Entries Tagged 'Authentic Faith' ↓

This guy reminds me of my Dad’s story, and many others who in seeking out to incarnate the words of God are chastised and rebuked by the Churches they are in fellowship with… Trucker Frank’s full story is chronicled in Tony Jones’ new book, “The New Christians” of which I have been reviewing: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3(a), Chapter 3(b), Chapter 4(a)… Enjoy!

Art Boulet’s exceptional reflection on fundamentalism and the temptation to become emergent.

Also, my podcast of on the Kingdom of God.

A couple people in the last few days have brought up the word/act of ‘forgiveness.’ Which has spawned some thinking and ruminating over the origin and how we can live out a life of forgiveness. Some of the statements and questions from others that caused my ruminations begin like this:

It is unbiblical to offer forgiveness to an individual when they have not asked for it and they are not repentant. (statement made to me)
True forgiveness can not happen unless reconciliation takes place. (again, statement)
Can true forgiveness take place even if the relationship isn’t reconciled? (question derived from the previous statement)

This issue of forgiveness is paramount to how we live out our lives in the day to day… It seems many hold to this type of theology (there must be reconciliation), and they always back it with scripture, specifically Mark 2:1-12… which we can talk about later as I think it is taken out of context… allowing many to call the opposing view unbiblical or heretical…

My Short Answer: In my opinion, the aforementioned statements are not in the red letter’s I have been reading, so my answer to the question is in the affirmative, forgiveness can/must happen without reconciliation or the promise thereof.

Sidenote: I like the idea of being a red letter christian.

Explanation: The very word forgiveness in its root implies “giving” “before” to fore give. So how can it be given with a requirement or a stipulation that the person must ask for it… or that there be reconciliation. It seems illogical. Even Jesus in his dealings with sinners, prostitutes, tax collectors, and even his crucifiers (forgive them for they know not what they do), he always seemed for forgive them in spite of their sin. It is how we are to model our lives, in loving our enemy we choose to forgive them before/after/inspite of/because of… the injustices they act out. Jesus always points to our hearts as we help the kingdom of God come to earth, as we join in on this act of love and forgiveness. (see Sermon on the Mount - Matthew 5-7)

For when you pray, pray like this: (another translation/paraphrase of the Lord’s prayer, not mine) Matthew 6:9-13

Our Father in heaven, let your name remain holy.
Bring about your kingdom.
Manifest your will here on earth,
as it is manifest in heaven.
Give us each day our bread, no more, no less,
And forgive us our debts,
as we forgive those who owe us something.
Lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
But let your kingdom be,
and let it be powerful,
and glorious forever, Amen.

In this act of forgiveness we draw upon the incarnational aspect of God (Jesus is God incarnate - in the flesh), a power that was given to us upon the gifting of Sarayu That we too can have a little Jesus inside of us, that we become the incarnation, God in flesh, in turn manifesting His will here on this earth, just as it is in God’s presence (heaven).

We ask God to forgive us, and he has no stipulation on this forgiveness, no requirement to receive his grace and mercy, and so too should we live out our lives mirroring this… To give love before love is deserved.

That was a rant, but hopefully it gives you some fodder to chew on.

matthew chapter five verses sixteen thru twenty:

“But you will recognize them by their fruits. You don’t find sweet, delicious grapes growing on thorny bushes, do you? You don’t find delectable figs growing in the midst of prickly thistles. People and communities and lives are like trees. Good trees bear beautiful, tasty fruit, but bad trees bear ugly, bitter fruit. A good tree cannot bear ugly, bitter fruit; nor can a bad tree bear fruit that is beautiful and tasty. And what happens to the rotten trees? They are cut down. They are used for firewood.”

I am working on a triptych, for the brand new mountain speeches art show on May 3rd, using 3 doors, I am collaborating with other artists to create a revolving door piece. With each door representing a chapter of the sermon on the mount. I have been working on chapter seven, and have been responding on the above excerpt. Right now I seem to be obsessing about trees. I did a talk seven times last year to various audiences using a visual of a tree and the concept of “Up, In and Out.” That as followers of the Way, we are nourished by the roots, which are Jesus and his teachings (Up); and then as we internalize his words, we become regenerated from the inside (In); and begin to grow outward, our branches stretch to the Sun and we begin to produce fruit for nourishment and shade for protection (Out). Using Jesus’ words and the words of Paul in Romans eleven thru twelve, we get a glimpse of what it looks like to be a follower of the Way, an incarnation of the Truth (read: Jesus), in the here and now of our day.

Hopefully, the idea in my head of what the final project is will come to fruition… as two others are working on chapter five and six doors. I have already had the help of two artists on the chapter seven door (it is after all a work of collaboration, a community response), Emily Curley has helped me with some sketches of Trees that I will have to carve out, and Samantha Lamb has contributed some pictures for the depiction of fruit. Go to brandnewmountainspeeches.com for more information and click on the link to the blog for some other artists ideas. Cool.

The other day I posted a link to brandnewmountainspeeches.com without any explanation, knowing there was not much in the way of content on the site… Hopefully some of you checked it out and were intrigued, and are now waiting in hopeful anticipation for the explanation that follows:

brandnewmountainspeeches.com - an artistic response to matthew five thru seven

For the past few months I have been a fly on the wall at a local church community, not wanting to jump in with both feet, due to my penchant to spend my Sunday mornings fly fishing, bike riding, and/or writing.  There were also many Sunday’s I did not attend church, because my explicit motivation to attend the morning services was to meet single, beautiful, godly, women… A motivation I did not think would be beneficial to my situation… namely being [desperately] single.  So Easter morning I drug myself out of bed and in defiance to my desire to go write at a local granola coffee shop… I got ready to attend Easter celebration at said church.  It was a fine experience, and during the praise and worship session Joel (the worship and arts pastor) invited any artists to join them on Thursday for a night of response to the sermon on the mount, which was the first meeting in preparation for a May 3rd Art Show.  It was the “in” I was looking for, a way to get involved to do community with like minded folks.

Thursday night rolled around and I was excited to join the artists at hand to explore what a community response to Jesus’ words actually resembled.  After a rather awkward first 30 min (it seems I was the only one no one knew… so all were hugging and catching up and I was standing in the corner sipping on some water, it seems your not as lonely with something in your hand… hence why at parties a beverage-in-hand is always appropriate)…  Ok, after the awkwardness, we all sat down to eat a meal together (pizza… always pizza), during this time it was easier to seek into conversations and get to know everyone, with the question, “What do you do?”  wanting a artistic response rather than a normal business response, a typical conversation sounded like this:

Sam: Hi, I’m Sam?

Serene: Hi Sam, I’m Serene?

Sam: Oh, that’s nice… did you ever see the Seinfeld episode when George and Kramer kept yelling SERENITY NOW!!!

Serene: No.

Sam: Right… So what do you do?

Serene: I’m a interpretive dancer, who also dabbles in painting and photography… check out my website, www.peacefuldancerchick.com or email me at peacefuldancerchick247@hotmail.com and I’ll send you my newest song I wrote and performed on a bonang.

Sam: umm, cool.

Serene: What do you do?

Sam: I’m a writer.

Serene: huh. that’s nice, when I was in Europe I wrote for the Dernières Nouvelles d’Alsace, it was fun for a while, then they wanted me to stay and write full-time, but instead I quit moved to Italy and wrote a novella… I wrote everyday at a little quaint coffee shop, and spent the evenings working at a winery in Tuscany.

Sam: neat.

To be honest everyone was very cool and humble and most had normal names.  It was a collection of mainly musicians with some writers, photographers and painters scattered throughout.  After dinner we all sat down on comfy couches as Joel, et al, read aloud through the Sermon on the Mount.  Following the reading Joel opened it up for conversation, collaboration, and thoughts concerning where everyone saw the artistic response leading them.  As many shared it became apparent that the driving force behind the May 3rd Art Show would be musical in nature, with a smaller gallery of artists adding comments about wanting to do a triptych and other pieces in response.  It was a very laid back night as we then dispersed from the big group and converged into smaller more focused groups.  I joined a group wanting to document the entire process and night on film, and this lead to a lively discussion to the format and style of documentary/videomentary, we would like to produce.

And that is where this stands… it is all in-process and not yet defined, hopefully this will take shape and not become something that could have been.  I am hopeful and I think it could be a very, very cool collaboration on all fronts.  So stay tuned.

I like this one:

O God, who made this most holy night to shine with the glory of the Lord’s resurrection: Stir up in your Church that Spirit of adoption which is given to us in Baptism, that we, being renewed both in body and mind, may worship you in sincerity and truth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Today, I had the opportunity to volunteer at The Refuge, a renovation of a former crackhouse in Downtown OKC. It was an opportunity for K-Life students to join in and do some outreach/social work/community service/authentic faith… we packed 3 carloads of Jr. Highers and Leaders after packing some sack lunches, and drove down from the wealth and privilege that is Edmond, OK, down to where the homeless and abandonded hang-out. After a great tour/storytime with the founder, we got to work, painting walls, cleaning old appliances, laying wood floors, and making trash runs… I am hopeful that the kids we took this morning will be able to comprehend what went on today, my prayer is that the bigger picture is seen…

On the way home, I asked the gals (five 8th grade girls) in my truck, there reactions and thoughts from the morning of work, many of them were surprised that a crackhouse existed in Oklahoma… not to mention that there were gangs and prostitution, running amok in the building. They thought only NYC or LA or even Chi-town had these types of problems and these types of people. It was as if they had seen reality. That their only link to this type of evil was from television and the reality of it being this close to where they live was shocking. They couldn’t believe that the police hadn’t taken cleaned up the streets of downtown, as one of the gals said, “Don’t the Police do anything about that kind of stuff?” To which my answer was… “Well, I hope they do, but sometimes things are never as they should be.” Weak retort, but it was all I had.

Authentic Faith, carries with it an action, and today though only for a few hours, my prayer and hope was that these gals caught a glimpse of a world without God, and then realized that today, they helped bring the Kingdom of God back into the heart of OKC. Click on the pic so see a few more, from the day (we had some fun, too!):

I just received, The New Christians, Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier a new book by Tony Jones. I am anxious to see where Tony takes us in his new book. I am sure of two things:

1. He will use a lot of big words, which means I will have to have my dashboard dictionary widget up and running.

2. He will be provocative (and probably heretical… but remember heresy is just contrary thinking to Orthodox belief… Galileo was a heretic until Orthodox belief changed it’s stance).

As many of you may know, this subject is of special interest to me because of my stance on the normal Sunday church experience, of which I usually skip out on and instead opt for a long bike ride, a camping trip, a fly-fishing trip, or just a relaxing (lazy) Sunday morning.

Adam Martin (a great friend of mine, who was not the originator of this quote) says that, “He would rather be fishing and thinking about God than sitting in a pew, thinking about fishing.” This from a Wrangler wearing Catholic who loves Jesus.

So in my anticipation, I have a few thoughts.

1. Yes, God works in all sorts of ways, using all sorts of people, circumstances, and things… but did he really intend for us to wake up on Sunday mornings, drive to a building, sing songs, greet one another, sit, listen, pray, and leave? I am not trying to be divisive, but kind of… Have we mistaken an emotional response to a church program as a “movement of God” in our lives?

2. If it is a movement of God, why the dissonance in attitudes and the apathy in response? As soon as the car exits the parking lot, the good feeling begins to wane and we are left with something much like an addicts response… when can I get that feeling again?

3. Why isn’t emotionally driven religion fulfilling? Why do I have to keep going back to church to bask in the presence of God? Why can’t God be with me all day, refilling my cup, guiding my steps and driving me to joy?

4. Re-reading the above is a bit depressing, as I don’t want to sound like Debby Downer… who constantly chides the church for being something it isn’t. Namely God. But I say all this because I have been part of a community that is the church, without the label of church. I’ve seen a body of believers rally around a cause, love people and affect change. I’ve witnessed the balance of the body of Christ, where one is weak another is strong. And the reason I get so damned incensed is because I know what many are missing out on… True fellowship is not potluck Sunday, but rather River Clean-up Saturday… that true fellowship happens around an action of love.

Ok, enough. Tony may not even delve into any of the topics I just ranted on… but the thoughts still ping-pong through my mind… I do not think I am bitter at the Church, though some have accused me of such. I am more frustrated than bitter… And I long for a change from the self-serving program to the self-sacrificing service.

What does Truth?

In a conversation with a man I respect and have sat under as a learner, a subject was broached that continues to bother me. Not in a he’s wrong, I’m right sort of way, but in an unsettled dissonance. We had this conversation in graduate school when my class was studying (more like being lectured on… there was no discussion) Dispensationalism, an eschatology [study of the end times] that uses segments of time [dispensations of time] to determine the outcome of the end of the world.

He said,

“Yes, there are other interpretations [read: opinions] of the end times but the reason I ascribed to dispensationalism is because dispensational eschatology determines the ecclesiology [doctrine of the church] I practice.”

I was at first stricken with an, “Ok, I can agree with that,” sentiment… but as I chewed on the statement I became increasingly unsettled. Questions began to arise in my mind… Questions like:

Does my lack of an certain eschatological view influence how I do church? And should that matter…?

What are the different views of end-times? And what church doctrine follows these different/competing views?

Have we founded our practice of church [our ecclesiology] on pillars of opinion, rather than on Jesus?

These questions have fueled a vicious appetite for knowledge on eschatology, on doctrine, and on Jesus… After a heavy dose of Dispensationalism in grad school, I skimmed around some Post-Millennialism and Amillennialism doctrine, and after this confusing foray I decided to balance the scales and dig into the Gospels, reading and re-reading in different formats, translations, and paraphrases what Jesus had to say on the “end of the world.” In the search I hung on Jesus’ commentary on the Kingdom of God, of which Scot McKnight of Jesus Creed has been hovering over for the last few months. And Brian McLaren seems to come back to in all his articles and books [see his article, “A Reading of John 14:6” and his book, “The Secret Message of Jesus”]. It seems this topic is central to the dissonance found in the eschatological debate.

The Kingdom of God, which most Dispensationalist offer as the ‘coming Kingdom,’ seems to be more than we have been brought up to know.

We being most Westernized Protestant Christians.

In dispensationalism the ‘coming King’ is central to the story of tribulation, doomsday economics (wars, famine, one-world government, et cetera) and the final judgment. Of which the ‘coming King’ rides in on a white stallion with a sword of truth cutting down the enemies of truth… staining the ground with blood and covering his robe with the evidence of disobedience.

If this interpretation is true, Jesus is a dichotomist in his ways. How can he die on a cross for us (the sinner) taking with him the burden of sin, only to come back and murder all who have not spoken his name in a prayer. He comes first to love the prostitute, the tax collector and the sinner and second to kill them…? It just doesn’t fit.

I have struggled with this duality for some time and may not be any closer to an answer, but I can tell you that my ecclesiology will not be influenced by a “death threat theology.”

It seems that we have shrunken our view of Jesus, and bloated our view on ourselves.

This bloating has created with it a very self-centered gospel message, focusing on the eternal fate of our soul rather than the present state of our neighbor. In this vein it is easy to ignore the social, environmental and political atrocities that are happening around the world an even in our suburban backyards. This ignorance drives Duane Clinker to realize that,

“specific evil action is not required to wipe out vast sections of humanity, but simple apathy.”¹

It is easy and self-serving to go to church every Sunday, sing feel good songs and listen to a program on “life to the full!” It is hard and self-sacrificing to go to a homeless shelter, a prison, an orphanage, or a neighbor and share with them the love of God; loving hands of service, loving words of encouragement, loving loaves of bread, and loving clothes for the head.

________
1. Duane Clinker, Social Holiness; unpublished manuscript, found in “Everything Must Change” by Brian McLaren, pg. 244.