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Nothing False Here

April 18, 2014

My wife put the dish of strawberries on the table for dinner. It’s a good six weeks early for strawberries. But these looked perfect. The small firm ones that are sweet and juicy. Not the overly large ones that growers cynically think women buy because they are big not caring that there is no taste and they are hollow.

I see them all through dinner. Time for dessert. Yummm. But no! These are not those sweet, juicy ripe strawberries. I don’t know what gas they bathed these babies in to make them to appear prematurely ripe. These were not ripe. The consistency was terrible.

We are in such a rush to get what we want when we want it that we ignore the consequences of trying to outwit nature.

Jesus (OK, I’m expanding the metaphor here) kept telling his closest followers about the fullness of time and about his time being not now, or his time being now.

They didn’t understand. They thought they knew what they wanted and when they wanted it. But, they were wrong.

There cannot be anything false or misleading about the Jesus we celebrate at Easter. There are people who say even until today that the whole resurrection thing was just a huge marketing ploy. But how long does misleading marketing last? Not long. No 2,000 years.

It really was his time. His first followers would not have changed the world if were just a cynical marketing trick. He so changed their lives that they gave up theirs to spread his message.

Jesus didn’t say “Change your life so that you can follow me.” Jesus said, “Follow me and then your life will be changed.”

It worked 2,000 years ago and it works today.

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Meditations on Meditating

March 14, 2014

We are in the Christian season of Lent. As I’ve said previously, I grew up in a tradition where we did not really recognize Lent. As a kid, I knew that the Lutherans and Catholics chose something from which to abstain during Lent. I don’t even remember going to any special Ash Wednesday services.

I wonder if we practiced Advent mostly because of the commercial hype around gift giving. We had Advent calendars that marked off the days until Christmas. We had Christmas programs at church. We had Christmas programs at school (when approximately 100% of the school’s population is Christian, you could do that).

I’m meditating on Lent this year. Maybe because there is another movie out that, like the one by Mel Gibson several years ago, seems to focus on the death of Jesus. In some traditions, the “way of the Cross” is commemorated bringing to the front of mind the steps of Jesus from Pilate’s residence to the place of crucifixation.

We know the point of Christmas. It is that Jesus came into the world. For Lent, as it leads up to Good Friday and Easter there are two events. Death and resurrection. Tradition has us concentrating for 40 days (plus Sundays) on the death. We have one quick day celebrated by pastel colors and candy to remember the resurrection. And then it’s over.

Read Acts again. Read Paul’s letters. The first followers of Jesus did so because of the resurrection. That was the single most important event in our religious heritage.

Jesus said that he pointed the way to eternal life. John always uses the term in the present tense. Eternal life begins when you choose it. It also carries on to life with-God after we die–physically.

Those of us who meditate deeply understand the distinction of body and soul. We’ve experienced it.

We need a celebration to remember the resurrection all the time beginning with Easter and leading to Advent. It is our life now and our hope for the future.

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Misinterpreting Requests

February 17, 2014

I was perhaps eight or nine. On first base in a Little League game. Don’t remember how that happened, since it was not a common occurrence. The next kid hit a pop fly. The coach (my dad) yelled, “Tag up.” Well, I knew to go back to the base and wait. So, I interpreted that as “tag up and go.” So, I did. Got thrown out at second. Dad asked what in the world was I thinking. I said, you told me to go.

We were discussing the story of the wedding feast in Cana as told by John. Mary, being one of the few people perceptive of other people’s situations, noticed that the wine was about gone. That would result in humiliation for the bridegroom. She knew that.

She asked her oldest son (or only son if you’re Catholic, but we won’t go there) to do something.

At this point, we all know the story, so we assume that she meant for Jesus to perform a miracle. Someone suggested, we don’t know what she had in mind. Maybe she just meant for Jesus to gather his new friends and run to the store and buy some more. The writer never says.

We just know that Jesus interpreted it as a strong request to perform a miracle. He said, “Woman, my time is not yet come.” Weird comment.

But then he began issuing commands. He took charge of the situation. Mary tells the others to do what he says (good mother, she is).

I love theology and literary tricks. I take the miracle from that point of view that Jesus, whether he knew it there or not but probably did, changed water meant for Jewish purification rites into Communion wine (you saved the best wine for last, said the steward to the bridegroom, surely an ironic statement). A different sort of purification.

But what if it all started because he thought his mother meant one thing, and he interpreted it as another?

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The Power of Prayer Plus Work

January 15, 2014

I am in Tijuana, Mexico this week visiting the Tijuana Christian Mission. Begun 50 years ago by an energetic young pastor, the mission now incorporates an orphanage in Tijuana, another in Rosarita, a shelter for abused women (mostly rescued from the sex trade), and a hospice hospital.

The founder (I’m probably not spelling it correctly) Sergio Gomez told us about his life and the ministry he has built. Rather God and he have built. I have written before about praying with intention. Well, he is the best example I’ve ever heard of prayers answered while praying specifically and with intention. As well as starting the path even when waiting on God to provide.

His family and the other staff are doing a great work (hearkening back to my Nehemiah discussions), and they “will not come down.” They keep the faith even when cheated and when promised support withers away.

I’m sitting in the courtyard typing this post listening to the boys playing basketball, a young girl rollerblading, the girls talking, a guitar lesson has just ended. Amazing.

Everything I’ve learned from my daughter about running a group home and dealing with troubled kids–they are living out. Most of the kids are victims of some sort of tragedy, and most are doing well. They’ve even had a college graduate recently.

If you are interested in learning more, just contact me.

[oh, sorry about the double post–I’m still learning how to use the WordPress app on my iPad]

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Experience God or Believe in God

January 14, 2014

Belief? Or experience?

I was brought up to believe in God. This word, belief, has long puzzled me. It means something like having confidence that something is true or something exists even though there is no empirical evidence that it is, indeed, true.

Faith also seems to me to be similar to belief.

I struggle with these words. They seem lacking. Not descriptive enough. What do you mean that you don’t know that God exists?

Do you ever wonder about this? Or wonder if God is real?

There is a group or community of people who have ecstatic experiences of the Spirit. We call them pentacostal or maybe other terms. I am not one, quite, but I know many. This is experiential worship. But many people are just not the right personality type for ecstatic worship.

I could say that I believe that people can experience God. But that sounds like a contradiction.

So, I’ve thought about all this for many years.

Then about 30 years ago, when I discovered that people really exist (as a science/engineering personality type, I was lost in a world of ideas for most of my early life), I started reading psychology. A lot. Freud. James, John Climacus. Jung.

Finally, an observation that seemed to fit my thinking as well as my experiences. Carl Jung, toward the end of his life of deep exploration of the psyche, was asked if he believed in God. “Believe?” he answered, “no, I don’t believe. I know.”

Pondering visionary experiences of God while contemplating John’s Revelation, brought back memories of my experiences. Yes, I know. God’s beyond belief. God is real.

Modern psychologists or English professors or the like would say that I am merely delusional. But they say that because they do not know! It’s not belief. I know God is with me.

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Jesus As The Stumbling Block

December 20, 2013

There was finally time to slow down this morning–partly because I woke up an hour early and cleared out some work that was on my mind. Coffee and an uninterrupted hour took care of some of the busyness swirling through the brain.

A guy declared during a study group I was in about the god that Muslims worship. I was aghast. Where in the world did he ever hear that? How did it register so much that he would spout it out as if it were true? Had he ever talked with someone who follows that faith (implying listening as well as talking)?

We think a lot about Jesus in December. We’ve turned it into such a big cultural event, that even people who do not follow Jesus are swept into it. There is so much we don’t know about Jesus. But that hasn’t stopped people from speculating, just like my friend above, about things that they just don’t know–and treating like the truth.

Jesus said he would be a  stumbling block to many. That was, and is, true.

We know that he was intensely curious to learn about his Father. We know that from one small story about the family going to Jerusalem to worship and that he stayed behind to learn from the most learned of the teachers. I assume from this little look into his personality that he devoted the next 18 years to learning everything about his Father that he could. he was human, after all.

He is presented in some of the Gospels as a great Wisdom teacher–always putting a little different spin on the teachings to shake up people’s understanding. And he was in the tradition of all the great Wisdom teachers who preceded him over the time of 2,000 years or so. We have much to learn from him.

Some people stop there. But he was also presented as a great healer. There were fewer of those people preceding him, but he stood out as much better than any. He actually continues to heal people today of many ills.

Some are skeptics about healing, but others stop there.

There is only one reason that Jesus would have impacted people so much that they would become such devoted disciples that they would overturn the mighty Roman empire. That is his resurrection. And that is the stumbling block. There are many faiths that follow the God of Abraham. But Jesus as a manifestation of God on Earth who died and then rose from the dead stops many.

It’s is such a shame that humans have done so many bad things in the name of Jesus over the past 2,000 years to tarnish his name among people whom we should be loving and witnessing to his power.

But we can contemplate on Jesus for the rest of this season and renew and recharge our lives for the coming year.

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Discipleship Means Changing Your Life

October 31, 2013

Jesus tells a story, actually an analogy, about wineskins and new wine. He said that you put new wine in new wineskins and old wine in old wineskins. If you put new wine that is still fermenting and therefore expanding into old wineskins that are stiff and fragile, then the skin will break and all will be lost.

He was talking about his message as the new wine. If he talked to people who were set in their ways and unwilling to change, then the message would not have any effect and all would be lost.

If the message entered people who were fresh and new and receptive to it, then they would grow with the message and the message (fresh wine) would be useful.

Parables, or stories, are almost always about people and their relationship to the message Jesus was teaching. This teaching is an important life lesson–even for us older people.

It is actually possible for us to age, yet remain fresh and receptive in our outlooks. We can try to remain open to new facts, experiences, knowledge. Even as we grow, we can continue to be mentally and spiritually fresh. Or, we can become rigid in our beliefs, unable to accept new ideas. Then the message will lose its impact and we are in danger of becoming Jesus’ enemies–the Pharisees. These are the people who put laws ahead of love; put knowledge ahead of spirit; put ritual actions above living out God’s will.

One of the reasons to practice Spiritual Disciplines is to find ways to remain fresh and receptive to God’s message. Daily prayer, meditation, study and service help us to live God’s message as a part of our daily lives. Not because there is some law that orders us to do certain things. But because we are living with Jesus every moment.

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Study Bible Commentators With Discernment

October 25, 2013

The professors, especially in the humanities but also in science and math, told us what someone wrote about someone else. So there were always about two layers of separation between the student and the text.

One of my more embarrassing (for an introverted geek anyway) episodes was when a philosophy professor was quite off track discussing the Theory of Relativity. You see, I had been studying Einstein’s thought experiments that led to the breakthrough and then the math that he worked out as a proof. So, it was on my mind. I raised my hand and began to explain what he was attempting to talk about.

“Would you like to teach this class, Mr. Mintchell?” Professor Dr. H asked. I should have said yes some of my classmates said later. But he shut me up. But at 19 years old, I already was unhappy with living in that separation from the text.

Hal Lindsey was a popular theologian in the early 70s with his gift for story telling while attempting to interpret the Bible. I read The Late, Great Planet Earth and thought it was interesting, if a bit flawed in its understanding of politics. Then I read his next book which was a commentary on Hebrews. I kept thinking there was something wrong. So, I got out my 8-translation New Testament and read the book again testing his translation with those of many scholars. I have no idea where he came up with his translation which neatly fit his theology, but it didn’t match any I had.

I really like reading new commentary on the Bible. But I always keep mine close by to double check translations and context. Just like when Malcolm Gladwell began a passage with “some scholars think”, you need to be careful and not believe everything you read–even this.

And go back to the source text often.

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Where Is Your Heart On Your Sabbath

October 24, 2013

I grew up a little confused about the Sabbath. My parents took me to a Methodist church in our local town. The big church in town was Lutheran (most people in the town of 1,000 were of Germanic heritage). So, we went to church on Sunday. My mother’s mother’s family was Welsh and attended a Seventh-Day Baptist church. In fact, two of mom’s brothers were Seventh-Day Baptist clergy. They, of course, worshiped on the Sabbath–the seventh day just as it says in Exodus. That would be Saturday.

Last week part of my reading took me through a few chapters of Exodus where God is giving Moses instructions about how to organize his people. Part of those instructions dealt with working six days and setting aside one day for rest. I think later it became a worship day.

The idea of Sabbath and rest occurs in curious ways. There is rest for the land. There is a Sabbath year where debts are forgiven. And Jesus talks a little about the Sabbath.

Men began to think (way too much) about what it meant to keep the Sabbath and not work on that day. They began to draw up lists of rules that specifically detailed what was work and what wasn’t. Even today in Israel if you ride an elevator in a hotel on the Sabbath, don’t get on the Sabbath elevator. It is programmed to stop at every floor so that observant Jews don’t have to work by pushing a button.

Many of God’s original laws seemed to have as much practical sense as they did religious. Keeping a day set apart certainly also keeps the followers set apart from other peoples. But taking a rest periodically is as good for the body as it is for the soul.

Referring back to Monday’s post on meditation, that is something akin to a daily Sabbath–part of a day set aside to rest. You need part of a week set aside for rest. You also need part of a year set aside for rest.

When Jesus teaches on the Sabbath as recorded by Luke, he expands on rest but short-circuits the multitude of picky laws defining work. Jesus was most concerned with where your heart is. Keeping the Sabbath with your heart in the wrong place is not really keeping the Sabbath. I think that Moses agreed.

Sabbath is not only about rest, it’s also about adjusting your heart back to where it belongs.

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Seeing Without Observing

October 10, 2013

Most people seem to go through life seeing, but not really “seeing” or observing at a deeper level. Normal human condition is one of near total self-absorption. People see others mainly in relation to what their impact is on them.

I have seen parents who see their children, not for what they are as unique individuals, but more as an extension of themselves. 30 years of refereeing and coaching soccer (plus living through being the parent of an athlete and not always being the perfect example of the right way to be) has given me perspective on the whole “living life through your kids” syndrome. The same works for the famous “stage mother” type.

Seeing without observing causes one to miss opportunities to serve and to miss nudgings of the Holy Spirit. You don’t really see the person who needs help with a load. Or the person with troubles. Or the person who is rejoicing and appreciates when someone notices and rejoices with them. Or when the Spirit nudges you toward saying something meaningful to another.

Jesus seemed always to be aware of everything going on around him. This doesn’t mean that he didn’t pray for his own situation–obviously he did. But look at the number of times he was aware of what the Pharisees were saying about him. About the time the woman knew she would be healed if she but touched Jesus’ robe–and he felt the energy. He didn’t wander around absorbed in his own thoughts. He was always watching people.

We must also be careful about looking to Jesus as an example. John Ortberg taught last Sunday on the book, “Zealot.” I had not heard of the book, but it’s another in a long line of books saying basically that Jesus was not who we think he is. Rather, he was just another man in a long line of failed Zealots. Ortberg takes the author to task much better than could ever do. Click the link and find the sermon podcast. Well worth a listen.

During the talk, Ortberg mentioned that often when someone writes about Jesus, they are really describing themselves. That is, the don’t really look at Jesus, but at what they like and make Jesus fit the mold. I realized that years ago, and try hard to discern the real Jesus–as well as the real Paul. We all confuse them so much with what we’d really like for them to be and say.

But that’s part of observing. Sometimes it takes a long time to finally figure it out. A long time to realize your own prejudices in how you observe.

A daily discipline is to clear your head every morning through silent meditation for even just a few minutes and ask God to help you focus on others, not yourself.

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