Bandits No More

May 3, 2010

Getting to Philippians 4

Filed under: Jesus,Paul,Spirituality — rheyduck @ 12:54 am

Have you ever noticed what Paul said in Philippians 4? We find him saying things like:

  • Rejoice in the Lord always; Again, I say, rejoice!
  • I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
  • My God shall supply all your needs through his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to say those things in our own lives?

We have a couple of guys in our church who run marathons. I think it would be cool to run a marathon. I think I’ll do it next week. If you knew me, you’d think that’s laughable. Though I exercise each week, I haven’t run much at all in several years. No way I’d be able to run a marathon next week.

My daughter likes to watch medical shows on TV. Pretty cool how they help people with those surgeries. I think I’ll take up surgery next week. I’m sure the unanimous comment is, “Not on me!” Though I’ve done successful surgeries on electronics before, surgery on a living being – at least one that you want to remain living after the surgery – requires years of education and training. No way I could do that next week.

I like music. One of the pieces I’ve liked over the years is Mozart’s Piano Sonata in A. I first heard it years ago, in an arrangement for flute and guitar. I don’t remember who was playing the guitar, but I’m pretty sure Jean Pierre Rampal was playing the flute. No way I could play two instruments, so I’ll just aim to play it on piano next week. Again everyone who knows me laughs. While I can play a couple of songs “one finger” on the piano, and am well enough educated to know that pianos have 88 keys, I’ve never had a piano lesson in my life.

In each of these cases -  running a marathon, doing surgery, or playing beautiful music – discipline is required. In each case I must submit myself to a particular way of life before I will ever make progress. It’s the same way with Paul in Philippians 4. With our cherry picking propensity, we easily identify these verses in Philippians 4 as favorites. We memorize them (maybe), and let them cheer us up. And they can do that. But by ignoring their context, we miss their real power.

If we begin at chapter 1 of Philippians, we find Paul in prison. He doesn’t know whether he’ll live or die. The soldiers could come in at any time and say, “Let’s go Paul, time for your execution.”

Prison? Execution? Not my idea of a “Rejoice in the Lord always” environment. Not a situation in which I’d be thinking, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. “My God will supply all your needs through his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” would probably not be my first thought. Instead I might be thinking, “Get me out of here God! I’ve served you faithfully all these years, and here I am in jail – and it’s all your fault!”

And yet we see Paul saying things like, “Rejoice in the Lord, always!” What made the difference? It was Jesus. More than that, it was taking up the way of Jesus as the determinative pattern of his life. In Philippians 2 we see Paul looking at Jesus. Jesus did count count equality with God as something to be exploited, but made himself nothing, taking the nature of a servant, humbling himself even to the point of death on a cross.

In Philippians 3 we see that Paul has taken that story of Jesus and made it his own. A Hebrew of Hebrews. Of the tribe of Benjamin. A zealous Pharisee, so serious about his business, so dedicated to the way of God, that he took it upon himself to persecute the church. As to legalistic righteousness, faultless. But he didn’t settle for that. Instead, he counted all that as loss – as rubbish – that he might gain Christ and be found in him. He would depend on Christ’s righteousness, not his own. He sought conformation with Christ – even in his suffering, even in his death – so that he might also be conformed with him in his resurrection.

It was only by taking up the way of Jesus as his own way of life, that Paul was able to become the kind of person who was able to say what he said when he said it. If we want to be able to say, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” the only way is to become the kind of people who take up the way of Christ as our own.

April 1, 2010

When Things Go Wrong

Filed under: Jesus — rheyduck @ 4:14 pm

Some people are optimists. They’re the folks who always expect good thing to happen. They see a silver lining in even the darkest days.

Some people are pessimists. Like Eeyore, Winnie the Pooh’s friend, they expect disaster right around the corner. However good things are right now, they’re sure it won’t last. Reality is about to jump out and bite them. Pessimists often deny the term, preferring to call themselves “realists.” Ron Heifetz describes this as a strategy of protecting oneself from any disappointment.

Have you ever been disappointed? I bet some of you are going through disappointments – even major ones – right now. You expected things, sometimes events, maybe your life as a whole, to turn out one way, but that way has never happened. Or if it did, what you expected to be good has been anything but.

Jesus’ disciples expected the best from Jesus. They’d heard his teaching. They’d seen his miracles. They’d seen him win encounter after encounter with the Pharisees and Sadduccees. They knew he was the one who would redeem Israel.

But then disaster struck. He was arrested. Hey, that’s no problem. He escaped every other predicament he’d been in. He’ll make it out this time, too. What? He’s not escaped yet? He’s on trial? He’s been convicted? They’re going to crucify him? Jesus – the one we thought was the Messiah – is dead? How could it be? We know for sure what’s coming next. The police will be coming after us. They’ll track us down, torture us and kill us. That’s what they always do to the folks who try to stand up for God.

Perhaps you’ve noted that transition in expectations in the Gospels.

The disciples were right to recognize the days as dark. Hard to get much darker than a brutal death. They were right to not venture into the la-la land that said something like, “Well, Jesus is in a better place now. He was just too good for this world.” Such a trip to la-la land completely misses what God was up to. Jesus came into the world knowing full well that the days were dark. At his baptism this non-sinner took upon himself the sins of humanity, setting himself up to absorb their consequences. He’d told the disciples that death awaited him in Jerusalem. They just never got it.

But death wasn’t the end for Jesus. The forces of sin, death and hell didn’t get the last word with him. God got the last word with Jesus, and his word was Live!

Whether you reckon yourself an optimist, a pessimist, a realist – or whatever – God’s word to you is Live! We find that life today through faith in the crucified and risen Jesus. Live in him.

October 22, 2009

Our Audience

Filed under: Discipleship,Ecclesiology,Evangelism,Jesus,church growth — rheyduck @ 7:39 pm

Eric Bryant asks, “Has listening to church attenders led to the decline of the church?”

Declining churches, in his experience, focus on the people they already have. What do they want? How can we keep them happy?

Innovative churches, on the other hand, listen primarily to people outside the church, people they want to reach.

My first thought was: Which was Jesus’ strategy?

If we consider the establishment represented by the scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees to be the insiders of the day, they were clearly not Jesus’ main audience. Jesus spent much of his time with outsiders – people those insiders didn’t think worthy of inclusion in the work of God. The insiders were increasingly peeved at him for his actions.

But that’s too simplistic. From an Israel point of view, all of Israel were the insiders. The Gentiles and the Samaritans were the outsiders. Jesus spent most of his time with the insiders. Sure, he had a few dealings with Gentiles, and at least one with some Samaritans. But most of his ministry, at least as depicted in the Gospels, was with Israel. When he sent out the twelve he explicitly commanded them to go only to the “Lost sheep of Israel.”

Notice he didn’t call them “the sheep of Israel.” They’re the “Lost sheep of Israel.” While all of Israel is, in a sense, on the insider, Jesus puts himself on the outside, and approaches them with the voice of the outsider. Not just any outsider, however, but an outsider whose design was to be the insider who defined their very essence: God.

There’s more to this insider/outsider picture. It is not exactly correct to say Jesus spent most of his time with outsiders. Rather, he spent most of his time with his disciples. These folks, drawn from the periphery of Israel, became a new Israel – the Remnant, to use OT terminology, or to use contemporary jargon, Israel rebooted. It was specifically with these peripheral Israelites, these insiders to the new work of God, that Jesus went to the outsiders, both the “lost sheep of Israel” and to those who were not Israel. Going to those folks was not what these new insiders desired. They were profoundly uncomfortable with the places Jesus took them.

So if the church wants to reach people today, to whom do we listen – insiders or outsiders? That way of putting the question guarantees the wrong answer. Our starting place is Jesus. We begin by listening to Jesus. When we leaders listen to Jesus, Jesus will lead (or shove?) us out of our comfort zone. He will direct us to those on the periphery of the church and to the outsiders.

The trouble with listening to Jesus first, is that comfort (except comforting the broken hearted) never comes into play. We don’t relax in church, comfortable with the way we’ve always done thing. We don’t morph the church into a spiritualized version of what the world calls comfort. We’re taking the message of Life to a lost and broken world.

Church ministry – or innovation – is never about tickling the itching ears of either church members or currently-outside-but-maybe-future-church-members. I know I never would have been reached by the church if they had only sought their own comfort. I also never would have been reached by the church with the Gospel if they had only sought to meet my “felt needs.” I was an American teenager. To the extent that I recognized my felt needs, many of them were misguided. The innovation that built a bridge to me enabled me – over time – to gain a clearer and healthier understanding of my needs (to begin to feel some needs, and to stop feeling other needs) and to see Jesus as not merely the meeter of my needs, but as the Lord of the universe who calls me to follow him.

I want to lead a church that follows Jesus, a church that is willing to tolerate discomfort, change and innovation to be faithful to him, and to connect with people we aren’t now connecting with.

June 30, 2009

WYSIWYG?

Filed under: Epistemology,Jesus,Perception — rheyduck @ 3:40 pm

Check out the picture at Bad Astronomy.

What do you think of it? Do you see the blue and green spirals? Did you read the explanation that both spirals are really the same color – that our senses are deceived by the proximity of the other colors?

At the end of the post the author says,

“So the next time someone swears they saw Jesus, or a UFO, or a ghost, show them this picture. What you see in life is absolutely and provably not what you get.”

It is true in this case that what you see – blue and green spirals – is not what you get. Assuming, of course, that by “get” you mean something like “an accurate representation of reality,” or “what is really there.”

We have enough experience with optical (and other kinds of) illusions, that we know that sometimes our senses are fooled. But are the reports of our senses “absolutely and provably” illusory all the time? Do we never get what we see?

When my wife cooked dinner last night, the results sure looked like sausage, sauteed squash, salad and pieces of fruit. My sense of touch – through the instrument of my fork – gave further evidence supporting my sight. As I put pieces of the food into my mouth I received confirmation of what I had seen. This was indeed sausage, squash, salad, and fruit.

But perhaps that’s not the level on which I should look for an illusion. I didn’t actually see my wife cook anything. Well, I saw her stirring the squash for a moment, but I didn’t see her cut it up, apply the heat, and bring it from beginning to completion. Maybe it was only an illusion that she cooked it. Maybe it was really one of the children.

We had a surprise birthday party for my son last summer. One of his friends is named Jesus. I have seen Jesus on more than one occasion. I have spoken with Jesus on several occasions. I have seen pictures of Jesus. Am I delusional? Is he illusory? Am I not “getting” what I see when I’m in the presence of Jesus?

But then maybe he means the other Jesus – Jesus of Nazareth, the fellow born in Bethlehem, who gathered disciples, died in Jerusalem, rose from the dead, ascended to the Father. Is he suggesting that that Jesus  is an illusion? Or is he claiming that any seeing of this Jesus is necessarily an illusion? Or perhaps he would limit the illusiveness of Jesus to current seeings of Jesus. Perhaps folks like Peter and Pilate really did see Jesus. But since he isn’t here now, we can’t see him now, therefore any purported seeings of Jesus are illusory.

Is the optical illusion mentioned at the Bad Astronomy site naturally occurring – or was it purposefully created to be an optical illusion? If I look at that and see an optical illusion, am I getting what I see? Is there a difference between seeing an optical illusion and seeing a picture of an optical illusion?  If I look at a tortilla and see a pattern of coloration that makes me think of Jesus, am I seeing Jesus? Or am I seeing a pigmented tortilla? If I look at a canvas and see a pattern of coloration that makes me think of Jesus, am I seeing Jesus? Or am I seeing a pigmented canvas?

I reason that the optical illusion at Bad Astronomy was humanly constructed. I reason also that the article/discussion accompanying it was humanly constructed. If I see these as humanly constructed am I seeing an illusion? I certainly don’t see a person in the act of composing either, but given the effects I take them to be the work of some human, just as I took last night’s dinner to be the work of my wife. Just as I take some of the things I’ve seen in life as the work of Jesus. If I can do the former two, why can’t I do the latter?

I am part of a socio/temporal system in which I understand how internet content happens. I have seen spam and filler that is computer generated. In its form it looks real. But if I try to make sense of it, the best sense is as spam or filler. It’s not “real” content. Lots and lots of us inhabit this socio/temporal system and have no trouble sharing an assessment of these kinds of things.

Fewer people share the socio/temporal system of my household. Given the ages of my children (21, 18, 13) it would not be unreasonable to think that one of them actually cooked last night’s supper. But since I am an inhabitant of that system, I know that my wife and I cook more than 99% of the meals. Since I did not cook the supper, my inference that she cooked the meal is not shocking. Since many other people inhabit similar socio/temporal systems, I’d guess my inference is not shocking to them either.

But what about seeing Jesus? I confess that I don’t inhabit a socio/temporal systems that inclines me to see Jesus in tortillas, fried eggs or clouds. While I can imagine looking at each of these, observing patterns of coloration or shaping, and thinking, ‘That looks like Jesus,” I would take this experience as more aptly called an act of imagination than an act of seeing Jesus. Again, because of the socio/temporal systems I inhabit, if I see patterns of coloration on a canvas and say, “I see Jesus” – as opposed, for instance, to saying “I see George Washington,” or, “I see a horse,” or “I see a gently flowing river.” At the same time, depending on the context that asks me to make a report of what I see, I might be happier to say “I see a picture of Jesus,” or “I see Jesus in that picture” than “I see Jesus.”

As a follower of Jesus and as an inhabitant of the socio/temporal system we call the Christian tradition, I sometimes see Jesus. I have not (yet) to my knowledge (I have to be wary considering what Jesus says in Matthew 25) seen Jesus the person as Jesus the person. But because of the judgments and patterns of perception built into this socio/temporal system, I have no trouble saying, “I have seen Jesus,” when I speak of effects that I take to be caused by Jesus’ acts.

Can I be wrong? Or can I have absolute certainty that I have seen Jesus? I don’t think so. I have a pretty high capacity for doubt. Like Descartes, I can imagine circumstances that cause my perceptions to be inaccurate. But I can do that for just about everything. Given my socio/temporal location, I have no reason to take my assessment that the post on the Bad Astronomy site was produced by anything other than a human agent.  Given my socio/temporal location, I have no reason to take my assessment that dinner last night was cooked by my wife as illusory. In the same way, viven my socio/temporal location, I have no reason to take my assessment that I have seen Jesus as illusory.

In the future I might come to judge a particular event that I took to be a seeing of Jesus (or my wife, or of a rainbow, or of a dog) as no such thing. But that would be no reason to eliminate altogether the class of all such seeings.

July 19, 2008

Dark Knight thoughts

Filed under: Dark Knight,Jesus,Movies — rheyduck @ 7:51 pm

If you haven’t seen the movie, and don’t want any hints of what happens, don’t read any further.

I saw the movie yesterday with my two oldest children. Here are a few thoughts:

  • At the end, Batman was reckoned a sinner so that the people of Gotham City could be delivered from crime. Joker had tried to show that even the best of the best would become evil in the right (wrong?) situation. Batman decided that Joker couldn’t be seen by the people to win that argument (though to a certain degree, Joker did win the argument: Harvey Dent did go bad). To defeat Joker, Batman bore Harvey Dent’s sin – but only a very few were allowed in on the secret. Jesus bore the sin of many, and did so without compromising on the truth. There was no need to maintain an illusion of the goodness of the people for whom Jesus died. It was pure grace. “Ah, but what about the common attribution of sinlessness?” Batman (falsely) wanted to see a kind of sinlessness attributed to Harvey Dent (how much of this was to cover for his own – as Bruce Wayne – over-reliance on Harvey Dent, on his own will to believe?). I see two things in Jesus’ sinlessness that help us more than Harvey Dent’s. First, Jesus’ sinlessness was in the context of non-violent, non-reactive suffering. He, like Harvey Dent, was truly tempted. He, unlike Harvey Dent, said NO to temptation. Second, as one who was tempted like we are – whether we’re the morally upstanding Harvey Dent’s or the gangster Maronys – Jesus understands our temptations, even our giving in to them, and still extends us mercy.
  • Joker saw his larger role as fomenting chaos. Chaos in the Dark Knight is seen as evil. Batman, though operating outside the bounds of order, seeks to prop up order. Is the order good? Well, not exactly. The order – pre-Batman, at least – included organized crime and its depredations on Gotham City. When we see Batman seeking to eliminate the evil in the order, we seem to be moving beyond a simple Manichean order of good and evil in constant warfare. If chaos is a kind of anti-order, perhaps even a prelude to a new order, then Batman himself is an agent of chaos. Joker seems altogether different, however. He seems in favor of no order, no predictability, no security. Jesus brought chaos – I think of his cleansing of the temple – but never served as the agent of chaos like Joker. Jesus was not for Order – just any kind of social stability – he was for the Kingdom of God and its ordering.
  • Joker is a kind of satan, some only to “kill, steal and destroy.” He lives as the accuser, the liar, the one who seeks to “help” others stray from the path.

October 19, 2007

Slippery Jesus

Filed under: Bible,Jesus,Leadership,Ministry,United Methodism,church growth — rheyduck @ 7:13 pm

We who delve into the bible and lead congregations… Yes, it appears possible to do the one and not the other: One can delve into the bible purely for personal benefit, or one can lead congregations and ignore the bible. But the best option is to delve into the bible, thereby listening to God, and from that listening, lead God’s people. Surely this leadership need not be from the top – from the position of pastoral CEO or Chair. Bible-produced leadership is just as possible from someone who has no official position.

Back to the original thought. Here I am, delving into my bible and leading congregations (I speak of my life over the past 20 years). I find myself in an uncomfortable place. One of the things I find in the bible is that people need Jesus. This bible-enunciated need has also been evidenced by what I see in actual living, breathing people. I need Jesus. Other folks need Jesus.

Have you ever noticed, however, that many people either don’t think they need Jesus or if they see the need, fail to act on it? I’ve been lost, so I know what it is to be blind to the Gospel. I’m a sinner, so I know what it is to not act on what I know I need to do. The confusion I’m talking about today is with the church (sinners within) rather than sinners without.

Almost every church I’ve pastored would have defended the idea that it is the church’s job to join in God’s work of helping people know Jesus. Almost as universally, these churches have acted like meeting the needs of church members and keeping them happy  is the most important task of the church (or of the pastor, as the case may be). Those folks out there ought to come to our programs and participate in our ministries.

But they don’t. At least not enough to staunch a decades long decline in United Methodism as a whole – and most of our congregations taken individually.

Faced with these details, many who speak up for leadership in the church tell us we need to change. We need to get back to God. Out of obedience to God we need to do everything possible to fulfill the Great Commission – and to lead our churches in that direction. Yes! my heart says. That’s exactly what we need to do. If some of the members aren’t up to it, if they want to stick with the old ways that continue to not win the lost, well, they can just be lost themselves. The changes we need to make to fulfill the Great Commission will necessarily leave some behind, since not all are concerned with the Great Commission, apparently preferring to keep things they way they’ve always been. Nice and comfortable.

New pastors come to these “don’t rock the boat” churches with instructions to “reach people,” to “grow the church.” The old timers don’t know what hit them. They just know that their church has been taken from them. Or… the hard charging, determined-to-reach-the-lost-at-any-cost  pastor is run off with this tail between his legs, either to go plant a church, try another transformation, or to sell insurance.

Where does Jesus fit in this mix (mess)? We could look at John 10 – the Good Shepherd. He’s a good enough shepherd that he doesn’t lose any. That’s way better than any shepherd (pastor) I’ve ever known. We all lose some, if for no other reason that we’re different from the last pastor. Surely the pastor who read John 10 and patterned ministry after Jesus would do everything to make sure none were lost?

Maybe. Maybe not. What about the Jesus of John 6? That Jesus begins well – feeding the multitude. We all like a free lunch. But by the end of the chapter he’s gotten so controversial that most of the crowd has left in disgust. He turns to the twelve. “Hey! Do you guys want to leave also? If so, you better hit the road.” Where’s the Good Shepherd who wants to keep everyone, no matter the cost?

Jesus is slippery. He just doesn’t fit our models.

Some of us like the model of Jesus as chaplain. Be nice. Make everyone happy. Don’t rock the boat.

Some of us like the model of Jesus the creator of storms. Stir things up. Cause a ruckus. Polarize.

Well, which is it? Do we pastors work our tails off to make everyone happy so no one ever leaves? Or do we push radical change to reach the lost, regardless of who (or how many) may depart in the interim?  I – with the help of Jesus – could make either case.

But I don’t think either is the right place to begin.

Instead, let’s consider stepping back and engaging Jesus in his context. Instead of taking our perception of our own context and laying Jesus (or our abstractions of Jesus) on top of them, let’s do what Jesus did. Put ourselves entirely at God’s disposal. Regular prayer and fasting. A broken heart for people – those on the inside, those on the outside. An irrationally stubborn commitment to his mission (how rational do you think it is to forego a quiet life of carpentery – or fishing – to go to Jerusalem to be betrayed, whipped and crucified?) regardless of how people responded (his best buds all ran away. Oh. All but two. One betrayed him, the other stayed close enough to deny him).

What would happen if we congregational leaders followed this Jesus – regardless of whether it made people happy or not? Regardless of whether it brought in the crowds or not?

It may be that we’ll be crucified. Wouldn’t be the first time. But it just may well be that we’ll hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

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