competition: is it good?

you go in and buy a ticket and slowly make your way through the crowds to find your seat and then after the
pre-game show, the football game commences. and the competition is on.

after sputnik was the first satellite to orbit space, america and other countries felt the urgent need to follow after.
not because the sputnik inspired them, but because the russian satellite spurred something on that most countries
felt the need to prove the rest of the world that they are that much better. competition.

our lives our filled with this need to prove ourselves. with this need to let others know that we are better then them or that we have what it takes. if within the conversation of spirituality, there are nuances of competition that find their way into conversations. such as: “what church do you go to?” (sometimes asking what denomination; there is an almost presumption that there are better or worse denominations out there to choose from) or whether you are a christian or not, to name a couple of examples.

the idea of loving one another or the “other” isn’t about whether they have experienced Jesus, as important as that may be, our competitive spirit should never lead us to get to know others. we should get to know people, period. no intentions. no philosophies. being honest and authentic and real. love by nature is a virtue without the need to be urgent or competitive or manipulative.

so, is competition ever good? can it be? yes. if it leads us to become the best us that we have to offer to the world. how do we know the difference? i think a good place to start is to ask what reactions arrive out of the competition we are a part of. if they create anger. it might be time to reassess why you are a part of whatever you are a part of. if competitiveness brings out good traits, then pick wisely what you do, and it might be important to ask why you are doing it as well. this could be a good place to start.

we must be weary when competition draws us from disconnecting with people. the point of humanity is to connect with one another. to participate in the global community. but, we must weary of the natures that evolve out of competition, for the safety of humanity.

the bible writers and their perceptions

Matthew must have been detailed. He liked to deal with taxes. He must have had some broad views about his relationships with those that ruled him. His upbringing I am sure somehow effected his worldview and how he saw the world and those around. And if you ask any author, this would have definitively effected how they wrote what they saw. So when we read the ancient scriptures maybe we can begin seeing that they each have opinions and ideas about who Jesus is. For example, when we see in the book of Matthew that he starts his book with the geneaology of Jesus there is more to this than a list of names. In fact, you might notice he does the geneaology in sets of 14. King David was the most prominent king in Israel’s history, and if you spell out his name in Hebrew, it would look like this: D V D. Where the letter D has the gematria value of 4 and the letter V has the value of 6, which when added has a sum of 14. So, in essence, Matthew is telling us that he thinks Jesus is the new King David, which according to the prophets the Messiah was supposed to come through the family lineage of King David. Which Jesus does. (Thanks to Rob Bell for this).

Luke has a heart for the outsider. For the Samaritan more particularly and this comes through from his compilation of Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan. In fact, there is speculation that some of the stories compiled were more than legends than actual occurrences. But because Luke had a passion for the outsider he wanted to present to his readership that Jesus too had a heart for the Samaritan.

This doesn’t change the importance of scripture, but it does enhance the realization that scripture isn’t the ultimate point of our development. that it is in our experience and understanding along with a driven sense of curiousity that drives us to get to know God more. This invites us into a new way to see scripture. It doesn’t change who Jesus is. But it does give us a better view on what was going on when he was around. We cannot get away from the fact that these books were written by human hands with worldviews. If God desires our hearts, how/why would he supernaturally thwart the writers from ever including their own views and personalities within their writings? I dont think God fears our views of him. I think he invites us all to see him as we do and to continue to grow in our understanding of him, which might change over time. which makes our relationship more fluid, exciting and adventurous…

a thought on labels

Does God have labels for people or the authors who wrote about God? The Jewish view was that God shouldn’t even have a name because it might limit him, let alone write things down about him…they had a hard time when it came time to put God on paper, the canonization of the OT was an ardous problem for the Jewish people because they were afraid it would make God one-dimensional. I have been studying psych. for a bit, and one thing you learn about labels is that (1) they have the potential to limit not broaden, (2) they have the potential to be used for good or bad, but the fact that they are used brings opportunity for the opposite intention in the first place and (3) it limits the journey on discovering the potential of the object or the person that receives the label.

some thought on spiritual warfare

This is an opinion to share in the conversation that is going on globally. There are links to check out as well as some footnotes that are below the article. Would love to get your thoughts!!

Context: Ephesians 6:11-12

In these verses, Paul is inviting his audience to see their world a bit different than they are used to. Some Greeks adhered to the Egyptian idea of how the world was ordered. The term most use today to describe this worldview is geocentric, which means that all things moved around the earth. (Now, we know since then this theory has been debunked). They believed heaven was above and death was below. Paul was introducing a new kind of worldview from the Hebrew perspective. So, Paul is dealing with this issue head on when he invites his Greek audience to see that
the world is not separated but that all actions, words, reactions, acts of creation and destruction have incredible spiritual value. That
as author Rob Bell so eloquently put it, “everything is spiritual”.

For the most part, we live in a world divided.

We tend to use the word “spiritual” to separate certain acts or music we listen to or books and movies we may spend time watching or reading. But Paul is saying that everyone already lives in this spiritual realm, that we cannot separate ourselves from being spiritual because we all are spiritual*. Let’s take a moment and see what Paul was dealing with before these two verses to help us understand these words in context.

Paul is dealing a lot with how society was ordered. He initially deals with the family unit in the first few verses. Why? Because we all learn our values from behind closed doors and we take them into our world and workplace. Then he goes out into the workplace and begans dealing with relationships and emotions within those relationships. Paul is more like a music conductor here and less a theologian, he is building up his argument like a crescendo and it will end with this new worldview and realization that whatever you do and whatever happens to you is much more than what you see. That everything that you experience is for your spiritual development. Some people might have been going through life and couldn’t seem to find the meaning in what they were doing and the author is instructing the listeners to NOT see society and the people within it as the enemy here** that there is something deeper and darker here that he wants to inform them about. Let’s unpack a bit of what Paul is saying here:

Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. (Ephesians 6:11)

Some words to keep in mind: (these are in Greek)

panoplia is the word for “full” or “complete armor”. It is all inclusive: helmet,sword, breastplate, shoes and etc.

Dynamai: (ye may be able) — to be able, have power whether by virtue of one’s own ability and resources, or of a state of mind, or through favourable circumstances, or by permission of law or custom

Diabolos:
prone to slander, slanderous, accusing falsely
a calumniator, false accuser, slanderer,
metaph. applied to a man who, by opposing the cause of God, may be said to act the part of the devil or to side with him
As one of my friends recently said, I don’t think Paul meant for us to metaphorically put on spiritual armor. That idea would seem to go against the new worldview he was sharing with those who did not share his worldview. My friend goes onto say that he envisions that Paul might have been looking at a Roman Centurion and taking his inspiration from what he saw. (This isn’t to devalue those that adhere to this belief; there is value in this belief as well.)*** And by these people doing so they too are adhering the metaphor as well. Also the word here that Paul uses is not the same word for Satan, it is a sinister act of impeding someone from getting something done. Which tends to be the Hebrew view of Satan. So, if we take the message within its context and language and modernize it, it might sound something like this:

All of your sleeping, eating, drinking, conversations, work, play, thoughts and language have this immense value. Depending on how you choose to use them will determine how you partner against or with God in his dream for a world restored.

For example, a couple verses later Paul tells his readers to gird themselves with truth. Some might misinterpret this to mean that we should have all the answers and never lie. Which is good, but might be a little off target. The Greek word for truth is Aletheia which in Greek thought isn’t simply a word, it is a way of life. It is this idea that we get to help uncover hidden things when we discover them. Another rendering or interpretation might be that we should be ready (“gird”) to learn new things. That in the process of learning these new things we bring them with us and live them out, and in the process of living them out, people too will discover with us the mysterious truths romantically luring us around each corner of the journey called truth. It is an unfolding rather than a conquering of truth.

Paul also says in this series of verses that we “don’t wrestle against flesh and blood…” and then goes into a list of hierarchical systems within these spiritual realms. Now interesting enough, the phrase “flesh and blood” was a of Jewish origin. It had a direct reference to the Lords’ Supper, but also borrowed some imagery from the Torah and other cults which were around at this time. Blood was a metaphor for life. Flesh was also another metaphor for food. So Paul is essentially inviting his Greek audience into a new way of seeing life. If we take into context all that Paul has said thus far, we get this idea that Paul is not only dealing with how people view one another but life in general. He is saying we don’t spend all of our energies looking for food, life isn’t about going to the grocery store. It isn’t about fighting each other and looking out for number one. And when it does become that, we then forget that there is something bigger going on, that we all are apart of. That we can too easily join the “rat race” and forget that we can help change history by promoting things like peace, love, grace, and resurrect all these things in the lives of those we encounter. Paul is essentially saying in this verse through metaphor:

that we can choose to break ourselves for the healing of the world, or forget that there are darker forces we can too easily align ourselves with by simply focusing all of our energies on our own needs (“flesh and blood”)

Thanks for listening!!!!

Footnotes:

*
This challenges the idea within Christianity that says some may have to utter a “special prayer” to become spiritual or to experience
the Holy Spirit. Remember, when God created mankind he breathed Ruach into all of creation. The hebrew word ruach means breath.
We all have the divine spark. All of God’s creation. Even Osama Bin Laden. It is up to us how we choose to use it. Ruach is also the same word we use to describe the Holy Spirit, Ruach HaKodesh to be exact. So, essentially at the creation of all of mankind everyone already becomes spiritual. And therefore all we do and say has spiritual value.

** To see that the world is still “very good” as God said when He created it. That world IS still very good in the eyes of God even now. And our responsibility through our actions is to help find ways to preserve and restore that goodness.

*** Paul was a Jew, first and foremost, when he spent time in training (for how long is under discrepancy amongst scholars) he would have undergone rigourous study in Hebrew thought along with other philosophies, but his roots would have most likely been in Hebrew thought to start. Knowing this helps us understand that Paul’s writing style would have easily been peppered with metaphor, as is a lot fo Scripture.

dogma, doctrine and theology: an act of hysteria

The scene opens in a textile factory where they make dresses somewhere in the US. One by one, the employees began to feel numbness, nausea and dizziness, some experience these symptoms so deeply that they are hospitalized. They all claim to have been bitten by a June Bug. After much research though, no one can find the mysterious June Bug that all 62 employees had claimed to be bitten by. Some later would call this an event of hysterical contagion, where people experience things together within a closed atmosphere and began to believe the same things and taken on the same attributes which tend to be in reality a social or psychological trigger. But because the experience is intense reality becomes the experience, the goal rather than the outcome.

In the year 1000 AD the world was in disarray. Many people believed Jesus was going to return. The belief in Christ’s return was so intense that people began believing they were the disciples come back to usher in the ultimate return of Jesus. This was also proved to be a common experience of hysteria.

I wonder if in our attempts at getting to know God we too have been experiencing hysteria? A belief system built upon a mass experience of truth. Where truth is the victim of our hysteria? Where our psychological and socially fragmented views of the world, religion, and religious leaders have somehow painted how we see the world and the things we proclaim to. This isn’t everyone (I too fall into this category). I am asking a question of our history, not necessarily now, although the now is an after-effect of our history. I think it is okay if we began asking the hard questions about what we believe and how we have come to believe them.

Let me explain a bit more. Because prominent leaders got together and made some important decisions about what Scriptures we should consider authoritative or not (e.g., The Apostle Peter was at the First Church Council (Jerusalem)) then, like an act of hysteria, that means we should feel more than inclined to jump onboard? We feel the same things. We claim they all have the same source which is also symptom indicative of an act of hysteria.

Paul wasn’t the only writer of his time. Philo of Alexandria who was a Hellenistic Jew had this view that all the words in scripture were divine, not simply the words that are delineated and separated out by the authors of each work recorded in what we now know as Scripture. There were many other contemporaries of his time that were doing considerable things for Christianity as well as other religions. Are we willing to claim that all we have is all that God has said? Are we willing to claim that all of God’s authority in spoken word is only contained in 66 books? Are we comfortable enough to state as fact that what we have is all there is? Couldn’t there be more?

If there is more, it doesn’t devalue what we have it, it just enhances it that much more. Doesn’t one of the writers even say that the acts of God/Jesus couldn’t be contained in a book? Do we find our origins in a book or in the divine?

Wouldn’t it be better to say that it is a holy book a chronicle or narrative of stories of people who have met the divine? Was this compilation of holy writings meant for us to simply reduce the divine to a few pages or theological standpoints? Or wouldn’t it make more sense that it is a book we are drawn to because it resonates with what has been implanted within us, a hunger for the divine? That it is how people have learned to interact with this being they call YHWH (Yahweh) and how we too can interact with Him and learn about Him? And in doing so, we also learn about yourselves. Maybe it was meant to be an interaction of endless discoveries where we too get to join in on the conversation with God.

The danger is that we can too easily arrive (and have so in the past) to a close-ended conclusion that the Book is the point. That our understanding of God can only be discovered in a set of pages. Judaism (where Christianity is birthed from) believed God couldn’t even be named let alone be placed within pages. I am all for a relational being, but I wonder if we have made the divine too human for His own good. Their way of life had origins around campfires where they each shared miraculous intrusions of the divine in their everyday life. There was one shepherd who told a story how God met him in this bush that was endlessly burning. There was this army general who told this story about how YHWH met him by damping a wet fleece to confirm his Shekinah (Hebrew idea of the presence of God). There are also a set of traditional campfire myths about how the divine shows up; like one myth about how YHWH tested one of the holiest of holy men named Job. Or another myth that represented the heart of YHWH for all people not just the Jews and how the divine changed his mind about them by being digested by a whale.

Another danger is that we can become so distracted by the book, that it actually points us away from the purpose of the book. Which is to invite us to not simply believe in the divine, but to partner with the divine and become the change we want to see in the world. To partner with YHWH in what the sages would call Tikkun Olam, an invitation to repair and heal the world. To get the world back to what it was meant to be. To partner together and help one another meet YHWH. But, if we focus all of our energies preserving the sanctity of a compilation of experiences of the divine aren’t we actually working against the very thing that those who put it together were trying to do?

Going Beyond God…

A great interview with Karen Armstrong on religion, afterlife and the axial age…

http://www.salon.com/books/int/2006/05/30/armstrong/

let me know what you think…

heaven here. heaven now.

HEAVEN HERE. HEAVEN NOW.

We are all traveling somewhere. Traveling home from work. From Work. To the mountains. Away from the mountains. To a restaurant. Or leaving a restaurant. Life is a series of arrivals and departures. The days are the gates we go through to get there. It started in a garden with two fabled
characters. We know them as Adam and Eve. Adam was brown haired and had a six-pack. Eve was dirty-blonde and had a knack for eating
fruit. Well, at least that’s what we’ve been told.

We have this idea that life is about coming and going. Arriving and leaving. Since we have arrived here on earth we have been waiting to get out of here. We have been pining away for the red light to turn green. For the seatbelt sign to turn off to inform us that the plane has stopped taxying and we can finally go. Yet, this pervasive language that has writhed its way into our culture and language has left a scar we can no longer see.

The world is in pain. Eleven year old girls in Nigeria have sex so their families can buy groceries. Eight year old boys in Pakistan work in factories that make button-down shirts that find their way into our name brand stores. Some coffee farmers don’t even make enough to afford bread for the family. They end up eating coffee beans to stay alive. Which may stop cancer but also creates bloated helpless babies who can’t even cry, because their bodies are so dried up inside. And we as Christ-followers want to get out of here?

Jesus believes we have what it takes to stop this. A Rabbi was once asked, ” If God is so good then why is there so much evil in the world?” The Rabbi stopped and pondered the question for a moment and then proceeded to answer with a smile. He said: “God’s answer to this question is the creation of man.” If we unknowingly promote a mentality where we always want to get out of here and God created us to be here, then what are we saying about God? What are we saying about the world, and even ourselves? God believes that we can stop pervasive evil.

God believes we that our actions can heal. This is the presupposition in the story of the Good Samaritan. It teaches us that hidden in our acts of compassion is the ability to save one another. To bring hope. To bring peace. To redeem. To restore. To bring light into dark circumstances. But, if we are expending ourselves in evacuation theology then the only one who benefits is the one who is getting out of here. Yet, all over scripture is this idea that we are responsible to and for the “other” who is need.

There was a traveling speaker in the first century who used metaphors in most of his writing. In one of his letters, he is talking with a group of people who just can’t seem to get their act together and uses a word picture of a body to share the importance of our need for one another. And how if we do choose to work together, we can change the world. This isn’t a language of arrogance, but an idealogy of empowerment by the very being the created us. When Jesus says that he gives us his peace, the word for give in the Hebrew is bara. It means to create. It echoes back to Genesis 1 where God is creating. What Jesus is basically saying is that all of us have what it takes to go and create peace where is none. This is the same word that Moses uses in his description of God creating something out of nothing. And trust me, there are a lot of places where there seems to be no peace, no love, no grace and no redemption.

And so Jesus invites us to go into these place and create peace. Create love. Create grace and manifest redemption out of nothing. God believes that we are capable of this. But, to do this, we have stick around We have to be willing to make heaven come here. We have to stay and be with those who are living in hell on earth and create heaven where there seems to be none. This is what it means to experience heaven on earth. In fact, in the book of Revelation the author says that a City (our idea of heaven) comes here. God dwells with man, like in the Garden. He comes here to be with us. And He invites us to be there for others. So, what will it take for you to be here. To be here now.

In Christ, In the name of Jesus, and realities

so we have this sort of idea that if we end our prayers with phrases like “in the name of Jesus” or “amen” that somehow God has to answer them. that somehow these words hold magic and are supposed to release God’s stingy fingers from heaven down to us. that somehow these words hold power to get us what we think we need or want. yet, is that what the word and phrase mean. the word we get for in is the word Bemo in the hebrew. It means through…maybe a better rendering in light of this context, might even be ‘part of’. And so in light of Jesus’ invitation for anyone to join…in the name of Jesus would be more like a reality that people get to experience or be a part of. It is also important to remember that a name wasn’t just a name to the Jews it was who you were, your character and personality all mixed up together in this one phrase that helped define you. So when one uses the phrase ‘in the name of Jesus’ a better way to say it would be: those who are part of the reality of Jesus…which leaves the invitation open to anyone. it leaves the possibilities for anything to happen. because if you leave or concede to the reality of Jesus than it is place where we get to create peace where there is none. create life where there only seems to be death. create justice where this isn’t any. so when we say in the name of Jesus we are essentially saying that we agree with the ways and worldviews of the Rabbi from Nazareth. Paul uses the phrase ‘In Christ’…again Paul is saying that there is a reality of Christ that we all can be a part of, that we can live out and share with others by just living it out. It is not about an ‘in or out’ language that it is so often gets used to mean. It is about being a part of something bigger than ourselves. It is not a hocus-pocus phrase to get what we want or to help us find out who is in and who is out. It is something to be a part of.

missions revisited.

i recently spent some time in Pakistan. and it was an intense time. but my time there got me thinking about missions. so much so that i think what we now call missions might not be what Jesus meant. the quote in Matthew that has been used for centuries to justify all kinds of creative, positive, and also at time destructive ploys to get people “in” the kingdom was a quote taken from an author in a particular time with a particular agenda.

The apostel Paul was fervent that the gospel of Jesus was about the gentiles. that at one time it was about Jews, but now God has shifted his views toward the Gentiles. We even see a bit of this point of view in his disagreement with Peter. Paul wasn’t being exclusive, but he was also dealing with Jewish extremist within the religious sect, so at times, he might seem a bit progressive in his views. It is important to remember that he is dealing with specific issues, like Matthew was as well. Matthew was written around the same time as some of Pauls’ letters. Their works were contemporaries of one another. Matthew would have known about Paul and vice versa. Matthew disagreed with Paul. Matthew believed that Jesus initially came for the Jews and then essentially redraws the boundaries and includes everyone. This is where we get the so-called “Great Commission” from. So, Matthew included this to challenge Paul and his views that the message of Jesus was for everyone not just a particular group. This was the reason why these words were included. Also, Matthew thinks Jesus is the new Moses. Jesus sends out his friends and some others from the top of the mountain. a commandment of sort. like Moses gave his people 10 commandments. Moses also commissioned Joshua to go to the foreigners and Joshua commissioned others to go out as well. There are many echoes here of Old Testament heroes. Matthew is saying Jesus is a big deal. That He believes Jesus is this new messiah and that He is going to lead his people out of “Egypt” (or this time in history, “Rome”). Or out of a destructive way of life. Jesus is this new leader. Maybe what we deem as the Great Commission was more about who Matthew thought Jesus was and why that its important. i will revisit this again soon. but it seems this verse was placed here to prove the deity of Jesus. God gave Moses the commandments. Jesus gave his followers their command. it is important to remember that most of the NT is a commentary on the old. There is a lot of that going on even in the “great commission”.

conversion.

is conversion necessary? i define the word to mean leading someone in what most might call “the sinners prayer”. nowhere in scripture is there a “conversion of any type”. people follow. people walk away. but not one person says a prayer. they make a decision to join or not join Christ’s mission. he doesn’t force them. he doesn’t coerce them. i think our idea of conversion was adopted from marketing strategies from fortune 500 companies. we might need to revisit the idea of conversion also because the word doesn’t appear in scripture as well. the idea is that we live our lives following our rabbi and our lives will change the lives of other. transference. it is inevitable. we should be okay with that being enough. not numbers. no intentions. just being what god has made us. it is about us converting ourselves constantly. becoming more and more like christ. that is enough to change the world. right?