Legitimizing our Activities

"Rather than finding biblical legitimation for our activities, we should be submitting all our missionary strategy, plans, and operations to biblical critique and evaluation...Mission today must be seen as arising from something fundamental, from the basic movement of God's people to the world." - Christopher Wright, p. 37 The Mission of God

I'm being challenged lately by the boxes I deal with in regard to faith and theology. It seems that we like nice, neat, packaged systematic theology. However, what I find is that it's not so neat and tidy. For instance, each sermon I work on could have a hundred different angles. There is always more to be said...other thoughts to be had on or around the text. At any given time the text can speak in different ways (granted it's still trying to say what it's trying to say). I used to think if I could just memorize what each verse meant then I would be in good shape...but then the verses spoke in many ways.

I've been brought up in a certain tradition - Anabaptist, Wesleyan, Holiness, and WESTERN. These all impact my reads of Scripture. However there are many more insights into the Scriptures from people of my same theological traditions but in different parts of the world, dealing with realities in different ways.

I've been afraid not to have my theology line up...to have it all together...to have my ducks in a row. But theology is messy, and neat theology that doesn't need to be grappled with seems to me more weak that a theology that isn't all that worked out yet (in fact, is it ever really all worked out). I've been afraid of the criticisms of those who have everything figured out and thought through...those people with all the answers. Then I realize I'm more afraid of the fact they actually think they have it all worked out.

I like what Wright says because he deals with the thrust of the scripture...the movement of it. When I think of the Bible in a sweeping sort of way...as a large story rather than a whole bunch of facts to be figured out...I feel I can breathe! I get excited about the story. The story speaks. If I think of it as facts to memorize...things stuck on a page...a systematic way to explain everything...it takes the life out of the Scriptures (for me).

A Theme

As this year began I searched out a theme for me personally this year...what is God saying to me?...What is He speaking into my life?

Freedom

That's it for me. It's freedom. Time after time as I've met with my spiritual director this theme has come up. It's come up as I've tried to work through a number of things in life and ministry. Freedom.

So my question for you is this: what does God want to speak to you?

It's funny that we think of God speaking something to us and then it being over and done with. What if God speaks to us and then works with us on what He speaks? So each day we work out what He has spoken. Those who get frustrated that they don't feel God or hear God may perhaps experience this frustration because God has spoken to them...now it's time to wrestle with what He's said...sit with it...let those words shape and form who we are.

I'm being shaped by "Freedom." How 'bout you?

Anticipating Easter

Easter is the time in the Christian year to celebrate the hope we have through faith in Christ. In Easter we can truly say that the powers and authorities of this world have NO power and authority over us.

I've been struck in recent conversations by the hopelessness of followers of Jesus as they digest the dismal news of our day. They see the economy collapsing. They hear of all the conflicts of the world and the uncertainty of our times. They worry about what the future will bring.

Isn't this the time we are to have hope? When all the powers of the world seem to fail, aren't we about a Kingdom that stands in the midst of the smaller ones failing? I realize it rattles our security...or sense of security, but then shouldn't we be examining exactly where we find our security?

Easter says to us that the powers of this world don't have the power. We identify with Paul's hope. They can beat him, lock him up in chains, and try to silence him, but they cannot take away his hope. The powers cannot take away our hope. No matter how much the choices of the powers (our government, bailouts, jobs, etc) effect our lives because of the resurrection of Jesus we have hope.

N.T. Wright writes the following in Surprised By Hope:

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"Who, after all , was it who didn't want the dead to be raised? Not simply the intellectually timid. It was, and is, those in power, the social and intellectual tyrants and bullies; the Caesars who would be threatened by a Lord of the world who had defeated the tyrant's last weapon, death itself.

Hope is what you get when you suddenly realize that a different worldview is possible, a worldview in which the rich, the powerful, and the unscrupulous do not after all have the last word. The same worldview shift that is demanded by the resurrection of Jesus is the shift that will enable us to transform the world."

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Dear Jesus Followers:

It is now during the times of worldwide despair in the season of Easter that we remember we have a hope that is beyond the death that we are currently seeing. It is our job to be livers of this hope...proclaimers of this hope...beacons of light that scream out against the darkness that pervades the lives of the hopeless. Put not your trust in the powers of the day that are fleeting and crumbling, but put your hope in the resurrection of Jesus who gives us the power to hope in the midst of death.