purpose

Logically

Do you keep a calendar? Or some kind of schedule to help keep track of your life and the commitments you make? What do you feel when you look at that weekly to-do list?  

Sometimes I feel important. Look at all I have to do and all who are depending on me!  More often, however, I feel a bit of dread. Look at all I have to do! And as I attempt to go about completing the list, more gets added. Surprises arise. Chaos ensues. The world, it feels, conspires against me. 

At the beginning, in Genesis 1, we are told there was nothingness, a void. I guess that is the opposite of my full calendar. But then God swept over the face of the waters and started to put things in an order. First, light. Then, sky and water and land.  After six days, God looked at this ordered creation and considered it very good. Good enough to stop creating for a moment and rest and just soak it all in.

At the beginning of the gospel of John, the author has a similar view of creation but puts his emphasis on the source of such a very good creation. The author labels this source “the Word.” Brian McLaren labels it as logic. This logic is the key, the Rosetta Stone, for understanding the purpose of flowers, birds, mountains, trees, stars, and you and me. And it is essential for finding a path out of chaos to wholeness and rest.    

And chaos is the link between Genesis 1 and John 1. In Genesis, disorder is put into order through the word/logic of God. In John, the logic of God enters the chaotic world as a human – Jesus, to a place – Nazareth, and to a people – Israel. And those people who had strained to do everything possible to please the God of creation in large part missed him. Were they too busy to notice? Too important to be bothered?

We modern people tend to find our value based on the state of our busyness. Often our conversations begin around stating how busy we are. We may sound frustrated, but we wear it like a badge of honor. Look how important I am! The world around me wouldn’t function without the strain and toil I give! But often such toil doesn’t lead to our flourishing. It leads to bitterness and exhaustion. And for what? To toil more? Ecclesiastes labels such a posture as pure vanity. A chasing after the wind. Pointless.   

God’s creative work has a point. And it leads him to a moment of sabbath when he can rest by enjoying what he has created. Isn’t that what we really want, too?  Work that leads to fulfillment and joy? A part of who we are is wrapped up in how we contribute to the world in which we are placed. A flourishing world leads to a flourishing life and vice-versa. But when our work doesn’t contribute to a healthy society, we become disappointed, discouraged, and even depressed.  

Light and life followed Jesus, the logic of God, wherever he went. And to many his logic seemed too gratuitous. He ate with sinners, partied with tax collectors, let women anoint his feet with costly oil, and paid attention when children, leapers, and foreigners came near. None of his attention was in an effort to gain approval from the institutions of his day. But all he did pleased God, his father. It even led a Roman guard to proclaim that, “surely he was the son of God.”   

We too are God’s children. Can others tell? 

  • Where do you see logic and order in our present day?
  • Where do you see disorder and chaos?
  • Who or what is responsible?

Have You Started Living?

“We are the sum total of our experiences. Those experiences – be they positive or negative – make us the person we are, at any given point in our lives. And, like a flowing river, those same experiences, and those yet to come, continue to influence and reshape the person we are, and the person we become. None of us are the same as we were yesterday, nor will be tomorrow.”

– B.J. Neblett

The resolution of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol finds Ebenezer Scrooge, the once shallow, isolated, and insatiable tycoon a changed man after a visit from three spirits in the middle of the night. When he awakes on Christmas morning, it’s as if he is seeing the world for the first time – and realizing how much it is a gift. If it were only so easy for us.

A Christmas Carol qualifies as a classic because its theme continues to challenge 21st Century readers about what is important in life; what is worthy of our pursuits. Dickens uses three visions of Scrooge’s past, present and future to reveal his core values and how they lead to emptiness. Middle school readers have been learning for decades that it is better to be a Bob Cratchit than an Ebenezer Scrooge.

Life isn’t that black and white, though. Many of the choices we are confronted with aren’t so clearly defined as money and success verses family and friends. And that is where we get stuck because I am betting most people aren’t going to blatantly choose Scrooge’s path, no matter how much they value wealth and success. Yet many still take it. And the joy and wonder of life becomes elusive.

But this isn’t about the evils of money or the deception of greed. Instead, it is the beginning of a conversation around recognizing what is important, what we value, and how we can recognize this in our daily decision making. Because it’s those seemingly small decisions that over a lifetime creates a Scrooge identity, a Cratchit identity, or a thousand other identities that bring value or vice to humanity.

Each of us are in process – we have the potential to always be growing, learning, and changing over a lifetime. In fact, to stop the process of becoming is to stop living. Physicists tell us the universe is ever expanding from the point in which it began, beginning with a huge release of energy that keeps expanding outward. If this is true, then it stands to reason we, like the universe, are made to continue on a path of growth, maturity, and discovery. For Christians, that path begins and ends with God.

Much of the first half of life is a journey toward finding purpose and security. Concern over what will I make of my life is also caught up in the question of whether the circumstances around me will allow for flourishing. Every day the path toward meaning and security presents us with choices. How we respond to these choices shape our worldview, and whether we know it or not, our view of God. So our response to the world around us creates the path we walk. And like Adam and Eve, our choices often hinge on whether we think that God is trustworthy.

We only begin to recognize this tension between trusting God’s wisdom and that of our own, through experience. We step across the threshold and embark on a journey, even when we aren’t clear where we are headed or why. The answers – and the motivation to keep walking – are available. But we won’t find them until we set out and embrace the journey along with the inevitable twists and turns, mountains and valleys, and yes, the wrong turns we make along the path.

The best of the Christian tradition invites each traveler to walk this path in the company of fellow travelers. (Those people Scrooge dismissed during most of his life.) With our model traveler being Jesus and our ever present guide, the mysterious Spirit of God, the challenges and the missteps along the way aren’t just understood as failure and success. They are a part of the process of being alive and experiencing the mercy and grace of a loving creator who is beckoning us to discover the joy of his creation. Each step along the way, as we discover God on our path, we also find we are more at home with our questions and even our imperfections.

Life doesn’t start only after we’ve got everything under control. What does it mean to be alive? Each day is a new discovery. Aren’t you eager to find out?

Taking Up Our Cross

The challenge to those we teach today is to understand the cross and apply it to our circumstances.

What is a cross?  Its symbolism and meaning are ubiquitous today.  It’s certainly more than an intersection of two lines.  It’s a fashion accessory for many.  We see it in appear in all types of art.  For sure, its a symbol of our faith.  We see placed prominently in Christian churches of all stripes.  We see it used as a memorial and in cemeteries.  Its presence can bring peace and assurance to our life and faith.  But unfortunately, it has also been misused over time as a symbol of intolerance, threat and fear.  Certain “Christian” bodies have used it to signify that their perspective is right and all others best move out of the way. While this is as far from the message of Christ as one can get, it actually is in keeping with the original Roman intent for the cross.

A Roman cross wasn’t a thing of beauty.  It was something to be feared.  It was an instrument the Roman authorities used to establish their rule far beyond Rome as they subdued people and civilizations that stretched as far north as modern day England, as far south as Morocco, and as far east as Iraq.  In doing so, they achieved a span of about 200 years, between 27 BC and 180 AD, which is known as “Pax Romana,” or Roman Peace.  During this time, their empire thrived, intricate roads were built connecting this vast empire and aqueducts carried fresh water into cities and dirty water away.  But the cross may have been one of its most useful instruments.

The cross was a popular method of dispatching threats to the empire. “Romans practiced both random and intentional violence against populations they had conquered, killing tens of thousands by crucifixion,” says New Testament scholar Hal Taussig, who is with the Union Theological Seminary in New York.

Crosses were then used as a way to repress any possible insurrection.  They were usually set up in public places, like at a crossroad, and became a signpost to all who traveled that Caesar and Rome was a power to take seriously.  This cross did not offer people traveling directions but rather, with a corpse left hanging on it offered directions of another kind:  Know your place in this Roman order and everything will remain peaceful for you.  Make even the slightest waves in opposition and you can expect to join this man on your own cross.  These “signposts” were found all over the Roman world.

This is what the disciples had in their minds when Jesus, after being identified as the Messiah, announced “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”  Can you imagine both the horror and confusion that must have surrounded them?  This gifted rabbi that people had been flocking to hear speak and be healed by is telling us that he is the long awaited savior of our people.  He’s the Messiah!  But instead of saving us from the oppressive Romans, he is asking us to embrace their form of submission!

No wonder Peter, who first identifies Jesus as the Messiah, reacts so forcefully at Jesus’ teaching of his rejection.  Peter, like many of us, wants to take control of the situation and preserve his leader and movement.  Given the context of the Roman world, perhaps Jesus is simply stating a fact.  If I am what you say I am, the local authorities and ultimately Rome’s response will be to kill me.  But Peter’s desire to fight fire with fire was not the agenda God had planned for his son.  And, after forty days of training in the wilderness to resist satan’s temptations, Jesus’ work pays off as he resists any plan of self-preservation, even when it comes from his star pupil.

Would-be messiahs were nothing new in first century Palestine.  More than a few had risen to prominence, with their own band of disciples and the cause of God and nationalism as their banner.  Violence and death were always their end as they resisted the empire’s strength.  After each demise, there was nothing left to show for their efforts.  Jesus’ call was to embrace, on behalf of his followers, the path of savior through martyrdom.  Looking back at the witness of Christ in the gospels, it appears that part of God’s beautiful plan was that only through the embrace of self-sacrifice can the movement of God’s reign ever come in any significance.

What does this scripture have to say to followers of Christ today?  What kind of self denial and cross is Jesus asking us to carry?   And how abrupt and difficult is such a message to our ears?  To answer, we must first start with the question, “who do we say Jesus is?”

Who do we say Jesus is?  This question makes all the difference.  If we are going to take up our cross, we first have to believe the cause is worthy of suffering.

This is the question that gets this whole scene started.  Jesus and his disciples have been traveling from town to town preaching God’s kingdom, casting out demons and healing the sick.  He’s developed quite a fan club.  And Jesus wants to gauge his disciples by asking them about the folks they are encountering.  What are they saying about me?  Do they recognize me?  But ultimately, he wants to know if they, who have been with him the most, recognize him for who he really is.

When Peter makes his confession, the wheels start to turn. A messiah by any other name than Caesar is someone with a mark squarely on his shoulders.  The disciples have given up everything to follow him.  With this news, they may have to give up their life.  Peter and the others were probably ready to die for Jesus’ cause, to go down swinging in a fight against the evils of the empire.  What Peter did not like, what he didn’t fully understand, was Jesus’ acceptance of what seemed like defeat.  His teaching that he would die seemed like a certainty, not a possibility.  How could the Messiah be victorious when he was ready to accept death at the hands of the enemy?

Yet, as the story plays out, Jesus’ death is not the end but rather the beginning.  Jesus’ death changes everything.  Jesus’ willingness to trust fully in God’s authority over everything rather than the Ceasar’s violent version of reality, put Jesus on a cross but brought those who follow him life.  Today the Pax Romana is but an ancient history lesson.  But the gospel of Christ is embodied in every person who believes and follows.  Jesus’ death and resurrection was the ultimate signal that humans, no matter how powerful or threatening they appear, can’t really have any lasting power over God’s creation.

So, how we understand who Jesus is will make a difference in how we understand the cross that Jesus asks us to carry, and our willingness to pick it up and follow him.  What is our cross today?  Is it worth our sacrifice in order to bear it?

The challenge to those we teach today is to understand the cross and apply it to our circumstances.  The cross may not mean a literal death or martyrdom.  Rather, it may mean that we have to daily say no to things that stand in the way of our ability to fully trust in God alone.  What systems and technologies do we trust more than God?  Are we able to fully claim the way of Jesus above the way of capitalism, a particular political point of view, the threat of violence, a work ethic that drives us to continuous work or lifestyles that compromise our ability to see God at work and join God there?

These lifestyles, as an example, are not necessarily scandalous.  But, it very well may be in our comfort, in our overwhelming options of how to use our time and wealth, that we choose being served rather than serving. What does this look like?  If it is a continual guilt trip, then we don’t want it.  But, I think the Jesus way is a simple truth that our life is more than the conveniences we have become enslaved to.  As we follow Christ, we start to recognize this but too often we give into our own Peter rebuking us, trying to keep us safe, in a predictable place we can control.

Following Jesus is a greatest adventure.  Walking in his footsteps brings us purpose beyond anything else society can offer.  The tension is that society doesn’t want this adventure and doesn’t trust it or celebrate it.  Society wants to stay in a system that is predictable and controllable.  The adventure of faithfully following Jesus will either go under the radar of popular culture or it will be rejected.  This is just one of the crosses we as Christians are called to bear.  Being unpopular, crazy or both.

So, what does it mean to bear our cross?  We have collective crosses we must bear faithfully for God such as coming to terms with gun violence in America.  And we all have our own crosses that require sacrifice and faith to bear.  What will it look like for a community of Christ followers to bear our burdens (our crosses) together?  Is it possible?  I pray and hope that it is.

For a radical example of taking up the cross, Greg and Helms Jerrell have followed Jesus’ call to minister among a marginalized neighborhood in Charlotte, NC (http://qcfamilytree.org/).  Instead of pastoring in a church setting, which would have perhaps brought them more comforts and middle class lifestyle, they were called to Enderly Park.  Their choice has made them who they are and they wouldn’t change a thing!  A mission team will go to serve with them and learn with them June 27-30.  Sign up at http://www.hrbcrichmond.org/my-hrbc