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guest blogging Hanging out at Pangea
Wednesday, January 26, 2011 at 09:31AM My cyber-friend Kurt Willems invited me to post at his evocative site, The Pangea Blog, so yesterday I posted The Subtle Idolatry over there. I hope it doesn't get him into trouble!
Monday's Meditation: Considering the Cross
Monday, January 24, 2011 at 01:14PM 
Have you ever planned to think about something? To set the direction of your thoughts, so whenever they are free and looking for something constructive to do, the direction is already determined? Some topics are too big to be merely Monday’s Meditation. They deserve more time: to marinate, to allow the flavor to saturate every part of the meal.
(Now I’m getting hungry--but isn’t that the point of focused meditation as well?)
There’s no better topic for sustained meditation than the words of Jesus, because his words broke forth from of old and will continue on forever. His words established the earth; his words will create a new heaven and new earth. So this week I’m giving myself to his simple statement, “"If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9: 23)
Some meditation starts best with questions. What would it mean to “take up his cross daily?” How is self-denial connected to our ability to lay hold of the cross? Perhaps I can suggest three appetizers for the disciple who would feast on the Lord’s words:
Taking up our cross is an intentional act. The cross doesn’t happen to us. We take it each day by the choices we make. These choices can small and private, they needn’t prove anything to anyone. Jack Hayford, a wonderful pastor and example of a disciple, once said he reads the scripture each morning at his bedside--on his knees. He does so to signal to God and remind himself of his willingness to submit to God’s will.
The Apostle Paul warned us that religious people will consider the cross something shameful and intellectual people will consider it foolish. Am I willing to embrace shameful foolishness in order to follow Jesus?
Taking up our cross contains the promise of resurrection. Which do we want: a life filled with our own efforts, our own strength and our own results, or a life filled with supernatural power? The cross changed everything. It was a death sentence in its day, now it’s the path to life.
The Father is not trying to kill us, but he calls us to come and die. There’s a big difference. Why would he ask this of us?
Ignoring the Cross
Thursday, January 20, 2011 at 08:50PM 
This is embarrassing, for reals. Every once in a while the Twitterverse delivers a thunderbolt, and I was struck this past weekend.
One of my regular readers--a person whom I don’t think I’ve ever met--sent me this direct message on twitter: “I could not find an entry on your blog about ‘carrying our cross daily.’ I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Had some confusion lately.”
Immediately I thought, “That can’t be right.” I checked the labels at my site and sure enough, the word “cross” doesn’t even appear. About twenty minutes later I received another direct message: “I did find a few entries with a closer look.“ My Twitter correspondent was being generous: the tally came to three sentences about the cross. How could this be? How could I blog for two years, more than 200 posts, and never address the role of the cross in the life of a disciple?
Jesus was pretty clear on this subject. All three of the synoptic gospels. Smack dab in the middle of Mark, so you can’t miss it:
Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.” (Mark 8: 34-38)
Luke’s gospel (chapter 9) adds the word “daily” to the passage, and Matthew’s gospel (chapter 16) introduces “reward” to the mix. Clearly, this is an important part of following Jesus. The epistles contain 13 overt references to the cross and who knows how many implied references. Here at Students of Jesus? Three. In two years, 228 posts, Eleventy gazillion words.
After the two-message twitter conversation my immediate thought was, “no problem: I’ll just write something up and post it.” The Holy Spirit was kind enough to suggest that if I hadn’t considered the cross of Christ in two years, what insight could I gain in four days?
So here is what I have learned in four days: I have ignored the cross of Christ. I’ve embraced the image of taking the yoke (check the URL and the tag-line at the top),
perhaps because by taking the yoke I can remain alive, but embracing the cross means learning how to die. Daily.
I’ve come too far with Jesus to fall into the trap of beating myself up. Instead, the Father graciously nudged another one of his kids to send me 140 characters via social networking to call my attention to what is still lacking in my life as a disciple. I immediately dug in and began to attend to the cross.
In these first few days I’ve imagined possible responses to the words of Jesus, and I’d like to share my first pass at that. What are the possible responses? Maybe we can start with these four:
- Reject the cross: In which I understand the call, count the cost, and fold before I must pay the price. Better to indulge in religious activities--perhaps even do some good--but remain the master of my fate: build my ministry, increase my readership, secure my future. I don’t think that’s me, but I can imagine pastors, evangelists, and various religious professionals taking this. Then again, when is the last time I fasted? Jesus probably isn’t amused by my standard line, “the only thing I ever got from fasting is skinny.”
- Mortify myself in an attempt to take up the cross: I’m no church historian, but there are plenty of examples of those who believed that by literary imitating the suffering of Jesus they were somehow following his example. It’s true that no one took his life from him: Jesus gave himself to the cross, but I don’t think he intended us to inflicted controlled pain in order to find affinity with him. (But then, after only four days’ reflection, what do I really know?)
- Ignore the cross: I think this is where I’ve been living. Love Jesus? You bet. Worship and Adore? I’m in. Serve him? I’d like to think that’s what I’ve been doing. But with respect to the call to embrace the cross--it’s imagery and reality--I’ve been a no-show. Like the disciples in Ephesus who had never heard of the Holy Spirit, I’m the disciple who’s never seen the cross. And honestly: how could I miss it? The cross is the primary sign of Evangelical Christianity. Who’s ever heard of a church without a cross? (Answer: mine)
- Embrace the cross: Now, I’m just four days into this but it seems to me that Jesus loved the Father, saw what he was doing, and partnered with him. Jesus demonstrated a life of purity and obedience. A life so vivid and compelling that some people followed him and some killed him. A life so loving he was willing to be lifted up in shame in order to rescue those who neither loved him nor understood him. I’d like to learn to live that kind of life.
There. That’s the first pass. It won’t be the last, and it shouldn’t be a monologue. There are probably plenty of you who have thought and lived deeply toward the cross. Here’s your chance to teach, encourage and, if you must, chastize. I eagerly welcome your instruction. Why not leave a comment, point me toward your blog post that deals with the cross, or set me straight in general. I need it, and my friend on Twitter is still waiting for an answer.
EDITOR'S NOTE: It's Saturday,and in turning my attention to the cross I came across a Good Friday post from 2009: Still, it's not enough for a discipleship blog. And, gentle readers, I'm still looking for your comments.
My Excellent Adventure at Jason Boyett's "O Me of Little Faith."
Friday, January 14, 2011 at 09:50AM  |
| The actual Jason Boyett |
Sometimes even the very best blog sites have to lower their standards, and that’s the case today at Jason Boyett’s “O Me of Little Faith.”
Today Jason has kindly included me in his his Voices of Doubt series, which is funny because I generally bamboozle folks into thinking I’m certain about everything, including the Cubs' chances to win a World Series this century. So it must’ve been a slow week for Jason, but his bad day is my good fortune.
Jason’s site is highly regarded, and for good reason: he willing to ask the hard questions while at the same time showing respect for other viewpoints and passion for Jesus. We became acquianted last year when I posted a snarky comment on his website; he responded with thoughtfulness and grace. So I came back to his site again and again. Now I have a bona fide man-crush on him (but that would be another post for anther day, wouldn’t it?).
Check out my piece, Learning From Thomas at O Me of Little Faith.
The Difference Between You and You
Thursday, January 13, 2011 at 02:12PM 
“It’s the most amazing thing,” he said. “All the years I read the word ‘you’ in my English Bible, I thought it was talking about me. But in Spanish, I think it’s talking about ‘us.’”
He’s on to something: the New Testament, especially the epistles, is addressed to “us,” not “me.” Who knew that 9th grade grammar class would turn out to be so important? By some unfortunate accident of the English language the word “you” can mean one person or a whole group of people. Not so in Spanish and most other languages. Instead of a Red-Letter edition of the Bible, we need a “You & You-all” edition.
When North Americans read the letters of the New Testament we tend to interpret the word “you” as a singular. In other words, we think the Holy Spirit, through the apostle Paul, is speaking to “me.” Considering our individualistic consumer-oriented society, is it any surprise?
Paul and the other writers of the epistles were usually addressing groups of people. Of the 21 letters in the New Testament, 15 of them were written to groups of people, not individuals. These groups of people are more commonly known as “the church.” Of the six remaining letters, three of them are all about life and order within the church (a group of people)!
It’s popular these days to say “Jesus, yes. The church, no.” But the writers of the epistles would never have thought like that. They saw the church as the primary focus of what the Holy Spirit was doing in their day.
Here are three examples from Paul’s letters that have challenged my thinking about the importance of the church:
- Ephesians 1: 22 tells us that the church is not only the “body of Christ,” but also the “fullness of [Jesus], who fills everything in every way.” Imagine that: the church is the fullness of Jesus. This really stretches me. Apparently Paul hasn’t been to any churches I have ever attended.
- Ephesians 3: 10 tells us that God wants to show his “manifold wisdom” through the church. But the church is perhaps one of the last places people would think to find wisdom. Around my hometown, not even the Christians think that the church demonstrates the wisdom of God.
- I Timothy 3:15 tells us that God considers the church to be His household, and that the church is the “pillar and support of the truth.” A pillar holds something up, either to bear the weight or to put something on display. What kind of “weight” could your church bear, and what does your church put on display?
There are plenty more such passages in the New Testament. If we put on “church glasses” and look again, we can begin to discover that throughout the New Testament God has an exalted view of the church.
Now I’ve got a big problem: bashing the church is easy to do and lots of fun, but apparently Jesus loves the church. He loves the church so much that he wants to marry her. The marriage supper of the Lamb will celebrate the union of Jesus and his church, a bride without spot or blemish. Perhaps one of the reasons evangelical believers have difficulty committing to a local church body is they consider membership to be something beyond the gospel message instead of part of the gospel message.
What if I told my friend, “I think you are great. You’re smart, loving, wise, insightful, and fun to be with. But I don’t like your wife at all. I want to be with you, hang out with you, and learn from you. But I don’t want to have anything at all to do with your wife--ever.” Do you think he would accept a relationship with me on those terms?
How many of us say that to Jesus all the time?