Urbana.org Least of These Blog - Least of These

The Safe Display of the Rare and the Strange

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 18:22:00 -0600

A circus came through town

Among the feats of fantastical danger and the acrobatical, body-bending wonders

Beyond the animals, dizzying themselves with their caged pacing

and past the stand selling roasted peanuts and hard striped candy

was a tent boasting the rare and the strange within

and for fifty cents you could see it all.

The rare and the strange

on display

so we can gawk in safety.

Inside were little tarpaulin rooms

marked by words begging wondrous stares to peer behind the curtains

“Amazing! Man with two heads,” read one placard

Past the curtain sat a man with a round hairy growth on his neck

and when he moved, the thing on his neck rolled from one side to the next

like a drunk unable to keep his head upright

drawing the attention of onlookers who love to see

the rare and the strange

on display

so we can gawk in safety.

Across from the two-headed man

another sign seduced the crowd,

“Captured from the Amazon – half monkey half woman!”

Past the curtain was a glass coffin

and the people who gathered looked on in bemused horror

The thing inside was dead, covered in hair

And one couldn’t really tell if it were man or woman

Still, the sight did not disappoint the morbidly curious

who’d come to see

the rare and the strange

on display

so we can gawk in safety.

Next to this room was another sign

“Unbelievable power!

The Greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven!”

We looked expecting to see a preacher who fills stadiums

or the bones of a saint

Behind the curtain was a little girl of seven or eight

dressed in a tattered, dirty white dress with puffy sleeves.

She was black as Iowa dirt, and shuffled on a clubbed foot.

She looked up from the rags and rubbish she sorted with innocence and excitement

Peering at those who had come to see

the rare and the strange

on display

so we can gawk in safety.

I. Poverty: Not in Creation

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 03:20:00 -0600

“And God said, ‘Let humankind produce unlivable poverty.’ And it was so. Great shanty towns multiplied on the face of the earth, in gullies and ditches and in every place where man chose to live. A few lived in great affluence while the majority lived in great desperation, selling their daughters into prostitution so that their families could eat or buy drugs. And there was evening and there was morning, the eighth day.”

Of course these words are not in the account of creation. Poverty was utterly absent from creation, and some readers, I am certain, will be very upset at the above rendering in Biblical language suggesting that God created poverty. Maybe even more upset than they are at the physical existence and reality of poverty today in God’s good creation.

Didn’t Jesus say that “the poor you will always have with you?” Isn’t this a statement of resignation to the fact that poverty will always be around, so, oh well, we may as well make the best of things? I’ll treat that question in another blog. Let us agree for now that God did not design creation with poverty in mind. He did not intend for humanity to experience homelessness and starvation. Nor did he create the cosmos with the idea that millions families would barely subsist, living off of the refuse of others, dying by the scores for lack of basic needs, while a few lived in luxury. Poverty was not made for creation, God never intended it. It is an invader on this earth and an abomination to the Creator. If the first paragraph of this blog is ridiculous and sickening to us, so must the existence poverty be to us.

“God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.” Genesis 1:31

Everything the creation accounts tell us is that God created abundantly, holding nothing back. Besides the oft repeated, “And God saw that it was good,” amplified at the end of creation with the words “very good,” there is the frequent repetition of the expression, “of every kind.” There was a lot of teeming and swarming going on in creation. The variety and fruitfulness of all God had made is striking. So what went wrong? How is it that on such an abundant and fruitful planet we have become impoverished?

The answer to that question is longer than a 500 word blog treatment can begin to address. I will only say that in the Original Great Commission (Gen. 1:28) it appears that God endowed the human race with the ability to “replenish” the earth, or as some translations put it “fill the earth.” We were also commissioned to “subdue” the earth. My understanding of this almost militaristic Hebrew word is that we have been equipped to bring every thing that does not belong in creation under control. Finally we are to “have dominion over” or to govern this good creation. Humans have been given God’s authority to replenish what is diminished, to subdue what is out of order, and govern what is good. We were the only thing in creation made in his image, and with his image comes his authority to rule as co-sovereigns with God, using the wisdom, compassion and creativity passed along to us in our likeness to him. Can we not, then, take up this commission and subdue poverty? More on this later.

Che vs Mr Rogers

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 03:00:00 -0600

Who Would You Rather Follow?

I don’t know about you, but it would certainly be a whole lot more exciting to follow Che Guevara into battle for the rights of the poor, than to follow Fred Rogers into the land of Make Believe to chat with Daniel Lion. And there has been a certain corrective underway in our understanding of Jesus, moving his visage more toward the picture of Che and away from the picture of Mr. Rogers. I, myself have voiced that Jesus was more like the revolutionary leader than the docile children’s program host. But I am re-thinking my perspective.

There is certainly something about following Jesus which gets a person in trouble. Jesus was executed by religious and State authorities because he was a threat to those in power. His kingdom operates on principles which place the poor and marginalized in seats of honor. The powerful (religiously powerful, politically powerful or financially powerful) are often on the outside of this “good news to the poor” kingdom. Anyone attempting to bring Jesus' kingdom will get into the same kind of trouble Jesus did from the power-holders who get displaced by the gospel of the kingdom. Jesus promised it would be so. “Do you remember what I told you? ‘A slave is not greater than the master.’ Since they persecuted me, naturally they will persecute you.” John 15:20 (NLT). The kingdom brought by Jesus will be inherited by the meek, and the power transfer from the strong to the meek will not take place without resistance.

Although Che was rightly disturbed at the treatment of the poor, and dreamed of a world where the marginalized were given voice, he was anything but meek. He was notorious for his disciplinarian tactics, shooting defectors for abandoning his ideals. He was pleased to incite violent revolution to obtain his goals. Mr. Rogers, on the other hand, is most at home sitting on the floor playing Chutes and Ladders with a six year old. And I am pretty sure this is more descriptive of Jesus than shooting defectors. In fact, when his disciples were warring about who would be greatest, he brought a little boy or girl and had the child stand among them. "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me." Matthew 18:3-5 (NRSV).

The kind of revolution Jesus is inciting will more likely call me to drop my career in order to care for an invalid than to “take out” a banker, CEO or political leader. Following Jesus, I mean really following him no matter what, is going to “take out” my ego before it will turn me into a hit man.

It is precisely in this downward journey of coming alongside the dispossessed that can be so threatening to those who dispossessed the outcast and the disregarded people of our world. But we don’t forsake upward mobility, fame, money, etc. to be threatening, we do it because Jesus said to even gain entrance into his kingdom we’ve got to become like children. While I chafe at Mr. Rodger’s “here-comes-Trolley” harmlessness and am drawn to the cry “CHARGE!” issued by revolutionaries, the truth is that if the meek are to inherit the earth we’re more likely to be near the center of kingdom power by getting down on the floor with Mr. Rogers than loading our weapons with Che.

Hopscotch anyone?

Least of These

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 02:59:00 -0600

God is Shuffling Along
He didn’t lift his feet, he slid them, as if skating on the concrete sidewalk.
Maybe he was old, but I couldn’t tell because he looked like a cave man, and it’s hard to read a cave man’s age.
Eyes looked out from sunken pools in his head, down at the ground where he shuffled.
And wild, long hair stuck out from all directions on his head. Some of it was matted.
I don’t know if he had lips. His beard had crept up his cheekbones almost to his eyes and crawled back down his face, past his neck, until it disappeared into his ragged coat.
From behind the wildness he mumbled.
I think he must have been saying, “Someone help me. God is in here somewhere, but no one can’t find him no more ‘cause he’s all crusted over and hid.”

God is Running Scared
Something was chasing him from up in the sky. Demons I guess.
He ran with a look of terror, and I thought in this heat that can’t be healthy because he’s old.
He was panting and sweating and grunting in terror.
He tripped, lost his balance and touched the ground with his hand. He didn’t fall, just stumbled and kept running.
Good thing, because I’ll bet those things in the sky chasing him might have caught up to him.
When he ran past I looked up to see what was terrifying him, trying to run him down so mercilessly.
Just blue skies. ‘Cept maybe those things from his memory. Demons from some war. Vietnam? Korea? Boyhood abuse?
I don’t know. But they had him running scared.He was too scared to talk, but I think he probably would have said, “Someone help me. God’s prints ha’ been swallowed up by all this fright and that terrible thing what happened to me long ago.”

Jesus Likes the Big Mac Value Meal
I once prayed walking to the McDonald’s in Santa Monica, “Jesus, I’d like to have supper with you.”
I stepped up to the counter to order and I saw him.
He was really skinny and ragged, but he did have that long hair, beard and mustache I had always imagined. Though I never imagined the body odor.
He was ordering just a cup of water.
“Would you like something other than water?” I asked.
“Sure.” He said. “I’ll have a Big Mac Value Meal. It’s number one.”
I knew this guy was Jesus because when we sat down to eat together he said right away, “You know, I’m sorta like Jesus. ‘The foxes have holes and the birds have nests but the Son of Man has no where to lay his head.”
I smiled.
“I have schizophrenia” he said, which is something I never knew about Jesus.
After dinner we tried to find him help, but it’s hard to help someone like that.
He’s alienated himself from everybody because he gets spooked by people easily.
“You can’t get close enough to see Jesus in me.” He says as he slips away, throwing me a suspicious glance. “He’s hidden here, and I don’t want no one to steal him.”

Then they also will answer, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you mentally ill and shuffling or scared or hungry, and did not take care of you?'
Matthew 25:45 (NRSV)

Then he will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.'

Eating Alongside the Poor for Lent

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 03:05:00 -0600

Lent for me has become a chance to hunger and thirst for God’s kingdom to come more fully in my life and in the world. I want to hunger for Easter, to hunger for resurrection, and to hunger for the dawning of God’s good-news-to-the-poor kingdom in me and through me. This Lent I want to invite you to join me in 44 days of eating with the poor.

Food is pretty amazing. I love it. It excites all five senses (OK, maybe the hearing sense only when cooking or when you eat with your mouth open). Jesus did a lot of eating in the gospels. In fact food or feasting is pretty central to all of Scripture. Something about it connects with our emotions. Not more than a few waking hours can go by before our bodies and minds turn to the topic of food. Maybe that’s why fasting is such a critical spiritual discipline.

The idea of eating the simple fare of the poor around the world during Lent is an attempt to identify with Christ’s longing for those who are poor. It is a quest to be in touch with the frailty of our own humanity. The hungry poor are mostly distant to me, but they are not distant to Jesus. Eating what the poor eat draws me into a kind of relationship with them ... and with Christ who ushers in a kingdom which favors those at the bottom of the human food chain.

I’ve tried to represent what the poor eat in six different places for the six weeks of Lent. Eat only a couple of meals per day without snacks and eat the same food all week. Pray through your hunger pangs. Ask God to make you hungry for his kingdom come among the poor and ask him to provide for the needs of those who suffer hunger. Celebrate the beauty of spices – don’t overdo it - but use creativity in spicing your food. Remember that even among the poor there is flavor.

You will likely be saving about $5 per day or more on food. Consider giving that $200 savings over the 40 days of Lent to an organization committed to feeding the hungry. If you want to simplify your Lenten experience, choose only to eat simple rice or bean dishes throughout Lent.

Ash Wednesday through Week 1 (February 25 – March 7)
Kolkata, India
Make up a good sized batch of rice and dal (or lentils) for the week. Take whatever you would consider a single serving of vegetables and make it last for four meals. For a treat, have a little fish once or twice this week or perhaps a banana on the side. Be sure and eat with your fingers. Then, check out some stories of hope in Kolkata.

Week 2 (March 8 – March 14)
San Francisco, USA
I plan to eat only what my family leaves on their plates at the end of a meal. Serve at a shelter this week then stop to have a meal with someone you serve. Here’s a recent article on homelessness in San Francisco. And take a look at this video some friends from 2100 productions put together on the poor in SF. If you live in a town with a homeless population, then for one meal eat two items from the dollar menu at a fast food restaurant where the homeless in your town eat.

Week 3 (March 15 – March 21)
Guatemala City, Guatemala
About 50% of kids under 5 in Guatemala are chronically under nourished. Here’s what the World Food Programme has to say about Guatemala. If you want breakfast, have only some watery oatmeal with ¼ of a sliced banana and a bit of sugar. For lunch or dinner have a half cup of rice or potatoes and plenty of tortillas. Once or twice this week have a little chicken and some broth.

Week 4 (March 22 – March 28)
Nairobi, Kenya
Check out the Kibera slum in Nairobi on www.theplaceswelive.com and read about hunger in Kenya here. This week eat red beans perhaps with some corn or rice or vegetables mixed in.

Week 5 (March 29 – April 4)
Cairo, Egypt
Meals for the poor in Cairo center around filling up on bread (flat round loaves—similar to pitas that you can find in America), and when bread becomes unavailable people get angry (see an article about last year’s riots here). This week eat bread, fuul (mashed fava beans with oil and salt, similar in taste to Mexican refried beans), a small salad of onion, tomato and cucumber, and tea with lots of sugar.

Week 6 (April 5 – April 11)
Moscow, Russia
For your meals this week use Cream-of-Wheat as a substitute for the Russian staple among the poor – Kasha. Have this with some bread and boiled potatoes. Make a simple broth with carrots, onions and beets. Read about the growing gap between rich and poor in Russia here.

Thank You Note to a Child Laborer

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 00:11:00 -0600

Dear Bopha:

These are tough financial times, and working for $2 per day to help provide for your family is also really helping us here in the west. I thought I should write a quick note of thanks.

First some good news: Gas prices are lower. For a while it was getting scary. I was afraid I would have to sell my SUV! That would have been hard on us (it would have taken days to clean all the stuff out the back). Now that oil prices have gone down, your mom should be able to buy the ½ cup of cooking oil you’ve been doing without for so long. This means she will be able to cook a meal every once in a while for your family. Cheap oil is a great blessing to us all, isn’t it? You can cook, and I can continue driving at 15 miles per gallon.

I know the amount you’ve been getting paid has been dropping like a stone lately. This stupid credit crunch is freezing everyone up from buying things right now. I guess part of the problem is debt. I should know. I have four credit cards maxed to the limit. Plasma TVs are really expensive here – it’s unbelievable how much they want for a 50” screen! Since I didn’t want to put more on my credit cards, I was forced to take out a second mortgage on my home so I could buy the boat. This was unavoidable. Although we can only use it only a few months out of the year here in Wisconsin it was something my family felt we really could not do without. As you look at the attached photo I think you will see why. Isn’t it beautiful?

So anywho, all this borrowing seems to have played a role in freezing money up in a serious way. Therefore, it is all the more important that you keep working twelve hour days for so little. We are all doing what we can. I realize the cost of rice has risen above your ability to pay. But let me tell you, my family and I are standing in solidarity with you. You will be glad to know that I have started buying the cheaper coffee to cut down on our grocery bill. This is sort of funny in a way because I’ve had to stop buying fairly traded stuff. The bright side is that this should help your friends, as I know their employers do not believe in fair trade.

The really scary part is that the money I had invested in emerging markets like Darfur is now only worth half of what it was last year at this time. Believe you me … you are fortunate your family has no savings.

So, I thought I’d write this little note encouraging you to keep working so I can get some good stuff for Christmas this year.

Gratefully,
Your Friend in America

P.S. Sorry to hear about your sister being sold into the brothel, but it’s wonderful that your mom can now get the medicine she needs. Once she starts working again and your dad stops drinking, your situation could really start looking up.

Set Apart

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 16:49:00 -0600

Adjo is 11 years old and tries hard to look sexy in her black mini-skirt and skin-tight blue swimsuit top. She said over a drink in a bar filled with cigarette smoke and drug dealers lurking in the background that she likes foreign customers best. They pay better and treat her better than Togolese men.

"The Ghanaians, the Ibos from Nigeria, the Senegalese and the other foreigners pay 5,000 CFA (US$10) and sometimes with a bit of luck they'll pay 10,000 CFA (US$20) - and despite that they treat us well," Adjo said. "The Togolese maybe give us 1000 or 1500 CFA (US$2 or $3) and then want to rape us violently. They often hurt and insult us," the small girl said, visibly upset as she recalled such unpleasant memories. (from http://cozay.com/ONE-HEART.php)

Good statistics on kids forced into prostitution are difficult to come by. Conservative estimates say that there are a million children in prostitution in Asia alone. And the biggest source of fuel keeping the sex industry humming along is the same kind of fuel that keeps things like terrorism, child labor, gangs and a hundred other social tragedies running: Poverty. If you are a child and living on the streets, there is an unbelievable gravitational pull into the sex industry. It is so, so easy to get drawn into prostitution as a poor child and so, so difficult to get out.

I try to imagine my eleven year old daughter stuck in the place in which Adjo is trapped. Adjo was abandoned. She does not have a Dad who will become outraged for her plight and fight for her. She doesn't have a big brother or sister to advocate for her. She does have a woman she calls "mama," but she's the person bringing Adjo customers (beating her if she doesn't bring in enough money). This life is normal for Adjo, and to rescue her into some other kind of existence will take fighting off her customers, fighting off her "mama," fighting off the desperate poverty she lives in, probably engaging in intense spiritual warfare, and even fighting with Adjo herself who has learned not to trust adults. In a way you could say that Adjo is set apart - insulated from any real help. She is mired in circumstances that will rob her of childhood, enslave her to the passions of those more powerful than her, and destroy any healthy sense of God, self, or community.

What does it take reach into Adjo's set-apart nightmarish existence and bring her into a place of health and hope? It will take someone willing to be set apart themselves. Someone like Jesus willing to leave what is comfortable and become immersed in life with those who live in brothels. Imagine the cost for those of us who live in cocoons of comfort to relocate so that we might have day to day interaction with those trapped in the poverty of prostitution. It would take something like a vow. Such a person would have to endure a certain amount of poverty themselves just to be in that place with Adjo and others day in and day out. It might require an ability to learn languages, discern and engage the spiritual realities surrounding the industry, and build relationships of trust with those who have lost the ability to trust.

Where have we provided the structure and challenge for people to make the kind of vows necessary to enter such desperate realities? We need those who will live a set apart life. We are able to mobilize and train untold numbers of dedicated young people to set themselves apart and risk their lives for war. Can we not call and equip a few who would be willing to set themselves apart to fight for Adjo?

On Becoming a Dictator

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 20:27:00 -0600

(Pictured above L to R: Derek Engdahl, Servant Partners, me, Craig Greenfield, Servants to Asia's Urban Poor, Tim Lockie, InnerCHANGE, Chris Heuertz, Word Made Flesh.)

I gather yearly with the heads of four agencies that place men and women alongside the poor in order to bring solidarity, hope, and the love of Jesus. When I told them about the "Leadership Schmeadership" book I'm writing, Craig Greenfield responded in his awesome kiwi accent, “That’s funny. You’re writing about a leadership-crazed culture, and I can’t find anyone willing to step up to the plate to really lead.” The others nodded in agreement. Despite the cult of leadership in the western church, very few of the “friars” in their fellowships aspire to lead in places where leadership was really needed. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that their missions tend to attract those who are content just to walk alongside prostitutes, street kids and slum dwellers. Two of the four have the word “servant” in the name of their organizations, why should they expect type-A personalities to sign up?

But then I began to think about how little real, unabashed leadership I run into. With the barrage of leadership material in our bookstores and the subject of so many conferences, why am I in so many poorly led meetings? Why does there seem to be so little order in our communities and in our churches – so little significant progress benefiting all, especially the “least of these?” If God gave humans the gift of power in order to protect the weak and advance the common good, and if leaders are installed to wield that power, then why is more than a third of our planet trapped in desperate poverty? Why are 165 million children as young as five years-old forced to work? Why are there ten year old prostitutes and thousands dying daily of stupid things like diarrhea, and untold tons of grain rotting in warehouses while people starve to death? It is because the world lacks mature leadership undergirded by thoughtful submission.

If the solution to releasing unapologetic and strong leadership were a good book or a conference, then the problem would have been solved decades ago. But the thing I find implicit in at least the existence of tens of thousands of leadership books, and sometimes explicit in their content, is that we all ought to be leaders. I disagree. I believe that in our lust to bring out the leader in everybody we may have robbed leadership from the few who really should possess it and undermined the calling of all of us to follow well. The problem is not that we have too few people leading, it’s that we have too many leading who do not have the gift of leadership and not enough people offering to submit.

Why not identify the few who actually have the gift, call them into authority, invest them with real power, and follow them with all our hearts?

The Slave Mindset

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 20:21:00 -0600

Paul uses the word slave (doulos) or servant (diakonos) in every one of his letters. He calls himself Christ's slave a number of times and a "slave to all" once. Mostly he's tapping into the idea of being a bond servant - someone who is deeply beholden to someone else.

The cornerstone of Paul’s teaching on servanthood really comes in his letter to the church at Philippi, where he says that our mindset ought to be like the mindset that Jesus had when he set aside his God-ship and took on the essence of a slave, humbling himself to the sort of execution endured by Spartacus and the other slaves who revolted. (Phil. 2:6-8). This "slave" mentality is not so much about debasing ourselves as it is about exalting others. Paul tells the Philippians not to act out of selfish ambition but to, “regard others as better than yourselves,” not in a morally superior sense, but in the sense of seeking your neighbor’s well-being above your own. He admits that we are to look after our own interests … just not exclusively, nor primarily.

Without destroying our sense of self, or ignoring the need for healthy boundaries, we need to look at those around us as those in Asian society view their elders, or as a good host views a guest – with preferential esteem.

Education is the killer here for me. At some deep place within me – deeper than my conscious self – I don't regard people with little education as better than me. I know it sounds awful, but it's the dreaded truth. The funny thing is that I'm not that well educated. I graduated high school with a 2.6 GPA for goodness sake and failed my first college math course!

Of course I am kind and attentive to people who don't have much education, hanging out with and listening to them. I can even wax eloquent about the difference between wisdom and education, lifting up those who have no formal education but great life experience and plenty of wisdom to offer. But to take a friend with a learning disability to the store in the mindset of a servant caring for a revered benefactor, that is something I have not mastered. There is a lurking paternalism which prevents me from adopting the mind of Christ when I help people who, say, can’t read, or don’t know where China is on a map. Nothing at all like the "same attitude of Christ" as described in Phil. 2.

When I talk with the mentally ill or the developmentally disabled, offering to pray with them, it is often with a subtle feeling that I am praying for somebody who is needier and less complete than me. I have no problem "regarding as better" my family members, or the elders in my church, or my colleagues at work. But when I serve somebody who can't put a coherent sentence together, I unconsciously feel I've performed some noble act of condescension.

This blasted intellectual elitism is an insidious obstacle, getting in the way of becoming like Christ. I have been called to the carpet by mentally ill friends before. “Why is it that you offer to pray for me? Is it that you feel you're better than me?” they have asked. “Why don’t you seek me out to pray for you?” It’s as if they can hear in my offer to pray, a faint note of superiority.

I suppose there is a certain amount of esteem involved in giving someone my time, attention, prayer, or physical strength. But if I am honest - to really “regard others as better than yourself,” in my heart, mind and soul - this is an area of deep struggle and profound failure.

The Danger of Comparison

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 15:50:00 -0600

The dissatisfaction that comes by comparison is the chief engine for materialism and consumerism. The computer you bought last year which was the most amazing piece of technology in the world is an embarrassment to it’s inventor next to the Macbook Air. Of course in about a year or less the Macbook Air will seem like a crude, technological piece of flint used by a primitive and uneducated Cro-Magnon geek in comparison to the techno-licious shiny thing that just came on the market. Following Jesus can, early on, feel exciting and radical … right up through the first costly sacrifice or the invitation to follow him into simplicity or even downright deprivation in the eyes of the world. Then you begin to look at friends, even other Christians, and you start to feel like a self-deprived prude, like you got a raw deal in comparison to your peers who seem to follow Jesus just fine and indulge things from which you feel called to abstain. Faithfulness and obedience to Jesus loses its “alternative lifestyle” charm pretty quickly.

Jesus could have compared himself to any earthly ruler (political or religious) and become immensely dissatisfied with how things were going for him. Caesar, Herod and the High Priest, Caiaphas, had radically different life circumstances than Jesus did. It could undermine his entire calling and destiny to compare himself with these men. “Hey Dad.” Jesus might have said, “there are some ladies around here showing interest in me, so I thought it’d be alright to, you know, get involved. I mean if Herod can take his brother’s wife, surely I can show people what a good monogamous relationship looks like, right? You know this whole itinerant business is getting lonely. Moses had a wife, right? All things are possible with you, so, if you don’t mind, there’s someone I’d like you to meet. And how about a home base? I would share it with others and all. I’m not even asking for a tenth of what Caesar has, just a little place by the sea with an upper room for guests. The disciples and I could fix it up – I am a carpenter you know. I would turn it into a training center and the first ever Christian leadership institute. And I could cut way, way down on travel time with just a few horses for me and the guys. I did create them – you remember, all things were made by me and for me. I’m not asking for any more than you’ve given the other spiritual authorities like Caiaphas and Annas.”

Comparison would have given Jesus justification for doing just about anything. But Jesus wasn’t going where Herod, Caesar or Caiaphas were going. He didn’t come to build the same kind of kingdom that they were building or to rule in the kinds of offices that they were entrusted to execute. If he compared himself with them, he could only hope to accomplish what they had accomplished. None of the other great leaders were taking on the sins of humanity.

Comparison between ministries that have a lot in common can be deadly too. John the Baptist’s disciples were highly disturbed that Jesus’ disciples were outbaptizing them. They must have read some of the “biggering” theories of ministry expansion, because Jesus was clearly siphoning people out of their ministry, devastating their annual plan numbers. Eventually John the Baptist was killed and his ministry dried up completely. Even Jesus’ disciples were concerned and threatened by someone who was not “one of them,” and was casting out demons in Jesus’ name (Mark 9:38). And though others compared Jesus to the great prophets (Matt. 6:14), it would have been unhelpful for him to do so. He had to trust the Father explicitly for his destiny, without measuring himself against prophets, kings or even angels (Heb. 1:5) in order to march headlong into a place of abandonment and crucifixion – something God had asked of no one else.

The same is true for you and me. The paths Jesus asks us to take are often not the paths he asks others to take. You can justify the avoidance of any task simply by finding the right saint and saying, “They never had to do this,” or you can do anything you want to do by looking at other noble, godly people and saying, “They got to do this.” But we are unique individuals, and he sometimes calls us to a long obedience in a unique direction.

The Economics of Repentance

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 03:06:00 -0600

When John the Baptist preached, people came out in droves to confess their sins and be baptized by him. It was a spiritual bath, a ceremonial cleansing accompanied by a profession of sorrow over sin. But John verbally attacked the penitents who came out to be baptized, accusing them of being self-serving snakes, slithering out of the grass as if fleeing an approaching brush fire.

“You brood of snakes! Who warned you to flee God’s coming wrath? Prove by the way you live that you have repented of your sins and turned to God.” Luke 3:7b-8a (NLT)

From John’s perspective, repentance had fruit; proof that there was genuine sorrow and a real turning to God. The fruit didn’t consist simply of confession and baptism; there was something more practical by which to measure repentance. So the crowds asked him what they should do. What would give evidence that they had really died to the old way of seeing the world and living life and been born completely anew and alive to God and his kingdom? To each group that asked John this question, he gave an economic response.

The crowds asked, “What should we do?” John replied, “If you have two shirts, give one to the poor. If you have food, share it with those who are hungry.” Even corrupt tax collectors came to be baptized and asked, “Teacher, what should we do?” He replied, “Collect no more taxes than the government requires.” “What should we do?” asked some soldiers. John replied, “Don’t extort money or make false accusations. And be content with your pay.” Luke 3:10-14 (NLT)

Repentance was not real if you hoarded clothes or ignored the cries of the hungry. If you were a tax collector, you could not really be penitent if you continued the common practice of adding a surcharge to people’s tax in order to line your pocket. Soldiers were notoriously underpaid, but they could not repent and continue to force people to give them money at the point of a spear. What’s more, they had to find contentment with their meager income. These are the things which would serve as sure sign that the people coming to confess their sins were serious about repentance. The proof is in the pudding – or in this case in the padding of their wallets.

The connection between repentance and finances shows up in the story of Zacchaeus and in the parable of the sheep and goats. I believe it can be read into the exchange between Jesus and the rich, young ruler and throughout the book of James. It makes me a bit nervous. Just what does my generosity and attitude about money reveal about my faith in God and my sorrow for sin? Do I display the fruit of repentance according to John the Baptist?

Incarnation

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 18:37:00 -0600

I’ve never really had any brushes with greatness. You know, the kind of thing where you bump into Jerry Seinfeld at a cash machine in New York. Once, however, I did sit next to a guy who was part of the sixties rock group, The Turtles. We were on a flight from Los Angeles to Detroit and struck up a conversation. The Turtle-man regaled me with stories of his days with Dick Clark’s Caravan of the Stars. He said it really messed with his head to be eighteen years old and touring the country with rock and roll superstars of the day. I guess being turned into a god overnight had some side-effects he hadn’t reckoned on. One of them was an inflated view of self, a problem that plagued him forty years later. In fact, as we got off the plane I realized we had spent hours talking almost exclusively about him.

Fame and power are the two most basic human instincts. They are, at their core, the desire to be known and the desire to be in control. There is a kind of adrenaline rush you get when someone you’ve never met knows you (unless it’s a stalking situation). Most of us like to see who’s checking us out on Facebook, right? We like to know who’s looking at our profile. I must have gotten dozens of the forward that says, “I could not believe it, when you press forward, you see the person who views your profile the most.” It makes us feel good to be sought out like that.

Power has a similar draw. I am sure Obama and McCain are great guys, but the motivation for political office can only be the desire to control the destinies of people and institutions – albeit with benevolent designs, but it will be their benevolent designs. The desire for advance into influential roles in a corporate empire, or any other institution, is the same. We want control.

Maybe it’s God’s design, the design to have dominion over the earth. But I discern in myself something else at work - original sin. That quest for ascendency is encoded in our DNA. “You will be like God – you’ll be on His level; all you have to do is eat this.” It was the lie that tripped up Adam and Eve. And if we are not careful, you and I will end up sacrificing everything in our quest for ascendancy.

We live in an environment where poisonous fumes of wealth and power are putting us to sleep and quietly killing us. These dangerous invisible gasses permeate our churches and homes and schools and work places. Its spiritual carbon monoxide and we don’t even notice it. That’s why I like spending time in the developing world. I am able to get a whiff of unpoisoned air and my spirit begins to detoxify. I am able to think clearly about life and God and others. I think 75% of American Evangelical youth leave the faith as soon as they leave home because they haven’t been given pure spiritual air to breathe, something that confronts the draw to bigger your bank account or bigger your house or bigger your job or your Facebook friend circle. The west has not been shown the beauty of downward mobility.

If ever there were a person who really could have rightfully exercised absolute power over planet earth it was Jesus Christ. The fact that Jesus humbled himself and submitted to those whom he created is a confounding mystery. Jesus could have entered humanity as a competent, independent, skilled adult. Instead he chose to submit to the messiness of human birth, infancy and childhood. He could have planted himself in the household of Caesar. Instead he chose to submit to poverty and obscurity, born of an unwed teenage peasant in an oppressed and forgotten corner of the Roman Empire. With mastery over nature Jesus could have assumed any profession, position, or office the world had to give. Instead, he chose to submit to years of labor in a “blue-collar” trade, growing up with either dust from cut stones in his lungs or wood shavings in his eyes. He also could have taken the world with a couple thousand legions of angels. Instead, he chose to submit to a few soldiers who stripped him naked, beat him publicly and then executed.

Jesus possessed the ultimate form of power, and submitted to the ultimate form of obedience. He modeled downward mobility, setting an example that we should follow “As the Father sent me, so send I you.” He said. For me it comes in a dozen little ways a week: In saying “no” to opportunities to speak and travel that might feed my upward hungry ego; in saying yes to spending time with people who will not make me famous or earn me money, those who won’t be able to repay me. These are my attempts to follow Christ into obscurity, poverty and incarnation.

Little Love Notes

Wed, 14 May 2008 12:19:00 -0600

I came home from work one evening recently to a note from Janine. All it said was, “Hi dear. We’re having spaghetti for dinner tonight. XOXO, Janine” I thought to myself, “That’s nice, Janine is preparing my appetite for dinner.” Then I began to open the mail. After about 20 minutes I noticed that it was getting on to nearly 6:00pm. It was then that the note began to look different to me. What if she was not telling me what we were having for dinner, but in fact asking me to make dinner? Should I start supper? What if she wants a specific recipe? What if she really wants to make it herself because she has a special love of making spaghetti? Slowly and tentatively, I began making spaghetti. As noodles began to boil, I vaguely recalled a discussion the night before about her running some errands and being home late and I felt a little better. Maybe I was on the right track.

I know Janine better than any other human being on earth. She is “flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone.” I have lived with her longer than I have lived with my parents or my siblings. In this instance, I happened to guess right. Dinner was ready just as she and the kids arrived back from an errand. I sat down to eat with my family, grateful that I acted with apprehension rather than been passive until I had clarity.

If this, the most intimate human relationship possible, is fraught with weekly miscommunication (and miscommunication just once a week either means we’ve had a great week of communication or I’ve been traveling and we’ve not had as much chance to talk), how is it that we expect the voice of God to always be clear and unmistakable before we act? This is the God who loves parables and stories and mystery. His thoughts are not our thoughts. We must live in the tension of hearing God’s voice about life and love and service, without always having complete clarity on his particular will for us in a particular matter. And so I find that action is almost always implied in his love notes.

“Dear Ones: My Kingdom is near and we’re having a great banquet. The poor and marginalized are my honored guests. Evil won’t be tolerated any more and justice will roll down like a river. It’ll be great. XOXO, Dad.”

So after years of looking at these promises of the coming Kingdom I slowly begin to act. There is some apprehension. What if God wants to do everything himself? Maybe he’s got a special recipe or way of making his Kingdom come. What if I mess up? Nonetheless, I think that acting with a bit of uncertainty is better than passively waiting for an angelic visit or out of the body experience.

Of Celibacy and Fatherhood

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 23:35:00 -0600

There is something about the monastic life that has drawn my curiosity, interest and affection for thirty years. I am currently reading, Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light. In it I find a kind of singularity of purpose and devotion which made Mother Teresa such a remarkable figure. In 1942 she took a secret vow “never to refuse God anything under pain of mortal sin.” It was this sober pledge which drove her to give herself to the destitute and dying to amazing extremes, and made her a world renowned example of humility and service. Hers was a beautiful and a severe oath, one that I in my Protestant, family-man mindset press toward, but cannot walk out to the extent that my brothers and sisters under vows of celibacy are able.

Author and blogger Carl McColman described to a Cistercian monk the communal aspects of the “new monasticism” cropping up among Evangelicals. “Are they celibate?” was the first question out of the monk’s mouth. For this Cistercian brother, celibacy is a watershed vow, distinct from any intentional religious community of non-celibates – no matter their commitment to other noble Christian practices. To join a community of men or women who have solemnly sworn never to marry in order to be singularly devoted to Christ, creates a dynamic not available in any other religious gathering.

Paul seems to reflect this to the Corinthians when he says, “I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord's affairs—how he can please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world—how he can please his wife— and his interests are divided.” (I Cor. 7:32-34). As a father and husband I can attest to the fact that there is a divided nature to my devotion. I cannot make even small decisions without giving at least some thought to its impact on my wife and kids. In some ways, I look enviously on the freedom to make the kind of vows Mother Teresa and others have made, without regard to the impact on spouse or child. This is not an excuse for half-hearted devotion on my part; it is simply a reality I face day in and day out.

Without diminishing one lick the respect and admiration I have for monks, nuns, friars and Catholic priests, there are aspects of the devoted life in marriage and parenting which require a grace that is not required of the celibate.

For instance, the few married persons I know who have undertaken week-long retreats of silence have done so in their late fifties after kids have moved out. For many monks and nuns, it is a regular part of the freedom and privilege of a celibate life. There is a burden of responsibility to spouse and child that comes with marriage, more intense than any other human relationship. And while it also comes with its share of joys, this burden chokes “self” like nothing else I know, and can produce real spiritual fruit.

I began this blog Sunday at 3pm and it is now 11pm, not because I am slow, but because I can only get a sentence or two down before caring for some child’s need. I have been “on-call” for seventeen years now, and expect this to be a reality for some time. There are fresh levels of pain and death that come with the pressure of being a husband and dad. The ability to hurt or to be hurt is powerfully unique in the husband-wife and the parent-child relationship. It has become for me a spiritual quest, a holy devotion, a vow-driven commitment to four people people that will not abate because of geography or time for the rest of my life.

When my personal desire for an unfettered chasing after Christ is seemingly hindered by my responsibility to Janine and my three children, I will leverage it as an act of worship with the focus and devotion of a monk.

A Theology of Sex, Food and Money

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 14:58:00 -0600

As Jesus-followers we are fairly obsessive about sexual aberrations. But what if going to the mall to buy something you really don’t need was just as offensive to God (or more so) than visiting a brothel. Jesus chided the Pharisees for straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel. What if at the end of all things we found out that sexual aberration was the gnat and materialism was the camel! Why is gluttony conveniently overlooked, while sexual activity is examined under our spiritual microscopes? There is grace without limit … dare I say … even a sweeping under the rug, for those in the Church who eat when they are not hungry simply for the shear pleasure of consuming something, or those for who buy what they don’t need just for the joy of owning something. But for sexual activity there is abundant scrutiny, careful measuring and compulsive concern.

The very first temptation faced by Jesus as recorded in the Scriptures was to turn stones into bread when he was legitimately hungry. Jesus refused to do it. It wasn’t that eating bread was selfish – Jesus ate and drank plenty in his life, even absolving his disciples when their eating broke Sabbath laws (Matt. 12:1-8) and laws about ceremonial cleanliness (Luke 7:1-23). Nor was it sin for Jesus to transform stones into bread, for shortly after this encounter, Jesus turned water into wine to bail out a party whose alcohol had dried up, and he multiplied bread and fish to feed a hungry crowd. His response to the Devil was that God’s word trumps our appetites, “Man shall not live on bread alone but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” Matt. 4:4.

I believe that heterosexual, monogamous, married sex is God’s perfect standard just as I believe that contentment with the simplicity of material sufficiency or eating what is good for our bodies only when we are hungry is God’s perfect standard. To step outside those things can be idolatrous and can create hardship for ourselves and others. Our natural tendency … you might even say our genetic wiring, calls us to eat and to buy and to have sex outside these confines. But just because we have a genetic predisposition to indulge appetites which are outside of God’s boundaries does not give us permission to satisfy them. His boundaries as laid out in his word are fair and generous even if our desires extend beyond them.

What about monogamous homosexuality? This is a form of sex within certain boundaries. But I suppose you could make that argument with monogamous adult-child sex, or monogamous human animal sex. We can’t pick and choose which boundaries we obey. One may have a genetic predisposition for same sex coupling just as one may have a genetic predisposition for polygamy or a genetic predisposition toward alcoholism or a genetic predisposition for overeating. We are all drawn by our appetites to enjoy things outside of what is good and just and healthy.

By suggesting that sexual aberration may be the gnat and materialism may be the camel, I am not advocating eating a bowl full of gnats. I am simply saying that the Church in America should be as concerned about the spiritually deadly impact of conspicuous consumption or overeating as she is about sex outside of monogamous, heterosexual marriage. Paul said that there was sickness in the church at Corinth because there was gluttony among some while others went hungry during the Lord’s supper (I Cor. 20-30). The prophet Isaiah decried the leaders of Israel saying, “the plunder of the poor is in your houses.” (Is. 3:14) and many times throughout Scripture judgment came to God’s people because of unfair treatment of those on the economic fringe.

Let us be vigilant in pursuing sexual holiness, yes. But let us also pursue uncompromising holiness in our treatment of the poor, unrelenting kindness to those on the margins, and diligent restraint in our appetites for all things outside the generous boundaries of our Maker.