Living Out Christ

Living out the gospel can be rough, troublesome, tumultuous, joyful, illuminating, exhilarating, etc…One thing is for sure, living out the gospel is not stagnant. So why is this? Truth be told, that man on the cross questioned down to the bottom of hell, for our sakes, is the ultimate question that God puts to us. What we do with Jesus determines not only who we are but how we will live. 

As followers of Christ we are called to be imitators of Him – that is, to participate in His ministry of reconciliation. This can only happen when: First, we recognize our need of Jesus; and second, see the needs of others before our own. Being in Christ is a process of growth – it is a daily movement into His movement. I like what John Newton (author of Amazing Grace) writes:

I am not what I ought to be.I am not what I wish to beI am not even what I hope to by.But by the cross of Christ,I am not what I was

We can only live out our love of Christ as well as suffer for his sake when, through the Holy Spirit, Christ becomes the pattern of our life and the person after which we would sculpture our person. As Paul wrote to the Ephesians, “Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children ²and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” (Eph 5.1-2). 

Take this moment and ask the Lord to highlight areas of your life that you could better imitate Christ.  Stop, and take in this moment – take to heart the proverb, Carpe diem – which simply means, “Seize the day!”  Thank God for this moment and celebrate your life by living out Christ in your love to God, to yourself, and to the other!

So Close No Matter How Far

The band Metallica writes:

So close no matter how far

Couldn't be much more from the heart

Forever trusting who we are

No nothing else matters

 

Never opened myself this way

Life is ours, we live it our way

All these words I don't just say

And nothing else matters

This is how so many people live their lives – focused on self such that their trust is in who they are, living life their way, because in the end, “nothing else matters.”

The drama of life - what does it have to say about a life focused solely on self? What would this look like? A nation of self-possessed people...Chaos and confusion or comfort and compassion?

The Bible says that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will not only be satisfied, but they will also be blessed (cf. Matt 5.6). In fact, Jesus goes on to tell us not to store up treasures on earth but to store up for ourselves treasures in heaven. He then makes this most audacious claim: where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (cf. Matt 6.19-21).

Oh Jesus...

Think about it, Jesus is stating that the one who hungers and thirsts for righteousness is one who has her priorities right. Let's be realistic, surely Jesus must not understand what He is saying...Or better yet, His sermon on the mount isn't meant for Americans. America is the land of the free, the land of independence. Any show of interdependence is a sign of weakness. We are meant to have our treasures here on earth and have the focus of life be on self - on myself.

This is why the message of Jesus is radical and expects nothing less than radical change. He does not ask us for anything - He asks us for everything!

The follower of Christ is one whose heart is an offense to this world because it is enveloped by and in the love of Jesus. We want nothing more than to live as Jesus because He is our treasure. For a person who hungers and thirsts for righteousness nothing else matters but the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The drama of salvation reorients the meaning of life; it re-writes the lyrics of our lives. Those who hunger and thirst for the righteousness of God are satisfied because they have stepped into Christ’s redeeming performance and now, everything, or better yet, everyone matters because nothing else but Jesus matters!

Ah the beautiful paradoxes of faith…If nothing but our Triune God matters in the treasure of our heart, then the lyrics of our song can truly sing, “forever trusting who we are” because we have realized the truth that we are created in the image of a loving God who has poured out His love into our hearts. And from this love we live life our way, which is Jesus’ way, seeking the lost and brokenhearted so that they too might hunger and thirst for the righteousness of God.

Hope deferred makes the heart sick

 Imagine the scene: The Rev Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. standing there, looking at into the eyes of the oppressed, downtrodden, those who have mourned, those who were broken, in despair, in search of hope – the mass staring back up to the one they were praying would give them a new dream…

Dr King knew that the dream of America is not and could never be, bound up in the hopes of man as such hopes are fleeting. Hope that heals is hope that is permanent - tattooed on the heart (or hand) so as never to be forgotten. So, when the Rev. Martin Luther King stood before the watching world to proclaim the end of legal discrimination against all people, he did so as one who had seen God’s righteousness enacted at the Cross, and was therefore hungry for righteousness in his own day. And because this reality of righteousness can come only from God Himself, Dr King, in his speech, cried out to the Lord with the words of the prophet Isaiah, proclaiming the coming of the Lords day.

The voice of one crying in the wilderness [saying:] Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. For every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together (Isaiah 40.3-5)

Dr King knew what the church must know, what the world must come to know: that our hunger and thirst for righteousness are only satisfied by and in Christ. This hunger must be our hope here and now – it must propel us to live out Jesus’ insane love. As Proverbs 13.12 states, Hope deferred makes the heart sick, But desire fulfilled is a tree of life.

If our hope is not in Christ because our hunger and thirst are for the savory tastes of society as opposed to the Savior of society, it is certain our hearts will be made sick. 

Abyss of Hunger

Hungry? Hunger in today's age is an abyss - it is all around and yet so many of us don't really know what it means truly to hunger - we are confused or blinded due to its overwhelming presence.

Should we hunger? can hunger be positive? If you have ever played a sport you would think that hunger is essential - coaches always shouting out the inquiry "ARE YOU HUNGRY?"

So what do we hunger and thirst for…Better yet, who? Is it God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – who quenches our hunger and thirst or do we go elsewhere? Is our appetite for the Creator or do we hunger and thirst for worldly food?

These days it is easy to be a fast-food consumer of God, but this type of consumption does not satisfy the depth of our soul’s hunger and thirst. People who are hungry and thirsty are in dire need; they will die if not helped. Such is the passion of a disciple of Christ. The ultimate source of righteousness is God Himself. This is who we must hunger and thirst for – it is a relational hunger at its core. We must know and love God if we are to understand righteousness.

The author of Hebrews helps us realize what it means to hunger and thirst for God. Read Hebrews 12.1-2. For those who call themselves a follower of Christ, our hunger and thirst can only be satisfied through a deep longing for Jesus. When this becomes our reality, our hearts, our character, our being,  and our response to life is in light of His response to us, and this is not always easy nor does it often times lack pain and suffering, but we are called to respond to life as our Savior did, with joy and praise!  


The language of the Bible is interactive, calling for a participation in the Being and act of God. With this in mind then, we must ask: Is today’s church living out Christ’s incarnational performance thereby promoting first, our being in Christ so as to then establish our own act (purpose)? Or in its quest for the “unchurched,” is the church subtly promoting the mind and heart of William Ernest Henley expressed through his poem Invictus:

It matters not how strait the gate,/ How charged with punishments the scroll,/ I am the master of my fate,/ I am the captain of my soul.[1] 

For Henley, and much of society, life is something to be conquered. The term Invictus is Latin for “unconquerable” or “undefeated.” The point being drawn out here is the between a life lived by a person whose purpose is derived by them, they are the master of their own fate, the captain of their own soul contrasted with one who is “more than a conqueror” due solely to the fact that their being participates in Christ’s own life, death, and resurrection because it is Christ who is the captain of their soul (Psalm 73.25-28).

Is the purpose of the church today the pursuit of the consumer crown or the pursuit of the crucified crown?

---

[1] William Ernest Henley, Invictus, 1888. 

Seeing Empty as Full

Georges Rouault (French, 1871-1958)
Christ among the poor

One of the most beautiful yet challenging chapters of the Bible is Philippians 2—why? because it illumines the aspects of humility and servanthood. The idea of emptying ourselves so that we might be filled up is an interesting concept, but such a reality sits in opposition to today's culture.
Think about it, to empty yourself in today's world is to surrender. That is, to let go of your rights or deserved rights is equivalent to surrendering because instead of "demanding what is yours" you are placing the sake of the other first. And let's be honest, surrender is not a popular issue or philosophy; in a society that says win at all costs, surrender (or to empty yourself) in order to gain or be elevated, is an extreme paradox.

Here is the deal: the church will always have a foundational belief and being that is counter-culture but this must never be to the eradication of culture. That is, the church will often times be in opposition to the ways of society but the church must not discount or discard the voice of society. Dialogue is essential for the sake of the world hearing the "Good News" of Jesus Christ.

The reality is this:

• society does not understand how surrender can bring about glory, victory and elevation
• society does not understand how Jesus could have the audacity to call His followers to die so that they might live
• society does not understand how Jesus can say that in order to be first we must be last

Jesus goes against everything we have been taught about who a King is supposed to be, or a ruler, or a person of power and prestige. Jesus comes and takes all our concepts, turns them inside out so as to turn them right side up. In his letter to the Philippians Paul urges his readers to be humble and to follow the example of Christ, who, although He was “in the very nature of God,” became human and underwent death on the cross. God therefore exalted Him to the highest place (2.1-11). This leads to a further exhortation to his readers to serve God faithfully (2.12-18). In this beautiful hymn (Phil 2.1-11) Paul explains the truth of Christ, that He "emptied Himself, taking the form of a Bond-servant and being made in the likeness of men (v7). Here Paul draws directly from the book of Isaiah, specifically Isa 52.13-53-6. Isaiah writes, "Behold My servant will prosper, He will be high and lifted up and greatly exalted" (52.13). And then Isaiah goes on to illumine the reason for this exaltation. This is what it says of the Bible's crucified King:

He has no stately form or majesty That we should look upon Him, Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him (53.2)
He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him (53.3)
Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted (53.4)
But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed (53.5)
All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him (53.6)

We express the heart of humility in the same way Christ Jesus did, when we promote peace and unity among the church as well as the world. We are the church when we look out and stand up for the good of others, not our own selfish interests; when we live out this reality, we demonstrate and actualize the heart and mind of Christ, which is the truth and realization of humility (Philippians 2.1-4).

Jesus’ teaching on servanthood and suffering was not intended to merely inspire good behavior. Jesus wanted to impart (to give a part or share; to communicate the knowledge of; to make known) the spirit of servanthood, the sense of personal commitment and identity that He expressed when He said, “I am among you as He who serves” (Luke 22.27). Christ is calling us to “empty” ourselves of our selfish ambitions and self-centered acts. What a paradox that stretches our mind’s eye, to think that as we become “empty” of self and dependent on God, the Holy Spirit will use us mightily, but this is the life we are called to live faithfully and obediently.

Empty in order to be filled...how are you doing today with this? How can the Church transform society - by becoming greater servants and lovers of the other. How can you, how can I, how can we become more of a servant today and tomorrow? As Jesus reminds us, "When you did it to the least of these you did it to Me" (Matt 25.40). Come Lord Jesus Come!

Scandal of the Cross

Following Christ, which has become possible through his self-surrender, will not consist in doing some right thing but in fundamentally surrendering everything, and surrendering it to the God who has totally emptied himself, so that he can use [that right thing] for the world, according to his own purposes.

The life of Christ is the center of our participation. Theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar writes "The scandal of the cross cannot be removed by further theoretical discussion but only by praxis, which is twofold: it is a decisive step into the future, beyond the baneful barriers set up by doctrine, and it is also a return to Christianity’s authentic and original meaning: God shows his truth to us through acting.” As the apostle Paul tells us, we should "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling;  for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (Philippians 2.12-13).

The world is God’s theater of glory; it is the place for humanity’s performance in Christ through the Spirit. Faithfulness to the performance of God recognizes that Christianity is praxis. It tells us how we should act not simply what we should believe.

Let’s Dance

A lot has been going on these days...The drama of life is like a disco ball shining down upon us - the reflection of the light can be both blinding as well as beautiful. You just never know what disco you will step into?

An event that promotes health ends with an explosion, death and chaos. A fire at a warehouse ends in the destruction of a city. Water is good, but too much produces flooding. Think about it, this week's dance has been one of explosions, cities locked down, towns flooded, airports shutdown, lives lost, confusion, questions, chaos...

What does it all mean? How are we to respond? To the Boston Bombing, to the Texas explosion, to the Watertown turmoil, to life? In all that is happening, I have to admit that my first reaction is not one of mercy.

I find it hard to show mercy when I feel as though I have been wronged, don't you? What does it mean to be merciful, to enact justice?

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said it like this:

You remember one day a man came to Jesus and he raised some significant questions. Finally he got around to the question, "Who is my neighbor?" This could easily have been a very abstract question left in midair. But Jesus immediately pulled that question out of midair and placed it on a dangerous curve between Jerusalem and Jericho. He talked about a certain man who fell among thieves. Three men passed; two of them on the other side. And finally another man came and helped the injured man on the ground. He is known as the Good Samaritan. Jesus says in substance that this is a great man. He was great because he could project the "I" into the "thou." He was great because he could surround the length of life with the breadth of life . . . . May it not be that the problem in the world today is that individuals as well as nations have been overly concerned with the length of their individual lives and concerns, devoid of the breadth? But there is still something to remind us that we are interdependent, that we are all somehow caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. Therefore whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. As long as there is poverty in the world I can never be rich, even if I have a million dollars. As long as diseases are rampant and millions of people in this world cannot expect to live more than twenty-eight or thirty years, I can never be totally healthy even if I just got a good checkup at May clinic. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the way our world is made. No individual or nation can stand out boasting of being independent. We are interdependent.

Mercy, justice, and hope are brought about by and through our faith-filled actions. See for Dr. King, peace, hope, and justice on earth are in themselves evidence of the eternal peace which Christ on the cross establishes between God and man. For the Christian, therefore, a plea for justice and peace is a plea to God himself. Only when the church becomes a witness to God’s performance, in Christ through the Spirit, does it point beyond itself and into the communion of love, thereby becoming active participants in the building of the Kingdom of God. Christian love is rooted in the overflowing love of the Father, Son, and Spirit, who have poured out their divine love into the hearts of the body of Christ. It is only in this love that the church finds the ability to pour itself out into the lives of the ‘other,’ bearing witness to Christ so to bear witness to life, thereby letting justice "roll down like a river, and righteousness, like a never-ending stream." The pouring out of love and self for the sake of the other is the dance of Jesus' disco. No better time to step into Jesus' dance of insane love! Let's dance! Amen Jesus!

Lunatic, Liar or Lord?

Jesus. Some people claim he's a great teacher while others think he is nothing more than a great prophet. Some dismiss him as a liar or even a lunatic, (a madman), and yet a countless number hail him as Savior and Lord. The great C.S. Lewis once remarked:

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. (Mere Christianity, 56)

Whatever people think of him, nobody can deny that he stands at the very crux of human history. As Talk-Show host Larry King answered when asked who he would most like to have interviewed from across history, "Jesus Christ—I would like to ask Him if He was indeed virgin born, because the answer to that question would define history." Larry King was absolutely right as in his answer, he identifies the hinge upon which all history turns. The call placed on each one of us today is to identify the claims for the deity of Christ so to then understand the foundation of the faith found in Christ through the Holy Spirit.

Life beckons us to investigate the claims of Christ for in doing so we come to realize what it means to be a player in God's drama - that is, to be a participant in this thing called life. ‘God does not play the world drama all on his own; he makes room for humanity to join in,’ and this joining in is made possible through the performance of Christ. And from His performance, humanity is given insight into our own personhood as Christ is, according to Hans Urs von Balthasar, "the center of the world, he is the key to the interpretation not only of creation, but of God Himself. . . . God wills to maintain his relation to the world only with Jesus Christ as the centre of that relationship, the content and fulfilment of the eternal Covenant." (Theology of History, 20-22)

What are you doing to gain the meaning of life? Who do you say Jesus Christ is?

The Sounds of Silence

Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence

The weekend begins with the brutal, tragic, and paradoxically beautiful death of Jesus Christ. And then there is silence...

It is almost as if time stands still - everyone staring at the limp, beaten and broken body on the Cross. And then they watched as the body is taken down, placed in a tomb and then left alone.

Everyone, followers of Jesus, haters of Jesus, could do nothing but wait. And so they did: wait, wonder, hope. Is He the Christ, the Messiah? or is He nothing more than a false promise, a dream breaker, hope wrecker?

Today should be a day of contemplation for the Christian church. Today should be a day of wonder for the world at large. Who is this man called Jesus? And what does He want with me?

Truth is, we do not have to remain friends with the darkness. The sound of Saturday's silence is the rumbling of love that explodes from the empty cross of Sunday. This weekend we, the Church, must celebrate the hope of heaven. That is, the Kingdom of heaven is here and the world needs it just as much as we do and did. So what if...

What if today we started living the hope of tomorrow? What if we lived out the hope of heaven (the not yet) in the midst of the reality of earth here and now? I truly believe that as followers of Christ we can be history makers today--do you? Don't let Satan fool you, our human response to what God has done on our behalf makes a real difference to God--He (God) loves the whole of His creation. The God who is for us and with us in Jesus Christ wants us, by the Spirit’s power, to be for and with one another so that together, we the Church can be for the world.

Time for us to step into the sound of Saturday's silence so that the eruption of Sunday's glorious love will explode from our words, our actions, our lives! Time to say hello to the brightness and the beauty of the Cross - our old friend who has left the indelible vision of of heaven today in our mind's eye and on our heart!

The time is now for us to be the sweet melodic sound of redeeming love for a world swept away by silence...

Holy Thursday Batman!

Today, the Thursday before Good Friday and Easter Sunday, is referred to as "Maundy" or "Holy" Thursday. On this day throughout the annals of Church history, you would find that many set apart this day as one of remembrance  Such remembrance would be accounted for through the sacred meal known as communion. On this day Christians recall Jesus' last meal, the Last Supper. 

I wonder today in the midst of all our "worldly" business, how many will stop and even give a thought of one of the most significant evenings in the course of history? This was no ordinary meal as it represented Jesus' life - it represents the Christian life. The Eucharist is not simply a meal, it is an act - an act of sacrifice so as to give life to the other. That is, we are called to give of ourselves (to be willing to break our body and pour out our self)  so that the world might come to know the insane love of Jesus - the life-giving love of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

What's more, on this night, not only did Jesus break bread with his friends, but He gave us the ultimate example of what it means to be a leader...He washed the feet of his disciples. That is right, in the fourth Gospel we read how Jesus elevates His performance through the washing His disciples feet ( John 13.1-17). 

Theologian Karl Barth writes:

How emphatically the latter Gospel emphasizes the fact that the service of Christ is His true power and majesty and therefore the grace by which man receives His life! - the revealed grace of God which was already the secret of the Old Testament, though operative then only in a vertical movement from above. In the New, however, it has really come down into the depths and manifested itself there, becoming itself service in accordance with this end of its way. The action of God which absolutely precedes all human action and therefor all human service is that He has placed Himself wholly and unreservedly in the service of humanity as revealed and effectual in the service of Jesus. 

When reading through the NT continuously we are reminded how God Himself acts and how He is revealed as a Servant and in this way as the Lord, in the person of Him who made Himself of no reputation and took upon Him the form of a servant (Phil 2.7). The form of a servant is not a popular concept in today's society. The reality of giving of our selves – Self-sacrifice - is not a popular issue or philosophy in a society that says win at all costs. The Christian reality of sacrifice for the sake of the “other” is the ultimate paradox. How so?

*By placing the "other" before the "self" we actually gain life thereby bringing about glory and victory
*We become first when we are last
*We live when we die - life through death

The question we must ask ourselves as we prepare to celebrate the culmination of the life of Jesus - are we, through the Holy Spirit, participating in His life, His way & His truth or do we expect Him to participate in our way, and truth and life? Are we building a worldly border around our bodies so as not to be broken, or are we willingly being broken and pour out for the sake of the world? Do we expect not only to be seated at the "supper," but to be served? Or are we "stepping" into the life of Christ, joyfully kneeling down on the floor so that we might scrub the foot of the "other?" Amen Jesus!

Locked Inside Your Heart Shaped Box

When you make a decision do you tell everyone by letting off some smoke from the chimney? Sounds silly but as many of us know, this is exactly what happened at the Vatican on the 13th of March 2013. And while most of us do not "literally" puff smoke out of a chimney to indicate the result(s) of our decision(s), we can (and often do), however, give off smoke screens with our actions that indicate our heart's intent. That is, when our actions do not coincide with our words - when our hearts are nothing more than an empty heart shaped box, the actions we blow off for the world are covered in the smoke of artificiality.

What then, is locked inside your heart shaped box? Better yet, who? Who you are determines what you do...Being goes before purpose or action. But this is not how much of the world lives. So often, we allow earthly things, items, people, to determine who we are, and thus, what we do. During this week (called Holy Week for the Church) might we contemplate what it is that we fill our hearts with?

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled" (Mat 5.6). To hunger and thirst for righteousness means to reorient the typical human perspective. To hunger and thirst for righteousness means that we must think beyond ourselves - it means that we are to think of the other. And this my friend is simply not what we are accustomed of doing...

Think of today's news, commercials, t.v. shows, marketing schemes...We are constantly told that life is about me. It is perfectly acceptable and even expected to hunger and thirst for self-promotion which ultimately is self-preservation. A message that calls for people to look out for the other is a counter-culture message - the antithesis of today's me-for-me mentality.

Only through and from the Father Son and Holy Spirit is meaning determined, and as theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar writes, through the Absolute, "we find not only the ultimate meaning of reality as such, but also, beyond that, the ideality that provides the meaning, or determines 'what ought to be,' which is the ultimate measure of the truth of reality." In opposition or rather in contradistinction to the autonomous story, the cosmic drama of the Godhead illumines the interaction of the protagonist—Christ—with the creature through the direction of the Holy Spirit. Such interaction plays out through the multiple scenes—intersecting narratives—of the characters upon the stage of creation thereby allowing the realization not only of what our performances are, but what they are to become.

Our current frame of reference of individualism that transforms relationalism into a consumerist transition must give way to an interpersonal view of life and its freedom as revealed through the salvific performance of Christ so as to engage the structures of evil head-on. In place of the evidence that demands the verdict that Jesus is Lord, what is required today is the verdict Jesus is Lord demanding evidence in our lives that He is Lord—as exemplified in the witness of St Francis of Assisi or Dr. John M. Perkins. The values of the Christian faith must be those that reflect the values of God’s heart or else they are nothing but an empty heart shaped box:

    She eyes me like a Pisces when I am weak
    I've been locked inside your Heart Shaped box, for weeks
    I've been drawn into your magnet tar pit trap
    I wish I could eat your cancer when you turn black


 
    Hey!
    Wait!
    I've got a new complaint
    Forever in debt to your priceless advice
    hey
    wait
    I've got a new complaint
    Forever in debt to your priceless advice

So what is locked inside your heart shaped box?

What's So Funny about Peace, Love & Understanding

Elvis Costello asks, "What's so funny about peace, love, and understanding?" How do we answer such a question? Seems like today all three are quite comical. Peace - laughable. Love - yeah who really knows what it means to love. Understanding - only if you take my truth to be the ultimate foundation of understanding.

What really do peace, love and understanding mean? And who even cares whether or not we have peace or if we understand one another, let alone love each other? The one people that should care...the Church.

What if the Christian church stepped into God's radical, insane love? Maybe the world would come to recognize the profound need for peace, love, and understanding. And in doing so, the world just might be a better place to live.

Now in Farlowesque performance, what if I push the envelop just a little further...What if I throw in the reality of hell? That is, any comprehension of love, peace and understanding should seek to incorporate the realities of heaven and hell - if a Christian answer is to be rendered.

Now you might be asking, "What does a discussion about truth, love, peace, understanding, have to do with hell or heaven for that matter?" In some ways I think everything. I think any discussion that deals with love, with peace, with understanding, must, from a Christian standpoint, delve into the realms of heaven and hell as both represent the reality of eternity. And then we must ask, where are heaven and hell? Who will see heaven and who will see hell? Might it be true that in the end, God's love wins and and all will be saved?

In talking about hell I am reminded of the play No Exit, written by Jean-Paul Sartre with its depiction of hell as three self-consumed individuals locked up in a room with no escape, and whose eyelids cannot shut. As one of these three damned souls from the play exclaims, "hell is other people."

Today in a very real sense, heaven and hell are heart issues. Heaven abounds in hearts bent on loving God and loving the other. Hell resides in hearts and lives that are turned inward, consumed in self-love as opposed to being drenched in Savior love. The predominance of our self-love mindset today makes it very difficult to see how diabolical this orientation is, and blinds us from seeing that by turning inward we close ourselves off from making our exit and entering into true freedom.

It is a self-centered heart's orientation that continues to attempt to step beyond the performance of Christ, or simply say ‘no’ to His invitation. But this does not have to be the last word or society's final act. Through the church's incorporation into Christ’s reconciliatory performance we not only encounter our salvation, but through the leading of the Spirit, can bring this hope to the ends of the earth, thereby assisting in the mass exit of hell. We can, through a performance drenched in love, bring peace and understanding by giving people heaven now. I guess then, the answer to Costello's question is "What are you doing to close the gates of hell?" And in closing these gates we elevate the truth and reality of love, peace and understanding - nothing funny about that!

Hand Sanitizer

Sometimes my mind wanders...Sure many will interject "Squirrel," here, but that is not the case for my wanderings. In the wanderings of my mind's eye I often times wonder, what does Jesus think about His Bride today? Who are we faithful to? His way or the world's way...

I am talking about a place where truth is truth. But we must ask, do we want the messy, unsanitized version of truth? What pains me is the thought that many in the church do not want Jesus' way and life of truth because such truth disrupts as is re-directs. It challenges as it transforms. It asks us daily, "who do you say I am?"

Instead of the truth of Jesus, we want a sanitized version - a Hippy Dude that walks around in Birkenstocks telling everyone "Hey man don't worry, be happy. The future is bright with optimism."

Is the Jesus being preached anywhere near the man from Nazareth? Do we preach Jesus so to become pious or are we too pious to even preach Jesus? Is what we are handing out as authentic faith simply another form of hand sanitizer…cleaning the outside while leaving the inside still dirty? Do we seek to satisfy the masses by telling them what they want to hear? Is the church leading culture or culture leading church?

I wonder if we are missing the Truth. Instead of wondering why people are the way they are, we need to seek to understand and love them. Instead of believing that love is love, we should be showing the world what it means to be bound to the insane love of Jesus - a love that sets the prisoner free, clothes the homeless and loves the sinner. A love that shines light upon the darkness so as to give us sight. G.K. Chesterton said: 

Love is not blind; that is the last thing that it is. Love is bound; and the more it is bound the less it is blind.

Faith is dynamic - at least the Christian faith is because the God of Christianity is dynamic. Through the action of revelation, God - in Christ, through the Spirit - takes life, and as theologian Karl Barth illumines, 

sets it into crisis, shaking its false foundations, and bringing to bear upon it the very Goodness of God.

Through such a shaking, our faith and our theological endeavors can begin to understand the confrontation between Creator and creature; an inter-action whereby the creature is confronted by the mystery comparable only to the impenetrable darkness of death, in which God veils Himself precisely when He unveils, announces, and reveals to the human Himself and the crazy intensity of His love. Such love is what breaks the chains of oppression, shatters the power of death and breaks down the walls of division. This is the reality of Jesus' messy, unsanitized crazy insane love - a love that makes right what the darkness has disjointed, makes beautiful what sin has defiled. This is the insane love the world is in need of! 

What the world does not need is for the church to follow its lead. Nor does the world need more rhetoric and reasons it is wrong- what the world needs is more Jesus and more Love. What are you doing to give the world what it needs?

Fake Plastic Bobble Head Jesus

Cops killing cops, Blizzards of unprecedented strength, 26 shot dead in an elementary school, elementary children taken hostage...from Syria to the climate to the "post-Gangnam" era, the looming question beckons: What do we really have to hope in?

The news of today makes me wonder, has the darkness of the world made us lose sight of  "Carpe Diem." How can one be blamed if they do not see the hope of humanity. Rather than living for, let alone thinking of the "other," people today live as though seizing the moment or the day means acquiring more stuff for themselves. "Love your neighbor" is nothing more than a statement given by pastors before the "sacred" offering of our money. We are living out purgatory...


Tell me something I don't know Dr Farlow. Okay, let's get rid of our fake plastic bobble head Jesus religion. The Christian life does not suggest there might be tough roads ahead - it explicitly shouts at us - the roads ahead will most assuredly be bumpy! The problem arises when those that call themselves "Christian" tell us that faith does not require sacrifice. This type of thinking leads to what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called "cheap grace." 

Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

Jesus does not tell us that life is all about comfortability. In fact, the writer of Hebrews makes the audacious claim that Jesus, "the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God," (Heb 12.2). Following Jesus means living sacrificially and in so doing you will receive generously the joy of life! 

Generosity and self-giving  are so often thought of materially. But theologically they should be thought of relationally. C.S. Lewis in the Weight of Glory, wrote: 

Next to the blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest thing presented to your senses.

Selfless living and self-centered living are not opposites, they are enemies that are in competition for your heart. 

A relational church is a self-giving church, it is, a Eucharistic church. The church is what William Cavanaugh calls the Eucharistic community. It is the community who “participates in the life of the triune God, who is the only good that can be common to all. Its reality is global and eternal, anticipating the heavenly polity on earth.” A Eucharistic church is a missional church.

The difference between being missional and being static in expressing the good news of the Kingdom is this: A church that evangelizes from a static paradigm creates space for those who seek it out, and politely leaves the side door open for those who don’t fit its categories (or target market). A church acting missionally forever redefines itself,  “extending its hand”, sacrificially, to draw boundaries of loving inclusion around all who enter its province.

 The Gospel of the kingdom is the person of Jesus Christ himself and the church is his body on earth (Col 1.28, 1Cor 12.27). Emanating from his hands is the sweet smelling balm of social injustice made whole, brokenness mended, the lost being found; resounding from his mouth is the message of reconciliation (2Cor 2.14 & 5.19), and we, the church, are called to live out this performance.

The reality of today: the world is in need of selfless, generous churches. Newsflash - it is not about butts in the seats or making the church or the gospel relevant! Its about our heart - about the souls of those lost. Is the purpose of the church today the pursuit of the consumer crown or the pursuit of the crucified crown? Does that which breaks Jesus' heart break ours?

Living out heaven here and now on earth cannot occur through isolated lives, nor can it occur through lives bent towards the trajectory of loving only that which is like. Life is meant to be lived out in authentic community as it is in and through such community that authentic living occurs. A missional church emulates her Savior and His sacrificial life. Anything other than this is the worship of a fake plastic bobble head Jesus.We worship a King who dramatically entered into the mess of life (remember He was born amid the stench of donkey doo!) so as to re-orient humanity thereby generously offering us the abundant life! The question remains, are we, His church, willing to participate in this act? Tomorrow is no guarantee - but right now is! Live the crazy insane life of love right now!

The Greatest Show on Earth

"Touchdown Jesus" nickname given
to the large mural that overlooks
Notre Dame Stadium 

The Greatest Show on Earth: The Superbowl?

Is this true? Is the Super Bowl the "greatest show on earth?" Do we really believe that Jesus cares about football (cross reference "Touchdown Jesus"). Does it really matter if Beyonce lip-synched or really sang during the halftime show? Should the Christian church by into the hype? And if I question it, am I a "negative nancy," a "downer," a "joy-drainer?" Why? I wonder if the lights going out at the Super Bowl is not the greatest of all metaphors - you can hype up materialism, consumerism and humanism all you want, but eventually, the lights are going to go out.

Should the Church play such earthly games? That is, should we buy into the hype of a game or some type of societal event (Grammy's, Sport's championships, Oscars, 4th of July, etc). I mean think about it, millions huddled around a glowing object with a group of dudes moving all around the green carpet. People from all over the nation shouting at a flat screen as if those on the inside of that screen can actually hear your shouts - and if they could, would they really care? Sure, the lights eventually will and do come on, but what does the light illuminate?

Don't get me wrong, I dig sports - I participated all the way through college and even attempted to go for the Olympics (wrestling), so I am not one who doesn't appreciate the art of competition. I just wonder why all the hype on this weekend (Superbowl weekend)?

What is the super bowl all about anyway? Commercials controversy, materialism, etc...See unfortunately, the numbers accounted for over the weekend of those participating in super bowl parties far exceeds the numbers of those taking in communion, a sermon and worshiping the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. Instead of folks from the church huddling around a screen that presents images of people in Africa, Oakland, China, Canada, witnessing about the life-changing message of Jesus, the millions we speak about are huddled about a glowing screen that illuminates the finer points of capitalism. Over the next few days, Facebook will blow up with people putting in their 2 cents as to the best commercial. These type of events and situations always seem to get me wondering the same thing Jesus did, when "the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth?" (Lk 18.8)

Again, I know many will balk at my argument, but I wonder why? What am I saying or presenting that is not true? Truth is, we live in a world bent towards materialism. A post-modern world that tells us we are the center of the universe. We are the masters of our own fate. Today's prescription of happiness (as defined by society) is subtly blurring our vision such that the church and the world are becoming one right before our eyes.


Stop and think, what if you and I, the church, spent as much time, hype and money on the "least of these" as we did this last weekend on our super bowl parties? Concerning the pursuit of the material world C.S. Lewis wrote:

As long as this deliberate refusal to understand things from above, even where such understanding is possible, continues, it is idle to talk of any final victory over materialism.

Whether we like it or not, we Americans are programmed to be consumers. Even when hard-pressed financially, we are pressured by our culture to forget our situation (in the betterment of the whole) and maintain our rate of consumption. This is our identity. We have become sewer pawns to the system of materialism. It is better to be an optimist or positive thinker than a critical thinker in today's post-modern, post-christian society.

Let us not attempt to engage culture within the context defined by culture, but instead, let us stand up and live the life deemed crazy and insane according to the standards of society. Indeed, the break from mainstream thought and consumption will be a struggle, but it is a struggle we must joyfully accept (Heb 12.1-2). Our perspective on life cannot continue to be defined through the consumer mentality prevalent today. We, the body of Christ, must have a Trinitarian perspective if we hope to engage the situation of today.

We have to understand the gospel is relational. Christ comes to earth and draws a circle around himself and He says everybody outside this circle is broken—you are all equal—you are broken, but behold, here is your hope...marry Me, marry Me. So what is our response? Are we willing to walk down the aisle with the Savior of the world, or would we rather climb in bed with the world? Truth is, you can't do both.

Let us not continue to be consumers of society for the good of society but instead, be consumed by the crazy insane love of Jesus for the good of society. Then, in our insanity we truly can give the world the "greatest show on earth" - the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. A show that does not simply remain a show because instead of seeking to be observed, Christ's performance invites the world to participate in this act of love so as to reorient and re-humanize the whole of humanity. Are you ready for the role of a lifetime in the greatest show on earth?

The “tude” of Righteousness

The News: what craziness this thing we call life is all about. Or maybe this is just the script we are attempting to write on our own?

Whenever I read the news I seem to ask myself: "Self (I like talking to myself, because I always have an attentive audience :0) what the heck does it mean to say I worship a Just God? Like Pilate I wonder what is truth, what is justice?" On Monday of this week, (Jan 21) the paradox of life could not have been more apparent: America inaugurates its first Black President for his second term and on the day this nation stops to celebrate the life a civil rights pioneer, the POTUS uses the very bible of the Rev Martin Luther King Jr to be sworn in by; on this day, a 15 year old boy kills 3 siblings and his parents; on this day 37 hostages are killed in Algeria; on this day the POTUS hails civil rights for "all" people - black, white, gay, straight - moving the discussion on to the road less traveled thus far; on this day the S&P 500 and Dow Jones both finished in the green (with earnings) while nearly 1.3 billion people got by on less than $1 for the day (hardly a gain); on this day millions went about life with hardly a thought of the "other"; on this day, I wonder what Jesus thinks about our nation, His church, me and my role in His drama of salvation?

So often I remain blind to the reality of the action on the world's stage. I become bent on the "tude" of self as opposed to the "tude" of the Savior (cf. Phil 2). The injustice I appear to face always has a way of eventually making me aware of the lack of justice all over the world. Bummer that I am so often blind to injustice until it lands smack on my doorstep! I live just as Alice in Chains song "Man in the box" sings:

I'm the man in the box
Buried in my crap
Won't you come and save me, save me

Lord, would you open my heart, my eyes, my ears so that I would be one who "hungers and thirsts for righteousness" (cf. Matt 5.5-10) so that I might be one who seeks to be a peacemaker thereby helping "justice roll down like a river, and righteousness, like a never-ending stream" (Amos 5.24).

In reading through the Beatitudes, I was awakened to how so often the Lord uses the so called "injustices" in my life to re-orientate my focus back to Him. There are real injustices that I neglect because I don't want to be inconvenienced by them, be challenged by them, or what's worse I don't want them to destroy my own comfort because in the end I am nothing more than self-focused. This is how Eugene Peterson translates Habakkuk 2.4: "Look at the man, bloated by self-importance--full of himself but soul-empty. But the person in right standing before God through loyal and steady believing is fully alive, really alive." Most of us understand or have heard this verse as "the just or righteous will live by faith."

A study of the four times this verse appears in the Bible sheds light on the attitude or the "tude" of the righteous. We have a choice in how we respond to life, the question we have to ask ourselves is what foundation will we build our responses on and from?

Helen Keller wrote:

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.

For those who call themselves a follower of Christ, our character and our response to life is in light of His response to us, and this is not always easy nor does it often times lack pain and suffering, but we are called to respond to life as our Savior did, with joy and praise! We who follow the Crucified King are called to live out His insane love through actions that the world will see as being nothing more than pure insanity (cf. John 10.20). We are called to participate in His Eucharistic (self-giving) performance by and through our own self-giving (Eucharistic) performances. So as the author of Hebrews writes, "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God" (Heb 12.2). Let us live out the "tude" of righteousness as we live out the insane love of Jesus...

Dude Jesus you rock my world everyday! Thank you!

Are you elevating the "Ought" of humanity?

I find it hard to show mercy when I feel as though I have been wronged, what about you? I wonder how God feels? This coming Monday (Jan 21) we will celebrate a brilliant character in God's drama; a man who reminds us of the beauty of grace and mercy in the midst of pursuing peace and justice.

Yesterday (Jan 15) marked what would have been the 84th birthday of Dr Martin Luther King Jr. And while King was a man in search of justice and peace, most importantly, he was in search of the man from Nazareth - the Prince of Peace, the Crucified King.

On April 15, 1967 Dr King discussed justice and our pursuit of communal peace. As King said, "There are people who have come to see the moral imperative of equality, but who cannot yet see the moral imperative of world brotherhood. " Justice and peace are only possible when we see the other and their needs before we push our own wants and desires to the front. We have to elevate the "ought" of humanity.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said it like this:

You remember one day a man came to Jesus and he raised some significant questions. Finally he got around to the question, "Who is my neighbor?" This could easily have been a very abstract question left in midair. But Jesus immediately pulled that question out of midair and placed it one a dangerous curve between Jerusalem and Jericho. He talked about a certain man who fell among thieves. Three men passed; two of them on the other side. And finally another man came and helped the injured man on the ground. He is known as the Good Samaritan. Jesus says in substance that this is a great man. He was great because he could project the "I" into the "thou." He was great because he could surround the length of life with the breadth of life . . . . May it not be that the problem in the world today is that individuals as well as nations have been overly concerned with the length of their individual lives and concerns, devoid of the breadth? But there is still something to remind us that we are interdependent, that we are all somehow caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. Therefore whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. As long as there is poverty in the world I can never be rich, even if I have a million dollars. As long as diseases are rampant and millions of people in this world cannot expect to live more than twenty-eight or thirty years, I can never be totally healthy even if I just got a good checkup at May clinic. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the way our world is made. No individual or nation can stand out boasting of being independent. We are interdependent.

Peace and Justice are brought about by and through our faith-filled acts. See for Dr. King, peace and justice on earth are in themselves evidence of the eternal peace which Christ on the cross establishes between God and humanity. For the Christian, therefore, a plea for justice is a plea to God himself. When the church becomes a witness to God’s performance, in Christ through the Spirit, it points beyond itself and into the communion of love. In so doing we become active participants in the revealing of and living out of the Kingdom of God here and now.

Christian love is rooted in the overflowing love of the Father, Son, and Spirit, who have poured out this very love into the hearts of the body of Christ. It is only in this love that the church finds the ability to pour itself out into the lives of the "other," bearing witness to Christ so as to bear witness to the abundance of life. In this faithful performance of love, mercy and grace, we raise the "ought" of humanity to the realm of reality. We live out the hope of tomorrow today when we elevate the other to be what they ought to be so that we can all live out the "ought" of humanity. Amen Jesus!

The Drama of Salvation

"The world is neither just nor unjust, it just is" so sings Robert Smith (lead singer of the Cure).  I wonder if Robert Smith loved Jesus and followed Him would he sing the same lyrics?

If God is just then isn't His creation just?  And if we, His creation are not just, then what does that say about God?  In Matthew 25 Jesus tells us the story commonly known as The Sheep and the Goats.  The point Jesus is trying to make is not to give us a nice warm and cozy story that we can all nod our heads to and say "yeah you know I should be kinder and nicer to everyone."  No, Matthew 25 is not meant to be simply heard, it is meant to be entered into, justice doesn't happen without us (the Church) acting.  

Jesus doesn't impose salvation as a solution; he dramatically narrates salvation into being through conversation, intimate personal relationships, compassionate responses, passionate prayer, and sacrificial living (and death).  The truth and point is, we don't walk casually away from the drama of salvation!  It should disrupt our comfort to know that people in our very lives are "goats" and will remain so if we remain silent and mute with our story of hope!  The main character of God's drama remains absent from so many as long as we remain silent.

What are you going to do today with the drama of salvation?