No Pigs Allowed

And when he came to the other side, to the country of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed men met him, coming out of the tombs, so fierce that no one could pass that way. And behold, they cried out, “What have you to do with us, O Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?” Now a herd of many pigs was feeding at some distance from them. And the demons begged him, saying, “If you cast us out, send us away into the herd of pigs.” And he said to them, “Go.” So they came out and went into the pigs, and behold, the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the waters. The herdsmen fled, and going into the city they told everything, especially what had happened to the demon-possessed men. And behold, all the city came out to meet Jesus, and when they saw him, they begged him to leave their region. (Matthew 8:28-34 ESV)

If you've gone to church very much at all, this is a familiar story. I have always wondered why Jesus was begged to leave, and why he sent the demons into the pigs.

It is unclear if these particular people were Jewish. And, if they were, what were they doing with pigs in the first place? Perhaps there is more to this story than meets the eye.

Jesus seldom did, or said anything that didn't have several layers of meaning. It occurred to me the other day that perhaps this was a living parable.

We as Christians tend to live our lives knowing that we aren't perfect; that there are all sorts of things wrong with the way we live the Christian life. We are willing to see, and admit to the common, acceptable, and perhaps visible wrongs in our life such as; jealousy, anger, selfishness etc. But when we start to let Jesus really work in our lives, he starts to point out the not so obvious things: things we may have buried so deep that we don't even see them, things that define us, and, sometimes things that have even been sanctioned by the church.

The pigs in our life.

And sometimes this becomes too much. We just want him to leave. To leave us and our life, and let us go back to living our comfortable, predicable lives. We're fine just the way we are - thank you very much - and we beg him to leave. But if we are serious about following Christ, we have to let him not only exorcise the demons that we can see, we have to let him get rid of the pigs that we don't see. We have to get rid of non-loving things like our attitudes towards gays and lesbians, people of differing religious beliefs, or that difficult person at work. They have to rush down the bank and into the sea.

Attitudes like this have no place in the Kingdom of God - just like a Jew had no business with a herd of pigs.

Everybody Hates Karl

Karl Barth, for those that don't know, was a German Theologian in the early 20th century - a contemporary of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I have read many quotes from Barth and couldn't figure out what all the fuss was - he seemed to make a lot of sense to me. From what I heard, we evangelicals hated Barth - or were supposed to hate Barth. So, never being one to conform, I bought one of his books, and having the tremendous grasp of the obvious that I do, quickly realized what the problem was.

Here are a few excerpts from his chapter on Free Grace;

Strange Christianity, whose most pressing anxiety seems to be that God's grace might prove to be all to free on this side. That hell, instead of being populated with  many people, might some day prove to be empty! ...

Even in the midst of hell, grace would still be grace, and even in the midst of hell it would have to be honored and praised and therefore announced to the other inhabitants of hell...

We must reckon with the fact that [grace] can always be at work outside the walls of the Church and can be announced even by quite other tongues than those which have been given to us. Its being so free brings fresh air again and again into the Church. We need this fresh air, and we should not try to shut it out with the holy games of our churchly speaking and behavior...

We ought not to act as if we knew this or that, even in an elementary way, when we are only guessing. That God's grace is free grace will be impossible for us to overlook at this point,.... But this much is sure: it is also here, and precisely here it is grace. We know just one thing: that Jesus Christ is the same also in eternity, and that His grace is whole and complete, enduring through time into eternity, into the new world of God which will exist and be recognized in a totally different way, that it is unconditional and hence is certainly tied to no purgatories, tutoring sessions, or reformatories in the hereafter...

One cannot deal with the free grace of God the way one can deal with a principle. The heralds of free grace cannot advertise themselves as, or behave like, purveyors of a principle. In fact they must deny the "human self-assurance" which seeks to "put the lord's word and work to the service of any arbitrarily chosen wishes, goals and plans”. The message of free grace has never remained pure, has always been perverted into its opposite when it has been put into some sort of service or framework which is foreign to it, whether worldly or spiritual, philosophical or theological, ...

If the Church does not love the message of free grace (if it stands apart from people with too many scruples, if it meets them with too many reproaches), if it is afraid of that message and is too pious and moralistic for people - what is the Church then? Nothing, nothing at all!

I can see why we evangelicals are supposed to hate Barth; he completely undermines our dualistic, us vs them mentality. He says things like; "Jesus Christ is the same today, tomorrow and forever", where's that in the bible! (insert sarcasm emoticon here). And worse than that he agrees with such obvious heretics as CS Lewis.

Seriously though, what an incredible freedom and relief of pressure, to have the ability to say "I don't know". That even if a loved one died without "knowing Christ" that you do know that God's grace is forever. That there may be validity to someone else's point of view. That we don't have to have all the answers. That God loves everyone, no matter what, or when. Maybe then we evangelicals could relax, and just love people for who they are. Now that would be good news!

I hope Karl is right.

An empty cup of tea

Th Master Nan-in had a visitor who came to inquire about Zen, but instead of listening the visitor kept talking about his own ideas. After awhile Nan-in served tea. He poured tea into his visitors cup until it was full. Then he kept pouring. Finally the visitor could not restrain himself, "Don't you see it's full?"he said. "You can't get anymore in." "Just so", replied Nan-in, stopping at last. "And like this cup you are filled with your own ideas. How can you expect me to give you Zen unless you offer an empty cup?"

I think we as evangelicals are very much like this cup of tea, especially if we've been in the church all our lives. We know all the answers, we've been told what to believe. We've been told that we have all the knowledge, and that even though there may be other traditions who seem to sincerely believe that, "they are sincerely wrong".  Our cups are so full and overflowing that not only can we not get anymore in, we can't even move the cup to someplace useful.

Mark Buchanan has just put out another book, "Your Church is too Safe". Mark is a good writer, who pastors out of British Columbia. His books try to get Christians to think outside the box, at least a little, although I don't know how successful he is - he might be a bit too subtle. In an excerpt from this latest book, he makes two distinctions between the definitions of the words Traveler / Tourist and Disciple / Believer.

Traveler literally means "one who travails." He labours, suffers, endures. A traveller.. ...gets impregnated with a new and strange reality, grows huge and awkward trying to carry it, and finally, in agony, births something new and beautiful. To get there, he immerses himself in a culture. learns the language and customs, lives with the locals, imitates the dress, eats what's set before him. He takes risks, some enormous, and makes sacrifices, some extravagant. He has tight scrapes and narrow escapes. He is gone along time. If he ever returns, he returns forever altered...

A tourist, not so. Tourist means, literally, "one who goes in circles." He's just takes an exotic detour home. He's only passing through, sampling wares, acquiring souvenirs. He tastes more than he eats what's put before him. He retreats each night to what's safe and familiar. He picks up a word here, a phrase there, but the language and the world it's imbedded in, remains opaque and cryptic, and vaguely menacing. He spectates and consumes. He returns to where he comes from with an album of photos, a few momentos, a cheap hat. He's happy to be back. He declares there's no place like home...

....At some point we stopped calling Christians disciples and started calling then believers. A disciple is one who follows and imitates Jesus. She loses her life in order to find it. She steeps in the language and culture of Christ until his word and his world reshape hers, redefine her, change inside and out how she thinks and dreams and, finally, lives....

...A believer, not so. She holds certain beliefs, but how deep down these go depends on the weather or her mood. She can get defensive, sometimes bristlingly so, about her beliefs, but in her honest moments she wonders why they've made such a scant difference....

... You can't be a disciple without being a believer. But - here's the rub - you can be a believer and not a disciple. You can say all the right things, think all the right things, believe all the right things, do all the right things, and still not follow and imitate Jesus...

...The Kingdom of God is made up of travellers, but our churches are largely populated with tourists. The Kingdom is full of disciples, but our churches are filled with believers.

I would hope it isn't happening in Mark's church, but the issue that I see is that those in the pews  are being filled to overflowing with the notion of being a tourist-believer. This is exactly where the pulpit wants people, but it's not where God wants them. We have phrases like; 'this world's not my home; I'm just passing through; strangers in a strange land; be ye in the world not of the world (this last one has been mis-read for centuries to justify the previous ones. Taken in it's proper context it has nothing to do with separating yourself from the world).

Those of us who are serious about being Traveler-Disciples need to take our cup to the sink, dump it out, and start letting God - and only God - fill it back up again. When God fills our cup, there's always room for more; more of him and more of others.

 

 

 

As long as it doesn't lead to dancing

Just before Valentines day, Drew Marshall did a Valentines themed show. One of his guests has a website where they sell Christian "toys" to enhance your relationship with your spouse - I'll let you fill in the blanks as to what that means. They tried to Christianize it by emphasizing that these were for couples to use.

Now, I don't care if people want to use these types of things, provided they aren't trying to compensate for other issues in their marriage. Other than that, if they both think it sounds like fun, then whatever - as long as it doesn't lead to dancing (as the old joke goes). If there are issues, then they are better off addressing those first, before they try to put a bandaid on their problems. One of Drew's other guests that day (a Canadian) has an excellent website to address those issues.

This may be the most bizarre of the Christian businesses out there, but it is certainly not alone. There are Christian Realtors, Christian Insurance, Christian Used Car sales (is that even possible?), and a host of others. I must admit that I have a problem with these businesses, as well as people who put fish on their cars, or bumper stickers that say things like; "God is my co-pilot".

The problem is; if you are going to advertise you are a Christian business, you are implying that you have higher standards; and if you're going to tell people that you have higher standards, you better live and operate your business exactly as advertised - and too few do. In my opinion you are far better off actually operating with the higher standards - not telling people that you are so wonderful - and just letting them find out, as Jesus implied in the Sermon on the Mount when he said; "let your yes be yes and your no be no".

The reason is not as obvious as you might think. Some people will think you're just trying to protect yourself if you screw up - trying to save face - but you aren't protecting yourself, you're protecting God.

In 2nd Samuel 12 David has sinned by sleeping with Bathsheba (and a host of other misdeeds), and God punishes David by taking his son - why?

"...because by this deed you have given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also that is born to you shall surely die." (NASV)

God cares what people think about him. God cares about how you and I portray him to the world. God cares because you and I are God's light into the world - we are reflecting him. We're supposed to be showing the rest of the world what it means to live in his Kingdom. What it means to call Jesus "Lord". The only way that some people will see God is through you and I, and if they don't see something they want to be a part of, they will reject the Kingdom, and they will reject God, and the Kingdom will not have been advanced the way it should have. As CS Lewis said: we are to be little Christs.

So, if we're selling products, or putting a fish on our car, we had better think twice about what kind of standard we're willing to hold ourself to.

And, since we're talking about dancing, didn't David, "a man after God's own heart" dance naked in the street. How does that fit in with the church's prohibition against dancing? It's a good thing smarter people than me are making the decisions for me.

Meister Eckhart on Suffering

For those that don't know, Meister Eckhart was a 13th century German mystic. In the process of reading one of his books I came across this section on suffering which I found profound. I have cobbled together a few of these thoughts.

"Supposing someone has for many years had honour and well-being and that now, by God's design, he loses it. Then a man should take wise thought and thank God. When he realizes the present harm and misfortune, he will appreciate how much advantage and security he had before, and he shall thank God for the well-being he enjoyed for so many years without appreciating how well off he was, and he should not be angry.... ....Since all that is good or consoling or temporal is given to man as a  loan, what has he to complain of when he, who has lent it, will take it back? He ought to thank God that he has lent it to him for so long...

...If, then, you would like to be God's son and yet not suffer, you are very wrong. It is written in the Book of Wisdom that God examines and searches who is just in the same way as gold is proved and burned in the furnace. It is a sign that the King or Prince trusts the Knight well if he sends him into combat. I have seen a Lord who sometimes, when he had accepted someone among his followers, sent him out into the night and then attacked him himself and fought with him. And once it happened that he was nearly killed by someone whom he meant to try in this way, and he liked this man much better than before...

....Silver and gold are indeed pure; yet, if they are to be made into a cup from which the King should drink, they would be burned very much more than otherwise."

Predestination and Old Souls

Predestination: the idea that some people are somehow chosen to be children of God while others aren't, has been debated and argued for centuries. What if this is yet another example of something the church has profoundly misunderstood? What if people on both sides of the argument have missed the point completely?

The other night there were several people at our house. I was in the kitchen doing something and the rest were in the living room just chatting when suddenly everyone burst out in laughter. This is not an unusual
thing with this particular group, but when I came in, my wife explained to me that one of our members - who is more concerned with social justice than the rest of us - shared the fact that when she was younger, she thought that she wanted to marry a black guy to show that there was nothing wrong with that sort of thing. In and of itself there is nothing funny about this, but the reason it was so funny to everyone else is because it is totally in keeping with her personality, and that even at a very young age it was evident.

I didn't really think much about this until a couple of days later when I was trying to work through some other perplexing scenarios in the bible, and my mind wandered to predestination. Somehow my mind tied