Don't Start The Movie Late!

"Tardiness often robs us opportunity, and the dispatch of our forces."

Niccolo Machiavelli

Lets back this thing up to a big story overview kind of thing from a bird’s eye view. Not a 10,000 or 20,000 foot view but like an 85,000 foot view. The big picture. I hope you have a profound moment and go ahhhhhh and all sorts of lights come on. There are some things that I hear people say throughout the week, especially by believers that contradicts Christianity all together. Yet it is their deepest understanding of their faith and what is believed to be correct. I hope this makes all sorts of lights go off and opens your eyes to a larger broader sense of God.
This is my central premise. Where and how you begin the story and where and how you end the story shape and determine what the story even is. If you are reading this and consider yourself a Christian you usually say just tell me the story in 2 minutes. Just give me the short version in 1 minute. Quick. Just kinda give me the overview. The points. The highlights. You will so often here Christians say “Oh, you are just telling the Jesus story.” I think we all now have a sort of “Which Jesus story?” That is because in our present culture there are various Jesus stories floating around. I am going to take a bit of time, (well a pretty long time so go grab something to eat and drink because this one might take you awhile to get through) and ask, “Where does this story begin? How does the story end? And, what are the implications for how we understand what the story even is?”
Genesis chapter 1, verse 1 is very rhythmic. It has a cadence. A flow. Some even say it is a poem. I don’t believe this to be true. I see both sides of the question but I don’t speak nor read in Hebrew minus the words I look up as I go so I cannot form a legitimate opinion. It certainly has a meter and a sort of groove to it though. If you have never read it, it is in the Bible all the way to the left. It is easy to find, don’t worry.
In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth. Verse 3 and God said. Verse 6 And God said. Verse 9 And God said. Verse 14 And God said. Verse 20 And God said. Of all the ways to speak about the creation, the writer uses this unique figure of speech. He wrote about God speaking because words create worlds. They create possibilities. You hear somebody say something to you and all of a sudden a whole new world opens up. Perhaps you were sent all sorts of destructive messages about who you are and how you’re unworthy, dirty, defile, and you were violated. Then somebody spoke a fresh new clean word of “Oh no, you are beautiful. You matter.” and those words created a whole new world. The whole thing is about God speaking.
Then in chapter 2 things change in form a bit. The writer uses this figure of 7 days of creation. Remember this 7 day thing…it is important! In chapter 2 it goes from this rhythmic creation of God speaking into a story. There are significant ways were the chapter 2 story of the event is similar to chapter 1 and there are ways from which they differ. 2 different approaches to some of the same events. Chapter 2:4 is the account of Heavens and the Earth and when they were created. Then it kind of retells this rhythmic passage about the garden. It is very vivid. The garden has these rare gems and it has a river and head waters. Then verse 18 God said “It is not good for man to be alone. Somebody has to show him what to wear.” Chapter 2 involves this relationship. Verse 25, then man and his wife were both nekked and they felt no shame. Couple of key words. Notice Chapter 1:11, “Then God said let the land produce vegetation.” The word produce is sometimes translated as sprout. Creation is endowed by its creator with the ability to create life. It is not just that the creator makes a tree. The creator makes a tree that is loaded with the ability to make more trees. You could say God makes all the trees or you could say God makes the trees that make more trees which would be equally true. Built into creation is this nuclear, life-giving ability to create more. Maybe you could call this progressive generativity. It is progressing somewhere. It is going to grow and sprout. It is going to leaf and create more. You know this because of the weeds growing in the cracks of your driveway. If you take a picture of creation one day, then come back a week later and take a picture and then do it again the week after you will have 3 different pictures which show the growth. If you are standing perfectly still in the midst of creation it will not look the same tomorrow. If you abandoned the house you live in and came back 20 years later you will say things like “It is overgrown.” It is loaded with the ability to create more. Creation is going somewhere. It is a dynamic reality, not a static one. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT! The Garden of Eden is not perfect. We often import our understandings of things that aren’t there. The word is not perfect. The word is good. “God says it is GOOD!” By perfect I simply mean static and unchanging. When we say perfect what many of us mean is static and unchanging. It is frozen in its perfection and it will not change. In Genesis 1 and 2 it is going to change because it is going to grow and sprout and change. These people are placed in the midst of it and given work to do. Go to Genesis 1:26, Then God said “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea.” Verse 28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. God gives these people responsibility and stewardship. God places these folks in the midst of the creation that is going somewhere and says take care of it. Do something with it. Make things. I just made all of this and now I am putting you in there to co-create with me. Let’s do something with it.
Those of you who are compulsive landscapers or designers and always have a shovel in hand, doing something with it are great examples of this. Those of you in music who want to take the chords and melodies and want to do something with them are as well. Those of you who love shape clay. Those of you who love words. Those of you who have an impulse within you to arrange it. To guide it. To massage it. To support it. To come along side of it. To nurse it. It is all there in Genesis 1 and 2. We were made to take it somewhere. There is a harmony here, and this is huge within hierarchy. God creates these people; these people are then given responsibility over creation. There is a strict hierarchy and everything knowing its proper place within the hierarchy is where the peace and harmony comes from. If these people begin to worship the creation instead of the creator then it is out of whack with the proper life giving hierarchy. If these people decide they are going to play God, and do not submit to a higher being then they are essentially messing with the hierarchy.
An addiction, in particularly of a substance is looking to that which comes from the earth to satisfy a deep need of the soul that can only fully be satisfied by the creator. A substance abuse is not a proper harmony within hierarchy. That is where the peace, or shalom comes from. Notice verse 28, God blessed them. These people are co-created and partnering with God proper stewardship in healthy relationships with each other and submission to God, this God blesses. Working with wood, God blesses. Growing crops and making sure everybody has enough food, God blesses. He said this, this is good. This is what I intended. Yes. Well done. God smiles and celebrates.
Watch this…Now; soil and spirit here are united. There aren’t 2 realms. A realm of the physical everyday sort of stuff and then somewhere out there a realm of the spiritual heavenly kind of stuff. Everything is deeply interwoven and connected. Soil and spirit are connected. Another way to think about it is that Heaven and Earth is the same place. In Genesis 1 and 2 Heaven and Earth is the same place. There isn’t somewhere else that we go when we die. A) Because there is no somewhere else and B) Because we don’t die. Are you with me? Stay here a moment. In Genesis 1 and 2 the goal is not to escape from here to some other more spiritual realm where God is. God is here. There is no higher realm. There is just the realm. Heaven is the realm to which God intends them to be in Genesis 1 and 2.
Pull back a second…let’s go to a higher bird’s eye view. Whatever it is that we love about life and taps into your sense of this is why I am here…"Oh I could do this forever”...and calls out deep into your spirit, “I was made for this.When I do this or observe this or appreciate this or interact with this it pulls out of me this sense of what life is all about." Whatever that is for you can be found in Genesis 1 and 2. Ascetics. Beauty. The appreciation of form. All in there. The food on the tree was pleasing to the eye. It’s beautiful. It’s not “It is beautiful so that…” No, it is just beautiful. It is stunning to gaze upon and that is its point. There is no larger point other than it just is. Ascetics. Making things. Take creation for instance, it is going somewhere, do something with it. Perhaps you have a woodshop in your garage and you have to go out there after work because you just have this joy when you carve stuff and make doorstops or whatever wood shop people make. Oh yea, pencil holders and stuff. If that is what you do then great! That is Genesis 1 and 2. Perhaps for you it is kids. You just love kids. Educating kids. Shaping young minds. All Genesis 1 and 2. Relationship, partnership, worship, exploration, organizing, naming, learning, responsibility. Maybe you are the kind of person who if we were to see your sock drawer it would be frighteningly organized. Or how about that drawer in the house near the back door that has things like duck tape and jumper cables and passports and markers and rubber bands and staples and paper clips and computer speakers, super glue, tweezers, a mouse trap, and a ruler. In everybody else’s house it is that drawer of junk that you have to shuffle things around just to get it to close but yours somehow is perfectly organized and labeled. That impulse to organize, to sift and sort, is all Genesis 1 and 2. That is you Mona. You are in Genesis 1 and 2. If you instinctively in every situation think how can I bring order to this? It is in there too. Maybe you are the kind that thinks don’t put me out front, I don’t want any attention drawn to myself…just give me a task where I can help plan the details. Let me do that and that is what I love. What is it? A Genesis 1 and 2 instinct. Obviously things like painting, drawing, art, and the common good are Genesis 1 and 2. Maybe you have a profound sense of justice. How about you want make sure everybody on Earth has enough food. 1 billion people don’t have enough drinking water in the world and you want to do something about it. Where does that impulse come from? Proper organizing and stewardship of creation is where. Whatever you love and makes you feel alive. Whatever makes you think you are tapped into something bigger, I guarantee can be traced back to its fundamental essence in Genesis 1 and 2. A story starts here. If someone says to you what is the Jesus story, the Bible story, the Christian story, it starts here in Genesis 1. Again, it is located all the way to the left in your Bible.

Now on to the end of the story, Revelations 21. It is all the way to the right in your Bible. The story ends here. Let’s ask a similar set of questions about the end of the Bible. Revelation 21 and 22.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.
So if heaven is the place where things are as God intends them to be the story ends. It ends with Heaven essentially crashing into Earth and God now dwelling in the midst of people. Notice Chapter 22. The heading in my Bible says Eden restored.
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month.
See! San Antonio is in the Bible! A city with a river flowing in the middle! Amazing huh?! Ok, that’s ridiculous. Verse 5. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign *BTW the Greek word for reign means to participate with* with God for ever and ever.
We will participate with God forever and ever! How cool is that?! River, cities, trees, fruit. The healing of the nations. Proper healed relationship participating with God in ordering, stewarding and guiding creation. Sound familiar? The story starts there and ends here in the same way. Hmmmm. Just a side not, cause I love those…if you were to take sin out the Bible you would have 4 short chapters. Genesis 1 and 2 and Rev. 21 and 22. Quick read right?
Chapter 1 and 2 is about a garden, and Rev. 21 and 22 is about a city. If you took sin out of a city you get a large collection of gardens. You would still have a progression. A movement. If you have a garden and it keeps growing and it is properly cared for, eventually there will be enough gardens connected to each other to make a city.
Go back to the left of the Bible in Genesis 3. This chapter introduces something else to the story. We find the first people. The story is told that these people have an experience in which they violate the boundaries God has made for them. The way that it is told is a picture of a tree that if they eat from this tree it will be exploring outside the boundaries God has created them for. They eat from this tree. And they experience a disruption in the peace, shalom and harmony of Chapters 1 and 2.
Genesis 3:8-Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?"
Does the creator of the universe have a difficult time finding 2 nekked people in a garden? “I have no idea where you are?” No! Where are those naked people running around? I can’t find you crazy kids. Marco….Polo…Marco….Polo…No. Well, you could read it that way if you wanted to…but no. Perhaps you could also read it like God is saying, “Where are ya?” “Where are ya now?” “You have violated our relationship. You weren’t satisfied with the world I placed you in and decided to create a reality outside of the one I created you for. You weren’t ok with the hierarchy. You didn’t like me on top. You wanted to be on top. So you chose to explore outside the boundaries you were created for. Where did that get you? Where are you? How is that working out for ya? How are things now? Where are you? Where did you end up with that decision? Is that what you wanted? Are you pleased?” You can read it sorts of ways.

How do you understand Geneses 3? Often times it is referred to as the fall of man. Are there ways to explore what sin is and the fall that might be a bit more helpful and obviously Biblical?
First off, sin is a disruption. One definition is simply the disruption of shalom. God created us to have peace with our maker, with each other, with the earth and with ourselves. Sin would be any way in which I have acted to disrupt shalom. Is this the shalom God intends for everything? Is this true to the beautiful picture God intends us to have and do or have I violated hierarchy and boundaries? Disruption. Sometimes it is defined as rebellion. I don’t like this setup with Him on top. I am rebelling against the order of things. I am rebelling against the world I have been brought to and God who made it, or, participation in the old order and way of death. Remember, Genesis 1 and 2 is active and dynamic…not static. It is moving so sin is a way in which I am taking it in an improper direction.

Here is an example. Tonight roughly 800,000,000 people will go to bed hungry. Right now in our world. That should shock and offend you. What experts are saying is that there actually is enough food in the world to feed everybody in the world. 6,000,000,00+ inhabitants of the world and there is currently enough food to feed everybody. Almost 1/6th of those people will not eat today not because there isn’t enough food to feed everybody but because the food hasn’t been properly distributed. The earth has produced but we have not properly ordered, managed, and stewarded creation so that everybody’s needs are met. We have disrupted the shalom God has intended for everyone. We have rebelled against the hierarchy and participated with creation in a way that is not the way God intended for us to participate. Sometimes the word Het translated from Hebrew is an archery term that means missing the mark. Genesis 3 introduces sin by showing us how we missed the mark.

You could perhaps say it this way, Genesis 3 is not how the story begins and Genesis 3 is not how the story ends. When people talk about sin, or you sinner!!! “TURN OR BURN!” wait wait wait…the story doesn’t begin with Genesis 3 and it doesn’t end with Genesis 3. When we tell the story we need to be very careful that all of the points in the story and the plotline are the plotline of the actual story. A few thoughts then on our participation in this realm.
1. Confession
It is a Hebrew word you should have learned from Seinfeld. Yadi yadah. It means our recognition, admission, our declaration and our agreement that we have participated in the other way. We have participated in the old world order and furthered the death and not the life that God intends for us. Confession is my realization that I have been caught up in, participated with and suckered by and I needed to see that and call it what it was.
2. Repentance
Confession is followed often by repentance not far behind. The Hebrew for that is Teshuvah. It means to turn or return. Confession is when we are brought to our senses and I now want to return to the true way. The way that I was made for that restores peace.
What then is the Jesus story? Let’s go to Matthew 19 and find out. At the center of orthodox, historic, Christian, faith has been telling the Jesus story how it begins one way and ends one way and in between there is this massive disruption in it, this could bring some depth, texture and body to the Jesus story.

Notice in chapter 19:28 Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, at the RENEWAL of all things, when the Son of Man sits on the throne.” So Jesus speaks about a renewal of all things. Turn to Acts 3 you have on one of the first Christians giving a speech. His name is Pedro. He is Spanish. Joking…it is not really his name. He is speaking to a crowd about the Messiah and how he has come. He believes Jesus is Messiah and has been appointed to rescue people from the old order and way of death. Acts 3:21 Heaven must receive Him until the time comes when God RESTORES. Jesus spoke of it as the renewal of all things and Peter here talks about God restoring everything. Colossians 1. Another one of the first Christians…a dude named Paul speaks of the cross and what exactly was going on up there on that cross. For him the cross is far larger than a good Jewish Rabbi being executed for subversion. For him there is a cosmic dimension to the cross. It extends as wide as the universe. He says in Verse 19, For God was pleased to have all of His fullness dwell in Him. (In Jesus). And through him to RECONCILE to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. He speaks of the cross as a massive universal wide movement. All things in Heaven and on Earth pretty much sums it up. A peacemaking act on God’s part to reconcile to Himself all things. Jesus speaks of the renewal of all things. Peter speaks of the restoration of all things. Paul speaks of the reconciliation of all things.

The Jesus story is then about the God who wants to put it all back together. This has HUGE implications for the story we are telling. If you begin the story in Genesis 3 then the primary issue becomes the removal of sin. People are sinners, how are we going to get rid of the sin problem. How are we going to get this out of the picture because it really messes things up? The dominant story begins with the how do we get rid of sin; well Jesus gets rid of sin. There. Done. You can see the bumper sticker “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven.” That’s it? Once we are forgiven then what? Is that all Jesus is capable of? Get you forgiven? If you begin the story in Genesis 3 then that is what you are left with. This is what Jesus does…He gets rid of the problem. But! If you start telling the story in Genesis 1, it becomes about the restoration of shalom. This obviously includes the removal of sin but also extends to the very ends of the cosmos. Are you with me now? Ok…get ready because I am going to dump it all out on you now. First, take a bite of the food I told you to get before you started. I need you brain working for this. Thinking caps on.

If the story begins in Genesis 3 then the fundamental posture towards people is to make sure they know what they aren’t. You aren’t good enough. Holy enough. Not reading the good book enough. You aint sanctified! Amen! You aren’t trying hard enough. If you begin the story late then you may be telling people what they aren’t. If you begin in Genesis 1, you will tell people what they are. YOU ARE A DAUGHTER, YOU ARE A SON OF A LOVING HEAVENLY FATHER AND FROM THE BEGINNING OF TIME THIS FATHER HAS HAD UNCONDITIONAL, ALL EMBRACING LOVE FOR ALL OF CREATION. This God is a creator who makes things and says Awwww that is good! ONE OF THE THINGS GOD MADE THAT HE SAID IS GOOD, IS YOU! You are made in the image of this God and you contain the divine spark. You are created to be a co-creator. To be a partner with God in moving creation forward in ever increasing dimensions of shalom. You know this deep in your bones. You have participated in the way of death. You have rebelled. You have disrupted shalom and now your loving, heavenly father is standing in the driveway on His tippie-toes, arms wide open saying “I am inviting you to return home.”

It is fundamentally different. How do you tell people the story? A Genesis 3 type of person always has the chance that your posture may become I need to go up to strangers on the street and I need to convince them how wretched, depraved and sinful they are. If I can get them feeling bad enough about themselves I may be able to whip out a pamphlet and get them in. We wonder why it is hard to keep those converts. Maybe it is easier to understand the story when we start in the beginning because then it is more helpful to understand how we got where we are. If your story begins in Genesis 3 it is very easy to become about disembodied evacuation. It is about how to get somewhere else. It becomes an evacuation theology. Here is what you need in order to get out of this place so that some glad morning you too can fly away. It then locates the center of God’s redemptive activity somewhere else. What can then sink in is that the real point of this story is somewhere else. Then we have to use words like relevant to try and have it make sense now. It is very easy to sink in to the subtle belief that the real action is someplace else. If you begin the story in Genesis 1 it becomes about co-creating participation. God is looking for partners to help repair and restore the world. People who are so overwhelmed with the gift of rescue freely given in Christ that we can’t imagine anything but partnering with God to do our humble bit to see that through and come into existence.

It would be interesting to survey people, especially Christians about heaven. My experience has been when people are in a safe place they can be honest about their religion and you can really push them with questions on what they really think about Heaven. To them it sounds a bit boring. They don’t hold pitch real well singing. Maybe you feel this way. I can’t sing for crap. How am I going to sing in Heaven with the angels? Do you know how lame Heaven would be for the listeners? Perhaps it is you that when you truly truly think about Heaven, one of your questions is that you don’t know what it is going to be like in Heaven and what we will do for eternity. It actually sounds a bit boring. Well if your story is rooted in Genesis 3 and the goal of it is disembodied evacuation then it is a flawed view of heaven. I don’t know we will be in clouds strumming harps. I have no experience with harps. But if the story is about Heaven and Earth becoming one again and ends here then Heaven starts to make a lot more sense.

What are those moments now that I am most alive? Who is it that when you are with them, you feel like you would rather be right there than anywhere else in the world? When you lose track of time. When my soul flourishes and soars like ahhhh I could do this forever. Sometimes I find people who are really really passionate about a particular thing and because of their faith they feel guilty about it. “I just love to be out in the woods and I know it is not very spiritual.” But what is Genesis 1 and 2 and what is Heaven and the Earth other than the exploration of the world that God has created and declared it is good? Therefore sometimes it is possible for religion to actually produce in people this sort of guilt complex with the very things in which they can most find their creator. They somehow feel bad about it. Follow? Does the story begin in Genesis 1 or Genesis 3?

Is there a way to talk about this that transcends some of the stale categories that perhaps we have picked up over the years? We can go to the Bible and find out. How do the writers who first told the Jesus story talk about all of this. Let me show you something that when you see it will ping your head a bit.
I am going to get into in one second but let me first mention I have been studying a great deal lately on how to interpret the Bible. The main thing I learned from this is you can’t take the Bible only for what it says. You should try to understand the culture, the background, the people, the point, the language, the words used and many other things to fully get the point and context of its meaning. I am not saying that inspiration and the Holy Spirit can’t really hit that spot needed at that moment, but that is a different essence of the Bible. This has drastically helped me get a much deeper than surface level of how amazing God is and the word of God too.

A little background on Jewish writers. They would often write on multiple levels. They would tell a story and plant within that story very subtle and delicately clever language. Unless you were paying keen attention you would miss it but if you were paying attention you would notice they were telling a story stacked on top of another story with a hint of another story. It was a very prized Jewish ability to be able to tell a story and at the same time tell all these other stories just around the edges.

John 2. Pay very very close and precise attention to the words John uses. Jesus as His first miracle changes water into wine. If you are going to start somewhere that is a really great place to do it. Verse 11. What Jesus did here in Cana from Galilee was the first of the signs. (keyword in John’s Gospel, he loves this word signs) It was the first time to reveal His glory and His disciples put their faith in Him. Water into wine, not bad. The prophets spoke of wine as a symbol not only of God’s new world but of the blessing and favor of God. Wine for a Jewish reader would have triggered “that is like new creation…new Heaven and Earth sort of stuff and this is the also blessing and favor of God.” Jesus produces wine. See why understanding culture helps make the picture in a bird’s eye view so much more profound? It is not Jesus just doing a nice thing to help the ceremony not get spoiled.
Notice in John 4:44, Jesus heals the royal officials son . In verse 54 John adds, This was the 2nd sign Jesus performed after coming from Judea to Galilee. I hope when you read this you notice a trend. I would hope that you are instantly thinking and racing to find out what the 3rd sign is. What is he doing here? Why is John numbering things?

The 2 things that he has numbered we might call miracles. A healing is a demonstration of how things are supposed to be in God’s world. If Heaven is the realm where things are as God intends them to be and God does not intend for sickness and disease, then what Jesus is doing in a healing is not demonstrating some sort of freaky new condition for this kid. He is displaying how things always were and how things will be. If you take this word signs you start to wonder what else you can find. Chapter 5 begins with a healing at the pool. He healed the paralytic which is the 3rd sign and then in Chapter 6 you have a couple of speeches and he feeds 5,000 men. You may have studied this before that in crowds, men are the ones who were counted. That is not including the women and children. Who knows how many truly ate from 5 loaves of bread. Not bad, because people should have enough food to eat. 4th sign. Then verse 16 Jesus walks on water and demonstrates a sort of command of creation. Well done. 5th sign. Then you have a speech. Then you have people visiting Him. Then He goes to a feast. Then He teaches. Then there is some division. Then there is the unbelief. Then there is the dispute. Then there is another dispute. Then He claims some things about Himself. The next sign or miracle happens in Chapter 9. What is the heading in chapter 9? Jesus heals the man born blind. He heals. Then the big one in chapter 11 there is a guy named Lazarus that dies. In verse 43, When He had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus! Come out!” The dead man came out, his hands wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them “Dang fool! You stink dude! Take off the grave clothes and let him go.” Wait wait. 1,2,3,4,5,6. Raising a man from the dead is the 7th sign. You take the 7 signs that start with wine (a new creation and blessing from God), which is a pretty cool party trick and by the 7th sign people are rising from the dead. It is sort of a climax. People rising from the dead. After that in chapter 12 there are no signs. 13 nada. 14. Nope. 15. Guessed it…nope…16, 17, nothing. 18 arrested, put on trial, convicted, crucified, killed. Apparently once He has raised somebody from the dead, if you don’t believe now, then there is not much more He can do. More wine isn’t going to help. Maybe, but probably not.
It is interesting when you take a story like that and zoom out so you can see a higher altitude of the story it opens perspective up. Hopefully by now something happened for you when the signs were being counted. How many signs were there? 7. In Jewish consciousness is there anywhere in the story where the number 7 is kind of big? Genesis 1. It begins with the giant number 7 because in the creation 7 played heavily in to it. What might John be saying? Raising Lazarus from the dead is not really the last sign or miracle because at the end of the book John tells you about Jesus doing what? Resurrection. What might John be saying? Jesus does a miracle or sign for each day of the first creation and then the 8th sign which would make it "Sunday" of the 2nd week He resurrects from the dead, inaugurated, not an old creation but a "Monday", the first day of a new creation. Amazing!
What is John saying? He is telling this epic story as a way of saying resurrection is the start of a whole new creation. Let’s walk this through.
1. The story is about Jesus resurrecting and beginning a new creation right here in the midst of this one.
2. The story of the resurrection is about God restoring goodness of creation. God does not beam people up like Scotty to some other realm. God comes down in the midst of this creation, takes all of the death, destruction, and disruption upon himself to the grave, leaves it there and announces I am making all things new. This world was good when I made it and it is still good.

Let's make sure we make this distinction clear. There is a distinction between materiality and rebellion. This is HUGE especially if you grew up around religion. Materiality refers to the material realm. Physical things. Nowhere in the story is the material realm declared bad. The story is about human rebellion. Human rebellion is a different issue than trees, rocks, and wine. What has happened for many people is their tradition confused rebellion with materiality and said because humans have rebelled all of creation is in some way fallen, depraved, dark and bad. What this creates is physical bad, spiritual good. Do you know what I am writing about? The work is to separate those two. Scriptures speak of human rebellion that has deeply affected creation. In fact it is in a sort of bondage. The writer Paul speaks of it by saying it is a sort of pangs of childbirth, the redemption of all things. But nevertheless, for many people rocks and soil and whatever got imprinted in their brain to them that this Earth is bad but if we can just get out of here we will be ok. The resurrection is about Jesus reaffirming the goodness of creation. The story is about anticipating when Heaven and Earth are one again. Right now the realms are split. Earth and then there is a realm where things are the way God intends them to be. There are moments when the 2 seem awfully close. They interlock, and dance and hold hands and kiss but that isn't a good realm. The story, the resurrection, is the anticipation when God makes dwelling on Earth and Heaven the same place again like they were at the start of the story. Are you with me now?!
Moving to logical and practical uses…let’s get into business, art, and justice.

1. Business

If Genesis 1 is about the proper ordering of creation and making sure everybody has what they need, it is proper stewardship. If Genesis 1 and 2 is about making sure the earth produces food and is distributed in a way that everybody is not hungry it is proper stewardship. If it is about proper hierarchy and harmony, then what do you think business is? Business provides a good or service at a fair price so that people can take and consume or use that good or service and have their needs met. It is the exchange of goods and services for the betterment for the common good. That is what business is. It is taking what the earth is creating and properly organizing it and distributing it at a fair price so that people can have what they need. Business is a very Genesis 1 and 2 occupation. That impulse is right there. If your story begins in Genesis 3 and how people aren’t saved and begins with disembodied evacuation then what can happen is business people in that story are made to feel second class. "Well, ya know, I am not a pastor. I am just a business person but I can make a lot of money and give it to spiritual things." If you start the story in Genesis 1 and 2, your task is already sacred, holy and profound. We need you to do your work in a Genesis 1 and 2 way. Your work is not 2nd class and there plenty of other spiritual people who have been called to help get the message (or wrong message) out so they can evacuate someday. Your work is already holy. It is a divine calling like any other divine calling to properly work for the common good. A lot of destructive messages have been sent to business people. All you do is make money. Wait wait wait. The fair and proper exchange for goods and services is only about making money? We need that. We need you.

2. Art

Couple thoughts. If creation is producing, sprouting, and growing it is only natural then that we would creatively organize it. We would shape it and bring form to it. We would appreciate line, curve, and dimension. Art then is capturing those creations in a way that reflects the infinite creativity of the creator. Co-creators created by a creator who create. Art in Genesis 1 and 2 is declared good and God blessed them. This impulse is already blessed. Obviously you can create things that aren’t a reflection of the peace, healing and shalom of God. Obviously it is possible to make things that steer the project in a destructive direction. But the fundamental primal impulse God blessed. This is why black and white, overly simplistic classifications of art and asking whether it is Christian or not will always fail. When we need a Christian label to validate something we are trying to validate and bless something God already blessed. Let God do it, God is better at it. This is why for a lot of people, including me, a Christian sub-culture with Christian music or movies and Christian books and Christian coffee cups and Christian stickers produce a deeply confusing concept. No matter how things are labeled, you can endlessly find things in the non-Christian category that are humming with life and Godliness and Holiness. You can also find things with the Christian label that are TERRIBLE. Don’t get me started. Don’t feed the bears because this is my most touchy and biggest pet peeve about Christians. If it is a wonderful song and evokes a great sense of love, inspiration, joy, and happiness then there is not one single thing wrong with playing it in church. A lot of this work and effort and discussion about are they a Christian or is so and so a Christian band is rooted in a misunderstanding of Genesis. Those questions come out Genesis 3. You start the movie late and a bunch of stuff is not going to make sense. Don’t start the movie late! You start at the beginning of the movie you might get it.

3. Justice

Last one. This profound sense we all have. Again. 1,000,000,000 people in the world don’t have drinking water. That is not right. Illiteracy rates in the San Antonio are horrific. How many 6th graders can’t read? 9th graders? Seniors in high school? Here is a scary thing I just learned. 67% of black students are dropping out and the trend is now with the kids just entering school this year that 9 out of 10 black students will drop out. We have to do something about it. That sense of that isn’t right, that holy anger that rises within you when you think that is not right, the sense when you know people are deprived, oppressed, and somebody needs to help them…that sense of justice is Genesis 1 and 2. It is the proper ordering of God’s world. When people don’t have enough to eat it is not the proper ordering of God’s world. When basic education hasn’t been given to people it is not the proper ordering of God’s world. Your longing for justice is all right there in the beginning.
There are endless debates within the Christian community about is our message what we say or is it what we do? Is our message bringing people water or is it talking to people about forgiveness? Is our message rescuing people from slavery or talking to them about the state of their soul? When you find that sort of debate and discussion going on, after a while you find yourself thinking this is so old and so stupid, confusing and stale. When the question is it this or is it this. Maybe the answer is a great big hug with both hands. When you find people in the endless debate about the Gospel to either announce God's forgiveness through Christ or the Gospel bringing people water in Jesus’ name, I say group hug. Group hug. Everybody together. One giant group hug. When the question is, is it this or this you could think maybe, Jesus’ embrace is big enough for the whole discussion.
A couple more thoughts and then I am finished. A Christian can then continually insist that through the resurrection of Jesus a whole new world is bursting forth right here in the midst of this one and everybody, everywhere can be a part of it. Everybody everywhere! A Christian then is learning more and more how to see this new creation with their own eyes. I didn’t see it before. I was sleeping but now I am waking up. There are these people that I would have discounted but all of a sudden now I am planting within them the seeds of new creation. This is a situation where before I would have been angry, bitter, and would have filled me with despair but now I am waiting because I know that somewhere within all that cement, a flower is going to sprout. I am going to see it and I am going to call it what it is. Before I would have jumped all over that person and I would have said how dare you be so mean! Now I know to be a little patient. Show a little grace because a new creation may burst forth right here. A Christian then has hope not in escape but in engagement. The word hope. People can be talking about hope and they may mean waaaay different kinds of hope. Some say, "Well I have hope." What they may mean is that I have hope, because I have a ticket to Heaven and will get out of here at some point. My type of hope is rooted in engagement were God invites us into the muck and dirt and filth because in it we will find God working as God always is for a new creation right here in the midst of the old one. Our hope is rooted not in escape but in engagement. Not in evacuation but reclamation. It is not about getting out of here but about reclaiming it. Not in leaving but in staying and overcoming because through Jesus’ resurrection God is affirming the goodness of creation. Last thing. A Christian then is never surprised when grace, beauty, meaning, order, compassion, truth and love show up in all sorts of unexpected people, places and things because it always has been God’s world. It is God’s world and it always will be God’s world.

Man On Wire

For facebook users, click here to read in full context.
http://myissuesanddrama.blogspot.com/2009/10/man-on-wire.html

The public will believe anything, so long as it is not founded on truth.”
Edith Sitwell (1887-1964)

"They were so stong in their beliefs that there came a time when it hardly mattered what exactly those beliefs were; they all fused into a single stubbornness."
Louise Erdrich

Matthew 4:23
23 Jesus went throughout all Galilee (which is where Jesus was from), teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. 24So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, epileptics, and paralytics, and he healed them.
Now the key to looking at the Sermon on the Mount is in this…
25 And large crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis (which means 10 cities. It was a Greek area settled by Alexander the Great. So it is not Jewish, not religious, not pure, not clean, not holy, they do not follow the scripture commands etc.)
25So large crowds from Galilee (a very Jewish area) and the Decapolis (a very Greek non-Jewish area), and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan followed him.
The actual Greek word there is misse-masche…which means a confused collection or mixture. There would have been people in that crowd who would have been taught from birth that in order to follow God they were to have absolutely no contact with those people. Now they are all mixed in to the same crowd.
5:1Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down.
His disciples came to him and he began to teach them all the while being surrounded by this mass of humanity
2And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying: 3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
I will say this again. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven. I will get back to this in a minute.
This man named Christopher Moore wrote a novel called “Lamb, the Gospel according to Biff.” The central premise of this book is that God is upset with how the church is telling the Jesus story and so God resurrects Biff, Jesus’s little known best friend growing up to tell the real story of what happened. The Angel resurrects Biff and takes him to a hotel room in St. Louis and says write the real story of what happened. The angel then gets addicted to big time wrestling and soap operas on TV in the hotel room to which Biff says to the angel, “Now you know why you guys did not get free will.” Biff then opens up a drawer and sees that there is a Bible and sneaks it into bathroom to read it and precedes to find out what Matthew wrote. He thinks Matthew is absolutely full of it. He also reads Mark, Luke and John and is furious of the version they told because they all leave Biff out…Biff was so excited because Josh (Jesus) is celibate and Biff knows this is a great way to meet girls…just hang out with the celibate messiah. What Biff does is he tells the truth about what really happened during those unknown teenage years and what the messiah really did up to the age of 30. He tells about how they went to the Far East and learned Kung-Fu…it is fiction…relax. Then he tells in the end how they came up with what to give to the be-attitudes. I quote, “How are we doing on the be-attitudes?” Pardon me? You know the blessed (they didn’t call them the be-attitudes back then so he was confused, it’s really funny but you have to read it…I don’t have time to explain here) Well, we have got blessed are those who are hunger for thirst and righteousness, blessed are those poor in spirit, pure in heart, the whiners, the meek. Wait, what are we giving the meek? Lets see here, blessed are the meek and to them we shall say “that-a-boy” ummm..I don’t know if I like that. That’s a little weak. Let’s let the meek inherit the Earth. Can’t you give the Earth to the whiners? Well then, cut the whiners and give the Earth to the meek. I have got it. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake. Ok, that’s better. What are you going to give them? A fruit basket! You can’t give the meek Earth and these guys a fruit basket. Give them the kingdom of Heaven. Well, the poor in spirit got that already.”
I think that for many of this sums up the attitudes. Nice things that Jesus said that don’t really mean much. It’s just a nice general phrases that things are groovy in a Gospel sort of way. How do you begin to unpack them? And, remember there is a massive crowd of sinners, tax collectors, prostitutes, and really really religious people, and really really gentile people who aren’t really really considered religious by the really really religious. And there is this massive spectrum of humanity. It is in the midst of this crowd that Jesus begins “Blessed are the poor in spirit because theirs is the kingdom, the whole kingdom of God!” It’s theirs…its available to them. It is falling on them. It is crashing into Earth where they are. Now first the phrase poor in spirit is a negative term. In our language today the poor in spirit are losers. Those at the end of a rope. The spiritual zeroes. The pathetic, lame and out of it bankrupt sort of people. Those without a trace of good. The morally empty. The poor in spirit here is not a good term. It is not a condition to which we are to try and attain. Like if I could just become poor in sprit I can gain the Kingdom of Heaven. Sometimes this gets translated like blessed are those who know how much they need God which is incorrect because then that would mean that God’s blessing is for people who have attained a particular state of humility. People who are like, “Yes, I have the gift of humility.” Something about that doesn’t seem right. Let’s walk through this slowly because it might make things a little upside down for you. What Jesus is doing here is so upside down, so brilliant and ultimately so shocking, and I would argue that at the same time deeply comforting…it takes a while to absorb. First, again, poor in spirit is not a term to try and become. It is not a good term. Let me say it this way. There is nothing praise worthy, noble, good, honorable, or positive about being poor in spirit. He is not giving people a wonderful praise worthy condition that some people are to celebrate that they are that way. Secondly, When Jesus says blessed, He uses the Greek word mercurius. It could be fortunate. Some translate it happy. In the next verse it is translated that way, Happy are those mourn. Same word. How can you be a happy mourner? See the lost in translation? It is perhaps more like they are getting the full weight of the world. There is a scholar named Frederick Dale Brunner, who I admire, says, “To understand blessed is to understand it is a sort of divine I am with you. It is God’s way of saying I am on your side.” If you look at how the term is used throughout the scripture and how it is used by Jesus it is a larger holistic, epic, fortunate are you because God is with you. Fortunate are the losers, pathetic, depraved, the lame, the spiritual zeroes because God is on your side. What Jesus is doing here is an announcement which is a fundamentally different way of framing stuff. A completely different mode of rhetoric. He is not giving instruction. It is not a here is how to get God’s blessing in 7 steps. He is not giving a command. He doesn’t begin with here is what you need to do in order to be blessed. This is not advice; well go be poor spirited and God will love you. He is not giving good information on how the world works, and it’s not a teaching.
He begins the Sermon on the Mount with an announcement. He announces that God is on the side of everybody when there is no reason why God should be on there side (to include Al-Qaeda). This is fundamentally counter-intuitive. My good friend Roddy always uses the analogy of water skiing when it comes to counter intuition. In order to get on top of the water you must lean back and let the boat pull you up. Most people use their own arms and try and lift themselves up. If you do that, you will then fall on your ass all the while being video taped and laughed at. The goal here is for you to get up, so stay back. Don’t use your strength to pull yourself up, use God’s strength and let him do it. Does that make sense? This is in essence what Jesus is doing. It is counter-intuitive to everything we knew and know. When you do that you will begin to trust this counter-intuitive impulse. It does not work like it is supposed to work, but when it clicks and flips into gear you can’t imagine it the other way. When Jesus makes this announcement it is a sort of counter-intuitive announcement because if you are like me, your first impulse is what is the good thing in this condition of being poor in spirit that deserves the blessing of God. This is how religion actually functions. What good thing makes me deserving of God’s blessing. The announcement is Blessed are those who there is no reason why they should be blessed. Blessed are all the people who aren’t humble. Blessed are the pathetically retched sinners and alcoholics and thieves. Blessed are everybody who doesn’t believe in God and they too get the Kingdom of Heaven. How does that make you feel? Blessed are all the morally empty people who couldn’t tell the truth straight if they had to. All the people. The favor of God is now pouring down on people who do not deserve the favor of God. But this announcement by Jesus to this enormous crowd of people from across the spectrum of humanity is completely different than saying that everybody is blessed even though there is no reason why they should be. Don’t you get that? That, my brothers and sisters, is The Gospel and it’s terribly confrontational and disturbingly hard for religious people. I understand that it is very very easy to become convinced that God’s blessing is for these particular people over here because of this particular thing they have done or believed or accepted or they said or they expressed and portrayed or professed. No. Jesus destroys all of that. Blessed are the totally immoral losers without a wisp of religion for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs. The immediate thing is why why why why why?! Our radar is instantly like why is the blessing for them too? What is the thing in the condition? Why? Well…turn to Luke 14. Jesus gives the reason…and the only reason is as simple as because God is like this. He tells story after story after story where there isn’t really an explanation given and there really doesn’t seem to be a point other than something intrinsic to which God is. The answer to why is because apparently God is like this. It is never rooted in because these people are really good. Oh. It is totally counter-intuitive.
Luke 14:15
15When one of those at the table with him heard this, he said to Jesus, "Blessed is the man who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God."
16Jesus replied: "A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. 17At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, 'Come, for everything is now ready.'
18"But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, 'I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.' (Like you would buy a field without seeing it first, get real)
19"Another said, 'I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I'm on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.' (Like you wouldn’t try out the oxen before you purchased them, liar…would you buy a car without test driving it?)
20"Still another said, 'I just got married, so I can't come.' (no explanation is needed here…I guess we know what is going on) giggity giggity.
21"The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, 'Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.'
22" 'Sir,' the servant said, 'what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.'
23"Then the master told his servant, 'Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full. 24I tell you, not one of those men who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.' "
Why? Why did this guy give the banquet? I don’t know…perhaps he just likes to give banquets. No explanation is needed. He just does. What was the occasion? I don’t know. He just does. Why? Because apparently he is like that and enjoy to just throw banquets.
Luke 17
11Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. 12As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance 13and called out in a loud voice, "Jesus, Master, have pity on us!"
14When he saw them, he said, "Go, show yourselves to the priests." And as they went, they were cleansed.
Why did he cleanse them? Why? I don’t know. He is just like that.
Luke 19
1Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. 2A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. (which means he made tons and tons of money off of everyday sort of people and he was hated.) 3He wanted to see who Jesus was, but being a short man he could not, because of the crowd. 4So Mr. Bernie Madoff (haha) ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him.
Think about that. This man is despised and he has become unbelievably wealthy on other peoples hard work and paid him through the complicated tax system. The unbelievable social stigma attached with Jesus saying I must stay at your house today. Why does Jesus need to stay at the house of someone like this? Why? Why? Why? Endlessly you find favor, grace, fellowship and embrace. Why? Why?
In 1974 a man named Philippe Petit and his friends snuck up to the top of the World Trade Center Towers in NYC. He shot an arrow to the other tower stringing a wire between the two. He tight roped between the towers for over 45 minutes. One point he laid down on the wire. Another point the police gathered on one of the towers and they were trying to arrest him. He walked up to them…and then walked back. A crowd gathered down below and said is a man tight rope walking a quarter mile up without a safety net and harnesses or wires? There is a great documentary called “Man on Wire” which I highly recommend which is an account how he and his friends dreamt of this for years. As a child he was in a doctor’s office and saw in a magazine a drawing of the towers that were going to be built. He took a pen out and he connected them with a line and he said, “Someday I will walk between these 2 towers.” And he did it. He spent 45 minutes up there and eventually he was arrested. On the form the police used where they put the reason of the arrest they said “Man On Wire.” When he was being questioned by the media as they went crazy gathering around the car with all of their microphones trying to get a reason and a quote from him he says…click the link to see.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAVj2IVC9ko
In one point he says only Americans would ask why. He did something magnificent and there is not reason why. Only because it is wonderful.
Why? To a large crowd. To a misse-masche of humanity. To all of these different people with all of these different world views and religious views, and Gods and practices. Why does Jesus announce the blessing of God is yours? Blessed are the poor in spirit. Those without a wisp of religion. Those who haven’t kept the covenant. Those who don’t believe all the right things. Those who have really really really screwed it up in an endless litany of way. To all of those, God is on your side. To all of those who don’t deserve the blessing of God, the blessing of God is here and it is yours. You can see why the first people who heard this said well, that is good news. You immediately go wait wait wait, no no no…no…no. God blesses the hard working. God blesses the morally upright. Right? God blesses all the people who make the right decisions. God blesses the people who do the right things at the right time. God blesses the people who go to the right schools and have the right professions. Try this on for size, God blesses the people who make the right confession of faith. That is who the favor of God is for. Which then means that God’s love is for the people who can earn it…if…
The moment we look down on somebody because they aren’t as disciplined, hard working, upright, smart, responsible, moral, God fearing, Bible believing and as Jesus trusting as we are because they made idiotic, stupid, immoral choices again again and again at that moment we are in fact rich in spirit and Jesus is not announcing anything to us. Come on people. Hear it. The Gospel is the announcement that in your pathetic bedraggled confused morally ambiguous state where nothing good is within you, God announces I am on your side! Perhaps this might help you get it…if you are a church then, and you are a gathering of people who takes seriously the Gospel pronouncement of Jesus, then you have to embrace the simple truth that before it is a theology or a system or a doctrine or a church or a movement or an institution or a world view or a way or a perspective it is an announcement. God has sent His son into the world. His one and only son because God so loved the world. And this son did not come to judge or condemn. He came to save and he began this epic Sermon on the Mount by starting not by high, but loooow with a shocking, jarring and strangely counter-intuitive exuberant healing comforting sort of message. All the people who think I am out, God’s blessing is now pouring out on you. The creator of the universe who you have been convinced is for all of the people who do it right doesn’t work that way. You simply stand in awe of it because it is an announcement. It is not a teaching, it’s not advice, it’s not blame, it’s not a neat way in which the world works. It’s an announcement that God’s love…the Kingdom of Heaven has now become available to all the people who have absolutely no claim to it and don’t deserve it.
Think through this then, a church being a place that begins first and foremost as an announcement. Not, yes God loves you for A.B.C.D then it gets really good. No. Announcement. He opens to all the people who have had an abortion that God is on your side. All the people who have been unfaithful to their spouse that God is on your side. All the people who have screwed it up at work that God blesses you. To all those who have certain websites they cant stay away from the Kingdom is available to you. If at any moment something in you says no, no, it can’t be…then in fact you are rich and the announcement isn’t for you. If you think no it can’t be, it’s for the good people who kept their noses clean, it is for them…then you are rich in spirit and Jesus’ announcement can’t make sense to you. If you think it says blessed are all the people who know how much they need God…well yes, that is true to a certain degree…but knowing how much I need God that then is a condition we work for. “I am humble and this is why God and I are so close…we get along…” Then we have in fact missed Jesus in His own teaching. You can take the Jesus part right out of it and just make it a here is how to live and miss Jesus message. God is to sit in the counter-intuitive shockingly confronting and yet strangely consoling vision of a pronouncement that says all of the zeroes, the morally bankrupt, the epically confused and ambiguous that…God is on your side.
David Croneberg made a movie called “History of Violence”. It is about a guy named Tom who runs a homely dinner in a little town. Then we find out Tom has a past. You as the viewer are at first like wait, does he have this past or not. Sorry to give it away but I doubt you’ll watch it anyway…then you begin to find out it is true. Then his wife begins to find out that her husband, this good honoring man Tom, has a past. Then you find out he has killed lots of people. People from his past are coming to get him and the only way to resolve it is to resort back to his way of killing and blood and violence. There is more and more blood and so his history of violence becomes his presence of violence. He realizes that unless he kills everybody, his past will haunt him forever. So he kills everybody. His wife’s heart is broken because she realizes for years he has not been honest with her. Once he has killed every person from his past the movie comes to its final scene where they are sitting at the dinner table. His family had been living without him and he comes home. Tom has just washed his hands of literal blood from his last killing. He has broken trust with his wife, daughter and son. He comes in the door and the question is how will this ever get fixed? Is this marriage ever going to get put back together? What about the trust with his son and daughter? He comes into the kitchen and she can’t even look at him and he can’t look them in the eyes. This man is poor in spirit. A dishonest killer. How will they respond? The path to reconciliation will be so difficult. His son can’t look him in the eyes. His daughter looks at her mom. Blessed are the poor in spirit because there is even a place at the table for them. Blessed are the murderers and the adulterers and the addicted and those with more crap in their present and screwed up life that is totally confused. Blessed are those who have recently washed the blood off of their hands. The question of course is what his son will say. Will his son have Gospel for him? What will his wife do? The son wants to know how he should respond in this moment. The son is torn and he takes the plate and puts it next to his father. The question is now will his wife pronounce Gospel? It is different from reconciliation and repair. It is different from the pain and hurt. It is just a simple question of will she announce blessing. She finally looks him in the eyes but he cant look because he is poor in spirit. His eyes essentially say, “Even me?” And then he receives from her some sort of yes and the is over.
This is us. This is the Gospel. Is it another list of things I have to do? Is it more commands that I have to follow to become righteous? Is it a list of requirements of what God demands so that we can be declared forgiven, justified, sanctified, and righteous? Jesus stands in the midst of a mass of humanity and announces fortunate and blessed are the poor in spirit. The deficient have God on their side.
God I ask you to and crush our religion and set it on fire. Rescue us from our religion so that we can have Gospel. Rescue us from all the ways we measure ourselves against others. Rescue us from the place we find our self-righteousness from the failures and stumbling of other people. Please rescue us from that religion into a blessing and favor that has no reason. That does not come from something good in us but from whom you are. Rescue us from asking why and help us know that it is because you are love.

7th Inning Stretch

"He didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it. "
Clarence Budington Kelland

"A truly rich man is one whose children run into his arms when his hands are empty."
Author Unknown

There they sat watching the game as usual when this man did an amazing thing. It was a heroic act in an attempt to catch a foul ball by leaning well beyond the safety of the ledge in the 2nd level of stands behind home plate. What an amazing catch. All around him people applauded in sheer astonishment with his desire and will to achieve what every boy dreams to do since adolescence. Here this opportunity sat and he was ready.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqxSA73hGz8
Allow me to use this story as an analogy for God. The baseball game= life. The ball=gifts from God. The father and his open arms of love= God. The child=us making mistakes daily as we work through life. The crowd=the world.
God does amazing things all around us every single day. We witness this and think about how many wonderful things we get to experience. We make mistakes just as this little girl did by throwing the gift back…but there God was ready to love us still even though the crowd was shocked by our actions. What a great picture of how God loves us. He loves us without any conditions or terms like a father loves his children. When the world around us oh’s and ah’s with shock and disbelief by what we have done, He immediately opens his arms to comfort us in our insecurities even though we threw His gift back. We will be rewarded with more blessings just as this father was rewarded with another ball for his unconditional love.
I must admit, it sure is refreshing to actually see a positive story get national recognition...finally.

Stop and Hear the Music!

"There's no bad day that can't be overcame by stopping and listening to a barber shop quartet; this is just truth, plain and simple."
Chuck Sigars

Sometimes when I hear somebody teaching or preaching or giving a message I think I have no idea what this person is talking about. This just makes no sense at all. I came across something recently and thought wow, I just have to show this to my friends. This is in a commentary and I quote J. Preston Eby who gives a clear pronouncement of this truth from his essay “Is Man a Free Moral Agent”. Now if you really want to appear smart just put an initial in front of your name. I assure you will become smart by just doing that alone. This is some long discourse and partway through it he says…and I quote “The first Adam is said to be the first man and the last Adam is declared to be the second man. The second Adam is also the last Adam and he is also the last man. Now if the first Adam is the first man it necessarily would follow that there were no man on Earth before him for he was the first. Then if the last Adam is the second man and there were no men on Earth between the first Adam and the last Adam for the last Adam is the second man there can be no man between first man and the second man. If there were even one man between the first man and the second man obviously the second man could not be the second man. He would be the third man or the 100th man or the 5 billionth man. And since the second man is also the last man there can not have been any man since him for if others have followed him he could not have been the last man. So then the first man was the first and the second man was the second man and the second man is the last man.” J. Preston Eby gives a clear pronouncement of this truth. How many of you have heard somebody talking religious talk and you thought I have no idea what you are saying? You seem very convinced of it and seem to be ok with its clarity and simplicity but I am in a fog of rhetoric and I cant even find my way out of it. So. Why do we gather? What is the point? I want to explain a way of seeing the world and as we explore this way I want you to be thinking, is this present in our world today?
Exodus 25…God was giving instructions on the temple…

8 "Then have them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them. 9 Make this tabernacle and all its furnishings exactly like the pattern I will show you.

So early in the story God says make me a house. A holy place. A Temple. A sanctuary and I will dwell in the midst of it. Exodus 28 gives specific instructions on this temple. Very specific instructions.
Exodus 28:29 "Whenever Aaron enters the Holy Place

So within the Temple there will be places that are even holier than other places.
Exodus 29:6 “Put the turban on his head and attach the sacred diadem to the turban.”
I am getting somewhere here just bare with me.
Exodus 29:31 “Take the ram for the ordination and cook the meat in a sacred place.”
So there is a sacred emblem, sacred garments, sacred under garments, sacred places.
Exodus 29:33 “They are to eat these offerings by which atonement was made for their ordination and consecration. But no one else may eat them, because they are sacred.”
So there is also sacred offerings and sacred foods too.
Exodus 30:25 “Make these into a sacred anointing oil, a fragrant blend, the work of a perfumer. It will be the sacred anointing oil.”
Sacred oils now. The word sacred is the Hebrew word Kodesh. It means holy, set apart, consecrated. It’s different. It is distinguished from the other. There are these holy things, and then there are those things.
Remember Leviticus 10:10 since I know all my readers have these memorized anyway, if not shame on you. It is an explanation of why there are all of these sacred things. Sacred offering, oils, places, garments, emblems.
Verse 10 “You must distinguish between the holy and the common, between the unclean and the clean.”
What you have is a differentiation of a physical space. You have the common and then build a temple so a space other than regular space is a realm other than which you actually live. Then you have a place within that temple which distinguishes itself as sacred set apart from the everyday ordinary. This place will be holy. Actually within it is a gradiance of holy. There is holy, then a more holy place, then the holy of holiest place. Now this realm is to be distinguished from the realm. Unclean, clean. Common, sacred. This realm is for everybody, then there is a place where a select few who will wear sacred garments, have a sacred emblem, perform a sacred task, will use sacred oil in the sacred place to offer sacred gifts and offerings on the sacred day. Follow me? 2 realms.
As a little side note here, the word profanity comes from the word profane. We think profanity is just used to give movies certain ratings. The word profanity literally means in its ancient roots to cross the threshold. To profane something is to take something sacred and cross the threshold and treat it common and as an everyday and ordinary thing. Taking words which are considered crude and to use them in an ordinary everyday fashion is profane…hence, profanity. Nevertheless, in Leviticus, there is a world view that sees 2 realms. In the ancient world they saw things this way. In the ancient world they saw things this way. In the ancient world they saw things this way. In the ancient world they saw things this way. Understand? In the ancient world they saw things this way. Just making a point.
So what does Jesus do to this reality in which things are treated in sort of this special sacred and holy parted space? Special occupations, tasks, work, callings and then you know…the rest of us. Certain places where you could only say certain things because it’s in that holy place but since we are over here, all sorts of other things are ok due to not being in that space making it ok and different. Does Jesus uphold and affirm this understanding of reality or does he see it in a slightly different way?
Matthew 12:1 1At that time Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath(sacred day uhoh). His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. 2When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, "Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath."
BTW, the job of religion is to keep this split view of the world in tact. That’s what religion does. And then it has its rules and its codes for keeping this view of reality preserved.
So you have the Pharisees who are freaking out saying you can’t you can’t. What are you doing?
3He answered, "Haven't you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? 4He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests.
I just want to interject here. Keep in mind that the Pharisees are experts in the law.
5Or haven't you read in the Law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple desecrate the day and yet are innocent? 6I tell you that one greater than the temple is here.
He sure schooled them.
Now remember Jewish consciousness was deeply shaped by this realm and then the center of reality was the temple. That is where God is. An entire system grew up around the notion that there are common ordinary places but then you go to Jerusalem, the temple area, you are essentially in the center of where God is in the world. That is how we order reality. The center is there. Jesus says, “One greater than the temple is here.” Jesus of course is speaking of himself and says that whatever He is doing there is something happening that is greater than the temple.

In John 2:18 Jesus pushes them to the edge. The temple is the most sacred, most holy place where they believe God dwelled with them in some sort of supernatural way. To use that kind of language would be speaking about the holiest of holiest of holiest places people could imagine in this world view. Jesus uses language that is extremely volatile and loaded. Verse 18 “Then the Jews demanded of him, "What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?" 19 Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days." The Jews replied, "It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?" 21But the temple he had spoken of was his body.
It took years for the disciples to understand what He means by this but they got it eventually, after He died of course.
22After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.
The light clicked on for John several years later and then he was able to write about it. Ohhhhhhh, now we get it. There is this view. Again some things are common, ordinary…blood, paycheck, sexuality, just the stuff that’s like life. Then there is this other realm. Holy, sacred, you watch your conduct. You only say certain things. If somebody told that joke in this realm you would just look at them and go hmmmm…I don’t approve. But in the other realm you would be like, “Dude! What was that joke again cause that is hillllareeeeus. Tell me, tell me, tell me.”
So He in someway associates Himself with the temple and system and its death with His own death. Keep in mind that temple was in fact destroyed 40 years after his resurrection.
Matthew 27- Matthew gives a small detail surrounding Jesus’ death. In a split view of reality there is a gradiance of holiness. So there is the outside place of the temple, then the priest, then there is the high priest. There is the holy place then there is the most holy place. So within sacred space there is a level of ascending hierarchy. In the temple there is a veil or curtain because God is somewhere at the center of this centered way of thinking of reality. If God is somewhere in there then there needs to be levels and this curtain in which only the high priest could go behind in the holy of holies only once per year.
Matthew 27:50 And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. 51 At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.
Now Matthew is a good Jewish writer and the audience would have been very familiar with the arrangement or the temple. There is this temple that essentially guards people from entering into the holiest of all places and that temple, that veil, the curtain was torn in two.
Later Biblical writers said that is because we can now have a direct relationship with God. People can go in. Which raises another point. If people can go in then God can come out. People now with Jesus have all sorts of new access to God through Christ’s death and resurrection. Again, God can now come out.
What does this mean now? Earlier Christians picked up on the idea that you yourselves are God’s Temple. This was a monumental shift in the way people viewed reality. It is how it was. There was the sacred, then the common. There is the clean, there is the unclean. There is the holy and then there is the everyday sort of thing. With Jesus, the whole thing comes crashing down in some sort of new reality in which the holy is somehow now to be found in the common. The sacred is somehow to be understood within the everyday. There is what you can see, and there are all sorts of depth. This has significant implications of what it means to be a Christian. In light of this, notice in Matthew 25 some of the things that Jesus says. He tells a story of sorts. It’s a parable of warning about when the Son of Man comes with all the Angels with Him and He sits on His glorious throne. He speaks of His judging and ordering of the world. He speaks of 2 different kinds of people. Sheep and goats. He places Himself as a sort of king. Matthew 25:37 "Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'
40"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'
Now what is He saying here? It is easy to be around people who are gentle and generous and honest and truthful and kind and creative and loving and say “I saw Jesus in them!” Perhaps you have felt this before. When I am around Karen it is like you can just see the living Christ in her. I mean that. She is the kindest, most gentle person I have ever met. It is obvious so has a certain peace about her. That is simple to see. Jesus says in this story His followers will be the kinds of people who can find Christ in the least of these. Karen, due to this essence is not the least of these. She doesn't fall into that catergory. So His followers will be the kinds of people who are more and more and more able through their interaction with the other, the least of these (He uses the example of the prisoner, which means you are actually identifying with the prisoner, the naked the sick, the thirsty) they will be more in tuned with the Christ who is present in that interaction. It won’t just be another bothersome thirsty person. They will see this person in their need as an opportunity to engage with the living Christ who will be present in that engagement. Click? Karen, that is for you. Click? It is easy to see people who are really Jesus like and say, there He is. He says His followers will be the kinds of people who will be increasingly in every day ordinary relationships specifically in their interactions with the least of these have an acute sense and alertness of the sacred holy nature of that interaction and they will act accordingly. So that means your boss, your ex-husband, your racist/pre-conceived notions in thugs, your interactions with the disease infested drug addicted homeless, and your mother-in-law too.
I am going to get touchy for some here so be forewarned.
The point of a sermon or message is to make us more aware of the Christ in the common. A teaching in a religious system, church or denomination can affirm some things are common and some things are sacred and if you would like to enter into our sacred club here are the rules. It either affirms a split world view OR it is alerting us to the Christ present in the least of these everyday common interactions. Particularly with those who we would be the quickest to dismiss. A sermon is about awakening us to the Christ in the common. If it does not and it further exacerbates a split view of the universe then it isn’t Christian no matter how many Bible versus it quotes. One step further. There is a medium in our culture. A technological medium that is designed to lower your IQ. It is called political talk radio. Now what happens in this medium is people from the extreme edges of both perspectives create caricatures of the other side and then with only one microphone turned on shred the caricature of the other side. And then people call in and say nice job. Click? If you are a Christian and I am not talking about particular specifics on policies, I am talking about broad sweeping generalization about people you have never actually interacted with one on one and you are growing in your heightened awareness of your Christ in the common then it will be harder and harder for you to speak of those stupid people over there. Because sweeping labels of people and generalizations is going the opposite way than finding the Christ in the common. What you will discover as you grow in your awareness of Jesus’ view of the reality that every person is an image bearer. Every person is a sacred precious creation of God. Every person is valued and loved in an eternal infinite sort of way by the maker of the universe. You will find it harder and harder to stick with the same old boring static categories of them and them, and us and them and right and left because what will happen is you will be having encounters with the least of these which by the way includes your enemies and you will walk away thinking there was something Jesusy about that experience and all I know is it was very real. Jesus wants to heighten our awareness. At a very practical level when we gather together for some sort of worship function as a church because what we have discovered as Christians is that on a regular basis it is very helpful to be reminded of the Christ in the common. What personally is my job? One of my jobs is to heighten our awareness of the Christ in the common. True of people and it is also true of places.
Genesis 28, this is one of my favorite passages. I so relate to it. Jacob is all over the place. He is a bit of a head case early on and makes some progress like the rest of us. Notice verse 12 12 He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. I just want to point out here that it says the angels are ascending and descending, so does that mean there home is here among us? That was something Rabbis who had nothing to do would sit around and debate.
13 There above it stood the LORD, and he said: "I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. 14 Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth.”
So this is some sort of massive epic dream. I don’t have dreams like this. Mine are more like I was walking in the grocery store and ran into my 3rd grade teacher Mrs. Moore doing a handstand in the cereal section because we all got 100% on our spelling test. How many of you have those dreams where it makes no sense whatsoever? You write it down and the next day you are like I am one messed up dude.
15Behold,I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you." 16Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, "Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it." 17And he was afraid and said, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven."

To me this is deep. To me this is what it means to grow as a disciple. To follow God. It means that you constantly find yourself waking up going, “Wow, God has been in this place the whole time and I missed it…until now.” When someone asks me what my definition of faith is I respond "It is waking up to a God who has been here the whole time." I just needed the shades pulled back a little bit. Do you know what I am talking about? We have our lives. We have the things that we do. We have the things that are very easy to see as common and then we leave our common life and go talk about other “sacred” things, and then we go back to our everyday sort of being. Think of the things we do…everyday you and I…it is groceries and gas and mowing the lawn, sitting in construction traffic and paying the insurance bill, the electric bill, downlpoading illegal music, painting the walls and surfing the web and vacuuming the carpets and washing the dishes and sitting in construction traffic and laundry and celebrating the new Maggiano’s in the Rim, and taking out the trash and recycling and sitting in more construction traffic and walking outside and saying damn another 100 degree day and jumping off the bridge into the Guadalupe and going to the dentist and another test back from the doctor and haircuts and Chucky Cheese and paying your taxes and going to work and sitting in construction traffic and coming home after sitting in construction traffic and filling out papers for license renewals and sitting on hold with Sprint and sweeping the floor and feeding the dog and then setting one day per week aside as a day of rest going to a church service and sitting in construction traffic on the way home from the building where the church meets. Ugh. No. We have a life that is very easy to develop the common stuff we do and then we gather together and talk about…God…that stuff. Jacob wakes up and says, “Surely God was in this place the whole time. I just wasn’t aware of it.” Do we gather so that somebody can spout off for awhile from the stage so we can say, “Yea, I think she did a great job? Not as good as last week but I enjoyed it.” Is that the point? Or do we gather in order to listen with the assumption and expectation and hope that in some way the shades will be pulled back just a little bit? I will hear something, I will see something, something that is said that will resonate with me in such a way that I will wake up in some small way. Perhaps you are going through a very difficult time and it’s a sort of storm and perhaps you hear something and you became aware that God has been in this storm the whole time and you never saw it that way until now. Do we gather in order to find God? There is this place where you can go and find God? Or is the point of a church service to gather together in order to listen and in order to learn how to find God everywhere else? This of course can change everything.
A split view of reality in which you have the common and the sacred actually disempowers because what it says is that certain places where the action is, the center is here, and certain people who are closer to the action, the Priests, the Pastors, The Rabbis, The Ministers, they are the ones who have access to the stuff. What you find with Jesus is that the center is everywhere. Remember if you were a good Jew in the 1st century you would not ask where is the temple? You would know. It’s there in Jerusalem and you would be able to face it and pray. And so for you, the action, the divine wasn’t there with you, it was in Jerusalem. South, North, East or West of where you were…17 miles away in Jerusalem up the mountain…but not…here with me. The center was there. How does Jesus view the world? Oh no not like that. The center when the temple comes down is now everywhere. So for a Christian to have this view that I have a job and it makes me want to vomit on myself, and there are these people and they make me want to vomit on myself, and this boss and he makes me want to vomit on myself. It is just a cubicle farm and it makes me want to vomit on myself. But then there is this place where I can go and there are all of these shiny happy Christians and there it is totally awesome. What is that? That is a view that the center is here, and then there is just my kind of life over here. What you find again and again and again in the scriptures with Jesus it’s oh no no no…the center has moved. There is no longer a center. The center is everywhere. This will change everything as it starts to kick in. Hopefully by now you will deconstruct some religious experiences you have had and actually thought wow God was always there.
Which brings me to my next question. Why is it when we have missionaries and are about to send them off to a foreign country we have these cards and pictures with contacts and how to support them and yet we don’t do this for people starting a new job at USAA or teaching or at the working at the gas station or in real estate about to make their first sale? Why don’t we come up and say, Mona here, she is starting her first year in the classroom and is serving 5 miles from here and we are going to commission her. Why do we only do it when it is this special sort of holy sacred stuff? What does that do actually? It disempowers. I am just kind of common everyday normal stuff and apparently there are others who do more. It is just exacerbating the same old world view that Jesus came to say One greater than the temple is here. We should start those support cards like we do for missionaries for our Christmas cards this year and be like "Jeremiah Nichols serving in San Antonio with Oak Hills" and send it to all of your friends. That would be awesome! They would wonder what you are doing now and you could say it is what you have always been doing, I just decided to be honest about it. That would be hilarious! We could get that globe picture in the background with a thumb tack pinned on NW San Antonio. I would laugh my face off…Anyways...so look for God everywhere.

Look at this picture. It is a young man in a hat, playing an old violin in the Washington DC metro station on a cold January morning in 2007. The man with a violin played 6 Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time approximately 2000 people went through the station most of them on their way to work. After 3 minutes a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing, slowed his pace, stopped for a few seconds and then hurried to meet his schedule. After 4 minutes the violinist received his first dollar. A woman threw some money into the hat and without stopping continued to walk. After 6 minutes a young man leaned against the wall to listen to him then looked at his watch and decided to walk again. After 10 minutes a 3 year old stopped but his mother tugged him along hurriedly. The kid stopped to look at the violinist again but the mothers pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. Every parent without exception forced their children to move on quickly. After 45 minutes the musician played continuously and only 6 people stopped and listened for a short while. About 20 gave money but continued to walk at a normal pace. The man collected a total of $32. After one hour he finished playing and silence took without nobody noticing. Nobody applauded, there was nothing nor any recognition. Nobody knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one the greatest musician in the world and lauded as a child prodigy around the world. He played one the most intricate pieces every written and with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars. 2 days before Josh performed and sold out a theatre in Boston with seats that averaged over $100 per ticket. Why do we gather? Why do we listen to teachings? Why do we have lifegroups and house churches? Why do we take part in this thing called the Christian faith? I do because I believe there are Joshua Bells on every corner and our job is simply to be listening so that we don’t miss the music.
Make sure you watch this video!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnOPu0_YWhw