How does Jesus’ example of succumbing to the cross and his teaching about loving one’s enemies square with all these battles in the Bible?
In the early church a person named Marcion compared the character and actions of God in the Hebrew Bible with the witness of Jesus Christ and concluded that the Father of Jesus Christ could not be the same God as the God of Israel. The church rightly rejected Marcion’s idea, because Jesus and his Apostles who laid the foundation of the church clearly taught that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was indeed the God of Jesus Christ.
Okay, so we know one bad answer to a good question, then what would be a helpful answer? If you have a few minutes take a look at this chart of every battle in the Hebrew Bible:http://constantlyreforming.wordpress.com/every-battle-in-the-bible/. See if you can analyze from these data what separates victories from defeats or what common theme(s) run through many or most battles. Would any of these themes also apply to the battles John discloses in Revelation?
Next week, we will go further than asking questions and listing wrong answers to finding a helpful way to understand biblical battles in light of the way of Jesus Christ. Stay tuned.

Wellsprings of Life

Billions of people have believed that Jesus Christ is Israel’s Messiah—the anointed one who serves God by leading his people. Even more people have heard this claim, even if they didn’t think it was true. With so many believers one would think Jesus promoted himself a lot. But the Gospels reveal the opposite. Oftentimes Jesus spoke cryptically through allegorical stories about what God was doing through him. One time he tells a close follower to be quiet and keep his ideas to himself that Jesus is the Messiah.
The Gospel of John gives the lone account in which Jesus plainly tells somebody, anybody, that he is the Messiah. Jesus testified to kings, governors, and high priests, but none of them heard him say he was the Messiah. Jesus had dozens of faithful followers and a handful of close friends, but he never plainly tells them he was the Messiah. Rather, when an unnamed Samaritan woman talks to Jesus about the Messiah coming he responds by saying “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”
Most Jews considered their Samaritan neighbors to be half-breeds. When Jesus travels through Samaria he stops to rest at a well alone while his companions go to town to get food. It was already afternoon and long after most of the area people would have traveled to the well for their daily water. But unexpectedly one woman comes alone to get some water. John does not tell us why she comes alone and in the afternoon instead of the morning when the weather would be cooler and there would be plenty of neighbors to chat with at the well while everyone does their chores. John does tell us through her conversation with Jesus that she has had five husbands and is living with a man who isn’t her husband now. In her town she was most likely a pariah. Perhaps she used to come in the mornings, but got sick of the awkward silence that would darken the mood among everyone at the well whenever she would appear with her jar. She came alone at a time when there would likely be no one else at the well. But on this afternoon she had company.
Instead of pretending she wasn’t there and coldly judging her with a stare, Jesus asks her for a favor. “Will you give me a drink,” he says. This startled her since she recognized him as a Jew, and they typically do not share plates or cups with Samaritans. Jesus does not mind sharing a dish with her and even offers to share something more personal and precious with her—living water. She doesn’t quite know what to make of his claim about living water and wonders where he would get it from and what he would use to give it to her. He tells her he is the source of the living water, and the people who drink it will never thirst because “the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
She is ready to drink this water just as Jesus reminds her of her mistakes by asking about her husband and then bringing up her rocky past. She had never seen him before. How did he know about her private life? She concludes he must be a prophet, so she brings up a prophet’s topic: who is right about worship? Jesus says that God the Father is seeking worshippers who will worship him in the Spirit and in truth. She says that she knows that the coming Messiah will set everyone straight. He agrees and says that he is the Messiah.
At that time Jesus’ disciples find their master at the well talking to this woman. She then leaves behind her water jar and goes to the village to tell everyone about the Messiah.
Jesus goes to places the so-called righteous people do not want to go.
Jesus befriends people the so-called righteous people choose to ignore.
Jesus transforms imperfect people by implanting in them a wellspring of eternal life.
Jesus tells these people the Father is seeking them and wants them; he knows their past and still will not leave them behind.
“We do not need to live our entire life angry             with our past or with our weakness.We do not have to be resentful towards our parents,            our society or our churchbecause they have hurt us.We are called to discover that no pain is ever useless.It is more like the manure spread on the ground.It smells horrid and seems only to be waste,but in fact it enriches and nourishes the earth,allowing it to bring forth new life.Nothing is lost.Jesus welcomes everything that is broken.If we give him our weaknesshe will transform it into a source of life” (Jean Varnier, Befriending the Stranger, 100).