Sacred Scarred

Thin Places

Our Father in heaven
Hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
Forgive us our debts, as we too have forgiven our debtors.
Do not bring us to the time of trial,
But rescue us from the evil one.
For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours,
Now and forever, Amen.

Amongst a myriad of other things, last night, the cell group that I am a part of talked about "thin places" - places where the distinction between heaven and earth, God and us, are a little more transparent - a little more thin.  Places where we meet God.  It was suggested that the Jewish shepherds in the field outside of Bethlehem inhabited a "thin place" where the angels were able to announce the birth of the King.  Our church building has a "thin place" - a prayer room, where God is met.

NT Wright in Simply Christian writes,

We are called to live at the overlap of heaven and earth - the earth that has yet to be fully redeemed as one day it will be - and of God's future and this world's present.  We are caught on a small island near the point where these tectonic plates - heaven and earth, future and present - are scrunching themselves together.  Be ready for earthquakes!

While I love the idea of locations as thin places (and have some of my own), may we stive to have lives as thin places - sending tremors and shockwaves that alter the world.

Father Almighy, maker of heaven and earth, set up your kingdom in our midst.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
Holy Spirit, breath of the Living God, renew me and all the world.

Santa Baby

Len writes...

Herod tried to kill the baby. Not the Christmas baby.. he would have welcomed this western child. No, the boy Herod wanted to kill was a king.

The baby he would have wanted around was our western baby, colonized by the myth of Christmas, jingle bells, ho-ho-ho, and all night shopping. “Joy to the Mall” will always be blessed by the powers that be.

Lights, bright ribbons, hot chocolate, Starbucks and Wal-Mart.. come on. Who is threatened by this stuff? It’s good for the state. The Santa myth won over the Christmas baby with hardly a struggle. There is no death there.. no rumor of angels.. no harsh travel on dangerous roads, and no swat teams. The Santa myth is all about consumption, addiction, good times for all, and a growing economy. What government in their right mind would want to oppose it?

But the other story.. the one about the baby king and a future kingdom, a kingdom of peace and justice.. that story is dangerous.

Better to find a way to merge the two stories, so that the one receeds into history while the other is oh so present, offering promise today of happiness, plenty, and comfort. We turned the Jesus story into flannel graphs and plastic nativity scenes and canned music because the wildness of the real story was subversive. And anyway, how can you market soldiers and Rachel weeping for her children? How can you market “the rise and fall of many in Israel” and “scattering the proud” and “filling the hungry with good things” while the rich are sent empty away?

Hmm.. well, you could market it to the hungry and the poor. You could market it to the humble and those who have nothing to lose. And that’s where the Gospel really grew and took root. Big surprise.

He then points us to a piece that he wrote a few years back...

I tried to turn some of these.. admittedly uncomfortable.. thoughts into a story last year, and it is found HERE.

Thanks, Len.

I Have Some Idea of What Life is About

I've been thinking today about the division I see in God's church.  How did the people of God get so far away from God that they've almost stopped being his people?  At times I feel like we exist in exile.  The end of exile was indeed the beauty of the first advent.  The end of exile remains the the beauty of the advent yet to come.  This has been speaking to me today...

Some Things the Trappist Monk Said in His Talk

Linford Detweiler

We're immortal
We're hungry for the eternal love of God
We don't take this life too seriously
There is more to come

I can't substitute things for God
Fame, money, power, human love
She's divine, angelic
The hell she is

We don't understand suffering
And we shouldn't probe too deeply
We link our suffering to Christ's
We know it has something to do with salvation

That's how Christ accomplished what he did
Through suffering
We know there is something deep there, mysterious
We shouldn't speak of suffering as if we have it all figured out

We say we live for God with candor
For without us God doesn't exist
We give witness to his existence
We were created in his image

We accept the fact that we're not perfect
And the people we came from are not perfect
But they gave us the gift of life
There is no greater gift

And if they gave us the Faith
Well that's something
Once God has his mark on us
He pursues us always

God envisioned one Church
We're so divided and fractured
We go to foreign countries as missionaries
There are so many different voices clamoring

Go back to where you came from
Talk amongst yourselves
Come back
After you've gotten your story straight

I know I'm not perfect
But if you give me a little grace
Maybe I'll do better
I have some idea of what life is about

Advent People

Ed at inamirrordimly posted about people whose blogs aren't updated frequently for one reason or another and how he's willing to leave them a place at the table.  Well, from one glad to be welcomed at the table, thanks!

Below is a long post, but after 5 months of not posting...sorry.

To catch you up, in September, Jen and I left our ministry position at the church we were at, moved to a smaller house, I found a job (also here) and we became a part of the community at Circle of Hope in Philly (see post on Obedience to the Voice).

On December 3, I shared some thoughts at our public meeting about advent and the prophets (it was my first time back in the saddle since leaving vocaitonal ministry, and it was a beautiful time of going with the Spirit).  The following is the gist of that sharing time...I've skipped my contextualized "intro" in order to dive right in...

Jews as Advent People

The Jews were to be advent celebrators.  The whole idea of the Jews being the people of God had to do with Advent.  It’s everywhere – the expectation, the anticipation, the waiting, the hoping – God is coming.  And from God’s promise to Adam and Eve to God’s covenant with Abraham to the exodus from Egypt and the entering into the Promised Land, through the judges, followed by the kings, the exile and return…all of Jewish history focuses on Advent…it focuses on God showing up.

The Jewish people were supposed to live that way.  They were supposed to live in light of Advent.  They were supposed to be (what I’m going to call) “advent people”.  The Jews as a people had been called into a relationship with God.  And they were supposed to relate to God and relate to each other with the hope that God was coming.  Their whole mindset as Jews was to be shaped by this.  It was to be their focus.  And so as advent people, they were supposed to remember what God had done for them (that’s why they celebrated feasts), they were supposed to recognize what God was doing (that’s why they prayed and sacrificed), and they were supposed to envision what God would do next (and they could base this on the promises he made to them and covenants he made with them).

In fact in order to remember the past, recognize the present, and envision the future, there is a distinct Jewish activity called kavanah.  Kavanah is cultivated in order to maximize the inwardness of our actions.  It means to pay attention, to direct the mind and heart in order to maximize the levels of intentionality in our actions.  It usually applies to actions or deeds – anywhere from studying the Scripture to prayer to doing good works – but it goes beyond actions and deeds themselves to the notion of attentiveness to God Himself.  It is not primarily an awareness of being commanded by God, but an awareness of the God who commands.  The Jews were to live with this awareness, and hopefully you can see how this type of attentiveness to God’s working would foster advent anticipation. 

But here’s the problem…in the long and sordid hstory of Israel, they rarely lived as advent people.  And that’s were the prophets come in.

The Prophets as Advent People

Prophecy is an interesting topic, isn’t it?  It’s popular.  Mysteries of Faith - the Prophets by US News and World Report hit the shelves a few weeks ago – a whole issue on the prophets – from Elijah to Jesus to Mohammed to Joseph Smith.  It cost eight bucks.  We’ve got the concept of prophecy cropping up everywhere in Hollywood from the new Star Wars Trilogy (where the prophesied one will bring balance to the force) to the Matrix (where the one is prophesied) to 2005’s The Celestine Prophecy (where a coming world religion is prophesied in the Peruvian mountains) to the Left Behind books and movies – prophecy sells (it cost me at least eight bucks for the magazine).  But there’s a marked difference between fanciful apocalyptic visions predicting the future end times and the actual work of the prophets in the life of the Jewish community.

The Jews were supposed to be an advent people but most of the time they lost sight of this and so the prophets come around.  And the prophets embody the anticipation of Advent.  The prophets live their calling as advent people.  They relate to God and they relate to their community with the Advent in mind…they believe that God is going to show up.  They always use the language of poetry because it is a break from the ordinary, and in these words and often with their actions, they set about the prophetic task of expecting Advent.  And so we find them remembering the past and God’s work and they call the Jews to remember where God has shown up.  We find the prophets acutely aware of the present situation in the world and they call the Jews to participate with God in what he’s doing – they call the Jews to live with awareness, with kavanah.  And the prophets, as they go deep with God as they have spiritual experiences like Isaiah, they are able to envision what God would do next, they are able to dream with God a future based on his character and his faithfulness and their attention to his Spirit.  The prophets know God because they embrace and embody their calling to be advent people.  They know God because they expect him to show up.  And the prophets know things – past, present, future – because they know God.

Our Need for Advent Prophets

And here we are at the beginning of Advent season.  Expecting, anticipating, preparing, longing, waiting, hoping.  God’s going to show up.  Jesus is coming. 

Advent is the Christian New Year, it is the beginning of the liturgical calendar.  Advent starts us off on the right foot – longing for Jesus to come.  But so often we treat Advent like we treat our January 1^st New Year’s resolutions…we start off on the right foot – it goes well for a bit, but then it fades…we’ll try again next year.

We need to be reminded that because Jesus came and is coming again we are supposed to live as advent people all the time…remembering our history and our heritage, recognizing what we are called to participate in here and now, and envisioning what the heart of God is for the future.

Our problem is the same as the Jews – we rarely live as advent people.  We get bogged down in our culture, in our economy, in our selves, and we are in need of prophetic voices.  We need people who use the uncommon language of poetry, of song, of art, and of action to stir us up.  We need people who embrace and embody their calling as advent people.  We need prophets.  We need people who go deep with God so that they can help us remember the past, recognize the present, and envision the future so that we together can participate with God as he shows up.

We know a lot about God…we know the stories, we dabble in theology – but do we know God? 

Because people don’t care what you know.  People are looking for those who know God so they can follow them into the place where he is showing up.

Who are our prophets?  Where is the prophetic voice of today?

Who with their uncommon words and actions inspires you to live as an advent person?

I have my list…poets, musicians, friends…

Wendell Berry

Linford Detweiler

Bud Osborn

Derrick Brown

TS Eliot

Alan Ginsberg

Eugene Peterson

John Francis

Rosie Thomas

These are the prophets who cause me to remember that Jesus is coming, that God is showing up.  Listen to one…Wendell Berry…

Slowly, slowly, they return

Wendell Berry, A Timbered Choir

Slowly, slowly, they return
To the small woodland let alone:
Great trees, outspreading and upright,
Apostles of the living light.

Patient as stars, they build in air
Tier after tier a timbered choir,
Stout beams upholding weightless grace
Of song, a blessing on this place.

They stand in waiting all around,
Uprisings of their native ground,
Downcomings of the distant light;
They are the advent they await.

Receiving sun and giving shade,
Their life's a benefaction made,
And is a benediction said
Over the living and the dead.

In fall their brightened leaves, released,
Fly down the wind, and we are pleased
To walk on radiance, amazed.
0 light come down to earth, be praised!

We need to be advent people.  We need to participate in that.  One of the ways that you can participate is through receiving communion.  Communion is a prophetic meal.  It remembers the past, it sustains us in the present, and it anticipates the future.  It recalls Jesus’ table fellowship with the tax collectors and sinners he died for, it enacts present forgiveness in real and concrete life situations, and it longs for the time when we will share the very same meal with Jesus at the final advent of the

Kingdom

of

God.

The Rebel Jesus

I've been thinking a lot about the very nature of the ministry of Jesus. Someone once said that “a rebel attempts to change the past; a revolutionary attempts to change the future.”

I have long viewd Jesus as a revolutionary.  Jesus Christ brought drastic change to the world. Change to humanity’s view of God. Change to God’s view of humankind. Change to men’s view of women. Our Lord came to bring radical change to the old order of things, replacing it with a new order. He came to bring forth a new covenant – a new kingdom – a new birth – a new race – a new species – a new culture – a new civilization.

And yet, more and more, I view him as a rebel as well.  He also came to change the past.  He came to set right the effects of the fall, to push them back.  He came to destroy the powers that dominate the world.

As we move foward - as we seek to shape the future - are we simultaneously rebelling with Jesus against the past?  Are we endeavoring to push back the effects of sin and the fall?  Are we rebels and revolutionaries at the same time - do we hold them in tension - or do we only look to the future?

All the streets are filled with laughter and light
And the music of the season
And the merchants' windows are all bright
With the faces of the children
And the families hurrying to their homes
While the sky darkens and freezes
Will be gathering around the hearths and tables
Giving thanks for God's graces
And the birth of the rebel Jesus

Well they call him by 'the Prince of Peace'
And they call him by 'the Savior'
And they pray to him upon the seas
And in every bold endeavor
And they fill his churches with their pride and gold
While their faith in him increases
But they've turned the nature that I worship in
From a temple to a robber's den
In the words of the rebel Jesus

Well we guard our world with locks and guns
And we guard our fine possessions
And once a year when Christmas comes
We give to our relations
And perhaps we give a little to the poor
If the generosity should seize us
But if any one of us should interfere
In the business of why there are poor
They get the same as the rebel Jesus

Now pardon me if I have seemed
To take the tone of judgement
For I've no wish to come between
This day and your enjoyment
In a life of hardship and of earthly toil
There's a need for anything that frees us
So I bid you pleasure
And I bid you cheer
From a heathen and a pagan
On the side of the rebel Jesus

The Rebel Jesus, by Jackson Browne