Relationships

Joy and The Race Marked Out for You

August 28, 2019 0 Comments

The little exercise I run through sometimes creates more disequilibrium than I intended. I start with the space I can see. Then I recall that I live in Vancouver, in Canada, in North America, on planet Earth, in this solar system, in this galaxy, and then… Well you can work it out too. The ever expanding universe. I’m in it. I’m in it with you.

Does God really have plans and purposes in which we can reside and understand ourselves in this cosmos and in our community? Do these plans even in spaces of enormous injustice and struggle include joy in this life? The Gospel of Jesus says, “Yes!” Hebrews 12:1-2 suggests that Jesus lived with joy as a reality He knew He could enter.

The Gospel pulls my head out of the clouds. The Gospel of Jesus offers a grounded view of the meeting of heaven and earth and reveals our participation in a great cosmic struggle in which the glory of God will prevail. We are all living some form of life. But it may not be the real life that God intended for us. Jesus extends an invitation to real life now — knowing God and following Him. Fatalism is a joy-killer. Fatalism robs of us agency. Suggests that we cannot change. Fatalism says, “You are stuck and hopeless.” It sets us in this generation without meaning beyond the desires of our bodies. Fatalism tells we have no choice. Who would want that? Yet, fatalism can be very persuasive.

How can fatalism can be set aside? Such meaninglessness and its despair must give way to the glory of being loved by the Creator of it all who is revealing Himself in it all, just as the night gives way to the morning.

As we read the life and relationships of Jesus in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, we must take note of the many times Jesus comes to intersections in which His “steps,” His “way,” His “participation” in the Father’s work and life is tested, challenged, and flat out opposed. These challenges did not end with the “temptations” we famously attend to in Matthew 4 and Luke 4.

Jesus’s temptations were legion! Through it all Jesus did not depart from His Father’s work and way. He confesses (John 5:16-23, 30 NIV):

16So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him. 17In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.”18For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.19Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.20For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed.21For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it.22Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son,23that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him… 30By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.

Jesus’ joy in relationship motivated Him and centred Him even as He parked Himself just inside the gates of Hell. The relationship to the Father and Jesus’ union with the Father is the source of His joy. And Jesus invites us into His life of joy (John 15:9-13, NIV):

9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.10If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.11I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.12My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.13Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

So here’s why this matters to me so much. When I need a way to get my foggy head out of the clouds and the disequilibrium of the cosmos it comes down to this: Because I have been befriended and loved by Jesus, I now have neighbours and Jesus who are I am to treat as friends. I am to love them. Through the power of the crucified One raised from the dead, through the power of His Holy Spirit, I am to love.

The race marked out for me is in this space, with these people, and in the communion of God. The race marked out for me and for you, though they are different in so many is ways are similar in this way: it is meant to be full of love and punctuated with joy.

To be loved by Jesus is to enter into His new creation.
To pray is to love and to enter into His communion.
To love even in a struggle of life and death is to enter into the promise of His joy.
And His joy is real.

Discipleship, Jesus, Relationships

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Temples and Borders

July 3, 2019 2 Comments

Reflections on John 2 and Jesus prophesying about “this temple.”

Borders define. Who is in? Who is out? Who belongs? Who does not belong? Who has power? Who does not have power? Whose authority are you under? Whose authority has reached its limit?

Borders easily become zones of violence. The authority to enforce and establish borders is usually external to a person. Border enforcement has to be granted. At a border it can feel like some bodies are worth less than other bodies.

Watch Jesus at The Temple.

13When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. 15So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” 17His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

18The Jews then responded to him, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?”

19Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”

20They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” 21But the temple he had spoken of was his body. 22After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.

23Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, many people saw the signs he was performing and believed in his name.

24But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people. 25He did not need any testimony about mankind, for he knew what was in each person.

John 2:13-25, NIV

Jesus walked right into the domain of the Temple border patrol. That’s why the authorities who observed Jesus clearing the temple courts were questioning him. He had run some bodies out of the Temple. He had made room for other bodies in the Court of the Gentiles. To progress through the thresholds of the Temple was to move across several border zones. The further in one went towards the Holy of Holies, the smaller the crowd. The Temple had clear borders: The Court of the Gentiles, The Court of the Women, The Court of Israel. The Court of Priests. Jesus had cleared the Court of the Gentiles, so they ask him, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?”

Throughout his ministry Jesus entered the border zones of Israel and disrupted their  standard operating procedures. When he entered the Temple as a thirty year old he did not come with the questions and explorations of a twelve year old boy seeking to be about “His Father’s business.” Jesus entered and took up what appeared to his disciples to be a zealot’s reformation enthusiasm. They recalled, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

It was a busy day just before Passover when Jesus ran the sellers of sacrificial animals and the money changers for the temple tax out of the temple courts. He had cleared the Court of the Gentiles and was saying to them, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” Perhaps Jesus had come there because the cry of the nations had risen up to the ears of the LORD. Now the persons of power were asking for signs, just as Pharaoh had asked.

What sign will you show us?

Jesus offered them one sign.

“Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”

His answer must of been shocking. The splendour of Herod’s temple was great. Even the disciples later sought to engage Jesus in consideration of its awesomeness. Those listening to Jesus blurt out, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?”

Only when they could look back from the Resurrection and the Cross did the disciples begin to get Jesus. 

“But the temple he had spoken of was his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.” 

Jesus treated His body as The Temple. Jesus treated bodies as temples. Yes, zeal for His Father’s house consumed Him. Jesus ached to see people become gloriously occupied as temples of the Holy Spirit.

The Temple was a border.

The Temple was a meeting place of Heaven and earth.

The temple Jesus had spoken of was His body.

Jesus’ body is a temple.

Having come from the communion of God, He embodied His own authority.

Jesus’ body crucified and resurrected is His promised sign.

The body is a temple.

When Jesus cleared the Jerusalem Temple He was making room for bodies.

Jesus cleared the Temple to make room for Gentile bodies.

The body as temple is of utmost concern for Jesus.

You are of utmost concern to Jesus.

There is no body that is worth less!

Don’t you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit?

You have been bought at a price!

Jesus has authority to make room for you.

But you have authority to make room for Jesus in the temple of your body.

The bodies of people at borders are temples.

The bodies of people at borders are sacred.

Where is our zeal for our Father’s house?

Jesus knows what is in a person.

Jesus can see into our temples.

We can’t easily see what’s in each temple.

But we can treat all bodies as temples, just as Jesus did.

Holy.

This the Way of all who are His Temple.

Temple politics are strangely differentiating.

So are borders.

Jesus, Relationships, Society

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Doing Anything Worth Doing for the Long Haul

June 26, 2019 0 Comments

I finished reading Michael Foley’s new book, Farming for the Long Haul today. Besides the delight and joy of putting my hands in the soil and serving up the fruit of this labour, I also take the Apostle Paul’s command to Timothy to heart: consider the hard-working farmer. In my own vocation attentiveness to the hard-working farmer has generated some wisdom. Hopefully its wisdom that will keep me in my vocation for the long haul too!

Michael currently farms in California at Green Uprising Farm with his wife and eldest daughter. Besides serving on several farming related boards, he is the cofounder of the School of Adaptive Agriculture and manages his local farmers market.

I offer this lengthy quote from Michael Foley in which wisdom for the long haul nurtures a kind of stewardship that resists the impulse to just move on or to just take what you can from a place:

Exodus resonates in our culture, even today, because much of the settlement of the United States was experienced as an exodus from tyranny, precarious living conditions, or overcrowding. Oscar Handlin’s classic study of European immigrants to the United States draws in broad strokes the situation of peasants in an overcrowded Europe; and the portrait applies to the circumstances of many immigrants. The impulse to simply move on in the face of limited opportunities at home fueled the westward migration of both these and earlier settlers and informed our own culture of mobility.

Exodus may be an alternative to captivity, but it is also an exile. And exiles settle uneasily on the land and often find their former experiences less than helpful with new soil, a new climate, new conditions of production, and new markets. They leave behind their long experience of stewardship, if they enjoyed it at all, and they are too apt to move on again rather than cultivate the soil and the society where they find themselves. They can lend diversity and richness to they places they come to, but it takes years, even generations, to grow the sorts of roots that are required to tend the land well.

As Wendell Berry says, genuine stewardship lies “in the possibility of settled families and local communities, in which the knowledge of proper means and methods, proper moderations and restraints, can be handed down, and so accumulate in place and stay alive; the experience of one generation is not adequate to inform and control its actions.” (“The Making of a Marginal Farm” reprinted in The World-Ending Fire: The Essential Wendell Berry, 2017. p. 45) Thanks to the relentless uprooting that a national economy and education system focused on upward mobility has thrust upon us, and to our own immigrant roots, most Americans are exiles, and those of us who choose to recover the sounder principles of caring for land and community are only slowly learning to be rooted. We should avoid exodus where we can. We will need a culture that rewards and encourages rootedness instead of mobility if we are to assume a role as proper stewards of the land and truly farm for the long haul. But that means that we will need also to cultivate voice as our first and most persistent response to the larger forces that attempt to shape our destiny.

Michael Foley. Farming for the Long Haul, Resilience and the Lost Art of Agricultural Inventiveness. 2019. p. 194-195.

Farming for the Long Haul from Amazon

Career, Relationships, Work

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The Morning After

June 13, 2019 0 Comments

A Witness to Our Lives

The morning after a friend became a follower of Jesus he started walking. He walked all through the city of Vancouver. He said he walked all day and that it was one of the most difficult days of his life.

As he walked the Spirit of God began to walk him through the memories of his life. He said it was as if “Jesus turned on all the lights.” All these things that he had forgotten came flooding back from childhood and his years in a gang. He said, “I began to remember one act of deceit and violence after another.” He began to give a full account to Jesus. And with every violent remembrance laid at the feet of Jesus, my friend received forgiveness and freedom.

Jesus was cleansing his life. When the day of his baptism came it was a glorious celebration!

My friend began the journey with Jesus and continued living in it the way he began: Having trusted Jesus for the forgiveness of sins the Holy Spirit activated repentance and belief. This is the way for all of us who name the name of Jesus as Lord.

Repentance and Belief

Our Heavenly Father, no matter our family story, our education or our nationality desires that repentance and belief be the reflexive responses to Jesus and His Word prompted by the Holy Spirit. The Apostle Paul reminded the elders of Ephesus,

“You know that I have not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to you but have taught you publicly and from house to house. I have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus.” Acts 20:20-21, NIV

Repentance is a response to grace and truth in which we change our mind about God, ourselves, people, and the stuff of earth. John declared that Jesus had come full of grace and truth and has shown us the glory of God. So if you have a collision with Jesus you have choices to make.

Godly Sorrow verses Worldly Sorrow

The Holy Spirit can bring about a godly sorrow but the enemy prefers worldly sorrow (See 2 Corinthians 7:10-11). Worldly sorrow will sink us deep into deathly shame and will mobilize us to play blame and denial games. But under the influence of godly sorrow we will receive the prompting of guilt (the truth about our attitudes, actions, and beliefs) and will turn away again from that which is opposed to Jesus.

Then, we are learning the ways of grace and keeping in step with the Spirit. Hopefully you will have some company in this. James says,

“Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each others so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.” James 5:13-16, NIV

Set Free to Love

The goal of all this is love. We cannot love if we are bound up by shame. We cannot love freely if we are bound up by oppressive spirits. The deliverance of God is available to us. My friend started a great journey with Jesus that night. And the next day he started to walk with Jesus. He had to keep on listening to the Holy Spirit and discern, “What is God saying to me?” and “What am I saying to God?” That’s repentance and belief. For all of us, the morning after receiving Jesus is just the beginning of life that is meant to be abundant, it is meant to be progressively more free as we live in The Truth.

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” Jesus
Matthew 7:13-14, NIV

Racism: Willful Participation and/or Stupid Complicity

Racism presents one of the big challenges of repentance for the followers of Jesus: to realize both our willful participation in that which is wrong and/or our complicit participation in that which is wrong. Repentance of attitudes and actions and faulty beliefs about people is necessary. To walk with Jesus and His church means that we enter into repentance and belief with him most definitely even when it concerns our complicity with oppression.

Paul knew the Holy Spirit’s movement of repentance and belief personally so he is able to write,

“So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” Galatians 3:26-29

But Paul, he not only had the words, he had the relationships and actions born out of repentance and belief. Do we?

Change, Discipleship, Jesus, Relationships

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She’s where? When a complementarian looks for Mary.

June 11, 2019 0 Comments

I truly enjoy reading the Gospels in the New Testament over and over and over. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John show us the relationships of Jesus. We get an inside look at Jesus’ relationships in the communion of God, with Himself, with people, and with the stuff of earth. I am often challenged and I hope I am being formed by the Gospel and what is presented to us in Jesus’ relationships.

Jesus’ relationships with women are astonishing in respect to the norms and expectations of the day. Women themselves were surprised by Jesus (John 4). And sometimes the folks around Jesus, even women, were dismayed by Jesus’ inclusion of women in his rabbinic ministry.

Luke 10:38-42, NIV
38As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. 40But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”41 “Martha, Martha,”the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things,42but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

The Scene

Can you imagine the moments before Martha made a scene? Perhaps she was busy with the preparations for the meal, giving instructions, and busily managing her household for this wonderful moment: Jesus, the rabbi, had come to their house again. It was a privilege to host him and his friends. But now, the internal schedule in her head was not being met. All hands are needed–and that’s when she noticed–Mary is missing. “Where’s Mary?” Someone tells her, “She’s sitting at the feet of Jesus.” Incredulously and in full outrage she asks again, “She’s where?” That’s how I imagine it.

But, back to the Scripture brought to us by God. In the mind of Martha, Mary was not where she was supposed to be. Mary, in Martha’s world, was supposed to be with her and attending to a different work, a different kind of service, and in a different place. So Martha does the most outrageous thing; she interrupts Jesus and tells him what to do with Mary. ““Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

A Common Experience

What Luke captures here for the friends of God is a common experience. When we start listening to Jesus and aligning our lives with Him and His Kingdom, some folks will feel that we have left them, that we have left the work that’s our obligation, and that we need to be put back in our place. I have a lot of empathy for Martha. It is shocking to have my expectations of other people blown out of the water when I have made plans for them. I have some empathy for the parent that is shocked that their son is following Jesus and has been baptized. I have some empathy for the lab partner that is outraged because their friend is no longer available on Sunday mornings because of Jesus. I have some empathy for the CEO that can’t believe their top recruit has taken a “lesser position” elsewhere because of Jesus. Folks feel left behind when people start being obedient to Jesus. It’s a thing!

But I suppose I am still trying to muster up some empathy for the followers of Jesus who are outraged when a women preaches the Word of God or humbly offers leadership to the church in the power of God’s Spirit. I’m still trying to find empathy for men who want to tell Jesus, “Tell the women to help me.” I’m trying to find some empathy. But, what seems obvious to me and to others in the room who have been at the feet of Jesus may not to be so obvious to them. But it does seem obvious to Jesus and perhaps we all need to hear Jesus’ words again:

“Martha, Martha,”the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things,42but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

Don’t interfere with Jesus.

To sit at the feet of a rabbi was to become the student and to enter into a kind of relationship of formation and participation. To sit at the feet of the rabbi-Jesus was a choice Mary had made in response to Jesus. And Jesus says it will not be taken away from her. Is Jesus indicating that anyone who seeks to take it away from her is interfering with Him? Is Jesus saying that Mary’s devotion to Him is not to be interfered with? Is Jesus suggesting that the outcome and trajectory of Mary’s life and ministry that is generated as His follower is not to be interfered with?

I believe, Yes, Yes, and Yes. Jesus is basically saying to Martha and to anyone who was listening to Him — leave Mary alone. She has chosen what is best. It will not be taken away from her. But Martha was a complementarian. She believed men and women had certain roles to fill. You wonder how I make this reading about Martha? Martha could have asked her brother Lazarus to help her, but she didn’t. Why was Martha looking for her sister at this moment of stress? Why? Because her cultural and familial setting gave her permission to designate and demand that Mary take up a proper role. It was unthinkable and inappropriate to Martha that Mary would make learning and being equipped by Jesus for His Kingdom assignments a priority when dinner preparations where pressing.

What does complementarianism do?

I find myself often asking after reading this exchange between Martha and Jesus about our situation today. “Is not complementarianism just another voice used to tell women who follow Jesus what their place in the world is?” The framework of many complementarians is that men and women are equal but that they have different roles. I find myself asking, does Jesus really construct His eternal Kingdom and our relationships in His Kingdom on the basis of gender based and assigned roles? There was nothing inherently wrong with Martha’s choice and response to the presence of Jesus. But when Martha wanted to impose her response to Jesus (the work of hospitality) as a demand and rule for Mary, as a role for Mary, she had crossed the line of Jesus’ rule and reign. She was interfering with Jesus.

In Real Life Today

The question of who gets to “sit at the feet of Jesus” is still current for us today. When my wife, Ellen, and I were at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (SWBTS) from 1990 – 1993 we were dating when we arrived. I was regularly shocked to hear from her that male students would confront her and express their belief that she had no good reason to be studying Greek and Hebrew. And then there was the matter of preaching. Why would she preach and why would she join them in the fellowship of preachers? After we married, one man even quizzed her incredulously, “You’re still here?” Yes, still here! As we were both pursuing a Master of Divinity with Biblical Languages the preacher boys had to deal with a woman who was an excellent student and a gifted minister of the Gospel. Some did. Some left. Some listened. Some received. But, even though she was confident of Jesus’ call on her life, the shadow of their dismay took a toll and still takes a toll today. I’m thankful for the grace Jesus has given her. But, please note that this shadow of death was cast on us before the BFM 2000 was adopted by the Southern Baptist Convention or even now by the Canadian National Baptist Convention. This shadow is old and it continues to cover gifted and called women. (Take for example all that has been thrown at Beth Moore since preaching on Sunday in a church in Texas in May.) But, this shade, I do not believe it is cast by Jesus.

I believe Jesus would tell us not to interfere with her or with Him.

So… where’s “Mary” in the congregation of Jesus today?
Are you interfering with her devotion and assignment from Jesus?
Are you interfering with Jesus?

Church, Relationships

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