Pastor Scott's Thoughts

An Ode to the Virtuous Layman

Today at Nampa College Church we held a memorial service for Gene Clark. Over the last two years, Gene has been a blessing in my life as a pastor. Each time I saw him at church, at home, or in the hospital, I was always greeted with a smile, with warmth, and usually with a reminder that I am his favorite pastor.

I struggled to find the right text to describe Gene and his love of God and his care for the church. And so I wrote something a bit theologically risky – perhaps even borderline heretical. I rewrote a well-known biblical text in Gene’s honor.

Historically, the church - although more often than not led by men - has found its day-to-day life sustained by the presence of its faithful women. Every church has a long list of saintly women who have been the lifeblood of every congregation. Pastors know that the second most important Sunday of the year - after Easter - is Mother’s Day. Father’s Day on the other hand… is not so important. People come to worship with their mothers. People skip church and go to the baseball game or go play 18 holes with their fathers.

Nevertheless, every great church I have been a part of or led has had at least one great layman – a man who is or was faithful, persistent, and steady. I promise you that every pastor can name that key layman who kept the church going before you arrived, supported the church while you were there, and kept the church moving after you left. The names of those men were always revered in my house: names like Paul Hill, John Wordsworth, Norm Hagen, Dave Peterson, Mike Bell, Rusty Williams, Phil Lindquist, Neil Rimington, Larry Rench, Chuck Young, Henry Yu… and now most recently Gene Clark.

So I’d like to take one of the great odes in Scripture – Proverbs 31 - and reframe it in Gene’s honor and in the honor of the great laymen I have known in my life. The great sage of biblical wisdom is correct; every husband desperately needs a virtuous wife. But I’m here to tell you: every pastor desperately needs a virtuous layman.

An Ode to a Virtuous Layman (Based on Proverbs 31)

A virtuous layman, how does one find him?

His value is far above pearls.

His worth is far above gold.

His pastor trusts him with all the church’s secrets.

In him the pastor has a spiritual wingman, a holy sidekick, a righteous partner-in-crime.

A virtuous layman fills a pastor’s ministry with many blessings and few headaches.

A virtuous layman always rounds up when they tithe.

He always shows up for church work-days.

He never forgets pastor appreciation month, and he cares for the pastor like they are part of his family.

He is the first to arrive on Sunday morning to make sure the lights and heat are on.

When the big snow comes, he shows up before dark with his gloves and his shovel.

You never have to worry about leaving him in charge of the resources;

His integrity, honesty, and stewardship are never questioned.

The virtuous layman is always thinking about the church’s wellbeing.

In board meetings he consistently brings the right balance of caution and faith.

He doesn’t always need to be heard, but when he speaks people listen because they know it will be with wisdom and courage.

He doesn’t expect others to do things he won’t do.

The virtuous layman offers his back and his sweat and not just his checkbook.

His heart is sensitive to God.

He says “amen” in the right places.

He’s not afraid to kneel at the altar.

He prays with authority.

The virtuous layman always keeps a good seat ready for the poor.

He is eager for the church’s resources to be extended out in mission.

He keeps a watchful eye on the church building. He maintains God’s house with the same care and concern he gives his own.

He has keys to every room in the church. He knows how to set up tables, turn on the lights, work the vacuum, and run the sound system.

He maintains a commercial license so he can drive the youth to camp.

The merchants in town honor and respect the virtuous layman.

They all know which church he belongs to; he invites his friends regularly.

The civic leaders respect him and wish there were more men like him in town.

The virtuous layman loves and nurtures his family.

His children think of the church as a second home.

They have heard him talk regularly about his love for God.

His grandchildren honor the legacy of faith he has given them.

His children are blessed by his faithfulness

His wife knows he is a person of integrity.

Although things aren’t always run the way he would like, the virtuous layman has a positive word to say about what’s happening at the church.

Even in troubling times, he refuses to be a source of division.

The church is full of all kinds of people,

But faithful laymen - like Gene Clark – you surpass them all!

Church hoppers are fleeting.

Senior pastors will come and go.

But a virtuous layman who fears the LORD is to be most highly praised.

Let him enter into his rest in Christ’s presence.

Let his deeds be honored in God’s courts.

May he hear from the Lord’s mouth: “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”

Merry Subversive Christmas

The Christmas story has never seemed so relevant to me… and so subversive.

Over the weekend people of faith will gather in churches and living rooms – around altars and evergreens – and read the Christ birth narrative from the second chapter of Luke. The story begins with these words: “In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered” (2:1).

I wonder in this year filled with the rhetoric of politics if the church will be able to hear and be disturbed anew by Luke the insurrectionist?

Luke’s story of Christmas is set up in chapter one by two highly revolutionary songs. Mary, the mother of Jesus, sings about how this one she carries not only will but already has, “brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty” (1:52-53). His relative Zechariah sings about how God has, “raised up a mighty savior for us in the house of his servant David” (1:69).

With these songs of rebellion still ringing in our ears, Luke begins by naming the days as those belonging to Emperor Augustus. Of course, Emperor (or Caesar) Augustus wasn’t his real name. His given name was Gaius Octavius. Caesar and Augustus are titles of honor and authority given to a great ruler who for forty-one years brought stability, prosperity, and peace to the empire. The adopted son of Julius Caesar, Augustus had become the model of leadership. From his time in glorious power on, all Roman emperors would live in the shadow of Augustus. The days of their reign would always be compared to the majestic “days of Emperor Augustus.”

These were such good days for the average Roman that they bestowed “god” status to Julius Caesar and conferred such titles to Octavius as August, son of a god, savior of the nation, lord of the world, and prince of peace.

As is the case with all empires, their glory days weren’t glorious for everyone. This empire had exiles, an underclass, people who existed at the margins – today we would call them refugees. The Jews of the first century were perceived by the empire as a problematic group of people who practiced an odd and sometimes violent religion. The Hebrew people’s strict monotheism made them appear to be quaint and anachronistic compared to the modern, progressive, and more intellectual forms of polytheism that had led the state to such heights of military power and economic prominence.

Of course the Jews themselves were not unified. Some wanted to tone down the more demanding edges of faith and find ways to thrive within the civil religion of the empire. Some wanted to find secure places in the desert – away from the paganism of the urban centers – in hopes of being left alone to practice holiness in isolation. Some lived openly pious lives – dressing oddly, praying publically, demanding their religious liberty – expecting that God would see their faithfulness and undo the power of Rome. Others took their zealousness to extremes and used any measures and methods available to create terror for the empire.

When empires don't understand a people they tend to paint them with a broad brush and simply deal with them generically. Usually the best way for an empire to handle religiously odd refugees is to make decrees and laws that register them, destabilize them (keep them moving), control their population growth, violently make an example of zealous rebels, and reap whatever benefits you can from them through labor and taxation.

It is into this marginalized camp of refugees that a child is born. It is to this distrusted conglomeration of religious misfits that a Son is given.

Don’t miss all the seeds of insurrection in Luke’s story: a miraculous birth, messengers brining divine validation, politically stirred up peasants (shepherds), and all kinds of seditious language – a savior, a messiah, a Lord, the world’s true instrument of peace.

For Luke, in Bethlehem a cosmic battle has begun. Unlike Matthew, who makes the birth narrative of Jesus a fight for kingship and lordship among the Jews with Herod as the antagonist, Luke places the significance of the Christ child in the context of “all the world” and makes the antagonist not just a regional governor but he pits king Jesus against the greatest emperor in the history of the civilized world.

Of course, Luke’s Gospel will not only undermine allegiance to the empire, but as the story goes on, Jesus will also subvert the subverters.

Jesus will never shy away from the language of “kingdom.” It is a mistake to say the gospel is not political. Augustus cannot be the emperor of our bodies and Jesus the king of our soul. The world and our lives within it (body, soul, and spirit) can have only one true ruler.

But the way of Christ’s kingdom is unfamiliar and peculiar. Augustus redeems through conquest. Jesus redeems through sacrifice. Augustus enacts swift retribution on Rome’s enemies. Jesus invites disciples to love their enemies and pray for their persecutors. Augustus remakes the world through power. Christ brings a new creation through love. Augustus makes peace through the threat of the sword. Jesus brings through embrace of the cross.

This is hard news for refugees and exiles to hear. Not just hard but perhaps even unfair. After watching a special report on the indiscriminate bombings taking place in Aleppo and the intentional targeting of civil relief workers who come in to try and find those trapped in the remaining rubble, I found myself physically sick and emotionally enraged. I even found myself partially sympathetic to the young Turkish assassin who killed the Russian ambassador in an act of futile revenge for the thousands of children who have died in the devastated Syrian city. Overcoming evil with good is not in our nature. It is something that only the Spirit of God can empower a people to do. As Luke will go on to tell the story, it requires a people to make their hero Stephen and not Samson.

My fear for those like myself, who are more closely connected to the empire than to its refugees, is not that the subversive message of Christmas is difficult or hard to hear, but that it is impossible to hear. It’s not that we who dwell in places of relative privilege don’t want to hear it. It’s that we simply are unable to hear it.

I fear that my imagination has been so immersed in and shaped by words like “bigly” that I don't know how to imagine a savior who emerges from Bethlehem. The subversiveness of Christmas is hard to grasp when you live in a nation led by millionaires and billionaires on both the left and right (not because they take power but because they are given power – which by the way says more about us than it does about them).

There is for me, however, a slight glimmer of hope.

Most scholars date the writing of Luke between 80 and 90 CE (some as early as 60-65). If that is the case, then the original readers no longer had Augustus as their emperor. The readers at the end of the first century had not experienced the glory days of Augustus. Instead they had lived through the reigns of such legends of insanity as Caligula (37-41 CE) and Nero (54-68 CE); and they were now living in fear of the narcissistic persecuting zeal of either Titus (79-81 CE) or Domitian (81-96 CE). In other words, whatever hopes the first readers of Luke had placed in the emperor as a global savior and prince of eternal peace certainly had to be severely cracked if not utterly destroyed by then.

Maybe in a strange way at the close of 2016 that’s our hope also. Perhaps at the end of this year of divisive politics and ugly political rhetoric, even those of us who have been more formed by empire than by marginalization are exhausted and ready to place our hopes in an unexpected Lord with a revolutionary political agenda. Perhaps we are so worn-out from the inability of war to bring peace that we might be ready to embrace the cross. Perhaps we are so burned out from the divisiveness of Babel that we are ready to pursue the unity of Pentecost.

I am not optimistic. But I am a prisoner of hope.

As we prepare to gather around altars and evergreens, may the Spirit of God break through our holiday trivialities and give us the ability to hear anew the familiar revolutionary birth story that overturns us all.

Merry subversive Christmas!

Mutated Forms of the 23rd Psalm

Yesterday morning - August 10 - I preached on the Good Shepherd text from John 10:11-21. The point of the message was to connect the "I Am" statements from John's Gospel to the Great I AM text of Exodus 3. In other words when Jesus said, "I Am the Good Shepherd" he was also saying something very important about the nature of the Father as well.

Clark Pinnock would often say that our view of God the Father is critical because we inevitably come to look like the God we believe in.

That got me to thinking about the way Psalm 23 would really sound if we were honest about the kind of God we believe in. So I wrote a few mutated versions of this beloved shepherd psalm. Several people asked for copies - so here they are...

Here is Psalm 23 for those of us convinced that God is the angry judge:

The Lord is my judge and taskmaster. He watches everything I do.

He keeps list after list of all my sin; he keeps track of my stray thoughts; he can’t wait to pour out his wrath on me.


He puts obstacles in my path just to see if I’ll be good or not.

Sometimes when things are going too good, he will place me in the darkest valley, it terrifies me to think of what he might do to me.
His wrath and his fury are my likely destiny.

If you think he’s angry with me, you should see the way he’s going to treat my enemies. He will reign fire on their heads. I get giddy just thinking about it.

Yes, legalism, fear, and doing the right thing purely out of obligation
will pursue me all the days of my life, and if I’m just good enough I will barely make it into the Lord’s house... maybe… I hope.

Here is Psalm 23 for those who see God as the great clock-maker who set everything up but has largely left us to our own devices:

The Lord is the great clock-maker and absentee landlord. For the rest, I’m pretty much on my own.

He gave me a good head on my shoulders; he handed me a book of rules; he expects me to make something decent out of my life.

He has hidden some tips and rules in the Bible that make my life seem to work better.

My goal is to avoid as much as possible dark valleys, but I fear no danger because I can probably handle it. My wits, my talent, and my clear understanding of God’s principles —
they will protect me.

It is my purpose to live in complete safety and avoid my enemies.
You wound up your clock, God;
I’m still making it day-by-day.

Yes, I will grab all the gusto I can without risking too much all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the rules of the Lord as long as I live.

Here is the 23rd Psalm for a generation of "Moralistic Therapeutic Deists":

The Lord is my grand parent in the sky. He shows up when I need him.

He lets me pursue my dreams; he is a great addition to my life; wants me to be happy.

I pretty much do what I want, and try my best to be a good person. I don’t really need to throw his name around.

I’m trying life on my own. Now, if for some reason I walk through the darkest valley, I will show up to church and beg him to show up.
His last minute help – it bails me out.

I live indistinctively enough to not have many enemies.
You are a great addition to my life;
my life works so well with you added in!

Yes, lukewarmness and spiritual apathy
will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will show up in the Lord’s house whenever I need him.

May our prayer always be instead:

The Lord is my shepherd. I lack nothing.

He lets me rest in grassy meadows; he leads me to restful waters; he keeps me alive.
He guides me in proper paths for the sake of his good name.

Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no danger because you are with me.
Your rod and your staff—
they protect me.

You set a table for me
right in front of my enemies.
You bathe my head in oil;
my cup is so full it spills over!

Yes, goodness and faithful love
will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the Lord’s house as long as I live.

Crumbs from the Table - Thursday 11/22/12

Thoughts from the Daily Office readings for November 22:

Psalm 105

Give thanks to the Lord, call on his name, make known his deeds among the peoples. Sing to him, sing praises to him; tell of all his wonderful works... Remember the wonderful works he has done... He is mindful of his covenant forever, of the word that he commanded, for a thousand generations, the covenant that he made with Abraham, his sworn promise to Isaac, which he confirmed to Jacob as a statute...When he summoned famine against the land, and broke every staff of bread, he had sent a man ahead of them, Joseph... He sent Moses, and Aaron whom he had chosen... He opened the rock, and water gushed out; it flowed through the desert like a river. For he remembered his holy promise; and Abraham, his servant. So he brought his people out with joy, his chosen ones with singing. He gave them the lands of the nations, and they took possession of the wealth of the peoples, that they might keep his statutes and observe his laws. Praise the Lord!

Malachi 2:1-17

For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and peple should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts But you have turned aside from the way; you have caused many to stumble by your instruction; you have corrupted the covenant of Levi, says the LORD of hosts, and so I make you despised and abased before all the people, inasmuch as you have not kept my ways but have shown partiality in your instruction.

Luke 17:20-37

"The kingdom of God is not coming with what can be observed; nor will they say, 'Look, here it is!' or 'There it is!' for, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you... Remember Lot's wife. Those who try to make their life secure will lose it, but those who lose their life will keep it."

James 4:13-5:6

Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money." Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that."

I am not a good chess player, but it is my understanding that great chess players are always thinking several moves ahead. Fortunately or unfortunately (probably both), I approach life that way. Something in me is wired to fairly consistently calculate what impact my actions today will have upon my life and direction for tomorrow.

I don't think God is completely opposed to my achiever driven calculations. But the texts for today did speak to me about some warnings for those of us who make life-planning an obsession.

Malachi reminded me today that life calculators are often looking to form relationships based on what they will receive in return. If Robert Bellah is right, most of us shaped by American culture look to all of our relationships through lenses of utilitarian and expressive forms of individualism asking, "What will I get out of this person?" or "How will this person make me feel?" God's ways show no partiality. God does not go looking for relationships with people based upon what they can give him in return. Love always lays aside utilitarian calculation.

The Gospel of Luke reminded me today that when we try to secure our lives - especially in forms of security, we end up missing out on the kingdom. The kingdom of God is all around us, but the troubling words of Jesus in Luke 17 are a reminder that we too often associate the wrong things with the kingdom and thus miss out on where it is. We secure our lives and miss the kingdom.

And good old James just constantly loves to remind me of what a total and complete myth it is that we can control life at all. I am praying for friends like Frank and Ruth today; both of whom are reminders that today is gift and tomorrow is not promised.

But through it all is a Psalm of THANKSGIVING that God always seems to be a step ahead. He prepares a place for the children of Abraham. He raises up Joseph in preparation for the coming famine. He sends Moses as the deliverer. He has water-gushing rocks ready to be discovered in the wilderness.

So I am thankful today for today; and for God's promise to be present with us tomorrow. May our trust in HIm grant us the eyes to see and experience the kingdom among us.

Life Together - Confessing Our Idealism

I am having one of my classes read Bonhoeffer's Life Together. It has been a few years since I read through it and so it is wonderful to get to read through it again. The first chapter on Community especially spoke to me this morning.

For Bonhoeffer, the Body of Christ is a reality that we receive by faith and like the Eucharist around which it is centered, we partake of it as a gift. Because it is the work of God and because it is gift we have to confess our tendency to try to build it in our own strength and we have to give up our idealizations we carry with us into the community of faith. Here is what Bonhoeffer writes about our idealism:

"Only that fellowship which faces such disillusionment, with all its unhappy and ugly aspects, begins to be what it should be in God's sight, begins to grasp in faith the promise that is given to it... Every human wish dream that is injected into the Christian community is a hindrance to genuine community and must be banished if genuine community is to survive. He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial... The man who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God, by others, and by himself. He enters the community of Christians with his demands, sets up his own law, and judges the brethren and God HImself accordingly. He stands adamant, a living reproach to all others in the circle of brethren. He acts as if he is the creator of the Christian community, as if his dream binds men together. When things do not go his way, he calls the effort a failure. When his ideal picture is destroyed, he sees the community going to smash. So he becomes, first an accuser of his brethren, then an accuser of God, and finally the despairing accuser of himself... We enter into that common life not as demanders but as thankful recipients." (p. 27-28)

This helped me greatly today. I have recently found myself increasingly frustrated with myself as pastor. Part of my inner tension is due to trying to do too many things. Part of it is coming up on the end of a seventh year with a church that knows my flaws and shortcomings very well (and I know theirs). Part of it is feeling like the same problems, the same issues, and the same dysfunctions just keep appearing and reappearing.

But this morning Bonhoeffer reminded me that the greatest source of my frustrations has to do with my own idealism and my own expectations of what the Body of Christ should be - for me. Therefore rather than thankfully receiving life in the community as gift - including its challenges that are making me a better person - I tend to focus on what it is not and what I am not as a member and leader within it.

I needed to be reminded today that the Church is not something we are building for Christ, it is his Eucharistic gift that we are partaking of from him. In Bonhoeffer's words, "Christian brotherhood is not an ideal which we must realize; it is rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate. The more clearly we learn to recognize that the ground and strength and promise of all our fellowship is in Jesus Christ alone, the more serenely shall we think of our fellowship and pray and hope for it." (p. 30)

So I am laying down my angst today about all the church is not, and receiving with gratitude all that the Body of Christ is as gift from God. Thanks be to God.

Prayer of Blessing for APU Convocation

I was asked to speak for Senior Convocation yesterday at APU. I used Luke 19 to speak on the tension that I feel between the Parables of the Talents and the Pounds (see previous blog). As we send graduates from Chrsitian colleges out into the world I always feel conflcted about whether the world should want them or reject them, whether they should fit well into the systems of power in the world or live prophetically in contrast to them.

I won't repeat the whole message here, but I've had several requests for the prayer of blessing that I wrote for the class of 2012. Here it is:

Blessing of the Talents and Pounds

May the Lord bless you and keep you.

May he make his face to shine upon you and give you peace.

May you discover the mystery of living in the world but not being of it.

Like Daniel, may the leaders of nations want you in their inner circle of authority because of your divinely-given wisdom and insight.

But like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, may the leaders of nations hold you in furnace-building suspicion because you claim a higher citizenship than any nation can offer and you will always obey God rather than rulers.

Like Joseph, may your integrity and determination lead the prominent and mighty corporations of the world to place you in seats of power and influence.

But like the apostle Paul in Ephesus, may your prophetic life so call into question the idolatry on which our lives are built that the unjust economic systems of our world conspire to run you out of town before you undo their mythology.

May the great graduate schools and universities fight over you because they long to have students who committedly give their minds back to God as a an act of worship.

But may they not know what to do with brilliant people who rather than identifying themselves with the cultured elites, keep finding their identity with the poor and the marginalized.

Like Enoch, may you live long productive lives so connected with God that your transition to the next life will be like taking an unbroken stroll into the next life surrounded by the presence of the Spirit.

But like Stephen, may you lay down your life, in the prime of life, as a peaceful witness to a kingdom the world cannot see.

Like our Lord, may the world love you, and despise you.

May you be embraced, and rejected.

May you be given all things, but keep nothing.

May multitudes follow you, but may you take up your cross daily.

May you become first by being last, and may you become great by being the servant of all.

May you daily give your talents to the Lord prepared to one day be held accountable for how you have used the gift of life he has given you.

But, like Zacchaeus, - refusing to be conformed to this present age - may you wrap up and give back the pound the principalities and powers will offer to you, willing to pay the cost of discipleship.

May your life be lived in the tension between the talents and pounds.

God has called you to help him heal the broken world. May the world be both excited and terrified that you are on the way.

And may he who began a good work in you, may he carry it completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

Amen.

 

Caught Between Talents and Pounds

I spent last Thursday and Friday on retreat with scholars from theology, business, and communication mixed together with Christian leaders in business, film, and various other fields. The APU School of Theology has been given a grant from the Kern Family Foundation to explore how to better prepare ministers to think and teach Christianly about the areas of work and economics and the retreat was set up to help kick off the project.

One of the interesting things about the conversation surrounding work and faith is the inherent tension concerning whether or not the system of wealth and capitalism in which most of us are embedded is good or bad. The conversation is actually quite complicated because the problems and blessings of our economic systems are varied. The conversation at the retreat was certainly lively.

One of the things I wanted to do was to give the group permission to be comfortable with the tension that we often feel as Christians when we think, speak, and write about faith and economics. Not just as a scholar but more especially as a pastor I find myself caught in the tension between the importance of our material nature (especially as it pertains to the importance of our bodies and our work) and materialism (the worship or improper use and valuing of material things).

I shared with the group that I often describe the tension as a conflict between the parable of the talents and the parable of the pounds. Matthew gives us the parable of the talents (Matthew 25) and Luke gives us the parable of the pounds (Luke 19).

The parables are nearly identical and very likely were used by Matthew and Luke from the same or at least similar original sources. In each version the beginning of the parable is almost identical. Matthew and Luke tell their readers (through Jesus) the parable as a story about a master who goes away and leaves three servants or stewards in charge of their resources. To the first he gives five talents or ten pounds. To the second he gives two talents or five pounds. And to the last he gives one talent or one pound.

In both versions of the parable the endings are nearly identical. When the master returns he rewards the fist two servants because they have doubled their resources. But the last servant is punished for having hidden rather than having used his talent or pound. What he has received is taken away and given to the first servant.

Most of the time when this parable is preached it is Matthew's version - the parable of the talents - that is used. I think the preference for Matthew's version of the parable, at least in part, has to do with the ease with which the monetary unit called a "talent" can be translated to include not just our wealth, but our gifts, strengths, and "talents" for the purposes of God and his kingdom.

Matthew places the parable of the talents in chapter 25 among other instructions from Jesus about being ready for judgment. It is found in between the parable of the ten virgins and the parable of the sheep and the goats. All three parables have the theme of taking seriously the responsibility that we have to use the gifts, strengths, and resources that God has given us for his purposes in the world and that we will all be held accountable for how we have "invested" those gifts.

So on one side is the responsibility that all humans have as those created in God's image and sharing what some theologians call co-creation powers with God. God has formed as as people with creative bodies and minds and expects us to use those in ways that share in the goodness of his creative purposes. In that way all work can be seen as an act of worship back to the Creator. Our work inevitably forms larger structures of communities, cultures, and economies. So we can't help but be economic beings finding ways to work together for the good of all and for the glory of the God who not only creates us but holds us accountable for our work.

But on the other side is the parable of the pounds. Scholars like Kenneth Bailey and William Herzog have helped me read Luke's version of the parable in what I think are better ways. They argue - and I think the are correct - that Luke uses the parable differently than Matthew.

In Luke the parable is placed in chapter 19 between the story of Zacchaeus' conversion and Jesus' cleansing of the Temple. In both of those stories the emphasis is not on being ready but on the ways that the surrounding economic systems were corrupting the life and worship of God's people.

Therefore, in the parable of the pounds, rather than the third servant being the "bad guy" he may actually be the "good guy." It is possible, given the context, that the third servant recognizes that the world's economic systems are often ruthless (like the power gathering master). And he sees that the ways of gathering more power are unjust (gathering where they did not sow). And the parable also seems to recognize that in the system the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. So he cannot find a way to participate in this ruthless system. What happens? Like many of the early believers, the servant who is unwilling to work for the building up of the "empire" he dragged before the people and slain.

Maybe we can think of the parable this way... Have you ever wondered what happened to Zacchaeus after his confession to Christ when he went back to work on Monday (or Sunday) and told his tax bosses that he could no longer participate in the system of exploitation that he had so cleverly led up until this point? Do you think his boss shared in his conversion?

When Jesus cleansed the Temple he ended up getting crucified. My guess is that Zacchaeus' end was not a whole lot more successful than his Lord's.

And so here we are. Christians called to use their gifts everyday in ways that add value to others and to God's creation. We are accountable to work as unto the Lord. But we are also stuck in systems of injustice and brokenness in which we are called to live prophetically. And as we live prophetically we are called to count the cost of that discipleship.

This is a tension that the earliest disciples of Jesus felt everyday as they took up their cross. Two-thousand years later we are still caught in the tension between the talents and the pounds.

 

The King Jesus Gospel by Scot McKnight

There is has been a growing angst among evangelical Christians for the last several decades over the question of salvation. The angst takes several different forms. It shows up in questions about whether modern American evangelical Christianity looks more like Paul than like Jesus. It shows up in tense debates over substitutionary atonement in relationship to other understandings of Christ's work on the cross. It shows up in the questions about the goal of salvation. (Is the ultimate goal of salvation to get people to heaven or to redeem the creation)? In the Church of the Nazarene (and other Holiness traditions) the tension shows up in the on-going conversations about the relationship between justification and sanctification.

There are other manifestations of the angst that could be pointed to, but the root issue or question is the same: What is the good news of the Gospel? Or to say it another way: What do Christians mean when they invite people to be "saved"?

There are many books that have tried to address this question. Dallas Willard addresses the question in both The Divine Conspiracy and in The Great Omission. NT Wright has taken on the question in books like Justification, Simply Christian, Surprised by Hope, and his most recent book Simply Jesus. As I look at my book shelf and the three piles of books on my floor waiting to be read, I count somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty or forty books that are trying to address the question of the Gospel under the assumption that at least part of what American Christianity has been advocating as the good news is at least partly incomplete (if not outright distorted).

A very gifted writer and thinker - Scot McKnight - also takes on this question in his latest book The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited. Scot may be the king of the theological bloggers and I frequently find his insights helpful. So I'm not surprised that I found his most recent book The King Jesus Gospel very thoughtful and helpful. The book is not very long and is written at a level that most lay people will find accessible. I think it will be a nice book for small groups to wrestle with.

Scot's main concern is that the contemporary church has become what he calls a "salvation culture" rather than a "gospel culture." A salvation culture is fixated on the question "who's in and who's out"? A salvation culture, argues McKight, separates salvation from the gospel.

The key to overcoming this divide, for Scot, is rooting the "plan of salvation" into the larger story of God's redemption in the world. He argues that there are four big categories or themes given in the Scripture. The primary story is the story of God's redemptive work in the people of Israel. The story of Israel not only tells us what is wrong with the world, but it gives us the vision for a renewed creation and the trajectory of God's plan of redemption.

The second big category is the story of Jesus. The story of Jesus is embedded within the story of Israel. This is the primary reason why the early church refused to get rid of the Old Testament. But it is clear when one reads each of the four Gospels that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are clearly retelling the story of Jesus within the categories and themes of the story of Israel. Jesus is the completion of the story of what God was doing in Israel and apart from that story the story of Jesus makes little or no sense.

The third big category is the plan of salvation. This is the key idea for Scot. The plan of salvation cannot be removed from its location within the story of Israel and Jesus. When one is "saved" one does not just simply cognitively affirm a few ideas about God and his Son Jesus, one enters into the story of God's redemption and salvation as it is revealed in the stories of Israel and Jesus.

The last big category for Scot is then the method of persuasion or evangelism that flows from those first three categories. If salvation is not simply convincing someone of a few ideas (or a few spiritual laws) but inviting someone to enter into God's redemptive story, then our methods of evangelism must flow from those stories. In particular, I believe this is why a re-affirmation of baptism as a means of receiving salvation is so critical. In baptism the new believer leaves behind their former story, former life of sin, and their former story and enters by faith into God's story, God's new life, and God's redemptive story. 

Scot goes on to demonstrate biblically how the preaching of both Peter and Paul reflect a "gospel culture" and not just a "salvation culture." I particularly appreciated the last sections of the book that address how a church can begin to form and reflect a gospel culture.

If you are looking for a good introduction to many of the important conversations going on regarding salvation today, or are looking for a good small group book for discussion. As always, Scot McKnight gives the church a really nice resource for helping us live into the mission God has given us.

Reflections on a Year in Mark

It was a transformational experience for me to have to wrestle my way through the Gospel of Mark this last year. It is fun for me to look through my bible now and see all the marked up places in the second book of the New Testament. I hope your bible got a little “marked up” also (pun intended).

I have been spending some time these last few days reflecting on what parts of Mark have stuck deep inside me.

Without question the first thing I think about is the kingdom of God. There are many stories and sermons in the Gospel, but there is one primary message: “…the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news” (1:15). Whatever else the early church thought about Jesus, they knew this one truth; Christ had come to announce the reign of God in creation. That reign establishes a new reality, a new people, and a new way of living in the world. The call of the Gospel, first and foremost is to repent of all of the former ways of life and to enter into God’s new kingdom through Jesus. 

The second thing I think about, however, is how hard it is for us to imagine that a new kingdom is present. I am convinced that this is a major part of the reason Mark gives the reader the parables of Jesus. The parables help disciples discover the unusual reality of God’s kingdom. Parables help to subvert our imaginations. The parable that resonates with me most from Mark is the Parable of the Sower (4:1-9). When we hear the word “kingdom” we usually think about power, might, wealth, pomp, and circumstance. But the kingdom of God is not like a warrior who went out to conquer. It is not like an emperor who goes out to expand his empire. The kingdom of God is like a sower who went out to sow seed. What a contrast! Every kingdom that has come in human history has come through conquest and revolution. God’s kingdom will come like a farmer faithfully distributing seed and waiting for the good soil to respond. Amazing! I have a hard time even imagining that. (Which is exactly the point).

The importance of the signs of the kingdom breaking into the world is the third thing that sticks with me from Mark. The miracles of Jesus are clearly not just present in the Gospel to let the reader know the power present in the life of Jesus. Rather, the signs reveal something about the nature of the kingdom as it breaks in. Those paralyzed by sin are able to walk. Those who cannot hear or speak about the kingdom are healed. Lepers who are considered unclean and thus excluded from community are not only restored to health but to relationship with others. People oppressed and possessed by the principalities and powers that bring destruction are set free to be what God created them to be. But most importantly for Mark, those who are blind – those who simply cannot see what the kingdom of God is about – are touched so that they can clearly see the truth of the kingdom clearly.

The most marked up places in my bible are chapters 8 through 11 where three times Jesus talks about how the Messiah must suffer, but the disciples simply cannot see what he means. He keeps talking about the self-giving love that is the essence of the kingdom, while they keep fighting over who is the greatest and arguing about who will get to sit at the right and the left in the kingdom. They, like us, need a complete do-over. Unless we become like little children, we will never see, let alone enter, the kingdom of God.

The fourth and perhaps most important idea that sticks with me from Mark is the call to take up the cross (8:34-35). When the good news about Jesus is proclaimed today it is often preached as something Jesus did for us so that we now don’t have to do anything except cognitively ascent to a few propositions. Certainly Jesus did something for us that we could not do for ourselves. He alone brought the kingdom and he invites us by grace alone to share in it. But the call is for disciples not just to cognitively ascent (to “believe”) in what he has done, but we are called to share in the kingdom. The invitation to discipleship in Mark is for the disciple to take up their cross also and follow Jesus.

Discipleship is a call to kingdom work, but it is not a call to “works righteousness.” This is the fifth thing that I take away from Mark. The call of Jesus is to kingdom faithfulness but it is not a call to religiosity. I have been deeply shaken by Mark chapters 11-13 that deal primarily with the fall of Jerusalem and the religious establishment that gave structure to the life of Jesus and the disciples. Readers of Mark should always be keenly aware that the Pharisees, scribes, and other Jerusalem leaders, who so badly missed seeing the kingdom, were not secular people but very religious. I do not believe that the religious leaders were evil people. In fact, I think they probably look a lot like me. I believe their intentions were to protect the faith that they loved and the temple establishment that gave meaning to their existence. Before we get too critical of the pagans in our world today we should never forget that well-intentioned religious leaders crucified Jesus. Lord, have mercy.

Finally, I take away the young naked man who fled from the Gethsemane (14:51). I don’t know if the scholars who see this young man as a literary devise used by Mark to symbolize the church are right. But that interpretation does make a lot of sense to me. I love that like the rest of the disciples who run away when persecution comes, this young man’s flaws, fears, and sin are exposed. Before the cost of discipleship we are all exposed as naked and broken. But I am convinced that it is this same young man who reappears in chapter 16 at the empty tomb as the witness to the resurrected Lord. He is no longer naked but wrapped in the white robe of the saints. He is the Church. He is every one of us. He is the sinful person redeemed by God’s grace to be a witness to the most important truth in the world: the kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ. And he shall reign forever and forever.

I love that Mark begins his account of the life of Jesus this way, “The beginning of the good news (the Gospel) of Jesus, the Son of God” (1:1). What Mark has given us is the beginning of the coming of the kingdom. The continuation of the Gospel takes place in and through you and me. May it be so.

Cue the Locusts

Pay attention, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such-and-such a town. We will stay there a year, buying and selling, and making a profit." You don't really know about tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for only a short while before it vanishes. Here's what you ought to say: "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that."

- James 4:13-15

 

This last week has certainly been a wild one in the Pasadena area. Debbie and I have often commented that one of the reasons we like living in Southern California is because we seemingly get a different natural disaster (or human disaster like a riot) about once a year which forces all of our friends and family to get in contact with us to make sure we are okay. We have found that it's a good way to maintain long distance relationships.

The winds last Wednesday night into Thursday morning were simply awesome. Not in a skater sense of "that's awesome dude," but in the sense of truly forming a sense of overwhelming awe. Driving around and witnessing the destruction the winds caused around Monrovia, Sierra Madre, and Pasadena has been awe-inducing. Trees that have been standing longer than any of the currently living humans have been around fell to the winds with their deep and complex root systems now exposed for all to see.

This certainly wasn't the way those of us at PazNaz hoped to make the national news, but the destruction of the roof caused by what some speculate to have been 100 mph wind gusts or better was one of the most spectacular things I have ever seen. Long, heavy sheets of metal had been twisted into every conceivable shape and were scattered in no discernible pattern.

About 1:30am Thursday morning the three of us (and the dogs) with bedrooms at the back of the house were awakened by the flying debris hitting the windows and so we huddled together in the front of the house praying that the trees would stay up and the roof would stay put. In that moment I realized something critically important. At a very significant level we are all powerless in the face of greater powers. I had no way to stop the wind. No way to keep the trees up. No way to make the shingles on the roof stay in place. If the winds wanted to continue until everything clinging to land had been blown into the Pacific I suppose that it could. And there would be nothing available in any of our humanness to stop its force.

Call me Exodus obsessed, but I couldn't help but think about Pharaoh Thursday morning while I laid fearful in the dark. I couldn't help but think about Pharaoh with all of his power and wealth, Pharaoh with all of his mythology of universal control, huddling behind a wall in his palace powerless to stop another of the plagues sent by Yahweh through Moses. Apparently one of my staff members at church thought of Pharaoh also because as we were trying to figure out how to pick up the pieces at the church Thursday morning, one of them said, "It seemed so Apocalyptic last night that I felt like someone should say, 'Okay, stop the wind, cue the locusts.'"

Some of the apocalyptic talk came about because I have been preaching through Mark 13 during this Advent season. We are two weeks into Advent and I will admit that it has been a challenge. These days Advent has really become an extended celebration of Christmas filled with frankly sappy songs, stories, and movies about family, mistletoe, and gentle drifts of snow on the roof. I like all of those Hallmark-ish kind of things, but it has been really hard to figure out how to fit biblical texts about the desecrating sacrilege in the Temple, the moon turning to darkness, and the stars falling from the heavens around tinsel, baby Jesus, and cute little children dressed like shepherds and angels.

The advent of the Santa Ana winds may have saved my preaching this year. The season of Advent really is about being reminded that things that seem permanent - Rome, Caesar Augustus, Herod, taxes, Temples, over-populated cities, Black Fridays, Cyber-Mondays, BCS standings, stock market downturns, presidential politics, and continuing wars on terror - are not only temporal but are quietly being subverted by a kingdom that actually is eternal. The Temple becomes rubble, the moon turns to darkness, and the stars fall because another empire that believes itself to be eternal (an empire that drinks the same kool-aid as Pharaoh) is being replaced by a new heavens and a new earth.

So in a strange way I'm thankful for the Advent Santa Ana winds that blew away an awful lot of what seemed permanent in the San Gabriel Valley. It is an important reminder that we are very, very temporal and that we live most of our days living out Pharaoh's same myth of control. James is right. Our language should more often reflect what ought to be a deeper conviction. We more frequently ought to say: "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that."

I found myself on Thursday morning deeply thankful for God's mercy in not allowing the winds to keep blowing. But I also found myself more grateful for what I do have, grateful for the kingdom work I have been gifted with today, and grateful that I am ultimately free from the burdensome myth that I am ultimately the one that controls all the outcomes of my existence. 

It took ten plagues to try and teach Pharaoh that he was not in control. His hard heart never learned the lesson and so his mythology of over-blown self-importance came to an ugly and unfortunate end at the Red Sea. I'm sure by this time next week I too will be right back into my self-reliant mythology of control, but I am thankful for this moment of grace to try and break out of my Pharaoh-complex. But I'm sure it will be back soon. So, cue the locusts.