Repentance

"Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is near."

Those were the words that Jesus taught. But what do they mean?

For some of you they may be the words that you heard shouted at you angrily from a bullhorn or the words you mostly ignore as you d rive past a billboard. For me growing up they meant something like "apologize and ask for forgiveness for your sins so that one day you can go to heaven."

But that's not what Jesus says it.

First of all when Jesus speaks of the kingdom of heaven he is not talking about somewhere far away up in the sky. The kingdom of Heaven or the kingdom of God is not primarily about where you go when you die. It's here and now according to Jesus. It's a reality to be lived into today.

It's urgent!

And not just because you never know when you will die and you need to have your ticket to heaven because it could be tonight. It's urgent because it's for today. It's urgent because its radically good news. It's urgent because God is doing something right here and right now. The kingdom of Heaven is an invitation to be a part of that.

It's why we repent.

But repentance is not primarily about apologizing, although it may very well involve that. It's about changing. Repentance is turning around and living a different way. It's about the starting of a transformation in your life. Repentance is realizing that the kingdom of Heaven offers a better way to live in God's world and then living that way.

The reason this message that Jesus taught was considered good news was not because it offered an escape clause from a doomed world. It was and still is good news because its a better way of engaging the world. It means being good news. It means being like Christ to the poor, marginalized, widowed and oppressed. And that is something that the world urgently needs.

It's a message of hope...

For all of creation.

Grace & Peace

The Cross

Without a doubt it's the single most common symbol of the Christian faith. From t-shirts to jewelry, church windows to tattoos, bumper stickers to web blogs. And it's been around for years - from King's crowns to crusader's shields.

The cross shows up nearly every where you look.

And yet I can't escape the feeling that despite it's prevalence we are missing something here.

For many when we look at the cross we instantly think of Jesus. But what's interesting is Jesus was not the only person who was ever crucified on a Roman cross. In fact according to the Bible story he wasn't even the only person crucified that day.

For the Romans the cross was a symbol of power and a tool of violent oppression. It was their way of saying, "This is what happens when you challenge Rome." Countless people who stood up against the violence and oppression of the Roman empire found themselves hanging on a cross.

You don't take on a massive system of corruption and not pay for it.

Because that's the way the world works right?

The biggest and baddest guys with the most swords, guns, crosses and warheads get to do whatever they want and those who challenge them pay for it.

Why?

Because they obviously must have god on their side... and you better not question that.

That's why when people started saying that a dirty, smelly, homeless Jewish Rabbi was the "son of God" it caused trouble.

Because the gods were Romans, and Caesar Augustus was the son of god.

Jesus and his followers were making radical political statements about who God was and what He was up to, and consequently who God wasn't supporting.

The beautiful thing about the cross is that it was just one of many executions on Roman crosses.

Because in a world where it was believed that God was on the side of  whoever was the most powerful, Jesus on the cross puts God right in the thick of things with the people who are completely powerless.

On the cross Jesus finds himself in the very midst of the oppressed and the "least of these."

And it sickens me the way we have somehow turned everything around so that the cross is once again a symbol of power, and empire, and far too many times violence.

We've taken Jesus on the cross and transformed it from a critique of power into the symbol of it.

Instead of rupturing the status quot Jesus on the cross has somehow become a defense of it.

We parade our crosses like a victory banner as we silence and subdue those who disagree with us.

So when Jesus tells us in Luke 9 to take up our cross daily, he isn't telling us to pick it up and wave it like a banner. We are to die on it.

We are to die to ourselves.

In doing so we lay down whatever power the cross has meant for us and we identify with all the other people who died on crosses just like Jesus.

On the cross we abandon our claims to God's preferential favor to find ourselves bloody and humiliated with the suffering and oppressed. Because when we find ourselves with "those" people that's when we find ourselves brushing shoulders with God himself.

Grace and Peace

Apocalyptic

The apocalyptic genre of literature is the literature of the oppressed. This is especially true of ancient Jewish apocalyptic literature. 

The Jewish people spent a considerable amount of time in exile and under oppression. They lived under systems and governments that did not look favorably on the Jewish ideas that Yahweh was the world's one and only true king, thereby making there gods and kings all inferior. In fact the claim would have been nothing short of treason.

In the Book of Daniel we find a deeply symbolic and coded vision of great beasts and kings who rule. Then finally "one like a son of man" approaches the Ancient of Days and is invested with worldwide dominion; moreover, his everlasting reign over all kings and kingdoms is shared with "the people of the Most High" 

This book was written to the Jewish people who were in captivity in Babylon.

For a Jewish person to pass around literature that overtly claimed that Yahweh would ultimately put the Babylonian kings and gods in their place would be an invitation to be tried, and likely killed for treason. But a coded story that says even in the midst of suffering Yahweh is still in charge would be a much needed source of hope in dark times.

We see Jesus use this same kind of language to offer hope to the people living under the dark rule of the Roman empire. John, the writer of Revelation, uses the same language in a letter he sent to his church community from his Roman guarded island exile.

Neither Jesus nor John was attempting to lay out an accurate description of future events that would directly proceed God ending the world, as some have proposed. They are not looking to give instructions that will only be of any real use to one generation of Christians living thousands of years in the future. They are speaking a radically subversive message of hope. The hope that, even though it may not seem like it, God's Kingdom is under way.

The hope that the oppressed and the abused, the foreigner and the outcast, the orphan and the widow, the poor and the downtrodden, and all those that are viewed as last place by the current power standards are exalted in God's eyes and will be the first welcomed into the new world that God is creating right under the noses of the unsuspecting empire.

Grace & Peace

Book Review: "Love Wins" by Rob Bell

"So when the gospel is diminished to a question of whether or not a person will "get into heaven," that reduces the good news to a ticket, a way to get past the bouncer and into the club.

The good news is better than that."

Rob Bell's most recent book ignited what has been called a "firestorm of controversy", especially among evangelical Christians. I think it's safe to say that is not an understatement. Much of the controversy was initially over a promotional video Bell released a few weeks before the book came out. You can watch that video here: http://vimeo.com/21214065. Upon the release of this video some rather prominent names in evangelical Christianity decided to take it upon themselves to nip this book in the bud so to speak. What played out was the exact opposite of that.

So before I dive into the book I want to take a look at the controversy surrounding it. Because the reality is this book (nor any book for that matter, but especially this one) does not exist in a bubble. Whenever you talk about this book you are inviting controversy and strong opinions. Now I don't want to turn this into me taking shots at people for criticizing a book, but I do want to talk about the nature of controversies such as these and what gets accomplished.

First if you want to stop people from reading a book don't make a big deal about the book. The reality is if it were not for all the negative reactions to the promotional video this book would not have been a huge best-seller. What we can learn is that aggressively condemning someone as "dangerous", "Unorthodox" and "heretical" does not make people not want to read their works. In fact it has the opposite effect. So by their condemning and aggressive attitude the people who felt it was their job to protect people from the ideas in this book actually ended up encouraging a lot of people to read the book.

Second for many people the biggest surprise about this controversy has been the one-sidedness of it. Now I know that many people on both sides of the controversy have been loud and angry, but they were not the person being attacked. Rob Bell has actually really impressed me with the way he handled the situation. It would have been easy to respond with the same energies of condemnation and aggression as his critics but he did not do that. Rather he seemed to practice more of a "turn the other" cheek mentality. 

I bring all this up to point out how the people who were aggressive and condemning in their approach actually had the opposite effect of what they were going for, while the "turn the other cheek" mentality actually is what has drawn many people to this book that other wise would not have bothered with it.

In short you could say that love wins over condemnation.

Now on to the book itself:

In the introduction to this book Bell takes some time to invite people to take on some of the big questions of the Christian faith. For many people, such as myself there are certain questions that are just too big and dangerous. Questions about the existence and nature of hell fall under that category. So Bell does two things here. He encourages us not to be afraid of those big questions. God is big enough, after all, to handle our questions. Then he point out that for many other people these questions have not been off-limits. In fact throughout the history of the church many Christians have asked these questions, and many of them have come away with different answers. As Bell says, 

"If this book, then, does nothing more than introduce you to the ancient, ongoing discussion surrounding the resurrected Jesus in all its vibrant, diverse, messy, multivoiced complexity - well, I'd be thrilled."

From here out the book flies forward at an exciting pace. The first time I read this book I literally did so in one sitting. This book is enjoyable and provocative. It certainly brings up a lot of questions that are worth addressing and yet does so with surprising humility an openness.

And I feel like I have to say this, Bell is not a universalist.

I actually enjoy reading and listening to universalist sometimes and I can assure that Bell is not one. (If you are not familiar with the works of Christian universalist Crystal St. Marie then I suggest you check her out. You don't have to agree with everything she says, I don't, but she has some great stuff to say nonetheless and it's worth paying attention to) 

First of all Bell looks at the idea of the Kingdom of Heaven as a here and now reality. For Bell Christianity is not ultimately about after you die but before (a topic i talk about more extensively in other post).

From there he moves to the idea that God is loving, kind and forgiving but apparently only until the instant moment that you die in which God's whole mindset towards you changes. So it would appear that either God changes his mind about people after they die or he doesn't have the power to save them from death. Obviously both of those understandings are problematic.

Then he looks at some problems with our ideas about eternity. Mainly that it is not shared with Jesus' first audience. In the Hebrew mindset there is no "eternity" in the way we think about it. The word we often translate to eternity is Aion which refers to an "age" or "period of time", and it can also be translated as the intensity of an experience. The closest idea they have to our eternity is Olam. In Psalm 90 Olam refers to God as being "from everlasting to everlasting". But in other instances the word seems more pliable. Jonah was in the belly of a fish "forever" (Olam). In this case forever turns out to be three days.

In fact in the Hebrew and early Christian mindset there is always the possibility for something after death. Resurrection can still happen. So Bell takes the view that people can spend time after death separated from God (Hell) but even then God does not give up on them.

But more than that people can live in hell here and now, and they do. There is hell now and a hell then.

But ultimately God has power over both.

As Martin Luther said on the possibility of "second chances" after death, "Who would doubt God's ability to to that?"

But Bell also points out that love requires freedom.

God does not force himself on us. We get to choice heaven or hell. We get to reject God if we want to.

Some believe that God pre-determined some to go to heaven and some to go to hell. Some believe that God predetermined everyone to go to heaven. But I agree with Bell on this one, I think that the things we say, and do and live for matter much more than that. I think our choices now have consequences and our choices will continue to have consequences.

So Bell says that while God will never give up on you (and thus you will not stop having chances to embrace God's grace even after you die) he will never force himself on you either. You can continue to reject God forever if you want to. God lets us have our own way.

Some have called this being a "hopeful universalist" and personally I like that name. I hope that every one will  one day embrace God's love and grace. But hope, by it's very nature requires an absence of certainty. I see people reject God's grace and love all the time, so who's to say they won't continue to do so.

But as I mentioned earlier Christianity is not mainly about something after you die, but something before. The Kingdom of Heaven is a present reality here and now. That's what this book is all about. The choices we make now are important! We only get a limited time on this earth so what kind of world are we working toward? Are we participating in the world that God is working towards? Because we get the opportunity to do so.

Because love still wins if we allow it to.

You can purchase this book here:

http://www.amazon.com/Love-Wins-About-Heaven-Person/dp/006204964X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1323120895&sr=8-1

And I'm excited to announce that the "Love Wins Companion: A study guide for those who want to go deeper" has just come out and you can purchase it here:

http://www.amazon.com/Love-Wins-Companion-Study-Deeper/dp/0062122800/ref=pd_sim_b_1

Grace & Peace

A New Word

I am studying through the book of Luke with the kids in my youth group and last night we talked about the Sermon on the Mount. As we were talking one of my older students brought up how, because of our familiarity with the passage, we might hear it differently than Jesus' original audience would have.

We've grown up with Jesus' teachings but for his original audience this would have been really revolutionary stuff. Not only that, but it would have been rather confusing.

One can't help but wonder if many of the conversations on the walk back to the village sounded something like, "What did he mean by that?"

So when we talk about Jesus' words we sort of view them as the final word on the issue.

Jesus says it

That settles it.

Right?

But for the first listeners Jesus would not have been giving the final word on the issue, but in some ways the first word.

Or maybe even a new word.

Jesus isn't really answering the question. It's more like he's opening up a whole new set of questions that people hadn't thought about before.

Jesus is inviting people to wrestle with God and to do so in the context of community.

Rhythm, Beat & Groove

Moses; being taught in all the fine arts, philosophies and sciences available to Pharaoh's household; was certainly well-educated. Being taught in Pharaoh's household at this time meant that you were receiving the best education that the most advanced society in the world has to offer. While he was alive Moses was likely one of the most well-educated people in the world.

His writings, especially his deeply symbolic story-telling in Genesis, are still considered some of the greatest pieces of literature in human history. So it's no surprise that Moses implements song, poetry, metaphor and symbolism into his creation accounts. He doesn't simply lay out the facts in a way that most of us western thinkers would expect him to.

He does not seem the least bit interested in whether or not the six days of creation are literal, or whether God implemented some sort of evolutionary system, or even with the question of whether Adam had a belly button.

Moses does not even argue for the existence of God, that much is assumed.

What Moses does do is invite people to experience what it means to be fully human.

To find their place within creation.

To describe in detail the way that God brought forth creation simply cannot be done within the restricted nature of human language. But give people a song or a poem: something with a rhythm, a beat, a groove, something that will become lodged in their memory, something they can feel and dance along with - that's how we are meant to experience creation.

Jesus Politics

For some reason, a lot of my Christian friends like to say that they are not political. In fact some of them even seem to see avoiding politics as virtuous. After all politics are the things of this world right? Is it not more virtuous to be focused only on heavenly things? Should we not avoid the dirty, messy, worldly things? Shouldn't we be focused on Jesus, not politics?

Maybe...

But the problem with that is when Jesus talks about Heaven he says that it is not just something out there, one day.

For Jesus the Kingdom of Heaven is here and now!

It means good news for the poor, food for the hungry, clothes for the naked, shelter for the homeless, healing for the sick, forgiveness for the sinful and liberation for the captive.

The Kingdom of Heaven is not about escaping the world, it's a better way of engaging it. It's the movement that God started in the world for the purposes of restoring the world to the way God wants it to be.

It's an invitation to participate in what God is doing.

That's why in Matthew 25 Jesus says that the way you treat the "least of these" (the people mentioned above) is the way that you treat him.

If you want to be focused on Jesus you have to focus more on the people that Jesus would focus on.

Because the truth is politics is much bigger than who you vote for on a ballot.

Politics is about how you vote with your time.

Your money.

Your efforts.

Mahatma Gandhi once said, "Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is." I think they do not what politics is either.

We all engage in politics every day, whether we'd like to admit it or not. So we shouldn't try to avoid politics. We should examine our politics and think critically about them. We need to take seriously how we vote with our time, money, efforts, and yes even our ballots. It's time that we aligned our politics with the politics of what God is doing in his kingdom.

We need to engage in Jesus politics.

To do this, I think requires an awareness of what God is doing in the world. And for that a great place to start is in the Bible. Throughout the scriptures we are given glimpses of how God sees creation. We see what God's original intention for the world was and we get to see the world that God is working towards.

In Revelation 7 we see this beautiful prophetic image of a great multitude of people, more than any one could count, worshiping before the very throne of God. The people there are from every tribe, nation, people and language. And in Galatians 3 Paul says that in Christ there is no Jew or Gentile, Slave nor Free, Male nor Female.

So we can see that God is working towards a world where the things that used to divide us (race, gender, ethnicity, social status, wealth, language, sexual orientation, etc...) will no longer do so. Which means for us that we should be participating in the kind of world that God is making by going out of our way to form healthy relationships with all kinds of people. We should have a politic of reconciling our differences so that we can all love and learn from each other.

In Isaiah 2 we are given this prophecy of a day when God will be the judge over all people and "they will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks" and "Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore." And Jesus makes it very clear in Mathew 5 that we should love our enemies and not respond to violence with violence but with love.

So we should participate with God in a world where peace on earth is not only the goal that we are striving for but the means by which we achieve it. We should speak out against systems of darkness, like the military-industrial complex, that profit off of violence. We should vote for peace with our time, money, efforts, and ballots; but never should we use violence as a means of accomplishing it. Remember that love wins over violence. (Jesus gave the best example of what this looks like with his ultimate act of peace-making; not by fighting the violence of the Roman Empire with more violence but by sacrificing his very life willingly, thus calling into light the weakness of the violence of the empire while simultaneously overcoming it.)

Revelation 22 speaks of God's beautiful garden-city coming on the earth. This city has trees and fruits and lots of vegetation. And in Isaiah we see this prophecy of wolves, lambs, leopards, goats, calves, lions, yearlings, and human children laying together. Bears and oxen and cows are all living peacefully and children can even play with snakes.

But how can there be a garden if we destroy the environment? And how will all these animals live harmoniously with people if many of them become extinct? Acts 3 tells us that God is in the business of restoring all of creation. Which means for us, participation looks like protecting and restoring creation as well. We should be working towards caring for the planet God put us on, not destroying it. By the way, this also means that we don't steal the resources from those people from all tribes and nations that we mentioned earlier. And in following the golden rule we leave the planet the kind of place that we would want to be left to us.

These are just a few examples of what Jesus politics might look like, but we can think of many more. We just have devote ourselves to exploring and living out the way of Jesus. We do this with the prayer that God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven, just as Jesus taught us to pray.

Grace and Peace