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What If We Had a Ceasefire?

December 1, 2015

CEASEFIRE!

I’m sure it was “bumper sticker philosophy.” I have no clue what the rest of the words were on it. But the one word blared out distinctly.

Then a line of thinking began. What is it about that word?

Ceasefire describes a momentary (or hopefully longer) cessation of hostilities between the combatants. Rifles and artillery fall silent. People can breathe. A certain amount of relaxation seeps into the body and the group.

What if we invoked that word a little more often? And in other contexts?

Here’s a thought that I believe a large majority of Americans would go with–what if we took Nancy Pelosi (leader of the “liberal” wing of the Democrats in the US House) and Jim Jordan (leader of the “conservative” wing of the Republicans). What if we forced them into a room together and wouldn’t let them out until they forged a ceasefire?

Maybe we could get them to work within their differences (which are OK in themselves) with the purpose of an effective government? Let’s stop shooting at each other and see how we can work toward some common objectives–say the overall welfare of the people of the US?

Then I heard about white, male, Christian who took his firearms to a crowded shopping area that contained a Planned Parenthood clinic and started shooting.

What if we had a ceasefire among all the competing brands of Christianity? What if we learned to live with the variety of opinions and then focused on living out the commands of Jesus? Very simple–love God, love your neighbor.

Yes. A ceasefire. We need one of those. Maybe we could begin with the Christmas season and then extend it.

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Too Much Thinking, Not Enough Doing

November 19, 2015

When all is said and done, more is said than done.

As an investor in a local coffee shop, I must admit to coffee envy. This week I am attending a trade fair / conference in Chicago’s McCormick Place. A popular coffee chain has a store adjacent to the entrance to the exhibit hall. This is a large show with over 15,000 attendees. That store had a constant queue of at least 20 people from 6:30 am until they closed about 5:00 pm.

This morning I’m staring at the plain red cup of the day’s dark roast coffee thinking about the ridiculous uproar of a certain segment of self-proclaimed Christians who thought that the company was belittling Christmas by removing reindeer and snowflakes from its cups.

So, what do reindeer and snowflakes have to do with honoring Jesus’ birth? Well, nothing.

Then I recalled the old proverb quoted at the top. It goes along with another saying I find myself repeating–we think too much. That is a funny thing for an ENTP to say (if you don’t know what that is, check out the definitions in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator). But we do.

Think of discussions on points of theology. A favorite one currently concerns the definition of the word translated as “day” in first story of creation. Many people take the English word day and make it a foundation of belief in creation that this means 24-hour days. Just had that discussion. I basically said, “You and I will always disagree on this interpretation. Does that mean that one or the other is not Christian? No. We agree on the foundation of the faith that Jesus lived as a man, was killed, and was resurrected.

Every time I read the gospels, I’m further struck by the words of Jesus. Certainly belief was the foundation, but his commandments always talked about the status of your heart and what you’re doing about it. Love your neighbor, he said. That’s not an emotional, sentimental word. It’s an action verb.

Thinking is OK. But let it not be said about us that when all is said and done, more was said than done.

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How To Achieve Unity

October 5, 2015

Paul (the apostle) tried very hard to promote unity in the early church. Every thing was so new. They were figuring out things as they went. Paul was not the only evangelist. There were many. They didn’t always agree.

I started thinking about this during today’s message at church. I know, thinking in church is even worse than thinking in school, but I do that anyway.

What about within a congregation? That is mostly what Paul was addressing. 

There seem to be two ways to achieve unity in a congregation (or any smaller organization).

One way would be to reduce the size of the organization. Let those who disagree with the majority or leader or whatever move on. Perhaps the leader intentionally encourages them to move on. Perhaps they just don’t feel welcomed.

I’ve been around the block a couple of times. I’ve witnessed this phenomenon. Eventually you get a group that agrees or silently goes along. Therefore, we’ve achieved a kind of unity.

Seems to me there is another way. I think I’ve been influenced by Paul and James, but mostly by Jesus.

We need to focus on the core beliefs. There are opinions that are just not going to be agreed upon by everyone. That’s life.

In a church, the core belief agreed to by all denominations is the belief that Jesus lived, he died, and he was resurrected. 

Some go searching the scriptures for all manner of rules to follow. Or odd quotes to pull out to reinforce prejudices. It’s when we place those rules above the gospel that we get into trouble.

It’s like a dear old Baptist lady who bought her new Catholic friend  a Bible. She thougtht she would look inside the Catholic Bible to see what it was. She was astounded to discover that it was the same as hers.

We can build on that unity by emphasizing the core beliefs upon which we are agreed. Then remember and practice the continual injunctions in the New Testament about love. Then reach out beyond cultural and doctrinal divides.

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I Am A Disciple-Or At Least Try To Be

July 15, 2015

Reading my Facebook stream trying to understand “Christian” would leave you puzzled. In fact, I bet that you could read your own Facebook stream of news and be puzzled.

Some whom you know to call themselves Christian seem like the most loving, gracious people. Some, on the other hand, seem to be disputatious, quarrelsome, judgmental, cynical, in other words, someone whom you would not really care to hang out with. Or—even to be labeled the same.

That has been a problem for many years.

For example, did you know that there was a preacher/politician named John Calhoun in the early 19th Century in America who wrote books “proving” that black people (the slaves at the time) were not really human beings. And he used the Bible to prove it.

Andy Stanley addresses this problem in his latest Your Move series. He points out that Jesus and his followers used a much more specific term—disciple. We know what a disciple is. The definition of Christian is open to debate. But a disciple is a follower of a teacher who tries to emulate everything about the teacher.

That is one reason I like to develop spiritual practices in my life and try to lead others to develop these practices. The correct spiritual practices help us try to become a true disciple of Jesus.

You know, Jesus, the one who told his disciples (John 13:34), “I give you a new commandment, to love one another.”

There are people who may self-identify as a “Christian” but who certainly do not appear to be living out Jesus’ last commandment.

So, I have preferred the term “follower” or the term “disciple” for most of the past 45 years. Like many, I shy away from describing myself as Christian.

Maybe if more of us followed this advice from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, we wouldn’t be so ashamed of the term:

Christianity means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. No Christian community is more or less than this. Whether it be a brief, single encounter or the daily fellowship of years, Christian community is only this. We belong to one another only through and in Jesus Christ.

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Christian or Follower of Jesus?

June 18, 2015

Most of the time I just like to teach. Or point out some interesting or ironic observations. Or share something that (I hope) helps  people in their spiritual formation.

Then, sometimes I get into controversial things that cannot be explained in 300 words or less 😉

This may be one of those.

How do I describe myself?

I’ve just returned from a conference with an international focus. I count people from many cultures and many countries as friends (OK, maybe that’s a bit of a stretch, but I hope they are). I am aware of history and its impact on perceptions people have even to today.

While contemplating a completely different subject for this post, my thoughts focused on the differences between the person I was going to quote (see a future post, I’m sure) and me.

He’s not expressly a Christian–or maybe not even consciously one.

But, I sometimes have a little problem identifying myself that way. I have absolutely no problem identifying myself as a follower of Jesus. His words have penetrated deeply into me for what seems like my entire life. I want to be like him (as a disciple should), although even while writing this, I’m painfully aware of how far from that ideal I am.

I know people from the Middle East. I’m aware of the connotation that “Christian” often has. Instead of describing someone who lives such an attractive life that people want to be like them, the term often recalls savagery, genocide, exploitation. Even in Europe, “Christians” massacred each other for hundreds of years. No wonder that so many throughout the world don’t care to identify with the name.

Attraction

The Acts 2 church grew because the people lived such extraordinary lives that they attracted those around them to Jesus.

Last week I met (English names, not theirs exactly) people like Daniel and Joe and others who are living that kind of life. They are in areas hostile to “Christians”, yet the example they set is so attractive that people from a diverse religious and cultural background are led to learn more about that unique person from 2100 years ago.

I’m little interested in knowing if you identify yourself as “Christian.” I am more interested in whether your life reflects how you are a disciple of Jesus. I just used a quote at the end of my Yoga class, “As I grow older, I am less interested in what men say. I just watch them and see what they do.”

At the end of every day we should ask, “What did I do today that proclaimed that I follow Jesus” and “What should I do tomorrow to show that I follow Jesus?”

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Why Are There So Many Different Christians

January 14, 2015

I have a friend who was born overseas and was raised as, and still is, a Sikh. I will not try in a couple of hundred words to describe what a Sikh believes, but in crude shorthand, it teaches a certain tolerance of all religions.

My point is not to critique the faith or the people within that faith. My point is a question he asked me once. This was at another of those times of bickering amongst the various Christian denominations.

“Gary, can you explain why there are so many kinds of Christians?” he asked. “And why are they so different and dislike each other so much?”

I took a few minutes to describe 2,000 years of religious revelation, geo-political differences, politics within the religions, and personalities.

He replied, “Didn’t Jesus say that you’d know his followers by their love for one another?”

Ouch.

The denomination I attend presently is always on the brink of disintegration over the status of homosexuals. The problem with the status of women was finally settled by acknowledging women as people (duh!).

We could look at the world and point fingers. There are many varieties of Judaism. Not to mention the huge differences within Islam (reminder, not all Muslims are terrorists, just as not all Christians are terrorists–and we’ve had a few).

Many differences are simply either cultural or personality. Some are charismatic; some meditative. Some like pipe organs; some like rock ‘n’ roll.

But the Acts 2 churches attracted people by how they lived. There was something different about those people, and other people wanted some of that.

Today? How are we known? Let’s find a little of that love.

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The Glory of God Shone Brightly

December 23, 2014

Remember when Moses saw the glory of God? His face shone so brightly reflecting that glory that the Hebrews could not stand to see it. So they asked that Moses hide his face behind a veil.

The Glory of God was said to inhabit the Ark for years. At some point, evidently, the glory sort of faded away.

Solomon built a Temple so that the Glory of God could “rest”, that is inhabit, with the people. It was said that God’s Glory filled the Temple.

If there is one overarching theme to the Old Testament, it is that the people of God draw close to God and then abandon Him. This theme recurs often continuing over centuries.

Then with the destruction of the Temple by the Babylonians and the second major exile of the Jewish people, God’s Glory was withdrawn from the land. Even with the building of the second Temple, there is no talk of God coming to dwell in it. This temple was not built with God’s blessing and instruction.

The conclusion of that cycle of glory and disengagement ended when God decided to “build” His own Temple. He revealed His glory, not through a stone building, but through a human being–Jesus of Nazareth.

Paul even calls our own bodies temples of God’s Spirit. That was, and is, a pretty radical statement. No wonder the Jews at the time beat him and stoned him.

Even so, we celebrate the return of the Glory of God to Earth at this time of the year. We participated in a wonderful celebration of the Advent Sunday with music, story, sharing.

Merry Christmas.

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One God One People

November 24, 2014

“There is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.”

I almost always have something on my person with which to take notes. I currently carry a Moleskin notebook that fits nicely in the back pocket of my jeans. Sometimes it is a 3×5 index card wallet (I write my to-do list on those for the day). If nothing else, I can use the Notes app on my iPhone.

Late last week, I had a great idea for a blog post. I didn’t write it down. It’s gone. All I have is the memory of having an idea.

The weakest ink is better than the strongest memory” — Chinese proverb

Shema

The best I remember of what I was thinking came from my reading of N.T. Wright’s study of Paul, “Paul and the Faithfulness of God.”

He pointed out in a discussion (of several hundred pages) of Paul’s “rewriting” of his Scriptures leading to developing a new Shema (quoted above from 1 Corinthians 8:6). In the Greek, God is YHWH (we pronounce Yahweh or the Latin Jehovah, Jews would not pronounce) and Lord is the Greek kyrios–a word in the original Greek translation of the Scriptures that also refers to God. An interesting thing to ponder.

While reading Wright’s key passage, 1 Cor 8-10, my eye fell on a verse in chapter 11 about women. The verse, taken by itself (which you should almost never do), contained a seeming put-down of women. But this morning I returned to the passage and read the entire argument of 1 Cor 11-12.

That passage talks about the mutual submission of men and women. Something to meditate on when considering our relationships. But that’s another topic. It continues to discuss divisions in the church (ekklesia) in Corinth.

Read 8-12 as one long argument, and you get Paul’s main point. We have one God (the Creator in the Old Testament and the Father in the New), and one Lord (Jesus in the New Testament, the person who was God revealed to the people), and one ekklesia (gathering of people).

When we gather as a people of God, contention is not a Spiritual gift. It is not to be allowed. Social differences are to be put aside. Political differences are to be put aside. Personality issues are to be put aside. We worship the one God through the One who revealed God to the people as one people.

Imagine the letters Paul would write today to all of our churches about this core teaching of his. He’d need an army of admins to compile the email database to send us all the reprimands that we need and the instruction we need.

One God, One Lord, One People. Remembering that daily is perhaps the fundamental Spiritual Discipline we need today.

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It’s Hard To Focus On the Distant Future

June 2, 2014

Much Christian preaching involves the idea of “repent and someday you’ll inherit eternal life.” One of the study groups I attend has been working its way through the book of Revelation for the past eight months. They are trying to come to grips with the “someday the world will end” interpretation of the writing.

Daniel Goleman brings a wealth of science research into his writing and makes it both informative and approachable. “Emotional Intelligence” is my guidebook to emotionally healthy growth, right along with “The Ladder of Divine Ascent” by John Climacus, and early Desert Father of the church. Goleman’s latest book, “Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence”, includes a chapter discussing climate change and the trouble people have trying to be concerned about something where the results are far in the future.

It seems that our brains are wired to help us survive–but only from immediate danger. That would be the “fight or flight” response you’ve heard about. This is the most likely reason why public discussion about the climate has degenerated into polarized opinions rather than rational looks into the data.

I think some of the same brain physiology is at work in the “repent or someday you’ll go to Hell” evangelizing. That’s a someday thing that does not relate to our immediate survival.

It’s also a misreading of John, the apostle and writer. John is clear in his Gospel that eternal life comes to you the moment you believe. That moment is when we begin living in eternal life. Eternal life is not someday, it’s now.

We just acknowledge, “I was living like that, then I became aware that that life was not fruitful, so I decided to live in a different way as a follower of Jesus.”

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Why Do We Feel The Need To Know the Future

April 24, 2014

Why is it that humans keep reaching for a sense of certainty in a life that has always been quite uncertain? We want to know the future. But even today’s most sophisticated computer models can’t tell us with certainty what the weather will be next week.

Even so, there are people who study the Bible looking for hints of the future. It gets so bad that there was a guy I heard about in the 70s who had figured out the size of the “New Jerusalem” and the cubic feet of gold as described in John’s Revelation and the weight of that amount of gold and multiplied by the price of gold to figure out the US Dollar value of that gold. I was so put off by how much that person (and the people who spouted that off as if it meant something) missed the spiritual point, that I still remember the episode.

I didn’t want to write about Revelation. But the small study group I attend is still in the book. It’s still on my mind.

There are many interpretations of the meaning of the writing. Several interpretations hold that it is an actual description of historical events to come. Even though God is explicit in his condemnation of fortune telling–predicting the future. (My interpretation, picked up from some of the early Church Fathers–who, by the way didn’t agree not only on the interpretation of the book but on whether to even include it in the official canon for teaching–is that it “describes” events that have already happened. Its focus is on the horrors of Rome, the destruction of the Temple, and how God’s people will triumph because God has already won the war.)

Don’t bother trying to argue the points with me. I don’t care. Someone in the group asked why our church doesn’t teach from the book. Well, I don’t teach from it. I can understand others.

The purpose of study is to learn how to live a life that’s pleasing to God–the with-God life. If a writing is so open to conjecture and argument, how can we learn from it? Paul condemned idle argumentation. I go with him.

Jesus said, “Follow me.” He said the Kingdom of God was there. I’m with him.

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