Receiving the kingdom part three, but I warn you it’s a little edgy.

After a short diversion, (due to my concern over the deep political fracture in America), I want to pick up with ideas about receiving the kingdom.  Just this week I had another friend say, “OK… so how do we actually do it?”

Just a quick review of the first two steps, and we’ll move on:

Receive the love of God, and stop trying to earn it.  Nobody in the Gospel record ever had to earn the love of Jesus.  He simply accepted people as they were.  It’s when we finally accept the outrageous love of the Father without condition by faith that we’re born again into his life.

Repent, which means not just turning from sin, but actually rethinking everything we thought we knew about God, his world, ourselves and the human race.   No one can receive the kingdom while clinging to his own human reasoning, religious notions, and cherished opinions.

The next step of the journey seems to be following the King. Have you ever noticed how Jesus invites people to follow him, refers to those followers as “disciples,” and never once labels them “converts”?  “Convert” is one of those terms we evangelicals would be hard-pressed to drop from our vocabulary.  And yet its an idea the Son himself managed to splendidly avoid except for one time when he was taking the pharisees to task for traveling over land and sea to make a “convert.”   Jesus was obviously more concerned about people actually following him as disciples than offering them a one-time religious experience.

To follow Jesus means to become a “red-letter” Christian, one who actually heeds his words, and follows him into the wide-open adventure of turning the other cheek, laying down our lives, giving away riches, feeding the poor, casting out demons and healing the sick.  This is the life Jesus seemed to have in mind when he spoke about his kingdom.

Sadly, we evangelicals often make Christianity a personal affair, a transaction where we exchange “personal” faith for a “personal” experience that’s supposed to insure us a “personal” place in heaven while we too-often duck-out on the kingdom every chance along the way.  I don’t know how God will do his accounting, but I worry that the safety we find in our “born-again conversion” might sometimes lead us away from the main point, which is the red-letter Kingdom of God.

Tolerance or honor

Tolerate: to allow the existence of without interference; to accept or endure with forbearance.

The architects of political correctness lecture us daily on our civic duty of tolerating those who are different.  They might just as well say “Put up with people.  Endure them.  Allow them to exist.” What a loaded crock of doomed advice.   That kind of begrudging cultural consensus is sure to land us in the rubbish bin of history.  Can anyone seriously imagine a society enduring for even one generation on the sagely foundation of “allowing the existence” of its neighbors?

As a Kingdom disciple God is calling me to a higher and infinitely more delightful position of loving others, honoring them, and considering them better than myself.

• Do not act out of selfish ambition or conceit, but with humility think of others as being better than yourselves. (Phil 2:3)

• Show honor to everyone. Keep on loving the brothers, fearing God, and honoring the king. (1 Pet. 2:17)

It seems important in today’s cultural and political climate to shore up relationships with those around us lest the world we know disintegrates under our feet.   I’m choosing to categorically reject mere tolerance for the higher call of honoring others as the image-bearers of God.  To recognize the Imago Dei, (the image of God), in another is to embrace civility, honor, compassion, and respect.   It feels like we could use a bit more of that in the world.

In defense of racism, nazism, communism, liberalism and all the other “isms”

I think we all need a time out.   When the mudslinging escalates to the point where we’ve become judge, jury, and executioner of our neighbor based on his political convictions even the “isms” get misused and vilified.  Words like “socialism”, “racism”, “Communism”, and “Nazism” are not for angry children who stomp and scream at each other, but for civil people who converse with one another about ideas.   When “isms” become aspersions and conversations become altercations it’s time to take a deep breath, remember the words of Jesus*, and spend an evening watching the Lord of the Flies.

My friend may have socialist ideas.  He may disagree with me on everything from health care reform to czars, deficits, and ACORN.  He may disdain everything I hold dear and blaspheme God himself.  But the One who created him loves him with an unearthly passion and trusts me with the high honor of putting  words and actions to His love

I am determined to walk in love, to consider all evidence, and talk in peaceful, rational tones.   Will you join me?

• Judge not, that ye be not judged. (Matt. 7:1)

• Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;  (Matt. 5:44)

• Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and a house divided against a house falleth. (Luke 11:17)

Different crowd, different worldview, different results

Normally I would hesitate to point this out as a matter of manners, but I can’t resist this stunning example of how worldview makes a difference.  The first photo is a shot of the Capital Mall after the January 20th inauguration.  The Second is a photo following the Tea Party on September 12th.  You can draw your own conclusions.  (Thanks to sweetness-light.com for the photos)

Standing in the midst of insanity

Because I passionately believe in the Kingdom of God I am not an alarmist.  I find great encouragement in the fact that King of the Kingdom is not panicked by world affairs.   American politics will not thwart the Prince of Peace who has already made provision for the restoration of the entire cosmos.

But neither do I believe we can sit back and just “trust” everything will be sorted out in the end.  (Or even worse… naively “hold on” until Jesus rescues us out of the mess!)  If God’s people abandon wisdom, reason, and prayer, humanity will reap the consequences of added generations of brokenness and injustice.  So I humbly submit a few guidelines that have helped me maintain a hopeful and responsible equilibrium in an maddening world:

• Daily press into the prayer we’ve been taught:  “May thy Kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.”

• Continually ask God for wisdom and insight to see things as they are, and not as they appear to be.

• Educate yourself about the world and the way it operates.  Believers are called to understand the times, and it is impossible to do so without a basic understanding of economics, government, the causes of poverty, Marxism, Islam, Postmodernism, art, culture, and certainly a Biblical understanding of each of these concepts. “My people are destroyed because of lack of knowledge.” – Hosea 4:6

• Maintain objectivity:  Truth has nothing to fear, and it is on the safest of grounds that we are commanded to “Test all things; Hold onto what is good.” – (1 Thes. 5:21)   We must engage on the level of facts, and not just opinions.   Very few people and ideas are one hundred percent good or evil, so with the greatest of reverence we ought to sift through every idea for the bare facts.

• Don’t be bullied by political correctness:  Once the facts emerge we must present reality as it is, whether socialism, racism, greed, economic irresponsibility, or old-fashioned foolishness, it has a name.  (I, for one, am quite tired of people acting as if the word “Socialism” is a slanderous invective coined by “right-wing nut-cases.” It is what it is – an objective, definable worldview – and we’ll never move on as long as it’s bad manners to call it by its name).   When the whole aim of political correctness is to wrap the truth in harmless euphemisms it’s good to remember that God pronounces “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil.” (Is. 5:20)

• Stand in love.  We must never forget that those with whom we disagree are passionately loved by the Father of Jesus.  All of our truth-telling, regardless of its accuracy, will be reduced to malignant judgment if it is not framed in the love of Christ.

Jesus cooked breakfast

Faced with a choice between Inglorious Bastards and Julie and Julia, I deferred to my friend Beth and went with the chick-flick.   There were way too many bullet holes on that poster of Brad Pitt, and I reckoned it would be easier for me to watch Merle Streep cook than for Beth to watch Brad slaughter Nazis.

It was a great choice.  You know, the kingdom changes everything, and even this biographical film about a French cook oozed with the passion and creativity of the Trinity.  It’s a movie about following the passions placed in our heart by Father God, and about how we come alive when we do the things we’re created to do.  Of course Merle Streep, (who happens to be one of my favorite actresses), was brilliant as Julia Child, and even though I didn’t get choked up, I got worked-up and had to refrain from jumping up and cheering during several scenes.

Julia Child cooked fish.  And so did Jesus.  (John 21:9-13)  So the way I see it, that makes cooking a holy thing.  The source of that delightful cooking-joy in Julia Child found its source in the creative, cooking God.

I walked out of the theater thinking abut my passions.  Am I living them?  Am I throwing myself into the things the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit created me to do?  Are you?  You might want to check out Julie and Julia.

Seeking the Kingdom, part two

I’m afraid I may mess with some sacred cows on this post, but I’ve been wanting to write about this for quite some time.  When Jesus declared the gospel he didn’t say the sort of things we say today about the promises of going to heaven when we die, the need to say a sinner’s prayer, or even the imperative to “ask Jesus into your heart.”  As true as all of these things may be they miss the essence of the gospel, which of course is the Kingdom.  Notice Jesus’ declaration of the gospel:

“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” (Matthew 4:17)

With only eight words, that’s a pretty concise message.  But what the heck does it mean?   First off, most of us evangelicals have grown up with a narrow, parochial understanding of repentance.  We’ve been steeped in the doctrine that this Greek word, matanoia is limited pretty much to the idea of turning from sin, often with tears and time spent at an alter.  Although there’s an element of truth in this, it’s not even close to the full meaning of the word.  And the resulting problem is that the whole affair becomes focused on sin and getting released from sin, rather than on receiving the Kingdom.

In the original Greek, (in which the Gospel of Matthew was written), metanoia meant changing one’s mind or heart about someone or something, and in the context of Jesus’ declaration it meant that we are commanded to look at the whole world with new eyes.  He, the King, has arrived on the scene.  He has redeemed the entire cosmos, (Col. 1:20), and nothing can ever be the same again.

My experience over these past few years is that seeking the kingdom involves a continuous, lifelong process of rethinking everything, asking continuous questions and receiving an ever-refined prescription for my fuzzy, clouded vision and silly ideas about God and his world.

But here’s where it gets interesting: Some of that rethinking has been in regard to my evangelical heritage.  I’ve realized that much of what I received when I came to Christ was not a kingdom, (I spent about twenty five years with no understanding of that), but ideas and notions I inherited from a feeble Americanized evangelical church.

It feels great to be on the journey, the quest for the Kingdom as it is.  But the moment I stop questioning, the journey comes to a screeching halt.  In order to receive the kingdom we have to first lay down our notions of what we’ve always believed. We must repent and rethink everything.

After two exciting weeks of teaching in Romania I’ve returned home to Maryland and am enjoying time with family and friends.  My schedule in the coming months will be pretty full of travel, but I expect to do it from this side of the ocean rather than from Europe.

DTS Students in Constanza, Romania

How to seek God’s kingdom

One young friend, a bright young university student, just asked me an honest and searching question: “What kind of things constitute seeking the Kingdom?” I’m no authority with these types of questions.  I still feel like a kingdom rookie searching the field for some seasoned player who can show me the ropes.  But I love the process, and so I asked the Holy Spirit for insight to respond.

I think it all begins with loving God and loving others (Luke 10:27).  But even before a journey can begin it needs a firm starting place, and the only place solid enough to begin the kingdom journey is a deep revelation of the profound and unwavering love God has for me.  Until my eyes are opened and my heart is bathed in the reality of God’s staggering love and affection towards me I’ll never be able to truly love others as I ought.   Sadly, many of us are clueless about God’s affection and we spend our lives trying to get into a room we’re already in rather than striking out on the adventure.  (If we really understood the love of God it would show up clearly in our attitudes towards liberals, gays, church visitors, homeless people and minorities!)

So we begin by drinking deeply of the love of God.  You’ll need to stop squirming.  Stop tracking your performance.  Stop trying to earn God’s love (there’s no need), or to prove how much you deserve God’s love, (you don’t), and just accept the fact that Father God is crazy with love for you beyond all reason or understanding.  There’s absolutely nothing you can do including “seeking the Kingdom,” that will make him love you any more or any less than he already does.  The truth is, God COULDN’T love you any more, and he REFUSES to love you any less than he does at this moment.   When a person’s soul is baptized in the love of the King his born-again eyes will be opened for the first time to the splendor of the kingdom.

And from there it will be quite natural to burn with love for God and others.  You’ll discover an inner motivation to pray for the kingdom, (Matt. 6:10); to preach the kingdom, (Luke 10:9; and to enlarge the kingdom through acts of mercy, helping the poor, feeding the hungry, visiting the sick, and bringing justice and light into the darkness around us.  (Matt. 25:31-40).

But we must never lose sight of the fact that the LOVE of God is forever the engine of all activity.  God’s kingdom is never advanced by drudgery nor the compulsion of dry religious obligation.  The kingdom comes with delight.   When we realize the love of the King we will gladly give ourselves to the enlargement of his kingdom.

PS:  I’m in Constanza, Romania with a class of twelve students from Moldova, Azerbaijan, Canada, Romania and the US.  We’re having some amazing moments together.  Next week I’ll be in a youth camp in the middle of the country with no internet access.  (It’s in a tiny village with one dirt road,  horse-carts, and cows who come wandering home to their respective yards at dusk).  Thanks as always for your prayers and support.

The difference between Harvard and my hometown

Today I want to honor the people of my hometown.  I grew up in the same community as Henry Louis Gates, the “preeminent black scholar and Harvard professor” who has been so much in the news this week over an incident of alleged racial profiling in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Henry was a couple of years older than me, and I really don’t know what sort of things he might have experienced growing up.  I’m sure he’s had some hurtful experiences that could add kerosene to any racial fires burning in America.  But I’m hoping he’ll decide to use his stories and memories in a more holy way.

In the meantime, the interracial friendships of Henry’s hometown are light years ahead of the stuff we’re hearing about in the news.  And they didn’t arrive at that place by shouting and pointing fingers.  The “Tri-Towns” of Piedmont, West Virginia, Westernport and Luke Maryland is a community where Blacks and Whites live together, worship together, and grieve together out of respect and genuine affection for one another.  Most of my hometown friends of either race could teach both the Harvard professor and the Cambridge police department a good lesson in civility:  “A soft answer turns away wrath, but harsh words stir up anger.” (Prov. 15:1)

It’s a kingdom thing, isn’t it?  Once we realize that we’re all brothers and sisters in an amazing family of diversity and wonder, we begin to honor and respect the person next door regardless of all the things that might come between us.

I can’t imagine racial conciliation ever becoming a reality in the absence of the Kingdom; There’s just too much pride, anger, and self-importance at work in the fallen sons of Adam.  Still… as the world marches in circles trusting its broken tools of castigation, litigation, and legislation, the amazing sons and daughters of the Kingdom will quietly enjoy loving each other under the tender gaze of their Father.  So to all of my hometown friends of whichever color you happen to be, I’m proud of you, and glad to be a part of the family!

The importance of traveling companions

Thanks to all my friends who took the time to leave their thoughts regarding teachers and heroes.   Your insights nourished to my spirit and underscored again my need for good companions along the trails of the Kingdom.

In many ways this month in Sarajevo has been a real slugfest for me, having substantial encounters with hopelessness, depression, loneliness, and a host of other beasts.   It’s never been easy to live in this city, and without the structure of a team and the focus of specific projects I obviously walked into a vulnerable situation.  So you can imagine the sweetness of having this bit of interaction while Father teaches me to find deeper grace for such circumstances.

On a more positive note I’ve also had some wonderfully creative times with the Holy Spirit developing new materials on Grace and The Kingdom of God Through History. Abba seems to have used the struggles to deepen my understanding of both.  On Saturday I’ll leave for two weeks in Romania where I’ll have the opportunity to put it all to use.