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“The God of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead! God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Savior that he might give repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel. We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him!”
~Acts 5:30-32
Christ Jesus our Lord is risen and reigning today, right now, at the right hand of God. May he bless us and his Church with the same boldness and courage of the apostles who witnessed it.
Peace,
Allan
Saul’s conversion story in Acts 8 is a great example of our Lord Jesus delegating his work on the earth to other people. Jesus chooses an enemy of his church (Saul) and a faithful disciple (Ananias) and commissions each of them for a job. He gives them assignments. Neither one of them were looking for it. Saul wasn’t looking for a new religion, he wasn’t seeking direction for his life. He was an up-and-comer, he was climbing the ladder of success politically, socially, and religiously. He knew exactly what he was doing and where he was going when Jesus stepped in and stopped him dead in his tracks and changed everything. He gave Saul a job and changed everything. Ananias wasn’t looking for trouble. I don’t know what he was doing that day — eating a sandwich, cleaning out the garage, I don’t know. But Jesus pushed in, he intruded, he went where maybe he wasn’t wanted, and he gave Ananias a job. Both of these guys had their lives turned upside down by the call. They were both sent to places they didn’t want to go, and they both made speeches written by somebody else.
These kinds of episodes — there are a ton of these in Acts — show us that this thing didn’t end at the crucifixion. It continued. But when the earthly Jesus became the risen Christ, a cast of unlikely characters was enlisted to continue the story. People like Saul and Ananias were chosen to play a part. The risen King is standing in the wings, coaching, encouraging, pushing them onto the stage, feeding them their lines. Ordinary people are given jobs. And given the courage and power to perform them. 
This is how Jesus does things. We know that whatever the Father called Jesus to do, the Son was never interested in doing it by himself. The first thing he did was call a group of twelve ordinary guys to drop what they were doing and start doing what he wanted them to do instead. And he didn’t seem to be too concerned with their experience or character or skills. Jesus gave jobs to lots of losers and knuckleheads. He chose them and gave them assignments, not because they were open to his teaching, not because he really enjoyed hanging out with them, but because he wanted to put them to work. Jesus said, “Come unto me.” Then he said, “Go into the whole world.”
Again, we see this all over the book of Acts: ordinary people doing extraordinary things just like Jesus. Peter and Paul both healed crippled men, just like Jesus. Paul’s very first sermon in Acts 9 almost gets him killed, just like Jesus’ first sermon in Nazareth. Normal men and women are fasting and praying like Jesus, preaching Scripture in the synagogues like Jesus. Their teaching is described by the people as amazing, just like their Lord’s. These people called and commissioned by Christ perform miracles, they’re followed by huge crowds, they’re led and empowered by the Holy Spirit. They do everything Jesus was doing. And when they’re murdered for proclaiming the Kingdom of God, like Jesus was, they die just like Jesus. When Stephen was executed for preaching like Jesus, he died with the words of our Lord on his lips, “Father, forgive them.”
These stories in Scripture, ordinary people doing remarkable things, real men and women called and commissioned by Jesus and given extraordinary assignments — this is your story, too. Like Saul on the way to Damascus, as you travel to Dalhart or Dumas or Dallas, as you go along every day, doing your thing, taking care of business, like Peter and his nets, like Matthew counting his money, like Nathanial sitting under his tree, what does Jesus have to do to get your attention? Look for it. Listen for it. Because if he hasn’t already, he will. It’s coming. Jesus is going to give you a job.
Peace,
Allan
“Our citizenship is in heaven.” ~Philippians 3:20
The city of Philippi was a Roman colony. It was 550 miles east of Rome, across the sea and in a different world in many respects. But because it was a Roman colony, the citizens of the Philippi region were citizens of Rome. Their official citizenship was in Rome. And they were very proud of that citizenship. So they dressed like Romans. They built their buildings and set up their city administration like Romans. They spoke Latin like Romans; they worshiped the emperor like Romans. They lived in Philippi, but they never considered themselves Philippians — they were Romans. They lived in Macedonia on the Aegean Sea — but their citizenship was in Rome.
When Paul and Silas were in Philippi in Acts 16, the owners of the slave girl accused the missionaries of “advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice.” What did they mean “us Romans?” Don’t they know they live in Philippi? Yes, they live in Philippi, but their citizenship is in Rome. Philippi is a Roman outpost. It’s an island of one culture in the middle of another. It’s a city of people holding on to and promoting customs and traditions and practices and even a language that is unfamiliar to its surroundings.
My family and I lived in Memphis, Tennessee for almost a year in 1998. We bought a house in Memphis and Carrie-Anne and I both worked in Memphis. Whitney went to Memphis public school. But I refused to get a Tennessee drivers license. I didn’t get a Tennessee license plate. I flew the Texas flag from our front porch and in my office at work. I wore Dallas Mavericks t-shirts, I listened to Stevie Ray Vaughn everyday, and I absolutely never, ever put cole slaw on top of my barbecue sandwich! I was living in Tennessee, but my citizenship was in Texas. 
The same thing is happening with the folks receiving this letter from Paul. The apostle writes to the Christians in Philippi and he says, “Our citizenship is in heaven.” You don’t belong to Philippi or to Rome; our citizenship is in heaven.
Here on earth, we are a colony of heavenly citizens. God’s Church is an outpost. It’s an island of one culture in the middle of another. God’s Church is a city of people holding on to and promoting customs and traditions and practices and a language unfamiliar to our surroundings.
And it sets us apart. It makes us different.
In Acts 21, Paul is accused of teaching “all men everywhere against our people and our law and this place.” When given the chance to defend himself, Paul claims that as a citizen of heaven, as a subject of Christ, he “had fulfilled his duty.” The Christians in Thessalonica are arrested in Acts 17 and charged with “defying Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus.” Our Lord is standing in chains before the Roman governor in John 18 when he says, “My Kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight… my Kingdom is from another place.”
To confess that Jesus is Lord is to say that Caesar is not. And that makes us different. To claim citizenship in heaven is to declare our allegiance first and foremost to God’s Kingdom, not the Empire. And that sets us apart.
Jesus did not bring a new teaching or a new ethic; Jesus brings a brand new reality. Jesus didn’t give us new ideas about God and humanity and the world; he gives us an invitation to join up, to become part of a movement, a new people that is not of this world. We see something the world doesn’t see; we understand something the world cannot comprehend. We live in and are part of the reality of the eternal power and reign of God in Christ. So we are strangers and aliens in this world because we get it, and nobody else does. We understand that God rules the world, not congressmen and presidents or governors and generals.
We need to slow down and look around and get a handle on what’s really going on. We need to see what’s really happening. That’s hard to do because we’re surrounded by all the unreality. With 24 hour news networks and around the clock talk radio and more ads and campaigns and debates and emails and bumper stickers than any of us can fathom, it’s easy to get caught up in it. If we’re not careful, we can actually start to believe that the Empire and its politics and our role in all that is pretty important. Until we step back and look at it with a heavenly perspective.
The Gospel of Jesus places all of us into an eternal and international community of those who follow the Savior. We live under the rule of our Christ. So our loyalties go far beyond any national thought or national pride. Our allegiance rises high above any national agenda. Our conduct will be different from the world’s because our citizenship is in heaven.
I was nine years old in the summer of 1975 when my dad packed up the blue Chevrolet Impala and took our family of five at the time and my grandmother up to Niagara Falls. Yes, we drove it; lots of ham sandwiches. After a long day of sightseeing in Ontario, I remember vividly ordering hamburgers at a little diner. I can still see the black and white tile on the floor and the pattern and colors of the fabric on the cushions of the booths. We ordered our meals and sat down together in the crowded diner. And after just a minute or two, a lady sitting at the table next to us leaned in toward us and said, “What part of Texas are you from?”
She hadn’t seen our license plates. We weren’t talking about home. None of us was wearing Dallas Cowboys t-shirts or anything that would have overtly given away where we lived. She said she could just tell by the way we talked and the way we acted that we were from Texas.
I remember being kind of proud about that. I think maybe I’m still a little proud about that. 
When’s the last time you sat down at a restaurant and someone leaned over and said, “What part of heaven are you from?”
Wherever we go and whatever we do, we ought to stick out as people who live somewhere else. We are a people with customs and practices and a language different from the rest of the world. Our citizenship is in heaven. And it should be obvious.
Peace,
Allan
I got sidetracked the past two weeks by what we’re preaching at Central from the first chapter of Philippians that I just had to write about. Allow me now to return for the rest of this week to a couple of more personal observations and thoughts from “Approaching the End: Eschatological Reflections on Church, Politics, and Life” by Stanley Hauerwas.
“Jesus is Lord” is more than just someone’s opinion. It’s more than a claim or a belief. It’s even more than the Christian confession. “Jesus is Lord” is actually a strong political statement that demands allegiance. It is a pledge to another reality, the ultimate reality that not everyone can see. To say “Jesus is Lord” is to say “Caesar is not.” To claim that “Jesus is Lord” is to claim that he alone rules the world right now today. And to live like it.
The reality of Christ’s lordship, of his rule and authority, is experienced and expressed by the Church. This rule is hidden from most of the world right now. But the Church knows. We know. We submit to the rule of Christ Jesus. We follow in his prescribed “way.” We seek to love and to serve in the name and manner of our King, completely counter to the way the kings of the earth rule and lead. We are convinced beyond any doubt that Christ Jesus has already conquered the world and that he alone will determine the end of history. So we do things the way Jesus does things. He reveals himself and his rule through us.
In contemplating the practical implications of this Christian view of reality, Hauerwas draws on John Howard Yoder. To be a Christian is to subscribe to a particular political view and adhere to specific political behaviors. It’s all politics. The Church is the existence of a people who refuse to acknowledge the claims of worldly rulers to be kings. Therefore, because the Lord triumphed on the cross, his followers refuse to use the violence and force of earthly rulers to achieve what are allegedly good ends.
We are Theocrats. We live in a Theocracy. And it determines what we believe and how we act.
Christian politics are
“based on the confidence that God uses the power structures of this world in spite of themselves for God’s purposes. Christ carries out the purposes of the One who is sovereign by ruling over the rebellious structures of the universe. That rule is hidden but made visible through the servant church. The place of the church in the history of the universe is the place where Christ’s lordship is operative. This is where it is clear that he rules, as well as the kind of rule he exercises. He is the suffering servant whose rule is decisively revealed on a cross. The church makes history not through domination but through being the servant of the crucified Lord.”
Now quoting Yoder from his “The Politics of Jesus”:
“The cross and not the sword, suffering and not brute power determine the meaning of history. The key to the obedience of God’s people is not their effectiveness, but their patience (John 13:10). The triumph of the right is assured not by the might that comes to the aid of the right, which is of course the justification of the use of violence and other kinds of power in every human conflict. The relationship between the obedience of God’s people and the triumph of God’s cause is not a relationship of cause and effect but cross and resurrection.”
How do we recapture this way of political thinking today?
We Christians in the West are so “Constantinianized” (I think I just made that word up) that we don’t see God’s Kingdom anymore as opposed to the kingdoms of the world. We no longer understand that Christ’s rule works just the opposite of the rule of earthly presidents and kings. The Church is so domesticated that instead of seeing Christ’s rule working to overthrow and ultimately conquer the rule of every monarchy, democracy, and dictatorship on the planet, and praying for it, we see the Church and the nation’s government working together. We’ve gone so far as to equate their methods and their goals, the ways and means of both the state and Jesus, and to hold both rulers and manner of ruling in equal regard. Living as a Christian doesn’t mean exploring what makes us faithful followers of Jesus as much as it means developing an ethic that might work for everybody.
Yikes.
How do we live in and under the rule of Christ? Well, we’ve got to decide once and for all that obligations to a particular state or nation, devotion to a specific society or economic system, cannot compromise or supersede our commitments to the Lord. Paul and Jason and the disciples in Thessalonica were arrested for “defying Caesar’s decrees,” claiming that “there is another king, one called Jesus” (Acts 17:7).
Yes, there is another king. His name is Jesus. And he is Lord.
Peace,
Allan
“With great power the apostles continued to testify to the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus!” ~Acts 4:33
In Matthew 28, Jesus meets the women outside the empty tomb and says, “Go and tell my brothers!” Scripture says the women “ran to tell the disciples.” In Mark 16, the angel inside the tomb says, “Go and tell!” The risen Lord eats with his disciples that night and says, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation!” Verse 20 says, “The disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them.” Same thing in Luke 24. “When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others.” When the two disciples met Jesus on the road to Emmaus, “they told what had happened.” While Jesus shares a meal with his followers that night he says, “The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations.”
Sure enough, the resurrection community can’t keep their mouths shut. In the earliest days of the Church, according to Acts, everybody was talking. Peter and John get thrown in jail for talking about the resurrection and protest to the authorities, “We cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard!”
When we are truly raised with Christ to walk in newness of eternal life, when we are formed and shaped by the Resurrection of Jesus, how are we not going to talk about it? The Resurrection community proclaims the good news of the resurrection and reign and return of our Lord. We can’t help it.
I would add that followers of Jesus are all about life, not death; we’re a people of hope, not despair; we’re a community of light, not darkness. And when we speak, our words should give resurrection life to others. Our speech should breathe new life into others.
In Colossians, Paul is talking about formation by resurrection when he says, “Let your conversation be always full of grace.” We’re told in Ephesians 4 to speak the truth in love. In Acts 20, we’re told that everywhere Paul went he spoke words of encouragement.
All the words that come out of our mouths should be words that restore and renew, never words that tear down or destroy. When we speak, our words should point others to the resurrection life that’s forming us.
Peace,
Allan
“God made us alive together with Christ!” ~Ephesians 2:5
I realize the phrase “Together Community” comes from the Department of Redundancy Department. The word “community” means “tgogether,” right? Good. Because we are all raised with Christ Jesus to be together.
When considering the resurrection stories in the Gospels, please notice that not one person experienced the power, the hope, and the mystery of the empty tomb alone. Nobody encountered the risen Lord by themselves. The people who saw the empty grave and the angels, the ones who ate dinner with Jesus that night, they were all with their friends. Most of them, we know their names. We know their stories. We know their relationships with one another. And what a mixed bag of people. What a weird collection of folks.
Jesus’ mother and a radical anti-government conspirator. The wealthy Jewess Mary Magdalene and the turncoat tax collector. Cursing fishermen and gentle women. Big city boys and sons of country farmers. Resurrection is experienced in a complex network of personal relationships. Men and women just like us: puzzled, bewildered, confused, questioning, doubting. And, yes, singing and believing and praying and obeying. Together.
The Resurrection of Jesus creates togetherness. It creates relationships. It forms us together today as one people just like it did then. Just glance at Acts 2 and look at the Resurrection community. People from all walks of life — rich and poor, Jew and Gentile, men and women, educated and ignorant, powerful and marginal — all brought together by the Holy Spirit of the risen Savior to live together and act like family. They didn’t have a whole lot in common other than the resurrection. But they acted like a family. Every day. In each other’s homes. Loving each other. Ministering to one another. Taking care of each other. Eating and praying together. Singing and serving together. They devoted themselves to the community and had all things in common.
The resurrection community is like a neighborhood, but it’s more personal. It’s like a family, only more diverse. It can be like a football team or a civic club, but it’s much stronger. I like to think of our resurrection community at Central like an army platoon. We’re brought together by something much bigger than ourselves, united by a shared purpose, and made stronger under pressure and difficulty. Together. We are a group of brothers and sisters who live in sacred covenant with one another in order to serve the Kingdom for which our Lord died and was raised to eternal life. It’s about something that really, really matters.
We need each other. None of us can do this by ourselves. It’s impossible. We’re not intended to. We were raised with Christ to be together.
I need you. And whether you admit it or not — whether you like it or not — you need me, too. You need me to love you and I need you to encourage me. You need me to challenge you and I need you to correct me. I need your strength when I’m tired and you need my support when you’re down. I need your patience when you have none and you need my joy when you have none. We all need to remind each other about the Resurrection and our parts in it. We all need to be able to regularly look around and see clearly that we are not in this thing by ourselves.
Peace,
Allan
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