the rhythm of lent

The church calendar takes a sharp turn in these next few days, into the season of Lent.  One of the fascinating aspects of the church years is that it seeks to set a certain rhythm of life into the annual experience of all believers.  By and large, many evangelicals do not take these special days and seasons seriously . . . at least, not in life practice.  But the reason why we are to self-impose this sort of rhythm over our lives is because we need to align ourselves with the tempo through which God brings his kingdom.

Lent is a season of life.  Church time is intended to disrupt our normal routines and schedules so that we might discover something higher, truer and more profound than we otherwise allow ourselves to experience.

Not too long ago I sat through a talk in which the speaker, one of those identified wizards of church-smart, said that the modern church is losing out because our church rhythms are not in line with the life rhythms of the average unchurched person.  (No kidding, but doesn't that simply follow the distinction between 'churched' and 'unchurched'?  I mean, it's like saying people who don't work out don't have schedules that are designed around exercise.)  The solution being advocated by this person was a dramatic change of church rhythms in order to match with life rhythms, I suppose it's some sort of church-wide 'all-things-to-all-people' approach gone awry.

Maybe I learned this the wrong way, but I was under the impression that the rhythms of the church are so imposing with the intended purpose of altering our own life rhythms, which are leading us further on the road to death and destruction.  I understand the notions of accommodation of how the church goes after its objectives, but the fact remains - and Ash Wednesday is a stark and powerful reminder of this - that humanity's rhythms are corrupted by sin and must be replace, painfully at times, by the cadences of the Creator.  Taking this too lightly will not make for a healthy church.

Now, maybe there are alterations and accommodations and translations that must take place in order for the sacred seasons of the church meaningful - and that's certainly understandable, for the traditions of the church, although powerful, are not inerrant.  But we have been instructed not to be conformed to the pattern of this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.  Hence, taking the annual seasons of the church that seek to give us a community embodiment of the story of Christ and bending them over the fact that our culture likes to fish, shop and watch movies simply will not do.

So here is to one more year of Lent, may God speak to us through our weariness of fast so that we might die to self and find resurrection with his only begotten Son.

one wild and precious life

The Summer Day
Mary Oliver











Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?


from New and Selected Poems, 1992
Beacon Press, Boston, MA

valentine and the saints

Today is Saint Valentine's Day, marked in the church calendar to commemorate the life of one or more martyrs by that name.  There is some historical fog to work through in understanding the origins of the date, or those for whom it is marked.  In contemporary practice this is a day set aside for lovers to make their affections known to their beloved, mostly in romantic ways.  And because various companies have done what companies are supposed to do (that is, make money by selling goods that people will buy), there is now no shortage of people who will bemoan the entire observance of the day simply because it has gone commercial.  Unfortunately, this is true for many Christians who would rather put on an air of soured grapes rather than take the opportunity to 1) have fun and enjoy the day, and 2) remind the world - through practice - what these days are intended to mark off.

The historical record of Valentinus is somewhat sketchy, but there is consensus that this day is marked off for the martyrdom of one of the church's more celebrated leaders - called saints, but I dislike such a term when all believers are saints according to biblical doctrine.  Was he a Roman priest, an Italian bishop, or an African martyr?  I am not entirely certain that it matters, since all are functions within the body of believers.  Those who dedicate themselves to the ministry of the faith - whether vocationally or not - are those to whom we consider a part of our spiritual heritage.

The world is full of a priesthood of believers, many evangelists, preachers, bishops and saints who give their lives and spill their blood in the name of Jesus that will never receive earthly recognition for their self-sacrifice.  Even the church will not pause over a day to remember them because most of us will never hear of their journey, though their chapters comprise the story in which ours is still being written.  For, in the large scheme of things, life is a story about God (not ourselves) and the book of life that he will complete in his time and in his way will beautifully contain every fate of everyone of his children.

So, when coming into Valentine's Day we can either grumble and complain or celebrate with joy.  We can choose to make this simply about the romantic love that we have for someone else, or we can consider that love which is eternal and which binds us all together.  Once we have placed ourselves in God's story we discover that which the Song of Songs is showing to us: that all love is wonderful in its place of God's pure and eternal love.

While we can trace the romantic element of Saint Valentine's Day back to Geoffrey Chaucer, who first connected the two concepts together, it is only in the heritage of faith that we can understand how the two are meant to be one: for true love does not exist outside of that one eternal true love of God.  To pout our way through that which has admittedly been a bit over-commercialized does nothing more than make Christians seem too grumpy and unappealing.  (The same could be said for Christmas, which does not overshadow the true believer's heart in consideration of the Incarnation.)  For one reason or another Saint Valentine was given a day for the church to remember him - because the faith he lived was Incarnational, in his life and in his death.  Ours too is meant to be the embodiment of the risen Christ to a world that needs someone to show how this romantic love - good and pleasant and wonderful as it is - can be deeper and more meaningful because it is an experience of creation, and the Creator.

Without Christians willing to celebrate Valentine's Day, how will the world know that love is deeper than the shallow mimicry of pornographic websites, films, books and fantasies?  Without the presence of the kingdom of God moving into all the world - yes, even the romantic celebrations of lover and beloved - will there ever be a reason for anyone to think that love is an experience of that which is eternal?  The work of the kingdom is to make earth more like heaven today than yesterday . . . through love.

simply Jesus 4

N. T. Wright, Simply Jesus (New York: HarperOne, 2011).

Part Three of The Bishop's latest work on Jesus is an extended final chapter entitled, "Jesus: The Ruler of the World."  This is where Wright brings together the whole of his presentation and offers the "So What" conclusions that any treatment of this sort on Jesus deserves.  It begins with the anticipated question, "What on earth does it mean, today, to say that Jesus is king, that he is Lord of the world?" (207).

To provide too much of an overview or review of this chapter would be to steal from the reader the process of personal engagement with the picture which Wright provides regarding the impact of the risen Christ.  This final chapter is to say, that if this historical Jesus came into the "perfect storm" that is claimed in this book, then the implications of what he said and did, along with who he was and is, then there ought to be a very real and powerful impact on the world at the present time.  If Jesus has indeed become king (to anticipate Wright's forthcoming book in March), then God's rule ought to be identified and implemented.  Has it?

In working through the content in this particular chapter Wright offers four personalized perspectives, persons whom Wright 'invents' for the sake of the discussion.  To understand how the phrase, "Thy kingdom come on earth as in heaven" has been approached and understood, these four offer their perspectives in a sort of dialogue (which doesn't actually exist in dialogue form) that shows their basic ins and outs.  Then, as would be expected, Wright gives his analysis and perspective on what the phrase is intended to be as a means by which he closes the present volume.

I'll highlight the main points of what The Bishop offers (in other words, those statements which I found particularly fascinating . . . it is my blog, after all . . .).

First, "God intended to rule the world through human beings (212, emphasis original).  This goes back to creation, actually, and is supported by many great volumes on Old Testament theology, not to mention the overall perspective of the Jewish heritage.  It is through the reign of Jesus, contends Wright, that this has been brought back to its fulfillment and renewal.  The natural outworking of this is that, "Jesus rescues human beings in order that through them he may rule his world in the new way he always intended" (Ibid.).  One of the (many) reasons I came away from this book cheering is that statements such as this so powerful capture that which I have often promoted in my own understanding of the Christian faith.  Salvation can not be understood, as it very often is, as an end in and of itself, but a means to an end which is the establishment of the kingdom of God.  Wright hits this point hard in this passage.

Second, the community which is created through the Spirit of Jesus is the vehicle for which the rule of Jesus and the kingdom of God happens.  Making a connection with the presence of God dwelling in the Temple (or even tabernacle) from where God ruled Israel, now the presence of the Holy Spirit creates a temple of believers through which the rule of all creation may be effectuated (cf. 215f.).  Quite a powerful mandate.

This then brings worship to the center of life and work for the church: "All kingdom work is rooted in worship" (217, emphasis original).  Who we worship will determine who we serve, and that is what shapes the ethic of the community and gives definition to the work of the church.  "Christian worship declares that Jesus is Lord and that therefore, by strong implication, nobody else is" (Ibid.).  If we are to take this seriously, then the interaction between church and culture will look quite different than it presently does.  To get at this point, Wright makes the stark and bold challenge: "The day the church can no longer say, 'We must obey God rather than human beings' (Acts 5:29), it ceases to be a church" (220).

From this point Wright gives space to defining the role of the church, lending encouragement and direction on how to take on the mounting tasks that lie ahead with the mind, attitude and behavior of Christ.  Those who have read The Bishop know that he is strongly opposed to worldly methods of doing church, knowing that those who live by the sword certainly die by the sword.  There is an intriguing comment regarding this, "The way in which Jesus exercises his sovereign lordship in the present time includes his strange, often secret, sovereignty over the nations and their rulers" (222).

The final pages offer a number of great points that I leave for the reader to uncover on their own.  I cannot improve or enhance them in any way by including them here.  These are powerful exhortations of what it means for all believers to become workers in the kingdom of God and work for the sovereign rule of Jesus.  The Holy Spirit has been given to form and empower the church to carry out the tasks that have been defined as God's kingdom, and now the impetus is on those who claim to be disciples to carry on.  In conclusion, Wright says, "Jesus is at work, taking forward his kingdom project" (231).

everything a loss

"I'm still trying to figure out what I lost when I gained Christ."*

This line of thinking strikes at the heart of most of us who have grown up in a comfortable American evangelicalism.  My own retrospect affirms this reality in my own heart, where I still think of my own self-perceived rights and desires over the sacrifice which the cross of Christ demands of us.  We have perhaps fallen for the lie that complete surrender is defined so narrowly as Christianized worldly dreams and pleasures, not capturing the full weight of what it means to lose everything when grasping hold of Christ.

Paul wrote, "What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.  I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ . . ." (Philippians 3:8).

By contrast I still hold on to so many of my own dreams and desires, thinking that I can come with my own merit to carry on the work of the gospel.  So often I think of championing this gospel message, a message of victory through sacrifice and suffering, as something which must be won by my own strength.  I have often fallen for the lie that my status is my testimony, not allowing the Spirit to display God's glory through my failures.  My ministry has been caught up in trying to maximize my own strengths instead of allowing his strength to be made perfect in my weakness.

On the road to Damascus, constructing a life of honor, power and prestige (marching as a caesar across the Jewish landscape), Paul was completely transformed by an encounter with the risen Jesus.  Paul said that the gospel was "apocalypsed" in him (Galatians 1:16).**  He was never the same, by radical measures.  His imperial march - whether to self, tradition, or theology - was halted and he surrendered everything to gain the one thing that mattered in this world, Christ.

Even within our churches, where Paul is so often read and studied and celebrated, we so often get this wrong.  We as as though Paul is giving us a spirituality that is simply a tinted version of the world when in fact he is demanding complete loss of everything that is not Christ.  So radical is this that even 'committed Christians' will fall away at having to cut off their own hands for the sake of inheriting the kingdom of God.  Churches will not achieve this until the individual believer grasps the inherent power of the gospel which destroys everything and restores everything in one moment.

We cheat ourselves out of the life, and life more abundant, when we strain to carry our own baggage through with us.  Perhaps we cheat the world around us too, who wait for us to be the example of what disciples ought to look like.



*Rodney Reeves, Spirituality According to Paul (Downers Grove: IVP, 2011), 25.
** Ibid., 24.

owning the kingdom

We often use language of "owning it" when we think that someone needs to take responsibility for something.  If it is a failure, we simply want someone to "own it" and acknowledge the fact that they were wrong, hopefully on the path toward reconciliation.  This doesn't always happen . . . maybe this doesn't frequently happen, and typically it is painfully obvious to others when someone refuses to own it.

On the flip side, there seem to be ways that people need to own a success and take responsibility for it.  I think that is what it means to be workers for the kingdom of God.  What has been brought into the world, handed over to the work of the church, and what the Spirit is wanting to inspire, is something that God's people need to own.  It must become our kingdom if the partnership between heaven and earth is going to yield God's restored creation.

Of course, we are Reformation people and this sounds like it could be works-oriented theology, thus we must reject it altogether - sola fidelis!  For the same reason we must also acknowledge that this sounds like it could be humanity-based kingdom work, thus we must reject it altogether - sola gratis!  (And, if one is conservative this then sounds like some version of liberal social gospel, in which case . . .)  However, the fact remains that the church has been instituted with the purpose of implementing the kingdom of God, once inaugurated by Jesus and now being fulfilled by the Holy Spirit at work through the covenant community.  And that means any failure to grab hold of the ownership of God's kingdom is a failure to serve the king who commanded us to go into the world with the gospel.

We are to own the work of the kingdom of God because that is Jesus' desire for us.  Think about his words to the church in Thyatira: "To the one who is victorious and does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations - that one 'will rule them with an iron scepter and will dash them to pieces like pottery' - just as I have received authority from my Father" (Revelation 2:26-27).  Not only is the messianic promise of God-appointed kingship (as expressed in Psalm 2) given over to Jesus, but he now makes a guarantee that those who are faithful participants in his kingdom will also share in God's rule.  Messiahship is a big deal because it is God's throne being established through and along with (cf. also the shared authority of the Son of Man in Daniel 7) the human king.  Now the promise is that those who are faithful followers of Jesus will also benefit from that same relationship.

All of this is to say that the future intention of the kingdom of God is for his people to own it.  And if we are to believe (in NTWrightesque terminology) that God's future has come rushing into our present, then we ought to be owning God's kingdom here and now - presently living the guaranteed future victory that has been achieved through cross-resurrection-ascension.

Can we then own the kingdom of God as Jesus desires for us?  Can we take up the ministry that needs to happen in our world?

An example from my own congregation on this . . . Until a couple of years ago we had a thriving children's ministry and youth ministry.  Because of a number of circumstances and situations, that all fell apart and we were left with one or two children (at best) and three youth.  After a long stretch of praying, seeking, working and laboring in the direction which God's Spirit has led us, we are seeing a marked increase in both of these ministries.  But, we have (once again) discovered that one must be careful for what you ask God.  For in the last couple of months our Wednesday night youth has gone from 10 to 45, and our children's ministry is beginning to gain traction also (about 10 on a Sunday morning).  The positive numbers are fine, but the emphasis needs to be on another figure - the lacking number of people in our congregation who are willing to own these ministries and come alongside as workers for the kingdom.

Our church is by no means unique in its struggle to get volunteers on board.  So these comments, while certainly written with my immediate context in mind, are meant for the larger body.  If we truly sensed that we were owners in the kingdom of God then we would be more invested in what is happening as kingdom-work.  In our situation we are looking at youth and children, our spiritual heritage as the family of God.  If we cannot care enough to work within their lives then we ought not be considered part of the faith in the first place.  All is not lost, for sometimes we must wake up to this reality . . . and I believe that there is still some waking up to take place in our congregation(s).  To own this is not only taking responsibility for the wrongs, but stepping up and grabbing hold of the rights.

Even Walmart has ownership figured out (at least, conceptually). When we stop using the term employee and start using associate, then people will consider their work with a higher value.  At least, initially this worked.  But we have an even higher ownership - the renewal of heaven and earth and the coming of the kingdom of God.

I believe that if we as the present generation of the church does not fully embrace the kingdom of God, as his people, then God is going to move on toward the next generation and allow us to wander in the wilderness until his people can serve him with their whole hearts, minds, souls and strength.  This is where many of our congregations find themselves today.  As leaders we should value that which God values and focus our ministries to the places he is doing his work.  Let the remainder drift out into the barren desert and become a forgotten generation, for his kingdom come is all that will last.

simply Jesus 3

N. T. Wright, Simply Jesus (New York: HarperOne, 2011).

Chapters 11-14 complete Part Two of The Bishop's recent publication on Jesus.  Having constructed a context into which we can read the words and mission of Jesus, Wright now comes to the heart of the gospel narrative - the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus.

This begins with a chapter on Space, Time, and Matter, which focuses on the redemption of where God dwells and the fulfillment of time with the coming of God's kingdom.  It is rooted in the context of the Jewish Temple, "a bridgehead into the world . . . It was the place where heaven and earth met" (132, emphasis in original).  Envisioned as overlapping circles, the realm of heaven and the realm of earth were no longer coming together in the Temple but in the person of Jesus himself (133).  This renewal in Jesus was in itself a restoration of the Temple system for God's people.  Along with this was the fulfillment of time: ". . . and Jesus was announcing that the future to which the signpost had been pointing had now arrived in the present" (137, emphasis in original).  All of this was ushering in God's new creation.  And, instead of Jesus' central message being a pathway for humanity to get to heaven, Jesus' proclamation was fundamentally about how heaven is presently moving into earth.  "The gospels are not about 'how Jesus turned out to be God.'  They are about how God became king on earth as in heaven" (149, emphasis in original).

Chapter Twelve then moves to the "Heart of the Storm," the buildup of pressure from within the context of Second Temple Judaism (and Roman rule).  Looking from the perspective of Isaiah's servant (153-158), Daniel's Son of Man (158-163), and Zechariah's king (163-166), Wright examines the socio-political elements of messiahship that comes from Jewish expectation.  At the heart of this is that, "Israel's God himself must do what needs to be done, as at the time of the Exodus . . ." (157).

This leads up to the big question of Chapter Thirteen, "Why Did the Messiah Have to Die?"  Historically speaking, "Jesus fitted no ready-made categories" (168).  He now brought together the long-standing expectations of messiah, but now shaped it around the work of servant (169).  Jesus comes into a world wehre "Every other way of bringing God's kingdom had been tried and failed" (170).  Ushering in this new exodus, Jesus came walking into the storm to radically alter expectations: "Jesus was speaking and acting in such a way as to imply that he was to go ahead of his people . . ." (178).  Thus, Jesus' crucifixion was as a representation for his people, "and through them the whole world" (185).  It should be noted here that Wright introduces value to the various atonement theories, placing them each within the context of his overall perspective.  Because of the remainder of the story Wright can assert, ". . .  then the moment of Jesus's death is, like Jerusalem on those ancient maps, the central point of the world" (189).

Chapter Fourteen then turns to the resurrection.  Wright's perspective is that the empty tomb proclaims the reality of a new world breaking into the old.  "God's kingdom is now launched, and launched in power and glory, on earth as in heaven" (193).  And Jesus now becomes the first of the new creation (194).  Along with this is the necessity to acknowledge, as does The Bishop, that Jesus' ascension and enthronement are central to the coming of God's kingdom.  This would be the moment when Jesus was exalted to the throne of God's kingdom, now reigning over all creation.  From here the Christian hope is for the return of Jesus to complete the long story of redemption which has now been fulfilled in him.  In the interim, "Jesus's kingdom must come, then, by the means that correspond to the message" (199).  Thus the reality of a new day and a new life and a new kingdom has its playing out to do in the present, as God has brought his redemptive righteousness into our world.