Evangelist Calls Apostles Sexist Pigs and Doubters

Transparency of failure, suspicion towards virtue and self-deprecation are as Christian as faith, hope and love. That's why Luke has no problem describing the apostles as sexist unbelievers in Chapter 24. Luke is a Christian. For him, irony and vulnerability are rather natural. What other religion openly admits that its founders lacked faith and virtue? Christianity dares not take its adherents too seriously. I think there are two reasons. One, Christianity is a gospel faith: the core of our belief and message is the idea that we can do nothing to deserve God’s attention, acceptance and love, but that God gives those things to us as an outburst of Divine love, by sheer grace. So, the greatest enemy of our faith is not failure to live up to God’s standards or doubt but the exact opposite: our seeming success to do so. If we believe that God owes us something because of our strong faith or moral success, we no longer believe the gospel of grace: God comes to you out of love and not out of obligation; Jesus died for you while you were and are a horrible failure; God loves you before you love Him; Jesus believes in you before you believe in Him. So, we have to look at ourselves with suspicion. We cannot take ourselves seriously because, if we do, we might believe that we deserve God’s acceptance.
Two, Christianity is a faith in Jesus: God limited Himself, allowed others to mock and hurt Him and died ridiculed by onlookers. So, like the apostles, we dare not make ourselves look good. Looking at Jesus, we realize that strength is hidden in weakness, life in death and Sunday in Friday.
Happy Easter! Christ is risen indeed!

Tim Keller at Northwestern

I went to hear Tim Keller at Northwestern in Evanston last night. It must be said that my respect for him borders on admiration. It seems silly to put Keller in the same category with Chesterton, Augustine and Chrysostom (to which, I am sure, he would object) , however his influence on me may have been greater than theirs. I discovered his sermons about 6 years ago while I was doing an internship at The Chapel in Michigan. I listened to The Gospel According to Abraham and was impressed with the depth of Keller's psychological insight and exegesis of contemporary culture. I have listened to many of his sermons since then and must admit that I have been thoroughly converted to his approach to preaching: Jesus-centered (every passage of Scripture is about Jesus), gospel-driven (believe the gospel and you will change) and culturally perceptive. There are plenty of free sermons on the Redeemer church site to get a good idea of his approach. http://sermons.redeemer.com/store/index.cfm?fuseaction=category.display&category_ID=11
So, I went to see Keller and got him to sign his new book The Reason for God. I just started reading it but I have a feeling it is going to be a very very good book -- maybe, as good as Mere Christianity. Anyway, I think very highly of Keller and it was great to hear him live.

Thanks

Thanks, everyone, for wishing me a happy birthday. It seems that it took me longer to get to 30 than some other people I know... I was surprised by a nice breakfast in bed this morning. I had to get up early to unlock the church for a group that meets in our building once a month on Saturdays. After I returned, I was told to go back to bed and go to sleep. So, with a lot of trickery (including some probing questions from my 7 year old last night) and a fair share of incredulity on my part, it was a surprise. Thank you all for nice comments on the blog. Gillian, thanks for making me feel special on my birthday.

Ash Wednesday

Today is Ash Wednesday, everyone. Last night, our home group celebrated the beginning of Lent together at our house. We read some Scriptures, recited prayers and even sang a song. For some, it was the first imposition of ashes experience. All in all, everything went well.

Now, we enter into the Lenten season: a time of contrition and growth.

Putin Augustus

A peculiar resemblance has been noted. Russian President Putin looks a lot like Caesar Augustus who ruled the Roman Empire for over 40 years around the time of Jesus' birth. A coincidence?

Merry Christmas!

I pray that this Christmas season is a time of renewed hope for you and those who are close to you. As we reflect together on the mystery and wonder of the Incarnation, I am once again impressed with God’s wisdom and creativity. Faced with the problem of humanity separated from their Creator, God solved it in a divinely wonderful, surprising manner: He became human Himself. In the person of Jesus, God and humanity are finally united. Jesus is the God-man. In Him weary travelers return home. In Him eternity and time come together. In Jesus brokenness is healed and suffering is filled with joy. In Him love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other (Psalm 85:10). Does it not fill your heart with hope? What an amazing expression of Divine love! What an assurance of His commitment to us! God became vulnerable, limited, human because He loves us. Jesus experienced pain and pleasure, rejection and joy of the human existence. He became one of us, in every way like us, except for sin, so we can become like Him. As Kallistos Ware points out, Jesus shows us not only what a loving and creative person God is, but what we can become. He shows us what authentic humanity without sin looks like. By His perfect life and sacrificial death He liberates and spurs us on to become what God has made us to be: people reflecting God’s creativity and grace, full of wonder and hope.
Let’s welcome Jesus into our lives and marvel together at the good news of the One who was “pleased as man with man to dwell – Jesus, our Emmanuel”. Merry Christmas!

Advent Rocks!

I love Advent. It is a season of hope and anticipation. Advent is extending the minute before a child falls asleep on Christmas Eve to four weeks. What a great way to prepare for a Christmas celebration! Our church had our first Advent Sunday service yesterday and it was really cool. Responsive readings, Christmas carols, a special advent prayer, children collecting the offering, the Eucharist... a very meaningful time. After the service we had lunch together and our home group stayed to make cookies.

Following Jesus, Part 8: Poverty of Discipleship

The story of the rich young ruler in Luke 18 is a typical example of Jesus' attitude towards wealth: He doesn't like it. While we are right to point out that it is not money per se that prevents people from following the Teacher, the money seems to make it very difficult. Tim Keller says that money itself is not an idol distracting us from worshipping God but money always points to whatever our idol is. So, what is it that we so easily spend our money on? Entertainment, clothes, education, family, home... Perhaps our idols are self-pleasure, approval of others, respect of others, security...
Well, how can this idolatrous heart be turned to Jesus? He says, it is impossible. Our particular idol cannot be removed but only replaced. So, our only hope is that Jesus forces our idol out of our heart and draws our worship to Himself. He does that by showing us that we are his true wealth, His treasure He died to keep. We marvel at how much Jesus values us and start valuing and worshiping Him. He became poor for us, so that we can become rich in Him. He is our true wealth.

Following Jesus, Part 7: The Cost of Discipleship

If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:26)

It is legitimate and biblical to soften this saying of Jesus by interpreting hatred as a lesser love as compared to the disciple's love for Jesus. It is also appropriate to point out that we must hate the world and its values embraced by our unbelieving relatives. However, I think Jesus does mean a bit more than that. It is clear that He does not call His followers to abandon family and not to love our relatives, since Jesus admonishes us to love even our enemy, much more our children and spouse. But He does call us to hate them in the following two ways.

First, hating your family means to be liberated from captivity to the clan, as Barth puts it. Especially in the communal culture of Jesus' day and in much of the world today, one needs to reject the family's expectations of her, the family's pursuit of wealth, status and so on, to follow Jesus. One should not be defined by his community any longer, but by his communion with Christ. Family, or one's desire to marry and have children, should not lead the disciple away from Christ. Bonhoeffer says, "Every man is called separately and must follow alone.”

Second, hating your family means to be able to genuinely love them. Only admitting that one's family is also one's enemy, you will be able to really love them with the kind of love that Christ loves sinners. When I preached this sermon on Sunday, I called my children enemies of God and my enemies. A bit harsh? Maybe. But unless I see them as rebels against God every time they sin, how can I really love them? Once I recognize them as such, I can be forgiving and compassionate, patient and persistent in bringing them up in the faith.

Barth says that "the coming of the kingdom of God means an end of the absolute of family no less than that of possession and fame". Jesus needs to become our primary relationship. When He was at the wedding at Cana, He knew that He would never get married. When He blessed the children who came to Him, He knew He would never have a child of His own. He was willing to reject His mother and brothers for us. He gave up His family in heaven to become your friend. This should be our motivation to follow Jesus alone.

Following Jesus, Part 6: The Narrow Door

Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, 'Sir, open the door for us.' But he will answer, 'I don't know you or where you come from.' Then you will say, 'We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.' But he will reply, 'I don't know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!' (Luke 13:24-27)

Jesus says, there are two groups of people: some who want to enter through the narrow door into God's kingdom, but will not be able to, and some who strive to enter through the narrow door and will be accepted at the feast of the kingdom of God. The Didache (an early Christian document) says: “There are two ways, one of life and one of death; and between the two ways there is a great difference.” So, how do we know that we are on the way of life? How do we know we are true disciples? What are some indications that we are on the narrow way leading to the narrow door? There are at least three in the above passage from Luke.
First, to be on the narrow way is to struggle. Jesus says, make every effort (Greek: agonize, contend, strive) to enter through the narrow door. Following Jesus is hard and is supposed to be hard. It is a struggle to live according to His teachings, to rely on grace and not on one's accomplishments. We must live by faith in God's Son and not in success at work, rewarding relationships and entertainment. The One who died for me calls me to die with Him and be raised as a selfless servant of God and others. That's hard. The One who suffered for me calls me to embrace suffering as a way of loving Him and God's primary means of changing me into a better person. That's also hard. The One who limited Himself for me calls me to limit myself and be controled by His Spirit. That's really hard. If our Christian life is not a struggle, perhaps, our life is not so Christian.
Second, to be on the narrow way is to know Jesus. The reason why some people are not allowed through the narrow door is not because they have not been good enough but because Jesus does not recognize them. It is knowledge, not perfection, that is our passport into God's kingdom. Some will claim that they have been near Jesus, heard Him teach and ate and drank with Him, but they never actually met Him. Proximity to Jesus is not the same as knowledge. Does He know us? Do we know Him?
Third, to be on the narrow way is to imitate Jesus. He calls those He rejects evildoers. Not only Jesus has never met them, but even if He did He would not recognize them. They are so unlike Him whom they claim to follow. As we spend time with Jesus and follow His teachings we should look, act, think and feel like He does. Imitation of Christ is another indication that we are on the narrow way.
We walk the narrow way because Jesus walked before us. He is the only reason for our journey. He is the only hope that we can enter through the narrow door at the end of it. I will finish with a rather lengthy quotation from Bonhoeffer. He writes:

“The way is unutterably hard, and at every moment we are in danger of straying from it. If we regard this way as one we follow in obedience to an external command, if we are afraid of ourselves all the time, it is indeed an impossible way. But if we behold Jesus Christ going on before step by step, we shall not go astray. But if we worry about the dangers that beset us, if we gaze at the road instead of at him who goes before, we are already straying from the path. For he is himself the way, the narrow way and the strait gate. He, and he alone, is our journey’s end. When we know that we are able to proceed along the narrow way through the strait gate of the cross, and on to eternal life, and the very narrowness of the road will increase our certainty … The narrow way is bound to be right.”

Following Jesus, Part 5: The Joy of Discipleship

"However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven." (Luke 10:20)

Jesus teaches His followers that their greatest and most enduring joy must be anchored in God's acceptance. We should not rejoice over our accomplishments as much as we should rejoice over His. It is the fact that we are accepted by God, in Jesus and because of what Jesus accomplished, that should make our lives meaningful. As followers of Jesus, we are in God's Fav Five, we are God's friends on His Facebook home page, we are loved and valued by God.
Anchoring our joy in God's acceptance delivers us from such heavy burdens as pride, insecurity and pretense. Assurance of His love and acceptance brings us such wonderful gifts as humility, confidence and authenticity. As we stop seeking validation through success and focus on the gospel of God's acceptance in Jesus, we will be empowered to accomplish even greater things. We will discover who we really are and pursue what we are really meant to do. We will do all that without the fear of rejection and failure, since our identity will be protected in Christ. G.K. Chesterton said that angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly. So can we accomplish greater things if we anchor our joy in God's acceptance in Jesus.

Following Jesus, Part 4: Safe Uncertainty

In the end of the 9th chapter of Luke's Gospel, we find three potential disciples. Each reveals a certain misconception of what following Jesus means. The first one says, "I will follow You wherever You go." He was not called by Jesus and thus does not understand what discipleship entails. He is ready to follow Jesus, yet Jesus' response reveals that he is more committed to what he thinks discipleship is rather than to Jesus Himself. His "wherever" has a certain meaning. "The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head," Jesus says. Birds and foxes have more security and certainty in life than He does. Anyone who wishes to follow Jesus must embrace a life of uncertainty. However, this uncertainty is safe. A disciple does not know what tomorrow is going to bring but he is safe because Jesus will be with him tomorrow as He was yesterday and is today. A follower does not know where he will go next but he is safe because he will be following Jesus. Such is the paradox of safe uncertainty. That is why it is so important to be called by Jesus and not to embark on the journey based on one's own perception of discipleship.
The second man heard the call but said "Lord, permit me first to go and bury my father." He thought discipleship could wait. Other things demanded his attention first. Jesus says, "Allow the dead to bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim everywhere the kingdom of God." Discipleship means a life of unconditional commitment. It is about you, it is about right now, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.
The third man, like the first one, was not called to follow Jesus but came up with the idea on his own. He also came up with some conditions: "I will follow You, Lord; but first permit me to say good-bye to those at home." Jesus, rather harshly, replied, "No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God." Discipleship means embracing a life of single focus. It is to be pure of heart. A.W. Pink calls this life single focus "godly simplicity".
We don't know whether any of the three became true followers of Jesus. As for us, though, we are called to embrace a life of safe uncertainty, unconditional commitment and single focus.

Following Jesus, Part 3: The Cross of Discipleship

There are a few things that we Evangelicals don’t preach about: pride, sex, money, for example. But the greatest omission, perhaps, is suffering. We have divorced discipleship from suffering, yet Jesus taught that suffering was essential to the follower's life. Historically, Christians embraced this teaching. Augustine writes, “God had one son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer also emphasizes the unbreakable bond of suffering and discipleship. He says,

“Just as Christ is Christ only in virtue of his suffering and rejection, so the disciple is a disciple only in so far as he shares his Lord’s suffering and rejection and crucifixion.”

Bonhoeffer says, “Suffering, then, is the badge of true discipleship.”

Jesus cannot be any clearer: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." (Luke 9:23) In the greater passage, Jesus teaches that denying oneself means to lose one's life, to become a different person, to embrace a new self, and gain a new life. As one does it, she discovers that she did not really know who she really was. She relizes that only now, only in Christ, she is what she was meant to be. The new self that one finds through losing the old self it the real self, the true person, the one God had dreamed up before time began. To become a true disciple of Christ one needs to confess Jesus as the Christ of God (like Peter did) and wholeheartedly embrace the scandal of the Cross. We follow the One who was crucified, so we too must take up our crosses. It is a decision and a daily struggle.

Soren Kierkegaard says, "To suffer rightly is to have a secret with God!” To suffer rightly means to suffer with Jesus, allowing Him to come alongside and help and comfort us. It means to suffer like Jesus with grace and patience. And it means to suffer for Jesus, turning every struggle and difficulty into a means of becoming more like Him and clinging closer to Him.

If one does not embrace suffering, one cannot be called a disciple of the One who suffered on our behalf. Kierkegaard rightly observes, “He who himself does not wish to suffer cannot love him who has.”

Following Jesus, Part 2: The Call to Discipleship

As we discuss discipleship, one question inevitably arises. How does one become a disciple of Jesus? A simple answer is that one needs to respond to Christ's call to discipleship as Levi did in Luke 5. The call to discipleship is gracious and rooted in Divine freedom and authority. Karl Barth says,

“Just because the command of Jesus is the form of the grace that concretely comes to a person, it is issued with all the freedom and sovereignty of grace against which there can be no legitimate objections, of which no one is worthy, for which there can be no preparation, which none can elect, and in face of which there can be no qualifications.”

The call issued by Jesus to Levi is gracious since Levi had no qualifications for becoming a follower of the Messiah. But as Jesus said, He did not come to call the righteous, i.e. those qualified to follow Him, but the sinful. The only prerequisite for discipleship is one's sinfulness. Jesus freely calls Levi and Levi simply obeys Jesus.
Unless we understand the grace of the call to discipleship, we do not understand discipleship. And unless we are amazed by grace, we do not understand grace. To really get it, we need to be surprised, embarrassed, puzzled, freaked out by grace. If I am not surprised that Jesus called me to follow Him, if, on some level, it makes sense that He called specifically me, I really have no idea what grace is. The call is gracious and thus inexplicable and mysterious. It cannot be manufactured but only experienced. Here is what Anne Lamott writes about the wonder of grace:

“It [grace] is unearned love—the love that goes before, that greets us on the way. It’s the help you receive when you have no bright ideas left, when you are empty and desperate and have discovered that your best thinking and most charming charm have failed you. Grace is the light or electricity or juice or breeze that takes you from that isolated place and puts you with others who are as startled and embarrassed and eventually grateful as you are to be there.”

When Jesus calls one to follow Him, there is only one legitimate response. It is obedience. Simple, spontaneous, leave everything, no looking back obedience. We respond to the call by dying to everything around us and being resurrected to the new life in Christ. We accept Jesus as a Mediator, not only between God and man, but between two people, between us and reality, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes. Jesus must be welcomed as the Negotiator between the follower and reality. He must determine our attitudes towards and relationships with all that surrounds the new follower. Barth says that the call to discipleship is a coup d'etat of God. The call forces us to make a choice to either join the Divine rebellion, thus renouncing all our foreign allegiances, or fight against the Divine take over.

Following Jesus, Part 1: Fishing with Jesus

In the 5th chapter of Luke's gospel we find Jesus calling Peter and others to become fishers of men. What is peculiar about this passage is Jesus' use of the metaphor. The Old Testament prophets were quite fond of the metaphor of fishing but used it in the context of judgment. They used it to denote pulling disobedient people out of the chaotic and confusing realm of idolatry and social injustice to be judged by God (Jer. 16:16-18, Amos 4:2, Hab. 1:14-17). Fishing was a metaphor of Divine punishment. In Matthew 13:47-50 Jesus uses the metaphor consistently with the Old Testament, while putting it in the kingdom context. In Luke 5, however, Jesus is not talking about judgment at all. The metaphor is still refering to two different realms: the dark and cold realm of the sea (symbolic of the state without God's presence and rule) and the realm of God's kingdom. The two realms are also emphasized in Col. 1:13, 1 Peter 2:9 and Eph. 5:8. Jesus fishes for Peter and other future disciples. He catches them, like fish, and pulls them out of the darkness into the light. Jesus transfers them into the realm of His kingdom. So, our first lesson about following Jesus has to do with following Him into the realm of His kingdom, being transfered, fished out, pulled into the sphere of His rule. To be a disciple means to live in the realm of His word and His rule.
This passage also teaches us that following Jesus means to assume the mission of fishing others out of the sea of chaos and confusion and transferring them into the kingdom of God. We are not supposed to catch and release them back into the realm of darkness, nor are we supposed to catch them and put them on ice by suffocating them with fear and rules. We are to see people transformed from lovers of self into lovers of God.
So, why can Jesus change the metaphor? Why can He replace the realm of judgment with the realm of His glorious rule? Because He was caught in the Garden of Gethsemane, dragged through the streets of Jerusalem and hooked on the Cross of Golgotha where he suffocated like fish out of water. Jesus went into the realm of confusion and brought clarity, He went into the realm of chaos and brought order, He went into the realm of idolatry and brought true worship.
That's why He can change the metaphor of judgment. And that's why He is right to call us to follow Him.

Gentleness

My five-year old daughter Zoya was arguing with her cousin Eli (also 5 yeas old) about Jesus. It was getting to be a nasty fight. Zoya, who grew up listening to Bible stories and Papa’s sermons (poor kid…), was adamantly defending historicity of Jesus. He really lived, he really died, he really rose from the dead, she was saying. Eli, raised in an agnostic home, said that Jesus was only in one’s heart. Sounds like the Gnostic controversy, doesn’t it? It shows that such issues are obviously important and that you don’t have to be a 74 year old Greek bishop to grasp their importance. After the adults broke the kids up and encouraged them to be nice to each other even if they disagree, Zoya whispered while walking past Eli: “I’m right.”

We encourage our kids to doubt and figure out the faith on their own. Of course, we create an environment that’s conducive to belief and godliness. We don’t brainwash them and will not be signing them up for Jesus Camp anytime soon. And yet, my 5 year old cute little girl has already succumbed to the most grievous fallacy of the Evangelical Church – judgmentalism. Why do we think that truth gives us the right to be inconsiderate and intolerant? Evangelicals are so excited about truth that they have neglected grace. In fact, a lot of us are quite happy to return grace, get a refund and buy more truth. So, instead of promoting truth by grace, we have hidden it with judgmentalism. One of the fruit of the Spirit is gentleness, which is the opposite of judgmentalism. So, if there is no fruit of the Spirit, can we claim that the Spirit is present? Maybe, a radio news flash was right: 75% of churches are without the Holy Spirit. I’d like to see their research data… The worst thing that I realized as we discussed gentleness in our home group was that I am judgmental towards judgmental Christians. Is there hope?

The Suburbs of the Soul

Here is a beautiful passage from Jeremiah Burroughs' book The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment.

"A great man will permit common people to stand outside his doors, but he will not let them come in and make a noise in his closet or bedroom when he deliberately retires from all worldly business. So a well-tempered spirit may enquire after things outside in the world, and suffer some ordinary cares and fears to break into the suburbs of the soul, so as to touch lightly upon the thoughts. Yet it will not on any account allow an intrusion into the private room, which should be wholly reserved for Jesus Christ as his inward temple."

We're on a Mission from God...

Found this clever picture on an emergent site. Finally, my secret love of the Blues Brothers movie is united with my commitment to Missio Dei (God's mission of reconciling the world to Himself). There is no more divide between the secular and the sacred, Christ is all in all.

Patience

Jacques Derrida in an interview said that people by nature are messianic. I think he meant (this is funny: I am interpreting Derrida, or should I say, deconstructing?) that all people live in expectation of something. All of us are looking forward to something happening and live in light of that hope, or fear. Christians, are perhaps the most messianic of all people. Arguably, promises of things to come outnumber things that are already in our possession. Christianity is a faith and we are the faithful. We live by faith that God’s promises will come true. That sort of faith is what God credits to us as righteousness. We are people who have been commissioned to wait. Our decision to wait and trust that God will do what He promised is the defining factor in our lives. Of course, there are many promises that have already come true – most notably, Jesus was born, died and rose from the dead. Those events we no longer expect. However, they contain in themselves promises of things not yet present, or, at least, not to the fullest extent. For example, Jesus’ birth contains a promise of our union with God and an invitation into the divine life of the Trinity. Jesus’ death contains a promise of victory over the Devil and his final judgment, while Jesus’ resurrection is the first fruits of many resurrections to come, as Paul writes. So, our faith may be likened to a pregnancy. The baby has been conceived and is alive with all her potential. However, we are still waiting for the birth. And as any woman who has been pregnant, or her husband, will tell you, patience is a supreme virtue during pregnancy.
Let’s see how this idea of the messianic nature of our faith affects different spheres of life. On a cosmic scale, we are expecting restoration of all things to God, the Creator. We long for our King to return in glory to reward the faithful and vindicate the oppressed. Socially, we relate to people who are not yet mature. We patiently wait for them to grow up, as it were. Of course, we ourselves require others to be patient as well. So, human interaction is kids talking to kids.
Our spiritual experience is no different. We expect the Holy Spirit to show up and change us. We wait for God to reveal His will to us. Realizing that it is God who always makes the first step involves a lot of waiting.
This life of expectancy warrants the conclusion that patience is one of the supreme virtues of the Christian. We may be called the patient as much as we are called the faithful.

Psalm 126

I was reading Psalm 126 this morning. It seems to illustrate the idea of joy as a reaction to God's gracious acts really well. Here is the first half of the psalm:

When the LORD brought back the captive ones of Zion,
We were like those who dream.
Then our mouth was filled with laughter
And our tongue with joyful shouting;
Then they said among the nations,
"The LORD has done great things for them."
The LORD has done great things for us; We are glad.
(Ps.126:1-3)

True joy comes from the realization that the Lord has done great things among us.