The Kingdom, The Kids, & The Cowboys

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Category: Jesus (Page 41 of 60)

At That Time…

November 15, 2011 / / 0 Comments

“At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth…” ~Matthew 11:25

The words at the beginning of this passage in Matthew that lead directly to our Lord’s little prayer of thanksgiving refer to that time in Jesus’ life when he’s having to answer questions about his mission and denounce unrepentant cities. John the Baptist is openly questioning the Messiahship of Jesus. His closest family and friends in the fishing villages around Galilee are ignoring his message.

How do you think all this rejection made Jesus feel? How do you think Jesus was doing at that time?

With one word, how would you describe your current situation? Where are you right now? In one word, what’s going on with you at this time?

Content? Frustrated? Happy? Angry? Confused? Overwhelmed? Hectic? Depressed? Worried? Confident? Scared?

Jesus seems pretty confident that his heavenly Father is behind these perceived setbacks and that these disappointments are actually a part of God’s holy will. And he gives thanks. Jesus gives thanks for the problems he’s encountering and praises God for working in them to spread the Word and advance the Kingdom.

The powerful and unstoppable energies of the Kingdom of God are always moving, always growing, always surging just beneath the surface. All around us. Huge rivers of prayer and faith and hope and praise and forgiveness and salvation and rescue and holiness flow right by us every day. In every single nook and cranny, hidden in the shadows, overlooked in the crowds, drowned out sometimes by the noise, are the eternal works of our gracious Redeemer.

So, like our Lord, we give thanks. At that time. At this time. We give thanks.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Two Sundays ago Kevin Schaffer, our marvelously talented worship minister, stopped us down right in the middle of song to correct our clapping. We were singing “King of Kings.” You know how it goes: King of kings and Lord of lords, glory (CLAP!) Hallelujah. And our congregation was butchering the clapping. We were clapping before the word, during the word, after the word; it was a mess. Near the end of the first stanza, Kevin had had enough and he stopped us.

“We are going to learn how to clap. And we’re going to start with just one. Just one clap. Do it with me…”

And he proceeded to teach us and show us how to clap. It worked really well. Kevin was very patient with us and we all had a good laugh. After we had practiced together for a few minutes, it actually sounded pretty good the second time around. There’s hope here at Central.

I was reminded of that episode by a blog post written by Jon Acuff. It’s called “Clapping Our Hands: A Step-By-Step Guide to the Death of Rhythm.” A dear friend of mine forwarded it to me this morning. Jon hilariously nails the reasons our churches have a hard time clapping during congregational singing and gets inside the minds of the congregants to show us what everybody’s really thinking as the song begins, why the clapping is all over the place, and why it dies out completely before the song’s even over. It’s a quick, light, funny read about why our church clapping sounds like “somebody lit a box of hand firecrackers.” Click here to read it. And try to click on the downbeat, not the upbeat.

Peace,

Allan

Counter Cultural Jesus

November 11, 2011 / / 3 Comments

Everything about our Savior flies right in the face of what the culture says is important. The values our culture upholds are counter to everything Jesus stands for. The ideas and philosophies our culture exalts are actually opposed to our Christ and his Kingdom.

Our culture says fight for our freedoms and assert your rights; Jesus willingly gave up his rights and his freedoms for the sake of others. The culture says gain more and more wealth and status and power; Jesus left behind all the wealth and status and power he enjoyed at the right hand of the Father to serve others. Culture says defend yourself at all costs, don’t let anybody mistreat you; Jesus walked purposefully into his own torture and to the cross to die. Culture works hard to establish and maintain boundaries between people of different colors, different languages, different backgrounds and zip codes and tax brackets; Jesus invites all the people of every nation, tribe, and tongue to enjoy a common feast at his one table.

Jesus is completely counter-cultural.

I asked our Wednesday night Bible class this week in what ways the Central church is counter cultural, in what ways do we go against what society says is the proper thing to do? One of the first things somebody shouted out was that we feed the poor, we take care of the needy.

But that’s not counter cultural. Our society applauds those who feed the poor. The popular media produce slick feature stories for mass consumption about people who take care of the needy. Fancy buildings are named after those who minister to the less fortunate.

Somebody else said we proclaim God, we believe in God and profess his name. No, that’s not counter cultural, either. Not at all. This society absolutely upholds a belief in God as fundamental. Basic. I asked if any of the 75-80 people in the room had ever even met anybody who claimed there was no God. Only one woman raised her hand. Believing in God is a very cultural thing here. Very cultural.

The conversation went on and on, and I could write several pages about it. The bottom line is that some of the things we’re so proud of as disciples of our radical Lord don’t hardly make any ripples at all in our society. They don’t stick out as different from the crowd. We’re doing what everybody else is doing; we’re just attaching Jesus’ holy name to it.

We can do better. We can do more.

I mean, we’re still, for the most part, segregating our church body from the ones we’re blessing with food and monetary assistance. Some of us are in a huge multi-million dollar building with coffee bars and cushioned chairs and some of us are crammed in a crowded house across the street. We still betray our prejudices when our conversations are sprinkled with “us” and “them.” Some of us are watching Fox News four and five hours a day and listening to political talk radio, filling our hearts and our souls with angry words and malicious thoughts that oppose the very ideals of love and joy and peace for which our Lord died.

In 413 AD, Augustine wrote in “City of God” that Christians were villified by society because they were so different from what the culture expected. You can go back and read for yourself how the earliest Christians were criticized by the culture: Christians are bad citizens; Christians don’t march; they don’t fight; they don’t build; they don’t help govern; Christians are mixing the classes and races at common meals in common living quarters; they’re destroying the social structures of the society; they’re not patriotic; they’re not loyal to the Empire; they say we are to serve one God instead of the State; they advocate forgiveness toward our nation’s enemies.

Those are the teachings of the Church. Those are the apostolic interpretations of Scripture. And those teachings and that way of life is completely counter to the ways and powers and authorities of this world. It got Christians in trouble back then. That kind of living gets Christians in trouble today. Right here in Amarillo.

(When your Bible class is taking prayer requests this coming Sunday morning, try requesting that we pray together for the Iraqi and Afghanistani soldiers, that God would protect them and return them safely to their families. See where that’ll get you.)

We can do better. We can do more.

Someone Wednesday night pointed out that Central decided a dozen years ago to stay right where we are in this downtown location instead of moving away to a nicer, more upscale neighborhood on the outer margins of the city borders. Ah, yes. Very counter cultural.

Culture looks at deteriorating property values and changing demographics and says, “Get out while you can.” Culture sees declining church attendance and lower contribution numbers and says, “You’ve gotta leave.”

Central saw the very same things and said, instead, “We’ve gotta stay.” Central made the very difficult choice to eschew financial and geographical security, to put off any cares and concerns about attendance and buildings and cash, to fight through very real fears and anxieties of the unknown in order to fully embrace Christ’s mission in this zip code.

I praise God for that. Amen.

And I look forward to that great day when all the barriers have been destroyed here on earth just as they are in heaven. I long for that day when we truly worship our one God together as his children, when we truly fellowship together around that one table. Sooner, rather than later. Right here at Central. A clearly counter cultural vision that would get us in trouble with society. It would cause ripples. It would be noticed. It would be criticized. And it would bring glory and honor to our eternal Father.

We can do more. We can do better.

Peace,

Allan

Middle Class American Jesus?

November 9, 2011 / / 3 Comments

We’re studying the radical ideas of discipleship found in the Gospel of Mark in our Wednesday night class here at Central. Tonight, we look at the idea of getting behind Jesus that is so prevalent in Mark’s writings. Jesus is in front, we are in back. Jesus leads, we follow. It’s not enough to be on the way with Jesus, we must recognize our place behind Jesus on that way. Behind him. Not beside him. Certainly not in front of him. He’s leading, I’m following. He’s leading, his Church is following. Jesus must be the one in front.

And the Church says, “Duh!”

What we’re going to talk about tonight is the fact that we are called to follow Jesus so that we do Jesus things in Jesus ways. Ways and means do matter a great deal to our Lord. How we do something is just as important as what it is we’re doing. The ways and means must always be consistent with the end.

Look at the call to follow: “If anyone would come behind me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” ~Mark 8:34

Jesus calls us to completely abandon ourselves. He calls us to leave our certainty for uncertainty; to flee safety for danger; to ignore self-preservation and embrace self-denunciation; to run from security to accept downward mobility. In a world that prizes self-promotion, we claim to be following a Lord who calls us to crucify ourselves.

And we have a great tendency to spiritualize all that. We want to turn the radical call of Jesus into just a metaphor. His teachings are mainly just abstract thoughts, right? It’s figurative language, right? Jesus speaks in extremes to hopefully make us think differently, but not necessarily act differently.

Wait a second…

We’re starting to redefine Christianity here. We’re starting to define Jesus by our thoughts and ideas, not his. We want Jesus to keep us comfortable when, all along, Jesus came to this earth to shake us out of our comforts in order to save us.

David Platt, in his little book, Radical, says we’re always wanting to turn our Sovereign Lord into a nice, harmless, non-threatening, middle-class, American Jesus:

A Jesus who doesn’t mind materialism and who would never call us to give away everything we have. A Jesus who would not expect us to forsake our closest relationships so that he receives all our affection. A Jesus who is fine with nominal devotion that does not infringe on our comforts, because, after all, he loves us just the way we are. A Jesus who wants us to be balanced, who wants us to avoid dangerous extremes, and who, for that matter, wants us to avoid danger altogether. A Jesus who brings us comfort and prosperity as we live out our Christian spin on the American dream.

Jesus came here to save us; to shake us, to move us, to transform us into the perfect image of the Son of God. That doesn’t happen by doing things our way. That doesn’t happen by doing things the way the rest of the world does things. It happens when we fully submit to the impossibly difficult task of doing things the Jesus way, when we trust our Lord enough to allow him to work in and through us as we make the faithful attempts to live like him, when we dedicate ourselves to following through life and through death the One who goes before us.

“Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the Gospel will save it.” ~Mark 8:35

Peace,

Allan

Like Little Children

November 7, 2011 / / 3 Comments

“Unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” ~Jesus

Better writers than me, smarter theologians, more faithful Christians, have wrestled to put into words exactly what Jesus means when he says we have to become like little children if we’re to have any chance at his Kingdom. Some have pointed to child-like innocence; those are the ones who’ve never had kids. Others stress the humility of a child; those are the ones who’ve never experienced losing a game of Monopoly to a sibling. Still others say Jesus was talking about the selflessness of a child; to which I say, “What??!??”

I think Jesus is talking about complete, whole, utter dependence. Dependence on God the way a child depends on her parents for everything: for food and shelter, protection and provision, education and discipline, security, acceptance, and love. A child depends on his parents for everything. A little child can do nothing without them. And God longs for us to have that same dependence on him.

Carlo Caretto spent his Christian ministry writing and teaching about the freedom and real presence of God one feels when he finally decides to depend on the Lord for everything. His works remind us that it’s our privilege, not our punishment, to become like little children.

In a letter to his sister Dolcidia, a Catholic nun, in March 1955, he writes:

“Becoming like children is not easy for those who have been complicated by sin. To become little children means to increase our feeling for God’s fatherhood over us; it means to think and act as little children do towards a father they love. He looks after everything, he resolves everything, and so on. When does a little child ever worry about tomorrow? Never: the father takes care of it. Isn’t that right?

All our plans, even on the road to holiness, are perfectly useless. The real plan is in his hand and we need to go to him like children seeking love.”

Caretto prayed all the time that he might become “little, little, little. Small, small, small.”

Most of us think we’re too big. Most of us.

Me, too.

Peace,

Allan

Muttering

October 26, 2011 / / 1 Comment

The religious leaders we see in Scripture are always forcing Jesus to defend himself and his mission. Jesus is welcoming the outcasts and eating with sinners. He’s associating with and accepting these people who just don’t measure up. Jesus is continually embracing these misfits, giving to them, serving them, teaching them, fellowshipping with them. And the established religion of the community couldn’t handle it. One of the main political and religious charges against Jesus that led to his execution was the fact that he “welcomes sinners and eats with them.” Luke 15 is just one of many places in the Gospels where we find that when Jesus associated with the marginalized, “the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law muttered.”

They muttered.

They mutter and grumble and complain among themselves. They do it behind Jesus’ back. They gripe under their breath. Because a religious person would never say these kinds of things out loud:

“Those people don’t speak English.”
“Those kind of people won’t give.”
“Their kids are not well-behaved.”
“Have you seen what they wear?”
“They’ll mess things up.”
“They’re on welfare.”
“He just got out of prison.”
“She has AIDS.”
“He cusses.”
“She smokes.”
“We have to protect our kids.”
“We have to be careful.”
“They should probably go somewhere else.”

Church people don’t talk like that out loud, right? A religious person would never say stuff like that in public. Not from the pulpit, not in a Bible class, not in an elders meeting.

No. Religious people mutter these kinds of things under their breath. Among themselves. In private.

If we’re following our Savior — and we are! — we have to recognize that Jesus came with everything he had to seek and to save the lost. And the lost responded to Jesus, not because he catered to them or compromised his message, but because he cared for them. He loved them. He understood their needs and helped them while the religious leaders criticized them and kept their distance.

Jesus strongly rebukes that attitude. His every word, his every deed rebukes that self-centered mindset. Jesus invested his time and energy in sinners. He associated freely with them. He ate with them. He became personally and intimately involved in their messy lives and desperate struggles. Jesus pursued sinners with such enthusiasm and commitment that the religious community questioned his character and his motives. But he kept seeking and saving the lost. With everything he had. And then he died for them.

We don’t ever dare make fun of, poke fun at, or look down on any person made in the image of our God.

Ever.

We don’t mutter.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I’ve been to a couple of Rangers playoff games at the Ballpark in Arlington, one in ’96 and another in ’99. I was there when they clinched the division title in ’99. I’ve been to important division games in September. I’ve been in the stands for weekend games against the Yankees when the Rangers were rallying to take a lead in the 8th inning and winning it in the 9th. And I’ve thought many times that there’s no way the Ballpark could ever be louder or as exciting as this.

Until Napoli’s two-run double with the bases loaded in the 8th inning against the Cardinals Monday night in Game Five of the World Series. I’ve never been a part of anything quite so loud and exciting at the Ballpark. It was improbable. It was emotional. Magical.

From Roger Staubach’s ceremonial first pitch to Feliz’s last, it was a nail-biter. Nerve-wracking. Gut-wrenching. It seemed that St. Louis had runners at second and third in every inning. Every pitch was do or die. Every Cardinal at-bat went full count. And Texas couldn’t do anything right. Murphy and Moreland were booting balls, C. J. couldn’t find the plate, and nobody could get on base. That 2-1 deficit seemed like 10-1. Or 100-1. It was awful.

Which made it so much better once Napoli finally came through with his double and then chased Berkman to first base an inning later to end it.

We hugged and high fived everybody in the home run porch. We took pictures. We cringed when Darren Oliver came in and exhaled in relief when he left. We chanted Napoli’s name and laughed at the Ron Washington videos. We ran into Russ Garrison and his family. And we ate for the cycle. It was an awesome night! Thank you to Brian Gray for scoring the ticket. And for being the most superstitious baseball fan I’ve ever known.

 

Game Six tonight. In the cold and the rain in St. Louis. Colby Lewis has the stuff on the road to give the Rangers their first ever World Series title in their 51-year history. Start the DVRs.

Go Rangers.

Allan

Take Courage! It is I!

October 19, 2011 / / 0 Comments

I’m teaching some of the broad themes of the Gospel of Mark in our Wednesday night class. You can find our outlines and articles and, eventually, the audio from the classes by jumping to the Central Church of Christ website here. Tonight we’re focusing on the great contrast between fear and faith.

(It’s appropriate to be considering this together on the same night the Rangers open the World Series. Rangers fans know all too well the mighty struggle between fear and faith, between despair and belief.)

Everybody in Mark is afraid. Everybody. Jesus calms the storm, delivers his apostles from the sea, and he turns to them and asks, “Why are you so afraid?” Jesus delivers the demon-possessed man from the devils that have enslaved him and the townspeople react in fear. The bleeding woman trembles in fear. Jesus tells Jairus not to be afraid. The apostles are terrified when Jesus walks on the water. They’re afraid to ask the Lord what he means when he predicts his death. Those following Jesus “on the way” are said to be afraid. The religious leaders in Mark are afraid: they fear Jesus, they fear the people, and they’re afraid of the crowds.

Everybody’s afraid in Mark. They’re terrified by Jesus’ power over nature, by his power over hell; they’re frightened by the images of persecution and suffering and death he predicts; they’re scared by what it means to follow him. And Mark does not want us to miss this. In fact, this fear factor as a theme is so important to Mark it’s the very last thought, the last word literally, in his Gospel. In Chapter 16 the angel at the empty tomb commands the women, “Go, tell his disciples and Peter.” But “they were afraid.”

If fear is the opposite of faith — and I’m convinced it is — fear paralyzes us while faith liberates us. Fear looks at me and the world while faith sees me and God. And Jesus longs for us to have faith. His desire is to drive away our fears. So he comes to us. He reveals himself to us. He shows us who he is and what he’s all about.

He comes to us, walking on the uncertain waters of the storms all around us. He comes as the One who is sovereign over those waters that threaten to do us in. He controls them. He does what only God, the divine Creator of heaven and earth can do. He walks on the water to us and says, “Take Courage! It is I! Don’t be afraid.”

To all the people in Mark who are afraid, the message from our Lord is the same: Don’t be. He tells the disciples to have faith. He informs the woman that her faith has healed her. He tells Jairus to believe. He teaches them (us) in patience and love. He leads them (us) by his perfect example. And he rescues them (us) and delivers them (us) again and again and again.

~~~~~~~~~~~

I feel a million miles away from my Rangers. Saturday’s pennant clincher was thrilling, but there was no mad late-night dash to Academy to celebrate with the throngs and purchase the official T-shirt like last year. I had called the Academy Saturday afternoon just to see if they might, by some chance, have the shirts stashed away in boxes, ready to be unveiled and made available as soon as Feliz recorded the last out. Alas, the poor young man on the other end of the line had no idea what I was talking about.

Oi.

The shirts just made it to Academy up here yesterday. Whitney and I quietly and anticlimactically got our shirts after school. We’re wearing them today. But I haven’t seen them on anybody else.

The Amarillo Globe-News only had two stories about the Rangers in their whole newspaper today: an AP wire story about C. J.’s freeze chamber (boring) and a local column about long-suffering Rangers fans (already lived it).

Oi, vey.

For big regular season games and every single postseason game, I have my text conversations with my die-hard Rangers friends. From Fort Worth and Amarillo to Arkansas and East Texas, we watch the games “together” and make “interesting comments” (as George Costanza says) and wise cracks about team strategy, booth announcing, and critical plays. Not tonight, though. It’s a church night. It’s also an elders meeting night. And I’ve left my DVR in North Richland Hills. If I’m lucky, I’ll get home in time to catch the last inning or two.

Hopefully, Chris Carpenter will be long gone by then. And Alexi will be dealing with a lead.

Let’s Go Rangers! (clap, clap, clap, clap, clap)
Let’s Go Rangers! (clap, clap, clap, clap, clap)

Allan

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