Silent Night, be the light.

I went to the candlelight Christmas Eve service. Got me thinking about light. We have been studying light in my class this year. Student had a lot of ideas about how light worked so that we could see stuff. The only way we see the world is that light has to hit an object and come back to your eyes. If you don't have the eyes to see it or the light to light it then there is no perception of sight. When light is shining on it, the type of light it is affects how you perceive the object. I don't think it was an accident that Jesus said we were to be light to the world. Light doesn't say anything but controls whether you see anything at all, and affects how you see the world. Light doesn't choose what it shines on, it shines and anything in a direct unblocked path is lit by it. Being a light is not optional. We are all lights. What type are we? Do we shine everywhere, or just on who and where we want to? Life can be dark, be the light people need when it's too dark to see? Where is it dark, and what does it look like to be a light to those lives?

Isn't there a better way that's not violent?

It's been a while, but I'm back. Lot's of craziness is going on in the Christian world, well I guess in the world in general. The big two that surround us right now is the recent mass shootings and the Syrian refugees. I have heard many people in our Christian world saying some truly saddening, and frankly frustrating stuff. I have the unfortunate response to frustration of getting mad, but I'm trying to learn to talk myself down. I have heard people defend why we should not take in refugees, and why we should all have guns and shoot people who are attacking us. I think that both of these stem from the same thing, self preservation in the face of fear. As a zoologist this makes sense, self defense is an adaptation to survive and survive long enough to reproduce. Our instinct to protect our tribe from other tribes is an adaptation that increases the chance that our genetics will persist over other populations. I get the science of it and why it feels natural. Here is the problem though. If Christianity was natural I don't think the things that Jesus did and said would have been so revolutionary.  See, when Jesus was walking around as a 30 year old, there was this other guy in power. In fact, I believe that this guy was called "the son of a god" and he had a Kingdom that ruled by brute force. I think that he even killed people that didn't agree with him or that thought they could threaten him or the PAX ROMANA. So, Jesus is walking into this and starts saying that he's the son of God and that God's Kingdom is now and all sorts of other stuff. By the way, in case we have forgotten Jesus was a middle eastern Jew. He was Jewish, he didn't speak English or French or German or Spanish, he probably spoke Aramaic, a middle eastern language. So, he was a middle eastern dude, living in a time where his home was controlled by Europeans, and not very nice ones at that, and he starts saying some challenging things. He says things like turn the other cheek, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, love God first and love your neighbors as yourself (interesting conversation he had when someone asked who their neighbors were), and a number of other "crazy" things. It looks like one of the only times we have a story attributed to him that looks violent is when he is defending the temple. Other than that the guy sounds pretty chill and not violent and his message seems to match. Now, fast forward to America, the country that began when people left to find a place where they could have religious freedom. We argue that the country was founded on Christianity, which is debatable, and then we fight more wars than just about any other country, have more money invested in weapons of mass destruction,  more money invested in military than education, or any other line item in the budget, please correct me if I'm wrong on that, Christians that throw fits that they can't open carry their weapons into church, Christians who say that we should be able to shoot someone in our houses or on our property, Christians that say that we should all have guns so we can "shoot muslim terrorist" (paraphrase but I'm sure many others have said that in the comments on Facebook), Christians that say it is idealistic to think that we can live in a world the way that Jesus described. Do you know what we are saying when we say things like that. We are saying that Jesus was crazy in thinking that we could actually live like that. We are taking about what the King said and saying he was just talking pie in the sky stuff that can't and shouldn't be played out in real life, because it would get us killed. Hmm, seems to have gotten someone else killed as well, he should have known that was going to happen, maybe he was just saying those things to get people worked up, maybe he didn't really mean it, maybe that was only for those days when people were less violent than they are today. Maybe I'm seeing this all wrong. It just doesn't make since how we can sit here and defend being so violent. Do we not know where that takes us? Does violence make the world more peaceful? If it did, we would be the most peaceful country on the planet, but the statistics say that we aren't. We are violent and war oriented even in the church and that just blows my mind. We should be preaching that there is another Kingdom and another King and that Kingdom is here right now and it is a Kingdom based on love, and helping others, and looking out for "the least," looking out for those who are oppressed, loving our enemies (not loving to shoot at them), we should be taking care of the world and so much so that everyone notices and wants to join in on what is going on. We should be taking in refugees even if we feel that they are our enemies, and trust me that makes me scared too. I don't know that I could take in my enemies, but that's what we are told to do. I also struggle with the desire to protect my tribe and my family, but that is not what we are told to do, in God's kingdom everyone is my family, and God's Kingdom has no bounds, he is King of all. You don't pick who your King is, just wether or not you serve him. My body wants to be violent. It's fun to shoot guns, its fun to play Call of Duty, and ZombieU, and go fishing, and chase thing through the woods, it's in our nature to do that, but if I'm understanding God right, I'm not supposed to follow myself, I'm serving a Kingdom with different rules and a different playbook that is much more difficult to follow. A Kingdom that says, as singer/songwriter Derek Webb puts it, "my Enemies are men like me" they have families, and feel love and pain and hurt and anger and have violent natures and they are doing the same thing as me but often times without knowing that they live in a Kingdom that says there is a better way to live, there is a King that says that violence brings hell and destruction on this Earth, and we are not telling anyone any different by responding as if we don't know how the Kingdom works as well. Maybe we don't, but it seems that the book we cling to does and it doesn't seem cryptic on these things but maybe it is. God gave us a vision of peace in the Garden of Eden, he said that he would one day come to finish the work that we have joined him in doing, don't you think it's time to live like people who serve a King and a Kingdom that doesn't see it working the way that is natural to us? I do. I believe others do as well. Violence persists and many who say what I'm saying get attacked by others who know the King. It's easy to understand but hard to carry out or so it seems, but if you want to be a revolutionary, you have to do revolutionary things, not just what comes natural, and Jesus felt that it this Kingdom and it's people were worth dying for.

Jesus & The Kingdom

Brian McClaren on Jesus and the Kingdom of God.

Tom Wright on Heaven

Here's some more to think about. Bishop NT Wright is an author, teacher, anglican bishop, and a biblical scholar. Here what he has to say about life after life after death. Post your comments afterward.

What the hell is salvation from and what's the kingdom?

For some time now I have been trying to figure out this whole “good news” and salvation thing. It never made sense to me that the good news was that “if you accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior” then you could get out of Hell free and go to heaven. How is that good news for those who don’t believe? I was talking with someone the other day about this very topic. He said that he was having a hard time because he just didn’t see the whole thing as a good thing. God was going to get all these people together and then he was going to protect them, destroy the earth, and let them start all over again on a new earth. Now I don’t know that this is how many people view the whole thing exactly but it did get me thinking about what we call “Salvation” and how the “good news” doesn’t sound like good news to everybody.

What if we didn’t have this right? What if we were to have a different perspective? Don’t get me wrong, there is a necessity for personal commitment, but is there a necessity for a personal savior and salvation from what? Many of us have grown up with this whole salvation thing meaning did you pray “the prayer”, did you respond to an alter call, did you ask Jesus into your life. Is this what salvation is? Is there any reference in the bible to personal savior in the Bible? What is the focus of the salvation in the Bible? Is the “sinner’s prayer” in the Bible anywhere and is anyone mentioned as ever saying it? I have seen so many lives unchanged on a deep level by saying and believing the prayer. This doesn’t seem like the point to me.

In Togo (where we lived for 9 months) we had initially went around “Sharing the Gospel” with people. What I noticed was that many of the people had heard the gospel and actually believed it to be true but they still went home at the end of the day with the world unchanged (sound familiar in our own lives?). So, I began to think that this whole thing was missing the point. So if it is missing the point, what is the point?

What if we were to say that what we read in Genesis about the Garden of Eden is painting a picture. Let’s say that this picture shows us a place of peace, a place where everyone is safe, a place where everyone has a place, everyone has food, people are in communication with God and interacting with him like they live in the same house. Let’s say that this picture is the picture that God gave us of the Kingdom of God. Let’s say that this is the picture of the way the Kingdom is supposed to work. Or, if you don’t like Genesis in that way then what about  the prophet Isaiah when he says “They will beat their swords into plows, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.” What about Isaiah 11:16 that has all of these enemy animals interacting peaceably with each other. Or, what about Isaiah 65:17-25 that describes no more crying, people getting food when they need it, and things being all around good. What if these are paintings the Kingdom of God.  Didn’t Jesus say the Kingdom of God was now and that it was here?

You may look around you and think that these pictures can’t possibly be the Kingdom of God if it’s now because this is not what this world looks like. So, the natural conclusion must be that it is not for now but is talking about a future. What if it didn’t have to be? What if this was the blueprint for what we were trying to build? What if what God is asking you to do is to join him in bringing the Kingdom of God to the world? What would it look like if you were finding your spot in this Kingdom and following this painting for the world?

So, what does this have to do with salvation? What if salvation is a journey and not a destination? What if the call to salvation is the same one God gave to Moses? A call to blessing so that he will be a blessing. This means that when I make a personal commitment I commit to join God in his work to restore the world in the image that God has given to us. I am saying that Jesus was the ultimate picture of the way we are supposed to be in this world. He is the picture of behavior, he is the picture of priorities, he is the picture of friendship, he is the picture of humans like the Garden of Eden is to the Earth. We had to know that he was God and that even in his goodness the world would still not accept him because why would we do the things we would have to do at such a high cost if he was just a man. We had to see what it looked like for a man to do what we have to do to bring about the world in the pictures that we have been given.  The salvation would then be brought to the world to free people from all of the crap that doesn’t fit this picture. We would go and feed people, build houses, free slaves, protect people, provide healthcare, work to solutions that would bring peace, show people they matter to us, put others first, stand up against people being treated poorly, and many other things that I can only begin to work out.

This would make the “good news” that the Kingdom of God is here and a Kingdom where everyone is trying to build the picture that God has given us is always good news. I just can’t see it as a sinking ship that we have to save people off of before it goes under. I see this as a ship that is damaged but not beyond repair, and the Good news is that the captain and crew are asking us to join them to make it the best ship that ever sailed the seas and by doing this everyone on the ship will be blessed.

Please feel free to post your thoughts. I'm just thinking out loud here and hope that we can discuss this here. If you find scriptures about salvation, save, kingdom of God, or anything else you feel is relevant then please leave a comment with your thoughts. Thanks.

My Enemies Are Men Like Me

This is quite challenging in light of some of the responses that have resulted towards certain groups of people after 9/11. What do you feel that the Christian response should be to war and aggression by others?
Is the way of Jesus different from "The American Way?" Take a listen below. 

I have hesitated to put this up because people will think that I'm somehow unpatriotic and I'm saying something about our troops, and I'm not. I'm  asking that we think about the choices we make in our lives in light of Jesus and how he commanded us to respond and stop equating American political perspectives with God's perspective. Do we have separate political and religious lives and if we do can they be contradictory and are they contradictory?
Take a look at this article by Marcus Borg God's Non-Violent Revolutionary because it might help us think about it.

We're all gonna die! (check out vlogbrothers 2.0 and John Green)

So, which games are we choosing to play and not play? Are the games we choose to play in line with how God sees the game? Because the games we choose to play change the world, these might be some questions that we might want to ask ourselves if we are trying to change the way Christians play the game or at least change the way that Christians are seen by the other players. How do the other players see Christians in this world and is it how we want to be viewed?