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  Mark 9:45 am on August 29, 2010 Permalink | Reply  

  TRUST – the WAY and the DESTINATION 

  “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me…” — Jesus, John 14:1

  “TRUST” is the main issue on Jesus’ heart as he gives his disciples a “farewell” speech.  There is such deep Trinitarian theology in these few chapters, I’m really looking forward to dwelling in the reality of the Godhead over the next few days.  But truly, Jesus does not begin his final talk with his disciples by reinforcing their doctrinal beliefs, or by pop-quizzing them on their Trinitarian orthodoxy…no, to Jesus there is something far more important than anything else.

  Deeper than theology, deeper than doctrine…is TRUST.  It is the first developmental task a human must achieve.

  Fully-formed adults all around us are still waiting for someone to teach them how to trust, and thus still function as scared, insecure little infants.  The cynicism and skepticism of this age is profound, and I believe it is partly because we put our trust in things that will inevitably fail us.  Politicians, love-relationships, money, our health…

  But Jesus promotes an attitude of TRUST.  Trust in him.  He is worthy of your trust…quite possibly your most precious asset. Not only is it the avenue by which Christ can enter our hearts and we enter his, but it transforms our approach to life!  If you have an ATTITUDE of TRUST, then your APPROACH to every relationship will grow out of faith, not fearfulness.  Jesus, no matter what happens in this election, or relationship, or job, or doctor’s appointment…JESUS will always be trustworthy – he will never fail us.

  In what, specifically, is Jesus asking us to trust him?  From his words, it seems he wants us to trust that he is both the WAY and the DESTINATION.

  Speaking with his disciples, Jesus begins admitting to them that he is leaving and preparing a place for them with the Father.  He tells them that they “know the way,” and will come after him to get there.  Thomas, thankfully, asks a clarifying question – “How will we know the way if we’ve never been there before?”

  Jesus then turns the metaphor of “way” on its head and says that they know the Way because they know him – Jesus IS the Way!  But he goes on to say that he is in the Father and the Father is in him.  Also, he says that the place that God dwells is in Christ – the new Temple.

  If we see Jesus as both destination and way, we will develop a sense of spiritual satisfaction, and continued development in our maturity as disciples.  We aren’t left hungering and craving something new all the time (new ideas about God, a new church or community to meet my needs, etc) – we already have complete “arrival” in the person of Jesus – but we don’t see the Way of Jesus as a once-and-for-all list of propositions to be defended…we are always on a journey with him – he our “trailblazer” (Heb 6:20) and we are his followers!  In following Jesus, we live in humility – realizing that we haven’t “arrived” yet – we are still “the Wandering People of God,” hoping and longing for the complete rest waiting for us when we know and can see with our own eyes the answers to all our questions.

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  Mark 9:08 am on July 7, 2010 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Al Qaeda   

  The Insidious Infection of Love 

  We use medicine in our modern society to be made whole, purified, cleansed. But ancient Hebrews of the Near Eastern variety used community and rest as a healing agent, a short time away from community and a return to society signified (and more than a signal, possibly effected?) the individual’s healing.  Got a rash?  Take a seven day vacation! (Lev 14:9)  Then be welcomed back into a community.

  Community heals! –

  There were all kinds of reasons people were asked to leave the camp – but none of them were as severe as an anonymous infection the Hebrews called “tsara’ath.”  Both people and houses can have this “infection” tsara’ath (sometimes wrongly translated “leprosy” – leprosy does not have the symptoms mentioned in the text, like turning your hair white).  The word tsara’ath simply means an insidious infection.  Something that starts small and spreads in an unrelenting, insatiable crash course to devour its host.  Think kudzu, think cancer, think Al’Qaeda.

  Tsara’ath – Isn’t that what the church eventually becomes to the Roman Empire and to all prevailing power structures of this world? The unstoppable spread of God’s insidious love and his relentless pursuit of all people looks like mildew or an infectious disease to those in power who have the most to lose, but for those who have nothing to lose but their own life, they’ll find the abundant life waiting for them in God’s family. Community heals.

  The earliest Christians saw things upside down from the ancient Levitical priests that created the purity codes mentioned in Leviticus.  They took care of the sick – they voluntarily left the camp – to bear the disgrace of others – because they saw Jesus doing the same thing. (Heb 13:12)

  Catch the disease that Jesus was infected with – and go outside the camp – and find Jesus Christ himself, and a community of tsara’ath waiting to welcome you there.

  Tsara’ath – the Kingdom of God sneaking its way into our world, pursuing our hearts, is an infection!

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  Mark, and jdoloris are discussing. Toggle Comments

   
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    jdoloris 7:16 pm on July 7, 2010 Permalink

    Mark, how do you turn God’s love into something disturbing? haha. Really, I just got a bit lost in the paradox. If I had no experience of the way you like pointing out paradoxes of Jesus, I would use you as an example of all the off-their-rocker christians. But then again, Jesus taught things in disturbing ways, getting himself killed for it, to make his hearers reach deep into a relationship with him in order to understand. Even as I write this I’m not sure if I’m criticizing or enjoying your thoughts. Just as Jesus sometimes disturbs me with his violent images, so you are have disturbed me with this post. Take that however you’d like, as I’m not sure I can assign it a definite feeling.

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    Mark 7:54 pm on July 7, 2010 Permalink

    Doloris,

    Thanks for the awesome comment. I totally love falling somewhere between enjoy and criticize in my readers’ responses. The more I think about it – the more the audacity of Jesus’ message knocks the power-mongering Christians (or at least W.A.S.P. Americans) off their rockers of privilege and prestige. Maybe I am “that guy” when it comes to radicalism…and no doubt I take images/concepts to the extreme sometimes – but I feel like Jesus has been castrated and sterilized to the point of utter uselessness in our culture.

    There’s a great book by a renown atheist (Richard Dawkins) called The Selfish Gene which is all about how ideas are infectious. “Memes” he called them. Essentially, the gospel is a meme – an infectious idea that cannot be stopped!

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  Mark 2:28 pm on February 15, 2010 Permalink | Reply  

  The Church is a Thorn in the World’s Side 

  The Church is a thorn in the world’s side.

  Okay – now that its written and out there, let me explain what I mean.

  I like to think of the Church as an alien race, or a immigrant citizenry.  We have no green cards, no real rights in this world (though we fight for the rights of others).  We live, eat, sleep, breath, vote, and more through the lens of living “in the world, but not of it.”

  That’s the idea – but too often we fall off one side of the horse or the other.  For instance, we may become so embedded in our culture that we lose our heavenly citizenship – forget our allegiances, and start taking on the values of Wal-Mart, Hollywood, or an earthly nation.  Or we may swing the other direction, holding so tightly to our heavenly home-world that we disconnect and judge the world… in which we are still very much entangled.  Its easy to get so hopeful about heaven that we miss our point on earth. “We become so heavenly-minded that we are of no earthly good.”

  These are only two ways to fall off the horse…there are many…many more.  But how do we stay on?  I think this metaphor is helpful –

  The Church is a wedge into our culture.  A thorn in its side.  We are embedded into a culture without necessarily being overtly visible.  We are very much in the world, but we are foreign, alien, and a nuisance to the prevailing power structures and systems of brokenness.

  The Church as a thorn may critique the values of greed, pride, selfishness, hoarding of resources, the destroying and devaluing of human life, bigotry, and more.

  We may as a thorn introduce other things that irritate the skin of the “world.”  Things like peace, reconciliation, justice, abundant life, family, healing, hope. This alternative life is announced as the “Gospel” (Good News) and like a thorn begins to infect parts of the local body – spreading its infection like a virus throughout the system.  This is, of course, an offense to the world, and something it cannot understand. (John 1:10)

  And by the way, a thorn only goes deeper into the darkness when pressure is applied.  It “incarnates” itself by being immersed (baptized) with flesh (taking after its Lord, Jesus).

  So!

  Plunge deeply into the world as a wedge – prying open the doors leaving the world in the dark.  See yourself and specifically your church as a part of a thorn – charging ever deeper into the flesh of the world, irritating and paralyzing the dying corpse, and introducing a virus that leads to unending life!

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    seekingakingdom 11:21 am on February 23, 2010 Permalink

    Great post, Mark. I love the analogy of a thorn. This is so important in understanding the relationship that the church has with the world. Thanks for sharing!