I am bad, but I am good.  The message of grace.  Declared good, despite the facts.  Through faith alone.

The OT promised a return of Elijah.  John the Baptist was thought to be him, but said he was not.  Jesus was asked if John the Baptist was Elijah and he said yes.  John was in truth the return of Elijah, but in fact was not.

Faith is messy.  Good and bad are not as clear cut as we might like to believe.  It is bad to lie, but Rehab the prostitute is remembered as good for doing bad - she lied to protect the Hebrews in her home.  Who knows why they were there.  Possibly they were doing bad while on a good mission being protected by a good person doing bad.  Again, who knows.

Listen for the scent of color in sweet softness. 

I’ll give the text.  Read it.  Meditate on it. Study it.  Whatever.  Just write your thoughts on all or part of the text -either from what you have learned or even the impressions you have as you read the text.

This weeks text:  Mt. 4:1-11

Some of my initial question:

1. What is evil?
2. Is bad the same as evil?
3. Is Satan real or a metaphor for bad things that happen?
4. Are there evil people?

Then, recently, Sally recanted. (www.allelon.org/articles/article.cfm?id=402).  All should read her re-engineered view of worship.  She is a brave soul and a blessing to all of us.  It takes guts to re-evaluate what you have promoted for years and then confess you have been wrong.  More than that, Sally presents some incredible challenges for a more biblical way of worship.

I’ve been concerned with what is considered worship around our location.  It isn’t evangelistic at all, unless one is trying to evangelize dollar bills from the already convinced.  Unbelievers are seldom at these worship services and when they are present they are not impressed - on the whole. 

Far too much effort and money is being diverted from helping the growing numbers of the poor and unashamedly poured into facilities, programs and attention riveting worship services. 

I recently had a conversation about the quality of our educational institutions.  I is my belief that a university should lose their accreditation if they have not measurably bettered the community that surrounds them.  Such a policy would close down many schools including some very wealthy and heady places.  How can we trust an educational institution to correctly lead young minds to be useful citizens when they can’t even find solutions for the problems surrounding their own schools?

I think a similar action should be taken with churches.  I believe that tax exemption should be conditional upon having met specific goals in uplifting the surrounding community not only from its spiritual impoverishment, but also its crime, poverty, etc.  Why should a church take up taxable property if it isn’t even meeting its own mission goals within a square block of its building?

When we call ourselves worshippers of God, it should be evident in our life 24/7.  I’ll be the first to acknowledge that I’ve used religion selfishly.  It has been my opium rather than an inspirations to acts of compassion for those most needy right around me.  I’m working on changing all that in my life.

We need church.  We need to come together for an awe-inspiring time of corporate worship.  But if we are not set on fire to make real, lasting and useful changes in the world around us - then our worship becomes nauseating to heaven.  Jesus, as Sally wrote, spent far more time out healing the people than in the synagogues preaching to believers who refuse to be God’s helping hands in the community.

The gospel was defined as the life, death and resurrection of Jesus that brought brings grace to all who believe and receive him.  Those who deny this story were labeled as ‘heretics’ - however congenial their personalities.

Simultaneously, these same speakers spoke against various practices within the church - most often labeling homosexuality as sin and denying a leadership role to anyone wrestling with this ’sin’.  Meanwhile, they same individuals confessed the ’sins’ they struggle with - anger, profanity, jealousy, etc.  These were, of course, ’acceptable sins’.  No one ventured to add sins of lust (either heterosexual or otherwise). 

The problem with all this, in my opinion, is that when we receive the gospel of Christ it informs us that all have sinned, all are sinners, and all sins have been forgiven.  There is, as one seminar speaker mentioned, ‘bad guys and Jesus, not bad guys, good guys and Jesus’.  Receiving Jesus doesn’t make us perfect in actuality, but in accounting.  If this is true then those who ‘really’ understand the gospel would receive into fellowship (and even leadership positions) all who receive Jesus - regardless of what they continue to wrestle with.  If we confess our sins and repent, we are forgiven our sins - but we are not made immune to falling back into those sins again.  Yet, if we do fall, we continue to have an ‘advocate with the Father’.   That is the gospel.  

So, if we say we believe the gospel and that belief in the gospel defines whether or not we are a Christian, then we living out the gospel will be seen as a forgiving, embracing & loving spirit - a clearly very attractive fellowship, even for leaders.  Instead, we find churches and denominations labeling one another as Christian or less-than-Christian based on what is believed without taking into consideration the evidence of believe found in how that belief is applied. 

For example, the Christian church has repeatedly and unwittingly empowered the media to be a much more important voice for ‘orthodoxy’ in the world than is the church.  This happens every time a church leader is ‘discovered’ to be ‘in sin’ and is publically exposed by the media and the church pulls the man from prominence to protect the institution of church.  This behavior suggests that leaders are immune from sin. They are leaders because they are ‘perfect’.  Each time we act to protect the image of a perfect church we embolden the media to attack the church.

If we really believed the gospel, when a leader (or any one else for that matter) falls into sin that becomes public knowledge, we should reiterate the gospel message that begins with ‘all have sinned’ and that ‘all are sinners’.  If the media observed the gospel in practice - calling sin sin, yet embracing, encouraging, reconciling, rebuilding, and retreading fallen leaders - secular society would more often than not take note of the church rather than to join the crowd labeling the church as hypocritical.  Every fallen leader, my understanding of the gospel tells me, should be treated as was Peter when he denied Christ in public, when the Prostitute sinned, etc. 

The message intrisic to the gospel is forgiveness, not judgment.  Not being afraid to label something sin, yet being able to acknowledge before the world that all of us wrestle with sin inclinations isn’t a contradiction.  So much healthier it would be for a leader to be free to say to the world - ‘I wrestle with homosexual temptations and I need your prayers to help me continue to lead as God has called me, yet not to fall into my sin.  And, if I fall, I need you to help restore me so that I can continue to fulfil my God given calling.’  It is in open confession of our sinful inclinations as leaders that we, paradoxically, find less occasion to enter into sin.  When we are fearful to acknowledge our particular sinful inclinations, our ’secret’ takes on a life of its own.  I would much rathr be a pastor of a 1000 member church who knew my struggles and had eyes watching me at all times, praying knowingly for me, and encouraging me to continue using the gifts God gives to me, than to be the pastor of 1000 member church struggling alone with my sin apart from a church family. 

The truth?  Every pastor wrestles with something.  If we break the moral law in any point, we break it all.  The gospel doesn’t say that Jesus died only for the really bad siners - prostitutes, tax-collectors, homosexuals, murders and the like.  It tells us that Jesus died for all - that no sin (gluttony, heterosexual or homosexual lust, lying, jealousy, etc) stands without a need of the Savior.  So, let us all start telling the truth - we are all sinners.  We have no right, if we understand the cross, to select certain sins as ‘worse’ sins as if our sins didn’t require a savior’s death on the cross. 

Every once in a while an author emerges from the ranks of Christianity with a gift for not only capturing and articulating the issues of the age, but also in presenting a clear path for successfully negotiating those issues. Brewin accomplishes this masterfully.

This book re-imagines ‘church’ in the light of the gospel – the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus. He discovers in this old, old story both the foundation and process for spiritually healthy communities of faith – the ‘how to’s’ of needed transformation. Rather than a singular focus on transforming individuals, Brewin points out the necessity for change in corporate church practice. He convincingly notes that many churches are paralyzed at a local maximum, Fowlerian stage 3 (synthetic-conventional), where people serve the structure of church rather than the reverse.

What if church went into ‘exile’, into a reflective time to mourn our loss of the living God – a ‘dark night of the soul’ (stage 4)? What if we stopped what we are doing and waited on God?

What if we discarded the conventional ways for effecting change – revolution – and even changed the way we change, being courageously re-born into an evolutionally, incarnational model – organic change from the bottom up?

What if we did study the ant, as suggested in scripture, and discovered the functionality of a spiritual community that was interdependent, rather than hierarchical? What if we placed value on open-source change arising from the edge of chaos – that creative zone somewhere between paralyzing rigidity and destructive anarchy?

All this, and so much more, insists that all Christians read this book – at least twice.

I have long wrestled with the biblical creation story and the evidences of science for evolution.  Francis Collins, the author of The Language of God, addresses this conflict in a fresh manner - shifting through all the hype and name calling on both sides of the issue. 

As the head of the Human Genome Project, Collins receives the respect of many scientists.  As a Christian, he also has the ear of many believers.  His book is well written.  He discusses why he is a Christian and why he believes in evolution.  He easily overturns the foolish and uninformed notions of those on both extremes of the controversy between evolutionists and creationists.  He simply presents the facts as they are established in 2007 and invites the reader to consider what it all must mean. 

The book ends with a chapter of current bio-ethical issues.  For those interested, the author also provides thought provoking questions designed for discussion groups. 

Every Christian ought to read this book.  Whether or not you agree with the authors conclusions, this book will get you up-to-date and more articulate on the issues.  Finally, you will stand in awe of God as you see what He has created.  Read the entire book.

Or was it? 

What was it about Mother Teresa that compelled us to build her into more than your usual saint?  Are we so desperate for modern-day spiritual heroes - evidences for the life transforming power of God - that we permit ourselves to filter out reality?

Are there any ’saints’ other than ourselves?  Mother Teresa did a wonderful work.  Many who do the same remain unnoticed.  Yet, despite her efforts for the downtrodden, she wrestled with her faith - like most of us - or as all of us should.  As Jesus himself wrestled in the garden and on the cross, should we expect anything less in ourselves?

Mother Teresa - though you probably didn’t want all this revealed, not wanting to disappoint anyone, the revelation of your struggles in faith are in harmony with all great biblical folks.  To know that you were human like us, sufffering, questioning, doubting - is a confirmation to us that we mustn’t look for an escape.  We must all face the demons of this life and to come alongside each other encouraging such honesty.

I think Mother Teresa’s struggles with God made her the kind of person we love and can now more fully identify with. 

  

 

Chapter one addresses the obvious first question - why a book about justice, particularly in the burbs?  Justice, according to the authors, simply means ‘acting right in our relationships’ - living by the golden rule.  So simple, but so often forgotten.

 

Chapter two discusses why we often neglect justice.  One word: privilege.  Our culture of entitlement - middle-class, cuddled safety - blinds us to cry for justice all around us.  Curiously, we even co-opt scripture to remain satisfied in delusional myopia.

 

Chapter three reveals that fear often hinders our pursuit of justice.  To avoid loss of social acceptance we prioritize culture over Christ identification. 

 

Chapter four reminds us that God is already and always at work - not requiring us to invent something new in order to get started (or as an excuse for not doing anything).

 

Chapter five, quoting Lesslie Newbigin, insists that Christian community should become a ‘hermeneutic of the gospel’. How we live each moment impacts the world far more than carefully crafted creeds and programs.

 

Chapter six defines culture as that which tends to “grow in the soil of our choices”.  All of us interact with and are shaped by culture through choices.  Make a positive impact.

 

Chapter seven posits that there is a cost to living for justice.  Even small changes elicit scrutiny and system responses - beginning in our own families.  Putting God first and investing in relationships around us thrusts us out of the closet & under a lens.

 

Chapter eight reveals that the suburbs can actually be a lonely and spiritually unhealthy place.  Yet, despite the need for justice, efforts are initially rebuffed until trust is won through relationships.

 

Chapter nine cautions us not to imagine that the need for justice is distant from where we are.  A theology of place suggests that God doesn’t waste resources by sending us elsewhere when he has something for us to do just where we are.

 

Chapter ten challenges us to develop a holistic justice orientation - eliminating our wasteful indulgence of natural resources, reprioritizing our time and effort, and intentionally living with less so that others may have enough.

 

Chapter eleven reminds us that acting for justice makes us agents of shalom.

 

Chapter twelve addresses the American quick fix mentality.  We are to live faithfully as we are called - until our last breath - leaving results with God.   

 

This book calls us to honestly rethink what we call Christianity.

 

Christian authors, James & Thomas, discuss with consistently disarming humor, the common conversational perplexities between men and women.  Each of the seven chapters present a frequent, seemingly straightforward, yet mine-field laden question asked of men - at one time or another - by a significant woman in his life.  The predictable misunderstandings, unwittingly disappointing male responses and the ensuing conversation(s) are deconstructed and then expertly worked through to a win-win solution for couples.   

 

The seven questions women ask their men are presented as chapter headings. They speak for themselves:  ‘Does this dress make me look fat?  ‘Do you notice anything different about the house?  ‘Do you think that woman is pretty?  ‘What are you thinking about?  ‘Am I like my mother?  Are you as happy as I am? and  ‘Is there anything you don’t like about me? 

 

Men often discover that merely reading the above chapter titles elicits a queasy feeling in the pit of their stomachs as they instantly recall their own, personal misadventures with each, or a very similar, question.  Alternatively, the uninitiated or unaware will be teased into the false assumption that he already knows or has always responded with the correct answer - only to have his self-confident foolishness diced on the table of feminine reality.  Listen up guys!  This book is a must read.

 

The authors hilariously illustrate each conversational dilemma from their own personal experiences.  They offer experienced insight into what actually underlies all seven double-barrel loaded questions.  Finally, they recommend to men a fresh, more informed, spiritually healthy, alternative response that truly engages a women’s expectations. 

 

The companion book for women called: “Yup. Nope. Maybe - a woman’s guide to getting more out of the language of men”, decodes the seeming vagaries of ‘manspeak’.  Again, eight common and immediately recognizable male statements form the chapter headings: “Yup. Nope. Maybe”, “I’m not lost”, “In a minute”, “Can’t it wait till halftime?”, “Wanna do it?”  “Your problem is…”, “You’re too sensitive”, and “What were you thinking!”. 

If the above represents even of portion of your thoughts at any time in your life, you will enjoy reading this book. Though some aspects of the story seem predictable and even trite at times, overall it is a book that is difficult to put down. The age old questions are not merely asked, but engaged within a dialogue between Mack and God.

In Young’s book you will get a new feel for God. His story telling cleverly positions God into a more intimate place in our lives. God becomes more real and personal. The difficult and even harassing issues of life are, as a result, re-imagined. I think this is a book everyone ought to read - young and old - and it is well worth getting together with others and discussing the story.

For more info: 

http://www.theshackbook.com