Star Wars, again

I've been doing some surfing of church websites looking for pastor blogs. One thing I noticed, most pastors who are blogging are doing their obligatory review of the latest installment of Star Wars. Most pastors paying attention to popular culture know that it is obligatory to go. Per usual, Jeff Overstreet did a very good review on it so I won't go over what he talked about. My complaints are mostly about the obvious, most of what has been noted by nearly every review I've read. I'd rather talk about what I liked about it. (Some spoilage will follow, so if you haven't seen it and want to see it fresh, read no more!)

More on our lifeless, media numbed culture

One of the reasons I like CS Lewis' piece on Pantheism here is because I think it tickles at this idea that I've been kicking about regarding how we think about history and our world here in America. Again, Jeff Einstein's blog has been prompting some ideas in this area.

Basically my thesis is that our culture here basically puts us into some kind of a sleep state. Ever see the Roddy Piper Movie They Live? It's a hokey, low budget picture where the world is put to sleep and subdued by aliens. A group of rebels who know the truth (which can be seen through special glasses) are trying to wake the world up. The Matrix is of course along similar lines. It seems that at least I am often lulled into a mindset that "nothing really matters". Life is spent between the poles of demand and distraction. We work so that we may pay for our entertainment. There is very little consequence apart from deprivation from the things we want and feel ourselves entitled to. History is either propelled by determinism, which means that nothing we do matter anyway, or chaos, which means that there is no agency or purpose, so again, things don't matter. I think the regularity of life, especially combined with seeing life through the seemingly omnipresence of the media induces these low level assumptions. We spend our life watching.

CS Lewis on Pantheism from his book Miracles

CS Lewis on Pantheism from his book Miracles

Men are reluctant to pass over from the notion of an abstract and negative
deity to the living God. I do not wonder. Here lies the deepest tap-root of
Pantheism and of the objection to traditional imagery. It was hated not, at
bottom, because it pictured Him as a man but because it pictured Him as
king, or even as warrior. The Pantheist's God does nothing, demands
nothing. He is there if you wish for Him, like a book on a shelf. He will
not pursue you. There is no danger that at any time heaven and earth should
flee away at His glance. If He were the truth, then we could really say
that all the Christian images-of kingship were a historical accident of
which our religion ought to be cleansed. It is with a shock that we
discover them to be indispensable. You have had a shock like that before,
in connection with smaller matters --when the line pulls at your hand, when
something breathes beside you in the darkness. So here; the shock comes at
the precise moment when the thrill of life is communicated to us along the
clue we have been following. It is always shocking to meet life where we
thought we were alone. "Look out! " we cry, "it's alive." And therefore
this is the very point at which so many draw back--I would have done so
myself if I could--and proceed no further with Christianity. An "impersonal
God" -well and good. A subjective God of beauty, truth and goodness, inside
our own heads --better still. A formless life-force surging through us, a
vast power which we can tap --best of all. But God Himself, alive, pulling
at the other end of the cord, perhaps approaching at an infinite speed, the
hunter, king, husband-that is quite another matter. There comes a moment
when the children who have been playing at burglars hush suddenly: was that
a real footstep in the hall? There comes a moment when people who have been
dabbling in religion ("Man's search for God"!) suddenly draw back.
Supposing we really found Him? We never meant it to come to that! Worse
still, supposing He had found us?

Quotation Bank

I need a way to keep quotations I love and use over and over again. This is it.

• CS Lewis on the difference between God's desire for us and Satan's from the Screwtape Letters
• CS Lewis on Pantheism from his book Miracles
• CS Lewis on being far too easily satisfied
  
• Eugene Peterson on being a subversive
• CS Lewis on Joy
• Brian McLaren on what religion is valued in a pluralistic society
• Link to Andy Crouch's God speaking/Testimony in reverse
• Eugene Peterson on Spiritual Theology
• Barna on the niching of America (and the church)
• Eugene Peterson on pastoring in Golden Calf Country
• Eugene Peterson on Pastoral vocation
• Eugene Peterson on Glory
• Christian Smith on Moralistic-Therapeutic-Deism
• CS Lewis on Causes in Screwtape Letters

My Issues with American Evangelicalism: "Salvation"

In the eyes of many I am pretty squarely in the camp of American Evangelicals. I'm historically orthodox (profess the Apostle's Creed, etc.), I take the Bible seriously (or at least profess to), I pursue the evangelistic mission of the church. However, I reserve the right to quibble about a number of things in the American evangelical mind. Here is one of my big ones:

The understanding of the goal of the gospel: the product of "salvation" defined as "heaven" or hell avoidance: The Bible uses the language of "saved" plenty, but "saved" means something much deeper and wider than avoiding eternal damnation. I would like the church to take another look at the New Testament and observe the range of expressions used to express this concept. In the Synoptics the "kingdom of God/heaven" is the dominant short hand for what Jesus is talking about. In the Gospel of John many translations use "eternal life" which is a correct translation but I believe misleading for most who read it today. It too quickly gets shorthanded into hell avoidance. A preferred translation for me would be "life in the age to come". The difficulty with that is that it requires a rather long explanation about how the Biblical writers told time. The Bible talks about "the present (evil) age" and "the age to come" or "the new age". "Age" here is not strictly a timeline thing, although there is a temporal element to it. It is more along the lines of our used in terms like "the Age of Discovery" or "the Industrial Age". It is a broader term that includes lots of other ideas, aspects, and dimensions. When Jesus prays "thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven" he is essentially expressing the same idea. Other ways of saying it might be "life as God intended", "reality that is pleasing to God", "the will of God expressed in historical reality", "the way things were/are supposed to be". Paul uses the phrase "in Christ" which is closely synonymous to these. A nice "Rosetta Stone" passage for some of these is the story of the Rich Young Man who approaches Jesus (Mk 10, Mt 19, Lk 18).

Tomorrow I will bury a friend

You can read a bit about her in the Bee: http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/12911157p-13759521c.html (sign in required). Dorothy came to my church very early in my ministry here and really spend the last 4 years very impaired by cancer and stroke, but right from the start she became a leader in the church, though she never held office or led a ministry. She never made a speech, she never grandstanded. Most weeks she would simply come into church and take her seat in the front next to her good friend Pat (who I buried two years ago). She never drew attention to herself. The thing she will always be remembered for will be her answer to the polite greeting "how are you". She always answered "I'm blessed". Now I know that in some churches that answer is just the Christianeze for "fine" in normal parlance, but on Dorothy's lips it was always different. You could tell immediately she believed it with all her heart. It was even more dramatic after the major stroke she suffered. Like many other things in her life she faced rehab with grit and determination. She was going to walk again, she was going to read again, she was going to speak again and she would return to her seat in church, and whenever people would see her struggle with the cane, or with her diabetes, or with her speech, or with the others around her who continually torpedoed their lives through addiction or foolishness, the answer always came back, "I'm blessed". And it was true.

Technology and Human Nature

Those who know me know I am a sucker for technology. I switched from wearing jeans to wearing cargo pants just so I would have handy pockets for my cell phone, PDA, digital camera and sometimes my Iriver. The man purse just wouldn't feel right. But hey, I've got my Bible on my PDA so it's there for pastoral calling! :)

I do believe technological development was part of the cultural mandate (Gen 1:28). I also believe Paul Schrader (fellow Calvin alum) had it right when he puts the words in a Harrison Ford voiceover in "Mosquito Coast" how "God left the world unfinished", it's up to us to complete it. Also recently Carl Bosma from CTS noted in a presentation on a Psalm how the sense of a Hebrew verb for God's creating is ongoing action, he's still doing it. Technology is part of what God gave us to do.

However, deep inside all of us is the irrepressible desire to displace God. We want the job (or maybe just the power and the glory!) and deep inside of us there is a place that is really pissed it's already been filled. Technology indulges our fantasy. Just to think, I'm writing this and the world may read it! (even though more search engines "read" it than actual people. :) ) By technology our thoughts are mass produced by the printing press. Would Luther have changed the world without the printing press? Would Kennedy have been president without TV? Would Joel Osteen be so popular without those large screens upon which he looks so good? It is a subtle deceit that mass media plays on us. I've been reading Jeff Einstein's blog and its been stirring some stuff. Never before did we feel we could control the masses, not just their bodies (by the sword), but their thoughts. When watching old movies I'm always impressed by how often the central characters are newspaper reporters. Why the fascination?

CRC Pastors Who Blog

I've written before about why pastors should blog. Now I want to keep a list for myself of blogging CRC pastors. If you are a CRC pastor who blogs, or you know a CRC pastor who blogs, e-mail me and send me the link.

• Rod Hugen
  
• Ken Rip, a fellow voicer
• Bill Van Groningen http://hobabsjourney.hobabgroup.org/
• Randy Blacketer http://drdominee.blogspot.com/index.html
• CRC Connect: A bloggish site by some CRC Calvin Seminary profs and friends: http://crconnect.blogspot.com/
• CRC Returning Church Group: A number of CRC pastors blogging together: http://www.returningchurch.blogspot.com/
• http://pastorpete.wordpress.com/
• http://matthewbford.blogspot.com/ Matthew Ford of Foutain of Life Fellowship in Fountain Valley CA

About God

I'm starting to read the book of Job for a SLN presentation I have to do on it. I get into just the first few sentences, knowing what is coming and two impressions are overwhelming. God is ruthless. God is generous.

God's ruthlessness has to be the most apparent and obvious fact about him, yet it is one that most Christians just can't seem to fess up to. Look at the tsunami. Yeah, I know the whole theodicy issue, but still. Read Job. Calamity abounds in the history of planet earth. Yes, I'm still a Calvinist, I get the fall, etc, yet you cannot read the Old Testament (or the New) honestly without a healthy appreciation for the lengths to which God will go to achieve his goals. Floods, fire, people swallowing earthquakes, Red Sea water releases, etc. You just don't mess with God.

I think we all don't like to fess up to this because it forces us to accept that we are small, vulnerable, always living on the edge. A car accident, a heart attack, a meteor, global warming, our disaster is really just a matter of time, and time cannot be stopped. Something deep inside of us rages against this reality. We live our lives individually and communally continually trying to defeat and defy this fact. We build houses, take our insurance, build armies, set up satellites, do stem cell research, whatever it takes to suppress the ruthlessness of God. It never works.

Christians (at least the NA variety today) fail to fess up because we're afraid it will give God bad press and our evangelistic enterprise will come crashing down if we admit the truth. We want a tame God, one that we have domesticated. We'd really rather find God to be the goose who laid the golden egg. Freud's accounting for God (wish fulfilment) really works best with this kind of god. A god who will serve us, worship us, protect us, have us always on his mind. Lots of Christian songs go here, and there is an element of truth to it, but it just reinforces what really doesn't need to be reinforced in us. We're habitually deistically ambitious.

The Parable of the Sower

In the Parable of the Sower Jesus addresses our expectations. The old AA saying: "expectations are preconceived resentments" is true because expectations are all about what is in the head of the perceiver. When the expectations are not met, often the one carrying the expectation is angry with the other and harbors feelings of betrayal. The saying is supposed to teach us to "own" our expectations, rather than projecting blame on the one who hasn't met our expectations. It is healthy advice.

The Parable of the Sower comes early in Jesus' ministry in all three synoptic gospels. This in many ways is how Jesus initiates his public teaching ministry, and what a strange way to do it. Why do I say strange? Because of my expectations. The fact that I perceive it as strange indicates that my expectations for Jesus' ministry are not (despite 2000 years and reading the gospels many times) in sync with his. It shows that I need to study the parable more carefully, because my expectations (surely to yield resentment down the road) are alien to Jesus and will surely do a disservice to the Kingdom of God.

How Americans Spend Their Time

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Pentecost and the Predictability of N.A. Life

I think often of the safety and predictability many of us enjoy as middle class North Americans. The other night the power went out. Beth woke me up and told me. I took my flashlight to check on things, check on the kids, etc. No street lights so it wasn't just my house. Then I lay in bed and thought about all those nights in the DR without power and the unpredictability of life there.

Why don't many Americans save money? Why? We drive cars with airbags. We have social safety nets. We live expecting to live 90+ years. When the WTC attacks happened, the nation was shocked. An event. Many minor such events happen all the time. The doctor says the "C" word, cars collide, jobs are lost, etc. Quickly, however, the rhythms of life set back in and we settle down to expected predictability.

Peter's sermon at Pentecost was a shocker like the WTC attacks, only this time Peter pointed the finger at the Jewish people. The Day of the Lord had come, manifest in the tongues of fire among the apostles, and many were not found ready! What's worse, the Messiah had come and the nation he was sent to save had killed him. You can almost see the panic in Peter's audience. "What shall we do?!"

We see little of that panic in our audiences. Sometimes we are looking for tidbits of wisdom for more successful and fulfilling living. Sometimes we are looking for interesting spiritual information. We seldom live our lives like it is the day of the LORD.

Matthew 18 and circles

One of the "revelations" I experienced in doing the Matthew 18 studies for our Sunday School class was a closer look a Matthew's parable of the Wandering Sheep. I thought the powerful background to this was the discovery that certain groups like the Essenes viewed the non-observant Jews along with those who flaked on their religious to be the enemies of God. For those who pegged Israel's exaltation upon her observance of the traditions of the elders the logic is clear and reasonable. "If the rabble would suck it up and get with the program then God could do something terrific with Israel." Unfortunately this hope seemed to be deeply connected with the idea that Israel was to be glorified for its own sake, rather than the missional purpose for the rest of the world (Jonah, etc.) Anyway, that makes Jesus command not to "despise" the "little ones" to be shocking. He of course lived it out be extending grace and mercy to them. The Matthew version sees them as "wandering" rather than "lost" in Luke. That of course makes perfect sense given Matthew writting to Jews where the non-observant or serious Jews would be "wandering", whereas Luke's Gentile unchurched would be "lost". Anyway this seems to yield three groups in Matthew 18:

1. "the brothers": those inside the circle and community of Christ
2. "the wanderers": the "little ones" who "the brothers" are seriously commanded not to despise
3. The "Ethnikos" (Pagan/Gentiles) and tax collectors. Legitimate outsiders, yet ones that Jesus also often received with grace and acceptance (Centurion, Levi, Syrophonecian woman...)

We treat these groups differently, with different expectations. Jesus was the hardest on two groups: Pharisees-teachers of the law-religious leaders-etc., and "the brothers". He had high expectations for both groups and the consequences of failure of both groups had eternal consequences (Parable of the Unforgiving Servant!) Jesus is far more patient with the others, and in fact the ministry of "the brothers" is directed toward the other two groups. They are not fully "insiders", yet their enfolding is sought.

Ascension

I am continually amazed at how I feel I am only beginning in ministry. Here I am 15 years into this thing and I feel like I am still discovering new things about the Ascension.

FF Bruce made a comment in his commentary on Acts relating to where Jesus was and wasn't inbetween those times he appeared to his disciples after the resurrection and before the Ascension. I don't think he rented a room or hung out at a bar (nor went to North America to find some lost Jewish colony :0 ). Bruce's implication was that of course he was with the Father. That sheds a whole new light on the Ascension. The Ascension was a very definite teaching opportunity for his disciples to communicate some things to them very concretely and specifically.

1. I'm no longer going to be popping in!
2. My presence is going to be replaced by the Holy Spirit who is coming soon upon you in power
3. YOU! will be my witnesses
4. Only the Father knows how exactly He's going to wrap all of this up (gentle correction to the "restore Israel" faux pas)
5. (via the men-in-white) Don't just stand there, do what he says. He'll return like he came
6. Add in the theophany symbolism of the cloud

I guess the challenge of that in the sermon is how can I show this to the people in a way that is significant for them. It is often the case that we are shown things but if we miss their significance. Part of it also is that we are such poor witnesses that the words tend to fall flat. The words are so audacious, the book of Acts so audacious, and our own witness so underwhelming.

Matthew 18: lessons for ourselves

Matthew 18 is a major chapter on discipleship and leadership. It is instructive to look not only at what Jesus says, but on what the topics he choses to address. The main theme that chapter 18 seems to focus on is discipleship and sin and what it teaches is earth shattering.

First it is interesting to me that when Jesus teaches on discipleship what aspect of human life he choses to shine the light on is significant. When we read leadership books or many Christian books in our culture the emphasis is often on technique. Matthew 18:15f which is the most often referred to section of this passage is in fact often looked upon to give a perscription to technique, but that in a way divorces it from its context. It is interesting that what stands at the heart and soul of Matthew 18 is in fact the quality of relationships between believers and how in fact they are commanded to think about themselves and each other. This relates a tremendous insight that Jesus is trying to communicate to us that in fact how we think about each other is often central to how we treat each other both face to face and in third party triangles. If I believe person X to be a silly donkey, this will seep into how I treat person X to their face, but more importantly perhaps, how I speak about person X with person Y. I think these dynamics stand at the heart of the quality of community.