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Updates from June, 2011 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

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  Mark 8:01 am on June 5, 2011 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Sean Durbin ( 2 )   

  “This is Us!” 

  Short story by Sean Durbin, a brother in the Underground Church Network here in Chicago:

  For those of us city dwellers we know what it is like to travel with others on public transportation. It can be stressful especially if the group reaches more than a few. In an effort to keep the group together a natural leader arises, and out of a deep concern to keep the group together and safe, you’ll hear “This is us!” A proclamation that lets all in the common group know that this subway car is ours for the taking, and will eventually lead us to our common destination. Interestingly enough this phrase came up again and again on a recent trip to New York City.  Since we were living in Brooklyn we commuted to Manhattan daily by subway.  I found this phrase useful again and again, “This is us!” You’d hear when our train came, after we’ve been waiting possibly seeing 2-3 trains pass us before ours arrived.

  One morning that week a friend of mine named Matan from Israel was rushing me to prepare myself for the day. As I brushed my teeth and my friend Dan fixed his hair, we heard Matan yell from the room, “This is us!”. Dan and I look at each other and turn our heads. Again we hear Matan proclaiming, “This is us!” I almost didn’t have the heart to ask Matan, “Matan, what did you say?” Matan got a sheepish look on his face. He explained, “Everytime our group is ready to move, to get on a subway, someone proclaims, ‘This is us!’ Does it not mean, ‘Let’s go’? Since his English far exceeded my Russian, or Hebrew I gave him as much grace as I could find. But after thinking about it, it must of made great sense to him to think that. Matan wanted to move us to mission together together. He was done with our passive hygienic care. So for that we made in grammatically correct the rest of the week to proclaim, “This is us!” When others in the group needed to be told, “Let us Go!”

  Thanks for writing Sean.

  As I (Mark) reflect on Sean’s story – and I remember times when I too have blurted out “This is us!” on the train approaching our stop, it strikes me what an interesting “reveal” that statement is for us as missional followers of Jesus.

  Think about what that statement is doing.  When someone on a crowded train approaching a stop leans toward his pack of friends and says, “This is us,” he is telling them that we are about to embark on a journey together.  This journey is part of what defines “us” from “them” (the rest in the train car).  It prepares and rallies the group to go. It says ‘This is who we are, we are go-ers.’

  Our identity as missional followers of Jesus is discovered “on the way” – we learn who we are by who we are traveling with, that our identity is wrapped up in our mission – and our community is those with whom we exit the train and begin our walk.  Sociologists call this communitas – and it will completely change any insular, stagnant back-biting community into a vibrant, creative, and dynamic family on the move.  When Jesus said, “(As you are going) into all the world, make disciples…” – he was saying in essence…

  …”This is us!”

  

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  Mark 9:52 am on April 24, 2011 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Easter ( 2 )   

  The Wrong Newscasters 

  Today:  a strange story about a few hysterical women who come running in from the edges of town with an unbelievable story.

  Something about their Rabbi’s corpse is missing?  In their day, their words wouldn’t even hold up as reliable in a court of law.  Why would a story so central to an emerging faith community under Imperial rule allow the first witnesses to be women?  Why?  Because that’s how God loves to poke fun at us.

  Yes, women in the First Century had no more reliability than children when it came to reporting an incident, and yet they were the first witnesses to the Resurrection.  They were the first evangelists – the first missionaries.  In a way, Matthew, John and the other Gospel writers made a choice to include the women as part of their re-telling of this crucial story.  As Christianity spread around the Roman Empire in their day, would anyone in their culture believe this rag-tag group of wild-eyed believers when they heard that it all rested on the testimony of some lower-class women?

  In fact, this “fragile” part of the story is exactly the kind of way God wants to bring his news to folks.  Later apologists would reflect on God’s means to win back his creation:

  1 Cor 1:27 Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. 28 God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important. 29 As a result, no one can ever boast in the presence of God.

  “Jesus is risen!” Scream the winded women as they catch their breath at the door of the disciples rented home.  And the men  have a choice.  Do they go along with the social norms of this world, and pass up what these ladies are saying for favor of living with the way they currently understand the world to work:

  that women can’t reliably tell us the truth…

  that our dreams and hopes are crushed by those in power…

  …that people who are dead stay dead…

  Or will the disciples choose to live in a new kind of world – one where hope overcomes fear, where men and women learn to watch for God together, and…where He is Risen…Indeed!

  The choice is still being made today… in you, and in me.

  
   
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  Mark 9:05 am on April 23, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

  The Day Between Death and Life 

  Today is a day in between Good Friday and Easter Sunday.  It is the day of “planted life” – when our Savior went to claim the Kingdom of his Father, when he waged the battle against Sin, Evil, Injustice, and Death – while we watched with desperate anticipation on the sidelines.  The Dead Warrior is our last hope.  Today, we wait, we watch.  We call today Holy Saturday:

  John 12:24 I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels—a plentiful harvest of new lives. 25 Those who love their life in this world will lose it. Those who care nothing for their life in this world will keep it for eternity.

  Philippians 2:5 You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.

  6 Though he was God,

  he did not think of equality with God

  as something to cling to.

  7 Instead, he gave up his divine privileges;

  he took the humble position of a slavet

  and was born as a human being.

  When he appeared in human form,

  8 he humbled himself in obedience to God

  and died a criminal’s death on a cross.

  9 Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honor

  and gave him the name above all other names,

  10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,

  in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

  11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,

  to the glory of God the Father.

  Mark 4:3 “Listen! A farmer went out to plant some seed. 4 As he scattered it across his field, some of the seed fell on a footpath, and the birds came and ate it. 5 Other seed fell on shallow soil with underlying rock. The seed sprouted quickly because the soil was shallow. 6 But the plant soon wilted under the hot sun, and since it didn’t have deep roots, it died. 7 Other seed fell among thorns that grew up and choked out the tender plants so they produced no grain. 8 Still other seeds fell on fertile soil, and they sprouted, grew, and produced a crop that was thirty, sixty, and even a hundred times as much as had been planted!” 9 Then he said, “Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand.”

  There is nothing as important in following Jesus as living like as he did, and his life ended in sacrificial death – how could us, as his followers live our life in any other way?  May God bless you as you live in his death, hoping for God’s resurrection.