Jelani is...
He’s an award-winning speaker, emcee, writer, and musician, moonlighting as half of the hip-hop duo The Iccsters (pronounced ‘icksters’) and director of worship at Irvington Covenant Church.
Author Archive
Expectation-Defying Worship
August 29th, 2010
I bring you greetings from believers in the Midwest, both Chicago and the twin cities of Minneapolis / St. Paul. And I gotta say, it feels a little surreal to be saying that, but I’ll tell you about that in a bit.
Two weeks ago, my wife Holly and I spent a week in Chicago catching up with old friends that we hadn’t seen since we moved to Portland five years ago, especially one particular couple that was in our wedding who are now living and serving at Lawndale Community Church on the west side of Chicago, where God is doing some amazing things in the midst of inner city struggle.
Last week, we were on the campus of Bethlehem Baptist Church north of Minneapolis, where we gathered with about 15 or worship leaders who are all pursuing the vision of multiethnic worship. We laughed together, prayed together, and wrote songs together. It was an incredible time of fellowship… it was like worship camp.
It feels funny to say the whole, I-bring-you-greetings thing, because that’s something that my Dad, our founding pastor, would say when he would come back from a ministry trip. And I always felt funny hearing that, because I would think, “well why are they greeting me? I don’t know them, and they don’t know me.”
But now I understand. Because even though you don’t know those people specifically, you need to know, there are saints in Chicago and saints in the Midwest who are praying for our church. They are praying for you, believing in you, trusting that God will continue to do marvelous works in this part of His body. Although you may not realize it on a week by week basis, we are not alone in this work. We are a part, not only of a denomination of like-minded believers, but part of the worldwide church of Jesus Christ, and when we have victories, others rejoice with us. When we struggle, others struggle with us.
So that’s what I mean by, “I give you greetings.” It’s not just a formality. It’s about the love and unity of the gospel.
So anyway, like I said, our first week was spent in Chicago, catching up with old friends. And since it had been such a long time since Holly and I had been back, I asked a friend of ours to gather up some of our old friends and put on a get-together so we wouldn’t have to try to see everybody separately. She sent out a bunch fo Facebook invites weeks before we got there, and Holly and I were excited about coming.
As a matter of fact, Holly was so excited that she wanted to make sure I had the right time for the party in my calendar. When I told her it was at 2pm, she thought that was an odd time to have lunch, so she asked me to double-check. I went back on Facebook to check the event, and there it was – “Picnic with Holly and Jelani – 2:00pm.”
So you can imagine my shock when Saturday at 1pm, as Holly and I are preparing to drive across town, I get a call from the host.
“Hello Jelani, are you coming?”
“Yeah, we’re just leaving… waitaminute, I thought the party was at two.”
“No, we started at noon.”
“What? Really?”
At this point, I’m glancing over at Holly, who is giving me a look that could melt steel. She is NOT happy.
I finished up the conversation, we dashed out the door, and because of crosstown traffic on a Saturday, made it to the party right about two o’clock. By way of explanation, I pulled out my new phone, checked the Facebook application again, and there it showed the time for the event – 2pm.
It was at this point that I realized what happened. When I accepted the invitation on Facebook for the party, I was still in Portland. But after I got to Chicago, my phone, sensing the change of time zone, shifted all of my appointments forward two hours, and my Facebook app did the same thing. According to my Facebook app, I was right on time for a party that started noon Pacific, or 2pm Central time.
And that’s the story of how we ended up being two hours late for a party in our honor.
How embarrassing.
But you know what? That happens a lot in the church.
We get caught up putting on an event for God, or doing a program for God, or running a ministry for Him, and it takes us awhile to realize that… umm… He’s not in it. Yes, God is omnipresent, but I mean His manifest presence that indicates His will or His pleasure, His indwelling. When it comes to that, sometimes it takes us awhile to realize that God is not the house. We’re struggling along, wondering why our work is so difficult, or why the atmosphere is so dry, or whatever, and then we finally hear the still, small voice…
“Did I ask you to do this, or did you decide to do this for Me?”
This happens to all of us, I think, at one time or another. And I think it happens usually when we expect God to work a certain way, and then He defies our expectations and does something completely different.
Today, we’re going to examine two passages of Scripture where this happens, We’ll take a brief stop in 1 Kings 19, and then we’ll sit for awhile in John 4. Take note in each passage of the disconnect between what we expect from God and what He actually does.
Let’s start with 1 Kings 19:9b-13…
And the word of the LORD came to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
10 He replied, “I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”
11 The LORD said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.”
Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. 13 When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.
Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
Here we see God confounding His servant by throwing Him a curveball. He tells Elijah, get ready, I’m about to show up… and then He causes three calamitous events to happen, things that are signs of His presence at other times, but it says of the wind, the earthquake, and the fire, that the Lord was not in them.
It seems a little odd that God would do this. But you have to remember who He was talking to. The prophet Elijah had seen and participated in some of the most dramatic manifestations of God on record. This was the same servant who mocked the prophets of Ba’al before calling down fire from God to consume his offering. This man had seen God part the Jordan river and stave off starvation for a widow and her son.
So for Elijah, it would’ve been pretty normal for God to show up in something big and dramatic. I believe God instead showed up in a whisper, just to make sure Elijah wasn’t too enamored with the miracles themselves. He wanted to remind Elijah that He can show up however He wants.
Now, let’s get to the main passage of the day, John 4:19-26.
This is a continuation of a story that we’ve looked at before, where Jesus met a woman at the well. In a nutshell, he asks her to draw him some water from the well, and then engages her in conversation. In the course of the conversation, she reveals that she has no husband, and Jesus reveals His prophetic ability by laying bare her past failed relationships (five husbands), and mentioning that the man she’s with now is not even her husband.
It’s at this point, humbled and yet intrigued, that she continues her conversation with Jesus.
19“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
21Jesus declared, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.
23Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”
25The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
26Then Jesus declared, “I who speak to you am he.”
It’s clear from this text that this is another example of Jesus confounding someone’s expectations. And if we look closely enough, we can see that this was not just true for the woman in this story, but it’s true for us today.
Today, I want to share with you three important lessons that we can take from this text, lessons that will help us understand the disconnect between our expectations and His sovereign will. Fundamentally, this is a story about worship. If we take lessons to heart, they will change the way we worship, not only on Sundays, but throughout the week.
1. Worship is not just emotion, but also action.
It’s clear from the text that this woman had an Old Testament understanding of worship, because it involved action. In order to understand, we need to establish some background information on what worship is.
Let’s break down the language.
The Hebrew word for “worship,” which appears many, many times in the Old Testament, is “shachah,” which means:
to depress, i.e. prostrate (especially reflexive, in homage to royalty or God):–bow (self) down,
crouch, fall down (flat), humbly beseech, do (make) obeisance,
do reverence, make to stoop, worship.
The Greek word for “worship” is “proskuneo,”
to kiss, like a dog licking his master’s hand); to fawn or crouch to, i.e. (literally or figuratively) prostrate oneself in homage (do reverence to,
adore):–worship.
English… the word worship is derived from the Old English “worthship” … so the word really means to express or declare the worth of something or someone.
So if you do a search for the word “worship” in the Bible, most of the time you’ll see one of these two words. And when you read about men and women in the Bible worshipping, there is almost always action that is part of it… building an altar, making a sacrifice, singing a song, lifting hands, bowing prostrate, etc.
And this was not only true for them then, but it’s true for us now. Worship is something that we as humans do naturally and regularly. Even nonbelievers worship. It’s just that we don’t usually call it that, we’ll call it something else… being fanatical or devoted.
But you can tell the difference between someone who likes a particular thing, and someone else who is really, really into it. It’s like the difference between praise and worship.
So maybe I could watch a Blazers game and think, “hey, that Brandon Roy, he’s a good player.”
But an adoring fan might say, “Brandon Roy is a former rookie of the year, three-time All-Star and 2nd team all-NBA who scored 21 points a game last year, and he’s the closest thing Portland has had to a superstar since Clyde Drexler in the early 90s.”
Or I could look at a house and say, “that’s a pretty nice house.”
But an excited real estate agent might say, “this is an architectural hybrid of Queen Anne and Dutch colonial styles, with rounded arches, ornamental parapets, and elaborate shutters. It’s the jewel of the neighborhood.”
Or I could look at a car and say, “hey, that’s a pretty cool car,” but someone who is really into cars can see that same car and say:
“This is a limited edition model built from the ZXC concept prototype, with a composite carbon fiber exterior, and an interior of Tibetan suede, except for the high definition LCD projection unit in the windshield.”
Do you see the difference? Worship is fanatical and specific.
And remember, it’s not enough just to know certain things or feel a certain way. True worship always involves action. So we respond by buying tickets to NBA games, or touring lavish homes, or going to car shows. We take actions to demonstrate our devotion.
So remember that the next time you come to church and the worship leader asks you to stand, or wave your hands, or kneel down. They’re not doing it because they’re insecure and need you to participate (at least I hope not), but because thoughts and emotions, on their own, are insufficient vehicles for worship. Worship is not something that comes over you, it’s something that you DO, regardless of, sometimes even in spite of, what you might be thinking or feeling in the moment.
True, authentic, Biblical worship always compels us to respond with an action.
But not just any old action will do, which brings me to our next lesson we can learn from this text.
2. In worship, context matters.
Action is good, but not all actions are the same. The questions of how, when, where and with whom are very important. In the Old Testament, there were lots of rules and regulations for the Israelites and even for the high priests who only encountered God once a year. Yahweh was very particular about the manner in which He was to be worshipped.
And we carry on some of these ideas about worship today. There are times and places to be loud, and other times and places to be quiet. Shouting in triumph, bowing prostrate, and lifting holy hands can be quite acceptable during church, but less so while commuting on the bus in the morning. Even if we as Christians don’t always agree about what should happen when, our ideas of what is appropriate exist in the context of certain cultural norms.
This woman was no different. Being a Samaritan, her cultural background required worship at a temple on Mt. Gerizim, which according to scholars, had been destroyed by a Jewish king centuries prior. So her statement in verse 20 – our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say to worship in Jerusalem — is an indirect challenge to Jesus’ allegiance. It’s a question of which cultural context is more legitimate. By inquiring about where to worship, she’s really asking, in this ancient ethnic conflict, who is right? She’s expecting Him to take a side.
Jesus flips the script on her.
He answers, not by taking sides, but by taking over. His response changes her paradigm of context. Pretty soon, he says, the where of worship will be irrelevant. According to Jesus, the proper context for worship will have nothing to do with externalities like geography or ethnicity, and everything to do with being connected to Him.
So what is the proper context?
3. True worship is fully connected to Spirit and truth.
The context that Jesus identifies as ideal for worship is translated as “in spirit and in truth.”
The word translated as spirit is the Greek word pneuma, which is the same word Jesus and others in the New Testament use to refer to The Holy Spirit, the third member of the Godhead Himself.
But Jesus didn’t just refer to Himself as Spirit, but also as truth (John 14:6). So His mention here of truth is particularly aimed at the woman He was talking to, who based on her less-than-honest testimony, had evidently gotten used to playing fast and loose with the facts. His words were a gentle piercing of her pretense.
And so they are for us today.
God wants our worship to be fully connected. He wants us to be honest… to Him, and to ourselves. God made us in His image, and because of Him, we have a spirit that animates us and allows us to connect with Him (John 3:5-7). When we are dishonest, when we engage in sinful acts and attitudes that cut us off from Him, our worship suffers (Ps 66:18-20, Isa 59:2). No amount of animal sacrifice or physical atonement can substitute for this (1 Sam 15:22).
For those who would rather stick to cultural norms as the basis of our worship, THIS IS BAD NEWS. As long as we worship from a place of cultural superiority (“my worship is better than yours”) or as a way for us to earn righteousness (“because I worship this way, I am forgiven”) our worship is doomed. The best we can hope for is to go through the motions, to have a form without the power.
But for the rest of us… this is GREAT news.
It means that our worship doesn’t have to be constrained by artificial contexts beyond our control. It means that God is not a respecter of persons (Acts 10:34-35) or partisan toward nations or groups (Gal. 3:28). It means that anyone – ANYONE – who believes in Him can worship Him in confidence (Hebrews 4:16).
And when the Spirit of God connects with our spirit, and we begin to comprehend the truth about ourselves in light of the truth about Him, and it hits us like a ton of bricks, over and over, until we stop caring what we look like to others and eventually become sniveling wrecks incapable of anything but complete and total praise and adoration… that is the kind of worship that the Father seeks.
That’s the kind of worship that changes hearts, transforms lives, and brings restoration to communities.
And isn’t that what we want to be about at ICC? Isn’t that the vision of worship that we all long for, a place where God is glorified week after week in the midst of a diverse people who have nothing in common except the gospel of Jesus Christ?
Of course it is.
I have to be honest here… sometimes when people ask me about the future of worship at ICC, I have a hard time talking about it.
Not because I don’t have a vision, but precisely because I do. It can be very depressing to verbalize things that I feel so strongly about, without a clear sense of how we can get there. Otherwise, it just feels like an elusive dream.
Because at Irvington Covenant, we have tremendous upside potential. I’m serious… we have some very talented people in our midst, and with our strategic location, and much of the necessary leadership and infrastructure in place, we have most, if not all, of the critical pieces in place to build an amazing worship ministry, one that can serve as a light to our community and a catalyst for exponential growth.
I’m talking about worship music of various styles … postmodern Europop, acoustic soul, hyphy rap, Latin rock, southern gospel, folk trios, baroque minuets… you name it. I’m talking about embracing and leveraging artists within our community and training them to raise up the next generation of rappers, dancers, singers, thespians and designers who want to represent Christ and serve Him with their gifts. I’m talking about something so incredible, so beautiful, so ridiculous and provocative and anointed and Good-Lord-did-you-see-that, that you’d have to experience it to even believe it exists.
This is my vision for worship in our multiethnic community.
(See? I’m getting worked up right now even as I talk about it.)
Every time I think about it, though, reality sets in and I see how far we have to go.
Because I deal in the practical world of logistical details, I tend to focus first on what we don’t have. So practically speaking, I’m always thinking in terms of future developments. As soon as we have someone who can manage the sound and tech team, as soon as we have enough skilled, anointed people in the band and in the choir, as soon as people start showing up to church on time… as soon as this or that happens, then our worship will be amazing.
But go back to the beginning of verse 23:
“Yet a time is coming… and has now come…”
In those few words, Jesus has a powerful revelation for me as a worship leader, and for all of us as worshipers. We don’t have to wait for that glorious future to come later, but we can start worshiping Him in spirit and in truth RIGHT NOW,
We don’t have to know the right songs, or play the right chords, or sing with the right inflection, or have enough members of the enough racial groupings to do just the right blend of music that will appeal to a diverse cross-section of people.
All we have to do is worship Him, and God will take care of the rest.
So if you’ve been waiting for us to sing that one song that you like so much, stop waiting and worship. If you’ve been waiting until you see more signs of life and a greater level of musical complexity or diversity, stop waiting and worship.
And especially if you’ve been waiting on me or other people in leadership to get our act together, please… stop waiting and just worship. ‘Cause that last one might take awhile.
The Father is seeking those who will worship in spirit and in truth. Let us not disappoint Him.
Tried By Fire & Coming Out Gold
October 4th, 2009
But he knows the way that I take;
when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.
Job 23:10 (NIV)
Being a card-carrying citizen of the hip-hop nation, I have a passing familiarity with gold.
Back in the late 80s, if you wanted to be rapper, you needed to look the part. That meant gold chains. Big, ostentatious, glittery gold ropes were the accessories of choice, along with gold rings — four-finger rings if you were a DJ.
(Or Radio Raheem.)
Of course, nowadays it’s not enough to have gold around your neck. It’s gotta actually be in your mouth. Makes me long for the days when the only gold you saw in a kid’s mouth were gold fillings.
This preoccupation with gold is not just with the young rappers, either. Older, down-and-out rapper MC Hammer has taken to shilling his likeness on commercials for Cash4Gold.
(Hammer probably agreed to this once he realized that his 24k gold chains no longer counted as collateral for his mortgage refinance.)
Even without gold itself, people still love the idea of gold.
When the Cleveland Cavaliers redesigned their uniforms for the arrival of LeBron James, their color scheme was not simply maroon-and-yellow. No, that would never do. In a nod to the upper-middle-class fans who attend most NBA games, the Cavs identified their colors with the two classic symbols of decadence: wine and gold.
This gold fixation is everywhere.
We eat hamburgers under the Golden Arches, and cereal with Golden Grahams. Photographers have the golden ratio, and philosophers have the golden rule.
It’s not enough to have a regular old American Express card, you’ve got to have the AmEx Gold card. Same thing with XBox Live, you can’t just have the silver account, you gotta have the Gold membership… you slap the word “gold” on there, it makes anything look valuable.
It’s what makes the Olympics so popular — everybody wants to go for the gold. And lest you think this is simply a problem of modern society, may I remind you: the Olympic games have been around for a long time.
Obsession with gold is not just a modern trend; it’s a symptom of the human condition.
* * *
It’s against this backdrop that the Bible offers a stunning contrast between the Kingdom of God and the kingdoms of this world.
The world simply chases after gold.
As followers of Christ, as servants of the most high God, we are to become gold.
Metaphorically speaking, anyway. (No, I’m not on some King Midas Greek mythology trip.)
In this short quote from the book of Job, the Lord reveals to Job His own methods for bringing out the best in humanity, and Job expresses it with the language of the refiner. “I will come forth as gold,” he says.
It’s no coincidence that it’s Job making this proclamation.
The story of Job (rhymes with “robe” … the e on the end is both silent and invisible) is a story of tremendous trial and testing. Job sustained an unbelievable series of losses, none of which her his fault, each more tragic and crippling than the next. Job’s losses were the kind you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy.
I mean, Job got a raw deal. He had an ordeal for every weekday, and a bonus crisis for the weekend.
I mean, Job’s life was so hard, he used to watch the evening news to cheer up.
Fortunately, his story ends well. In the final reckoning, Job gets his life back — and then some. Truth be known, Job ends up with a fuller life
after going through trials then he did before.Today, we’re going to look at Job’s story, as well as some other key Scriptures, in order to ask a big question, a question that many of us will ask at one point or another — why.
Why was Job’s life fuller after such a string of horrific losses? Why did God allow those things to happen? Is there a purpose for such hardship? Is there any comfort to be had in such trials? These are important questions, because all of us go through seasons of trial and testing.And because we’re all in different places along our journey of faith, many of us have already been through the fire, time and time again. Everyone who follows of Christ lands somewhere in this process. We’re all slowly being conformed into His likeness, and some of us have been going through it longer than others.
So just because we’re taking the time to focus on this as a church doesn’t mean that this is a
new thing.On the contrary, God has been doing this for awhile.
So if these questions are burning inside you, I pray that together we’ll find some answers in God’s Word.
* * *
Before we do that, though, let’s take a closer look at the gold itself.
Gold has always been a popular, valuable commodity, but in thinking about Job 23:10, I started wondering… why? Why is gold so valuable? What makes a precious metal precious?
To find some answers, I did some basic research (which is code for, “I looked it up on Wikipedia.”)
Here are a few things I found:
Gold is more resistant to rust and other forms of corrosion compared to other metals, which means that it’s safer to expose to the natural elements.Gold, when purified, is an effective conductor of electricity. It’s often used in high quality wiring for the purpose of preserving signal fidelity.
And of course, it’s considered beautiful.
Gold is a mineral, so it’s found in the ground, picked and chipped away one nugget at a time. Then it goes through an intense process of refining before it becomes desirable to the eye.
In order for gold to be refined, it must be subjected to an intense fire. This fire is what purifies the gold, because it separates out all of the impurities in the gold, also known as the dross. As the dross is burned away, only the pure gold remains. The refiner knows when the gold is sufficiently purified when he can look into the nugget of gold and see his face in the reflection.
This refining process is the only way gold is made. There are no alternatives, and no shortcuts.
Which leads me to the first lesson…
Refining is a process for every believer. “Test me, O LORD, and try me, examine my heart and my mind; for your love is ever before me, and I walk continually in your truth.” Psalm 26:2-3Let’s move off of Job for a minute and look at another popular Bible character. This psalm was written by King David.
I don’t know about you, but on first glance, this passage seems awfully arrogant. It makes it sound like David was just a perfect guy.
But if you actually
read the Bible, you find out — David was anything but. David was sort of an Everyman of Bible times… he has his moments of epic triumph (“down goes Goliath!!”) and just as many epic failures (“Bath-sheba? Isn’t she married?”).But this does not stop David from honestly petitioning God to be tested. Amazing.
If I had all the same colossal failures on my record as David did, there’s no
way I would want to ask God to be testing me. There’s no way I’d be boasting about being blameless and above reproach. I’d be wearing a ski mask (or something similar) and sunglasses, hoping nobody could identify my hidden sins.The fact that David says what he says in Psalm 26 means that he wanted to know and please God
more than he wanted to get away with any misdeeds.As a matter of fact, in the previous psalm, David makes reference to sins that were eating away at his insides because of his concealment, most likely an allusion to his murderous affair. This leads me to believe that by the time he’s writing this psalm, he’s writing from a place of restoration. Having repented of his previous sins, he appears to writes this psalm out of a holy fear of God and a desire to remove any barriers of relationship to Him.
It’s because of this kind of radical devotion to God that David is known as a man after God’s own heart (1 Sam 13:14). This is the legacy of one of the greatest kings in the history of Israel, who, despite his victories, was a tragically-flawed hero.
Which means that the rest of us… well, we have no excuse.
If we’re going to learn anything about God, we must be willing to be tested. James 1:2-4 tells us to consider it joy
when we face trials, not if we face them. What James knew then is what we need to be reminded of now and again:Just like in school, testing is not just for the smart kids. It’s for everyone.
Here’s the second lesson:
Let’s go back to Job.
The beginning of the book of Job starts with God. God is having a conversation with Satan, and God is bragging about Job. “Have you seen my servant Job?” God says to Satan. God is proud of Job, proud that he is above reproach and fears Him only.
But Satan is cynical, and accuses Job of false motives, saying, essentially:
Yeah? He only does that because you do good things for him. Take those away, and he’ll curse you to your face.So God makes an agreement and allows Satan to harm Job, just to see what his response will be. In short order, Job loses all of his wealth, all of his worldly possessions, and even his children are killed in a freak accident. So Job becomes saddened and despondent, but he clings onto God’s sovereignty.
The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away, he says.This was Job’s first test.
So then Satan goes back to God and says:
Oh yeah? A man will do anything to protect his health. If I make him sick enough, THEN he’ll curse you to your face.So God allows
Satan to afflict Job will all these horrendous sores all over his body. It was so bad, the only way Job could get some relief was to scrape his wounds with pieces of broken pottery.Now you would think that after all of this, Job would have nothing to do with God. But Job 2:9-10 records his response:
“His wife said to him, ‘Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die!’
He replied, ‘You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?’
In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.”
Here Job makes a profound theological statement — God is in charge.
Period.
This means we cannot cheerfully and freely accept his blessings and then turn around and curse him when things are not going our way. It’s the refiner who decides how hot the fire needs to be.
Sometimes as believers in Christ, we believe in our minds that God is in control, but we live as though we think that God somehow owes us prosperous circumstances. We wouldn’t come right out and say this, but we tend to operate on the principle that if we give our life to God, then that means that life should be easier, not harder.
Let me tell you something.
If someone told you that being a Christian would automatically make your life easy and drama-free… they lied to you.
Which brings me to the third lesson:
The refiner’s fire is fueled by suffering, which makes us like Jesus.
Hebrews 2:5-10 says this:
5It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking. 6But there is a place where someone has testified:
“What is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?
7You made him a little[a] lower than the angels; you crowned him with glory and honor
8 and put everything under his feet.” [b]In putting everything under him, God left nothing that is not subject to him. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to him. 9But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
10In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering.
So when Job proclaims that he will be as gold, he is foreshadowing the gold standard of human expression and achievement – Christ Jesus.
Gold Characteristic: Non-Corrosive
Consider the first characteristic of gold that I mentioned — it’s non-corrosive. That means it doesn’t rust. It’s not affected by natural elements like wind and rain. It retains its molecular configuration.
Romans 12:2 says:
“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
As believers in Christ, Jesus sends us into the world to make disciples for Him, but He wants to make sure that the world doesn’t make disciples of us first.
This is why sometimes He allows us to experience certain ways of the world, in all of its brokenness and moral depravity, so that we know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, where those roads lead.
Gold Characteristic: Preserves Signal Fidelity
Gold is also great conductor of electricity, which means wiring made of gold has strong ratio of signal fidelity.
John 5:19 says:
“Jesus gave them this answer: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.
Jesus made sure he had a clear signal coming from the Father at all times. With all of his miracles, he only did what God the Father was already doing.
Some of us have a problem hearing from God because we have habits, situations, maybe even certain people in our life, who are causing interference.
If we can’t, then He turns up the heat. He allows someone to hurt us, or allows a negative situation to come about, knowing full well that pain and suffering often get our attention and open up the lines of communication.
How many of us have ever gone through something difficult, and then realize that our relationship with God is better for it?
God uses our suffering to purify us, so that we can receive clear signals from Him. The more we’re pure, the more we’re like Jesus.
Gold Characteristic: Soft and Malleable
Gold is also much softer than most metals. This softness makes it more malleable, which makes it ideal to be fashioned into whatever the refiner wants.
1Jesus then left that place and went into the region of Judea and across the Jordan. Again crowds of people came to him, and as was his custom, he taught them.
2Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”
3“What did Moses command you?” he replied.
4They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.”
5“It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,” Jesus replied.
6“But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’[a] 7‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife,[b] 8and the two will become one flesh.’[c] So they are no longer two, but one.9Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”
10When they were in the house again, the disciples asked Jesus about this. 11He answered, “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. 12And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.”
Normally when this Scripture is preached, the point is to reinforce the idea that God hates divorce. And make no mistake… this is true. God hates divorce. (Lest you think I’m reading too much into this, I offer Malachi 2:16a: “‘I hate divorce,’ says the Lord God of Israel…”) But I want to draw your attention to a verse that is often overlooked in this passage — verse 5. Moses gave you this law because your hearts were hard. What Jesus seems to be implying here is that by asking about the rabbinical laws concerning divorce and remarriage, the Pharisees were completely missing the point. Where man looks at outward behavior, God sees the heart. Divorces happen because men and women harden their hearts toward God and each other. Therefore, God doesn’t just want to change our outward behaviors, he wants to change our hearts. In this way, becoming like Jesus means allowing our hearts to soften. See, God always has purpose for what He does. And He has a perfect plan for each of our lives. But many times, we become so fixated on the hurt and pain that we’ve endured that we harden our hearts against Him. When this happens, we’re no longer flexible. We’re no longer submitted to His will. We’re no longer able to be molded and shaped as He sees fit. This is why sometimes God allows us to go through tests and trials, because pain and suffering can make our hearts soft again. Because we know what it feels like to suffer, we can be more compassionate toward those who are suffering.
But it’s evidence of a hard heart, and God has a cure for hardness of heart. It’s the divine heat of the refiner’s fire, where anything that is impure, anything that is not like Him, is burned away. Anything that is left over… looks like Jesus.
Beware of gold-plated counterfeits
Remember, when it comes to the refiner’s fire, there are no alternatives and no shortcuts. Even so, the enemy of your soul would have you believe otherwise.
The world doesn’t need another church full of CHINOs… Christians In Name Only.
is laid for your faith in his excellent word!
What more can he say than to you he hath said,
to you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?
“Fear not, I am with thee; O be not dismayed!
For I am thy God, and will still give thee aid;
I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,
upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand.
“When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
the rivers of sorrow shall not overflow;
for I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,
and sanctify to you your deepest distress.
“When through fiery trials your pathway shall lie,
my grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply;
the flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.
“The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose,
I will not, I will not desert to its foes;
that soul, though all hell shall endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no, never, no, never forsake.”
Set to music and verse, these are the words of Jesus.
I’m Jelani Greenidge, and thanks for Mixin’ It Up with me.
Defenders of ObamAmerica: Remember This Moment
September 10th, 2009
(So I’ve almost given up blogging in general, in favor of Facebook status updates and other forms of communication. Nevertheless, when something compels me to write, I must.)
Judging by many recent news stories and a flurry of Facebook status updates by friends, the outburst by Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC), which interrupted President Obama’s speech on health care reform, lies somewhere on the scale of infamy between embarrassing and traitorous — not nearly as bad as Oswald on the grassy knoll, but way worse than the Howard Dean scream.
(Did I say “lies”? Sorry, bad choice of words.)
For the uninitiated, Rep. Wilson shouted the words, “you lie!” during Pres. Obama’s speech, right after Obama reassured his listeners that the provisions under his health care plan would not apply to illegal immigrants — a claim that has been verified several times over.
This act of blatant disrespect to the sitting commander-in-chief, while now officially apologized-for, has been, as most aspects of Presidential media events tend to be, decried, analyzed, rebutted and rehashed ad nauseam by Obama supporters and moderate independents of every stripe. Even Sen. John McCain, Obama’s former rival in the 2008 presidential election, denounced Rep. Wilson’s brief eruption.
For most liberals, the only good thing that has come out of this is the outpouring of support for Wilson’s opponent in the 2010 midterm election, Democrat Rob Miller.
Perhaps, once the vitriol directed at Wilson subsides, we can add to that list another even more important outcome.
So here is my impassioned plea:
Supporters of President Obama… let’s remember this moment.
Remember the outrage, the indignation, the absolute fury that many of you have been directing at Joe Wilson for his behavior, and at many of his Republican allies for their similar, though less outrageously strident, political opposition.
Savor that feeling.
You’re going to need it later.
I’m not sure how much later you’ll need it… perhaps as early as 2012, though realistically maybe not until 2016.
You see, sooner or later, there will be another whirlwind of change that will blow through Washington, and it very likely could involve another Republican in the Oval Office.
If or when that happens, you’re going to need to remember how much you believed in honoring the office of the president, regardless of who is actually in it.
You’ll need to remember how repugnant you thought it was that the then-current President couldn’t schedule a first-day-of-school address without touching off a fresh new batch of conservative protests, including allegations of covert liberal indoctrination.
(Forgive my digression here, but few things amuse me more than hearing conservatives murmur about Obama “having an agenda” of some sort. Really? Ya think? The President of the United States of America actually has a set of goals and priorities that he wants to enact? FASCINATING.)
I’m taking this time to give liberals advance notice now, because it seems like most of them don’t remember exactly how severe a media beating was regularly unleashed on ol’ Dubya after all the weapons of mass destruction came up missing.
And don’t play dumb, either. I can hear some of you already.
I never behaved THAT badly. My friends and I were never THAT belligerent and obnoxious.
Maybe, maybe not.
All I know is, driving around my hometown of Portland during 2006 and 2007 was, among other things, an exercise in reading snarky leftist bumper stickers like “Fire the Liar,” “Somewhere In Texas There’s A Village Without It’s Idiot,” and “When Clinton Lied, No One Died.”
(And those were the few that I could quote on a family blog.)
Clearly, the memo on bipartisan presidential respect didn’t make the rounds enough times for us all to get it.
So consider this a reminder.
And if you really want to support President Obama, you can start a new letter-writing to his communication staff, telling them that if his health care legislation passes, they might want to avoid printing a banner with the words “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED” emblazoned on the front.
I’m Jelani Greenidge, and thanks for Mixin’ It Up with me.
Fill the Blanks. (Sunday Sermon, August 16th)
August 16th, 2009
So at Irvington Covenant Church, we’ve just finished wrapping up one series, and we’re heading into another. For those who have been missing-in-action for awhile (and you know who you are), here’s the skinny. In May, we launched a series on prayer called Pray With Simplicity, where we examined the topic of prayer through a series of teachings drawn from the text of The Lord’s Prayer. We ended this series with a prayer service, because it’s a little silly to talk about prayer without taking the time to… actually… pray. (Haven’t we learned anything from MC Hammer?) Following that we had a Missions Sunday, where we talked to people connected to our church about the work they do both locally and globally — including a live remote via Skype to Trevor and Chrissy Davies in Johannesburg. We ended that service with a challenge from my man Ronn Elzinga, drawn from John 4:34 — look around, check out the harvest before you, and pray for an opportunity. This is all part of a larger season of examining our spiritual foundations. We want anybody connected to ICC — even tangentially — to understand why it is we do what we do. We want folks to be armed and dangerous with the truth, always prepared to show and prove (1 Peter 3:15-17). You know, “Take the Stand” and such. So now we’re turning our attention to the church. But before I do that, let me tell you about this book I read earlier this week. I’m a fan of John Grisham, and legal thrillers in general really, but I recently picked up his first work of non-fiction, entitled The Innocent Man. As always, I was absolutely spellbound.
The Innocent Man is the story of Ron Williamson, and his friend Dennis Fritz, who were wrongfully arrested, convicted, and in Williamson’s case, almost executed — for a capital murder they didn’t commit. Set in rural Ada, Oklahoma, it’s a tale of small-town injustice.
Once I started, I zoomed through it pretty quickly, for I was confounded by the basic premise:
How does this happen?!? How does a man almost get a lethal injection for a crime he had nothing to do with???
* * *
As it happens, I wanted the answer so bad I was trying to figure it out before I even started reading the book.
Which happens often, actually. As the mind races to try to make sense of such abject tragedy, we often fill the blanks with familiar notions.
Like, for example, one might subconsciously think… hmm… small town… wrongful conviction… death penalty… must have been a Black guy.
But that would be wrong. Williamson and Fritz were both White.
Okay, well… fine… then, it’s a case of small-town folks being distrustful of outsiders.
But that’s not exactly the truth either. Ron Williamson grew up in that town. As a matter of fact, he was once considered the pride of Ada, having parlayed a successful high school baseball career into a shot at the big leagues.
Well then, what was their deal??
I’m glad you asked.
The truth is that Fritz and Williamson went through their ordeal not because the policemen and the district attorneys of Ada, OK are evil people. (Though, by the end of the book, it really does make you wonder.)
It happened because those civil servants made some assumptions pretty early on in their process. And as the investigation went on, their view of the evidence continued to be slanted toward their original assumptions. Through a combination of ignorance, fear, and arrogance, they fought to keep those assumptions from being challenged.
The result: two wrongful convictions, several verdicts overturned, an absolute tempest of bad P.R. for the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigations, and one man who was almost executed for a crime he never committed.
After finishing The Innocent Man, what I walked away with was this:
One wrong assumption, over time, can produce a world of hurt.
* * *
Unfortunately, this kind of thing happens much more than we think.
And not just in the criminal justice system, either. The people of God, the people of church, people who call themselves Christians, are often guilty of false assumptions — about God, and about the church — that produce a world of harm.
And just like those Ada cops, they don’t do it because they’re evil, but mostly because they don’t know better.
It’s not hard to do, really.
If you’re part of a church for awhile, chances are you might experience some benefit. You might kick an addiction, or be healed of some affliction, or have some sort of mountaintop epiphany in the middle of a service.
So you keep coming back, because you’re not dumb enough to turn down more of a good thing.
Churches are aware of this, and some even market themselves this way.
“Come to our church to receive a blessing!”
There’s nothing inherently wrong with this, because hey… if God is in the house, and the people encounter God, the people will be blessed.
The problem comes when churchgoers start to make the unspoken assumption that you go to church in order to get a blessing… that the purpose of the church is to get one’s needs met.
Unfortunately, successful churches often instill this mindset unwittingly because they do such a good job of meeting the needs of their parishioners.
But this mentality, over time, tends to skew our perceptions. It leads us into a MeChurch mentality, where the church is just another consumer-driven entity that exists solely for the purpose of meeting my needs.
Now I realize some of you have heard part of this before. You’re probably thinking:
Okay fine … the church isn’t about me… I get it.
But it’s not enough to just get this far. Such a realization begs the question: if the church is not about me, then what is it for?
Unfortunately, many churchgoing Christians have never taken the time to find a solid answer, so the blanks are occupied by their assumptions.
But if we are to truly function as the church of Jesus Christ, this is the question that must be answered. We must intentionally fill in the blanks, and eradicate these fault assumptions once and for all.
For the answers, we must, as always, go to the Scripture.
[And speaking of Scripture, there are great free Scripture study tools available online, so you have no excuse for not studying the Bible, other than, well, you just don't feel like it.]
Here are three foundational ideas that will help us answer the question of what the church is for…
The church is for gathering.
As a matter of fact, that’s what church means. The word translated as “church” in the New Testament is the Greek word ekklesia, which means “gathering.”
This is an important idea, this gathering thing.
Because us postmoderns have embraced the idea the church is not simply a building. But we often take it to the opposite extreme, where we act like anytime we’re in the presence of other Christians, or reading the Bible, listening to Christian music, or doing anything remotely spiritual, then that counts as “church.”
(And don’t even get me started about people sleeping in and trying to churchify it. We Christians have all kinds of euphemisms for sleeping in on Sunday mornings. Bedside Baptist, Pillow Presbyterian, and my favorite, courtesy of my wife’s mother Deanna: Church of the Inner Spring.)
Jokes aside, though, have you ever heard anyone say anything like this?
“Hanging out with friends at a coffee shop? That’s church to me.”
“Communing with God out in the wilderness with my family… that’s church to me.”
“Spending quiet time at home with God… that’s church to me.”
Problem is, the whole church-is-what-I-want-it-to-be thing not exactly Biblical.
Oh sure, people who say that may quote Matthew 18:20 (“where two or three come together in my name, there I am with them”) but Jesus was talking in that quote about church discipline.
Scholar Frank Viola says it this way:
New Testament scholarship agrees that the word ekklesia (translated “church”) meant a local community of people who assemble together regularly. The word was used for the Greek assembly whereby those in a city were “called forth” from their homes to meet (assemble) in the town forum to make decisions for the city. The Christian ekklesia is a community of people who gather together and possess a shared life in Christ.
As such, the ekklesia as used in New Testament literature is visible, touchable, locatable, and tangible. You can visit it. You can observe it. And you can live in it. Biblically speaking, you could not call anything an ekklesia unless it assembled regularly together.
In Hebrews 10 there’s a passage that embodies most of the essential elements of what we do in a church.
Consider:
16“This is the covenant I will make with them
after that time, says the Lord.
I will put my laws in their hearts,
and I will write them on their minds.”[a]
17Then he adds:
“Their sins and lawless acts
I will remember no more.”[b]
18And where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin. 19Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, 20by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, 21and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. 23Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. 24And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. 25Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
The author of this epistle to the Hebrews (who some think may have been the apostle Paul, but there’s no clear consensus on the matter) is using Old Testament imagery to relate to Jewish converts to Christianity.
See back in the OT times, there were laws that required sacrifices, including blood sacrifices, for a variety of things: entering into a covenant agreement, receiving the forgiveness of sins, the consecration of the priests, etc. (See: Exodus 24, 29.)
Not only that, but part of the duties of the Levites, the priestly tribe of Israel, was to enter the Holy of Holies, the veiled part of tabernacle where the Most High God, Yahweh, was believed to dwell. God’s presence was so powerful that only the priests, who regularly purified themselves with ceremonial cleansing rituals, were allowed to enter the veil into the Holy of Holies.
And even this was dangerous, for if a priest dared to do so without purifying himself, he would be struck dead (Leviticus 16:1,13).
What the author of Hebrews is trying to say is that, because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, the veil separating us from God’s presence has been torn. The Most Holy Place, previously inaccessible to ordinary folks, is now accessible. Because of Jesus, we have incredible access to God.
This should be the basis for our gathering. This access to God is the reason why we have church. And it’s the undercurrent of all that goes on in our church services.
Go back and reread this Hebrews passage, keeping in mind the kind of things we do in church.
Putting His law in our hearts (vs. 16), that’s understanding and internalizing the truth of God’s Word. And then there’s receiving the forgiveness of sins through the sacrament of communion (vs. 17-18), entering the Most Holy Place in worship (vs. 19), drawing near to Him in devotion (vs. 22), holding onto the hope we’ve been given (vs. 20), spurring each other onto good deeds (vs. 23)… all of these things we do as part of the church, and we do them together.
This is why the last part of the passage (vs. 24) is a reminder to his Jewish audience to not forsake meeting regularly. It’s not because the author is concerned about poor attendance levels, or because the author is worried about contributions to the church drying up.
He wants them to keep meeting because so much good happens when believers assemble in one place in Jesus’ name.
This is what the church is, a gathering of God’s people for God’s purposes. You can’t call it an ekklesia unless these things are happening. Conversely, wherever these things are happening, that’s where the church is.
Which is not to say that these things — the absorbing of God’s Word, the receiving of Christ’s forgiveness, the sacrament of communion, etc. — can’t happen in a Starbucks, or out in the woods, or in someone’s home.
But in order for it to be ekklesia, there must be an intentional gathering of believers for these purposes.
This is what the church is, and this is what sets it apart from the world.
Which leads me to the next foundational idea…
The church is for displaying God’s glory.
The access to God that we saw in Hebrews 10 is the main thing that sets the church, and Christianity in general, apart from the rest of the world.
God wants us to connect with Him, not just for our sake, but for the purpose of putting His glory on display.
Consider the apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans, where he is discussing God’s patience with unbelievers (in this case, Jews):
Romans 9:22-24 (emphasis mine):
“What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? 23What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory— 24even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?”
Consider also Paul’s second letter to church in Corinth, where he is discussing the new covenant under Jesus’ blood, and the glory that awaits those who trust in Him:
2 Cor. 3:17-19 (emphasis mine):
17Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
God loves humanity, because He is love and we were created in Him image. But God did not ordain the church only to serve the needs of its members. Rather, He desires to use the church in the same way that, in Old Testament times, He used the nation of Israel — as a light to show off His glory to the rest of the nations.
Think of just about any of the Old Testament stories you were taught as a child. Moses and the Red Sea (Ex. 14)… Elijah and the prophets of Ba’al (1 Ki. 18)… Daniel in the Lion’s Den (Dan. 6) … the Hebrew boys in the fiery furnace (Daniel 3)… the list goes on and on. These stories exist as part of God’s sovereign plan to show off his power and authority to those who did not know Him.
And this is a large part of the purpose for the church today, for there is no greater witness to the redemptive power of the blood of Christ than when unbelievers get to see people, fallen, fleshly, imperfect human beings, somehow choose to gather together week after week to confess their sins to one another, worship together, rejoice and mourn together, and generally live in the confines of authentic, messy community.
When viewing this divine experiment up-close and personal, unbelievers should (and often do) gawk in disbelief.
How in the world do they DO that?!
Unbelievers are often confounded by this because they are conditioned by the world’s system to believe that higher, nobler forms of living can only be achieved through decades worth of self-refinement. In the world’s way of living, we must work to become better versions of ourselves, more well educated, more physically fit, less emotionally needy, more giving and less corrupt, etc.
As believers in Christ, we rejoice in God’s goodness precisely because we know we can’t make any of those things happen. Yet somehow He makes it work. His grace animates and lubricates the functionality of the church, inexplicably causing the impossible to become possible on a week by week basis. We come in, needy, frustrated, driven by fleshly desires, prone to anger… and yet, somehow we refrain from killing each other. Somehow, we forgive. Somehow, we reflect His power, and by extension, His glory.
Later in the same letter to the church in Corinth, Paul refers to the ministry of reconciliation between God and man, the ministry that God has entrusted to him, this way:
For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,”[a]made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. 7But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us (2 Cor 4:6-7).
That is the glory of the church, in a nutshell.
He pours Himself out into weak, plain, unspectacular vessels. And He does this intentionally so that people will know that the treasure is from Him.
We get continual life transformation, and He gets to pad His rep as God Almighty.
Talk about a win/win scenario.
This leads me to the final crucial thought…
The church is for advancing God’s kingdom.
Come with me now to Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus:
Eph 1:18-23 (emphasis mine):
I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, 20which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, 21far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. 22And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, 23which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.
Wow.
Paul’s prayer is a theological mouthful, and properly unpacking it could take all day. However, let me sum it up this way. Paul is praying that the believers in Ephesus would truly embrace the hope they have in Christ, and that hope is rooted in Christ’s power, which fuels their relationship and participation with Him.
The key verses are 22 and 23, where Paul says that Jesus has been appointed head over everything, and that the church, then, becomes his body.
Paul is hoping that these Ephesian believers will be able to fully get on board and embrace the power that Christ has conferred onto them. This is what Paul means when he refers to the church as Jesus’ body.
In churches, we often are taught the Pauline analogy that we are one body with many members (Romans 12:3-5), but here Paul is taking it further. He’s saying that we are not just the body of some random joe schmoe… but we are Christ’s body. We are the embodiment of all of the authority and dominion that has been given to Christ Jesus by God the Father. And if we truly embrace our identity as part of His body, then we’ll be able to exercise that dominion and authority.
The image I keep coming up with is from Voltron, the 80′s cartoon show. It was a show about these five, giant, primary-colored robotic lions, controlled by these fierce human pilots. And they would rove the anime battlefields, generally kicking evildoer booty, until they came upon a truly evil behemoth that could not be conquered normally.
And then, all five lions would come together, lock into formation, and transform into this superpowerful robotic being called Voltron. And if you thought the five lions were powerful… look out. Voltron’s power was on a whole ‘nother level.
When Voltron was on the scene, absolutely anything was possible.
And that’s the image that I think Paul is trying to impart to these Ephesians, a message just as relevant to believers today.
We are Christ’s body. We are His voice, His fists, His muscles. Jesus said that we would do even greater things than He did (John 14:12).
That means all of the miracles.
All of the prophetic confrontations.
All of the Chuck Norris-style roundhouse kicks in the face of evil.
And that, and then some.
Wow.
The thing is, Jesus only did what He saw the Father doing (John 5:19). He was fully committed to doing His Father’s business. In other words, Jesus was God’s vehicle to advance His agenda.
And that’s what He wants us to be.
That’s His desire for the church.
Consider one more foundational scripture… Matthew 16:18-19:
18And I tell you that you are Peter,[c] and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades[d] will not overcome it.[e]
19I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be[f] bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be[g] loosed in heaven.”
Ignoring for the moment how momentous a moment that had to be for Peter personally, consider what this means for the church.
I’ve heard some Christians quote vs. 18 as a sort of pre-emptive lament over the inevitable trials of the world that will rock the church to its core.
Oh yes, the gates of hell will unleash their fury against us, but by the grace of God we will somehow prevail (*gulp*)… I hope.
It’s as if this verse is talking about defense.
That’s the thing, though… Jesus is talking about defense here, but not the church’s defense.
He’s talking about the enemy’s defense.
Jesus is speaking prophetically here, saying to the knucklehead disciple who will one day become a pillar of the church… look, I’m going to build a church through you, and it will eventually become such an offensive juggernaut that the very gates of hell will be powerless to stop it.
This is an INCREDIBLE idea, and it’s so countercultural compared to what I see from so many Christians in so many churches.
From the beginning, God’s design for His church was for it to be a powerful agent of change in a corrupt world. He designed it to be a light to the rest of the world, a powerful beacon of hope that can withstand a constant onslaught of depravity.
And, in a manner of speaking, that’s what it is.
Not just our church, not just our denomination, not even just the North American church, but the worldwide Church of Jesus Christ has, throughout the annals of history, been a powerful force for change.
Not that the change has always been for the better (see: The Crusades), and we’ve certainly endured our share of scandals, but that’s beside the point.
The point is that the overall catholic church (as in universal, not Roman Catholic) is a force to be reckoned with, and that’s exactly what God had in mind from the beginning.
That’s why we gather, that’s why we show off His glory… so that His will and His kingdom may be established on the earth.
Here at Irvington Covenant, we’re in the middle of a reboot of sorts, where we are rapidly evolving into a different version of church compared to what we were in the past.
But at the end of the day, our mission is the same as it’s ever been.
And if the changes have come too fast, or have been too scary, or too painful… then, speaking as a staff person, i apologize. We haven’t always done the best job of communicating what we’re trying to do, or following through on our commitments. We haven’t always done the best job of walking alongside people and helping folks to find meaningful places of connection. Truly, there is a laundry list of mea culpas that I could rattle off from here to kingdom come of things we’ve found some way to screw up.
But you know what we won’t apologize for?
We won’t apologize for identifying, prioritizing, and walking in our purpose.
If you’re reading this, and you’re considering whether to engage with us in our brand of Christian community, or any church for that matter, then I urge you — decide for yourself, and don’t let anyone dictate what you should do because it’s convenient for them.
But if you’re trying to figure out whether or not a church is really being true to its calling, then you better fill in the blanks. You better examine your expectations. And you better read the Scripture and see what it says, because if you don’t, I promise you… you’re in for a world of hurt.
Igniter Media sums it up with a great video contrasting church metaphors.
Check it out, and tell me what you think.
And if you’re an ICC attendee or member, tell me what you think we can do to live up to this standard. Because that, among other things, is why we gather. And I need just as much help as anybody else in filling in the blanks.
I’m Jelani Greenidge, and thanks for mixin’ it up with me.
Dad, Do What Is Best
July 5th, 2009
Today’s sermon title comes from The Message’s rendering of those iconic words from the Lord’s prayer, “thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Dad, do what is best. That’s what dads are supposed to do, and as a kid growing up, I didn’t always appreciate some of my dad’s choices. There was one time in particular where I bought something and he made me return it because he didn’t approve. At the time, I was really upset at him, because I felt like he just made me do what he wanted, and I had to go along with it. The way I saw it, he got his way because he was the adult and I wasn’t. This, by the way, is the same reason why I used to have a problem understanding this part of The Lord’s Prayer. I never understood why we’re supposed to pray for God’s will to be done. My analytical, philosophical side couldn’t really make sense of it. It’s God’s will. Of course it’s going to be done. Praying for God’s will to be done seemed to be the logical equivalent of praying for the sun to rise every morning. It’s happening regardless, whether we pray for it or not. So why pray for it? That’s a question I struggled with, one that many struggle with today. What is the point of praying to God about an issue that seems like a foregone conclusion? Looking back, I can honestly say that part of what led me to this question was an incomplete understanding of God’s will. Like many good Christians, my concept of God’s will was like… well, it’s a stretch, but it was sorta like playing Madden. See, anybody who has played John Madden football – the gold standard of video game football – knows that there’s a great little option in the game called “Ask Madden.” Former NFL coach John Madden was a legend in coaching back in the day, and so the game programmers were able to crunch a bunch of data and figure out the kinds of plays and formations he used a lot. So in any game scenario, if you don’t know which formation to use or which play to call, you can just “Ask Madden.” You press a button, and get a recommendation. If you use Madden’s play, you usually end up looking like a genius. This, to me, was my concept of God’s will. Life is full of choices here and there, and amidst all of the options and alternatives there’s always an official “God’s Will” option, and if you can figure out which plays are “God’s Will” plays, more often than not, you’ll come out on top. I realize not all of you are big football video gamers, so here’s another metaphor: I also tended to see God’s will like it was a consumer incentive program. It was as if when I became a Christian, I was issued this purple God’s Will ™ Club Card, and every time I read my Bible or spent time in prayer, I earned some Discernment Points. These points would become useful anytime I needed to purchase something, because having my God’s Will ™ Club Card gave me access to discounts on select divinely-endorsed “God’s Will” products and activities. Using these products and engaging in these activities – in conjunction with regular Bible reading and prayer, of course – would earn you more Discernment Points, and thus keep you on track with “God’s Will.” (Considering all the Christian bookstores I’ve browsed, I’m surprised this doesn’t actually exist.) Obviously, something is wrong with these images of God’s will. Neither of them is totally wrong, but they’re both incomplete. What these images lack is perspective. Henry Blackaby, in his book Experiencing God, says that when people ask the question, ‘what is God’s will for my life?’ they are asking the wrong question. It’s not that they’re wrong for asking that question… it’s just that it’s the wrong question. A better question is, “What is God’s will?” “Because people are naturally self-centered, we tend to view the whole world – even God’s activity – in terms of our own lives … but that is actually an inverted life perspective. Once I know God’s will, then my life gains its proper perspective, and I can adjust my life to Him and to His purposes. In other words, what is it that God is purposing to accomplish where I am? Once I know what God is doing, then I see what I should do. My focus needs to be outward on God and His purposes, not inward on my life.” God’s will is much more than just you or I knowing which plays to run, which products to consume, or which activities to engage in. God’s will is something much greater. As we continue in this discussion today, I’d like to give you five rock-solid ideas about God’s will that will help your understanding, and help make some sense of why it is that we pray for God’s will to be done. The first of these is foundational: God’s will is bigger than you. Ephesians 1:9-10 (emphasis mine): And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. Luke 3:5-7 (emphasis mine): ‘Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth. And all mankind will see God’s salvation.’ Daniel 7:13-14 (emphasis mine): In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed. Those are just three examples, but the Bible is literally full of them… if you read the Bible to cover, you’ll begin to see that it’s not just an anthology of books of various literary forms, but it’s a collective tapestry of God’s interaction with humanity. The Bible is way more than just “Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth” (did anybody else learn that in Sunday school?), it’s a written record of God’s desire to save humanity from itself by establishing the headship and rule of Christ over all. All of the battles, all of the miracles, all of the stubborn kings, all of the evil prophets, every story that has ever unfolded from any page of the Bible… they’re all chapters in the story that God has been writing from the beginning of time. Once you begin to see that, even a little bit, it changes the whole equation. It explains how the most brutal, unjust killing in the history of man can be commemorated on a day called “Good Friday.” What makes the crucifixion good? It was part of God’s plan. So when you pray for God’s will to be done, you’re not just praying for your little thread in the grand tapestry. You’re praying for the whole thing. That’s part of the reason it says “on earth, as it is in heaven” … because God’s will encompasses it all. Despite its brevity, this is a big, huge, massive prayer. While there are times when the choices we make play a part in God establishing His kingdom, our choices are infinitely small compared to the grand stage that God operates on. That’s why it’s so foolish to reduce God’s will to only a series of choices that we make as individuals. God’s will transcends and supersedes our choices. His will cannot and will not be thwarted, ever. The chief proof I have of this, by the way, is the fact that He entrusted His majestic endeavor to fickle, random, unpredictable human beings. Nothing sinks a project like getting incompetent, sinful, fallen people involved in it. And yet, centuries and centuries later, disciples are still being made, Christ is still being preached, and God’s kingdom is still advancing in every corner of the earth, even today. If that’s not proof of God’s omnipotence, I don’t know what is. The bottom line is, He’s God and we’re not. Thus, when we pray for His will, we don’t always know exactly we’re praying for, which brings me to my second rock-solid thought: God’s will can’t be fully understood by us humans. Isaiah 55:8-9: For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. The fact of the matter, not only is “thy will be done” a really big prayer, but it’s a really dangerous This, by the way, is one of the biggest stumbling blocks to belief for certain people. Some people, for whatever reason, cannot reconcile this… they think, well if God is all-loving and all-powerful, why is there so much evil in the world? How could an all-powerful, all-loving, all-knowing God allow 9/11, or the Jewish Holocaust? For centuries, philosophers and theologians have wrestled with this very question without coming to a uniform consensus on the matter. So if you’re struggling with it, let me provide a fail-safe answer: I don’t know. For some people, that answer is a deal-breaker. If it doesn’t make sense to them, they cannot commit. They refuse to worship a God they cannot understand. For me, of course, that’s entirely the point… why worship a god that can be understood by mortal men? Such a god, by definition, is not worthy of such adoration. (Unless it was designed by Steve Jobs, of course.) Jokes aside, the sad thing about such intellectual perfectionism is that it tends to be an all-or-nothing deal, where the baby gets thrown out with the bath water. Though God cannot fully be understood, that doesn’t mean that there’s nothing about Him that can be understood. On the contrary, if we know how and where to look, there is plenty to be found, which leads to my next rock-solid truth: God’s will becomes evident as His character is revealed. My favorite cable TV network is the USA Network, and not just because my two favorite TV series (“Psych” and “Burn Notice”) are there, but because of their slogan: “Characters Welcome.” People become devoted to their favorite series if they can make a connection with the main characters involved. Likewise, people become devoted to God once they begin to experience a revelation of His character. And just as a person’s character is not established by only one action or one line of dialogue, but from a series of actions and interactions, that’s the same way God reveals Himself to someone who is looking for Him … over time, across a series of interactions, both interpersonally and historically. This is why it’s so important to read the Bible… like, all of it. We must use the Scriptures as the lens by which we interpret our own experiences, rather than the other way around. Every story or poem or letter or account in the Bible gives us a unique piece of insight into who God is and what He likes to do, and by taking these stories in, we give God a chance to reveal a part of who He is to us. So for example… if you read the story of David and Goliath, you can tell that God likes to confound conventional wisdom, because it was the little runt from the house of Jesse, the kid that everybody forgot about, that eventually slew the giant, and later, was anointed as king. If you read about Jonah and the great fish, you can tell that God wants to reach out to those who don’t know Him, and that He cares about people who are lost more than He cares about making things convenient for His servants. If you read about the story of Achan in Joshua 7, you learn that God is particular about obedience, and will find a way to get your attention if you disobey. If you read about Nehemiah and how he rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, you learn that God cares about cities, and that casting vision and community organizing make a difference. These are the kinds of revelations we can experience if we get to know the God of the Scriptures. And every time we have an experience with God, either through His word, or personally, it’s important for us to view it in light of all of the other things we know about God. If God reveals His will through His character, it’s important to make sure you have enough information to have a clear picture of His character. This is especially true when we’re talking about the Lord’s Prayer, because in it, we address God as Father… and there are many different kinds of fathers out there. Not all fathers have the same character. When we say, “our Father,” I don’t think we’re all necessarily seeing God the same way. Speaking of characters, does anyone remember Gordon Gartrell? For those of you who haven’t earned your 80s-sitcom-trivia merit badge yet, Gordon Gartrell was and is the name of a designer, a high-end NYC fashion designer, whose name was immortalized in one of my favorite episodes of The Cosby Show. In this episode, Theo has promised his girlfriend he would wear a Gordon Gartrell shirt for an upcoming date, but when his father Cliff finds out the shirt cost $95 — in 80′s money –, Theo must return the shirt for something more reasonable. Desperate to avoid losing face, Theo asks his sister to sew together a replica shirt of similar design… and wacky hijinks ensue. Here’s a question… if you had never seen the Cosby Show before, would you automatically assume that Cliff was being a good father when he ordered his son to take the shirt back? I suppose it depends on your background and how much you would be willing to pay for a new shirt. Your interpretation might also be affected by your own experience, especially if, like mine, your father ever did anything similar (more on that later). By and large, though, I think the episode is funny only because we believe that, in general, Cliff is a good dad, and his choice to deny his son the object of his desire (the shirt) is done out of a general desire to look out for his wellbeing. If we as viewers didn’t have any other reason to believe that the character Heathcliff Huxtable is a good dad, we might see the episode differently. This principle is critical to understanding the will of God. God’s will is revealed through His character, so if you’re going to evaluate His character, you can’t just pick a few isolated situations or experiences and hope you’ve gotten a good picture. The key is to put those experiences in the proper context. My other, non-USA-network favorite show is “Lost.” One thing that frequent “Lost” viewers recognize is that episodes often start with one single image, usually an extreme close-up. In the pilot episode, that image is of a human eye. It’s kind of weird at first, but then it eases up. Then you see a head, a man’s head. Eventually you can tell it’s a man lying down in the middle of the jungle. The man gets up, and begins first jogging, then sprinting toward what we can now tell is the wreckage of a plane that just crash landed onto an island. On a normal TV show or movie, the first images you see are normally wide shots of picturesque locales: an urban skyline, a boundless meadow, a majestic meadow, or wherever the action is supposed to be taking place. It helps the viewer establish a sense of setting. But for this pilot episode, the director J. J. Abrams takes the opposite approach – a choice that is designed to leave the viewer, well, lost. When we try to decipher God’s will without really getting to know His character first, we end up the same way – disoriented, confused, and lost. My earlier attempts to conceptualize God’s will were futile because they focused mostly on the choices that I made from day to day. Knowing God’s will is more than just making the right decisions, buying the right products, or engaging in the right activities. To know God’s will, you must first know His character. Trying to do one without the other is futile, like trying to guess the plot of a random show based only on a few close-ups. That doesn’t mean that said decisions, products and activities are unimportant, just that they must be placed in the broader context of who God is and what He is doing in the world. The close-ups will come, but come on… first things first. Which leads to my next rock-solid idea… God’s will is proven through the daily renewing of your mind. Romans 12:1-2: Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. Doing the work of discerning, proving, examining and discovering God’s will as it pertains to life requires mental renovation every day. Renewal of mind can take on several forms – personal worship and/or devotion time, prayer, and Bible reading all quickly come to mind – but it’s got to happen, and it’s got to happen every day. And part of the reason why I advocate for reading Scripture, especially in large quantities (several chapters at a time), is because if you grow up in church, you might hear people quote certain scriptures, and without reading them in context, you might be taking away a message that’s not necessarily what God intended for you to receive. For example, earlier I referenced Isaiah 55:8-9, where the prophet Isaiah is relaying a word from the Lord about how His ways are higher than our ways. If you’re a Christian and you’ve been in the church for awhile, you’ve probably heard those verses dozens of times. But you might not have ever read the whole thing. Take a few minutes now, and read all of Isaiah 55, including those two verses, and see if you look at those passages differently:
prayer, because when we pray this prayer, we do not really know what we’re asking for. We may have a certain set of outcomes in mind when we pray this prayer, but fundamentally, we’re acknowledging our inability to discern what is truly best in the largest sense of the word, thus entrusting that duty to One who is worthy of such a task. It’s a spiritual blank check that only He can cover.
1 “Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost.
2 Why spend money on what is not bread,
and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.
3 Give ear and come to me;
hear me, that your soul may live.
I will make an everlasting covenant with you,
my faithful love promised to David.
4 See, I have made him a witness to the peoples,
a leader and commander of the peoples.
5 Surely you will summon nations you know not,
and nations that do not know you will hasten to you,
because of the LORD your God,
the Holy One of Israel,
for he has endowed you with splendor.”
6 Seek the LORD while he may be found;
call on him while he is near.
7 Let the wicked forsake his way
and the evil man his thoughts.
Let him turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him,
and to our God, for he will freely pardon.
8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the LORD.
9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
10 As the rain and the snow
come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
12 You will go out in joy
and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills
will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field
will clap their hands.
13 Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree,
and instead of briers the myrtle will grow.
This will be for the LORD’s renown,
for an everlasting sign,
which will not be destroyed.”
Looks pretty different, doesn’t it?
I don’t know about you, but when I read verses 8 and 9 alone, I tend to project onto it a tone of derisive mocking. But that’s not at all what the Lord is saying to Isaiah. When you read the whole thing, you read an invitation. It’s the warm greeting of a loving God who desperately wants to extend His love and authority to His children, a God who wants His children to know Him, to be loved and reassured by Him. When He says that His ways are not like our ways, He’s really saying, I’m not petty and vindictive, I don’t seek only to tear down, but to restore. I know that’s probably a foreign concept for you, but it’s true.
What an incredible image this is!
This is why we must renew our minds daily. Renewing our minds through Scriptural intake is what helps our image of God’s character stay fresh and accurate, and it helps us defend ourselves against the enemy’s lies. This is a crucial, because whether consciously or unconsciously, we use our concept of God’s character to evaluate His will.
So if we slack off with renewing our minds, then we’re liable to believe things about God that aren’t true. We end up thinking, just like my man Theo Huxtable, that Dad isn’t really looking out for our best interests, that He really just wants to keep us from having fun, that He doesn’t ever want us to have meaningful relationships, and that He’s punishing us by being stingy with His resources.
And I know somebody is probably thinking, okay calm down, Jelani… it’s just an old episode of Cosby. That’s not really how I behave toward God.
If so, you’re probably more mature than me.
That Cosby episode resonates with me because I actually had a similar exchange with my Dad during high school. Only it wasn’t just a shirt, it was a suit, a magenta-colored, polyester and rayon blend jacket-and-pants combo that I purchased from Jeans West, the leading teen apparel store of choice at the time.
Unlike Theo, who charged it to his father’s account, I paid for the suit with my own money.
And Dad still made me take it back.
Yeah, he tried to tell me that if I’m going to buy a suit I should spend a little bit more and get better value. He tried to tell me that it wasn’t professional looking, that I had a responsibility to represent myself well in public, and that I wouldn’t be able to wear it anywhere except high school dances. (Which, of course, was the very place I wanted to be seen wearing it.)
I wasn’t hearing any of that. All I could think about was how unfair it was that I didn’t have the freedom to choose. I was absolutely furious. And I would have stayed that way, possibly for a long time, except for the fact that I had a chance to sit and think for awhile.
And remember.
I remembered all the times where I took his correction and it ended up working out well for me. I remembered all the gifts he had given me, all of the times he did something special for me. All the times when I had disobeyed his correction and gotten myself into wads of trouble.
After sitting for awhile, I realized I only had two options. I was either going to ignore those memories, remain angry and hold a grudge, or I was going to let go, and just do what he asked me to do.
Eventually, I did the latter.
After awhile, I gradually understood that my Dad really did have my best interests at heart.
After awhile, the magenta suit joined the ranks of juvenile appearance fads that I coveted at first, then eventually let go of (along with jheri curls, Hammer pants, and African medallions).
By taking the suit back, I gave myself a chance to learn some powerful lessons, ones I would have learned the hard way had I kept it.
Which brings me to my last rock-solid idea…
God wants us to participate in His will.
Matthew 12:46-50 (emphasis mine):
While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.” He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.
As we’ve established, God’s will is more than just the choices we make on a day to day basis.
But that does NOT mean that our day to day choices are irrelevant!
God wants us to be connected with Him, to have an intimate, familial relationship where we know Him as Father. And yet, as Jesus is pointing out here in this passage of Matthew 12, the only way to be in His family is to do the will of His Father.
Jesus wasn’t trying to diss his blood relatives here. You have to understand the context. He had just spent all day healing people and teaching the crowds from the law. Yet, here He was being challenged by the Pharisees, who asked to see a miraculous sign, even though He had already been performing miracles of healing, and those miracles were denounced by many of those same Pharisees as being from the devil!
Jesus was tired of their relentless verbal traps, tired of their posturing, tired of them exalting their rule of law as the standard, and what’s worse, doing so on the basis of their religious family traditions. So when He received word that His mother and brothers had been waiting for him outside, Jesus finally threw down the gauntlet:
You wanna be in the real family of God? You want to be a relative of my Father?
Do. His. Will.
Sometimes, it’s really just that simple.
Because yes, you need to understand that His will is bigger than you. Yes, you need to be prepared for the fact that sometimes you won’t understand His will exactly. Yes, you need to experience a revelation of His character, and you must also renew your mind daily to help apply it to your everyday experience.
But at the end of the day, if we want to be called Christians, if we want to be in the family of God, if we want to actually live for Him and not just pretend to live for Him, we must follow through and do what He is asking of us.
And that, in my opinion, why we pray, “thy will be done” in The Lord’s Prayer.
When we pray that part of the prayer, we’re not simply giving our intellectual assent to the certainty of God’s purposes taking place.
We’re taking a bold step of faith, and declaring to God:
No matter the ramifications, no matter what it costs me, no matter where or in what condition I end up as a result, I commit myself to discovering Your will and carrying it out.
That’s why Jesus included “thy will be done” in his example of prayer, because that’s how committed He was to His Father’s will.
John 5:19 — Jesus gave them this answer: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.
Jesus knew that without that level of commitment, you won’t last long in His Father’s kingdom.
Now here’s the deal.
Praying this prayer and living it out… is hard.
It’s simple to say, but difficult to pull off, because it requires us to consistently give over our will to His will.
And some people think it was easy for Jesus because, well… He was God. Of course He did everything the Father said. They were almost the same person.
People who say this don’t usually take the time to read the whole gospel narrative, because if they did, they would stumble onto Matthew 26:39:
Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”
This was Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, praying to His Father, asking Him to find a way to avert what Jesus knew was coming – his crucifixion at the hands of the people.
This was NOT easy for Jesus. He didn’t want to go through it any more than we would if we were in His place.
(And don’t get all religious on me here… you know good and well that if you were in this same situation you would be doing the same thing, looking for some kind of loophole or something. Nobody likes going through what Jesus went through, not even Jesus.)
This is what the writer of Hebrews was referring to in Heb. 4:16:
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin.
Jesus modeled that prayer because He modeled that lifestyle. When given the option between the Father’s will and His own, even when His very life was on the line… He did the Father’s will.
Jesus had this in mind when He asked us to pray the radical prayer of “thy will be done,” because He knew that sometimes actually following through and submitting to God’s will is tremendously difficult.
And yet, it is the path to which we are called, a path that, almost inexplicably, almost paradoxically, offers us the greatest sense of fulfillment imaginable.
And that is part of the divine mystery; that such self-denial could lead to such glory in the end.
What Jesus knew then is the same thing that we are invited to learn every time we have a chance to submit to His will… that God is good, and thus, His will is good.
Good enough to sign up for, sight unseen. Good enough to give our lives for.
And certainly good enough to pray for.
I’m Jelani Greenidge, and thanks for Mixin’ It Up with me.
Driving in the Spirit: Traffic Epiphanies for the Modern Christian
January 15th, 2009
While vacationing in December, I stumbled upon an engrossing book with a gloriously inflated title (even longer than the title of this post):
Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (And What It Says About Us), by Tom Vanderbilt.
It’s a fascinating read, because it manages to synthesize mountains of research into understandable concepts illustrated with funny stories. I recommend it, if only because it sheds some much-needed light onto a subject that you probably think you understand more than you do — the way that you drive your car.
One of the overarching concepts in Traffic is that safety is a malleable concept, and that our preconceived notions of safety are often too-far removed from reality. Roads we normally consider to be safer — wide, clearly marked lanes running straight for miles and miles at a time — are actually more dangerous, because the predictability lulls us into driving faster while paying less attention to the road. Conversely, roads that look dangerous — two-lane mountain roads with no guardrails, for example — are statistically safer, because people actually have to SLOW DOWN and pay close attention.
After crunching the data and examining the topic of driving from every which angle imaginable, one of Vanderbilt’s conclusions is that advances in technology do help, but traffic fatalities persist because people always find ways to push the envelope of socially acceptable behavior. You can post a sign and set a speed limit, but that doesn’t mean people will follow it. Engineers cannot factor in the capricious, unpredictable outcomes of human decision-making.
In an Amazon Q&A session, he sums up the human element of driving:
We make mistakes, we misjudge our abilities, we’re not as aware of what’s happening in traffic as we think we are, we act differently in different situations, we get angry over things that matter little in the long run, we’re susceptible to distortions in our sense of time, we have trouble living beyond the moment, of seeing the big picture — oh, and also, that everyone has a different opinion on who the worst drivers are and where they live…”Los Angeles! L.A. drivers are the worst… No, Atlanta has terrible drivers… No way, Boston drivers are nuts…”
Straight from the horse’s mouth — sorry Tom! — there it is.
The problem is humanity.
Being human is a condition that no government safety mandate can fix. So we all struggle in similar ways, among them being a willingness to break the rules as we see fit, while railing against the gridlock that such lawlessness inevitably produces.
Humanity, as the problem? Sounds like a spiritual issue to me.
No, seriously.
If you think I’m out of line, just try this exercise. Look up a few Scriptures that use walking as an analogy, and then exchange the word “walk” for “drive”:
“Blessed is the man who does not drive in the counsel of the wicked” (Ps 1:1a)
“I am God Almighty; drive before me and be blameless” (Gen 17:1)
“If you drive in my ways and obey my statutes and commands … I will give you a long life” (1 Kings 3:14)
Feeling convicted yet?
As Christians, we ought to pay more attention to the way that we drive, if for no other reason, so that we don’t ruin our witness. (Nothing says “hypocrite” quite like a maniac driver with a Jesus fish bumper sticker.)
Not only that, but driving usually stands alone in the category of Most Mentally Demanding Activity With Unspeakably Catastrophic Potential. Unless you practice brain surgery as a weekend hobby, you probably don’t do anything else quite so dangerous quite so often.
Furthermore, I’m convinced that by examining not only our personal driving habits but also the driving cultures that surround us, we can learn and discern a lot more about life in general.
As always, the Word of God is the key.
(The IGNITION key! ** rim-shot**)
(Sorry, I couldn’t help myself there.)
* * *
Not Just A Good Idea, It’s The Law
The way we drive says a lot about how we interpret and understand the law. And the way we understand and interpret traffic laws influences the way we interact with God’s law. If you grow up in a Christian household, you are taught to obey the law as an extension of God’s authority in your life. This makes plenty of sense, especially in light of Paul’s teaching on the subject. For a ten-year-old budding believer, obeying God, the law, and your parents are essentially the same thing.
Problems crop up, however, when we reach adulthood and we do the converse — we obey God in the same manner that we obey the law.
Because how do most of us obey traffic laws? Selectively. Sure we generally obey the traffic laws. But the rules of the road seem much more elastic once you’ve been around the block a few times.
This, by the way, is part of the natural struggle when parents begin teaching their teenagers to drive. Children are astute observers, so it’s hard to make a compelling case for coming to a complete stop at every stop sign if your natural habit is to slowly roll through them.
Some of this is complacency, but part of it stems from incomplete understanding.
God’s laws are fundamentally different from traffic laws, because God is fundamentally different than man.
Traffic laws are designed to coerce citizens into order by threat of punishment by enforcement officers. If you break the law, you’ll face a sanction from the state, either as a fine, or as in some cases, incarceration. But, if you run a red light and no human (or camera) is there to record your infraction, then practically speaking, it didn’t happen.
Not only that, but traffic laws tend to change over time. Child safety devices are much more strict than they were three decades ago. Speed limits increase as more and more vehicles are designed to maintain stability at higher speeds. So if enough people think a law needs to change because it’s unfair or unsafe or unconstitutional, it will change.
God’s law is fundamentally different, because it’s not supposed to be an external code of conduct that results in right living. Christianity is more than just obeying the rules, it’s engaging in a personal relationship with an almighty God who knows far more about our lives than we can ever hope to know. This is why James referred to God’s law as a mirror… it’s God’s way of giving us tangible signs of warning in case we go astray.
God’s laws do not need enforcement, because they are inherently immutable — they do not change, because He does not change. As humans, we have the freedom to engage in behaviors that go against God’s will for humanity (as stated in the Ten Commandments, for example). But by doing that, we place ourselves outside of His will. As a result, bad things that God never intended to happen, happen.
This is the fundamental difference between God’s law and traffic law. Traffic laws can be broken; God’s laws cannot.
If you violate His law, you’re the one that gets broken. The punishment for violating a traffic law depends on whether or not you get caught. With God’s laws, there is no punishment. There is no punitive action designed to coerce a desired response. Rather, there are only the natural consequences of being outside of His will.
So, for example, God does not mete out His divine punishment upon someone engaged in an adulterous affair, simply because their choice violates the 7th commandment. Rather, He allows the consequences to unfold — in this case, a broken relationship. And it doesn’t matter if the cheating spouse is “caught” or not, because the relationship is severed either way. The very act of violating a spouse’s trust is what rends the relationship — which is one of the reasons for the commandment in the first place.
It seems to me, then, that the current state of affairs as it relates to driver behavior tends to follow this general pattern:
- First we learn to obey traffic laws.
- Once we get older, we realize traffic laws are a pain in the arse to obey all the time, so we stop trying. Instead, we just do our own thing, trying not to kill anyone in the process.
- The only thing that keeps from abandoning the law altogether is the fear of getting zapped for a serious infraction.
Come to think of it, that’s the way most people follow God’s laws, too.
But anyone with an authentic Christian spirituality knows that it’s not just about following God’s rules, it’s about engaging in relationship with Him. As Christians, we need to be plugged into the Holy Spirit if we want to really live. We must maintain a real connection, in real time, to a real God who really knows what’s going on.
Assuming that there’s a most excellent way to live, why can’t there be a most excellent way to drive?
What would it look like to drive in the Spirit?
I’m guessing that in some cases, it might look a lot… slower.
* * *
Of, But Not In
In Traffic, Vanderbilt cites Ben Hamilton-Baillie, an English transportation planner, who, in discussing complex traffic configurations with multiple types of vehicles, makes a notable observation about eye contact:
“Hamilton-Baillie suggests that it is more than coincidental that as drivers get above 20 miles per hour, we lose eye contact with pedestrians, while our chances of dying as pedestrians if hit by a car also begin to soar dramatically… in the modern world, Hamilton-Baillie adds, this may explain why being struck by a car becomes so much more exponentially dangerous above that speed” (emphasis mine).
As eye contact declines, so does our awareness of our fellow humans. For Christians, this is not merely a safety issue; it’s a spiritual issue. It’s a matter of actively engaging in the world rather than blithely zooming through it.
Consider the nature of the car — a private space amidst a public arena (the road). As Christians, we are called to traverse this public space with grace, humility and awareness. Our behavior is supposed to stand in contrast contrast to the pattern of the world, which is to generally look out for yourself. This is why many of us like to say that we are “in but not of” the world — a phrase derived from a passage in John where Jesus is praying for His disciples.
That’s the goal, anyway. But the reality too often is the exact opposite.
We mirror the world in our driving habits; we’re myopic and self-centered, lenient regarding our own failings but harshly critical about the failings of others.
Yet we often use our cars as a safe little cocoon where we can escape the oppressive rigor of modern life. Our Christian radio stations are there to drown out any vestiges of sound that may bleed into our sealed, climate-controlled interiors.
Thus, as we drive with little regard to others around us, we are of the world, without being emotionally present in it.
This is one of the true tragedies in the parable of the Good Samaritan. We’re all used to hearing accolades go to the Samaritan who helped out the victim, but that good deed happened only after the religious people, who are charged with the responsibility of helping others, passed right on through without a second glance. The priest and the Levite might have seen him, but they didn’t really see him.
Maybe it was because they were haughty and did not want to get into something messy and inconvenient. Maybe they were just moving too fast to stop and take notice. Maybe both.
One modern equivalent to this parable would be when marginalized people are displaced from their neighborhoods because of freeway expansion. It’s been happening for years. To those on the receiving end, it’s like a slap in the face. In both cases, the poor and victimized are shunted aside in favor of the upwardly mobile.
These are injustices. As Christians, we are called to care about them.
If more people outside the church are passionate about these issues than people inside the church, that’s a sad indictment against the state of the church in America. The extent that we fail in this arena is the extent to which we fail to learn the lesson of the good Samaritan.
Driving in the Spirit means, at least some of the time, we need to slow down enough to interact with our neighbors.
And like any other example of obedience to God, it also has a bonus side effect — safety on the road.
It’s God’s version of traffic calming.
(See, who said the Bible isn’t relevant to everyday life?)
Rules Rule… Except When They Don’t
Now you’ll notice I said, “some of the time.” I didn’t say that being a Christian means you never drive over 20 mph, because if that were the case, a vast majority of Americans would be going to hell in a handbasket Honda, and fast. The fact is, there are some situations where driving 78 miles-per-hour would be less reckless than driving 20 — in the left lane of an interstate freeway, for example.
Then again, there are also certain situations where driving 20 mph in the left lane of a freeway is the safest thing you can do — like when you’re attempting to travel from Portland to Seattle and the rain and snowmelt leave several inches of standing water on the roadway, leading officials to eventually close off the freeway.
(And yes, I was on I-5 when they closed it off. It was annoying, a little bit scary, but quite redemptive. More on this later.)
So let me see if I’ve got it… you’re supposed to drive slow in general, except for when you’re on a freeway where you can drive fast, except for when it’s raining cats and dogs and then you should drive slow again?
No wonder people get in trouble on the road.
Often rules appear to be the solution, yet relying on rules only can be just as bad as ignoring them altogether.
Abiding traffic rules is not as simple as it seems, because rules are never supposed to be followed without interpretation, especially rules of the road. (This is why it’s so difficult to teach a robot how to drive.) Rules exist to guide us toward a particular way of action or existence. Attempting to follow each rule as it is written, without an understanding of the underlying principles involved, can end up creating outcomes that actually violate the spirit of the rule in the first place. (Hence this great scene from “Rain Man.”)
Things get even more complex when you add the human element.
People are unpredictable. Sometimes they follow rules, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they have good reasons for not following the rules, and sometimes they don’t. The temptation, then, is to keep adding more rules and raising the ante of enforcement until the general populace will behave according to a pattern of manageable conformity.
The only problem is, this doesn’t work.
What you get is actually more chaos.
Kill, Or Give Life?
There’s a reason why the Lord limited the Commandments to ten — because anything more than ten just brings more confusion and frustration. (The American tax code comes to mind here.) There is a limit to how many rules and statutes we can juggle before we start dropping them, one by one, until they’re all over the floor.
God’s laws are supposed to be moral signposts that we can rely on to figure out where we stand in relationship to Him. But when humans decide to help God out by introducing more and more rules, this amounts to more and more signage. At some point, we become over-saturated with stimuli, and we lose our ability to discern what we should do at any given moment.
This happens in the physical world of the road, and in Traffic, Vanderbilt provides another great illustration (last one, I promise!), when he discusses the work of the late Hans Monderman, one of the world’s great traffic engineers:
If people have heard of Monderman, they tend to recall something about “the guy in the Netherlands who hated traffic signs.” But there is, in fact, one traffic sign that Monderman loved. It stands at the border of the small village of Makkinga, in Friesland. It announces a 30 kilometer per hour speed limit. Then, it says, welkom. Finally, it says: verkeers-bordvrij!! In English, this means, roughly, “Free of traffic signs.”
A traffic sign announcing the lack of traffic signs is a good joke, but it’s also a perfect symbol of Monderman’s philosophy. The sign itself is superfluous, for a driver can see that there are no traffic signs in Makkinga. After all, Monderman pointed out, what do traffic signs actually tell us? One day, driving through Friesland in his Volvo, Monderman gestured toward a sign, just before a bridge, that showed a symbol of a bridge. “Do you really think that no one would perceive there is a bridge over there?” he asked. “Why explain it? How foolish are we in always telling people how to behave. When you treat people like idiots, they’ll behave like that.”
Monderman’s methods were so bold that his premise was sometimes misunderstood.
It’s not that rules are bad, but rather, it’s better to promote a broader rule like “be considerate of others on the road” rather than a bunch of smaller directives posted on signs like, “turn here,” “slow down here,” “watch for pedestrians,” “yield to bikers,” etc. None of those instructions are bad, but taken as an aggregate whole, they do more harm than good. It’s much better, then, to go by the spirit of the law. “For the letter kills,” as Paul says, “but the Spirit gives life.”
Jesus espoused a similar principle when He was challenged by the local authorities of his day, as recorded in Matthew 22:
Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:
“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hand on these two commandments.”
Here we see a similar idea. According to Jesus, all of the Ten Commandments, as well as the thousands of rabbinical commandments that had been built upon them, can be summed up in two very simple ideas.
(Along with being a profound truth, this passage is proof that Steve Jobs did not come up with the simpler-is-better ethos.)
The biggest difference, though, between Monderman’s vision and Christ’s commandment was that Monderman put his faith in the goodness and intelligence of man, whereas Jesus made it abundantly clear that God is to be the source of all that is good, authoritative, or trustworthy.
This is where the Spirit-gives-life part comes in.
Giant Rubber Skis? No Thanks.
As a frequent driver along the I-5 corridor between Portland and Seattle, I like to think I have a pretty good handle on the spirit behind all of the traffic laws, and I do my best to stay on top of the little things that enhance the overall usability of the road. I signal when I change lanes. I slow down for construction workers. I leave a lane of clearance if there is an officer conducting a traffic stop on the shoulder. (And thanks to Tom Vanderbilt, I no longer feel bad about being a late merger.)
These things I do because I Generally Try to Do the Right Thing.
Yet, sometimes my instincts fail me. Why? Because I am a fallible human being. To expect otherwise would be foolish.
The good news for me, though, is that I don’t have to rely solely on my instincts. I can listen to the Holy Spirit, because as a Christian I know that the Holy Spirit dwells inside me, 24 hours a day. (Like OnStar, but without the overbearing commercials.)
Thing is, though, I’ve been a Christian for a long time, and yet I still occasionally have a hard time discerning the difference between my instincts talking and the Holy Spirit talking.
Sometimes I don’t find out which until much later.
Which brings me back to that ill-fated journey up toward Seattle for a presentation I was supposed to do last week. It had been raining and windy all day, and I wanted to leave around noon so that I could still make it to my destination before dark.
But, true to form, I was running behind on my packing and other stuff I wanted to take care of before I left. Pretty soon, my noon departure turned to 1:30, and then 2:00, all the while I still had plenty to get done. At this point, I had a decision to make.
I could:
A) cut my losses and leave, still making it into Seattle before dark, or
B) stay and finish what I started, but not leave until closer to 5pm, driving almost completely in the dark and hopefully making it there by 8pm (my presentation wasn’t until morning).
Normally my choice would be A, because I generally try to be as safe as possible on the road, and every bit of daylight helps. But I promised my wife I would tidy up the living room and take care of some of the dishes I had left in the sink from days prior. So for once, I took the nobler path, and hoped for the best.
Fast forward to mile marker 68… it’s pitch black, raining cats and dogs, and through the blurred visage of my windshield I see a sea of red.
Brake lights.
Briefly, I shudder.
Another accident? Geez… we’ve all been driving too fast in the rain. Slowing down will help us all.
As I got closer, I could see the road flares, the orange cones, and the emergency vehicles that normally mean an accident has taken place. The only thing I couldn’t see was wreckage. And then I noticed.
Waitaminute… ALL the lanes are closed? What the… ?!?
I had no choice but to follow the stream of traffic off of the freeway, where I learned of the flooding and road closure from a convenience store clerk who had her hands full trying to explain the situation to dozens of irritated motorists. (“I guess we’ll just have to party here tonight,” she said. “We’ve already got the snacks!”)
My first response was disbelief, because I had never seen an interstate close because of rain. Snow and ice, sure, but rain?
My second response was frustration, because I knew if I would’ve just left the house sooner, I would’ve made it through with no problem. Choosing option B ended up with me missing my presentation. That part sucked.
My third response came while I was driving back to Portland, and it was a mild sense of relief. Just because I could’ve made it before the roads were closed doesn’t mean something bad wouldn’t have happened to me on the way. I thought back to a comment I heard a Drivers Ed instructor make when I was in high school:
“It only takes an inch of standing water for a car to hydroplane, which is fancy word for waterskiing without a boat.”
I’d never been waterskiing before, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t want to try that way.
But my fourth response happened the next day, after I told Holly that I felt a little bit guilty because I know I could’ve left earlier and still made my appointment.
“Yeah, that’s true,” she said. “But then you’d still be stuck there.”
She was right. The interstate was closed for three days, and I had another three-day journey due the following week. If I would’ve left when I planned to, I would’ve spent eight days away from home.
It was at that point that I realized… picking option B wasn’t just my instinct.
It was the Holy Spirit.
What Does This All Mean?
Sometimes rules can be helpful, but sometimes they’re not. What’s more, we need more than rules to live by. We need understanding. We need relationships with one another. Most importantly, we need a relationship with God.
I recommend Traffic, but what I recommend more than reading it is embracing the conviction that precipitated its existence – the need to examine one’s self and surroundings. I’m convinced that nothing innovative, revolutionary or legendary ever happened without someone asking the questions, “why are things the way they are?” and “is there a better way?”
Finally, I offer an addendum to a time-honored axiom.
My mother-in-law used to tell my wife Holly when she was little that couples who are thinking of getting married should first be forced to tile a bathroom together.
In our first year of marriage, we never had to tile a bathroom together, but we did move across the country, taking a few days to drive from Chicago to Portland. So I offer the multiple-day road trip as a worthy substitute trial.
Because trust me… you haven’t seen how a person really lives, until you’ve seen how they drive.
I’m Jelani Greenidge, and thanks for Mixin’ It Up with me.
For Those Who Must Drink Coffee in Church
December 31st, 2008
I know that a few of you will be in church services this evening, because many churches hold New Year’s Eve services. And because it’ll be an obviously late evening, many of you will probably do something you normally do when you come to church — bring coffee.
With that in mind, I offer a parody of one of my favorite songs, Kirk Franklin’s “My Life Is In Your Hands.” Here’s a rendition on Youtube if you’ve never heard it.
Like many parodies, it’s actually much funnier if you actually sing it. If I had more time at my disposal, I would record it myself and send it around. (One of these days I may do just that.) Until then, those of you with taste for satire, feel free to actually sing it on your own, out loud even.
By the way, I wrote this parody over a year ago, and I’m realizing now that I was in a much darker place than I thought. Writing this was a form of stress relief, methinks. When I shared it with my wife, she didn’t find it as funny as I did — probably because she drinks coffee and I don’t.
To each their own, I guess.
My Latte’s In My Hand(sung to the tune of Kirk Franklin’s “My Life Is In Your Hands”)
I don’t have to worry
I don’t have to be afraid
The lines are short at Starbucks
And the coffee is Fair TradeSee, every Sunday morning
This routine is what I do
I can only sing with one hand
Cause really praising Him takes twoOh, I hope the church will make it
I hope it’s in God’s plan
But no matter what may come my way
My latte’s in my handI used to go to small group;
But it took up all my time
We studied from a workbook
And I kept forgetting mineNow my ministry is different
Now consuming is enough
And I find my inspiration
From the quotations on the cupOh, I hope the church will make it
I hope it’s in God’s plan
But no matter what may come my way
My latte’s in my handWithout it I feel naked
And in a year, I’ll spend three grand
But no matter what may come my way
My latte’s in my handSome people don’t drink coffee
That’s a promise I can’t make
If I don’t have my latte,
Then I cannot stay awakeCause I used to get in trouble
When I fell asleep alot
But all I need to hear the Spirit,
Is a couple extra shotsI hope the church will make it
I hope it’s in God’s plan
But no matter what may come my way,
My latte’s in my handIf there’s a need, let pastor take it
He seems like a good man
But no matter what my come my way
My latte’s in my handI hope the church will make it
I hope it’s in God’s plan
But no matter what may come my way,
My latte’s in my handI still might send an offering
To that mission in Sudan
But no matter what may come my way
My latte’s in my hand
Let the church say amen. And if you can’t say amen, say ‘ouch.’
The Seven Pound Blues
December 29th, 2008
In the neo-beatnik classic Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller extols the virtues of the titular great American music (I’m referring to jazz itself, for those who don’t know what titular means) by saying that it, like life, doesn’t resolve.
I’m curious, then, about what he would feel about the latest Will Smith vehicle, Seven Pounds, for many of its qualities share a commonality with jazz. It’s mysterious, beautiful, enigmatic.
And it, too, refuses to resolve.
Which isn’t to say that the film doesn’t come to a conclusion, because it does. And it’s not that this conclusion isn’t believable or emotionally satisfying, because on many levels, it’s stunningly, breathtakingly beautiful. It’s just that, well, it doesn’t pass the reality test. You know, the that’s-just-not-how-real-life-works test. Will Smith’s character makes a choice that is well intentioned, but ultimately misguided. The film works, sort of, but only because what’s happening is onscreen.
I dare not reveal much else, because the effectiveness of director Gabriele Muccino’s storytelling is rooted in not giving the audience too much to work with on the front end. Eventually, the viewer is tossed morsels of plot, one at a time, until the protagonist’s journey begins to finally make some sense.
It’s the journey, of course, that makes the film so compelling. In Seven Pounds, Smith’s IRS agent Ben Thomas is bent on executing a plan with unflinching determination. In a great display of emotional range, he is alternately ruthless and sympathetic, someone who can punish wrongdoers yet still be drawn to beauty and wonder. Those two qualities are epitomized in spades by love interest Emily Posa (Rosario Dawson), whose unexpected vulnerability sparks a bond between the two.
One of the pivotal scenes in the film comes when this bond is still in its initial stage. (Minor spoiler!) After Ben has done his best to engender trust and favor from Emily by serving her and generally becoming her friend, she asks him a few probing questions, and he recoils. “That’s not part of the deal,” he says. This angers Emily, who retreats into her own shell as a result.
This exchange illustrates the problem Ben faces in his attempt at redemption. Ben wants to help others, but only on his own terms. His refusal to alter his plan short-circuits his desire for relationship and connectedness. In a way, one could say that Ben is playing God. Like all others, his attempts are well-meaning, but futile.
The pain of a life-threatening situation like Ben’s makes his adamant, steely-eyed resolve toward redemption sympathetic, but ultimately the finality of his choice forfeits the moral high ground that the film works so hard to establish. As such, the screenwriter shoots himself in the metaphorical foot. By placing the protagonist on such a rigid collision-course with his fate, the ending sabotaged all of the audience’s built-up goodwill.
If film theory analysis isn’t your thing, I’ll put it this way: I know what it’s like to be stung by the pain of regret that drives you to make things right, but I guarantee you, if I made the same choices as Ben Thomas, my story would NOT end up being memorialized in a theatrical tearjerker.
Thus, it doesn’t ring true. And no, it doesn’t resolve, at least not in my book.
But that doesn’t mean it’s not enjoyable. Smith and Dawson are both in fine form, and their on-screen romance is touching and visceral. It’s too bad they couldn’t have been in a real love story, or at least one that isn’t such a freaking downer. That this film comes so close to being really good is a testament to the chemistry between the two leads. Saying they carried the film would be an understatement on par with ‘These Detroit Lions are terrible’ or ‘the economy isn’t doing so well.’
By the way, if you’re like me and you finished watching it only to still be confused by the title, then you might want to brush up on your Shakespeare.
The Upside Down Kingdom Does Football
December 23rd, 2008
If you’re tired of giving the regular answer, and someone asks you what Christmas is about, you can tell them that sometimes it’s about football.
(And not the Charlie-Brown-and-Lucy kind either.)
Some people refer to Christianity as a backward religion, but I prefer to think of it more as an upside-down kingdom.
Obviously, I’m not the first person to coin such a phrase, but sometimes I think it just fits. Because, when you get right down to it, Christianity at its core tends to run counter against everything this world tends to stand for. And sometimes the contrast is downright startling.
Like, for example, this story, brought to the masses by Sports Illustrated’s ESPN’s Rick Reilly. I’m not usually one to prop up the work of a mass media juggernaut like ESPN, but in this case I think this story deserves all the hits it can get.
Suffice it to say, though, it won’t make everyone happy. I’m sure that Christopher Hitchens could read Reilly’s piece and think, those dumb Christians… they can’t even figure out which side they’re on. And in a way, he’d be right. Most of the time, we don’t.
But every once in awhile, we figure it out, and the results are priceless.
Don’t Just Do Something: Experiencing God In Snowpacalypse 2008
December 22nd, 2008
(My apologies to a commenter at Eugene Cho’s Beauty and Depravity, from whom I so judiciously ganked the term “snowpacalypse” … considering all the hysterics from Seattlites and Portlanders who aren’t used to a ton of snow, it just seemed perfect.)
First, I offer a passage from the latest edition of Experiencing God, a Bible study that I have recently embarked upon:
Don’t Just Do SomethingWe are a doing people. We always want to be doing something. Every now and then someone will exclaim, “Don’t just stand there; do something!”
In contrast, I think God is crying out to us, “Don’t just do something. Stand there! Enter a love relationship with Me. Get to know Me. Adjust your life to Me. let Me love you and reveal Myself through you to a watching world.” A time will come when doing will be called for, but we cannot skip the relationship. The relationship with God must come first.
Truer words have never been spoken or read, especially for me in this time.
Most of my heroes in the faith are men of action, people who identified injustice and were led by God to do something about it. People like my friend Kevin Bruursema, whose heart for God is the engine that turns his holy motor. (As an aside, doesn’t Holy Motor sound like a Christian metal band?)
I am reminded, by this Henry Blackaby passage, that action is always a byproduct of, rather than an avenue toward, relationship with God. And this truth has been made real to me in a very practical way.
Today is the eighth straight day of snow and subfreezing temperatures in the Portland area. I am not unfamiliar with such weather after spending eight years in Chicago, but this kind of heavy snowfall almost never happens in the urban centers of the Pacific Northwest.
This time of year, most of the conversation I have about weather usually consists of bragging about how people here don’t know how to operate in snow, how after an inch or two the whole city shuts down.
Only this time it’s not an exaggeration. After almost a foot of snow in the last 24 hours, the city really has shut down. And the most visceral part of that shutdown was that yesterday morning, we canceled church.
Yes, we canceled church. And we weren’t the only ones. Most of the churches in the area canceled service.
On a normal week that would actually be a relief for me, but this week it was particularly sad. See, yesterday was supposed to have been our big Christmas service. We had all kinds of special music planned, and a little pageant for the kids. It was going to be the highlight of the season.
Only, it never happened.
Yesterday, during a time of pensive contemplation, Holly mused that maybe this was God’s way of telling us we all need to slow down. Maybe He’s trying to humble us. She thought of James 4:13-15 (rendered by Eugene Peterson’s The Message):
And now I have a word for you who brashly announce, “Today—at the latest, tomorrow—we’re off to such and such a city for the year. We’re going to start a business and make a lot of money.” You don’t know the first thing about tomorrow. You’re nothing but a wisp of fog, catching a brief bit of sun before disappearing. Instead, make it a habit to say, “If the Master wills it and we’re still alive, we’ll do this or that.”
Even though service was canceled, I headed down to the church anyway, because I’m sorta stubborn like that, and I wanted to be there to greet anyone who didn’t get the word of our cancellation and trekked out in the snow anyway.
(Plus I wanted to have fun doing doughnuts in the church parking lot.)
While I was there, I had a lot of time to think.
So much of what I’ve been trying to do for God has been so fruitless. My motive has been good, but I’ve just gotten into the habit of hunkering down, squaring my shoulders, and soldiering on in the work of the Lord. Preparing music, scheduling rehearsals, sending emails, making phone calls, following through on action items, et cetera, et cetera.
As our church has gone through so much drama and decline, I think I was partially motivated by the desire to provide a seasonal respite from the neverending church drama. No matter how bad it gets for our church, went my thinking, the least we can do is do Christmas right.
But in the end, my specially-arranged Christmas music (including a hip-hop rendition of “Hark the Herald Angels Sing”) was no match for a foot of snow blanketing the metro area. Apparently, God had other plans.
One of the best things about twelve inches of snow (and still falling!) is that the monumental effort required to go anywhere provides a disincentive for running errands and scurrying about. Weather like this beckons us to just sit, and be calm, be thankful, behold the beauty… to just be.
This, I am stubbornly and painfully learning, is where God wants me right now.
So despite my pride at finally putting chains on my Pontiac for the first time, I will resist the urge to go out just because I’m not afraid of driving in the snow. I will be satisfied with loving my wife and taking some time for introspection. I will learn my lesson and be grateful for the humbling experiences God has blessed me with.
I will sit and be.
And I will experience God in the process.
I’m Jelani Greenidge, and thanks for Mixin’ It Up with me.