Author: W. Keith Brenton

What Jesus Wants Us To Do, Part II: Mark

/ W. Keith Brenton / 4 Comments

Part I | Part III | Part IV | Epilogue

Here are the imperatives I found in Mark’s very active gospel; the things Jesus wants us to do:

  • “Repent and believe the good news!”

  • “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

  • “With the measure you use, it will be measured to you – and even more.” (Not exactly imperative, is it?)

  • “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside a man can make him ‘unclean’ by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him ‘unclean.’ “

  • “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

  • “… what God has joined together, let man not separate. … Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.”

  • “… anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.

  • “You must be on your guard. … Therefore keep watch … What I say to you, I say to everyone: ‘Watch!’ “

  • “Take it; this is my body.”

  • “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.”

Pretty much overlaps the Matthew imperatives, doesn’t it? Mark’s record doesn’t include a lot of requests or imperatives, and I’m probably stretching to include some of these among the ones addressed to us. In this gospel, Jesus teaches and does things: travels, heals people, casts out demons, performs miracles. He leads by example. That seems to be the writer’s choice of emphasis.

Is there something in that very style of writing that speaks to us today?

Part I | Part III | Part IV | Epilogue

What Jesus Wants Us To Do, Part I: Matthew

/ W. Keith Brenton / 8 Comments

Part II | Part III | Part IV | Epilogue

I opened a co-op blog a few months back called What Would Jesus Do Next? in hopes that fellow-writers would help me recapture some of the freshness and awe in our perception of Jesus by recounting the unusual things He did and said – perhaps from a first-century first-person point-of-view.

John Alan Turner went a slightly different direction (which is great, too) in his post there Jesus the Teacher. It’s been niggling at the back of my mind ever since, and popped in the foreground yesterday morning during the start of a new Bible class series on the gospel according to Mark, as well as a fine sermon titled “No One Ever Spoke Like This.”

I’ve got a craving to bullet-point what Jesus taught us to do. Not the theological depths. Not the secrets of the kingdom. Not to discuss it, argue about it, question it or interpret it. Not as a rule book or a checklist. Just to lay out the imperative teachings, book by book: what He told us to do and not to do. It could take a while. (I’ll leave out the Kingdom teachings, because I’ve already been there with a series.)

So let’s start with Matthew.

Unless you count Jesus’ instruction to John to baptize Him in fulfillment of all righteousness, His first imperative teaching in this gospel is for Satan, quoting Old Covenant scripture.

  • “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”

  • “Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.”

Then after John was imprisoned, He went to preach – echoing John – by the lake near Capernaum in Galilee.

  • “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.”

After calling some followers and healing some sick and tortured people, He went up on a mountain and proclaimed the blessings of the Beatitudes, then instructed:

  • “Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”

  • ” … anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment.”

  • ” … if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift. Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still with him on the way.”

  • ” … anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. … And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.”

  • ” … anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery.”

  • “Do not swear at all … Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’ …”

  • “Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.”

  • “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

  • “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

  • “Be careful not to do your ‘acts of righteousness’ before men, to be seen by them … So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets … But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret.”

  • “… when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen.”

  • “…when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans …”

  • “… if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”

  • “When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do … But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting.”

  • “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth … store up for yourselves treasures in heaven.”

  • “You cannot serve both God and Money.”

  • “… do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. … Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.”

  • “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.”

  • ” … take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

  • “Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs.”

  • “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”

  • ” … do to others what you would have them do to you.”

  • “Enter through the narrow gate.”

From that point on, His compelling words are often for his closest followers, less often for crowds. For the crowds, he mostly tells stories – parables – and their explanations are also for his disciples … but that’s a whole different series!

  • “Watch out for false prophets.”

  • (to His disciples) “Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

  • (to His disciples) “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth.”

  • “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me.”

  • “Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.”

  • “What goes into a man’s mouth does not make him ‘unclean,’ but what comes out of his mouth, that is what makes him ‘unclean.'”

  • “… unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. … whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me. But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”

  • “If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.”

  • “See that you do not look down on one of these little ones.”

  • “If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along … If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.”

  • “… anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery. … The one who can accept this should accept it.”

  • ” … whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave.”

  • “Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. … Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.”

  • “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”

  • “Take and eat; this is my body. … Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant.”

  • “… go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”

Those are the imperatives I found in Matthew’s gospel. Did I miss any? Include some I shouldn’t have? (I left out instructions given to just one person, or those which seemed connected to immediate events only, rather than to eternal truths.)

Did you notice how often He seemed to be in the midst of admiring children? And how protective He was of them? And that their faith counted, too?

Did you see authority? Variety? A call to discernment? Harmony? Kindness? Gentleness? Servitude? Peace? An expectation of perfection? A warning of judgment?

Was there anything He asked us to do that He was not willing to do – or had not already done?

Part II | Part III | Part IV | Epilogue

Older Brother Syndrome

/ W. Keith Brenton / 2 Comments

Also known as Pharisee Syndrome. Patients often express that they have “done it” right; others are “doing it” wrong; specifically, that others have partied all their lives and should not be treated with another party, let alone party clothes and jewelry. They will often express gratitude that they are not like tax collectors.

The condition is more common than has been thought and is persistent. It is generally resistant to treatment and has a tendency to spread and deepen.

Symptoms: General lack of joy and cheer; puffiness around the ego; occasional reddening of the eyes and face.

Prognosis: Invariably leads to serious and sometimes fatal cardiopulmonary complications.

Treatment: Strong dose of gently-applied equilibrium. Difficult, as patients are often convinced that their Physician’s purpose is not to seek out and treat them, but others whose conditions are fatal.

See also “Penitent Prodigal Therapy” and “Kneeling Facedown Regimen.” (Self-applied thoracic compressive thrusts accompanied by verbal pleas for mercy may also be indicated.)

HeartWorship: He Runs To Me

/ W. Keith Brenton / 1 Comment

I squandered youth in distant lands
And spent my fortune with poor friends
Now I feed pigs in filthy pens
They run to me
They run to me

At home, the slaves eat better food
My Father never treats them rude
Were I His slave, he’d treat me good
I’ve come to me
I’ve come to me

“See! My Father, waiting, stands;
See! He reaches out His hands;”*
And then He does what love demands
He runs to me
He runs to me

I’ll never see Him quite the same
While I sought wealth and power and fame
He watched at home, and called my name
Then ran to me
Then ran to me

*This couplet is borrowed from the hymn “Love for All” by Samuel Longfellow
(with a tune by Xavier Schnyder). Remainder ©2005, WKB

Parental Stand-Ins

/ W. Keith Brenton / 1 Comment

Mike Cope’s latest column in the Christian Standard describes the healing and comfort offered by those who stand in for parents who can’t be there, and in so doing, stand in for a heavenly Father:

We Must Welcome the Children.

He recounts both the accident on the way back from Winterfest which injured his son Chris (and took the life of one of Chris’ close friends) and a double homicide near Highland Church of Christ where he preaches.

No one could redefine the term “godparents” like Mike.

The Not-So-Great Divorce

/ W. Keith Brenton / 5 Comments

Not to make light of an outstanding book by C.S. Lewis, but most divorces aren’t that great.

Mine wasn’t. Angi’s wasn’t either – though she is more resilient than most other people I’ve ever met. We happened to meet at church when her divorce was in its final stages. Mine had been complete for seven years.

A couple of days ago, I received an e-mail from a person who had read my post at One Christian’s Affirmation and poured out her heart about her restrictive upbringing in the church, her marriage to someone that should have been fine because he was a Christian, their divorce after two children, and now his desire to reconcile to her. “Reconcile” may be too strong a word. He wants her back.

I don’t want to disclose specifics beyond that; she was simply writing to express her joy that not all of her fellow Christians buy into the dogged doctrinal details of our fellowship, which she didn’t see in my post.

I haven’t known how to write her back, and so far I haven’t. Angi and I have co-taught classes for separated, divorced and widowed people both at my home church here in Little Rock and at Highland Church of Christ in Abilene. The people of both those classes were great blessings to us, though sharing their challenges was often spiritually and emotionally draining.

The truth is, I feel like I’ve lost whatever “touch” God gave me. I used to be able speak confidence and comfort to people who were hurting. I wasn’t afraid to go back to the hurting place of my second single life with others who were currently in theirs.

I’m happy now. I have a marriage that I never dreamed could be possible; two adorable and energetic children by adoption; no classes to teach to spiritually sick and wounded people. I’m happy.

I already said that, didn’t I?

Then why do I feel like I’m a little bit divorced from reality?

Peter Was a Racist

/ W. Keith Brenton / 1 Comment

The apostle Peter, that is.

I don’t know how to put it any more plainly. He wasn’t a violent, village-burning, lynching, hateful racist. He just didn’t like Gentiles. He didn’t want to preach to them. He hesitated to baptize them. He didn’t want to eat with them.

Hmm. Three things. That’s kind of a pattern in his life, isn’t it? Deny Jesus three times. Be told three times to feed His sheep. Receive three corrections about his reluctance to reach out to non-Jews.

You remember the stories. God sent a vision of unclean animals lowered in a sheet or sail to convince the fisherman to preach to Gentiles. God sent the Holy Spirit to a group of Gentiles to persuade Peter they ought to be baptized, just like any Jews. God sent Paul to teach Peter some table manners when he wouldn’t fellowship Gentiles at dinner.

All of this took place long after Pentecost, long after we would assume Peter himself was immersed in both water and Spirit, long after he exercised church discipline in the extreme because of Ananias and Sapphira.

Can God use racists in His work? Does He instantaneously zap them into a Spirit of love and acceptance? Or does He just keep nudging, working with them as well as through them?

I responded to Greg Kendall-Ball’s righteously-angry post The More Things Change this morning that I think the problem with our nation’s reluctance to intervene in the Sudan is “the fact that such a small percentage of men are affected by color-blindness.”

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not at all delighted at the prospect of sending more people to war. I’m not at all certain that military intervention is even the right answer.

But would it kill us to fast and pray that God will nudge and work with/through some people who desperately need to become – or struck – color-blind?

Too many are being killed each day that we don’t.

Telling It Like It Is

/ W. Keith Brenton / 3 Comments

You might have to be my age or a little older to understand that “tell it like it is” was a byword of the late 1960s and 1970s. Which is relevant to the point I’d like to meander toward, because those days was a lot more “modern” than these days am.

I’m a late-comer to the modern/post-modern discussion, partly because I always (and mistakenly) thought of “modern” as a term that moved forward in time, just like the word “contemporary” used to do. Nowadays, if you live in a “modern” or “contemporary” house, it was probably built 40-50 years ago. I couldn’t grasp the discussion because I couldn’t understand the terms.

“Telling it like it is,” contrarily enough, is a “modern” concept. Like old journalism, it hangs on the notion that a person can tell a story without a particular point of view or slant; that he/she can see it from all sides and recount it factually, unemotionally, disconnectedly. The “post-modern” notion is that it’s impossible for anyone to do that; we’re all going to have our own histories, beliefs, opinions, and colored lenses (preferably lavender with wire rims) – and no one can tell a story exactly the way it happened. We all “call it like we see it.”

Science, for instance, used to be pretty sure about everything. Then chaos theory started punching quantum holes right through the fabric of certainty. Pretty soon, every other discipline (even religion) became perforated with doubt.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Some things should be doubted. At the same time, there are some things that are functionally and permanently true and they should not be doubted for a moment. Gravity comes to mind, and the inherent unreasonability of any given bureaucracy. Oh yes, and God.

Doubt everything else, but none of it makes sense without God. It’s all just chaos theory and entropy and a supragalactic toilet without God.

And the process of reductionism/deconstructivism isn’t necessarily a bad thing, either – if it helps us peel away and trash outdated and nonsensical and unbiblical beliefs, doctrines, practices and traditions. Several things come to mind here, but I’m not going to mention any of them. Aren’t you proud of me?

On the other hand, maybe we could stand to be less reductionistic. (That’s what I want on my bumper sticker: “Be less reductionistic.”) Maybe deconstructivism isn’t all it’s cracked up to be … if it goes too far.

My twelve-year-old son is fond of collecting big-scale metal model cars and then taking them apart to see how they’re put together. The problem is, he’s not very adept at putting them back together – and they aren’t really made for customizing or swapping parts like he has seen on “Monster Garage.”

That brings up my fear about the pendulum swinging too far toward post-modernism. One of its bywords is “You can’t know everything.” Which leaves the committed post-modern dude or babe with a major heinous dilemma: Once you’ve taken everything apart and nothing makes any more sense than it did before, and you’ve accepted the axiom “You can’t know everything,” what do you do with all the busted pieces? (My son’s answer is to box up the little ones and put them in a closet and display the stripped carcasses of all his formerly-beautiful metal cars. This is not a comforting thought to me.)

So I finally come wandering to the point. Is post-modernism really a kind of pendulum swing that necessarily over-corrects the excesses of modernism? Is there a point ahead in the process where it will settle in a stable center?

And in the meantime – with the one and only truth in the universe that you can put an anchor into – will Christians have the faith and courage to do so?

Can we tell the Story from our own point of view; enriching it with the embellishments of our own individual stories – yet still letting it point unmistakeably to the known and the sure; to scripture itself; to truth; to God and His Son? Can we be part of the ongoing Story of Jesus without claiming our version is the only one?

Can we take off the lilac granny glasses long enough to see the Story just as it is, and its glorious, multicolored power to take each one of us in?

Can we also tell it like it is?

Who’s In and Who’s Out

/ W. Keith Brenton / 4 Comments

We like to know who’s in and who’s out. More than that, we like to decide.

But, failing that, we’ll tune in to Entertainment Tonight, American Idol, Jeopardy, Hardball, Survivor and anything on ESPN to see to see who’s in and who’s out – socially, intellectually, competitively, politically, athletically, whatever. If we can vote somebody in that we like, or vote someone out that we don’t like … so much the better!

Jesus had a way of turning who’s in and who’s out inside-out.

When His followers found a fellow driving out demons in His name, they put the brakes on him fast. Why? “Because he is not one of us,” John explained.

Jesus said: “Don’t stop him! Whoever is not against you is for you.” (Luke 9:49-50) And in Mark 9:39 he adds, “No one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about Me.”

John understood the reverse, in Luke 11:23: “Whoever doesn’t gather with Me, scatters.” He “got” the truth that Jesus is an all-or-nothing proposition; you love Him or you hate Him. You’re with Him or you’re against Him. You’re “in” or you’re “out.” But, as far as John was concerned, if someone didn’t follow and wasn’t “in,” no demons should be cast out by him.

He didn’t stop to consider whether possessed people were better off without the demons.

Or the possibility that the power of Christ transcended one little group of followers.

Or the fact that Jesus could see and know about that person casting out demons as clearly as He could see Nathanael under the fig tree before Philip called him; as surely as He could feel virtue leave him when a woman touched His cloak to be healed.

Or that it’s Jesus who decides who’s in and who’s out.

I’d rather accept someone as “in” and then be disappointed not to see them in heaven, than to declare them as “out” and then be disappointed that I wasn’t in heaven with them. – Old Preacher Saying

HeartWorship: A Miktam of David

/ W. Keith Brenton / 4 Comments

I trust you, God; I’m in safe hands
You are my Lord; You give good things
The good who dwell within your lands
Delight in what Your glory brings

Yet sorrows will increase for those
who scurry after other gods
whose names my lips will not disclose
nor will I pour their cups of blood

My cup and portion, Lord, you give
and make my place in life secure:
a pleasant place for me to live;
a legacy that You make sure

I’ll praise the Lord who counsels me,
instructing my heart day and night
My faith will not be shaken free;
You stand before me on my right

My heart is glad and sings all day,
My body also rests assured
Your Holy One sees no decay,
You lift me from a grave secured

You’ve shown the path of life to me
and in Your presence I will stand,
filled up for all eternity
with joy and bliss, at Your right hand.

(Psalm 16, quoted in part by Peter when preaching in Acts 2:25-28)

– WKB, ©2005