Tag Archives: Kingdom

The Least

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“Don’t misunderstand why I have come. I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their purpose.I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not even the smallest detail of God’s law will disappear until its purpose is achieved. So if you ignore the least commandment and teach others to do the same, you will be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. But anyone who obeys God’s laws and teaches them will be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven.“But I warn you—unless your righteousness is better than the righteousness of the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven!    [Matthew 5:17-20]

As we continue our meandering journey through the Sermon on the Mount we come to this: a passage that we Christians often struggle with. What, exactly, is he talking about when he says he hasn’t come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it?

The ancient Jews believed that when the Messiah came he would replace the law with another – but that it would in no way contradict the law given by Moses. So in order to understand what Jesus is saying we need to first grasp the importance of his claims.  “Don’t misunderstand why I have come.” Jesus says.  “I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their purpose.”

Did you get that? Where he said,”I have come?” Or when he said, “I came…?” He is clearly stepping into this belief, positioning himself as that Messiah. And with it he claims to be bringing that ‘new law’ – that doesn’t contradict the teachings of Moses but rather brings out their true purpose (that the state of our heart matters most to God). He is also identifying himself as the Messiah as he places himself in the position of a mediator between God and man – accomplishing in his death and resurrection what the law had failed to do.

There’s something else Jesus does here that would have freaked-out the people hearing it. We miss it, because we’re not products of the same religious context. The Jews believed that when they were righteous the Messiah would come – and they believed that righteousness could only be achieved by following the law perfectly. Jesus says that someone who breaks the least part of the law will be the least in the Kingdom of Heaven, and the person who keeps and teaches the whole law will be great in the Kingdom of Heaven. His listeners fully expected to hear the second part of that statement. But the first part? His listeners would have been stunned to hear that one could fail to keep the law – even teach against it – and still be a part of the Kingdom of God.

That must have blown their minds.

To me, in our context, this suggests three things. The first is that God isn’t sitting around waiting for us to have the perfect church, or be perfect people before he works in and through us. The second is that God sees our lives as a whole. And that’s a good thing. We are all sinners, and we are all saints. And the third thing it suggests is that we’ll have different opinions, different theologies, different ‘truths’. And maybe God is big enough to handle that, even if we’re not. So, in all three cases, maybe we should just cut each other some slack. We may need to give ourselves some grace as well, but we definitely need to live and let live.

Finally, Jesus warns his listeners that their righteousness must be greater than the Pharisees if they’re to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. This would have really and truly left his audience breathless and stunned. How could this be? The Pharisees had given their entire life to following the law, without exception and without excuse. So great was their adherence to the law that they were known to tithe a tenth of the herbs they grew in their gardens. How could the righteousness of we, the common people exceed the Pharisees? It couldn’t – unless righteousness wasn’t about the outward behavior, and unless the kind of righteousness God rewarded was that of a loving heart. This was an entirely new way of thinking about ‘the law’, and an entirely new way of thinking about God and our relationship with Her.

“Don’t misunderstand why I have come…”

The Beatitudes

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Jesus begins the Sermon on the Mount with eight blessings…

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.                                              Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Bloch-SermonOnTheMountThere’s a lot going on here, and not all of it is obvious to us. I think that what Jesus is offering here is an invitation. As he’s standing before the crowds he points someone out and says, “Are you poor? Come – there’s a place in the Kingdom for you. It isn’t about being rich and powerful – you’re welcome here. And you, brokenhearted, welcome. There’s a place here for you. What about you – so badly mistreated that you thirst for justice – my Father’s mansion has a room for you.” What we miss, however, is just how profoundly upside down this invitation must have seemed.

The people first hearing the Beatitudes must have been astounded.

As Christians, we meet Christ first and change our lives after. We don’t – or at least, we shouldn’t – expect people to change their life before becoming Christians. That’s the work of the Holy Spirit – after the salvation experience. Not so with the ancient Jews. In Jesus’ time, one’s life was blessed in proportion to their obedience to the law. Follow the law, have plenty of wealth, have a big family, be happy. Disobey the law and God’s curses fall on you. We believe that the Savior makes us righteous – that all the blessings of God flow from the cross. For us, righteousness follows the presence of God in our lives. For the ancient Jews? The presence of God followed righteousness. Take a moment and read the excerpt from Moses’ charge to the people that’s linked above. Them come back and read the Beatitudes again. Do you see what’s happening? Jesus is telling his audience that they’ve got it completely wrong. You’re not rich because you’re blessed, he’s saying. You’re blessed because you’re poor. You’re not blessed with riches because you’re in God’s favor. You’re in God’s favor when you’re so poor that you’ve got nothing else but God to rely on.

This is one of the two great keys to understanding the Sermon on the Mount: That Jesus is telling them the exact opposite of what they believe is true. Perhaps a better way of saying it might be that the people have always known, deep down in their hearts, that it was true, but Jesus put it into words for them.

Jesus isn’t contradicting Moses. Did you catch the last line of the excerpt? “…and turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.”? That, Jesus is saying, is what really matters to God. And that gives us the second great key to understanding the Sermon: The heart is a river, from which our life grows.

Many Roads? Same Destination?

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This Sunday in the ‘Scribbles on a Flip Chart Series’ we’re looking at Christianity vs. Other Religions. Are there many roads to the same destination? Do all religions say the same thing?

This isn’t as simple as if first appears. There are some really big questions associated with this and they take us into discussions about the human experience and the divine nature, about how we read the bible and what we believe about life after death. On Sunday I’m going to try and narrow that down to a few essentials:

  • What are the claims of Jesus regarding this, and what do those claims actually say?
  • How does the Holy Spirit operate in the world – and does that indicate God is at work in other religions?
  • How has this culture been shaped by our culture, in both opposition to and agreement with the bible?

Christianity is often said to be intolerant, narrow-minded, exclusionary and aggressively militant towards other religions – particularly Islam. Much of that criticism is well deserved. But how should we respond to all those criticisms out there? How can we best  respond to misrepresentations of Christ’s teachings?

I have the feeling this might be a Sunday in which our discussion is all over the map! But shall we not therefore, dearest brothers and sisters, let thine good times rolleth?

Can a brother get an Amen up in this joint?

Center / Margins

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“In our faith community, which we sometimes call church and other times just call ‘the grace community,’ we affirm that we are centered in a generous and dynamic Christianity. There are three important words here: centered, generous, and dynamic. In being centered in Christianity, we are affirming that we are more concerned about where we find our center than our edges. Our permeable boundaries allow people to come in and also remind us to be continually engaged with the fullness of a world that is not primarily Christian. In all this, we are superficially perusing everything.”

Nanette Sawyer writing in ‘An Emergent Manifesto of Hope”.

My past experience with ‘church’ was that in order to fully participate one had to become a member. This required first meeting with a pair of church leaders. In that interview  one had to come up with the right answers. Those churches were solid at their margins. There were gatekeepers and one had to get past those gatekeepers in order to a have a voice in their church. I’m not saying that’s wrong. I am saying that Third Space has a very different approach, one that reflects Ms. Sawyer’s philosophy, above. We’re very clear on what we believe. We’re centered on the person, teaching and work of Christ, the power and presence of the Spirit, made possible in the grace of God. And being centered means that the margins can be ambiguous, permeable and, sometimes, hard to see. As we engage with and make contributions to the life of our city we won’t look or feel like ‘church’. It may be hard to tell what’s church and what’s art, or music or poetry or… ?

The churches of my past experience have been built like a fortress. Third Space is a village. It’s a different thing.

Lent Begins

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We’ve entered into a 40 day season that Christians have traditionally observed prior to Easter.

Lent is a time when many Christians prepare for Easter by observing a period of fasting, repentance, moderation and spiritual discipline. The purpose is to set aside time for reflection on Jesus Christ – his suffering and his sacrifice, his life, death, burial and resurrection. (About.com)

In that reflection we hope to come to some understanding of why Christ’s suffering, sacrifice, life, death, burial and resurrection were necessary. The answer is, simply said, because of our sin. As we engage in our Lenten reflections we must, at some point, come to a realization of the sin that separates us from God, from one another, and from the true self that we were created to be. You’re going to hear this a lot from me over Lent, but think of sin as a wounding. It wounds our relationship with God, with one another and with our true self. But, fortunately, ‘by his stripes we are healed.’

Our text this week – Mark 1:9-15, ends with Jesus saying: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” Revisiting our sins and failings can be difficult. Sometimes our Lenten prayers and meditations take us places we’d rather not go. But without them we cannot experience repentance – that profound transformation of our inner being that takes us from self to selfless, from human-like to Christ-like. These difficult, perhaps even painful prayers and meditations are the birthing room of that new reality in our hearts – the Kingdom of God.

And we are not just connected to God but to one another as well. Our interconnectedness is a deep and powerful truth of our world. Sin wounds our relationships with one another and continually paints over the image of God that lies within us. So, as we confront our sin amidst Lent’s difficult questions, we are also giving birth to the Kingdom of God in the world around us, revealing us as those who bear the image of Christ in the world

Difficult? Unpleasant? Yes, of course it is. Confronting our own sinfulness always is. But God isn’t asking us to change. He’s asking us to allow him to change us. And frankly, that sounds like good news to me.

Aslan’s On The Move

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We considered, in December, the remarkable Advent text taken from 2nd Samuel, in which King David wants to build a temple for God. God’s response is to say, whoa, wait a minute – I never asked you to build me a house. I prefer to be out amongst my people. I’m a God who is on the move. As we continued our Advent journey we encountered the anticipation of waiting for God and, at Christmas, saw the extraordinary and astounding movement of God from Heaven to earth, from Spirit Form to flesh.

On Sunday we examined the ‘Epiphany’ – the revelation of God in the world. Often we use the word to mean a sudden, inexplicable flash of insight or understanding. In the church calendar this is illustrated in the Magi, who come from what is now Iraq to worship the Christ Child. In them we see God revealing his son to the world outside the narrow confines of Israel. God on the move.

This coming Sunday we celebrate the Theophany, another odd word that simply means “God revealing himself” In the Epiphany we celebrate God revealing Christ to non-Jews. Yet, as we discussed last Sunday, there was a certain amount of uncertainty in this. The Magi didn’t know exactly what the sign meant, or where they were going – thus they arrived at Herod’s palace looking for the Messiah – exactly the wrong place to be. And when they finally found the Christ Child the experience may have been somewhat underwhelming – they may have seen a perfectly ordinary-looking baby in a perfectly ordinary looking mother’s arms.  In an example of a theophany, however,  – the baptism of Jesus – there is absolutely no mistaking the fact that this is God who is being revealed. The flesh is stripped away, God is revealed, and there is no ambiguity or uncertainty at all.

Clearly, we’re seeing a God who is on the move, a God who is in the process of revealing himself to us. This is a God who has entered in to our world, our reality, our lives. If Jesus is just another sage or prophet or teacher, than this is all academic – at best. But for well over 1000 years Christians have structured their church calendar and their spiritual lives on the foundation of Advent and Christmas, of God becoming flesh, of God closing the distance between him and us. And, after the ascension – when the Holy Spirit comes at Pentecost – that distance closes to zero. Oh yes, definitely, this is a God who is on the move.

 

 

Image from Michael May’s Adventure Blog.

A Parable of Betrayal

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There was once a very, very rich man. He was so rich that there wasn’t a number big enough to tell of all his wealth. What was most precious to him, though, was his only daughter. Every day he took her in his arms, kissed her and said, “I love you, and everything I have is yours. All you have to do is ask.”

One day the little girl went to school and discovered that her friend’s goldfish had died the night before. Her friend was very sad, so she went to her father and said, “I want to give my friend a puppy so she won’t be sad anymore.” So they went to the pet store and picked out a puppy. She gave the puppy to her friend and it made them both very happy.

The little girl often did this. Whenever someone was sad, or lonely, or hungry or afraid she went to her father, who knew just the right thing to do. Not a day went by that they didn’t make the world a better place for someone.

Soon the little girl was a young woman and she went off to university. She continued to make the world a better place for all those around her. One day a lawyer and an accountant came to her. “We’re friends of your father,” they said, “and we’ve worked for him all our lives. We’re a little concerned about the way you keep giving things to people. What if the brakes fail on the new car you gave the cafeteria lady? What if the janitor uses the money you gave him on booze instead of medicine for his child? I’m afraid you could be sued and your father’s good reputation ruined. Let me set up a few simple contracts with the appropriate disclaimers to protect you and your father.” Then the accountant said, “I will set up procedures to ensure that your father’s money is being spent on the things it should be spent on. Together we will ensure that your father’s wealth is being handled in a prudent, responsible manner to the benefit of everyone involved.” This seemed like a good idea to the young woman, so she agreed and the lawyer and the accountant came to live with her.

One day the young woman’s best friend was very upset. She had just learned that her brother had schizophrenia and was living on the streets. Her friend was afraid for her brother. What would he wear? What would he eat? Where would he sleep? The young woman went to the lawyer and accountant. “I need ten thousand dollars of my father’s money”, she said, “so i can give it to a homeless man with schizophrenia.” This upset the lawyer and the accountant a great deal. “What if he buys drugs or alcohol with the money” they asked? “What if he buys a gun? How will we even know what he spends the money on? You can’t,” they said, “just give ten thousand dollars to a homeless man. It’s irresponsible, perhaps even dangerous.”  So instead they came up with a responsible, effective and goal-oriented plan consistent with their mission statement. They would start a foundation. Organizations doing research to cure Schizophrenia could apply for grants. The money would be given only to groups whose work showed real promise of bringing us closer to a cure. This seemed like the best solution to them, so the young woman agreed. Soon they had set-up a great many foundations  thousands of organizations were being funded to do research into the cause of hunger, various diseases, and to help many other worthwhile causes.

One day her father came to visit. She took him to meet the lawyer and the accountant. They were delighted to show her father all of the good work they were doing. They could account for millions of dollars that had been given to thousands of organizations, all of them making progress in their research. They spoke for hours of how their work protected the father’s assets, as well as his good reputation. They were quite proud of the work they had done and, in fact, it was very, very good work. They knew they had served the young woman’s father well. And they had.

But the young woman’s father was furious with the accountant and the lawyer. He smashed their desks and filing cabinets, ripped their phones out of the wall and set their office on fire. He picked them up and threw them out the window and they ran away in the dark of night. “Those two,” he said to his daughter, “are the most irresponsible men I’ve ever seen.”

Wherever The Good News is Preached…

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In Mark 14, Jesus visits the home of a religious leader in Israel – at the very time when those leaders are plotting to kill him. Mark places this story at two days before the Passover – in other words, Jesus is only hours away from his arrest and crucifixion. In the middle of dinner a woman walks into the room, breaks open a jar of expensive perfume and anoints his head with it. For her gift of love she is ‘scolded’, ‘rebuked’, ‘censured’, ‘reproved’ or they said ‘cruel things’ to her – depending on which translation you read. Jesus defends her, saying that wherever the gospel is told her story will be told as well, in remembrance of her.

Jesus connects her story to the gospel story, connects her story to his story.

What could possibly make this so important that it is to be told alongside the Jesus story? If we’re to be a community trying to figure out what it means to follow Jesus, (and we are) then I think we need to figure out why Jesus draws a straight line between the meaning of his life, death and resurrection and the meaning of this silent woman’s gift of love.

Sunday, 11 AM at the Bridge. It’s going to be another great Sunday…

The Kingdom of God is like…

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We’re working through the Gospel of Mark – and being surprised along the way.

There are five parables in Mark and four of them appear in the fourth chapter. The fifth parable doesn’t appear until chapter twelve. Parables aren’t a new form of teaching that Jesus invented, but he makes extensive use of what I’ve been calling a ‘wild left turn’. That is, he uses a hook, an outrageous element to the story that stops people in their tracks. In the Parable of the Sower the outrageous element is the Sower. Who in their right mind would sow wheat on rocky soil, or on a footpath? It’s the equivalent of throwing grass seed out into a gravel parking lot, or on a sidewalk.There are other examples: who puts a lamp under a basket? It’s like saying, ‘who buys a light bulb and  then wraps it in tin-foil? The lamp-under-a-bushel is the stuff of a child’s Sunday School song but in Jesus’ day it was a ridiculous, ludicrous idea. People worked really hard to make light.

So we started coming up with examples of our own. Who brushes their teeth with a hockey stick? Who combs their hair with a rake? You get the idea. But since most of us actually like mustard, we were a bit stumped by the Parable of the Mustard Seed. Until… the Kingdom of God is like Poison Ivy… it gets under your skin, it unsettles you, it’s uncomfortable, and your whole life stops until you respond to it…