I wandered around Walmart for a while this Black Monday morning. It is certainly more blessed to give than to receive. I think though, that it’s more important to give the tough stuff like love, forgiveness, grace, mercy, time and attention. Big screen TVs are probably a ways down the list.
Our Enemy manipulates through fear, guilt, shame, and desire-for-the-forbidden. He uses these hooks to direct others’ decisions by remote-control. He strives to maintain deniability. His methods and true goal are at odds with his stated objectives. Other people are pawns used in obtaining his own purpose.
God’s purposes are clear and clearly stated. He is so much about communication that he nicknamed his son “The Word”. Truth is paramount. Relationships aren’t the means to an objective, they are the objective. He motivates others to do the right thing regardless of the personal cost.
No matter what we say, we are in the camp of the one whose methods we use.
(image borrowed from http://reallifeworship.blogspot.com)
Intimacy has been a big topic in my mind for several years, even as I’ve experienced a dearth of it. I’ve been thinking about what it is, what it isn’t, what what promotes it, and what constrains it.
I feel somehow hyper-sensitive to intimacy because of its vacuum in my own life. I notice it in places where I’m sure I’d have passed it by before. Some of those places are perhaps what you’d expect, in otherwise casual friendships that take brief excursions to the deep places of the heart. Other instances surprise me more, for example: the somehow amazing intimate heart-touch in praying for someone whom I otherwise little know.
One place intimacy has surfaced unexpected has been in worship teams. I think it exists to a degree in any sort of performing entity – rock bands or theatre groups for example – but somehow even more so when the objective is to provide music that leads people to the presence of God. Though it may extend to practices and hang-out times after a gig, the main place I notice it is in the actual act of worship.
Friendship is generally a precursor to intimacy and in the past I’ve been part of teams that remained together for years. In that situation it seems reasonable that the relationships involved could grow intimate over the span of time. But the place it has popped up unexpected has been in relatively impromptu teams of experienced worship musicians who’ve come together for a particular need. It amazes me when I get a sense of intimacy with people whose lives I’m not otherwise especially connected to.
Here are some things I see in such teams that contribute to the sense of intimacy:
I would assert that the Kingdom of God is a place of great intimacy. But churches – because of political struggles, personal agendas and fears – are generally the antithesis of intimate.
Somehow a team of people who have individually spent years honing their musical skills; who have individually spent years seeking God in their own lives, can come together for a few hours and experience a Kingdom-of-God intimacy that other believers hunger for.
Jesus established the dual relationship orientation that defines us: love God more than anything else, then love everyone else the same as yourself. In worship – the act of expressing our love of God – there is also a place of sharing the love for each other.
I relish that intimacy. Just now as I describe it I long to experience it again.
I graduated in the bottom 10% of my high school class and wasn’t really planning to go to college at all. I later did, majoring first in Bible, then computer science, and finally business.
If I had it to do over I’d study neurology. And music. My PhD thesis would be something about the frontal cortex relationship between music and language or music and thought. The whole topic is amazing to me. We all know, somehow, that music is special. We know how music affects our memory and our mood. But exactly where does that specialness come from? I don’t only mean “What neutrons are firing when we listen to or create music?” but even more “How deeply did God program music into our minds?”.
Oliver Sacks said, in his excellent book Musicophilia
“What’s his last name?”, my Indian friend asked.
In India you can tell a lot from a person’s family name. The provinces are named after the people-groups who live there. So Andhra Pradesh is “the province of the Andhra people”. So a family name will say where you live – or at least where your family is from. It will suggest what language you speak. It will say what caste you are – largely denoting a persons place in society and the economy.
His family name is “Titus”.
“Titus? That’s not an Indian name.”
“He’s Christian.”
“Oh. Christian names mess everything up.”
And I understood what she meant. Indian society is ancient. It has thousands of years of tradition dictating who a person will be, based on the family in which they’re born. It is orderly and structured and predictable.
Christianity throws a wrench in the works. A Christian is re-born into a new family. Their identity in the family of God supersedes their natural family and caste. Suddenly their place in society is undefined – or perhaps, redefined. This is certainly part of the reason for recent violent Hindu attacks against Christians. The entitlement of the upper castes is threatened. The freedom of the gospel is possibly more significant in India than anywhere else in the world. Unlike Muslim countries ruled by religious councils, India is officially a democratic nation with freedom of religion. But it seems the relatively recent democratic concepts are a thin veneer on the age-old traditions of the society.
And yes, in fact. Christianity does mess all that up.
I should say up front that Pagan Christianity (Frank Viola and George Barna) is worth reading. The authors say a lot of good things that are important in these times. Though the book masquerades as an exposé of corrupt Christianity, it’s really an advertisement for house churches. I’m part of a house church and I’ve been a house-church advocate for years, so I’m in general agreement with much of the book. Still, it leaves something to be desired.
Probably we’ve all been in church services where the thrust of the sermon was “We’ve got it right and the other guys have it wrong and here’s why…”. It reminds me of high school pep rallys. On Friday afternoon in thousands of gyms all over America cheerleaders are simultaneously shouting “We’re number one! We’re number one!” Frank Viola’s writing is difficult for me in the same way. His tone often strikes me as patronizing or presumptuous, even when I’m in complete agreement with what he’s saying.
The stated theme of the book is that many aspects of traditional institutional churches are from pagan sources and don’t promote the discipleship or the community of love that marked the first century church. If you’re very involved in a traditional church, the frustration you feel is a good indication of the truth in that. Though this is given as the theme, really it’s only the problem statement.
The true theme of the book is that “organic” house churches are the answer to that problem. Here are two things I think Viola could have done better.
First, be more direct. In the first few chapters he presents house-church at the end of the chapter as the solution to the problem, without really saying what he is doing. After that he begins to intersperse his prescription for house-churches with his criticism of traditional churches.
Second, document better. The book has copious footnotes in very fine print, but almost all of them are from secondary sources – mostly writers of the last two hundred years. If you want to tell me how the church operated in the first century and how it was corrupted over the next few hundred years, reference the original documents.
Third, be less dogmatic. If Jesus had a tidy little definition of what his church should or shouldn’t be, he’d have given it to us. He gave us some ground rules, and the Acts and epistles provide ever-so-few examples. And the New Testament examples are given incidentally, not as “this is how you do church”. Making a lot out of a little was a specialty of the Pharisees in Jesus’ time.
Still after my griping, the basics of the book are sound. Traditional, institutional churches mostly don’t work. This frustrates both “professional” Christians and us amateurs. And churches based on personal discipling and corporate ministry do work. “Everyone ministers, everyone is ministered to” is how I think of it.
John Piper has a great article on idolatry on his blog at desiringgod.org. Worth a read. It (idolatry) is bigger than you think.
altar image borrowed from teldan.files.wordpress.com
As I’ve said, frequently and fervently, I’m believe that the first 3/4 of your Bible is just as important as the the last 27 books. I don’t think they were an accident, or that Isreal was Plan A and the church is Plan B. Or that God somehow needed to go through Abraham, Moses, David and the Prophets to get to Jesus. I believe, like Paul wrote to believers in Rome and Corinth, that these things were written as examples to us. I believe that God, the author, architect, and artist of creation used the Hebrew race to give us a picture of who he is, how much he loves us, and his purpose for us.
So I’ve been hung up for two days on Joshua 22 – the story of the witness. Here it is in brief:
The reason the ten and a half were upset is they remembered what happened at Peor and with Achan at Ai. In both cases, a small group had sinned and brought God’s wrath on the whole nation.
I could go off on the judgment aspect of it, but the thing on my mind is the one place of worship that God designates. My mind immediately jumps to Jesus’ discussion with the woman at the well about where to worship. In response to her question Jesus said, “an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
He told the woman it was no longer a relevant question. Yes, God had designated a physical place – the temple in Jerusalem – as the one place he would accept our worship. But Jesus was saying “It’s a new day. The physical temple was a placeholder to lead you to the spiritual temple where God now allows our worship“
Which makes me kinda cringe when someone stands up in front of a church and says “Aren’t you glad to be in the house of God today?” Because we don’t come to the house of God on Sunday. If we’re there at all, it’s because we live there!
It seems to me that two common fallacies about the Kingdom of God are opposites
Want a picture? Go back to the Bible!
Start with Leviticus 16 – Yom Kipur, the day of atonement, one of the biggest days on the Jewish calendar. Where were the people? In Jerusalem? Nope! At their local synagogue? Nope (God never told them to go to their local synagogue, btw). They were at home, fasting and praying. Why? Because the high priest did all the work! Get it?
Feeling a little helpless in your quest to be good enough for God? Give it up – you’re doomed to failure. You can’t do what our high priest Jesus has already done. Most of us know that with our mind, but we still fight with the concept from time to time in our heart.
So what about the blessings thing? Check Deuteronomy 28. God promises all sorts of blessings, preceded by the little word, “if”. There’s a sort of narcissistic myth in the church that goes something like “If i just tell God what I want long enough and hard enough, he’s going give it to me.”
The serpent planted three lies in Eve in the garden:
Number three is in play here. Yes indeed, God trully wants to bless you. He doesn’t even want you to work for blessings. Deuteronomy 28:2 says that blessings will run up to you and jump on you!
It’s the “if” word we stumble on. Salvation is a gift. “Here, take the keys to this new Lexus.” “Here’s a million dollars.” “Here’s the deed for this 14-room mansion.” All we do is stretch out our hand to receive it. But blessing comes with obedience. It requires both relationship – knowing the Father’s will – and the action of doing it.
Think about a family. If yours is messed up, think about a good family you know or picture an imaginary perfect family. The dad says, “Clean up your room.” The child says “I want a new <something>.” Will the child get the desired thing if they don’t clean the room? In a good family, no; because the father is working to teach the child obedience and uses even insignificant life situations to reinforce that teaching. Why should God behave differently toward us?
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