Good paragraph in the latest edition of In Hope:
For those of us attached equally to country, community, church, and Christ, faith loses its power. Only as we return to the Father, willing to release all that we have and hold to Him alone, can we experience the true freedom of faith.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Monday, October 06, 2008
I've been pushing Joe Boyd here for a long time, I wish I lived in Cincy and could attend the services at the church where he teaches. Anyway, here are some excerpts of his latest sermon, which he posted on his blog:
Ivan Illich was once asked, ‘What is the most revolutionary way to change society: Is it violent revolution or is it gradual reform?’ He gave a careful answer: ‘Neither. If you want to change society, then you must tell an alternative story.’
In a world where every thought of every person was only evil all the time, Noah told an alternative story and built a wooden freighter in his back yard in the middle of a drought. His story saved the world.
In a world where people worshiped rocks shaped like frogs and painted logs sticking out of the ground, Abraham told an alternative story of a personal God who speaks directly to people and births a new nation out of a geriatric barren woman’s womb.
In a world where his family rejected him, his boss’s wife framed him as a rapist and his friends forgot all about him, Joseph told an alternative story to the face of the most powerful man in the ancient world when he told the Pharaoh to trust the Living God, Yahweh, the only one powerful enough to truly bail out nations on the edge of economic collapse.
In a world where he and all of his countrymen were the slaves of a tyrant and a bounty was on his own head as a murderer, Moses told an alternative story to the face of his oppressor when he said, “You can’t have this nation anymore. We are God’s people and he’s been pretty clear this time. I just got back from a magic burning bush. This is what the Lord says, “You let my people go. They have a better story to tell than the one you are telling.”
In a world where the greatest leader of their nation had died and millions of families wandered as political refugees in the desert for four decades, Joshua told an alternative story as he slid his general’s sword into his scabbard and said, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. Our story is already written, Our story is God’s story and it is not a story that ends in defeat, but in victory.”
In a world where the good people of the world were being beaten and pillaged and raped by an evil nation, God sent a messenger to tell Gideon, a frightened weakling of a man, an alternative story. The angel said, “On your own you are nobody, Gideon, but with God you are a mighty warrior. Get up and trust God to bail his people out of this mess.”
In a world where two superpowers lined up opposite each other for war and the destiny of two real historical nations hanged in the balance, a shepherd teenager carrying a basket of bread for the soldiers was the only one brave enough to tell an alternative story. David said, “ I’m just a boy with a rock and he’s a giant with a spear, but I got a Living God and he worships a bronze plated goat. My story wins.”
In a world where everyone he knew was killed or taken captive to a foreign land – a world where he himself was a slave for his entire life, Daniel told an alternative story when he approached king after king, decade after decade and said, “There is only one Living God and He’s not your god, He’s mine. And He’s got a message for you – your story is temporary but his is eternal.” They put his friends in a fiery furnace and threw him to the lions, but in the alternative story fire’s not all that hot and hungry lion’s make wonderful house pets.
And then it happened.
The Alternative Story became flesh and he lived among us. The Alternative Story was with God in the beginning. The Alternative Story was God. He came to the people of the alternative story, but his people did not recognize their Author. They rejected the Alternative Story for a different story – one that seemed more reasonable and possible and palatable and safe. And when it came time to give the Alternative story a name, the peasant teenage girl who birthed him named him Jesus whish literally means “God Saves Us” or “God Rescues Us” or “God Bails Us Out.”
For three years God Bails Us Out taught us that the alternative story was breaking into humanity in a fresh, real and dangerously significant way. He came to let us know that on the day he left us, the very last chapter of humanity’s alternative story would begin. And we believed him. He asked us to trust him – to trust God. And we trusted him. He warned us that we can’t always trust the religious leaders or the politicians or the economists or the powerful militants, but we can always trust him.
Then he died. But not before giving death itself an alternative story. In our new story, death begets life, not the other way around. So though he died, he lives. And we have the same promise.
And the story continued.
Peter told an alternative story to the masses in Jerusalem and 3,000 believed in one day. They abandoned their old story for the new alternative Jesus story.
Paul told an alternative story to those farthest from God and they started little churches in most every town in the ancient world. Little churches that would spread like a good cancer all through the Roman Empire.
100 years later, Polycarp, the elderly pastor of the church in Smyrna, told an alternative story to those who burned him at the stake for his faith when he boldly said his last words – “86 years I have served him, how can I now deny my savior who bought me?”
Chills?
Ivan Illich was once asked, ‘What is the most revolutionary way to change society: Is it violent revolution or is it gradual reform?’ He gave a careful answer: ‘Neither. If you want to change society, then you must tell an alternative story.’
In a world where every thought of every person was only evil all the time, Noah told an alternative story and built a wooden freighter in his back yard in the middle of a drought. His story saved the world.
In a world where people worshiped rocks shaped like frogs and painted logs sticking out of the ground, Abraham told an alternative story of a personal God who speaks directly to people and births a new nation out of a geriatric barren woman’s womb.
In a world where his family rejected him, his boss’s wife framed him as a rapist and his friends forgot all about him, Joseph told an alternative story to the face of the most powerful man in the ancient world when he told the Pharaoh to trust the Living God, Yahweh, the only one powerful enough to truly bail out nations on the edge of economic collapse.
In a world where he and all of his countrymen were the slaves of a tyrant and a bounty was on his own head as a murderer, Moses told an alternative story to the face of his oppressor when he said, “You can’t have this nation anymore. We are God’s people and he’s been pretty clear this time. I just got back from a magic burning bush. This is what the Lord says, “You let my people go. They have a better story to tell than the one you are telling.”
In a world where the greatest leader of their nation had died and millions of families wandered as political refugees in the desert for four decades, Joshua told an alternative story as he slid his general’s sword into his scabbard and said, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. Our story is already written, Our story is God’s story and it is not a story that ends in defeat, but in victory.”
In a world where the good people of the world were being beaten and pillaged and raped by an evil nation, God sent a messenger to tell Gideon, a frightened weakling of a man, an alternative story. The angel said, “On your own you are nobody, Gideon, but with God you are a mighty warrior. Get up and trust God to bail his people out of this mess.”
In a world where two superpowers lined up opposite each other for war and the destiny of two real historical nations hanged in the balance, a shepherd teenager carrying a basket of bread for the soldiers was the only one brave enough to tell an alternative story. David said, “ I’m just a boy with a rock and he’s a giant with a spear, but I got a Living God and he worships a bronze plated goat. My story wins.”
In a world where everyone he knew was killed or taken captive to a foreign land – a world where he himself was a slave for his entire life, Daniel told an alternative story when he approached king after king, decade after decade and said, “There is only one Living God and He’s not your god, He’s mine. And He’s got a message for you – your story is temporary but his is eternal.” They put his friends in a fiery furnace and threw him to the lions, but in the alternative story fire’s not all that hot and hungry lion’s make wonderful house pets.
And then it happened.
The Alternative Story became flesh and he lived among us. The Alternative Story was with God in the beginning. The Alternative Story was God. He came to the people of the alternative story, but his people did not recognize their Author. They rejected the Alternative Story for a different story – one that seemed more reasonable and possible and palatable and safe. And when it came time to give the Alternative story a name, the peasant teenage girl who birthed him named him Jesus whish literally means “God Saves Us” or “God Rescues Us” or “God Bails Us Out.”
For three years God Bails Us Out taught us that the alternative story was breaking into humanity in a fresh, real and dangerously significant way. He came to let us know that on the day he left us, the very last chapter of humanity’s alternative story would begin. And we believed him. He asked us to trust him – to trust God. And we trusted him. He warned us that we can’t always trust the religious leaders or the politicians or the economists or the powerful militants, but we can always trust him.
Then he died. But not before giving death itself an alternative story. In our new story, death begets life, not the other way around. So though he died, he lives. And we have the same promise.
And the story continued.
Peter told an alternative story to the masses in Jerusalem and 3,000 believed in one day. They abandoned their old story for the new alternative Jesus story.
Paul told an alternative story to those farthest from God and they started little churches in most every town in the ancient world. Little churches that would spread like a good cancer all through the Roman Empire.
100 years later, Polycarp, the elderly pastor of the church in Smyrna, told an alternative story to those who burned him at the stake for his faith when he boldly said his last words – “86 years I have served him, how can I now deny my savior who bought me?”
Chills?
Thursday, October 02, 2008
This, from the latest edition of In Hope by Dr. David Timms, really convicted me:
We marvel at military technology that targets and kills by remote control, rather than grieve the loss of life. We approve government spending to produce sophisticated weaponry that can obliterate villages and cities. We justify aggression as a necessary evil to protect ourselves, our families, and our possessions.
All the while, the gospel of peace withers.
In reading this, I couldn't help but think of Michael Douglas's character in The American President, when he says, after ordering the bombing of a Libyan Intelligence building:
Leon, somewhere in Libya right now, a janitor's working the night shift at Libyan Intelligence headquarters. He's going about doing his job... because he has no idea, in about an hour he's going to die in a massive explosion. He's just going about his job, because he has no idea that about an hour ago I gave an order to have him killed. You've just seen me do the least presidential thing I do.
This convicts me not for political reasons but because the loss of life does not phase me. It convicts me because I am like Douglas' colleagues who thought nothing of the innocent lives sure to be lost in the attack. It convicts me because I am the person who reads the headlines every day who Timms writes, "accept(s) it as inevitable in our fallen world, and return to our (my) relatively safe cocoons." Suffering and death do not bother me, they should, I hope they do more in the future.
We marvel at military technology that targets and kills by remote control, rather than grieve the loss of life. We approve government spending to produce sophisticated weaponry that can obliterate villages and cities. We justify aggression as a necessary evil to protect ourselves, our families, and our possessions.
All the while, the gospel of peace withers.
In reading this, I couldn't help but think of Michael Douglas's character in The American President, when he says, after ordering the bombing of a Libyan Intelligence building:
Leon, somewhere in Libya right now, a janitor's working the night shift at Libyan Intelligence headquarters. He's going about doing his job... because he has no idea, in about an hour he's going to die in a massive explosion. He's just going about his job, because he has no idea that about an hour ago I gave an order to have him killed. You've just seen me do the least presidential thing I do.
This convicts me not for political reasons but because the loss of life does not phase me. It convicts me because I am like Douglas' colleagues who thought nothing of the innocent lives sure to be lost in the attack. It convicts me because I am the person who reads the headlines every day who Timms writes, "accept(s) it as inevitable in our fallen world, and return to our (my) relatively safe cocoons." Suffering and death do not bother me, they should, I hope they do more in the future.
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