Terribly Have the Theologians Misrepresented God...

"How terribly have the theologians misrepresented God's character. They represented him as a great king on a huge throne, thinking how grand he is, and making it the business of his being and the end of his universe to keep up his glory, wielding the bolts of a Jupiter against them that take his name in vain...

But how contrary this is to what the Gospel accounts plainly tell us. Brothers, sisters, have you found our King? There he is, kissing little children and saying they are like God. There he is at the table with the head of a fisherman lying on his chest and somewhat heavy heart that even he, the beloved disciple, cannot yet understand him well.

...the God of music, of painting, of building, the Lord of Hosts, the God of mountains and oceans; the God of history... - this God is the God of little children, and he alone can be perfectly, abandonedly simple and devoted.

Therefore with angels and archangels, with the spirits of the just made perfect, with the little children of the kingdom, yea, with the Lord himself, and for all that do not yet know him, we praise and magnify and laud his name in itself, saying Our Father."

- George MacDonald -

God: Infinitely Beyond All We Can Imagine!

From a prayer of George MacDonald's:


"In spite of all our fears and weaknesses and wrongs, thou wilt be to us what thou art - such a perfect Father as no most loving child-heart on earth could invent the thought of! Thou wilt take our sins on thyself, giving us thy life besides. Thou bearest our griefs and carriest our sorrows, and surely thou wilt one day enable us to pay every debt we owe to each other! Thou wilt be to us a right generous, abundant Father! 

Then truly our hearts shall be jubilant, because thou art what thou art - infinitely beyond all we could imagine. Thou wilt humble and raise us up. Thou hast given thyself to us that, having thee, we may be eternally alive with life. 

We run within the circle of what men call thy wrath, and find ourselves clasped in the arms of thy love!"

The Restful Yoke of the Father's Will

 "When and how much his creatures can do or bear, only God understands. But when it seems most impossible to do or bear, we must be most confident that he will neither demand too much, nor fail with the vital Creator-help. That help will be there when needed...To be able beforehand to imagine ourselves doing or bearing, we have neither claim nor need.

It is vain to think that any weariness, however caused, any burden, however slight, may be got rid of otherwise than by bowing the neck to the yoke of the Father's will. There can be no other rest for heart and soul that he has created..."

                                                                         - George MacDonald -

God and Fair Play

From George MacDonald:

"I will accept no explanation of any way of God that involves what I should scorn as false and unfair in a man...If it be said by any that God does a thing, and the thing seem unjust, then either we do not know what the thing is, or God does not do it...because more is required of the Maker, by his own act of creation, than can be required of men - not less...

If, for instance, it be said that God visits the sins of the fathers on the children, a man seeking to grasp the meaning behind the words and who takes 'visit upon' to mean 'punishes', and the 'children' to mean 'the innocent children', ought to say, 'Either I do not understand the statement, or the thing is not true, whoever says it.'

The justice of God is this - he gives every man, woman, child, and beast, everything that has being, fair play. He renders to every man according to his work. And therein lies his perfect mercy, for nothing else could be merciful to the man...God does nothing of which any just man, the thing set fairly and fully before him so that he understood, would not say, 'That is fair.'"

God is Always Doing His Best for Every Man

In the final days of this year, I will be quoting from one of my all-time favorites, George MacDonald, whose writings have deeply influenced my view of God all through my life...

"I believe in Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, my Elder Brother, my Lord and Master...I believe that to obey him is to ascend the pinnacle of my being...I believe that he is my Savior from myself, and from all that has come of loving myself...I believe he died that the justice, the mercy of God, might have its way with me, making me just as God is just, merciful as he is merciful, perfect as my Father in heaven is perfect...

I believe that he died to deliver me from all meanness, all pretense, all falseness, all unfairness, all poverty of spirit, all cowardice, all fear, all anxiety, all forms of self-love, all trust or hope in possession, to make me merry as a child, the child of our Father in heaven...

I believe that God is just like Jesus...I believe that God is absolutely, grandly beautiful..with the beauty that creates beauty, not merely shows itself beautiful. I believe that God has always done, is always doing, his best for every man...that he is not a God to crouch before, but our Father to whom the child-heart cries exultantly, 'Do with me as thou wilt.'

I believe that there is nothing good for me or for any man but God, and more and more of God, and that alone through knowing Christ can we come nigh to God..."

Why this Library of Books that We Call the Bible?

The following is a short portion of a blog post in a wonderful series of posts by Rob Bell on the topic "What is the Bible?" This is so beautifully written that I recommend you read it out loud with someone else, if possible, and savor the entire post (here). It's even better if you first read PartA of this particular piece about the Bible, which you can find here.

In this particular quote, Bell is in part answering the question, "why this library?":

"In the Bible, what you find again and again is brutal honesty about our human condition. We lie, we cheat, we steal, we watch shows about the Kardashians-we have the tremendous propensity to make a mess of things. Nowhere do you find this reality glossed over, avoided, denied, or ignored in the Bible. From 'we’ve all fallen short' to 'the heart is deceitful' to 'are you so dull?' (A fantastic line from Jesus, by the way) what you find again and again is the unvarnished truth about our sins, struggles, weakness, hardheartedness, small mindedness, and general slow-to-catch-on-ness. 
 

But what you also find, sometimes in the same exact place, and sometimes in the exact same breath, are stunning affirmations of our greatness, bigness, potential and promise. People are told they’ll lead nations, take good news about the reconciliation of all things to the ends of the earth, that we’re crowned with glory and honor, and that we’ll do greater things than Jesus did (He said that… seriously.) 

We are a quixotic cocktail, a strange blend, a odd amalgamation of skin and bones and spirit and soul. One minute we’re hearing about actual trips into space for people who aren’t astronauts, and then in the next we’re hearing about a man in Ohio who kept several women hostage in his house for a decade. 

It is bewildering the highs and lows we are capable of-not to mention frustrating, mystifying, inspiring, maddening, and at some times overwhelmingly beautiful."

Clues of What God Will Someday Achieve

“We live in a transition time, a transition from death to life, from human injustice to divine justice, from the old to the new – tragically incomplete yet marked here and there, now and then, 

with clues of what God will someday achieve in perfection.”

Philip Yancey (The Jesus I Never Knew)

The Dearest, Grandest and Most Precious Thing

 “I would rather be what God chose to make me 

than the most glorious creature that I could think of; for 
to have been thought about, 

born in God's thought, 

and then made by God, 

is the dearest, grandest and most precious thing in all thinking.”  

 - George MacDonald -

Dietrich Bonhoeffer on The Lord's Prayer

"All the prayers of Holy Scripture are summarized in the Lord's Prayer, and are contained in its immeasurable breadth. They are not made superfluous by the Lord's Prayer but constitute the inexhaustible richness of the Lord's Prayer as the Lord's Prayer is their summation."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Psalms, the Prayer Book of the Bible) - 

Retributive or Restorative Justice in God?

"Our typical image of God as loving on the one hand and retributive on the other puts justice and love in tension as opposites. We have a God with a split personality. In one instance, God demands retribution  for sin; in the next, we see God showing mercy and forgiving sin. But when we read and interpret the Bible from the perspective of divine love (and through our Jesus lens), we see that the standards of justice are driven by a desire for restoration, relationship, and harmony with God and others. In other words, divine reconciling justice is love in action that seeks to make things right, to reconcile with God and others."

                                                                         - Sharon Baker

The Meaning of Justice

"Justice...means coming face to face with the shameful depravity of personal sin by coming face to face with the one who has the right and the power to punish but who instead loves and forgives. Love and forgiveness instead of anger and punishment bring repentance and redemption, 

and in this manner, justice is served..."

- Sharon Baker -

Instinctive Bashfulness in Real Goodness

"We see the evil in our fellows much sooner than the good. On a very short acquaintance with persons, we discover their defects and the things in them which are disagreeable to us, and soon find the weak point in them...but their better nature is more slowly unfolding itself. The invisible character of goodness is not so obtrusive as defects, because there is an instinctive bashfulness in real goodness, even without a man's intending it. When we know people a long while, especially if we love them, there is apt to be the continual breaking forth of virtues in them we never dreamed they possessed; and oftentimes in little things, in the ordinary wear and tear of life, there will come forth in unostentatious ways traits of humility and self-depreciation, or a patience and sweetness and unselfishness beyond what we expect of them..."

                                                                                      - Paul Billheimer (Love Covers) -

God Didn't Need a Change of Mind

"Jesus did not come to change the mind of God about humanity. 

Jesus came to change the mind of humanity about God. 

This grounds Christianity in love and freedom from the very beginning. It creates a very coherent and utterly attractive religion, which draws people toward lives of inner depth, prayer, reconciliation, healing and even universal 'at-one-ment' instead of mere sacrificial atonement...A nonviolent atonement theory says that God is not someone we need to fear or mistrust..."

- Richard Rohr - 

How Our Judgments of Others are Often Formed

"In our opinion of others we fail to distinguish between the sinfulness of sin and the deformity which has resulted from sin...We judge people, not so much by how they stand to God as by the inconvenient or disagreeable way in which they may stand to us. Much that the eye catches, which is offensive to our moral sense, may not be real sin, and yet we condemn it with a bitterness and severity much more than the real sin which does not happen to interfere with our interests or personal tastes.

"This is why an impartial God must condemn us so often for the very condemnation we give to others, because our judgments do not proceed from the love of God but from personal taste..."

                                                                                               - Paul Billheimer (Love Covers) - 

                                   

God's Compassion for Mankind - Voluntary Blindness to Our Evil

Valjean being freely released from thievery by bishop in Les Miserables

"Nothing is more amazing than the patient, gentle charity that God displays to His creatures. There is something adorable in the compassion of God for mankind which looks like a voluntary blindness to their evil...The Bible is full of instances of this in His dealings with both nations and individuals, where His justice seems to move with tortoise pace, constantly pursuing but seemingly on purpose to be a long while catching up with the one to be punished, as if to give him every allowance possible to infinite mercy. Now, the more we are with God, and the closer our union is with Him, and the more deeply we drink of the interior sweetness of His life, the more we shall catch something of His gentleness and compassion of spirit which will destroy our proclivity for harsh judgments and take away the keenness by which we discover evil in others..."

- Paul Billheimer (Love Covers) -           

Illiteracy of the Future...

"The illiterate of the future are not those 

that cannot read or write. They are those 

that cannot learn, unlearn, relearn." 

- Alvin Toffler - 

 

God is Better than Perfect...He is Good!

"This story (of creation) begins with something better than the perfect realm of Plato; (it begins with) the good world of Genesis. Jewish goodness, it turns out, is far better than Greco-Roman perfection… Genesis does not begin with stasis and sterility. From the first 'Let there be…' it glows, whirls, swirls, vibrates, pulses, and dances with change and fertility…Elohim doesn't pronounce this world perfect (or imperfect), but rather 'good.'…this beginning is not complete; it unfolds in  stages…none of it is perfect in the Greco-Roman sense. Instead all of it is good and wonderful, constantly evolving into something better and more wonderful. If it were perfect – in the Greco-Roman sense – the earth would have come into being fully populated, fully 'developed'. But this creation has plenty of room for reproduction and development...

"Although the evolving creation in-process would be appalling to Theos (Greek god), it is delightful to Elohim, because Elohim loves stories and seems to have little taste for states. And Elohim's story is not a 'safe' predictable story, but rather a story with unpredictability and danger written into its first chapters…We have been thoroughly trained...to read Genesis through Greco-Roman bifocals, and as a result Theos is so deeply embedded and enthroned in our minds, that it is agonizingly difficult for us to recapture the wild, dynamic, story-unleashing goodness of Elohim, a goodness that differs so starkly, so radically, from the domesticated, static, controlled perfection of Theos…"
                                                                                  - Brian McLaren (A New Kind of Christianity)

Can God Love Us Too Much?

"We don't see that the powerful change that happens in the life of a disciple never comes from the disciples working hard at doing anything. They come from arriving at a place where Jesus is everything, and we are simply overwhelmed with the gift.

 Sometimes it seems as if God loves us too much. His love goes far beyond our ability to stop being moral , religious , 
obedient, and victorious and we just collapse in his arms."

- Michael Spencer (Mere Churchianity) -

We Do No Great Things...

 

 

"We do no great things; we do small things with great love."

   -Mother Theresa-

The Most Infuriating and 'Productive' Trait of God

Another post from my archives:

In conversation with a young friend today, I was struck at a deeper level with the scandalous love of God! The Spirit through the apostle Paul says that "love never fails". Because we are heavily results-oriented, we assume this means that if we love people, we will see results to our loving them.

But self-giving love by its very nature is and acts independent of the recipient's response. It simply is, and nothing changes it. It is this love that never fails. So what does it mean that love never fails when there is no apparent response or result from genuine love? How can we know that love never fails?

The cross of Jesus is the most powerful example of both the "failure" and the "success" of loving; there we see what appears to be utter failure on God's part, the end and death of all that was wonderful and beautiful in the man Jesus. In this selfless outpouring of love, God appears to have utterly failed to win the love of humans, and Jesus' loving life on earth appears to not have gained much at all in terms of visible results.

As Jesus was, so are we in this world; God doesn't ask us to be "successful" in terms of being able to measure the fruit of love operating through us. In fact, I increasingly believe that the less energy I put into trying to figure out if my life "counts", and the more energy I put into receiving God's scandalous, unconditional love for me and then pouring that same love out on others without insisting on measuring its effectiveness, the more fruit there will be, because love never fails.

This love infuriates and confounds the evil one and his kind, because the world, the flesh and the devil absolutely cannot conceive of  love that simply is, with no ulterior motive. It was that love of God in Christ Jesus that disarmed the powers completely; it is still that kind of love today that disarms the powers.

In his book The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis shows Screwtape infuriated at God and saying: "...we must never forget what is the most repellent and inexplicable trait in our Enemy (God); He really loves the hairless bipeds He has created and always gives back to them with His right hand what He has taken away with His left...He really loves the human vermin and really desires their freedom and continued existence...(but) that of course, is an impossibility... All His talk about Love must be a disguise for something else...The reason one comes to talk as if He really had this impossible Love is our utter failure to find out that real motive. What does He stand to make out of them?...We know that He cannot really love: nobody can: it doesn't make sense..."

I John 4:8 "...God is love..."

Darkness Cannot Drive Out Darkness - Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King

As we remember a great peacemaker, Nelson Mandela, who has just passed from this life to the next, these wonderful words of another noble leader of non-violent resistance, Martin Luther King, are appropriate:

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

I thank God for such leaders who follow the example of Jesus, of whom the apostle John said, "The Light keeps shining in the darkness, and the darkness has never been able to put it out."

My prayer is that God will raise up more leaders like these who will motivate people to resist violence and evil systems without resorting to violence and hatred.

Do Our Fears Reflect Holes in Our View of God?

Post from last year:
In my journey of faith in God, I'm discovering more and more that He is trustworthy in all areas of life. As I continue to mature in understanding and love (which has meant changing mindsets in the process), there are moments when I'm tempted to fear that I may be headed down the wrong road. Recently I had such a moment; then I stepped back and realized that the fact that I would fear this reflected a weakness yet in my view of God.

From the time that I was a young adult, I have periodically told the Father that I need Him to keep me steady in Him and His gospel, and I have asked Him to ensure that I am on track with Him. He has faithfully done this by one means or another. This doesn't mean that I have even come close to being perfect in all my ways of seeing God over the years, but it does mean that He has kept the living Christ central in my heart and mind.

The temptation recently to fear that I might "go off the deep end" was a temptation to think wrongly about God and His care and ability to keep me. In that moment I paused to think something to this affect: if I asked my earthly father (who wasn't perfect but genuinely cared for the well-being of his children) to watch over me and make sure I didn't go into dangers that would destroy me and others, he would gladly do that for me! 

How much more the heavenly Father, who in perfect love and power is dedicated to the well-being of His children, will do this for us when we ask! Catching a fresh glimpse of His nature and character released me from fear and from the idea that I have the ability to keep myself from "falling off the edge".

In the book Discovering the Character of God, George MacDonald writes about fearing God; he acknowledges that fear has a role to play but only until love casts it out:

"So long as love is imperfect, there is room for fear...Until love, which is the truth toward God, is able to cast out fear, it is well that fear should hold. It is a bond, however poor, between that which is and that which creates - a bond that must be broken, but a bond that can be broken only by the tightening of an infinitely closer bond.

"...If then any child of the Father finds that he is afraid before Him, let him make haste - let him not linger to put on any garment, but rush at once in his nakedness, a true child, into the salvation of the Father's arms, the home from which he was sent, that he might learn that it was his home. What father would not rejoice to see his child running to his embrace? How much more will not the Father of our spirits, who seeks nothing but His children themselves, receive us with open arms!"

The Most Baffling and Wonderful Story Ever Told - What If God Were Really This Good?

This month I hope to post several writings for encouragement as we wind up the year 2013 and step into the year 2014. These will be random thoughts and/or quotes and postings from my archives...

Even by those who don't claim to be "Christian", the story Jesus told about the lost son is considered to be the greatest story that's been told. It is our story, the story of each of us; it is the gospel story. In his book The Cross and the Prodigal, Kenneth Bailey says this of the father in the story:

"Traditional Western interpretation has said that the father interrupted the son and didn't give him a chance to finish his speech. Rather, faced with the incredible event (of his father's stunning display of love by shamelessly running bare-legged towards him), he is flooded with the awareness that his real sin is not the lost money but rather the wounded heart. 

The reality and the enormity of his sin and the resulting intensity of his father's suffering overwhelm him. In a flash of awareness he now knows that there is nothing he can do to make up for what he has done. His proposed offer to work as a servant now seems blasphemous. He is not interrupted. He changes his mind and accepts being found. In this manner he fulfills the definition of repentance that Jesus sets forth in the parable of the lost sheep. Like the lost sheep, the prodigal now accepts to be found."

What if God were really this good (with none of the qualifiers that we add)?? Think about it and be in wonder...

Keep Yourselves in the Love of God

Among other admonitions listed at the end of the book of Jude is the phrase, "keep yourselves in the love of God." It's a phrase that caught my attention many years ago and still does from time to time now.

I used to think it was an admonition to live such a life that would keep us under the shelter of God's love - for example, if I am diligent to practice spiritual disciplines, then I'm keeping myself in the "vicinity", so to speak, of the love of God.

There may be a sense in which that is true, but that interpretation could suggest that God's love is conditional and limited. I wonder now if it's more about doing the "work" of continually listening and watching for expressions and signs of God's affection and enjoyment of us so that we then live in love and affection towards others as an overflow of knowing we are loved by Him. It's this ongoing realization that I am loved and enjoyed by God that causes my heart to continue to expand and to be in touch with life and with those that I am in contact with daily.

The following are a couple of ways that come to mind that we can do to actively live and grow in the love of God:
1. Read and study scripture that focuses on God's unchanging love and affection for humans and ask Him to help you hear that for you personally.
2. Take a few moments in the day to ask Him, "Father, what do You think of me?", and let Him affirm you even when you feel terrible about yourself.
3. Ask the Lord to help you be alert and aware throughout the day to signs and expressions of His affection for you whether that comes through another person or circumstance...

Jude 21 "Keep yourselves in the love of God and wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life."

Words for Leaders

The following are some great quotes on leadership from Neil Cole's book on organic leadership:

                When you're finished changing, you're finished.
                                                                                    Benjamin Franklin
      

              To lead people, walk beside them....
              As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence.
              The next best, the people honor and praise.
              The next, the people fear;
              and the next, the people hate....
              When the best leader's work is done the people say,
             "We did it ourselves!"
                                                                                    Lao-tzu


             Man's rank is his power to uplift.
                                                                                   George MacDonald



             Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.
                                                                                    Malcolm Forbes

Selling Water By the River - The Ever-changing Unchanging Kingdom of God

This will be the last of a series of bits from Shane Hipps book, Selling Water By the River. There's a lot more in this book and I highly recommend it as material that helps enlarge the heart. (See previous posts part 1,  No One Comes to the Bible without a Lens, Becoming Open to Love Can Be Unnerving, Jesus' Disregard for Established Religious Boundaries.)

In the chapter about gardening Hipps contrasts the special treatment that the famous Mona Lisa painting receives (encasement in a temperature controlled glass box and security guards, etc) and the treatment that a good gardener gives to plants in a botanical garden. These are both very different kinds of jobs.

"Trees don't take kindly to small sealed glass cases that prevent moisture and the sun from getting in. An ancient painting would not take kindly to a whole lot of tampering, touch, and exposure. The key to selecting the proper method of care is understanding the object so the wrong methods are not applied...The same is true when it comes to our relationship to the message of Jesus - the gospel. We must accurately understand the nature of the gospel if we are to treat it with proper care..."

In Acts 8 we read one of many conversion encounters found in the book of Acts; this one is particularly fascinating. Obeying God's direction to head to the Gaza dessert from Jerusalem, Philip comes across the "treasurer of Ethiopia", a eunuch, who was in his chariot reading from the book of Isaiah.

In the ancient world there were a number of reasons why a man was castrated; in this case it was because he served in the queen's service and had to become a eunuch so as not to "cause trouble".

"Some eunuchs would develop feminine characteristics because they no longer had as much testosterone coursing through their bodies. Many dressed in women's clothes with women's makeup and adornments, so they could serve powerful women without too many questions asked. They were considered a third gender and were often outcasts in society. People didn't know where to put them..."

The fact that this man had traveled all the way from Ethiopia to Jerusalem to worship and had acquired a scripture scroll indicates courage on his part since eunuchs were prohibited by Jewish law (Deuteronomy 23:1) from entering the assembly of God.

"God told Philip to go and share the gospel with a person who is not acceptable according to the Bible. He is from another land, another religion, and has chosen a lifestyle that is both irreversible and strictly prohibited in the Bible. And yet, God sends Philip far out of his way to share the good news with this person. Then Philip baptizes him without any precondition other than the eunuch's desire. So while the eunuch might be excluded from the religious assembly of God, he is welcome in God's kingdom."

Another fascinating thing is going on - Isaiah directly contradicts the law of Deuteronomy (Isaiah 56:3-5)! This shows the trajectory of the Bible - it's a story of ever-expanding love that moves beyond the original established boundaries.

And there's more that not recorded in the scripture about this story...now 2,000+ years later, "over half of all Ethiopians are Christians and a number of them trace the origin of their faith back to this first convert."

Shane Hipps finishes this wonderful chapter with words about the nature of the kingdom of God, proposing that perhaps when Jesus compared it to a mustard seed in Luke 13, He was suggesting that not only would the kingdom grow numerically, but that its nature includes change and reshaping...

"Perhaps  the kingdom does more than transform us; it also transforms itself for our sake. There may be dimensions of God's love that have yet to be revealed to us...it is possible that the gospel takes shapes necessary to better penetrate the hearts of people. A mustard seed in no way resembles the look, feel, or function of a mustard tree...

"Like a seed that becomes a tree, (the gospel) changes, grows, and is renewed

in each culture, context, and generation. The good news began as a message to Abraham of the blessing of land and descendants for an ethnic group. But through the course of history it became the blessing of an abundant life beyond land and children, beyond ethnicity. It became good news for anyone who wanted it...The good news grows and in that sense, changes. And yet...its basic DNA does not change. It both changes and is somehow unchanged."

Finally, Shane Hipps suggests that the kingdom of God is more like a plant than a painting. It's not an ancient artifact that needs protecting: "The kingdom is a lot more like a tree. God is looking for gardeners, not guards. A guard is trained in a defensive stance of fear and suspicion. A gardener is motivated by love and creativity...A friend, who is a landscape architect, once told me about a special kind of cell in plants that is called 'meristematic.' It's a cell that is ever-growing, ever-changing, ever-living. Jesus proclaimed the meristematic kingdom of God. Are we prepared for this never-changing kingdom to change? Are we open to the ways we might understand it anew?"

Selling Water By the River - Becoming Open to Love Can Be Unnerving

I've discovered over the years that we who name the name of Jesus can be some of the most uptight people around, fearful of making mistakes and/or wrong decisions or of being in error or just not being spiritual enough, etc, etc. I've actually found at times that people are offended by the idea that we don't have to fear God's disapproval or that we are going to "miss it". So I was especially struck by the chapter on "touching the stove" in Selling Water By the River. In it Shane Hipps says the following:

"Those of us raised in Christianity often live with a lot of fear. Fear that we are doing it wrong (whatever 'it' is). Fear that some unfamiliar idea might hurt us. Fear that God may not like who we are, or what we've done, or what we think. Fear that a particular interpretation of the Bible is hurting the Bible or even God. Fear that we, or others, might be offending God, who apparently has quite fragile feelings, and a hair-triggered temper. Some religious people are even afraid that other people are not frightened enough."

Hipps goes on to say that fear has a legitimate initial role in our early formation in God in that it teaches us what is needed in order to stay safe. He uses the illustration of teaching his small daughter to fear the stove with the instructions to not touch the stove. However, as we mature we must "leave the fear behind or we become paralyzed or pathological. If a 20-year-old is frightened of stoves in the same way he was as a 2-year-old, we have a problem.

"Fear is a developmental ingredient in the life of faith. It is useful in learning to prevent harm and nurture wisdom...and helps us develop basic impulse control...But fear also has some serious limits...

"The first stage of development is a much safer place to be...But as we grow, we are more and more moved and opened by Love, or God...we could say that fear is about closure and contraction, whereas Love is about opening and expansion. Love by nature is free from fear. The process of becoming open by Love can be unnerving, and it is not for the faint of heart. Doubts emerge when what we thought were solid foundations beginto feel like shifting sands beneath our feet. Love opens us more and more to a freedom that moves us beyond self-justification, self-protection, and self-preservation...

"If we are to access the Living Water Jesus promised, ultimately Love must become the only thing that governs behavior, not fear...Love does not do away with all boundaries; instead, it makes use of them in ways that serve the purpose of Love. 

"As we grow, the question we learn to ask moves from What is right or wrong? to What does Love require?"...fear is actually the absence of Love, not the opposite (of Love)...ridding ourselves of fear is as simple as letting Love in."

Selling Water By the River - Jesus' Disregard for Established Religious Boundaries

In his chapter about "wind and sails" in Selling Water By the River, Shane Hipps shows how Jesus went out of His way to disregard the boundaries that religion had established. In His first miracle of turning water into wine Jesus "sets the stage for his way of operating in the world. It frames his entire ministry."

In this miracle, what's astonishing is not only that Jesus changed the chemical composition from one liquid to another but that He flagrantly broke the ceremonial rules which insisted that wine not be put into vessels that were dedicated for ceremonial washing. This is exactly what Jesus did - he had the servants use the  jars that were for ceremonial cleansing rather than use the empty wine jars. By doing this, He was mixing wine and water thereby defiling both and causing the people to be unclean.

Why would Jesus do such an offensive thing (and continue doing this sort of thing throughout His ministry)? Hipps contends that it was because He was always trying to get people beyond the banks of the river and into the great expanse of the river of God's love. "He kept moving people toward the vast ocean, beyond the narrow confines of the riverbanks."

"Religions have a tendency to get stuck. Institutions aren't made to stay limber...Thus the trajectory of any religion is always to become brittle. A basic law is at work in most things we humans create: whatever the intended purpose of our creation, when overextended, it can reverse on itself...when it (Christian religion) becomes overextended, the impulse is to preserve the institution rather than the message...Jesus consistently undermined the natural inertia of institutions. He was the embodiment of pure, unbridled creative force. Creativity is often disruptive. It has little interest in preservation; it is about making new things and making things new."

Jesus is not against religions. The author says that Jesus is the wind while religions are the sails. His own conviction is that the Christian religion is the sail that best catches the wind but adds the following, "Just because Christianity claims Jesus as its own does not mean that Jesus claims Christianity as his own. Christ does not bind himself to a religion any more than wind binds itself to a sail...We must never make an idol of the sail and thereby miss the wind. But it is also a mistake to say the sail doesn't matter. Without a sail, the wind is difficult to catch..."

(But always remember): "It is not the sail, but the wind we are after." Jesus continually broke the rules and boundaries established by religion so that people could get to Him.

Selling Water by the River - No One Comes to the Bible without a Lens

More from Shane Hipps' book, Selling Water By the River:

In his chapter about how we read and understand scripture, Hipps talks about the lenses through which we read:

"No one comes to the Bible or life without a lens...A lens can be a set of assumptions or beliefs that we have...When it comes to the Bible, religious authorities usually tell us which lenses we should use. We learn what to believe about the Bible as a way to help us understand how to read it. We are also taught what to be afraid of or angry about..."

The author goes ahead to list the first set of biblical lenses he was given, which included such things as "The Bible is flat; no teaching or doctrine in the Bible is privileged above another...The Bible is unified in its message...God doesn't speak outside the Bible..." (Authority figures also taught him what lenses he should NOT look through at the Bible.)

"Our lenses - our assumptions, our way of seeing the world - shape the way we interpret the Bible and how we relate to God and those in the world around us... When we see our lenses, we can evaluate them consciously...An examination of our lenses is not a process of changing the Bible, the world, or truth; it is a process of changing ourselves. 

"The most limited Bible interpreter is one who claims to have no lens.

"Even Jesus, the Son of God, made deliberate use of a lens..." Shane Hipps goes on to illustrate this by showing how Jesus elevated certain scriptures over others. The Pharisees tried to trick Him by asking which was the greatest commandment believing that the only correct answer could be that all the commandments are the greatest. But Jesus didn't hesitate to respond in a way that shows His understanding that some commandments carry more weight than others and that all of them should be understood in the light of the two commandments to love God and our neighbor...

"The implications of what Jesus says here are enormous and often overlooked. He is actually showing us that he has a lens - a set of assumptions. He doesn't see the Bible as flat...

"We all have lenses, but not all lenses are created equal. Some help us see more, some cause us to see less...Perhaps this Jesus-centered lens is one we should adopt. One that elevates love of God, and love of neighbor and self as the interpretive keys to the Bible."

Selling Water By the River

For the next weeks I plan to post quotes from Shane Hipps' book, Selling Water By the River, (here) a book about the life Jesus promised and the religion that gets in the way.

Shane Hipps has served at Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, MI, and as pastor of Trinity Mennonite Church in Phoenix, AZ. He is a graduate of Fuller Seminary and writes and speaks about the effects of technology on faith.

The summary on the book jacket says of this book: "Work, sex, ice cream, religion - they all promise fulfillment. But what they deliver is fleeting...We want something that lasts, that doesn't rise and fall with the fate of the stock market. Jesus understood this quest. He came to show us that peace is possible in this life, not just the next one. Yet Christianity, the very religion that claims Jesus as its own, has often built the biggest barriers to him and the life he promised."

In this book Shane Hipps shows how available the water of life is; it's a river available to all, but we build our institutions next to the river to sell the water. In so doing, we often create hindrances for people to get to directly to the river of life, Jesus.

"...problematic are the beliefs we are taught to adopt that truncate our imagination of God...Then there is...fear. Fear is one of the great barriers to this river...Ironically, religious Christianity is often the purveyor of the very beliefs and fears that get in the way of the water.

"...What we believe matters, but not for the reasons we may assume. Our beliefs (or lack of beliefs) do not qualify or disqualify us from the river. Instead, they determine how clearly we will see the river...Some beliefs clear the way and give us high visibility, while others create a thick fog..."

Beauty: Those Mocked and Misunderstood for the Right Reasons

"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, 

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." (Matt. 5:11)

"Blessed are those who are mocked and misunderstood for the right reasons, for the kingdom of heaven comes to earth amidst much persecution." (B.Zahnd paraphrase)

The eighth and final beatitude we find in Matthew 5 brings it all full circle when Jesus promises the same reward to the spiritually poor and to those who are persecuted for the right reasons.

Brian Zahnd presents a wonderful way of seeing all of the beatitudes expressed in their fullness in the cross which he contends earlier in his book (Beauty Will Save the World) is the greatest expression of beauty that has ever been known and the beauty that will save the world.

To name and follow Jesus is to live like He lived as seen in the beatitudes, and to live in this way will always lead to a cross. Understood rightly, this way of living is counter-cultural to the ways and mindsets of the world's culture. "The moment Jesus proclaimed the Beatitudes on that Galilean hillside - and began to live them - he was launched on a course that would ultimately lead to Good Friday and his crucifixion on the hill of Calvary." Zahnd goes on to show how each beatitude can be seen expressed in the final hours of Jesus' life:

Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. It was the spiritually poor thief crucified by Jesus who is promised heaven, not the spiritually rich Pharisees.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. The first to be comforted on Easter Sunday were the women who mourned at the cross.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. In lowliness and meekness, Jesus entered Jerusalem on His way to be crucified; His inheritance now is the nations that stretch from sea to sea.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. In His thirst on the cross, Jesus was setting the world aright and giving it a new axis of love, therein finding satisfaction.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. The thief expresses mercy to Jesus when others are mocking Him and in return receives mercy from Jesus.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. The pagan soldier with no claims of spiritual insight was able to see in Jesus what the Pharisees could not see.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Jesus was called "son of God" by the Roman soldier when, by refusing to take up the sword and perpetuate the cycle of violence, He made peace by the blood of the cross.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. The principalities and powers persecuted Jesus for all the right reasons, but in Him the kingdom of heaven came to earth and the cross began the remaking of the world according to righteousness.

"The Beatitudes and the cruciform are ultimately the same thing - one existing in proclamation, the other existing in demonstration. It is the beauty that we are called to emulate as followers of Jesus Christ...The Beatitudes and the cruciform are...God's saving beauty. The beauty of the Beatitudes leads to the beauty of the cruciform, and together they form the beauty that will save the world."

This kind of living by God's people provides a safe place for those seeking shelter from the storm of the "ugly and unforgiving pragmatism offered by the principalities and powers."

Beauty: Peaceful Bridge Builders in a War-Torn World (Part 2)

In this second part of the commentary by Brian Zahnd on the seventh beatitude about being peacemakers (see Part 1 here), I will quote part of a statement that he and two of his friends (a Jewish artist born in Israel and a Muslim scientist born in Egypt) agreed upon as they work together for peace in spite of their differences. Together they have collected thousands of toys for the poor Israeli and Palestinian children in and around Gaza. The following is their attempt to explain their cooperation (you can read the entire statement in his book, Beauty Will Save the World):

For the Common Good

We are Jews, Christians, and Muslims.

And we are friends.

We seek to follow our respective religions faithfully...

We recognize the reality of our religious differences.

But we are friends...

Our faith and friendship need not be mutually exclusive.

We recognize that we share common space - the common space of a shared planet.

For the sake of the common good we seek common ground.

We do not share a common faith, but we share a common humanity...

...in our shared humanity we hold to a common dream: Shalom, Salaam, Peace.

We hold to the dream that our children may play in peace without fear of violence...

We pledge not to hate.

We pledge not to dehumanize others.

We pledge to do no harm in the name of God.

As individuals we do not compromise the truth claims of our respective religions.

But we will not use truth claims to fuel hate or justify violence...

Our religions share a complex and intertwined history -

A history of interaction that has too often been tumultuous and bloody.

We believe there must be a better way...the way of peace.

We are Jews, Christians, and Muslims.

And we are friends... 

The next beatitude we will look at is the eighth and final beatitude: "Blessed are those who are mocked and misunderstood for the right reasons, for the kingdom of heaven comes to earth amidst much persecution."

Beauty: Peaceful Bridge Builders in a War-Torn World (Part 1)

"Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God." (Mt.5:9)

"Blessed are the peaceful bridge builders in a war-torn world, 

for they are God's children working in the family business."

(Brian Zahnd paraphrase)

We are now on the seventh beatitude, and in his commentary on this one, Brian Zahnd says that in order to understand the significance of these words we need to get past our focus on personal peace as western Christians. Jesus' words mean much more than that (though they include that). "In a world drunk on hate and tearing itself apart in hostility, the reign of Christ brings peace in the fullest sense of the word." The prophets called the Messiah the Prince of Peace and He is that today as well as in the future when He will establish His earthly throne.

When Jesus was born, Caesar Augustus was reigning and had the title of "Prince of Peace" and "Bringer of World Peace." On one level Rome did bring some peace to the world but it was through violence and the squashing of any dissent; the death on a Roman cross was the means to keep rebels under control. While Rome brought peace through violence, Jesus brought it through forgiveness and as followers of His we are called to the radical alternative of forgiveness in the way we walk today.

"...he (Jesus) took the ultimate instrument of violence and turned it into the ultimate emblem of forgiveness...he is blessing those who make peace the way he makes peace...As long as we feel we can justify violence as a legitimate way to bring about peace, we will eventually resort to it...If the state feels that violence is unavoidable in achieving their ends, so be it, but the church must speak with a unified voice and tell the state they employ violence without the blessing of God."

On the cross Jesus shamed the idea that peace can be achieved by force when he renounced force in favor of forgiveness, which is the greatest expression of the love of God for all people.

Because the "family business" in God's kingdom is that of peace-making, we who name Jesus can and should demonstrate the family likeness through working to make peace in whatever way possible in our daily lives including that of working with "the other" (those who are different from us). This is another way that the beauty of the Prince of Peace saves the world.

In the second part of this I want to write out part of a statement that Brian Zahnd wrote on behalf of himself and two friends of his (Jewish and Muslim). It exemplifies what he is challenging the reader with in this particular interpretation of beatitude #7.

Beauty: Those Who Have a Clean Window Into Their Soul

"Blessed are the pure in heart,

for they will see God." (Matt. 5:8)

"Blessed are those who have a clean window into their soul, 

for they will perceive God when and where others don't." 

(Brian Zahnd paraphrase)

To see Jesus is to see God. When we read the Gospel stories it's interesting to note that those who were quicker to recognize God in Jesus were the sinful and irreligious people. Jesus called the religious leaders and Pharisees "blind" on various occasions. According to this beatitude, seeing God is connected with purity of heart, or cleanness of heart. Zahnd says, "There is a sense in which the heart or soul is an organ of perception...The heart of man is like a window, which if clean, can perceive God at work in the world...But the cleanness of heart that enables us to see God...(is) not the morally upright or ethically irreproachable who have clean hearts (as commendable as these things may be); rather, cleanness of heart has to do with a lack of pride, hypocrisy, and judgmentalism. Overconfidence in our ability to see, producing the perception that we can accurately judge others, is in reality a form of spiritual blindness..."

In John 9:39-41 Jesus says that it was the Pharisees' certainty that they could see that actually kept them blind! "The same window that allows light in so that we can see our own sin is also the window by which we can look outward and see God at work in the world. Those who claim to be qualified to judge others because of their own supposed moral superiority are, in fact, living in profound spiritual darkness..."

It is in the incarnation Christ that we see the invisible God apart from which we can't see God. However, God continues His work on earth through incarnation in lives of common people who live and love and serve others as Jesus did. If pride and judgmentalism corrupts us, we can't see God's activity in the lives of flawed and broken humans.

The author concludes this section by saying that "if we in humility acknowledge our own sins and flaws, disqualifying ourselves to judge others, that is when we at last begin to see...Instead of seeing the sins and shortcomings of others, we will see God unexpectedly at work in the lives of ordinary people, even sinners. Sometimes the world becomes a much more beautiful place simply by being able to see God - ...present in the lives of others. In this case it's true - beauty lies in the eye of the beholder."

The next post will be on the seventh beatitude: "Blessed are the peaceful bridge builders in a war-torn world, for they are God's children working in the family business."

Beauty: Those Who Give Mercy

Continuing with my series on the Beatitudes as seen through the eyes of Brian Zahnd in his book, Beauty Will Save the World, today's post will be on the fifth beatitude:

"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy." (Matt. 5:7)

"Blessed are those who give mercy,

for they will get it back when they need it most."

(paraphrase by B.Zahnd)

If we wonder what Jesus is like, we can see it in the beatitudes. "Jesus is drawn to the poor and sorrowful, and he stands up for the meek and persecuted. Jesus exhibits justice and mercy, and he endorses purity and peacemaking. This is what Jesus is like...Getting Jesus right is absolutely essential if we are to recover the beauty of Christianity, because Jesus is the beauty of Christianity!"

Even though scriptures are full of stories of those who have seen God, the apostle John says in the prologue to the gospel of John that no one has seen God. In other words, any encounter that a human has with God is partial and biased and can't be trusted to be the definitive word on what God is like. John continues his sentence by saying that "It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known."

Only in Jesus do we see what God is really like, and in this mercy beatitude we see a core characteristic of God the Father. The only people Jesus was not merciful towards were those who were not merciful.

The author points out that this Mercy Beatitude needs to be understood alongside the Justice Beatitude that comes before it; however, "Living in the tension of justice and mercy can at times place us in difficult dilemmas. When should we press for justice, and when should we plead for mercy?...when in doubt, go with mercy. Mercy should be our default mode. The apostle James said it like this: 'Judgement will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment'...If our churches are to be anything like a shelter from the storm, we must become famous for our mercy...Why were sinners attracted to Jesus...? In Jesus they found mercy."

The sixth beatitude is next: "Blessed are those who have a clean window into their soul, for they will perceive God when and where others don't."