Faith Venture

How is Good Friday “good”?

I guess calling it Bad Friday just didn’t have a ring to it.

Or Terrified Friday–since that is what Jesus’ followers were. That sounds like a horror film–although they didn’t have movies back then.

Or Give Up Friday–since Jesus basically just gave himself up to the authorities knowing the following few hours would be filled with pain and humiliation.

Or, in America, maybe we just call it a day off work.

Theologians, or other people who think too much, might say “good” because of Sunday. But on Friday, they were not anticipating Sunday.

I am not necessarily on the side of Mel Gibson who seems to revel in every gory piece of the story.

But, we have to ask ourselves, how can we really identify as followers, as Christian, without at some level experiencing the struggle, loss, death, and then on Sunday experiencing the life?

Why do so many pretend to live a Christian life when it’s all theory and theology that has made no real impact on how we live our life. At what point do we experience the dinner before the arrest where Jesus gave us final instructions. “This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you.”

It’s all what makes Jesus different from all other spiritual teachers. It is possible to experience the risen Jesus and let that experience change how you live your life.

Thanks to the Plough for sharing this thought from Dietrich Bonhoeffer recently.

The morning prayer determines the day. Squandered time of which we are ashamed, temptations to which we succumb, weakness and lack of courage in work, disorganization and lack of discipline in our thoughts and in our conversation with others, all have their own origin most often in the neglect of morning prayer. Order and distribution of our time become more firm where they originate in prayer.

He has it exactly right. How we begin the day is important. How we begin the week oft determines the week. How we begin a year sets us on the right course even if life intervenes forcing a course correction.

We can set an alarm to awaken just in time for a fast shower, grab a sweet snack for breakfast, and rush through the day. Only to arrive at bedtime physically and mentally exhausted.

Or

We can set our mind to awaken early naturally, enough time for a morning routine with prayer and centering, a few minutes of reading something for the mind and soul, eat a little protein to begin the day, and go out focused to tackle the day.

“If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, “Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.”

Reading through the book of Acts of the Apostles, we come to the stories of what happened after Saul (later Paul) went on a rampage against the new Jewish sect. It’s the Law of Unintended Consequences. Step 1, the believers scattered and left Jerusalem. Step 2, they went into non-Jewish areas. Step 3, they taught and found willing converts among non-Jews. Some of those received the Holy Spirit.

So Peter was out checking up on this unexpected phenomena when he was visited with a vision from God. He was told that what he had been taught and how he had believed for his entire life was now upended–wrong.

He went to the house of a Gentile, went into the house, ate with them, slept (evidently) in their house. He also preached to them and baptized them with water and the Spirit.

Then he returns to the headquarters. The rest of the leadership confronted him with his wrongdoing.

Peter concludes his defense with those words quoted above.

Read that story from Acts 11, with feeling. See if you can express these last three sentences with the surprise and shock that they must have been uttered.

Then think of today. Think of fellow Christians whom you believe cannot possibly be “Christian” because they have different colors of skin or vote the “wrong” way, or don’t pray with the same words exactly or … or … or ….

Then say it, with feeling, maybe even with five-part harmony (if you get the musical allusion), “You mean God offers repentance that leads to life even to them!?”

Yep!

Hint–maybe you could invite them to your Easter celebration without hidden agendas. Just out of the love to share the risen Lord.

Tony Robbins, self-help guru and master of the infomercial, when peppered with questions from an over-energetic interviewer “How did you do that” and again “How did you do that”, finally responded, “Don’t ask how, ask why.”

In Lean Thinking, we ask why five times to get to the root cause of a problem–called 5 Whys.

Why do I meditate?

To become mindful.

Why do I become mindful?

To become calmer, reduce stress effects.

Why do I become calmer?

Health benefits, more appropriate response to life.

Or you can apply it to your organization or business. Maybe like this–

We can ask “How can we grow?”.

And then we get lost in details.

Or we can ask “Why do we want to grow?”

To reach more people.

Why do we want to reach more people?

To help them with our product or service?

Now we are focusing on our customer, not on us or on mindless details. Assuming we have an appropriate product or service, focusing on others will lead to growth.

Why do I write this blog to only reach a few thousand people (instead of millions)? Good question. 😉

The mind is its own place,

and in itself can make a heaven of hell,

a hell of heaven. — John Milton, Paradise Lost

In the course of my life, I come into contact with a wide range of people. They come from (and many still live in) any one of the continents of the world except Antarctica. Men and women. Wealthy or not-so-much.

Many ask how certain people groups can say what they say. “Do they really believe that in the face of all the evidence to the contrary?”

“Yes,” I reply. “The mind is a marvelous thing. It will believe whatever you tell it. They will not change their minds because of logical argument or the display of irrefutable evidence.”

It takes self-awareness to be able to look at your beliefs in the mirror and admit to yourself that you have been wrong and vow to change.

Self-awareness and courage.

We used to have cinema with that theme. Now everything we see reinforces whatever belief set we have.

In the late 1960s PBS produced a limited series TV show called The Prisoner. It is so old that I will give away the plot. Patrick McGoohan, who played secret agents in other series, plays a secret agent trapped in an idyllic little city. For 12 weeks he tries either to escape or to meet No. 1. The best he can get to is No. 2. And every time he almost escapes, he is captured and returned.

Finally, episode 13. They promise to take him to No. 1–the person behind the captivity. There is a big celebration. A throne. A crown. They place him on the throne and place the crown on his head.

He was his own captor. He placed himself in captivity.

“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.”

Time for reflection?

Sometimes it seems that if 20 nutritionists were gathered in a room there would be 40 opinions about what to eat or not to eat.

I have a couple of fitness certifications and read and listen to nutrition and fitness podcasts. There’s a lot of advice out there. And, like they say, talk is cheap.

Or, like the quote I found to finish last night’s Yoga class, “What you believe doesn’t make you a good person, how you behave does.”

And how you take care of your body matters more than what advice you believe. Check out the opening chapters of the Book of Daniel in the Old Testament, for example.

Therefore, as a spiritual discipline, let us take care of ourselves. Here are some generally agreed upon bits of advice

• Drink water. Other fluids are good and necessary, too, but make water the go-to drink. It replenishes the body, gives you energy, flushes out toxins, helps the kidneys. And probably a lot more.
• Cut out carbs that are high on the Glycemic Index. Cakes, pies, candy bars, donuts–gone. There’s conflicting advice on grains. Some believe we shouldn’t eat them at all. However, civilization didn’t begin until humans could cultivate and store grain. And, they are a source of energy. Eat fermented or slow-cooked whole grains for a small part of your diet.
• Eat lots of vegetables–especially green, leafy vegetables. Those are especially good for your brain. Fruit is good, but remember fruit is sugar. So eat some. The fiber helps slow down the sugar intake and reduce insulin spikes. Fruit juice is sugar rich, so limit those. Nuts are a fantastic food. Make nuts one of your go-to snacks in mid-afternoon.
• Get plenty of good, sound sleep. 7-8 hours for most of us. More for some. Water and sleep are perhaps the top two requirements.
• Manage stress. Find ways to eliminate outside stressors. Quit that job if necessary. End toxic relationships. Practice meditation (prolonged meditation helps you look younger!). Try Yoga or Tai Chi.
• Move. Walking is great. If you’re fit, or want to be, running is good, too. Many chemicals in your body need movement for effectiveness. Obsess over your FitBit steps, if you must.
• Dark chocolate and a glass of red wine are a healthful end to a nice meal.

Time to head to the gym. 😉

Have you ever tried to explain Christianity to a person of another faith? Especially also of a different color? Or–for us Midwesterners–explaining “Trump Country” to urban people?

I’m always torn between amusement and sadness when I read things from the urban coastal areas (not to mention Washington) trying to figure out people from the rural middle of the country. Neither side has a clue about the other.

The New York Times recently explored the effects of the 2016 election with the visible racial references upon “evangelical” churches who had been trying to bring black people and other “people of color” into their communities yet supported a candidate who was openly disdainful of those people. It was an interesting article, albeit limited. They sent a reporter to Dallas to interview a half-dozen African-American women about their experience in a church turned political organization.

They all “lost that lovin’ feeling” and left.

That is all anecdotal. Not all churches are like a Baptist church in Texas.

But…look around at your worship time. Does everyone look the same? Is everyone from the same economic strata? Is anyone free to voice a differing opinion?

On the other hand, I once tried to explain why there are so many varieties of Christian churches and why they don’t seem to like each other to a person of the Sikh faith. That religion teaches tolerance of all religions. So it is confusing to them that people of one religion fight so much within the faith.

I can explain how it happened, perhaps. Why is another matter. What happened to our focus on Jesus over hundreds of years that we are so split, and argumentative, and focused on matters other than salvation and living a life with God? Why have we become the Pharisees that Jesus battled against?

Like I say–stop, look around, see what’s happening. Are we doing things to drive people away? Or, are we living the love Jesus taught such that we attract people of all nationalities and conditions? The first evangelist we read of who went outside the Jewish community with the gospel first went to the people group Jews hated the most. After converting many, he proceeded to explain the scriptures and convert a black man who was ceremonially unclean since he could not procreate (the Ethiopian eunuch).

What are we doing?