Resurrection, Women's Lib and the Da Vinci Code

I was thinking about the resurection and how most of my life it has meant very little to me in some ways. Growing up it was like Jesus died for your sins now you can have relationship with him if you pray a prayer of forgiveness. Then because Jesus rose again you can go to heaven someday. Resurection is about so much more......

NT Wright is one of my favorite thinkers/theologians/authors/brits and he had some amazing thoughts on the subject this year. He is referring to that fact that Jesus shows himself to Mary and then she goes to tell the disciples that Jesus is alive.

And who is it that carries this stupendous message, this primal announcement of new creation, this heraldic proclamation of the king of kings and his imminent enthronement? It is Mary from Magdala. ….But the real shock is not Mary’s character. It is her gender. This is perhaps the most astonishing thing about the resurrection narratives, granted the universal beliefs of the time in the unreliability of women in a lawcourt or almost anywhere else. It is one of the things which absolutely guarantees that the early Christians did not invent these stories. They would never, ever, ever have invented the idea that it was a woman – a woman with a known background of emotional instability, but the main point is that it was a woman – to whom had been entrusted the earth-shattering message that Jesus was alive again….. It is Mary: not Peter, not John, not James the brother of the Lord, but Mary, who becomes the apostle to the apostles, the primary Christian witness, the first Christian evangelist. This is so striking, so unexpected, so embarrassing to some early Christians

Something has happened in the renewal of creation through the death and resurrection of Jesus which has the result, as one of its multiple spin-offs, that whereas before Jesus only ever sent out men, now – now of all moments! – he sends out a woman. And though the church has often struggled – to put it mildly – with the idea of women being called to genuine apostolic ministry, the record is clear and unambiguous. And let me just say that one of the great ironies of that silly book The Da Vinci Code is that, in seeking to elevate Mary Magdalene, all it does is diminish her, to make her Jesus’ appendage, his girl-friend or even his wife, whereas she was his chosen first apostle. Here, as so often, the revisionist versions of Christianity only succeed in domesticating the utterly revolutionary message of the New Testament – not, of course, that the church has not been guilty of that as well.

Dude, that's awesome! What a call we all have to live in and share the living message of Christ's death and ressurection. What a call that we are all invited into even those that society has thought were "unfit" to do ministry. Mary become the apostle to the apostles; what a thought.

Mary's simple act of obedience in sharing that Jesus was alive began a ripple effect of living proclamation that reverberates into our hearts and world today.

I've been making a list of people that God wants to use but may feel inadequate or "unfit." I don't know how I'm going to encourage them but I am. I'm going to repent of ever thinking that God didn't want to use them and I'm going to join with God in inviting them to be "used."

The Cross before and After Jesus

Rome was at the heigth of their power and rule. They were taking over more and more of the world and forcing them to live their way. If anybody got in the way, if anybody didn't fall in line then they had a place for them; the cross. To be crucified on a cross was the most brutal and public death possible. They would violently display you naked in front of everyone as a symbol of what happens if you don't go Rome's way.

What a symbol of power. Jesus took the loudest symbol of power, control and violence and transformed it. Today we hang crosses, wear crosses and even make the sign of a cross with our hands. The word crucifixion was rude to even bring up in most conversations in the first century. But Jesus was nailed to that cross as a symbol of where human ambition and lust for power always goes; violence. Rome thought they were bringing peace to the world on there terms by forcing people to live under their "superior" rule. Our human ambitions will always lead to violence of some form. Even the Jewish people at Jesus trial cried for Jesus' death but for the release of Barrabas who was a violvent revolutionary "for God." It hit just the other day how humanities choice of violence was so prevalent as Jesus was lead to the cross. Rome thought violently forcing people would bring them into a well put together world. Many Jews thought violently fighting back would lead them to salvation. Jesus goes a very different route. Jesus isn't trying to be the president or the ceasar or the general or anything like that. It's not who's in office it's the system too. Jesus death brough a whole new way of existing. He took on the violence of humans and did not retaliate. He enveloped the violence and sin of humanity in love.

The cross has become a symbol of the upside down world Jesus has created for us to live into as the spirit enables us (Or maybe the world is upside down and Jesus is right side up).

I've been thinking about the powerful message that Jesus hanging on a roman cross really sends. I've been thinking about how it's so much more then Jesus just dieing for the personal naughty things I've done in my life. I've been thinking that it changes everything. I've been think about when he said to Pilate. "My kingdom is not from this world." From is the correct translation from the greek. His kingdom is for our world but it is not from it. Thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in HEAVEN. God's way of living, acting and saving is so different then our ways. That he would use a man made tool of death, shame and destruction to save the WORLD from decay is beyond my understanding.

What does the cross mean to you?

What could it really mean if we saw it as Jesus intends us to?

CRAZY TALK II AKA the Sermon on the Mount

In many ways the beatitudes are not just a proclamation of the postures of the heart we need to enter into the Kingdom of God but what we have to give up is also implied.

In Luke Nine three people ask if they can follow Jesus. They don’t ask if they can have eternal life or what commandments are most important they just want to follow Jesus. In all three situations Jesus challenges their propositions; basically saying they aren’t ready. If somebody came up to us and said I want to follow Jesus; would our next response would be to bring up things in their life that are in the way of really doing that? Jesus doesn’t affirm them and say “oh that sounds like a great decision but here are a couple things you might want to work on to get started” No, he says

As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."
He said to another man, "Follow me." But the man replied, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God." Still another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good bye to my family." Jesus replied, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God."Luke 9:57-62

Hey when you follow me you become a vagrant; are you ready for that? If you want to follow me come and do it right now let the spiritually dead bury the spiritually dead (your father) and come be spiritually alive. Hey if you want to follow me you have to do it all the way you can’t start and then look back at your old life.

Are you guys sure you want to do this?

What would he say to you or I today if we said we wanted to follow him?
What would he point out to us?

In the beatitudes some things he is hinting at are….

Hey if you want to follow me, If you want to live life in the kingdom…

Give up your status, pride, position, comfort, forceful ways, abilities to get you want, satisfaction with your life, your first reactions to people, violence, your grudges, your anger, your peaceful life, your well-liked state among friends and family, ………..

…Are you sure you want to follow me?

Are we sure we want to today? It's been hard for me to think about the last 10 years I've been trying to follow Christ and wonder if I really have been for much of it.

In Luke 14 Jesus says “strive” to enter through the narrow gate. The word strive is a forceful striving with intense effort. As John the Baptist said the kingdom of heaven can be entered by forceful people. Forceful in the sense that it’s the most painful and forceful experience to allow God to do a 180 in your life to turn your will to his.

The beatitudes can almost serve as a warning sign as we enter the Sermon on the Mount; as we enter Jesus teaching on how to live with him.

Warning: Are you sure you want to do this?

Through this lens the beatitudes become the framework for the entire sermon. Without them the rest is read but not embraced.

Crazy Talk - AKA The Sermon on the Mount

I am taking a break from laying out some of my thoughts on the gospel as participation to share a little about what’s been going on in me while studying the Sermon on the Mount. I started doing it by accident and now I can’t stop (ahhh, the blessing of ADD).

The Sermon on the Mount starts with what is commonly called the Beatitudes where Jesus lays the foundation (I realize this is a very non-pomo/emergent/missional/cool word but I couldn't come up with anything else) for the whole sermon. Jesus takes a little bit of time to talk about who is really well off in the kingdom of God; Blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers and those who are persecuted for righteousness sake. Sign me up for that club; I bet they throw the best parties!

I was listening to a teaching by a Theologian named Stanley Hauerwas. He had a lot of interesting things to say but one simple thing I can’t shake and that is “the sermon on the mount is Jesus.” The teacher and the teaching are one. When we separate the teaching of Jesus and the work of crucifixion and resurrection we make discipleship an afterthought. To live the Sermon on the Mount is salvation. Jesus said several times but in different ways those who know and love him (and his father) will follow his teachings and commandments. If the Sermon on the Mount is Jesus and we aren’t radically engaged in learning to live it then there’s no way we can “know” Jesus. To live the sermon is to know him. WOW. Hauerwas said that strikes a dagger into the heart of piety or into the heart of Jesus-being-my-personal-savior-and-I-try-to-be-a-good-person-and-will-go-to-heaven-someday-Christianity.

DANG.

More thoughts to come.

Used: The Gospel as Participation - Thoughts Part 2

This is one of my Vans Old School shoes. This sucker has been through the ringer with me. I wish I could still wear them but if you look there is a ginourmous gaping whole in the back and when I walk the soul flaps out. Once I walk about a block there is only an inch of soul left inside the shoe. There is something glorious about using something well. We usually think it's the new "cool" item that has the most value but in actuality it's the things that we've shared life with that means the most. Like those "blankees" most kids have that they wear out so much they become scraps of yarn and fiber. I'm beginning to realize that God's desire for me is too look like this shoe. That his goal for my life is to be used by him. To have the worn out marks of his feet guiding my life and stamped into my being. God wants to be involved in every part of my life and he wants me to be involved in him. So much of my life I have been focused on getting somewhere when God has been whispering that he just wants me to be used. The journey with God is the destination. A life well used.

Used: The Gospel as Participation - Thoughts Part 1

I had lifted weights for five days straight in seventh grade and all that hard work was now paying off sixteen years later as I lugged three storage boxes up our treacherous basement steps. My two year old son’s face lit up as he saw some new treasures emerge from the ominously intriguing “down-stay-eeze.” I opened the first bin to reveal dozens of …“STAR WARS Daddy oh WOW it’s STAR WARS.” Kaeden bounced frantically with excitement as I explained “these are Daddy’s special Star Wars toys Kaedo and because they are special we don’t take them out of their packages.” “No Open” asked Kaeden. “That’s right bud we just look.” “OHHhhhhhhhhhhh” As I carefully displayed the great spoils of my bachelor years to my young padewon I noticed interest was disappearing at light speed. Just two minutes after the star wars collectibles unveiling my son had left and begun playing with a Snapple cap in the corner. I had broken the kid in on Star Wars a little too early for his age and he had begun getting nightmares from the movies so we had to stop watching them altogether. Realizing he was probably on at least a three year star wars film fast I thought maybe seeing my humble collection would put me in the running for Dad of the year. I was wrong.

It’s used. Those words usually cause a hand to retreat in disgust from what it was reaching for and the searching eye will move on to find the sexy hot new item. For a collector the word used means a great deal less of worth is assigned to the item. What you want is something in mint condition or even still in the box so it can go up on display in all it’s faultless glory. But not taking a cool toy out of a box makes as much sense to a two year old as getting your favorite bands new CD and then displaying it still packaged up on the mantle in your house. Music is meant to be listened to, toys are meant to be played with and star wars figures are meant to collide in galactic battle all over the living room carpet. Who cares if those action figures will be worth $100 bucks a piece someday (maybe!); they are worth much more then that if they are well used.

Since that night I went down a notch in coolness with my son I began discovering a renewed and empowering meaning for things that are “used.” You would think someone who was one of the three lead singers for the incomparable underground punk/ska band “The Thrift Shop Junkies” would know better (Interesting sidenote: Punk/Ska is probably far too gracious of a genre label the best I ever heard was Spazz/Punk). My high school friends and I had discovered Value Village as a mine of creative dressing gold long before it was even remotely popular. One example would be after a purchase at Goodwill I showed up to school my junior year sporting my sleeveless baby blue extra small t-shirt with the words “World’s Largest Source Of Natural Gas” plastered across the front. A couple years after high school some of my friends joined forces with several others with second hand store tendencies to form the band. I joined the band early in the career and appear on the first full length album (Gap is the Enemy) that was recorded by a junior at a neighboring high school who had access to the school’s equipment. Well, let’s just make a long story short; “used” is a word I am very familiar with but only lately have I begun to get a glimpse of all that word could mean in life.