Change Happens

"If you have a new world, you need a new church.  You have a new world."

- Brian McLaren

Change has changed.  It used to be that every few years a new technology or idea would come about that would change the way we lived or how we viewed the world.  The telegraph eventually gave way to the telephone and radio.  Radio set the stage for television and cell phones.  Eight tracks and vinyl records eventually gave way to the CD.  Then came the iPod and now the iPhone.  The dizzying truth is that the gaps between the advent of these new technologies used to be centuries, then decades, and now just a few years.  It seems as if these changes are so rapid that we can't even keep up on a day to day basis. 

A few of us here at Lifesong have been reading Brian McLaren's The Church On The Other Side, and we've been openly talking about some of the ways our world has changed, and about how it is literally impossible to keep up anymore.  McLaren actually says that change itself has changed, and that the rate of change has sped up to the point that it is actually impossible to think about and process all the information we are confronted with each day.

So the question for us is:  What does this mean for the Church?  How should we live as those claimed by Christ in order to save the world if we can't even comprehend what is going on in the world? 

The first thing to do, as I see it, as acknowledge that we're ALL in the same boat.  No one is comfortable with the rate of change in the world, and no one can keep up with it all.  Change has leveled the playing field, and we are all trying to wrestle with how to live.  I propose that the Church has two options:

1)  Grasp the past tightly and try to weather the storm.  It seems this is the turn that the Catholic Church has recently decided to take with its recent advocacy of returning to the Latin Mass.  This is also the approach of many Evangelicals/Fundamentalists who long for the glory days of religious revival or the hey-day of the American empire.  I sometimes watch the more-extreme voices for these folks on channel 17 and they're usually talking about how evil the rest of the world is and how great their brand of Christianity is.  As one of my professors rightly said; "the way forward is not backward".

2)  Pack lightly and move forward.  Change happens, and when it does, the Church needs to change too.  That means that we need to discover what is essential to our faith and be willing to re-invent everything else.  There are, however, many ways to go wrong with this approach.  We sometimes throw the baby out with the bath water when it comes to change and tradition, and some traditions speak throughout the ages.  I suggest that maybe the best place to start as far as what is non-negotiable is this simple three word confession that dates back to the early church:  Jesus is Lord. 

If we live with this truth at the center of our lives, nothing else can claim us or distract us from our mission in the world.  If Jesus is Lord, nothing else can be.

We're still trying to figure out how we should live in this world of rampant change, and I have to say that it's really refreshing just to stop for a minute and talk with trusted friends about some of the craziness (good and bad) in the world and take time to think about what it all means.  Ultimately, we know that as His people, Jesus is present and in the center of these discussions, and we pray for the courage to continually re-invent our Church so that we might live with Jesus at the center of our lives - constantly reminding ourselves that if Jesus is Lord, nothing else can be...          

Sabbath Part 2...

Lifesong structures itself a little differently than the average church.  Many churches follow the same routines that were followed in the dark ages, but the world has largely stripped these ancient practices of their original meaning.  For example, 500 years ago the church was the center of the community.  People arranged their schedules around the church, not the other way around.  The church was involved in every major part of one's life; baptism, confirmation, weekly communion, marriage, and then last rites in the closing minutes of life.  This was true of just about everyone, and the parish Priest made it all happen...

Times have changed haven't they.  It feels silly to have to say this out loud, but it is a VERY different world than it was 500 years ago, and yet the Church largely functions as if it were still the center of community life, instead of realizing that it has been pushed out to the margins.  We may not have it right, but Lifesong is trying to see this truth honestly, which is why we worship in so many different ways (community service, home churches, small discipleship groups - what we call a cluster "in", worship gatherings that feel a lot like the church "services" we were raised in; and finally, through not doing ANYTHING on a given Sunday).

That's one of the reasons we take a Sabbath Sunday at least 3 times a year.  We do no "official" ministry, but instead prayerfully consider where WE have shoved God into the margins of our lives, and where we need to ask for His grace.  Some may think that it's kind of strange for a church NOT to meet in order to make room for God.  But the truth is that we sometimes actually block God from our lives when we are busy preparing and conducting services.  If God is God of all of life, then I can worship him outside of a church service just as faithfully as if I was singing praise choruses (check out Romans 12: 1-3.  These are foundational verses in my life). 

It IS a praise chorus to God when he sees his people speaking kindly to their children after a stressful week.  It IS a song of praise when friends gather in order to celebrate life, or share each others' burdens.  And it is a chorus of praise when a family or an individual gets to simply BE, with no itinerary; you know, one of those alien mornings when you wake up and compulsively look at the planner and see NOTHING on it.  If we pray and seek Him in all of our lives, that strange blank page on the planner can be inhabited by God Himself...

The Resurrection and Everyday Life

"When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: 

"Death has been swallowed up in victory." 

"Where, O death is your victory?  Where, O death is your sting?"

1 Corinthians 15: 54-55

Those of us who follow Jesus have always made a big deal out of the resurrection.    Within 40 years of Jesus' death, Paul wrote that if Jesus wasn't really (bodily) raised, then Christians were to be pitied more than anyone else.  If Christ didn't really die and really rise; or his body was stolen, or he swooned, or God "cloned" him (all of these have been suggested to explain the historical evidence of the resurrection), then I've been had, and so has every other follower of Jesus.  The early Church risked everything on this one event in human history.

So what do we do with the resurrection?  What does it mean in 2007?  How should I live in light of the resurrection?  I've really been wrestling with this lately...

I think that first of all, it means that the forces of evil, sin, and decay don't have the last word.  Make no mistake about it; the world is deeply broken.  I will die one day.  We all suffer.  It's just that resurrection means that suffering and death are NOT the last word.  There is hope...

In almost every branch of Christianity for thousands of years, Jesus' followers have claimed that Jesus' body (not just his soul or spirit) was killed, and then bodily raised into a new life.  Our bodies don't permanently stay in the ground while our souls grow wings.  Our bodies and all that they contain (soul, mind, spirit etc.) will one day "put on" imperishability.  God cares about all of you; not just your soul.  God loves all of your neighbor (yes, THAT neighbor); not just her soul.

In other words, the same forces that are going to kill me one day have already been defeated.  My death is temporary.  I owe no allegiance to anything that corrupts or corrodes life. 

Death, corruption, sin, evil, cholesterol, gossip (it can kill the soul - ever had anyone spread lies about you?), tyranny, pollution, war, pestilence, poverty, greed, materialism, addiction, (insert your favorite corrupting agent here) will NOT have the final word. 

Resurrection exposes death as an imposter.  Life won.  Love wins.  Now.  Tomorrow.  Forever.  Everything else is an unwelcome distraction.  God's life and love now define my life. 

There are a lot of questions that this all raises, and we don't have all the answers.  But we do know that trusting Jesus leads to living his life; now, and through death.

What does the resurrection mean for everyday life?  Paul actually makes the connection for us a few verses later.  I'll leave you with his words:

"...Beloved Brothers and Sisters, be steadfast (in faith), immovable (in faith), always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain."

May it be so (Amen).

The God of Grace and the Human Genome

Psalm 8:  When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; ^4 what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?

Disclaimer:  If you're looking for light reading, see previous devotions.  Otherwise, dive in:

I am half way through a brilliant book by Stephen Collins, the scientist who has headed up the Human Genome Project to literally identify and map the language of human DNA.  Collins was an ardent atheist, but as his life and his work progressed, his book is a gripping and powerful testimony to the grace he has found in the God of the Bible.

I have always been interested in the interplay between science and religion.  The adherents of both have not played particularly well together over the past hundred years.  I have always found this aggravated tension to be quite strange.  For me, and I think Collins would agree with this too, science reveals God's full and true glory, and living a religious life in turn answers a lot of questions that science is not equipped to fully answer (why am I here?  What is good and evil?  Who is God?).

Over the past 50 years, there has been a lot of pseudo-science and self-help religion bandied about the intellectual marketplace.  But in the end, the only real way to understand God's creation is to let scientists do real scientific work, and the only way for real people to find meaning is for us to wrestle with our ancient religious texts, invest in our contemporary spirituality through disciplined practice, and remain open-minded to the other disciplines in God's creation that can help us to understand who God is and what He has done and is doing.

 A brief example:  For many years the universe was thought to be essentially constant; no beginning, and no end.  Recent discoveries (some accidental) have revealed that the universe is still expanding, and that it looks very much like the universe began at a single point, in a single moment.  In other words, there was an explosive beginning (the remnants of which some scientists have detected), and there will likely be an end.  If that is true, there are finite opportunities in the world.  Time was not always, and time will come to an end. 

In the first mili-second of the big bang, Collins and others believe that there were 15 "constants" in effect in order for the universe to take shape.  If any one of these factors were off even minutely, all of the carbon in the universe would have burned up, gravity would have overcome the velocity of the "bang", or any other number of much more complex problems would have arisen, and nothing would be here.  Nothing.  The big bang would have been the big fizzle.

Collins suggests that we have three ways to deal with this:

1)  Some have suggested that there are multiple universes, and we are just one.  If there are infinite universes, there are infinite chances that one of them could foster life.  We got lucky.  The problem here is that there is no proof of these alternate universes, and it will be exceedingly difficult to escape the properties of our world in order to "see into" another. 

2)  We just got lucky.  All fifteen constants just showed up, and we are a big accident.  Perhaps a good analogy would be taking a stack of wood, some electrical components, carpeting, and the other things that go into a house, dropping them from 20,000 feet (only once) and watching them assemble themselves into a house.

3)  There is a God that exists outside of space and time who cares enough to make "us" happen.

From a Christian perspective, it blows my mind to consider the fact that God wasn't done at the big bang, but that he attempted to correct and redeem humanity and it's social structures, even to the point of invading human history in the form of a man - a peasant from a nowhere town who would change the world.

Isn't it amazing to be alive in the small window of human history when all of this information has become available?  Science and faith can point us to the fact that we are not an accident.  It is now our job as followers of the one true God to figure out what that means, and how we should live.  Perhaps Micah 6: 8 sums it up quite well;  "Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with our God."

The Sabbath...

The Sabbath...       The Bible is really clear about the sabbath.  When God gave the 10 commandments to Moses, one of the commandments was that we should take at least one out of every seven days off of work.      

In the New Testament,  Jesus clarified how his followers were to treat the sabbath when He told some religious leaders that the sabbath was made for humankind.  In other words, it is God's gift to us.  Not just a requirement; a GIFT!  Just as God rested during His work in the creation story, so we are to rest from our work.     

So what does sabbath look like?  How far do we take it?  A wise Pastor I know suggests we start with the 3 "R"'s:  Rest, Retreat, Recreation.      

Sabbath should first be about making sure our bodies are rested so we can serve God with them tomorrow (rest).  We then need to connect with God in a place where we sense God is near (retreat - Jesus did this all the time by the way...).  Sometimes we connect with God by truly enjoying His creation (recreation); by playing with our kids, enjoying a favorite sport or hobby, or spending quality time with friends or family.       

This sounds pretty good doesn't it?       I'll write more on sabbath time soon...  

God's Peace,  Rich

A Prayer For Our Graduates...

This past Sunday Lifesong threw a party for our three graduating seniors.  It is really hard to know what to say to High School Seniors.  The best (and often hardest) part about being 18 is that you are eager to learn life's lessons through your own decisions, successes, and failures.  So what can a 32 year old Seminary student possibly have to say to three 18 year old young ladies?

First of all, my door is always open, and I will always be eager to listen with an open heart and mind.  I needed trusted adults who weren't my parents when I was in college, and I'm sure you will too...

 Second, some centering words from scripture, Ephesians 4: 14:

We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of  doctrine, by people's trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. ^15 But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ

As you grow into adulthood and make all the decisions that involves, I pray for you that you would keep Jesus at the center of your life, and stay rooted in the scriptures and your community of faith.  It is good to study and learn with an open mind.  We live in a God-bathed world, and we have nothing to fear in studying it to the best of our abilities.  But at the same time, it is important to know that there is nothing that can replace your relationship with your creator.  It is really easy to start placing our trust and our faith in something or someone other than God (boyfriend/girlfriend, alcohol, our freedom to make decisions, just to name a few...).  When that happens, our lives usually start going downhill pretty quickly...

Jesus offers a way of life that isn't easy.  But as you live with Jesus you will grow in compassion, mercy, wisdom, and kindness.  You will learn to have greater love and respect for others and you will always have a sense of your own worth. 

And in the end, after all of the reading, philosophy, spiritual setbacks, misplaced trust and faith, and intellectual debates over the years, I have found no better way to live than to live life in the way of Jesus...

Feed my sheep...

"Feed my sheep."

  Jesus said this phrase to Simon three times.  There are a few things that strike me about these words:

1)  Jesus REALLY wants the Church to help people meet their real physical needs; food, shelter, clothing, companionship...

2)  Jesus restored Simon.  Only 4 days before, Simon had denied Jesus three times.  Jesus then told Simon three times that he was being entrusted with an awesome responsibility.

      On Tuesday night the NBC Nightly News was live in Africa, and the lead segment showed Brian Williams traveling around Africa with Bono, the lead-singer of U2 and spokesman/founder of the ONE campaign (www.one.org). 

      As 9,000 people needlessly die each day in Africa, Jesus' mission to the church is more desperate today than ever.  As Jesus worked for all of His people to have their basic needs met, and He restored broken souls into His community, so we too have the blessing, obligation, and opportunity to help our neighbors in Africa...

Peaceful Living

Ephesians 4: 1-12

I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.

     I've read this passage many times. I think most Christians have at least heard vs. 4 - 6 in church, usually as the Pastor was calling us to be like minded in our faith and beliefs, or to show God's glory; we only need ONE God, who is "above all and through all and in all."
     Verses 1-3, however, are usually totally glossed over. Go back and read that part again. Maybe 2 or 3 times.
     We are not just called to believe something. We are being compelled to live differently. And we can't live in God's peace by our own power. The whole point of the passage is not that we would just intellectually assent to God's power and goodness, and the unity that He brings, but that we would actually live differently because of who God is, and what God has done.
     As we believe more fully in one Lord, one faith, one baptism, the Apostle Paul's expectation was that our relationships would actually start to reflect God's peace. We can't work our way into this kind of peace. We can't force others to treat us peacefully. We can't manipulate our relationships into God's peace (although we sometimes produce a compelling substitute). We experience this peace as we follow Jesus, whose yoke is easy, and whose burden is light.
     The whole purpose of this passage is that God's grace empowers us to live what we believe in relationship with each other, "in the bond of peace."