The Creed as Plum Line

Paraphrasing Rowan Williams (see Tokens of Trust), the Archbishop of Canterbury, only three humans are named in the Apostles’ Creed: Jesus, Mary, and Pontius Pilate.  Consider this for one moment.  There is Jesus the Messiah, the LORD and Saviour of the World, who was, and is, and is to come, by Whom all things were made, visible and invisible.  There is Mary, His mother.  She it is who says ‘yes' to Him.  There is also Pontius Pilate, the Roman Imperial governor of Palestine.  He it is who says ‘no’ to Him.

If you think about it, these three “actors” in the Divine Drama map out the entire territory of our existence.  Throughout our lives, we swing like a plum line between one pole or the other, depending on how we answer the Peterine question: “Who do you say that I am?” 

We move either towards a deeper ‘yes’ or a deeper ‘no.’ 

And in the middle of it all stands the One who makes sense of it all: Jesus, into Whose life we must all try to grow, Who can work with our ‘yes’, and can even overcome our ‘no.’

I'll get to this blog post...eventually

My mom used to call me “last minute Charlie” because of my propensity for waiting, waiting, waiting until the last minute to finish school projects (mom had a right to not only name me thusly, but to also do it with malice aforethought – how many term papers did she have to type for me on the night before they were due?  And yes, I wrote “type”.  We used a typewriter when I was in school, okay?  Because that’s how long ago it was.  And no, we did not have an abacus.)

I have not only made peace with my tendencies toward procrastination.  I have invited the bloke to live in my house, to share my meals, to become my closest companion.  None of this is to say that I like that part of me.  To the contrary, there are days when I wish I could exhibit Covey-like proactivity, break a project down into its component parts, and start knocking off the tasks between the relevant milestones, chunk by chunk.  I know my family would be happier with me.  My clients would be happier with me.  My church would doubtless be happier with me.

But I wonder, would God?

Is procrastination a sin, ipso facto?

Like many behavioural "ticks", doesn't procrastination's sinfulness sort of depend?

Can't Stand the Guy. Really.

Can I spare a moment to rant?

So I shared a plane ride home with a guy who was a stranger. We became friends because of common values and similar preferences, not to mention similarly disposed attitudes to those inferior to us. In other words, he is a recovering arrogant Pharisee as am I.

The main difference between him and I is that he’s a published author and I am…well, I am a semi-blogger. I would love to publish something. The trouble is that I do not have the voice this guy has. Can’t stand him now. Jerk. How dare he write a book and get it published at his age? Who does he think he is?

Oh, and did I mention that the book is actually good? Talk about salt in the wound.

OK, so let me sum it up: young guy working a real business career, published author of a book which is not only theologically sound, but also stylistically engaging. Isn’t there some imprecatory Psalm I can quote at him or something?

The book, incidentally and in all seriousness, is outstanding: 'Crave'. The author is the very young (to me) and very talented Chris Tomlinson. Look for the book at Amazon or wherever fine books are sold (as they say). And look for the author at www.cravesomethingmore.org.

New Exodus

I am reading the usually provocative Rob Bell this week: "Jesus Wants to Save Christians".  As I expected, it is a challenging, interesting read. 

Bell is quite the polarizing figure amongst the Evangelical illuminati.  Some paint him with the broad brush of Emergent and dismiss him outright as an heretic (see Phil Johnson and his cohorts for a representative sampling of the slamming).  Others paint him with the broad brush of Emergent and embrace him outright as one of their own.  Like most people, though, who think hard and long about -- and interact with -- the Text of God and the God of the Text, Mr. Bell defies easy categorization.

I like him.  I like his Nooma videos.  I like his teachings from Mars Hill.  I like the fact that he started Mars Hill by spending a year preaching through Leviticus and witnessing tremendous church growth.  I mean, who does that?

As to the book, well, I am not sure I totally get it.  Could be I'm not bright enough.  Could be I am still holding fast, not to that which is true, but that which is conditioned.  I don't know.  A pastor I admire once said about another easily categorized "heretic", I do not necessarily like his answers, but I love his questions. 

Bell's main thesis in the book (which he co-authored with former Mars Hill pastor Don Golden) is that the correct way to read the Biblical narrative is as an Exodus story.  According to this thesis (borrowed in large part from Tom Holland's book, "Paul in Fresh Perspective"), salvation history follows a defined pattern which the Scriptures portray:

1.  Egypt (enslavement and oppression of God's people)
2.  Sinai (God brings them out of slavery and tells them how to live -- in the Scriptures, of course, He gives them Torah)
3.  Jerusalem (God's people prosper, but in prospering, they begin to resemble not so much the people of Sinai, but the people who oppressed them in Egypt; they move from oppressed to oppressors)
4.  Babylon (because of their sin, God's people are humiliatingly and crushingly defeated by an overwhelming enemy)

And here ends the Old Testament (or TaNaK).  God's people disbursed to the four corners of the world, rootless and homeless.  They wait expectantly for their return.  They develop (or rather, begin to focus on), prophetically, a notion that they will be delivered from their exhile by an Annointed One -- a Messiah -- who will defeat their enemies and put things to right.  He would, in short, lead a New Exodus.

An interesting thesis.  Not the whole story, but an interesting view on it.

Following Jesus

Discipleship.

The word stirs...what?  Fear?  Loathing?  Memories of the series of one hour classes on Wednesday nights?

We in the West -- especially in the American Protestant Evangelical Post-modern West (how about THAT for a mouthful?) -- have a fairly poor understanding of what it means to be a disciple.  Our frame of reference suffers from a contextual blindness.  We do not today have a working discipleship model in either our religious or our work-a-day lives.

What does it mean, then, to be a disciple of Jesus?  How (as the question has it) then should we live?

Naked Gospel

Andrew Farley's book, "The Naked Gospel", has joined a growing chorus of "evangelical" voices calling the Church to a more simple expression of God's truth. As he says in his tagling, "Jesus plus nothing."

This is, of course, bewitching tonic to a Church grown weary with sin and forgiveness cycles and "hard road sanctification." So Farley's book calls us to return to the foot of the cross and the door of the tomb to rediscover the real Jesus and His Gospel.

I have to ask how we can do that? How can we have such a reductionistic faith? What would such a gospel be built upon, any way? You might say, "Well, Dysmas, it would be built upon JESUS! Anyone can tell you that." Okay, fair enough. But how do we learn of this Jesus? Simple. Easy-peasy. Just pull out your Bible (according to Farley, you might want to stick only to those 27 books comprising what we Evangelicals call the New Testament -- the Old one is full of that bad old Law which leads to so much legalism that Farley warns us about).

But wait a minute. Where did we get those 27 books any way? Who wrote them and for what purpose? And did THOSE guys have a "Jesus plus nothing" approach?

Actually, therein lies the conundrum facing any modern "simplifier" who calls us back to the roots: the roots of our faith are not in those 27 books. Rather, they are in the 39 books (or adding a few if you want to be a pre-Reformation Christian) which comprise Jesus' Bible, which our Lord read, studied, memorized, and proclaimed. In fact, the ones who declared that the 27 new ones were even worth paying attention to were men who recognized that following Jesus in truth was both a lot simpler and a lot more complicated than a Jesus plus nothing perspective could allow.

The Bible was written to a community, for a community. The One who boldly proclaimed Himself as the Messiah promised in those 39 "old" books and whose life, death, burial, and resurrection -- not to mention His expected return -- are clearly portrayed in the 27 "new" books says that to follow Him, we must DO SOMETHING. As the wise sage Batman tells us, it is not who you are on the inside, but what you DO which defines you.

Discipleship begins with a choice

Jesus tells us that if we would come after Him, we must deny ourselves, take up our crosses daily, and follow Him. Joshua tells the children of Israel to "this day, choose whom you will serve", explain that he and his house would serve the Lord. Elijah, on Mount Carmel, tells the children of Israel to serve Baal if he's god. But if he's not, then serve the real and living God alone.

"Here oh Isreal! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might."