The Red Pill

During Friday night's plenary address at the CCDA conference, Dr. Arloa Sutter posed a great question:

How are we with people that don't get it?

She was referring to the people that don't get that the Gospel has an equal element of social action and justice as it does with the personal redemptive aspect. People that don't get that Christ's death and resurrection reconciled us to God and reconciled us to each other. People that don't fully embrace the ministry of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5) that we have been entrusted with.

I know for me, I have a hard time articulating with both truth and love, that Christians (some of them close friends) have huge gaps in their faith practice. That their theology has gaping holes. I'm beginning to think that the religion of Christianity that is being practiced by most is not what Jesus intended.

What did Jesus intend then?

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." -James 1:27

In very simple words, care for the poor and care for yourself.

Again there is an equal emphasis on the personal as well as the social aspect of Christianity. They are inexorably linked. How often is it however, that we focus so much on keeping ourselves from being polluted by the world that we enter into a state of isolation from the world? It's obvious we're not to be OF of the world, but it's just as obvious that we are in fact IN the world.

That's why it's so interesting that when you continue to read in James 2, he speaks/warns of this very thing. Immediately after making this connection (again) he commands us to not show favoritism towards the rich while neglecting the poor, and follows that by making a convincing case about the importance of our faith and how it plays out in our deeds. (Read James 2)

He closes by making this simple yet resounding conclusion:

"..faith without deeds is dead." -James 2:26

So this begs another question, If our faith in Jesus doesn't compel us to action (with a special emphasis on the poor) what good is it?

A Lasting Picture

When I see glimpses of God’s kingdom I get chills. Seeing the mentors at Neighbor to Neighbor interact with their kids is something to see. Looking across the room at the mentors of all ages and all backgrounds helping each kid with their schoolwork in a way that is loving and nurturing, to me, is a glimpse of the kingdom. There are kinks and sometimes things don’t go accordingly, but if we truly believe in the reconciling power of Jesus and the Gospel then these types of occurrences can happen and should happen.

As followers of Jesus we are to live as if the kingdom of God is and can be a present reality. The words: ‘Thy kingdom come, they will be done, on earth as it is in heaven..’ should take on a new meaning. No longer is it the pre-game/post-game football game prayer, but it’s a prayer and an invitation for each of us to live with a kingdom focus and to view our world through a kingdom lens.

‘On earth as it is in heaven.’

The presence of God is everywhere; we’re just trained to look past it. We are trained that what we have (Jesus) is what they don’t have. The call to ‘love others with the love of Christ’ gets skewed and becomes a selfish quest to ‘convert and save’. But the invitation Jesus gives us is not a bomb-shelter where the ‘saved’ go and wait, but he invites us to live with a kingdom focus.

‘On earth as it is in heaven.’

What if we took Jesus serious when he talked about being present in the ‘least of these’? What if Jesus is calling us to live radically different then what we've been taught by others? What if Jesus is making a point that the kingdom he’s inviting us into has a level of reciprocity?

Seeing the mentors interact with their kids, I imagine that the teaching and subsequent learning not only occurs from the mentor to the mentee but also from the mentee to the mentor. Both benefit and grow from their relationships with each other, and whether they realize it or not, they need each other. They are not complete without one another. That seems to be the way the kingdom works..

‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’ Matthew 5:3

The Body of Christ

I recently accepted an offer to become the Outreach Coordinator for a ministry based out of Southeast Raleigh called Neighbor to Neighbor (n2noutreach.org). It comes after a long year of God opening doors and giving me opportunities and then for reasons I can't explain, taking them away and closing those doors. The list is exhaustive as far as what I've looked into and pursued. In some cases I've gone just about as far as you can go and all I had to do was say 'yes' but God made it clear that I had to say 'no'. I have a peace about this situation though. It really is an amazing opportunity that I'm going to be stepping into.

I’ve gotten a lot of interesting responses from people when they hear about my new job.

I’ve had some people be genuinely interested in hearing about the ministry and why I’m pursuing that. But I’ve had an overwhelming amount of people give me a puzzled look with a Rob Burgandy-esque “good for you??” followed by "we need people like you." I still haven't figured out a good response for that..

For the last week, I've been reminded and humbled when reflecting on the importance and the functionality of the Body of Christ or the Church.

Read 1 Corinthians chapter 12. It'll get you pumped up about being a part of the Church. It's easy to wrongly place people on a pedestal based upon what they choose to do with their lives (occupation, acts of service, etc.). And it's just as easy to do the opposite. Condemn others and place ourselves upon the pedestal. That's not how it works though.

"There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men." 1 Corinthians 12:4-6

Different gifts, different kinds of service, and different kinds of working, but the same Spirit, Lord and God.

God equips each person with a different set of gifts and talents that are tailored for His service and His work (Ephesians 2:10). God calls people to pursue full time ministry, corporate business jobs, public office, parenting, you name it. Neither one is a higher or a more noble calling if that is what God is calling you to pursue.

As the Church we are many parts but one body (verse 20). It's humbling to be reminded of that.

It's also encouraging for me to know that God calls people to enter into the God-less parts of society and is able to use them to change laws and practices that systematically oppress people and for them to battle structural sin from the top.

Take the story of Esther for example.. the only thing I ever knew about that book growing up was that God was not mentioned in that particular book. But instead of it just being cool trivia, what if it's a testament to having to go into those God-less parts of society to take on structural sin? Esther wins a beauty pagent, gets in with the king, finds out about this plot to kill the jews, and is able to persuade the king against doing that. She is able to use her royal position and influence the king who has the final say.

How much different would our lives be if we viewed it as if we were in each moment for a purpose, that God placed us in each situation for us to act, and that wherever we are, He's prepared us 'for such a time as this'.

The Body of Christ, just like the Christian faith, is designed to be holistic, integral, and balanced. We just need to be patient, listen, and be obedient as we ask, seek, and knock..

Oldies but Goodies

I recently stumbled upon my old journal that kept from the summer of 2007. I spent it working with an urban ministry in East Garfield Park on the west side of Chicago. To say the least, my experience there continues to impact every facet of my life. My worldview has been drastically altered by my experiences there..

A big theme of my writings revolved around the decisions I make. Looking back on my journal a year removed, I realize that I am still struggling to answer the same questions I was asking myself a year ago.

I was taken aback by how segregated the city of Chicago was. You could literally cross certain streets and it would change from being predominantly african-american to predominantly latino or predominantly white. And the select neighborhoods that had more of a diverse mix didn't mean that it was a peaceful harmonious situation. It meant that gentrification had begun and it was only a matter of time before the poor were displaced. So you could imagine the angst this creates..

So the obvious question I then asked myself was 'why do I choose to live where I do?' It's a question I've never given much thought to, or explored in depth. However I can see how subconsciously I rule out certain areas and places.

I was challenged to look at scripture through a different lens and what resulted was life-changing. Mostly simple stuff, but profound nonetheless..

Something that became fascinating to me was studying Jesus' prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus, in agony and distress, prays that we will be brought to complete unity and that we will be 'one'.

"I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me." John 17:22-23

The Gospel reconciles us to each other and that doesn't just include crossing denominational or theological lines. It requires us to cross racial, socioeconomic, and gender lines as well (see John 4). At no point would I have argued against that, but it had never become a reality to me.

I don't think I'm alone when I say this, but most of us have been riddled for years (20+ years for me) of having our culture and the media instilling assumptions, stereotypes, and fear about those racially different then us. Maybe that's why I feel such a strong calling to be involved in ministry that values racial reconciliation and views it as being necessary to bring about God's kingdom.

So one year later, lease running out, new job looming, I'm faced with more of the same questions. There are some quotes at the end of my journal that still resonate to me today. I don't know where these quotes were generated from, I'm assuming I read it one of the many books I read in that summer, or it came from a sermon or talk I heard I heard that summer, or maybe I'm just real intellectual..

"If we are not a part of the ethnic solution then we are inherently a part of the ethnic divide."

Which is then followed by this phrase in bold:

Ask, Seek, Knock..

"The disciples came to him and asked, ‘Why do you speak to the people in parables?’ " Matthew 13:10

“This is why I speak to them in parables: "Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand. In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah:

‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people's heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.'

But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. For I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.” Matthew 13:13-17

"Jesus spoke all these things to the crowd in parables; he did not say anything to them without using a parable." Matthew 13:34

Why didn't Jesus speak in a more direct way?

Jesus resists being clear and direct. It's rare for Jesus to ever answer a question directly. His answers invoke more questions, involve stories, and are full of metaphors. Jesus chooses mystery over clarity. This undoubtedly conjures up confusion and frustration. WHY would Jesus do this??

I believe Jesus gives us and respects our free will. Parables and stories don’t coerce us into an understanding of Jesus or a relationship with Jesus. They respect our free will, our dignity, and leaves us free to discover, ask more questions, seek answers, and ultimately choose for ourselves.

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.” Matthew 7:7-8

Ask, Seek, Knock..

However the process of asking, seeking, and knocking involves periods of waiting, patience, desire, persistence, frustration, and silence. We cling to the promise that when we ask, seek, and knock, that the door will be opened (verse 8). What’s painful is that it may take a while. (Psalm 77)

I've come to the conclusion that there are no easy answers or obvious explanations. Maybe that why I've always been told that the Bible is the living word of God. You can revisit scripture time and time again and because there are layers upon layers built into Jesus’ teachings. Not just one answer or one explanation.

Jesus requires us to continually depend on him and not in our independent thinking. He desires us to hear with our ears, see with our eyes, and understand with our hearts. And to do that we need to:

Ask, Seek, Knock..

Excessive Confidence.

"...a disease shared by the Christian religion.. ..excessive confidence." - Brian McLaren 'Everything Must Change'

At first read I gave a slight 'hm..' and kept on. But then I came back and read it again. Lightbulb moment. And as my mind went through the process of taking the words on the page and applying them to tangible events in history, it was like playing connect the dots. Accept every time I connected a dot I just shook my head in disgust.

Throughout history kings, dictators, presidents, white supremists, and those who have held power and privilege have wrongly used faith as justification to push their own personal agendas. They’ve perverting scripture and Jesus to defend their own rationale or to protect the status quo. And what's scary is what they practiced and preached was not only tolerated by those that followed, but accepted and adopted as truth. And what’s even scarier is the level of certainty in which they carried it out.

Hitler viewed Jesus as a 'fighter' and that his greatest moment was when he was a fighter and not a sufferer. He also viewed the eradication of the Jews as 'fighting for the work of the Lord'. Scary..

White supremists held the stance that Africans were descendants from Cain, and that the mark that God left on Cain (Genesis 4:15) was ‘black skin’. In Genesis 9:25-27 Noah curses his son Ham (father of Canaan) and states that he will be a slave to his brothers. Thus giving them Biblical justification for their racism and enslavement of Africans. Real Scary..

Some broad instances include the crusades, the holocaust, witch trials, slavery, and abortion clinic bombings to name a few.

Philippians 3 talks about how our confidence should be in Christ and not in our own flesh, and it preludes with a stern warning to ‘watch out for those dogs, those men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh.’ The same ‘wolves in sheep’s clothing’ that Jesus warns us about (Matthew 7:15).

My point is to not be a downer or a pessimist but I think the confidence that we are supposed to have in Christ needs to be revisited. The message and teachings of Jesus need to be revisited. We need to look at God’s word with a fresh perspective. We need to look to Christ alone for direction and strength.

We need the pray for wisdom and the ability to discern what we hear and read from others, and not just agree with it. We need to approach podcasts we listen to, books we read, opinions of others, politicians we like, etc with skepticism. Not to be postmodern, or to be an elitist, or to be one that cannot trust anyone or anything, but rather someone who can guard themselves against those wolves in sheep’s clothing that Jesus warns us about. And take what we hear and read and hold it up to scripture and prayer to determine its validity.

Our confidence should come from Christ alone, and not in our, or anybody else's, opinions/interpretations.

'...the Mainstream?'

Recently I was asked a question that completely caught me off guard, but not because I didn't have thoughts on this particular topic, but more so because it came at a time when the topic of conversation revolved probably around something trivial like sports, so literally out of the blue...

"What do you think it'll take for African-American youth to join the mainstream..?"

And my immediate response was, "What exactly do you mean by 'the mainstream'?"

And after further conversation it was broken down into much more manageable 'PC' kind of questions, questions that revolved around education, gangs, housing, culture, etc.

I don't exactly remember where the conversation went from there, but some of the questions that spawned are ones that I've been struggling with for the last couple of years. These questions paint with a broad brush so there are obvious exceptions, but for example, why do minority and poor youth end up at low performing/low funded schools? Why is the draw to join a gang so powerful? Why do minorities and the poor live in deteriorating communities? Why are schools, neighborhoods, and the workplace still for the most part homogeneous? The list goes on and the list is long.

The mainstream Christian would argue that the absence of Jesus is the reason issues such as these exist, and that if 'Jesus' were present in their lives and in their communities that it would alleviate these issues. Or that the problem is systemic so it’s the Governments job to find the solution. Or that this is simply a matter of personal responsibility. Or it’s just the way the world is and despite our efforts evil and brokenness will remain.

Ultimately the answers to these types of questions aren’t quick and easy. Often times when you dive deeper and seek answers you will end up with even more troubling questions.

Despite your stance on the source of the ‘solution’, here’s another question to ask yourself if you haven’t already, what does Jesus have to say about this?

Is our sole purpose as followers of Jesus to get as many people on our boat as the world sinks? Or does following Jesus mean getting our hands dirty with the injustices of today?

I believe a personal relationship with Jesus and following him has everything to do with fighting injustice and defending the poor. But at the same time it's dangerous to minimize the personal, redemptive, healing, and transforming power that Jesus has in our individual lives.

The Christian faith should be holistic, integral and balanced.

(See Isaiah 1, Matthew 9:12, Matthew 25:31-46)

take a read, chew on it, let it simmer. more later..