… if you are looking for a truly outstanding parable about the difference between knowing what’s right and doing it. You need to click over to Chris Gonzales’ Home Front and read the post The Religions of Good and Right.
In a similar vein, if you’re searching for a really powerful one about misplacing the object of worship and losing the power of worship, you’re just a click away from Fred Peatross’ abductive columns, specifically the post titled Parable of the Bridge.
You won’t find them here.
Mark | Luke | John | Acts | King | Ethic | Subjects
I know that plenty of other and better writers have examined what it means to be a Kingdom Christian, but I’m writing this as an exercise in self-examination as much as anything else.
I thought I’d just go through and list what Jesus said about it, gospel by gospel.
If I aspire to be a Kingdom Christian, I should:
Whew! I’m glad I framed this as a list and not a pop quiz.
I’m not sure I’d like my score.
Children who lived in the inner cities as I was growing up knew the sign and what it meant: an 8-1/2 x 11″ poster in the window of a neighboring house with a big red hand pictured on it.
It meant they’d be safe there.
They could run there when they were in trouble at home, at school, or on the street.
They’d be taken in, any time of day or night, and protected.
They’d find the kind of home they may not have had at home.
They’d find a father-figure, or an older-brother figure, who would keep them from harm.
When troubled people are in our assemblies and hear us speak of such a father and brother in our songs and prayers, do they find that kind of home?
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! — Luke 13:34
It’s the one thing that churches of the Restoration Movement can claim to have in common. We were all separatists, whether Churches of Christ, Disciples of Christ, Christian Churches or whatever.
We came from Baptist, Lutheran and Methodist roots, whether we own up to it or not.
As a movement, it almost certainly pre-dates Alexander Campbell and Barton W. Stone. And those guys had some peculiar beliefs.
It began in more places than just Cane Ridge, Kentucky. And a lot of truly weird stuff went on there.
We started in a lot of different places, geographically and philosophically. We sort-of started as an emergent movement, with some similar tenets and some that did not and could not be reconciled. Becoming a divergent movement was almost inevitable.
Almost. Because division, sectarianism, name-calling was what the restorationists railed against.
Not to mention the Founder.
We split, and we split and we split again and again and ….
“Emerging” and “emergent” are probably good words for the subtle and often cyber conversation that has begun. There are still too many old wounds that go too deep to begin calling it a “convergent” effort. But it has already begun to draw together people who have been able to see past differences in creeds and practices and what great-grandpa stood for.
(My great-great-grandpa, incidentally, was one of the Reformation preachers: Alfred Ellmore. He put the extra “L” in the name. My only other brush with history is attending church as a child at the same congregation in Indianapolis as a relative – probably a grandson – of Daniel Sommer, who in 1932 wrote a Rough Draft of a proposal to re-unite churches divided over his preaching in 1889. It has the distinction of being, perhaps, the most likely Church of Christ doctrine document that later generations would describe as a “creed.” The younger Sommer, Paul, though greatly older than me, was always glad to pull me aside in the 1970s and describe his voluminous latest writings on a very social justice-oriented incarnation of the church.)
But is the “emergent” conversation focusing too much on the problem of how to “do church,” too?
Doesn’t it make sense to go back beyond the 1970s, the 1890s, the 1790s, the 1500s and, yes, even past the late first century to find a model for fellowship?
Shouldn’t we rather be examining in detail the Kingdom of God described by His Son to his closest followers?
To the Kingdom that is “within” and/or “among you” (Luke 17:20-21)?
Remember the really immemorable Star Trek movie, number V: The Final Frontier? The one where the Enterprise suddenly went from having twenty-some decks to seventy-some? Where a bargain-basement special effects menace tried to pass itself off as God? Where Captain Kirk had the audacity to ask it: “Excuse me … what does God need with a starship?”
There’s at least one almost-redeeming moment near the last of the film, where Federation crew and their Klingon guests are tossing back a few together in the officer’s lounge. Kirk, with Spock and McCoy, ponders the futility of their quest for “God” at the “center of the galaxy” – that’s some shielding the ship now has, too! – and posits: “Maybe God is right here” (and he touches his chest) “in the human heart.”
Pretty profound for the galactic humanist (and shameless womanizer). When I first suffered through the movie at a theatre near some of you, my journey through the cosmos was still at a point where that thought was brand new and had to be weighed.
God, as we all knew, was in his heaven and all was right with the world. The Christians I knew believed the right thing, occasionally did the right thing, and anyone else was on his/her own. We were in Him; not vice-versa.
I had to think: In the human heart? Like, like being possessed? Like … being bought with a price? Like … are we talking the Holy Spirit here?
In the human heart?
Looking back, I imagine that the inspired Hollywood writers who contrived the script were probably just saying, “You know, the concept of God is fine for anyone who wants to believe in it.”
But I’ll always be grateful for the inkling of insight that I probably read into that movie moment … and for the fact that it opened the door of my heart a little wider to the possibility of God in me.
That isn’t the most profound thing Kirk said, though. I think that came when Dr. McCoy challenged his description of the trio’s relationship as brothers: “I thought you said men like us don’t have families.”
He smiles the Kirk smile in reply: “I was wrong.”
One of my favorite books as a junior high-schooler was The Gospel According to Peanuts by Robert Short, and though I think he’s gone way off the deep end in his universalist beliefs, he did a great job of using Charles Schulz’s immortal characters to illuminate everlasting Scripture for my young mind.
Most of my other favorite junior high reads had Star Trek in the title.
So it’s no real surprise that from time to time I find a nugget of universal truth buried in the interstellar quagmire of rampant humanism that is Trek.
One instance popped into my mind today as I read Greg Taylor’s blog review of Two Views of Hell: A Biblical and Theological Dialog by Edward Fudge and Robert A. Peterson. Though I haven’t read the work, Greg’s review is so comprehensive that you feel you’ve got the major gist by the time you’ve read it! (And he cites Seinfeld, which is almost always a good thing.)
What came to mind as I read it was a scene from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, where Admiral Kirk is trying to wrangle permission from his commander, Admiral Morrow, to return to the newly-created Genesis planet to retrieve Spock’s body (and hopefully his katra, or soul) at his father’s request.
(Okay, if you don’t follow Trek, this is probably already too bizarre for you to pursue.)
Morrow shakes his head, “Honestly, I never understood Vulcan mysticism …”
But Kirk sees through his reluctance: “You don’t have to believe,” he interrupts. “I’m not even sure that I believe.”
The nugget of truth?
Not understanding something is often our excuse for not believing it.
The trouble is, if we wait until we understand everything eternal in this life … we’ll never believe.
Whether it’s the theodicy of tsunamis, fatal car accidents, everlasting punishment, or some mystic process by which life can be returned to a lifeless body, we’re not likely to grasp it as a prerequisite to believing.
It’s not that God doesn’t want us to reach, and wonder, and ask – just as Job did; as Fudge and Peterson and all the rest of us do. Quite the opposite!
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9) | “Look to the LORD and his strength; seek his face always.” (I Chronicles 16:11; Psalm 105:4)
Tomorrow at 4 p.m. Central before evening services at 5, there will be a prayer service at the church I attend asking God’s protection of our troops in Iraq, especially in the days preceding free elections there.
Our minister’s sermon afterwords will be about prayer, and I’ve been asked to read two scriptures: Luke 18:9-14 and Psalm 51.
I haven’t been asked to pray at the prayer service before, and I confess that I’m relieved.
I wouldn’t know how to pray among my siblings, the vast majority of whom have a very definite perception of the war in Iraq and the policing/nation-building activities that continue. Having neither the writing talent nor the wit of one of my literary heroes, Mark Twain, I would be unable to equal, let alone excel, his deservedly reknowned War Prayer. Still I wondered yesterday, as I was driving home from work, how I would pray genuinely if I had been asked, and this, in prettier words, is what I prayed:
Father God,
I don’t know how to ask this, because I don’t know where Your heart is in this matter. There was a time when You commanded Israel’s armies to give over to You entire cities – men, women and children – by completely destroying them … something there’s no word for in my language. My heart believes that’s a good thing, because at a later time Your Son taught people to be peacemakers; to offer the other cheek to those who would strike them … Someone whose most violent act was to drive animals out of Your house and flip over the tables of swindlers there.
I don’t share the belief of many of my brothers and sisters in Him that our nation engaged in a “just” war; that it was the right war in the right place at the right time. As nearly as I can tell, we were misinformed or even misled about the reasons we sent our soldiers to Iraq. Thousands have paid for that error or lie with their lives.
I’m troubled because it feels like it was an act of vengeance – which I know should be Yours when wrong is done – whether it was to avenge the attack on our nation, or on Kuwait years ago, or even for the promises to pay others who would terrorize and kill our citizens, even our current President’s father.
At the same time, I have to agree that some good has been done. That genocidal despot who tortured and murdered so many of his own has been toppled like the statues he built at their expense; captured and jailed. I am grateful for that.
The evil of some of his places of torture somehow seemed to have infected our soldiers, Father; yet there are so many more of them and of other volunteers who have gone far beyond their mission to rebuild schools and hospitals; to help little children; to see that food and clean water and electricity get to where they are needed.
And too many have been ambushed, kidnapped, and even executed to repay this kindness. Now we have asked them to put their lives on the line to make it possible for the people of Iraq to freely choose their own new government.
Please, God, protect them as they extend this gift. Bless them with good judgment and kind hearts. May the election proceed untroubled by violence. May it lead to a beneficent government. May it lead to peace. May it be to Your glory.
Bless and protect Mike and Dara and Scott and their sweet families and all the thousands I don’t know, Father. Keep them from harm.
Frustrate and confound the ones who kill others and themselves in the name of Allah. Untwist their hearts and intentions. Help them to see good for what it truly is: not killing, but healing; not forcing one’s will on others, but letting others choose.
And if they cannot and will not be reached by Your love, then when they have exterminated themselves in their own futility, may the meek truly inherit the earth.
All of this I pray not knowing what Your will is in this matter, so I must add the “nevertheless” Your Son added in Gethsemane … and I ask Him to bring you this prayer and all of the other groanings which only Your Spirit can put into words.
Amen.
Don’t miss the convicting and motivational post today on Chris Gonzales’ blog.
And give me just a moment to share (again) an insight that one of his thoughtful, earlier posts inspired me to add as a comment:
“Grace, faith and works are inseparable components in the way God saves us.
“Which component can you leave out and still have a peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich? Bread? Peanut butter? Jelly?
“I think grace, faith and works are part of the sandwich.”
May I add that grace and faith are great … but by themselves they don’t paint the barn?
My crumbling preference for a grace-and-faith only relationship with God keeps getting bowled over by things like Jesus’ prophecy of the sheep and the goats (“…you did it not unto me.” – Matthew 25:31-46) and what He revealed to John (“The dead were judged according to what they had done ….” – Revelation 20:12).
When I feel proud that my faith is deepening and must be sufficient, I get jousted right off my high horse by Ephesians 2:8 (“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God”).
Deep down I know that I can blog all I want to, teach all the Sunday School classes I’m asked to and write all the HeartWorship encouragements I can … but if I don’t LIVE OUT what I believe, I have absolutely zero credibility and my faith without works doesn’t work … it doesn’t even breathe (James 2:14-26).
And then there’s the secret ingredient to the GraceFaithWorks sandwich.
If I do what I do to puff up myself – instead of doing it out of love – I’m just making noise … I am nothing … I gain nothing (I Corinthians 1:1-3).
Next in this series: The GraceFaithWorks Sandwich: A Second Bite
I begin this post neither expecting to influence people nor win friends … or even an argument.
I’ve proposed that passing more restrictive laws regarding items like abortion and gay marriage (can I say “gay”? do I have to use the term “homosexual”?) is pointless if Christians don’t explain why.
I’ve proposed that the issues are complex, and are difficult to articulate.
I’ve explored one or two snowflakes on the tip of the iceberg of the issue of abortion.
There are seven scripture texts that generally fall into the debate about homosexuality: Genesis 19, Leviticus 18:22, Leviticus 20:13, Romans 1:26-27, 1 Timothy 1:9-10, 1 Corinthians 6:9, and Jude 7. Apologists for the Christian gay viewpoint (yes, there are some) refute the traditional interpretations of these with arguments about Greek and Hebrew words, customs during Biblical times, redefining the sins of Sodom as idolatry and inhospitality, and the view that most of these scriptures decry only non-consensual sex – rape and pedophilia, for example – and pagan worship ritual. It’s complicated, I agree. It’s easier to simply condemn than to study out our own views. But if we as Christians want to reach and teach, we have to know what we believe and why … and we have to be willing to listen and learn as well.
Please understand … I’m not an advocate of making “choice” into “God.”
All I’m really asking is:
Should Christians support laws which limit the rights of – let’s call it a “minority by choice” – by defining marriage a certain way? While gay people don’t consider themselves a minority by choice, Christians generally consider them to be such. And in passing restrictive laws, we set a precedent that it is permissible to restrict the rights of a minority by choice.
Christians are still a minority. By choice. Are we aiming at a target that will turn out to be our own feet?
On the other hand …
Are we also setting precedent that it is permissible to further restrict rights to marriage? Will a future, even more conservative voting public define marriage to exclude people who have been divorced?
I’ve been divorced and have married again. (There was a time when church doctrine would have “outed” me. It was not that long ago. There was even a common opinion that to make things right, I would have to divorce my current wife and remarry my first wife – something God views as an abomination in Deuteronomy 24:3-4.)
Should everything that Christians don’t like and consider to be sin be outlawed by vote of the people, even if we cannot document the harm? Is a consensual gay relationship harmful to society? If so, how and to what degree? One supposes that Prohibition was intended to address public drunkenness. Was it the appropriate response? Or did we just need laws against public drunkenness?
Should changing laws be the focus of our efforts as Christians? Or changing hearts?
Should we be passing laws and passing judgment? Or passing the word that Christ loves – and died for – all?
Are we Christians who pass such laws really any different from those whom those laws will most affect?
“… all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” – Romans 3:23
Last in this series: The Other Foot, The Other Shoe
Blog In My Own Eye 