Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Prepackaged Faith       Have you accepted the pre-packaged, hermetically sealed, only 19.95 if you act now , Jesus!   Why I’m sure you’ve heard of him!   He’s a very serious man who always seems to be carrying sheep.   He doesn’t tolerate long hair on boys, smoking or dancing.   He’s very strict about what people wear and cares a lot more about what denomination you belong to than he does a silly thing like your soul.   Maybe you’ve heard of him.      Is that the Jesus you imagine?   Is that who you’ve lived your life ignoring, worshipping or reading about?   It’s not true, you know?   We’ve created God in our own image because, I believe, the wild, passionate God-man presented in the Biblical narrative is much more than our modern, syrupy sweet Christianity can handle.      As Author Wilbur Rees once wrote: “I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please, not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. . . . I want ecstasy, not transformation; I want the warmth of the womb, not a new birth. I want about a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack. I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please.”      We can’t, nor do we want to, handle the real Jesus.   And our depiction of him would be laughable if so many people didn’t believe that it were true.   The problem, many times, isn’t that people who hate God despise the God they know, but that they despise a god who truly does not exist.   They despise a god who is some twisted form of the actual Creator, dreamt up by religious zealots.   In other words, many people who turn away from God have not truly turned away from Jehovah God, but some perverted depiction of God.      So, maybe the reason our churches are shrinking isn’t because the world is in “such bad shape,” but rather because our faith is in such shambles.   The world’s always been this sick.   Find your excuse elsewhere.   Maybe, just maybe, the fault lies with us.   We’ve exchanged love and relationship for tracts and door-knocking.   We’ve traded the eternal God for a hand puppet.   We’ve reduced Jesus to a figurehead.   God forgive us.       7:18:02 PM      comment \[\]

Monday, January 30, 2006

It's Not Enough      In Matthew five, Jesus says, "You have heard that it was said, `Do not commit adultery.'   But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.   "You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, `Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.'   But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment.”      You think Jesus told the Pharisees that so they would try and have a better thought life?   You misunderstood!   Jesus told them that so they’d realize that religion couldn’t do it.   So, they’d see that no matter how good they were it just wasn’t good enough .        He wanted them to stay away from sin, no doubt—that was what that whole gouging out your eyes out thing in verse 29 was about—in other words, you know what tempts you, so stay away from that—but it was also an indictment against religion.   Religion can’t save you.   Rules don’t endear you to God.   Only Christ does those things.   You can’t do enough.   The Pharisees couldn’t see that, and neither can many Christians today.      We say, “I’ve never committed adultery.”        Jesus says, “Well, uh, when you lust , you commit adultery.”        We say, “What?   Well, I’ve never murdered anyone.”        Jesus says, “Hatred and murder... Same thing. ”        W e say, “Oh, man.   I can’t do this!”        “Exactly,” Jesus says.   “ Exactly!”      Oh, man, do we miss it!      Jesus said, I have given you a song that can’t help but put a spring in your step, and yet you refuse to dance.   I’ll let you in on a radical truth.   You are free.   If you’re His.   You’re forgiven.   Really.   Being good isn’t good enough.   Only Jesus is.   So dance.   Chad 10:21:04 PM      comment \[\]

Monday, January 23, 2006

Just Words...      It all starts with twenty-six harmless little letters.   Then we string those together into hundreds of thousands of words.   So far, we’re doing all right.   But, the next part is what ends up getting us every time.   We throw those words, willy-nilly, into sentences and actually speak them.      Now, for the most part, there’s nothing wrong with that.   We tell people we love them, how much we appreciate them or even to move because they’re about to get hit by a car.   So, words can be helpful and are important, but words can also destroy.      In the Bible, James talks about how dangerous the tongue can be.   He says that all kinds of wild animals can be tamed, but no one can tame the tongue.   He says that a huge boat is moved by a small rudder, and that it’s the same deal with the tongue.   He also says that, just like a consuming forest fire is started by just an itty-bitty spark, the tongue starts its own infernos.      We tend to say stuff without really considering the consequences.   Oh, you’ve put on a few pounds there, I see!   Have your ears always been that big?   I hope you didn’t pay money for that jacket!   You’re so stupid.   When you throw around matches like that, you’re going to set a fire that may well end up consuming that person.      “Oh,” you say, “one piddly thing I say isn’t going to do that!   They need to get a backbone!”   You’re wrong.   You’d be surprised what one misplaced word can do to a person who is already insecure.   You’d be surprised how insecure one misplaced word can make someone who was doing pretty well before.   Words can destroy and we should be as careful with them as we would with dynamite.      So, the next time you open your mouth, ask yourself if what you’re about to say is helpful or hurtful.   (No, you can’t just say it “because it’s true.” )   Also, is it necessary?   Probably not.   God tells us that we are to be about building one another up, not tearing one another down.   So, zip it.   -Chad 9:04:32 PM      comment \[\]

Sunday, January 15, 2006

I Frame No Excuse...      "...they all write dark things against me. I deny them not, frame no excuse, but confess, ‘Father, I have sinned’. Yet still I live, and fly repenting to Thy outstretched arms; Thou wilt not cast me off, for Jesus brings me near. Thou wilt not condemn me, for He died in my stead. Thou will not mark my mountains of sin, for He leveled all and His beauty covers my deformities. O my God, I bid farewell to sin by clinging to the cross..."      That’s an excerpt from a book of Puritan prayers called The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions . It jumped out at me as I read it because it was so raw and honest. Very few of us are ever that honest, I would dare to say.      He starts off saying that they are speaking ill of him. That’s something we expect someone to say. We always look for people to gripe and moan and groan about how much of a victim they are, boo-hoo-hoo , and all those things, but then he does something shocking: admits that they’re right.      I deny them not, frame no excuse, but confess, ‘Father, I have sinned’. That’s refreshing. To be honest with you, I have a hard time with that kind of honesty. I want to come up with some way to validate my sin. I want to say, " I had to do that, there was no other way! " I want to stand tall and proud and say that those who oppose me are wrong... but a lot of times, most of the time, they’re not. ‘Father, I have sinned’.      I think the key to this writer’s honesty is not his being so wonderful and perfect, but in his understanding of God’s grace. Listen to a few of his next comments again: [I repent and] Thou wilt not condemn me, for He died in my stead. Thou will not mark my mountains of sin, for He leveled all and His beauty covers my deformities. The writer understands that all this trying to cover up sin is pride and vanity. It has to be Jesus or it’s nothing. His last comment is the best way I can imagine to end this writing: O my God, I bid farewell to sin by clinging to the cross... 3:02:04 PM      comment \[\]

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Bad World!        What bugs me (well, one of the things that bug me) about some Christians these days is their apparent need to “fix” the world.   I’m constantly hearing preachers and Christians talk about the moral decline of the United States and how we need to get in there, stand up for what’s right and fight, fight, fight!   Jesus had something to say about that in John 18:36, " My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight… ”        Check this out: getting mad at non-Christians for not acting like Christians is like getting mad at a cat for meowing.   Case in point is this Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays fiasco.   Yes, we’ve become very politically correct in the past decade or so, but get a life .   Why do we expect companies and individuals who don’t worship our God to give half a crap about our beliefs?   It’s so damn silly.   Instead of trying to remake them in our image, doesn’t it make more sense to show them the love that first drew us to Jesus?        Love?   No, no, that’s too simplistic!   We must act!   We must burn down these abortion clinics!   We must call these men and women fags!   We must shut down every liquor store, beat up every homosexual and break every rock n’ roll CD!   Love?!   …peh.        A friend of mine says that we ought to just give it up and issue a press release:       "Look, we were wrong to try to be the mother to the world. You don't want our moral pontifications, and frankly, we were wrong to offer you those dirty rags instead of the love of Jesus. From now on, you can do whatever you like. We won't get in your way. And if you happen to find that all the freedom we were keeping you from doesn't satisfy, and you end up hurt and alone, we'll still be here for you. You can always come home."        I think he may be on to something.   Maybe, just maybe , we should put down our picket signs and our petitions and try a little thing I like to call “love.”   I know, it’s radical, it’s insane, but… it just might work.   -Chad 9:07:41 PM      comment \[\]

Saturday, January 07, 2006

The Long Journey Home      My Grandmother lived across a field and a small section of woods from my house when I was growing up.   It was a couple of miles if you walked by the road, but only about half a mile by foot across that field and through those woods.      One day, I decided that I wanted to go home before my mother came to pick me up and I headed out across that field.   Everything was fine, until I reached the woods.   I found that there was a wider arm of water rolling through those woods than I could jump.   So, I followed it until I finally found a way across.      After about as long as it would have taken me to walk home by the highway, I took my first step into our back yard.   My pants weighed a ton—saturated with mud and filthy water.   My shoes squished, spurting water at least a foot in the air with each step.   My shirt was splattered with the same muddy liquid that had covered my pants.   I was sweaty, hot and tired.      It's a trip that's stuck in my mind for many years.   I remember being a little afraid a few times that I wouldn't find a way across that wide span of water.   I thought several times that I would have to turn back and face defeat.   When I was finished, I remember being afraid that I'd never get my clothes clean and that my mother would be furious.   But the thing that sticks out most at this particular moment and time is the feeling I had when I saw the house for the first time and there were no more obstacles between it and me.   I can imagine how that air-conditioned haven must have felt to my sweat drenched face.   I was dirty and tired when I got home, but I was home.      Sometimes life is hard, but it will all be worth it for the Christian when we see that shining City, no more obstacles in our way; when we step inside its gates and see the face of our Savior.   -Chad 3:02:20 PM      comment \[\]

Sunday, January 01, 2006

Telling the Truth For Once       I’m going to tell you the truth.   I’m just warning you up front.   Just in case you’re happy living in your cozy little world and don’t want to upset it, I’m warning you .   Christianity isn’t what you think it is.   If you’re a Christian, this might really piss you off, (yes, even more so than me using the word, ‘piss’ did.) and if you’re an atheist, agnostic, or just not interested in this whole “God thing,” I just want you to hear the truth.   For once.   Then you can do with it what you will.   But this is it.   The best I can tell it, this is it.      There is a God, and God became flesh and made his home among us in Jesus.   He took our sin, offering us his perfection in return.   He was raised from the dead, defeating death, so that we could live eternally.   Let’s just get that out of the way to begin with.   That’s the foundation from which I’m coming.   That’s what I believe to be true.   There is a God.   We have just forgotten his face.      I know a lot of good people that call themselves Christians.   I do.   I also know many a fuckadoo who goes to church every time the doors are opened with very little else but self-righteousness, anger and a big black bible.   The thing is, good , bad … it doesn’t mean much when you’re wrong.   Being good don’t get you jack in God’s economy.      Religion has become about espousing certain sociological ideas that are intrinsically cultural in nature.   It’s all about fitting into a certain, pre-fashioned mold.   It’s about how we look and act.   We all start with ‘Jesus is God’, but that’s just about where any similarity to what Jesus intended ends.        The basic problem as I see it is that we’re trying to live the impossible.   We’ve been sold the lie that we’re supposed to be perfect, so we try, and when we can’t… well, just thank goodness , the church just happens to have a behavioral code that looks, smells and wears just like perfection.   And that so doesn’t work.   Listen: IT. DOESN’T. WORK.        This thing’s about love and sacrifice.   At its heart, our faith is a romance with the God of the universe.   He’s the one that moves us on to perfection; he’s the one that brings about good things in us.   And those are only the symptoms of the love-sickness, the side-effects of what being with him does to us mere mortals.   It’s about relationship.   We’ve managed to skip that part.      Somewhere along the way we forgot that.   God’s beloved ones, Adam and Eve, were separated from him, and he moved heaven and earth for two thousand years to bring his precious children back to him by sacrificing himself on a cross.   The disciples got that (eventually) and the early church (for the most part) got that.   But, human as we are, sinful as we are, we lost that truth.   We, like children sent to the store to simply buy milk, eggs and a loaf of bread have come back filthy, sweaty with pockets full of candy.      As a friend of mine said recently, we’re living a “photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy,” of the real thing!   We’re frustrated Christians with no story to tell because we’ve never stepped into the narrative ourselves.   We’ve just been relying on what someone told someone told someone about God.      Is it wrong to question the status quo?   Is it being a Pharisee about Pharisees to call a lie a lie?   Too many of us think that it is, and as a friend of mine pointed out recently, that’s relativism—the idea that all points of views are equally valid.   No.   There is truth and untruth.   All I’m saying is that untruth must be stood against because of the love we have with THE Truth.   My friend went on to say, "What I am saying, and what a growing number of brothers and sisters seem to have no problem at all understanding that I'm saying, because they've been saying it themselves, is that to persist in something that is radically unloving is Satanic, and to allow a bother, sister, or ministry to persist unchecked or at least unchallenged,  is radically unloving, and in fact, Satanic in itself."      Some of my friends have read my words in the past and believed that I’m going through some stage or that I’m simply venting.   That’s just not true (for the most part).   I can just no longer be quiet and “proper.”   Our problem, I believe, is that we want so desperately to be nice and not offend that we even withhold the truth from those who most need to hear it.   I’m all about love; in fact I believe that’s what Christianity boils down to when lived, but I think love sometimes has to resemble like a sword.   It has to cut through the crap.        If I said the church needed to change and didn’t give a tinker’s dam about the church, that’d be different.   But, it is love that compels me to turn the lectern on its side, release the captives and kick over a few pews.   Because it has to change so that we may again be true followers of Christ.   We must let go of our traditions, which keep us at arms length from God, and step into his glory and mystery.   We must lay down the burdens that have been laid on our shoulders and search hard after the Cosmic Lover of our souls. 11:43:02 PM      comment \[\]