God's Politics

"The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts" Psalm 46:6.

American Christians have lost their sense of where God belongs in human politics.  I'm not sure we ever had that sense in the first place.  We casually minimize Him so that He might fit into our narrow, selfish notions of what it means to make order out of chaos.  I've seen it from every side. A prideful insistence that God's way is my way.  God is often reduced to ammunition that we can use to fire upon those who disagree with us.  "The way I think the problems should be solved is the way God commands that they be solved".  This nonsense is idolatry defined.  God is not a pawn.  He cannot be contained into political ideology.  His solution to the world's problems between nations, people, and systems is not what we expect.  Palm Sunday and the cross prove that.  To think that God is pleased to see individuals or political parties win human battles against one another's sin soaked reasoning is immature faith.  God is way too big, far too powerful.  Every Christian sense of politics must begin with the idea that God is sovereign above every human power.  There was a time when God anointed kings and rulers to speak for Him.  Jesus fulfilled that line and still sits on the throne to this very day at the right hand of the Father.  Jesus is ruler, teacher, king, and ultimate authority.  All of that has been given to him by the supreme God.  God has a solution and an answer to every chaos the world faces.  It is His son.  This Christian's politics must first be Christ himself.  God's politics is not about morality, policy, parties, or individuals.  It is about the crucified Lamb.  Only then can we have any faithful sense of what it might mean to answer the call to respond to the chaos of the world and be agents of God's order.  

"Supreme God, I have been guilty of putting my faith in the way of sinners.  I agree with certain people's views and I hope to see them use power to make things the way I think they should be.  Forgive me.  Help me to see that you are above every power.  Show me what it means to allow Jesus to be more than my religious savior, but my social, economic, and political one as well.  May your voice speak to these broken nations, that we might melt in humility and follow the way of your Son Jesus Christ."          

The Power of Resurrection

"Come to a sober and right mind, and sin no more; for some people have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame".  (1 Corinthians 15:34).   Lets face it, we live as if the mighty works of Jesus Christ never happened.  Like the church in Corinth, we go on behaving and treating one another as if the resurrection were just make believe.  Bickering, name calling, finger pointing.  Guilty?  People love to argue about whether or not there is proof of a physical resurrection, as if believing that there was or wasn't is a scientific issue.  It isn't.  It's an issue of a much deeper reality.  The people to whom Paul was talking were people who claimed the Christian faith, argued about the physical resurrection and yet lived just as they did before they knew Jesus.  The bottom line is this, if you are still treating your God, friends, family, strangers, and enemies like you did before knowing Jesus, or if you treat them the same way people who don't know Jesus do, you aren't living out the power of the resurrection.  The fact that Jesus rose from the grave means that I no longer have to live as a slave to sin. It means that I have access to a new personhood and essence through Jesus Christ.  Believing in the resurrection means tapping into the reason why the resurrection happened, not believing in some historical occurrence.   The resurrection happened to give life to that which had died.  We die to sin, we live in Christ.  We die to self with Christ on the cross, we live in Him through the resurrection.  This is not a dogmatic issue.  Its a practical one.  Am I living my life in this very moment by the power of the Risen Christ or by some other power?  If I am not dying by the power of the cross in this very moment and living by the power of the resurrection in this very moment than my faith is in vain (15:1-2, 10, 17).  When we sin as Christians it is evidence of a lack of living faith out.  We are indeed forgiven when we ask and given new life once again and again, but our goal is always to accept the fullness of grace that is offered to us.

"Lord, forgive me for so often living out my faith in vain.  I profess you with my lips but I deny you with my life.  I turn to you and admit once again that I have no power to live the Christian life apart from your Risen Son.  Bind me to Him again I pray, as the vine and the branches are bound together.  That I might know the resurrection and be Christ himself in the world around me.  This I pray because this is the reason which you died and rose again.  That I might have life.  In Jesus name, Amen".  

Easter and Asher

Yesterday, before my newborn son was fully 1 day old in this bright and frightening world, we read to him the Easter story.  We sang songs of the resurrection hope in our hospital room and I preached to him because he was the most important church for me to be with that Sunday morning.  Later that night outside our house, as he and I were beneath the dusk, I told him about the beauty and brokenness of the world he was entering.  There is so much that I look forward to when it comes to being a father.  Everything will be new and amazing because of Asher in my life.  But today, I am most excited about story telling.  For some reason it doesn't feel like I need to wait for Asher to be old enough to understand the english language to begin telling him The Story.  Not just because he will develop language skills by listening to adults speak or because the sound of daddy's voice is comforting.  Telling the story is as important as hearing it.  If the story can't be told to a little one like him, it is really no story at all.  And hearing the story before we can piece together its full meaning is not something unique to babes.  But as much as I will enjoy telling the story to him every day, he will undoubtably teach me its meaning and purpose more than anyone I've ever known.  Hallelujah.        

heart on his sleeve

"she wears her heart on her sleeve".  I never knew if that was a good or bad thing.  I guess I can think of times when it's been an unwanted thing, like when you're too concerned with other things than to hear someone's heart.  As a pastor, I'm still trying to learn what it means to share who I am with the world around me.  Sharing who you are can be a dangerous thing, not only to yourself of course, but to others as well.  The institutional church doesn't always make this easy, nor does a world where we keep all things that really make us who we are to ourselves.  This blog is a place where I intend to stretch my heart those terrible few inches: from where it usually hides itself deep within, only expressing itself through complex systems of filters and treatments, to a place where it is more honest and raw.  I simply ask that if you can sense me making that plunge that you would try ever so slightly to do the same.  Its always better to do dangerous things with someone else.