The God of the Ordinary

“Every day the sun comes up, and then goes down again. And every day, God says, ‘do it again!’”

— Richard Mouw

You know the feeling. You wake up, make the coffee, wake the kids, get them ready, out the door, late to school, a thousand errands or long grind at work, get home, force homework, rush dinner, hose down the kids, books, bedtime, glass of wine, pass out. Repeat tomorrow.

Where is God in the mundane and the routine? Where is God in the rush of our lives? What does God think about the ordinary stuff that we do every day?

The lie of our culture is that God is only delighted in the extraordinary; the God who is only really happy when we do "great things", so much so that we orient our lives around the desire for greatness, if we don't achieve it, we are unhappy. In fact, we serve a God who loves the routine, the ordinary, the normal, and the everyday. A God who delights in seeing the world that he has made just work.

This morning I heard Dr. Richard Mouw preach on Psalm 104, and the quote above was one of his many observations. Every day, the sun comes up. Every day, it goes down. And the God who made it has the same delight, every day. With child-like joy, God says, "Do it again!"

I wonder how much more joy we would have if we viewed our daily work, whatever it might be, not as something holding us back from a sense of God's favor or his presence, but in fact the very thing in which we were supposed to be experiencing his presence. Our lives would take on new meaning; our routine a new sense of purpose. No longer are we just getting through. Now, even the mundane things I do are an opportunity to experience the wonder of God's ordering of the universe. Every piece of buttered toast or completed homework or brushed tooth brings delight to the God who loves the ordinary. Every day is a day we wake up with God and hear him excitedly say to us, "let's do it again!"

Building Relationships

I don't like fads. Most of the time, that means I was trying to be cool in sort of an uncool way, like when I didn't like the Dave Matthews Band in college because everyone else did. I didn't get the appeal. They were good and all, it's just that everyone else was obsessed so I figured it'd be more cool to be uncool. Lame. Whatever, I was in college. It was something to do.

I still don't like fads, but now it has more to do with fads in the Christian community and in church leadership and systems in particular. My rationale is different now than it used to be. It has nothing to do with being cool or uncool. It has more to do with missing the point.

In the mid-90's (and probably earlier but that's when I became aware of it) there was a push in the local church towards small groups. These small groups had all sorts of positive functions to them and they were supposed to supplement whatever was happening on Sunday morning in the church. They were "discipleship" focused. That was great. It was necessary. Something was missing, and "Small Groups" were the way we were going to address it.

Unfortunately, "small group" became equated with "bible study" and as a result it also became something that you could do without. Or at least, you could do it for a finite period of time. So you'd be a part of a small group for a year, maybe two years, and it would be great, but then you'd get away from it and the lasting impact was somewhat minimal.

Nowadays the term is "missional". We've discovered that–shockingly–most of us are terrible when it comes to openly sharing our faith or doing anything to advance the kingdom of God in deed. We might be aware that Jesus loves us; we just aren't really sure he loves anyone else. Or, we have faith, it just doesn't compel us to do anything. (That pesky book of James might cause us to question said faith, but I digress.) The corrective was to be missional, and form communities around the idea of being missional. That's great! But, I think it still it misses the point.

There's nothing wrong with "discipleship" and forming groups around the idea that we need help growing in our relationship with Jesus; "being sanctified". There's also nothing wrong with the idea that we need some help being missionaries and it's going to be easier if we have other people to do it with. Ultimately, though, I think that both discipleship and mission are bi-products of something else: Relationships.

We stink at growing in Christ because we stink at relationships. We have the resources we need, and we may even have the desire. But growth won't happen until we're in deep, meaningful, relationships with other believers. We experience Christ's love for us when we receive it from other believers; we experience what it means to love when we pour out that love on others. I think that the only safe place to grow in our relationship with Christ is in relationships with people where growth in Christ isn't necessary. They are going to love us anyway. Not surprisingly, that is the message of the Gospel.

The same thing goes for our mission. The more we fall in love with Jesus, the more that we will have a desire to spread the good news of His kingdom on earth, both in word and in deed.

That doesn't mean that we aren't intentional about some of the things we want to see happening in the context of those relationships. I just think we need to keep the most important thing the most important thing. We, our people, our church, need to be in deep, meaningful, and growing Christian relationships. Out of that will flow growth. Out of that will flow mission.

But it starts with relationships.

Ignore People who Pit the Bible Against Science

I didn’t watch the so-called Creation vs. Science debate that apparently happened last night. I was having a bad day and didn’t want it to get any worse. Also, it’s a foolish debate and I find it unhelpful. Anyone who pits the Bible against Science should be ignored. Here are four reasons, in no specific order.

First, because God gave us rational minds. Christians, more than anyone else, should be willing and able to debate in the realm of the intellect. We recognize the dignity of humanity, the autonomy of an individual, and their consequent ability to think for themselves and rationalize the world around them. Humanities chief work is to have dominion over the earth. That not only means subduing it, but it also meant understanding it in it’s detail (it also means caring for it, but that’s another post). As we create new methods of observation, we are able to understand more clearly the intricacy and grandeur of the universe. That’s a good thing. You can think about it like this: the Christian believes not just that God created the world, but that he also created in us the mechanisms by which we observe and understand the world. The pursuit of “Science” was God’s idea and we should use our minds accordingly.

Second, because Science tells us something about God. Francis Bacon, considered by many to be the father of modern science, said that God created two books: the book of nature and the book of Scripture. We could learn more about God by studying both books. Functionally, then, both the pursuit of Science and the content of science are fundamentally Christian ideals. You should apply the same rigor in studying and observing the world around you as you should in your study of the Bible if you want to learn more about God, who He is, and what He is like.

Third, because the Bible (and creation account) isn’t meant to be a scientific text. In Genesis 1, God created light on the first day and the sun, moon, and stars on the fourth day. Scientifically, that doesn’t work. It’s a good thing that Genesis 1 isn’t about science. It’s about God. Specifically, a God who creates the world and then gives dominion to various beings within the environment he created them for. (Side note: God creates the environment called the world and then places man in that environment. Man screwed that up. God’s in the process of creating a new world for man, beginning with the renewal of man himself in the person of Jesus Christ. That’s really good news.)

Fourth, real faith doesn’t mean believing blindly, it means believing that God isn’t going to contradict himself. If God is powerful enough to create an entire universe out of nothing, it’s also entirely possible that he did it in whatever way he wanted. He could have done it in seven days. He also could have done it over millions of years. The one thing we can be confident in is that if God really did create the world, then nothing we ever observe in science will contradict that. Instead, it will help us understand more fully the power of God and His great care for His creation.

Here’s the thing: not every conclusion reached by the scientist is going to be correct. There is a lot of room for continued learning and expanded knowledge. That goes for the Christian Scientist and the Secular Scientist alike. We need to be less dogmatic about the how and more dogmatic about the who. That’s the point of the creation account.

If we’re going to talk about how the world was created, and whether or not it was God who was responsible for it, let’s use scientific categories, instead of pitting two things against one another that were never meant to be opposites. It cheapens God (who is smarter and bigger than you), You (who was created to be thinking and observing and rational) and the world (which God intended for us to explore.)

Science helps us to understand God and how he created the world. There are many competing views on the subject. Let's just make sure that the one we settle on is supported by what we know of the world around us, and not because we failed to read God's second book.

Letter VII

I Came across this quote from C.S. Lewis this morning in his book, The Screwtape Letters. The letters are written from the perspective of a senior demon to his protege, as he is working on his human subjects, his “patients”, attempting to get them to ignore or discredit God. 

Insert “liberal” and “conservative” for “pacifist” and “patriot” (or vice-versa...the order doesn't matter) and I think he has a finger on the problem in America. 

There is a reason we don’t talk politics at Restore. Our response in the political arena is primarily as a “matter of obedience” to what Jesus says, so we do our best to figure out what that is. There are a lot of areas where Christianity could be leveraged to make a case on either side of an issue. The question is, who are we trying to obey. We may not always get it right, but our allegiance is to Christ first, and everyone else is a very-distant second.

I had not forgotten my promise to consider whether we should make the patient an extreme patriot or an extreme pacifist. All extremes except extreme devotion to the Enemy are to be encouraged. Not always, of course, but at this period. Some ages are lukewarm and complacent, and then it is our business to soothe them yet faster asleep. Other ages, of which the present is one, are unbalanced and prone to faction, and it is our business to inflame them. Any small coterie, bound together by some interest which other men dislike or ignore, tends to develop inside itself a hothouse mutual admiration, and towards the outer world, a great deal of pride and hatred which is entertained without shame because the “Cause” is its sponsor and it is thought to be impersonal. Even when the little group exists originally for the Enemy’s own purposes, this remains true. We want the Church to be small not only that fewer men may know the Enemy but also that those who do may acquire the uneasy intensity and the defensive self-righteousness of a secret society or a clique. The Church herself is, or course, heavily defended, and we have never yet quite succeeded in giving her all the characteristics of a faction; but subordinate factions within her have often produced admirable results, from the parties of Paul and of Apollos at Corinth down to the High and Low parties in the Church of England…

Whichever he adopts, your main task will be the same. Let him begin by treating the Patriotism or the Pacifism as a part of his religion. Then let him, under the influence of a partisan spirit, come to regard it as the most important part. Then quietly and gradually nurse him on to the stage at which the religion becomes merely part of the “Cause,” in which Christianity is valued chiefly because of the excellent arguments it can produce in favor of the British war effort or of pacifism. The attitude which you want to guard against is that in which temporal affairs are treated primarily as material for obedience. Once you have made the World an end, and faith a means, you have almost won your man, and it makes very little difference what kind of worldly end he is pursuing. Provided that meetings, pamphlets, policies, movements, causes, and crusades, matter more to him than prayers and sacraments and charity, he is ours–and the more “religious” (on those terms), the more securely ours. I could show you a pretty cageful down here.

Your affectionate uncle,

Screwtape

50 Years After the Dream

There is one line in Martin Luther King Jr’s famous “I have a Dream” speech that has always stood out to me. One line that makes the difference between a segregated America and a unified America.

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

It matters much more to me now, as my kids continue to grow up and I notice more and more the influences of society, culture, entertainment, and the media generally. It matters to me because I don’t want my kids to think that their outward appearance is what defines them. They are much more than what you see the first time you look at them. They are God’s kids. They are my kids. All of them like to snuggle. They are crazy and funny. Michael is gentle and likes attention. Anthony loves to wrestle and play video games. Jada is strong and loud. The older three love their two baby sisters. Avery talks a lot. Nora crawls out of her crib when you think she’s sleeping. And oh yeah, somewhere down the list, a few of them have brown skin and a couple of them have light skin.

My older three kids know that they have brown skin. And they know that I don’t. They say that they have “brown” skin and I have “bright” skin, whatever that means.

My children won’t experience most of what Martin Luther King Jr. was standing up against in 1963. There aren’t signs that say “white’s only” on bathroom stalls. They don’t go to a segregated school, and actually attend a school that celebrates diversity. They’ll be able to vote. They don’t live in a ghetto. Their opportunity for upward mobility isn’t “moving from a small ghetto to a large ghetto”. And I feel pretty confident in saying that they won’t deal with random police brutality based solely on the color of their skin. (Don’t miss the forest for the trees on that one. Does it still happen? Probably. Does it still happen like it did in 1963, where people were being straight up beaten to a pulp–simply for the color of their skin? Doubtful.)

But for all that they won’t need to experience, there’s one that I’m worried they won’t be able to escape. When most people look at them, the first thing they notice is that they’re black.

Now, let me be clear: noticing differences is a natural condition of the human mind. It’s almost impossible to escape. Pretending that we’re “color-blind” is, in the words of Mr. Brown as he taught diversity training at Dunder-Mifflin, “fighting ignorance with more ignorance.”

What I don’t want is for people to notice that they have brown skin, and then assume that they are going to act a certain way; I don't want them to assume something about their character based on the color of their skin. Unfortunately we live in a society that connects color with culture, as if you can’t have one without the other. It’s when we see a brown-skinned person and assume that he or she is just like them, whoever the “them” is. Why is he just like them? One reason. The only one we can see. Her skin is the same color. We’re making a judgment about who a person is based on the color of their skin. We’re prejudiced people. (prejudice (n): preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience.)

This is why I don’t like the phrase “black culture”. What is "black culture"? Don’t make assumptions about what my kids might like, enjoy, how they will act, behave, the kind of jobs they can or can’t get–or will desire to have–based on the color of their skin. And don't settle for that yourself.

I cringe when I’m watching a TV show and a character makes a statement about being “black.” Usually it’s in response to something they’ve done, a certain way of thinking, or some other thing that is easy enough to explain away simply by saying, “It’s because I’m black.” I get that it’s almost always done in a humorous way. In most shows, it’s intended to be comedic, the way that you’d understand that I was joking if I said that the reason I like mayonnaise is because I’m white. 

The thing is, I wonder when the day will come when my sons or daughter will notice the character on TV and ask, “Daddy, am I supposed to act that way too, since I have brown skin?” I don’t want anyone to tell my kids that the color of their skin determines the choices they can make in life, how they are allowed to think, what they are allowed to do, or the kind of things they are allowed to enjoy.

Sometimes, Michael will have a moment where he realizes we look different and he’ll ask why. Sometimes, he’ll say that he wishes we didn’t look different. He wishes that his skin was like mine; really he just wishes we looked the same. What I hope he knows as he gets older is that there is beauty in our differences. They just don’t have to define us. The color of our skin doesn’t define us; not him, not me.

What defines us is what God thinks of us. And although man looks at the outward appearance, God looks at the heart. (1 Sam. 16:7). There really are only two races of people: Adam’s race, and Jesus’ race. In Adam, difference reigns, and the division is the result. In Jesus, unity and freedom reign. (Romans 5). The old distinctions don’t go away–this is the beauty of the mosaic of the body of Christ–they just don’t matter in the economy of the new kingdom (Galatians 3:28). What God thinks is that he loves us a lot and wants us to be his kids forever. (Ephesians 1)

In an America obsessed with entertainment, I challenge you to consider whether we truly judge by the content of a person’s character, or by their outward appearance. So long as outward appearance is our chief focus, unity, and ultimately the freedom that Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his life for, will continue to elude us...

The full transcript of Dr. King’s speech can be found here:

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm

The Importance of the MetaNarrative

Everyone subscribes to a metanarrative. Most of us either don’t know what ours is, or have simply never thought about it.

A metanarrative is a comprehensive claim that explains why everything is the way that it is. It is a “theory of everything”, not in the sense that everything is immediately explained by the theory, but that, in the end, the metanarrative provides the overarching framework that allows us to explain everything that is. This comprehensive claim is a grand narrative that encompasses not just the universe around us, but everyone in that universe.

The temptation is to assume that a metanarrative is simply a worldview by another name, but the two are not necessarily synonymous. A worldview is the experience of the metanarrative; it is an explanation of how a person might see the world based on their understanding of the metanarrative. A metanarrative, on the other hand, explains how things are regardless of whether or not the participants within the narrative are even aware that they are participants. Certainly, any good metanarrative must take this into account.

An atheistic metanarrative, for example, might not go any further than the teaching of the Big Bang Theory and Evolution, at least insofar as it explains the existence of the world and humanity. The claim is a comprehensive truth claim: if it is true, everyone, and indeed everything, is bound by that metanarrative. The metanarrative should provide, however, an explanation of why the vast majority of people in the world and throughout history have had some sense of a god or gods. The truth of the metanarrative is not dependent on whether the participants recognize it as true, to be sure, but it must nevertheless take into account the question of why so many people don’t see it as true.

The message of Christianity is also fundamentally tied to a metanarrative. It begins with the belief that the Bible makes a comprehensive claim about the existence of everything. As one author wrote, “all human and non-human reality must find its place in this one story or nowhere.”[1] If it were not a comprehensive narrative, then the claims of Jesus lose all of their authority. Jesus would either be a lunatic or a liar, running around claiming to be God when he is just a participant like the rest of us in a much different metanarrative, and in fact, one in which God might not exist at all.

Thus, the Christian “Gospel” message, which claims that reconciliation with God can be found through Jesus alone, is built into this comprehensive claim on everything. If the Biblical story is true, and all that exists finds its beginning and its end in God and within His story, then God stepping into reality to redeem a creation that has gone astray takes on great significance. If, on the other hand, Christianity is simply one expression of religion among many that exists as a placebo to get us through life, as some have called it, then it is a waste of time.

The message of salvation in Jesus Christ cannot be removed from the biblical metanarrative. The “gospel” is fundamentally incompatible with the view that regulates faith to only the private, personal sphere. It’s either a comprehensive claim that we believe, or it’s nothing.

The challenge is that we live in a day and age when the tendency is to want to reject metanarratives altogether because of the comprehensive truth claims that they represent. Ultimately that is foolishness; again, there is an overarching reality that is true, whether or not we want to admit to its truth or not. The truth of the metanarrative, whatever it is, is simply not dependent on our ability to recognize it as true. And to reject a metanarrative because we don’t think we can know it is equally foolish; we must still admit that a metanarrative exists one way or the other, and further admit that it is we who have given up the search.

No person, least of all a Christian, should give up on the quest to understand the comprehensive claim to as great a degree as they can, because our metanarrative will have profound implications on how we live our lives. If the Biblical metanarrative is fundamentally untrue, for example, then Christianity is foolishness. It may make you feel better, but so do most hobbies.

In the end, it is not just the Biblical metanarrative that should be under scrutiny; it is all metanarratives. Does your comprehensive claim, your metanarrative, make sense of why things are the way that they are? If it doesn’t, it might be time to explore a new one!

[1] Goheen, Michael W. (2011-04-01). Light to the Nations, A: The Missional Church and the Biblical Story (Kindle Locations 558-561).

Resurrection and What it Means for Marriage

I heard a quote recently from someone who was asked about what the Bible says about homosexuality and marriage. The person responded, “The first thing I ask is whether or not they believe that Jesus rose from the dead. If they say no, then I ask them why they care what he thinks about anything. If they say yes, then we can have a different type of discussion about what Jesus believed about issues like this.”

Most Christian’s don’t know what they believe about marriage, or why they believe it. Is there any reason to have confidence in what they think is true? For the Christian, the answer–and ultimately the place we find our confidence–stems from the core conviction of our faith. Did Jesus rise from the dead, or not?

Resurrection trumps dying, every time.

If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead–or if someone doesn’t believe that he did–then there is no reason for us or them to be concerned with how he calls us to live. If Jesus was just a first century rabbi who taught about being a good person, but ultimately died like the rest of us, then his words have the equivalent authority of every other religious prophet or teacher who came before or after. They’re easy to dismiss; we should pay them the same mind as we might pay the instructions of Muhammad.

If, however, Jesus really did rise from the dead, then what was proved was that he was who he said he was: God in the flesh. That changes everything. If Jesus is God, then what he says about how we should live has real meaning; now it has authority. What Jesus believed about how God calls us to live should matter.

Jesus believed that the entirety of the Old Testament was God’s word. He consistently upheld it as having authority. He upheld the Old Testament Law of God when he claimed that not a single iota or a single dot would pass from the Law until all was accomplished, and his new Kingdom was in full force at the end of days. And what the law and the Old Testament as a whole affirm is that marriage is a God-ordained institution between one man and one woman. That is what Jesus believed; it’s part of the “will not pass away”.

The resurrection gives us a new view towards marriage that restores the original intention. Marriage in the Old Testament was a mess; most people couldn’t get it right, even when they tried. Christ’s life, death and resurrection reveal what Paul articulates in Ephesians 5: the real meaning behind marriage was actually always about Jesus and his church. When God gave Adam and Eve to one another in marriage back at the beginning of the Bible, the institution itself was a shadow of a greater reality, which was God’s relationship with his people.

Marriage is rooted in creation and restored in Christ. That’s why orthodox Christianity doesn’t believe in a progressive hermeneutic (the so-called telephone theory). This is the view that biblical truth changes over time as culture “progresses” and our understanding of things evolves and changes, similar to the old game of “telephone” that you’d play in grade school. Orthodox Christianity bases its view on God’s original intention and design, affirmed, supported, and restored in Christ, and not on what seems right to us, particularly those of us living 2000 years after the resurrection.

Christian people are called to view marriage through that lens as the chief understanding of what marriage is. One man, one woman, called to reflect the reality of Christ and his church. The resurrection gives them hope that they can, in some small way, pull it off, but only because Jesus has already pulled off the greatest marriage proposal in history by dying and rising from the dead. The resurrection gives single people hope, too, since we know that this life is just a blip on the radar of eternity, and marriage won’t be a relational institution in the kingdom of heaven, since we will all live in the reality of what it formerly represented.

The resurrection means new citizenship.

The resurrection is the catalyst for this view towards the new kingdom that is to come. When we are associated with Jesus through faith in his life, death, and resurrection for our salvation, we are made citizens of a new kingdom, where Jesus is king. Our allegiances have changed. We live in this world; but our citizenship is found in the next. We are called to live according to a different standard; a different set of rules.

The history of American Evangelicalism has revealed what biblical scholars usually refer to as an “over-realized eschatology”. Eschatology is the study of the “end times”, or in this case, the study of the Kingdom of God and what that is going to be like when Jesus returns. Over-realizing our eschatology means that we go overboard in assuming that this life–the American life–will look like the new kingdom of which we are citizens. In other words, we’ve drawn too close a parallel between the United States and the Kingdom of God, as if the former is called to reflect all of the values of the latter. Consequently, Christians have too often assumed that the government will promote their particular values, and they are shocked when they discover resistance. The resurrection reminds us that the United States is not the new kingdom.

As such, Christians must take care to discern the difference between the values they are called to live by as citizens of a new kingdom, and the values that everyone should hold by virtue of being a human, and more specifically, a citizen of the United States. Christians are called to the biblical view of marriage because of the resurrection of Christ. But not everyone will hold that view. In fact, the majority of people won’t. By allowing the government to define what marriage is, we’re also giving them the freedom to define it in a way that we disagree with. That’s why the Christian must define marriage based on the resurrection of our new King, according to the values of the new kingdom. Our confidence shouldn’t be in the government, or in those who don’t believe in the resurrection, to define it exactly as we see fit, and we won’t be disappointed when they inevitably don’t.

A far better approach for Christians in handling the marriage debates would have been to encourage the government to get out of the marriage definition bit altogether! The government’s question should be, what type of relationships will we grant benefits to, and which ones won’t we? So long as they are continuing to call those government recognized relationships “marriages”, then whatever the cultural definition of it is will win the day. We are seeing the implications of that now.

Failure to understand the resurrection.

The failure to recognize the authority that comes with the resurrection, and the new citizenship we have as a result is the reason that most Christians are confused about how they ought to respond. If they’re not confused, they’re angry. If they’re not angry, they’re depressed. How could this have happened? Jesus death reminds us that the new kingdom values are antithetical to the way that most of us want to live, but his resurrection gives us hope to press on.

The failure to recognize the authority that comes with the resurrection is also what leads Christians to reject the teaching of Scripture on marriage altogether, and to redefine it according to what will be popular in this life. It has always been the case that there will be a segment of the Christian population that sacrifices doctrine for the sake of acceptance, and history consistently repeats itself in the same manner: it never works. If there is no difference between the values of the Jesus of Christianity and the Jesus of culture (who is all about love, however we define that), then there really is no need for the Jesus of Christianity.

It’s also important to note, however, that the failure to recognize the authority that comes with the resurrection is also what leads to the horrendous track record that Christians have, even in their supposed biblical marriages. And the culture has noticed.

How should we respond?

Because of the resurrection, the Christian person can be confident that what Jesus believed is true, and they can be confident in living out the values of the new kingdom. Our covenant marriages between a man and a woman should reflect that reality. New kingdom marriages should stand out as examples of self-sacrificial love. They should mirror, as best they are able, the great love that Jesus has for his church, and that she has for her savior.

Because of the resurrection, the Christian person can love those who disagree. Religious people always want to know what someone believes about morality, or how they behave, before they can accept them. That’s why the religious leaders of Jesus day could never hang out with people who they considered to be “sinners”. True Christianity is not religion. Jesus knew that it was only once people knew that he loved them right where they were at that they could even have the possibility of being able to live according to the standards of the new kingdom. And even then, they’d probably fail miserably. It’s the reason that Christians are given the righteousness of Christ in full measure, not dependent on anything that we bring to the table.

Because of the resurrection, the Christian is free to not force their values on someone who believes differently. Instead, a Christian is free to live like the resurrection is really true, that Jesus is really who he said he was, and that the power of his life, death, and resurrection is sufficient to save.

This Good Friday and Easter, spend some time reflecting on the goodness of Jesus and the power of his life, death, and resurrection, to save sinners like all of us. Then live in the confidence of the new kingdom.

Death by Religion

Jesus reserves his harshest words for religious people. As a recovering religiouholic, those stern warning continue to stand out to me. I get them.

In Matthew 9, we see Jesus calling one of the tax collectors, Matthew (the author of the Gospel), to follow him. Matthew probably remembers the scene vividly. He may have had some interest in Jesus, he may have known who he was, and in his soul, he may have longed to follow him and become one of his disciples. Unfortunately, Rabbis, and religious people in general, didn’t associate with him because of his profession, and maybe because of his attitude. He may have wanted Jesus, but Jesus didn’t want him. Matthew had been conditioned by the religion of his day. Religious people don’t hang out with sinners.

Imagine Matthew’s shock when Jesus walks by, takes one look, and says, “follow me.” Whatever emotion he experienced in the moment is unrecorded. All we know is that Matthew got up, left his stuff behind, and followed Jesus.

As surprising as it was that Jesus called Matthew, what is unsurprising is that after he does it, word spreads quickly that Jesus, the great miracle worker, the great teacher, is a friend of the riffraff. Pretty soon they’re all joining him for lunch at his house. If Jesus hadn’t already stirred up the anger of the religious people, he was about to.

Pulling aside a couple of Jesus disciples, they ask them in hushed voices why Jesus, the teacher, would eat with such lowly sinners. Jesus hears the question. And then, in a stunning display of authority over those who claimed to know the Scripture and have the greatest grasp of the Word of God, Jesus tells them to “Go and learn what this means, I desire mercy, not sacrifice, for I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

That stings.

It stings because I think I’m a pretty good person. It stings because there is a part of me that still wants to believe that I can be at least somewhat righteous on my own efforts. It stings because I think, surely, Jesus saved me because he thinks I’d be an asset to the kingdom of heaven.

But what he really wants is my repentance. And that’s it.

King David understood that he had nothing to offer God. In his great Psalm of repentance, Psalm 51, after being caught in adultery, conspiracy, and murder, David knows that he’s a mess. If he didn’t know it before, now he’s got proof. He could have gone the religious route and started making sacrifices; doing penance for his sins. But he doesn’t. It won’t work. The only sacrifice that matters is a “broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”

The sacrifice of Jesus on the cross for sinners is a gift for broken, messed up people, who have turned to him in faith. It’s not because of our good deeds. In fact, if you think you have any righteousness in you, you’ll need to repent of that first! Only Jesus can stand before God and gets his approval. The rest of us get in because we stand behind him.

The crazy work of the Gospel is that once that reality has grasped our hearts, God suddenly enjoys and delights in our “good works”. Paul tells us that we have been saved to do these good works; that these good works were prepared beforehand for us to do (Eph. 2:10). David understands in Psalm 51 that eventually God will enjoy his sacrifices; it’s just that it can only come following God’s grace, and David’s repentance.

Religious people put the cart before the horse. They think their good deeds trump the Gospel–or at least, that their good deeds work in unison with the Gospel for their salvation (putting the cart on the horse?). Jesus says, I’ve come to call sinners­, not those who do good deeds.

The Gospel message is that there is nothing you’ve done, can do, or will do, that will restore or maintain your relationship with God. Only Jesus can restore your relationship with God, and only Jesus can keep you in relationship with God. His benefits are applied to us through faith–and even that is a gift!

To say it another way, it is only through Jesus that sinners are free to live in the presence of God once again. And it is only because we are free to live in the presence of God, that we are free to love in the presence of our neighbors.

Your Purpose

I’m convinced that one of the things holding back the church corporate from achieving her purpose of living as a foretaste of the kingdom of God is that individual Christians never consider their lives with a view towards their re-created purpose in Jesus. Sure, we know that we’re supposed to “glorify God”, but we never stop and ask what that means. It becomes a cliché saying; something that gets us the right answer on a test but doesn’t affect any change in our lives.

Discovering the individual purpose for which we have been created does just the opposite. It motivates us and gives us a reason to wake up in the morning. It fosters dependence on God, through whom any change in our world must come. It deepens our faith as we press into Jesus, making more of him and less of ourselves. And we glorify God more fully because we are doing the very thing that he created us to do; the good works that were prepared beforehand (Eph. 2:10). When we’re doing it, we find that we’re filled with joy. But it begins in discovering what it is.

Most of us have never asked the question, “what is my God-created purpose” because we’ve never been told that weshould ask it. Others of us have asked, but we thought that the response must include “ministry” at the end of it. (As in, my calling is “children’s ministry”, or “youth ministry”, or “parking ministry”.) And while those may be necessary and beneficial ministries, they are just that: ministries. People with purpose and passion run ministries. But aministry is not a substitute for a purpose. Purpose comes first.

Asking about our God-given purpose is really asking, “what is it that I, individually, am called to work on that will make this earth look like the kingdom that is to come fully when Jesus returns?” Jesus made clear that the Kingdom of God was going to be advancing; he made clear that the kingdom of God was here, presently, and he taught us to pray that God’s will would be done here as it is there. Paul & Peter both tell us in their letters that we are citizens of the Kingdom of God, right now, and not at a later date. Until then, the church is a nation of called out people from many nations living with a new allegiance to a new king, and orienting their lives around his glory and his purposes.

If you’re looking for your purpose in the kingdom, here are three guidelines that might help you discover what it is that you are called to do.

Passion

One writer said that “passion was where our heart and God’s heart meet.” While it’s important to consider allthe things that you are passionate about, try to think specifically about needs in the world that you are passionate about meeting. What is it that really bugs you? What is it that you look at and declare, “this shouldn’t be this way?” What would you be happy spending the rest of your life trying to change so that the world around you looked more like God’s kingdom by the time you died?

Gifts

Your gifts and skills will help you determine how you can achieve your purpose. Many people might say that their chief passion is to see the Gospel spread to the ends of the earth, but not everyone has the gift to be a preacher. It might be that you’ve been given the gift of resources, or supporting gifts, or the gift of prayer. Every single one of those gifts is necessary to achieve the purpose of spreading the good news. The gift you have will determine how you can carry out your passion.

Responsibilities

People don’t generally mention responsibilities when they talk about purpose. I think it’s important, because your responsibilities will determine what is actually reasonable for you to do in relation to your purpose. This is one of the reasons Paul encouraged single people; they could be of a singular mind in following Christ. It’s why Paul paid his bills by working as a tent-maker. I heard of a missionary once who said that even if his wife and kids didn’t want to go to the mission field with him, he would still go. (His theology and practice were both out of whack!) Considering our responsibilities in relation to our purpose can give us clarity in our decision making so that we don’t overburden ourselves with stuff that may rule us out from fulfilling our purpose to the extent we’d like.

In the end, your purpose might be as simple as “make people smile”. But when you know what it is, it’s going to give you a motivation to wake up every day, making this world look more like the new one that’s coming when Jesus returns. God will get glory, and you will have joy. What more could you ask for?

Religion, Irreligion, and Grace

A few words in response to what I see as an increasing divide in the Christian community as evidenced by the varied responses to the situation in Newtown. In my opinion, the voices from the right and the left, if I can simplify it to that degree, are both missing the mark fairly significantly when it comes to the message of Jesus Christ, which is the message of grace. It’s the culmination of a problem that’s been developing for some time as the church collective has tried to make itself culturally relevant, and as a result has adopted certain stances that don’t square with what the Bible teaches.

On the right, we end up with a civil religion that claims the United States as a land with which God is particularly pleased (or at least, with which he used to be pleased!), based almost solely on our ability to meet a particular set of standards that he has set. On the left, God is presented more as an unconditional lover without standards. Since any particular moral standard will only serve to alienate, we are much more likely to emphasize God’s love and tolerance of us, even to the extent of doing away with–or at least downplaying–any particular biblical teaching that seems cruel or outdated.

The inadequacies of our respective theological position are generally teased out in the face of crisis. I won’t pretend that my view, then, is the superior view. I offer it simply as a reminder of what I believe Christ taught, and what we should keep in view even as the prevalent theological views tend to swing from right to left, missing the central ground of grace. And that, as it turns out, is the problem.

The imaginary Christian America of the conservative right and the reality of the secular America that we live in today both suffer from the same problem. Morality without grace and immorality without grace both lead to the same destination: oppression, brokenness, and fear. Only grace leads to freedom.

This is the what makes the message of Jesus so compelling. Jesus didn’t capitulate to the moral, religious crowd who believed that their own merit made them superior. He also didn’t agree with the immoral, irreligious crowd who opted to obfuscate the law in favor of creating their own standard, and, in so doing, validated themselves and their actions.

This compelling message is seen in one of the most famous passages recorded in the Bible, when we see the religious leaders bringing a known prostitute to Jesus to see how he would respond. The religious law said that she should be killed by stoning for what she had done. Would Jesus uphold this law, thus proving that he approved of their religious efforts, validating them? Or would he confirm what they already believed about him, that he was some sort of rebel teacher that was threatening upheaval of the whole religious system, and thus, their power?

In the end, Christ did neither (although his response did threaten the religious establishment). To the religious crowd he offered a solution: if indeed this woman has violated the standard of God, then let anyone who has kept it in full throw the first stone. His message is clear. If any one of you can claim to be perfect, and in full accordance with how God has called you to live, then you are free to take aim. All the stones were dropped, and the crowd dissipated. (Notably, the older ones leave first. The longer you have been trying to earn your own salvation through religious activity, the more quick you are to realize how often you fail!)

Jesus then turns his attention to the prostitute. “Where are your accusers?” Since they had all left, so Jesus says the woman is free to go, and he would not condemn her either. Instead, he said, she should “go, and sin no more”. By letting her go without condemnation, he did not ignore the law of God, but rather validated the fundamental principle of it. Namely, that it functioned as it was supposed to, by revealing that this prostitute, and all who come into contact with God’s standard, fall desperately short and are in major need of grace and mercy.

The grace in the story comes in the form of Jesus himself, who being the only perfect one in the story, had earned the right to cast the first stone, but rather chose forgiveness over condemnation, and mercy over judgment. This is the message of grace: that Jesus bears the condemnation of God so we can receive the mercy of God. Thus, in opposition to the both the religious and irreligious, the way of grace is made known.

The religious path to salvation is to uphold the standard of God, and seek to achieve it based on our own merit. We stand in condemnation and judgment of all around us who have not earned as much perfection as we ourselves have. In this way, our pursuit is validated; we are validated.

The irreligious path is just the opposite, albeit with the same result: self-validation. If God’s revelation tells us that we don’t measure up, we should rid ourselves of that revelation and put in it’s place a standard by which we do measure up. There has never been a man who would create as his own reality a world where he is not fully capable and qualified to achieve the highest perfection. And in that self-created reality, our pursuit realizes it’s goal: we are validated.

Jesus path rejects both as valid means to achieve what it is that we are looking for (validation), and what we truly need (salvation). The path of grace upholds the standards of God as perfect, but rejects our efforts at attaining it, since they cannot produce the desired outcome. On the other hand, it affirms our sense of self-worth while rejecting the means by which we seek to attain it. In it’s place, it inserts the love of Jesus as the creative force that offers us salvation, restores our worth, and validates our existence.

We stray from this third way–the way of grace–when we seek to earn the love of God through our own merit, believing ourselves to be worthy of even the slightest amount of God’s pleasure based on our own efforts. We also stray when we seek to create our own reality, where God’s standard is seen as irrelevant at worst, or unimportant at best. In both cases we will be left with pervasive failure, brokenness, and ultimately oppression (in the case of the religious path) or depression (in the case of the irreligious path–for what is depression except for self-oppression?)

The way of Jesus, and the way of grace, removes the burden of achieving the perfection of God from us because we are given the perfection of Jesus for free. As a result, our worth and our value, stemming from the love of God, is renewed, increased, and validated. It is something we cannot earn, and do not deserve. And yet, we live in it’s reality because of our trust in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

That’s the gospel.