The Land of Empty Houses

For those of you who aren't all that familiar with our new home town, there are large areas of abandoned housing, especially on the East side of the city. This is the area of Buffalo that is the most run-down, the poorest, and has problems with both drugs and violence. The West side also has some of these same problems, however, the West side doesn't have anywhere near as many abandoned houses, or empty lots left over from demolition.

We have been having a crazy time here these past months. As many of you now know, Sam and Dre have returned to Redding. We miss them still, but are glad that they are back with family and familiar settings. We also look forward to seeing you all in less than a month; we will be in Redding the end of August and the beginning of September!

We have been diving headlong into the relationships that we have established here and it has been a tremendous blessing. God has gathered a wonderful group of people. There are small business owners, college students, and street people; people of different ethnic groups, sexual orientations, and spiritual backgrounds; it makes for great conversation!

We continue to serve the local retirement home every Sunday morning. We show up and help serve coffee and snacks, spend time talking and listening, sometimes praying, with the residents, and then sing songs with the group. We have been serving in the kitchen at the City Mission monthly. At this point there have been a few people who have come and served along side us at these venues, but it seems that the church at large has yet to take ownership of this. Pray that God would spark people to serve the community and that we would be sensitive to that spark in people's hearts!

We have had some great Wednesday evening church 'services' in our living room. Most recently we tackled the topic of 'sexuality' which has been a hot topic as of late. We have a group that runs the gamit of sexual expression here and sex seems to be one of those topics of which our culture has little tolerance for what God has to say. We seem to have a group of people who are going to keep coming back no matter how many times they are told they must 'die to themselves;' this is very exiting! However, I believe that there is yet much that God wants to do in our community. Please pray that God would be speaking to people, calling them to drop everything and give their lives to Him!

We also have both a men's and a women's group that meet weekly to discuss a book. Both groups are seeing lively conversation, and this last week one of my co-workers showed up to the men's group. I was really encouraged by his response! We are looking into putting together a men's retreat with the Vineyard Church in Niagara Falls (about 20 minutes away), and I would appreciate your prayers toward this end.

I would love to entertain any of the questions you might have about what is going on here, feel free to post them or to email them to me...

...I will leave you with one last comment:

We have a young man who is struggling with what he believes about Jesus. He grew up in a very conservative Christian home but in the past few years has discovered homosexual desires within himself. He now is unsure of what he wants to live for. We have loved him for months now, and he is at our house several times a week (he is regularly at our Sunday morning outreach), but we have also had some very pointed heart-to-heart talks about what God says about healthy sexuality. The other night he told me that he thought we were doing church 'the right way' and that 'even though you don't agree with everything about me, you love me and accept me, you don't try and force me to be like you.' I was encouraged by what he had to say, and thought that you too would be encouraged to know that you have played a part in this young man's life.

I pray that you would have the privilege of helping those around you navigate this world, and that you would discover Jesus helping you as you do...

SEX Part III

Follow the title link to previous thoughts...

We laid out the arguments that our nature is spiritual and we should see it so to properly understand our sexuality, and that our spiritual nature is fundamentally skewed by our separation from God. We also shared how our own inner being (spirit, heart, will) can not be the source of anything good, as that source is twisted; the statement 'this is who I am' is not to be understood as implying 'this is who I should be.'

So now let us attempt to deal with sexuality itself, as we find it in our world, and describe it as it should be.

Our culture has very little to say about sexuality, other than to endorse any fleeting fancy we may have as a valid expression of sexual health. With very few exceptions, there are no restrictions placed upon sexuality by our culture. So long as your sexual expression is not done against the consent of those with whom you are expressing it, that sexual act is considered valid by our culture. Aside from rape, or sex with someone deemed incapable of giving consent (mentally incapacitated and minors) ...anything goes. Multiple partners, heterosexual, homosexual, group sex, premarital sex, pornography, fantasy, voyeurism, etc. No thought is given to the potential consequences of these sexual expressions, they are considered valid simply because they exist.

Standing over against this is the definition of sexuality that God gives us.*

God wants us to enjoy our sexuality! If you doubt this spend a few days browsing through Song of Songs. It is very erotic. The old, Victorian way of thinking about sex may have been 'Christian' in the sense that many Christians held it, but it was not Christian in the sense that it is foreign to the way the Bible speaks of sexuality. God created us as deeply sexual beings (as we have previously stated) but this sexuality has a proper function and a proper context.

Sexual connection between a man and a woman is intended to be part of a larger and deeper connection between them; the Bible speaks of them 'becoming one.' This oneness of a man and a woman in marriage is characterized in the (in)famous 'submission' passage in Ephesians 5. Paul speaks of marriage as a mutual submission of two individuals, each serving the other in a way that seeks their betterment, joy, and fulfillment. It is this context of mutual commitment, service, and deference that is the proper place for sexuality to be expressed.

As we earlier defined it, our spirit is essentially our 'will' or our 'heart' (it is the center of who we are, the non-physical part of us that is the essence of our person, the part that yearns, intends, chooses, and desires). For a husband and a wife to become spiritual 'one' is for the will, the heart, the spirit, of each spouse to permanently align with the others, and in this way we begin to see how sexuality mirrors, expresses, and develops what is essentially a spiritual reality in the life of the married couple.

To conclude, God's design for sexuality is much more holistic than that of the culture at large. Sexuality is not a tool to be used by a person to acheive certain goals, nor is it the whole defining characteristic of an individual, rather it is an interconnected aspect of the true central person (spirit). For this sexuality to be abstracted from it's larger spiritual context is to do damage to the individuals engaged in it. (As Paul says, "sexual sin is sin against your own body.") Sexuality is to be a part of a deeply commited relationship between two people who are continually growing in their physical, emotional, mental, social, and spiritual union. In this sense sex outside of marriage is really not even 'sex,' but only a cheap plastic version of the real thing. (Of course it is entirely possible for marriage to be a cheap plastic version of the reality as well, but that for another day...)

*I also want to briefly adress the issue of celibacy...

...we were created 'incomplete' but this doesn't mean that singleness is inherently wrong or bad, or even somehow inferior (1 Corinthians 7:1) but rather that the natural, healthy, sexual desire is a God-given aspect of humanity. There is nothing wrong with a woman or man remaining single and celibate for the duration of their time on earth; our deep spiritual/sexual union with a spouse does not have to be the only way we connect with humanity; many religious orders include vows of celibacy and those who undertake such vows sometimes speak of 'marrying' all of humanity. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7:32-35 those who are single are not distracted from the purposes of God in the world.

Submission to Authority

This is attached to some old thoughts ...follow the title link.

Why should we submit?

The first, and simplest, answer is obedience to the command of scripture:

Colossians 3:22-23 gives us a practical example of the difference between obedience and submission; the difference between obeying when the master is watching, and obeying with sincerity of heart.

Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to win their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men.

Ephesians 5:22-6:9 expands upon, and gives practical examples for, the simple statement of Ephesians 5:21, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Romans 13:1-7 also discusses submission and, in addition to simply commanding us to submit, teaches us that all authority is instituted by God, hence rebellion against authority is sin. This passage also links freedom causally to submission; we ought to submit for our own good! In our sinful, self-focused mindset we have been trained to believe that by submitting to others we are somehow robbed of our ‘Creator-endowed, inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’ Nothing could be further from the truth!

Why should we submit?

The second answer is …for our own benefit!

The Message paraphrases a famous passage in Galatians 5 that ties in to this causal link between submission and freedom. Self-focused grasping for our desires never produces good fruit. If we puff out our chests, put up our dukes, and fight for our rights, we lose out on the abundance of life in Christ. If instead we submit ourselves to the will of God for our lives we gain freedom; freedom from ego, freedom from fear, freedom from the ever-vigilant paranoia of self-protection. …and even more we gain Christ, His peace of mind, His effortless joy, His fathomless hope, and His otherworldly love.

Richard Foster, in Celebration of Discipline, makes the point that freedom is the result of discipline. Each spiritual discipline has a corresponding freedom; just as the discipline of practicing scales on a musical instrument directly correlates to the freedom to spontaneous musical talent, so the discipline of submission leads to freedom from self-focus and self-gratification. We submit, not for the sake of the one we submit to, but rather for our own sake.

In the beginning our parents were given one simple rule, had they but trusted God enough to submit to His desires, we would still be living in the effortless “cool of the garden;” enjoying God’s unbroken fellowship. God knew that mankind could not have the experiential knowledge of evil, and remain in fellowship with Him; He knew that it would bring us shame, and that it would cause us to hide from Him; submission was for our own good, not God’s.

Temple

This could very easily turn into something so much more than what I have the time to make it...

Jesus 'Attack' on the Temple

Jesus was not trying to reform Temple worship. He wasn't trying to rid spirituality of commercialism (the moneychangers were a requirement for worship, not a distraction from it) nor was he claiming that they were abusing the pilgrims who were coming to the Temple by extorting money from them. Jesus was attacking the Temple itself. He was not purifying worship, He was preventing it from happening (by preventing people from procuring the needed objects with which a devout Jew would worship God). We are blinded to this by the fact that our worship has never been accompanied by the smell of burning animal hair, blood, and the bleating of animals, we think worship is about guitars and drums...

This was not an attack on the 'money-lenders,' this was an attack on the entire system of Jewish redemption; not, as is often supposed, an attack on the system God set up, but rather, on the way in which people were abusing that system. A system that was impeccably trusted without question to make peace between God and men, and yet touched only the outer edge of Jewish lives, never entering the heart.

Jesus attacks it as a 'den of robbers' and for failing to be 'a house of prayer for all nations.'

It had become a source of national pride, a symbol of Jewish piety and spiritual superiority, allowing them to mistreat others, and still view themselves as superior to outsiders. They saw themselves arrogantly as priveledged insiders, instead of fortunate adopted children.

I was going to draw parralels to today's "christian" culture and the body of Christ as the Temple, but since I don't have the energy right now I will let you draw your own conclusions...

Jesus was attacking the mindset that viewed the Temple and the religion associated with it as essentially a short cut to being right, and that it has little to no effect on things that really matter in a persons conduct and character...

Jesus attack on the Pharisees is (in today's Christian worldview) understood as an attack on their spirituality, they were legalists; in reality, Jesus' attack was a political one, they were using their privileged position to oppress others for their own sake. They were not only neglecting their call to be the light of the world, but were using their election as a source of pride and separation from the world that they were supposed to be illuminating! (Does this hit close to home yet!)

Jesus doesn't accept blessing unless it gives away...

(Sorry this is scattered, but I had these thoughts collected here so long that I was forgetting what some of my short-hand meant and I thought I needed to get it somewhat coherent and just post it!)

More Hellfire and Brimstone

Thursday in the square with our friends was accompanied by an even larger group of sign-toting evangelists (of course that term is supposed to refer to someone who is bringing news of joy!) along with their families. I asked them where they came from. The title link is to their website. They are from a church about 50 minutes drive from here.

It was a little more vehement this time.

I have been reading NT Wright alot lately... he has highlighted for me a particular aspect of Jesus ministry. Shock value. I think we lose this in our familiarity with the text. Jesus was shocking to his contemporaries, especially those in power. I find myself looking for similar ways to 'shock.' Not in the manner of the 'street preachers' who are shocking the public with their displays of 'righteous indignation' and outright rudeness (I observed one sign-weilding man call a woman a vulgar name), but in the manner of Jesus.

It seems that Jesus was not re-enforcing stereotypes but subverting them, not shoring up the status-quo of the religious elite but leveling the playing field, not calling down judgment on the 'sinners' but rather calling down judgment on the saints!

How can we, by our actions, do this? Is there more than simply living as devoutly as we can and through our personal relationships sharing our faith?

Quotes

"When I feed the hungry, people call me a saint; when I ask, 'Why are they hungry?' people call me a Marxist."

- Bishop Oscar Romero

"The defeat of evil in this world depends upon human beings actually stepping forward to use the Kingdom power and authority that is given to them."

- Dallas Willard

The Audacity of Hope

I just finished Barack Obama's second book. I really enjoyed it. I started in the middle with his chapter entitled "Faith" and was impressed and so I read the whole book. I don't know what I think of his policy ideas (I have been having some interesting personal evolution in the area of politics over the last few years) but I found him to be a remarkably open-minded thinker. He seems to genuinely listen and seek to understand all viewpoints. A rarity in today's politics of soundbites and cosmetically presented politicians.

He admittedly presents himself as an idealist, and even goes so far as to expose some of the weak spots in his idealism. He presents himself as a political reformer (reforming the way of politics itself), but recognizes that he has yet to truly face a real political battle that would test his belief in a 'different way of doing politics.' But I happen to be someone who takes it as a signal of divine approval whenever someone calls me an idealist to my face (albeit in a spiritual context, not a political one)... so I admire the trait in others.

I guess, ultimately, I appreciate the way in which he frames the issues and portrays the various sides of the policy debates. As to what I think of his particular position in those policy debates, I am still pondering.

For Grandma

SEX Part II

In our previous post (click the title link) we laid the foundation for a discussion of sexuality upon the nature of human beings and the state of humanity's relationship with God.

We described human beings as deeply sexual, constantly and hauntingly aware of the gender distinction, and yet ultimately humans are not to be defined by their sexuality, but rather by their spirituality. The center of a human being is the unique desires, intentions, emotions, and will, that constitute the human spirit.

We described our relationship with God in terms of separation, isolation and division. This division constitutes a serious perversion of the human spirit; we are separated from reality in ways that deeply distort our humanity into a charicature of itself.

In light of this, we must come to understand that our current sexuality is not good, nor is it natural. God created humanity a certain way, for His glory (of course), but also for our joy! To be separated from Him is to have the central core of our being (our spirit) twisted in such a way as to desire, rather than the deep abiding joys for which we were intended, the fleeting dregs of pleasure that come from drinking the sweet-tasting-poison of all manner of distorted humanity. This is most accute at a spiritual level, but it plays itself out, as the nature of the tree plays itself out in the fruit it produces, in every area of human existence not the least of which is our present discussion.

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Sexuality as it was intended must be distinguished from sexuality as it is. (This of course ignores, for the present moment, that some people, and some cultures, have a sexuality that is much more in line with God's intent, and others much less...) Our present situation sees essentially an overblown sense of sex.

Sex is used by most as a way of self-definition. We have only to look so far as the childhood playground to see this truth. A primary-school insult is likely to take the form of attributing male characteristics to the girl in question, and conversly to take the form of attributing female characteristics to the boy in question. As we move on in age, young men begin to define themselves by their sexual conquests and sexual prowess, as well as their domination over their male peers; young women define themselves by their ability to attract sexual attention. Sexuality continues to play a self-defining role throughout life; homosexual, straight, married, single, etc., these labels are used not as attachments to the central characteristic of the individual, but rather often are the central defining traits of the individual. Even within the spritual community these are defining monikers (ie 'family values' and its self-contrasting over against the 'homosexual agenda').

This belies the fundamental mistake we are making in understanding our sexuality: we see it as central, when it is not. We fail to diagnose diseased humanity, or we misdiagnose it, or (worse yet) we celebrate it, when we mistake the fundamental nature of human beings.

This first problem with our current views on sex can be briefly stated by saying, "We mistakenly believe sexuality to be the center of a human being, and fail to understand human beings in light of their true core which is their spirit."

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The first problem is a failure to undertand that the bone is broken (perhaps because in many cases we are unaware that there even exists such a bone!), the much larger problem is the broken bone itself.

This second and much deeper problem, lies with our disconnect, at a spiritual level, from God. We form our wills largely with disregard for and/or ignorance of the truly beautiful and joyous state for which God has intended our will to be formed. We believe that our desires are to be revered as gods, that our intentions should always be pursued, and that our emotional comfort is the guiding force for ethics in the world. (We in the Western world have even codified this into many of the founding documents of our nations legal systems!)

We largely ignore the desires, emotions, intentions, and will that are consistent with reality, beauty, justice etc. (consistent with God and His spirit, ie His desires, emotions, intentions, and will). Our spirit is the guiding force in our lives (whether we believe in it's existence or not!) and so will govern our sexuality.

Our sexuality has become a thing of surface pleasure. What was, by design, intended to be a deeply personal and radical co-mingling of two human beings (with what takes place in the sex act mirroring what is taking place on a spiritual level) has become instead simply another avenue for an individual to seek his/her own pleasure and ego.

Because our spirit is no longer aligned with God's we have come to the conclusion that whatever we desire is what we should pursue, throwing off any restraint upon behaviors that align with our personal desires over against God's; sexuality has become the testing ground for the total abnegation of such restraint. We are largely encouraged to view sex as the pursuit of 'whatever makes you feel good' with it's sometimes added (and largely underemphasized) correllary 'so long as you don't hurt anyone.' This is a fundamentally flawed view of healthy humanity. (And ignores large amounts of actual harm done in the process) LINK

A basic symptom of our separation from God is that we no longer desire to do that which is good and beautiful, just and true. To claim that what we are doing is good, beautiful, just, or true, simply because it is what we find within us when we search our hearts, is to see the world up-side-down. It is the very heart within us that is the problem with the world, we cannot use it as a guiding impulse in our lives without serious transformation. To see this as true one has only to look in other areas of our person, are we willing to argue that I am justified in taking someone elses car because, when I looked deep within myself, I found that I sincerely wanted it? Is the same true of punching my annoying co-worker in the face?

To Be Continued

Quality

Here is just a thought...

Eternal life is not at all about quantity of life (ie years). If that were the case, then everyone has eternal life. (Doesn't the Scriptures teach that all will be resurrected, some to heaven, some to hell?)

Eternal life is about quality...

Eternal life is not something that will begin after we die, and last 'forever,' but rather a type of life that is being offered to us now. A type of life that is so solid and real, that it cannot be effected by anything, even death.

SEX Part I

Humanity is deeply sexual.

Even beyond humanity, our world is sexual. Much of life on our cozy little asteroid is bifurcated into gender; I am not the biologist, but I know that birds, bees, flowers, trees, and so much more, are divided by the even greater chasm than that which delineates species; male and female. This division is to be found running through everything.

Genesis 1:27 explains: God created sexuality, and God created sex (don't tell anyone, but He even made it ...fun!!!!)

God created humans to be, essentialy, incomplete; we were designed to be a half-person, and our sexuality is the outworking of that design. We yearn for connection, at deep mental, physical, and spiritual levels we desire to join to another human being. This is natural; it is the nature (hence the word natural) that God gave us.

In fact, some would read the story in Genesis two, as God splitting Adam in two. The word translated as 'rib' could (according to Hebrew scholars) apparently be just as easily translated as 'curve' or 'side.' Perhaps there was a Human, and then God took one side of the human to make Adam and the other to make Eve? Are male and female literally two halves of the same creature, instead of two halves of the same species? This would then imply that it is not connection that we yearn for, but rather, re-connection...

Which brings us, interestingly enough, to the etymology of the word 'religion.' The roots of the word re - ligare mean simply 'reconnection.'

...we were designed to reconnect with each other, and we are also in need of reconnection with God. Both of these facts must be grasped if we are to move on with the topic.

What then, are we to make of the state of sex and gender in our world?

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...we should start by reiterating two points:

1) Sex is good and sexuality is natural. Sexuality is a God-given aspect of human-nature.

2) Humanity has become alienated from God and is in need of reconnection with Him.

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So let us explore these two points in greater detail. What does good, healthy, natural human sexuality look like? What does human sexuality look like when humanity has been reconnected to God?

The most important point that needs to be made to our present mood is this:

as important as sexuality is to the make-up of a human being, as characteristic as it is of human life (even healthy human life), sex is not the defining characteristic of a human being. Sexuality is most assuredly not the center of humanity.

The central aspect of human existence is spiritual* and so the central issue of human sexuality is ultimately not to be found in a discussion about sex, but rather in a discussion about spirit. If then, we are to discuss problems with human sexuality, we must recognize that the fundamental problem is not sexual, but spiritual.

To Be Continued

*By 'spiritual' I do not mean something distant, wispy, ephemeral, or tenuous; quite the opposite, I mean something very concrete; I mean simply those things that are 'non-physical.' We interact everyday with our spirit, and the spirits of others. Although we cannot see, smell, taste, or touch them, we constantly interact with people on the level of emotion, desire, will, intention, love.. This is the realm of the spiritual.