~ Charlie Brown.
Showing posts with label Sin. Show all posts
I Know What You Mean, Charlie
Pointing Fingers At Others
Remember the phrase, "When you point a finger at someone remember you have three pointing back at you?" Do you remember that one? Well, Christians need to learn from that. We do a whole lot of finger pointing and it sure can come off as judgmentalism (not, of course, that I'm pointing fingers at anyone here :) ). It seems we have a habit of being more concerned about all the wrong that we see in others' lives than our own.
I was reflecting on this last night as I came across the following quotes:
"It is a cheap zeal that reserves its passions to combat only the sins and temptations of others."
-- D.A. Carson
"Our own share of evil is not removed by condemning evil in others."
-- Adolf Schlatter
Then, of course, there's what Jesus said in Matthew 7:3-5:
3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
So much time and energy in the Christian Church is taken up be the condemnation of others. It happens, I would argue, in all denominations and nondenominations. It puts Christians on the news. And it keeps us from following Jesus.
A Verse For Lent
What is the nature of our sin that it deserves so beautifully to be forgiven?
--R.S. Thomas
--R.S. Thomas
(HT -- Connexions)
Grace and Karma (According to Bono)
(This is from over at The Poached Egg)
Bono: Yes, I think that's normal. It's a mind-blowing concept that the God who created the universe might be looking for company, a real relationship with people, but the thing that keeps me on my knees is the difference between Grace and Karma.
Assayas: I haven't heard you talk about that.
Bono: I really believe we've moved out of the realm of Karma into one of Grace.
Assayas: Well, that doesn't make it clearer for me.
Bono: You see, at the center of all religions is the idea of Karma. You know, what you put out comes back to you: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics; in physical laws every action is met by an equal or an opposite one. It's clear to me that Karma is at the very heart of the universe. I'm absolutely sure of it. And yet, along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that "as you reap, so you will sow" stuff. Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I've done a lot of stupid stuff.
Assayas: I'd be interested to hear that.
Bono: That's between me and God. But I'd be in big trouble if Karma was going to finally be my judge. I'd be in deep s---. It doesn't excuse my mistakes, but I'm holding out for Grace. I'm holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the Cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don't have to depend on my own religiosity.
Assayas: The Son of God who takes away the sins of the world. I wish I could believe in that.
Bono: But I love the idea of the Sacrificial Lamb. I love the idea that God says: Look, you cretins, there are certain results to the way we are, to selfishness, and there's a mortality as part of your very sinful nature, and, let's face it, you're not living a very good life, are you? There are consequences to actions. The point of the death of Christ is that Christ took on the sins of the world, so that what we put out did not come back to us, and that our sinful nature does not reap the obvious death. That's the point. It should keep us humbled . It's not our own good works that get us through the gates of heaven.
LOST: Our Quest to Find Jesus -- "Jesus, The Forgiver" -- Sermon for 30 January 2010
Text: Hosea 14:1-7 & Colossians 3:12-14
Title: “Jesus: The Forgiver”
We have sanitized forgiveness in our culture. We have lessened its impact. We have made it easy…simple…quaint.
As a parent, I know there are times when we’re talking with our kids after an argument and we want one of them to say they’re sorry for whatever it is that they have done wrong and we want the other kid to say…even if it’s like pulling teeth to get them to say it… “I FORGIVE YOU.” And this is a good lesson to be taught at an early age. We don’t want our kids to stay mad at each other or us or someone else FOREVER. There is some sort of emotional healing that comes with forgiveness, even for the little things, so that we’re not weighed down a desire to enact VENGEANCE BECAUSE WE HAVE BEEN SO WRONGED--or at least our kids can FEEL that they've been very wronged.
She destroyed my picture.
He told her that I liked her.
They went into my room without asking first.
It is good to let the pain and the hurt go. Forgiveness means you won’t be a slave to that pain and hurt anymore.
But, you know, this type of forgiveness is FORGIVENESS-WITH-TRAINING WHEELS. Most of the situations where forgiveness comes up in our lives we’d really be able to get through or get over without much emotional investment because, while we may feel hurt at the time, a little perspective and a little life happening to you can make you realize that, in the grand scheme of things, our hurt was pretty minor.
Where the rubber meets the road, though, is when those training wheels come up…when the hurt is BIG, where the pain is REAL, where your emotional investment is INTENSE.
Says Jared Wilson in his book, Your Jesus is Too Safe, which is serving as our springboard into these discussions, writes about forgiveness this way:
We have so sanitized forgiveness it’s all out of focus. We idealize it as nice and virtuous, the dominion of children and their insignificant squabbles. We forget, though, just how messy, how difficult, how scandalous forgiveness really is until were faced with the opportunity to experience it ourselves. If you’ve ever cried out for a forgiveness withheld from you, or if you’ve ever had to face the sometimes excruciating process of forgiving someone who has really sinned against you, then you know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t experienced either opportunity, just wait. (59)
We may say Jesus loves us, but when we have been wronged to our very core, we like to saddle up with our friend, the ANGRY JESUS. He’s the one who can’t stand to be around sin for he is holy, and he can’t stand to be around injustice, for he is just, and he’s the one who says vengeance is mine and we’re more than happy to let him at whoever it was who hurt us so bad.
And so, we get angry. And we stew. And we simmer. And we boil. And we hold onto those feelings and can’t seem to avoid having them define us and shape us. We can lose sight of Christ’s forgiveness, maybe not because we want to lose sight of it, but because our situation makes it so difficult to forgive.
One example… When I was in seminary at Duke, I had a professor who talked with me about a class on forgiveness he was teaching. After students had signed up for the class one girl pulled him aside. She admitted that she had been raped and she wanted to take the class to forgive the one who did this to her. That put a lot of pressure on the professor! Well, as the class progressed, she came and talked with the professor, wondering if she should continue. She just couldn’t forgive this person. The professor asked if she WANTED to forgive. Yes, she did. Well, then, she was on her way, he said. He said, when your pain is deep, forgiveness can be a long process. Deep wounds don’t have quick fixes. But, it’s still important to move along that direction.
The Bible, too, talks about forgiveness in difficult times. One great example is rough. It’s Hosea in the Old Testament.
God wants Hosea to serve as an example of his own great love and forgiveness and relentless pursuit of his chosen people. So he orders Hosea to marry Gomer, a prostitute. Hosea obeys. Gomer doesn’t stop doing what she had been doing. Hosea is married to an unfaithful spouse and yet remains wedded to her, forgiving her at every step, never stopping loving her. This provides us with a stunning image of the grace of God. For God, in Hosea, is in a relationship with an adulterous spouse Israel, who has gone off seeking other spiritual suitors.
These two images, the young woman in the class on forgiveness and Hosea and Gomer are not meant to shock. They are meant to help explain the rawness of forgiveness and what’s really at stake here. Our Gospel teaches us that this very human commitment to sin and pain and hurt has been overcome by a more powerful commitment on God’s part to restoration and healing and sanctification. And, at times, it’s every bit as difficult as these two illustrations make clear. Forgiveness is messy work.
But, even though it can tear us up, we know that, the end of the process is a beautiful thing.
Hosea’s account, closes with a love song --- How could it possibly end with a love song, we may want to say? -- But it does. We read it before, but Peterson’s The Message translation puts it this way:
"I will heal their waywardness.I will love them lavishly. My anger is played out.I will make a fresh start with Israel.He'll burst into bloom like a crocus in the spring.He'll put down deep oak tree roots,he'll become a forest of oaks!He'll become splendid—like a giant sequoia,his fragrance like a grove of cedars!Those who live near him will be blessed by him,be blessed and prosper like golden grain.Everyone will be talking about them,spreading their fame as the vintage children of God. (Hosea 14:4-7)
We may say this is beautiful. We may say it’s wonderful that Israel will be restored into relationship with its God. But we cannot say the “getting there” is easy.
I was once told by another professor, (and I paraphrase), “Grace stinks.” It stinks because it means burying the hatchet, in the ground and not in a back. It means welcoming home someone who isn’t worthy of being welcomed. It’s is offering mercy to the one who is unmerciful. It is forgiving the one you can imagine ever forgiving. And, if we are going to followers of Christ, we need to follow into this radical world of forgiveness where “Grace stinks” – because it goes against our better judgment, against the world’s teachings of right and wrong, and against our emotions that would rather sit in our angers and resentments.
This is scandalous.
And of course, Jesus made it even more scandalous. Because here we have a carpenter’s son from Nazareth who now claims to be able to offer the forgiveness of God.
Think of the passage from Mark 2 and the paralytic man. His buddies bring him to see Jesus but they can’t get in the door. They peek through the windows. They yell. Nothing. So they get a ladder and go up the roof and start digging through. They lower their friend to the feet of Jesus in the sure and certain hope that he would be healed. And he is. And Jesus says, “My son, your sins are forgiven.”
Forgiveness and the healing or restoration that accompanies it is found in this one man.
I think the main thing about forgiveness that confronts our delicate sensibilities is that the person who is forgiven doesn’t deserve that forgiveness. It flies in face of all that we think is right and just.
I remember hearing a story about the Amish in upstate Indiana. Apparently, one day, a group of teenagers was out joyriding and throwing rocks into Amish buggies as they passed by. Nothing usually happened outside of some kids being mean. But on this one day, the rock hit a baby who was in the back of the buggy and killed the child. When the police started to press charges, the family said that they would not. They forgave the teenage boys and would pray that they would receive and live into that forgiveness. The police had no idea how to process this. It didn’t make sense.
Or, think about the Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania in 2006 where an armed man came and murdered five young girls before taking his own life. And the Amish community said they harbored no ill will but forgave the man and have reached out to his family.
Or, this account given by Jared Wilson:
The same week of the Amish schoolhouse murders, one of our church’s pastors told the story of a mother who’d forgiven the drunk driver who killed her teenage son. Not only had she found her way past the anger and bitterness to forgive the driver, but she and her husband had also pursued the messy work of reconciling a relationship with the man, EVEN THOUGH THEY HAD NO PRIOR RELATIONSHIP WITH HIM. Her husband, who was a pastor, even presided over the man’s marriage. (66)
Look, I hope you’re never put in any one of these situations. I pray that nothing I’ve said today will ever apply to your life in the same way. I pray that the wrongs committed against you remain childlike, and involve little need for healing and restoration. But if you ever find yourself in something like this, you’ll find that “Grace Stinks,” that forgiveness is painful, that fixing something that’s broken can require some great help from God.
Some things we need to understand about forgiveness:
First, FORGIVENESS IS NOT JUST FOR THE PERSON WHO'S FORGIVEN BUT FOR THE FORGIVER AS WELL. By forgiving you free yourself from bondage to resentment. You liberate yourself. And this doesn’t matter if the person you’re forgiving is repentant or changed or accepts your forgiveness. By forgiving someone, you claim that you will not be defined by that wrong that was done to you and that you will not keep the weight of that burden from living an abundant life. You are freed. You are more than that.
Now, as I’ve said, this may go against all that you’re feeling and all that you’re thinking when you’re in the midst of your pain. Working through forgiveness can be infuriating.
Second, THIS WHOLE FORGIVENESS THING SPRINGS FROM THE FACT THAT WE ARE FORGIVEN. Remember Hosea and how his life of forgiving Gomer provided us a picture of what God’s forgiveness looks like. That’s the forgiveness God offers to us. We don’t deserve it. It’s a free gift of grace. That’s what grace is. And we, who have been forgiven, are to forgive others.
We get reminded of this every time we say The Lord’s Prayer – “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Or, for the Presbyterians in the bunch, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” Or, for those who like to shake it up in a little more contemporary way, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” It all means the same. We forgive because we have been forgiven.
Or, the Colossians passage,
Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.
It’s not dependent upon what the other person does.
Says Wilson,
[T]he moment you make your granting of forgiveness contingent on another persons’ attitude or worthiness, you’re slapping God in the face. Again, this is why: you yourself are not WORTHY of God’s forgiveness. You can never deserve it. You aren’t good enough or smart enough—doggone it, God didn’t grant you forgiveness because you’re likeable. He did it because he loves you and because grace is the way he shows it. (72)
So, forgiveness is for the forgiver as well as the forgiven. We forgive BECAUSE God forgives us.
Third, and last, WE FORGIVE AS WE HAVE BEEN FORGIVEN.
We are forgiven relentlessly, endlessly, patiently. That is how we are forgiven. That is how we are to forgive.
If you remember, when, in Matthew, Peter asks how many times he should forgive. Is it seven times? No, it’s seventy times seven. The point is not to stop when we get to 490 times. The point is that it’s unending. Just like Jesus’ forgiveness of us.
Two last points here as we wrap this up.
One. Forgiveness does not make us doormats. If you’re getting beat up by a significant other, you need to get away...protect yourself and your family before this can be worked on. If you have someone who is picking bullying you at school, it’s OK to turn them in, get an adult to help. If you have a spouse who is fooling around with someone, that extra-marital affair needs to stop for there to be healing in your relationship.
But by offering forgiveness, you give up the power that unforgiveness can have over you. You bring a radical forgiveness to your relationship and ONLY THEN can true restoration occur.
Two: We’ve talked about how difficult it is to offer a deep forgiveness. I want to say it’s difficult to receive forgiveness too. I have more problems with receiving than giving. Receiving means letting go of guilt and shame. Receiving means recognizing how your words or your actions or inactions affected those you love. Receiving can mean forgiving ourselves. In short, it means coming face to face with your sin. Know that God’s grace is always greater than our sins. And, perhaps, when we’re in need of forgiveness, we’ll find persons whose grace is greater than our sin as well. It’s hard. It's hard to find in the world. But we should thank God when that’s the case.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
"Looking in the Wrong Place" as We Place Blame For Arizona Shootings
Scott McNight says we're looking in the wrong place as we try to find answers and try to lay blame. Read his whole post HERE. A section of it is below. The problem, he says, is that we're a cracked, broken, sinful people.
Here's what he writes. It's good:
The problem, my friends, is not the rhetoric of the columnists, or the politicians, or the bloggers. Well, yes, it is. There is too much nonsense and inflammatory rhetoric. I am committed to working even harder at civil discourse. But heated political rhetoric is not new — it’s the nature of the game and one can see it even in Thomas Paine’s classic Common Sense? Political rhetoric is not what caused the tragedy.
The problem is that human beings are cracked. What happened in broad daylight, in broad premeditated daylight, in Tucson was sickening to the stomach and destructive of the human spirit. But that didn’t happen because he was a right winger or left winger — and a case has been made for both. And it didn’t happen because the Left or the Right had gotten inside that young man’s head and spoiled it.
This tragedy happened because Jared Lee Loughner was disturbed and he was free in our society and he had a gun and he used it. All murderers are disturbed. Jared Loughner, on his own, bought a gun — we could make tighter gun laws (and I’m for that). Jared Loughner exhibited strange and disturbing behaviors in a college — we could make more laws about how to deal with troubled students. (I’ve had a few myself but a school’s intuition in these matters is rarely clear.) Jared Loughner probably listened to inflammatory political rhetoric — we could make some laws that would curtail free speech. Jared Loughner was told he need to see a therapist — we could make some laws that make people see therapists. … we could, we could, we could.
But our approach is to find the source so we can blame it and solve it instead of admitting the reality: our world, my friends, is not perfect; it is broken; we live among cracked people who are free to roam in ways that can harm others; we can’t make enough laws to prevent disturbed people from doing despicable things. We can’t, we can’t, we can’t. We can’t protect the world from disturbed people unless we change the world dramatically.
So, what do you think...?
(HT to Allan Bevere for pointing me towards this post by McNight)
"Forget the Duck" -- A Lesson in Grace and Forgiveness
I tried to see if I could find where that story comes from. It's been used by several different pastors and even by a Muslim website. I did, however, find one source that actually lists a citation.
Here's that version of the story along with a citation:
Richard Hoefler, in his book WILL DAYLIGHT COME? (1979, C S S Publishing Company), tells about two young children visiting their grandparents for the summer. Johnny was given his first slingshot. He practiced shooting in the woods, but missed everything he aimed at.
As he returned to Grandma's back yard, however, he spied her pet duck. It wasn't the only duck she kept, but it was her favorite. On an impulse he took aim and let it fly. This time he didn't miss. His stone struck and killed the duck.
The boy panicked. He didn't mean to hurt the bird -- he was even sure he'd miss! But he had killed it. His panic grew to desperation and he hid the duck in the woodpile, only to look up and see his sister. Sally had seen it all, but she said nothing to her grandparents.
After lunch that day Grandma said, "Sally, let's wash the dishes." Sally said, "Johnny told me he wanted to help in the kitchen today. Didn't you Johnny?" She whispered to him, "Remember the duck." (Blackmailed by his sister!) So Johnny did the dishes.
Later Grandpa asked if the children wanted to go fishing. Grandma said, "I'm sorry, but I need Sally to help make supper." Sally smiled and said, "That's all taken care of, Johnny wants to do it." Again she whispered, "Remember the duck." Johnny stayed while Sally went fishing.
Johnny did both his chores and Sally's for several days, and could stand it no longer. He confessed to Grandma that he'd killed the duck.
She said, "I know Johnny." She gave him a big hug and added, "I was standing at the window and saw the whole thing. But because I love you, I forgave you. I just wondered how long you would let Sally make a slave of you."
His grandmother was more ready to forgive then he was even to ask for forgiveness. Similarly, we are surrounded by more grace than we may realize. But a disturbing inner voice often whispers, "Remember the duck. Remember the duck." Some people live their whole lives enslaved by the voice that says, "Remember the duck." They never let themselves be forgiven!
They don't know the meaning of deep peace. They are seldom free of guilt and feel as if happiness only comes to others more deserving.
What does it matter if the whole world were to love us, and accept us in spite of our failings, if we persist in feeling badly? Are you sick of feeling sick about the mistakes of your past?
Maybe it's time to forget the duck! After you've done all you can to rectify the past, then it's time to put it down. Forget the duck -- and be free.
We, as a people are so fond of "remembering ducks." We hold onto our own sins and the sins of others like some trophies that we can't put down or scarlet letters we can't take off.
I don't know what it is inside of me, but those closest to me know that I have a hard time offering grace to myself. I can get all bent out of shape over sin in my life. I have this innate desire to please and any failure hits me hard. Again, I don't know why that's the case. It just is. Am I waiting on a more sincere repentance? Why is it so hard just to accept the grace that Christ offers to us?
But then, for those of us inside the church, we need to be aware of how often we turn our faith into some sort of moral code that can't handle any wavering from the narrow road as outlined by the Bible or by our denomination or by our particular church. Our scriptures are clear that God unconditionally forgives us. He comes to us and dies for us.
Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:19, “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them.” Our sins aren't counted against us. They are counted against Christ. It's an act of love. It's an act of grace. It is a free gift of love.
As in that song, "Freely, Freely:"
God forgave my sin in Jesus' name
I've been born again in Jesus' name
And in Jesus' name I come to you
To share His love as He told me to
He said: 'Freely, freely, you have received
Freely, freely give
Go in My name, and because you believe
Others will know that I live.'
So, why is it then that we are so good at "remembering ducks?"
Let's live as a people who forget the ducks.
Damned Four Letter Words and Fallenness
I don't think I set myself as being "holier than thou." I don't think I set myself up as being holier than pretty much anyone else. I'm a sinner and struggle with many things in life. I am acutely aware of my own need of redeeming...much of this awareness, somewhat ironically, coming from my own sense of pride. While I try to be a model Christian, I recognize that I'm far away from the very model I try to portray. So, I'm careful, I hope, with my words. I try to be humble. I try to show myself in a worse light, the chief of all sinners. And, I try to see the best in others. I try to assume the best in people. I make excuses for the behavior of others. I try to be empathetic. I try to avoid "slippery-slope" assumptions. If one dances, that doesn't make them a bad...let's say really, really bad...let's say a bound-for-hell...person. If one swears that doesn't make them less of a Christian than I am. Because they go to a different church or no church at all or vote different or have an entirely different belief system I can still learn from them and act as if they are beloved children of God...because they are. God loves them, warts and all...just as God loves me, warts and all.
Sometimes the "warts" are well-known.
We live in a community where marijuana use is rampant. Lots of drinking. Lots of people have been wounded by the church at some point in their lives and lots of people have come to very different destinations in their quest for religious meaning. How am I different? I do try to live my life and train my children to live in a counter-cultural way. We live differently in some larger and smaller ways. We may talk differently. But that's not because we're better than anyone. It's not because God loves us more than anyone. It's because we're trying, however haltingly, to live faithfully. And this affects the words that come out of our mouths. It affects the things we put in our bodies. And, I think most importantly, it affects how we treat others. We treat others with grace and love and forgiveness and understanding. As God loves, we love. Or, at least, as God loves, we TRY to love.
It has taken a long time, within this community, to be seen as a person who was not going to judge (unfairly) those around me...if they use foul language, if (when I'm not around) I know they use pot. How do I hold the line between "holiness" and "hospitality"? And, as I've lived it over the last 40 years or so, I've come out on the side of hospitality; grace. I try for it not to be "cheap grace" or "sloppy agape." I try not to veer into the "if it feels good, do it" mentality or "I'm OK, you're OK." I don't want a watered down Christianity. I want a bold proclamation of the gospel in my own life and the lives of those around me. I want to be identified as a Christ-follower by what I say and do and yet I know that I don't do a good job at that some of the time...most of the time...all of the time.
My fallenness is astounding. Fortunately, the grace of Christ trumps it. Even more astounding.
I was drawn to reflect on this this morning, coffee in hand, after reading another good post from Carlos Whittaker over at Ragamuffin Soul. He writes a post called "Monkey Bars, Damnation, and Pissed off Christians." Yes, that's the title. It turns out that Carlos' daughter broke her arm on some monkey bars and, in his frustration and anger and worry, he tweeted, "damned monkey bars" and, in an immediate follow-up, asked for prayers for his daughter. Well worth praying for I would think. What's interesting is the response of one of his twitter followers who called him into question for using "inappropriate" language that was unbecoming of a "prominent leader."
This hit me hard this morning. Geez. What's "appropriate" for a "prominent leader"? How human and fallen are we allowed to be?
I am not a swear-er by nature. You can ask my kids and my wife. I don't know why I don't really swear. But, it's not what I do. And, really, I don't get bent out of shape when those around me swear. Maybe my ears perk up a bit, but that's about it. So, is "damn" a bad word? I don't like it when people invoke God's name in the mix, as in "God damn it." That's putting some words in God's mouth that I'm not comfortable with and, when it comes down to it, just saying "damn" could imply the whole God-thing anyway.
Now, this is not to say this is a non-issue. Check out these words from James, chapter 3:
With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.(In fairness, Carlos did not curse a human being. He cursed some monkey bars. I assume there was little emotional damage done to the monkey bars.)
But, what is the standard of leadership and religiosity that we hold up there for the world to see. I think there is a saccharine Christianity that is promoted...don't swear, wear respectable clothing, drug-free, hang out with the right people, listen to only Christian music, etc. It's morality over substance. And, I'm not sure it's real or even really attainable. We see on the news how the "morals" of our Christian leaders are holding up. So many are pharisaic. They put on a good show on the outside but there's little substance. What is it Jesus said in Matthew 23:25-26:
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean."
I know how I portray myself to others matters. I'm not sure that not swearing ranks up there with treating others with love and compassion. Here's how Carlos explains himself. I think it's good. I'll leave it here:
I would rather show this version of “leadership”, the scratched up dirty one, than the perfect version I can’t live up to and see online everyday.
In the mess of who I am you will hopefully find nuggets to learn from after you clean all the crap off.
I love Jesus I really do, and I try to follow him, I just am horrible at it. But getting better every few weeks or so.
Nuggets and crap were maybe not the best use of examples but you get the [gist].
I’m not pretending to be James Dobson here. I’m more a mix of James Dobson, Phil Dunphy, and Homer Simpson…with a touch of Darth Vader thrown in for good measure.
The Wild, Hospitable Holiness of Jesus
In today's world (a phrase I use more than I probably should), there seems to be a struggle within the church to define holiness. This hit home to me when a United Methodist Bishop at General Conference in 2008 addressed the homosexuality debate that occurred on the conference floor by saying it was a battle between two competing goods, "holiness" and "hospitality."
He said that there are some within the UMC who wanted to preserve the holiness of the church, keeping it pure. Therefore, this camp wanted to keep homosexuals out of the church. Homosexual practice is a sin and, therefore, the church needs to take a stand against it. Homosexuals should not be members. Homosexuals should not be ordained. The whole notion of "reconciling churches," welcoming the LGBT community, in this perspective, would be anathema. Keep the church holy.
On the other hand, there were those who theologically emphasized hospitality, welcoming all. Therefore, when lines were to be drawn about who was "in" and who was "out" in the church, the biblical concept of hospitality trumped all others. The church should, as a rule, exclude no one. All are welcomed to the table of Christ. As the saying goes, "When Jesus is up on that cross, arms outstretched, who is it that he can NOT embrace?" The implied answer is no one. All are welcome.
However, are these really two competing interests, holiness and hospitality? Are they really opposed to one another?
Alan and Debra Hirsch are two missional leaders over at CatalystSpace. They address the strange holiness of Jesus that was not opposed to hospitality in a blog post entitled, "What Kind of Holiness is This?"
A lot of what is given to us as "holiness" today is really nothing more than morality. I'm not saying that I want everyone to be "immoral" but I don't think "immorality" excludes one from the heart of God--and therefore should not exclude one from the heart of the church. And this is not just about homosexuality. Homosexuality is just the hot-button issue where this discussion, debate, fight, is taking place. We could have similar discussions about welcoming the drug dealers, the divorced, the unwed mothers, the goth, the tattooed, the addicted, the poor, the.... well you get the picture.
He said that there are some within the UMC who wanted to preserve the holiness of the church, keeping it pure. Therefore, this camp wanted to keep homosexuals out of the church. Homosexual practice is a sin and, therefore, the church needs to take a stand against it. Homosexuals should not be members. Homosexuals should not be ordained. The whole notion of "reconciling churches," welcoming the LGBT community, in this perspective, would be anathema. Keep the church holy.
On the other hand, there were those who theologically emphasized hospitality, welcoming all. Therefore, when lines were to be drawn about who was "in" and who was "out" in the church, the biblical concept of hospitality trumped all others. The church should, as a rule, exclude no one. All are welcomed to the table of Christ. As the saying goes, "When Jesus is up on that cross, arms outstretched, who is it that he can NOT embrace?" The implied answer is no one. All are welcome.
However, are these really two competing interests, holiness and hospitality? Are they really opposed to one another?
Alan and Debra Hirsch are two missional leaders over at CatalystSpace. They address the strange holiness of Jesus that was not opposed to hospitality in a blog post entitled, "What Kind of Holiness is This?"
One of the confronting questions we find ourselves repeatedly asking is: What is it about the holiness of Jesus that caused "sinners" to flock to him like a magnet and yet manages to seriously antagonize the religious people? This question begs yet another, even more confronting question: Why does our more churchy form of holiness seem to get it the other way around – to comfort the religious and antagonize the sinners?
Jesus's brand of holiness (the true form) didn't seem to deter the sinners from wanting to get up close and personal with him. The gospel is full of stories of sinners, the bungled, the broken, and the bent clamoring to be near Jesus. Jesus was different. He wasn't like the other holy rollers, the religious folk, of his day. There was something magnetic about his persona that caused even the most desperate to do the unthinkable and violate not only social etiquette of the day, but risk further marginalization by being close to him.
No doubt about it, Jesus' holiness was compelling. The Gospels clearly show us that social rejects loved to be around Jesus. Think of prostitutes, lepers, tax collectors, adulterers, Roman soldiers, Samaritans, Gentiles, and the list goes on. They couldn't get enough of him. In hanging out with people like these, Jesus shows us that one cannot achieve holiness by separation from the unclean.
The holiness of Jesus, it seems, is a redemptive, missional, world-embracing holiness that does not separate itself from the world, but rather liberates it. And it wasn't that Jesus was simply "a nice inclusive guy." Everyone loves a nice guy, but nice guys don't end up murdered on crosses. Actually, as Ben Witherington says, it's not surprising (because of his actions and teachings) that Jesus was crucified. The surprising thing is that it didn't happen sooner!
A lot of what is given to us as "holiness" today is really nothing more than morality. I'm not saying that I want everyone to be "immoral" but I don't think "immorality" excludes one from the heart of God--and therefore should not exclude one from the heart of the church. And this is not just about homosexuality. Homosexuality is just the hot-button issue where this discussion, debate, fight, is taking place. We could have similar discussions about welcoming the drug dealers, the divorced, the unwed mothers, the goth, the tattooed, the addicted, the poor, the.... well you get the picture.
I have recently been dealing with the death of a young man in the community who was loved by many. I had the privilege of leading a memorial service for the family yesterday. This young man, somewhere along the way, got into a hole that he just kept digging deeper into as he tried to get out. Drugs. Theft. Lies. Turning against the very ones who loved him most. Very difficult situation. But in his death the survivors are left with the tough questions like, "Did God love him?" "Could God welcome a sinner such as he?" "Is he in heaven?" These are tough questions and I always fall back on the testimony of the love of God. That's where it starts. That's where it ends. Period. The holiness of God is intimately connected to his hospitality. It is not opposed to it.
This is a "wild holiness." It calls into question those of us in the church who would be bound to religious codes, separating ourselves from others.
This is a "wild holiness." It calls into question those of us in the church who would be bound to religious codes, separating ourselves from others.
We must again be surprised by the amazing capacity of Jesus to break religious stereotypes and to embody a kind of holiness that embraces the seriously weird and the wonderful, this is the Jesus we follow.
Anti-Bullying Post 1: "Christians Who are Silent are Complicit"
The following is found on AOL News.
The Rutgers University students charged with streaming a classmate's gay sexual encounter on the Internet prior to his suicide appear to be in hiding, refusing to defend themselves publicly even as criminal charges pile up and anger builds on their college campus and around the world.
Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei, both 18, were charged earlier this week with two counts each of invasion of privacy for allegedly using a camera to view and transmit a live image of fellow 18-year-old Tyler Clementi "making out with a dude," according to Ravi's Twitter postings. Clementi was Ravi's roommate, and he killed himself on Sept. 22 by jumping off New York's George Washington Bridge after finding out about the Web video.This has led to various responses of support for those in the LGBT community and a call to stop this kind of cyberbullying for all persons.
And, as Christians, we should care. We should care because we have a Savior who loves us and loves those who are being bullied (and, indeed, the bully-ers). And, frankly, if we don't stand up against the bullying that takes place in our midst then we are complicit in it. It's our sin, then.
I've been doing a lot of thinking about this since the Tyler Clementi incident. But I've always been big on combating bullying and people picking on others or stripping them of their power or humiliating them. Just this past year I participated in the Special Olympics' "Spread the Word to End the Word" -- The campaign to stop the use of the word, "retard."
So, the church needs to stand up for those who are victims and love them with the love of Jesus. Otherwise, we have a sin of omission on our hands.
"Christians are Such Hypocrites!"
CHRISTIANS ARE SUCH HYPOCRITES! Oh, they act all "Goody Two-Shoes" (insert Adam Ant song here) but they sin just like everyone else. Isn't that the definition of being a hypocrite?
1. a person who pretends to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that he or she does not actually possess, esp. a person whose actions belie stated beliefs.2. a person who feigns some desirable or publicly approved attitude, esp. one whose private life, opinions, or statements belie his or her public statements.
(Thank you Dictionary.com).
However...
However...
The fact that there may be persons in the church "who pretend to have virtues" is not so much a problem with Christianity as it is a problem with Christians. The basic premise of Christianity is that we are sinners in need of redeeming...that "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, so that whosoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life." When persons join our club, we tell them they need to symbolically get washed in the waters of baptism to get that dirty sin off of them and we recognize that it's a constant struggle to live faithfully...that we're still going to be dealing with sin after JUSTIFICATION and along the road of SANCTIFICATION.
RC Sproul wrote a book in 1982 called Reason to Believe which addressed some of the objections that persons raise to the faith. One of which is this whole hypocrisy thing.
What happens is that people observe church members sinning. They reason within themselves, “That person professes to be a Christian. Christians aren’t supposed to sin. That person is sinning; therefore, he is a hypocrite.” The unspoken assumption is that a Christian is one who claims he does not sin. It reality just the opposite is the case. For a Christian to be a Christian, he must first be a sinner. Being a sinner is a prerequisite for being a church member. The Christian church is one of the few organizations in the world that requires a public acknowledgment of sin as a condition for membership. In one sense the church has fewer hypocrites than any institution because by definition the church is a haven for sinners. If the church claimed to be an organization of perfect people then her claim would be hypocritical. But no such claim is made by the church. There is no slander in the charge that the church is full of sinners. Such a statement would only compliment the church for fulfilling her divinely appointed task.
It is true that there are hypocrites in the church. But that's not the fault of the church. It's the fault of Christians who have misinterpreted the message of Jesus.
Willimon on the "Peculiarity of Christian Sin"
Image via Wikipedia
I read this over on Richard Hall's "Connexions" weblog. It's a post by Kim and it's a quote from Will Willimon, Bishop in the United Methodist Church and one of my former professors at Duke Divinity School.
I quote this here because I read it and could hear sermons that I've preached on sin over the years and phrases that have appeared in them. In the church we are "learning how to be a sinner." I've used Reinhold Neibuhr's comment that "the doctrine of original sin is the only empirically verifiable Christian doctrine" and also Barth's quote, "Only Christians sin." In many sermons I've said, "Sin is a Christian construct. It takes place in our understanding of our relationship with God. It moves beyond offense to humanity or the earth or merely bad things to a theological point."
I think the section below, entirely quoted on Richard Hall's site, gets at some good stuff on sin.
Part of the prophetic ministry of the church is to teach people that we are sinners. Think of the church as lifelong learning in how to be a sinner….
Reinhold Niebuhr, citing Herbert Butterfield, is well known for his remark that the doctrine of original sin is the only empirically verifiable Christian doctrine. Even those who do not know that Jesus Christ is Lord, know sin. Niebuhr was wrong. Christian sin results not from our unhappiness with the limits of human existence and our inappropriate response to our discontented finitude (Niebuhr). Rather, Christian sin is derivative of and dependent upon what Christians know about God as revealed in Jesus Christ.
…. In all of his massive Church Dogmatics, [Karl] Barth did not get around to original sin until the very end. The traditional path had been to begin with the problem, our sin, and then to move to doctrines of redemption and atonement, God’s answer for our sin. Barth refused to take this path because if human beings are as sinful as Christian theology claims us to be, then even our attempts to admit our sin will be deceitful, sentimental, and self-serving. The “sins” of non-Christians are puny. We can only speak about sin after telling the story of our redemption.
As Barth says, “Only Christians sin.” That is, only Christians have inculcated the insights and the sets of practices that make sin comprehensible. Christians learn to sin, not by beginning with the allegedly universal observations about the “human condition,” but rather by beginning with a story of redemption. Only later are we able to move to an account of sin. The joyful story of our forgiveness precedes any honest telling of our sin….
William Willimon, Pastor: The Theology and Practice of Ordained Ministry (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2002), pp. 270-72.
