Ron Cole : unplugged, unorthodox, heretic

engaged through fascination, beauty...the Kingdom

Randy, at church on Sunday engaged us in beauty through the lens of Luke's gospel, and quoted Shane Claiborne;

The gospels spread best not through force but through fascination. Jesus doesn't insist on who he is or isn't. When people asked Jesus, "Are you the Messiah?" he would answer "Tell me what you see, what you hear."

Jesus never answered a whole lot of questions in the gospels. I am told, for example, that Jesus only directly answers 3 of the 183 questions that he himself is asked in the four Gospels!  This is totally surprising to people who have grown up assuming that the very job description of religion is to give people answers and to resolve peoples' dilemmas. Apparently this is not Jesus' understanding of the function of religion because he operates very differently. 

Jesus' parables are to re-position you, make you own your unconscious biases, break you out of your dualistic mind, challenge your image of God or the world, or present new creative possibilities.  He himself does not usually wait for or expect specific answers.  He hopes to awaken redemptive imagination.  He wants to be in relationship with a person, he fascinates us with the beauty and reality of the kingdom, to see infinite hope, and new possibilities. Thus his parables are worth examining because they, reveal his basic style of encounter with the soul, or what we would call today, his style of "evangelizing". Maybe, instead of evangelizing, we should engage more in conversations of fascination.

Instead, Jesus asks questions, good questions, unnerving questions, re-aligning questions, transforming questions.  He leads us into liminal, and therefore trans-formative space. He leaves us betwixt and between, where God and grace can get at us, and where we are not at all in control.

You're familiar with the old written law, 'Love your friend,' and its unwritten companion, 'Hate your enemy.' I'm challenging that. I'm telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer, for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. He gives his best—the sun to warm and the rain to nourish—to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty. ( Eugene Peterson's, The Message, Matthew's Gospel Chapter 5 )

That short circuits the neurons in our brains, where is the sense of fairness, where is the justice? Love you friends, and, your enemies. Pray your enemies would be blessed. God gives his best, sun to warm, and rain to nourish, not just on the good, but...the bad and nasty also. That, should fascinate us, it should blow our minds, transforming it, into the mind of Jesus.

We made of Jesus a systematic theologian, who walked around teaching dogmas, instead of a pilgrim and engaging transformer of the soul, whose divine imagination excites us.  Easy answers instead of hard questions allow us to try to change others instead of allowing God to change us.

One of  my favorite stories in the gospels come from John's account of Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at the well. This is the longest conversation that Jesus has with any one person in all of the gospels. Through the fascination of " Living Water ", Jesus has captured the imagination of this woman, she begins to thirst for something beyond, to a source of such beauty that can't be described. She, is like so many who struggle to find identity in their culture, and then add to the mix, a painful past. Jesus weakens her grip on to what she has come to identify herself with, and opens her up to an identity with infinite hope and possibility.

Interesting earlier, I was talking about dualistic thinking, the idea of polarity, right or wrong. In this place, this space Jesus has brought her to, she asks the question...the " God " question. Are the Samaritan's right, or are the Jews right.

But the time is coming—it has, in fact, come—when what you're called will not matter and where you go to worship will not matter.

 It's who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That's the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship. ( Eugene Peterson, The Message )

Earlier in the conversation, it was God, suddenly it is Father. Surely, that profound word didn't float over her head like a passing cloud. It had to have captured her imagination, it had to have awakened her fascination to a whole new identity. There is another community!

God is not to be worshiped generically, but as the very giver of her life, as the one who knows her, watched over her, as the one who looks at her and says, " my beloved." This community is not just open to her, but it is the " Family " to which she belongs, " The Kingdom of God."

Is there anyplace I can go to avoid your Spirit?
  to be out of your sight?
   If I climb to the sky, you're there!
  If I go underground, you're there!
   If I flew on morning's wings
  to the far western horizon,
   You'd find me in a minute—
  you're already there waiting!
   Then I said to myself, "Oh, he even sees me in the dark!
  At night I'm immersed in the light!"
   It's a fact: darkness isn't dark to you;
  night and day, darkness and light, they're all the same to you. 

 Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;
  you formed me in my mother's womb.
   I thank you, High God—you're breathtaking!
  Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
  I worship in adoration—what a creation!
   You know me inside and out,
  you know every bone in my body;
   You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,
  how I was sculpted from nothing into something.
   Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth;
  all the stages of my life were spread out before you,
   The days of my life all prepared
  before I'd even lived one day. 

 Your thoughts—how rare, how beautiful!
  God, I'll never comprehend them!
   I couldn't even begin to count them—
  any more than I could count the sand of the sea. ( Eugene Peterson's. The Message )

Jesus does not just save her from her sin as an individual, he offers her a place to belong. We need to fascinate people's imagination with this place of belonging.

 

contemplation...wisdom, faith and journey

I was talking to my daughter last evening and expressing how fall for me always seems to be a time of contemplation. There is the dramatic palette of colors, that the Artist splashes everywhere knowing shortly His canvas will be wiped clean, left empty until His creativity stirs again bringing life anew. There is the stark reality that the tree will be stripped bare, naked and exposed. The sun will fade, days becoming short and cold...energy to sustain will come from some where else. Seasons in nature seem to mirror seasons in life.

As religion can be filled with meaningful rituals, so can life. Each year a ritual in my life would be to trek into the mountains of Strathcona Park on Vancouver Island, with backpack, bible and journal...alone. This ritual always caused some anxiety for my wife. But I think she realized there was likely some repressed caveman gene from the hunter-gather age that clicked to the on position when the planets seemed to line up causing some weird gravitational pull. Some people go to monasteries, a secluded cell, I went into the wilderness.

No Cell phone, no radio, no GPS, no guide...a backpack, 3 days rations, tent, therma-rest, sleeping bag...topographical map, compass, bible and journal for direction. Growing up in the Scouting movement, and then a 10 year stint in the army ( PPCLI ), I feel very at home in the outdoors. Tangira would relate to this. I always feel such a profound sense of connectedness when I am in the wild of his creation. These words always come flooding into my mind;

We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God's original purpose in everything created. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment.

He was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he's there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross. ( Eugene Peterson's The Message )

I get a sense that redemption is microcosmic and galactic, that redemption is about every infinite speck of creation. If Christ holds it all together, if he is the glue that holds the fabric of life, that holds creation together...then we need to be thinking with the redemptive imagination of Jesus. Another thought. I'm not above creation. We are wound into the very fiber of creation. We remove ourselves from that reality, and we no longer exist.

Call me nuts, but I talk to birds, squirrels, deer, and frogs. We've had Pacific Tree Frog living in one of the pots on our deck. Every day, he climbs out and sits on the edge of the pot...like clock work, at about 9 in the morning. I call him Dexter. And, yes, I know it's a male by the markings on the throat. I figured if I was a frog, I'd like to be called Dexter. Anyways, I go out and say hello to Dexter every morning. He hasn't engaged in any conversation yet, but, that's not the point. It gives me a sense of connectedness. Dexter and I are wound into the fabric of God's creation. In a deep way, redemption and restoration are about Dexter's world also. Going out every morning and saying " Hi " to Dexter reinforces that truth.

The above image is from when I had just shot a compass bearing and was traversing across a ridge to get to Mt. Phillip. It was a gorgeous patch of mountain heather in full bloom. Look at the picture...there is something very striking. There is no soil, it is all rock. There was no path to lead anyone to it, to take in its beauty. It was a bearing on a compass, that unknowingly brought me to it. I sat for a long time, talking in the moment, the space and the beauty.

If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don't you think he'll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I'm trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God's giving. People who don't know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don't worry about missing out. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. ( Eugene Peterson's, The Message )

The Psalmist sang, that all creation glorifies The Lord. I wondered how many people had came upon that patch of Mountain Heather, or if I had come up a profound act of worship, creation glorifying the creator. Something very profound in Jesus' words, that if we didn't worship the stones would cry out. Had I witnessed beauty beyond words, rocks crying out?

One way one navigates travel in the high country is by cairns, or ebenezers,  ( It is usually transliterated as a proper name by dropping the definite article (Ha) from the Hebrew word for "help" (Ezer) and putting it together with the Hebrew word for "stone" (Even) to create: "Ebenezer."  An "Ebenezer" is, literally, a "Stone of Help.")  Because of the terrain, harsh climate, and not many travel in the high country, paths do not get worn into the landscape. Usually, initially someone shoots a bearing and heads of into the direction the needle points, and every so often creates an ebenezer to help future travelers. As one walks, you learn to scour the horizon looking for the stone of help. Loosing focus, and loosing track of these " Stones of Help ", one soon finds themsleves wandering, lost.

If it's one thing I've learned in this faith journey, it is, we need these stones of help. A faith journey is very much like traveling in the high country, we need to be conscious of those who have traveled its terrain before us. We need to glean from their wisdom, and if need be we need to restore some of the ancient wisdom, the stones of help that we've ignored and let fall. To navigate into the future we need it all, maps, compass, and ebenezers.

Yes, it's bold, it's cool, it's exciting and radical to head off in a new direction. But ignoring maps, compass and ebenezers is very dangerous. The wisdom of "one" does not sustain itself for very long.

Is there room for religion in...A Secular Age

One of the podcasts I subscribe to is Radio National Australia's " Encounters. Always, great content, guests and interviews. Recently, they had on the renouned Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor as a guest, talking about is book " A Secular Age." Guests in the conversation include, Ruth Abbey is a political scientist who runs an ever-growing web-based bibliography of Taylor related material, and James McEvoy is a theologian who appreciates the way Taylor's analysis of our age opens up possibilities for dialogue and for religious faith.

For those of us really trying to understand post-modernity, and engage it, this is an absolutely fascinating interview. The thing I like about Charles Taylor is, he's a man of faith. He comes from a catholic background, and is able to bridge religion, faith and philosophy into his writing and conversation. In this podcast, Charles shows us the challenge of this age. He doesn't leave us tangling there in dispair, he also shows us hope. Below I've included some sound bytes from the conversation, but, do yourself a favor...listen to the whole interview. 

In the conversation, James McEvoy, says this to Charles Taylor, " Another implication just from a religious perspective is that there is a tendency in many religious thinkers to think of modernity as something that has happened to the churches and if only we could only get back to prior to that we'd get rid ourselves of this godless world, you know, whereas this picture of the effect of reform makes it very clear that secularisation is something that is brought about by the drive to reform itself." And Charles responds;

Yes, the splitting off of a set of unbelieving outlooks on the world from this is a kind of own goal in a certain sense of the Christian drive to reform. You see, when one really successfully managed to, supposedly anyway, integrate the demands of the gospel right though ordinary life, right through the life of people in their families, in their productive lives and so on, you made this what looked like a kind of perfect system, the kind of thing that the Enlightenment eventually referred to, a kind of perfect system of behaviour, the perfect system in which everyone operates as a good citizen and equally with others and so on. Once you create this sense it can go along with the notion that, hey, we can do this. we human beings can do this, we don't necessarily need grace or some power from above—the whole 18th century is full of this, you find among elites the idea that, hey, we can do certain things, for instance we don't need to suffer these regular plagues which kill off I don't know what percentage of the population, we have ways of organising, quarantine. But the sense that we can do this—that human beings can do this alone, can play into a sense that we don't need the church, we don't need God. So in a certain sense as it were the bases for it were laid by the actual reform movements in the church.

Later in the conversation, James McEvoy says, " One sentence that I am very fond of in A Secular Age describes the place of religion in the age of authenticity. You say the religious life or practice that I become part of must not only be my choice but it must speak to me, it must make sense in terms of my spiritual development as I understand this. But it seems to me that it captures the perspective of a wide range of believers. It reminds me of perhaps Augustine's most famous line, 'You've made us for yourself O God and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.' Perhaps the most liberal and the most conservative believer would see their faith as making sense of their spiritual development. Do you see this understanding as a gain?" Charles Taylor responds;

Absolutely. You know, 'cause I mean your quote from Augustine really I think points that up. It touches something very deep in the whole Christian revelation—that it's not about conformity to a single model but it is about communion between people who come to God and to each other through very different paths. This sense of course was always there in the church: you think of all the strange offbeat saints, St Francis, St Ignatius Loyola, and so on who went through extraordinary itinerary including sometimes a very important itinerary in their lives before they became followers of Christ. And you see these itineraries in all their difference converging and somehow these converging but different paths get canonised afterwards. But then the same church that canonises them very often wants to impose total conformity, a single path, on people today. Now, you can open this up in a much more creative way I think if you take the step into an ethic of authenticity—in that sense there is a fuller living of this feature of the Christian tradition. Obviously there are also losses, that lots of people go off in other directions. Now, that's path of the package, but this positive side of the package from a Christian point of view is that this very, very important feature of the whole Christian vision which I try to sum up with the notion of communion of saints, people coming through different itineraries, is finally given its full force, it can finally breath fully in a certain sense in the life of Christians today.

James McEvoy, " You've already said that the age of authenticity has a down side for religious traditions, or at least makes some things difficult. I think in the book you say that it can easily lead to trivial spiritual options. I was presenting this picture of religion in the age of authenticity to a staff of a large Catholic school in the West of Adelaide and in response to your sentence about faith making sense of my spiritual development, one very talented and also very committed teacher said some of my students turn to Madonna for spiritual nourishment and they are not thinking about the mother of Jesus. I wonder how you would respond to her." Charles Taylor ressponds;

I mean I think two thoughts on that question. Number one, there are gains and losses and this gain is very important. But number two, when you have this kind of real civilisational shift, in which the mindset in which everybody lives changes, you just can't go back to the older forms and the creative response of Christians and of the Church to this is to be part of the process of searchers, sharing their search, to show how much Christian faith is a kind of set of paths of search, as against a set of already given answers before you even ask a question, right? What we have to take from this is a way of speaking to this world rather than trying to roll it back to what it was before 1800, which apart from the fact that it would forgo the important gains, is actually utterly impossible.

James McEvoy then remarks to Charles Taylor, " It seems to me an implication of that is that it's not that you are implying that the Gospel is any less important or that we have to shear off different aspects of it, but that we have to find a new way to proclaim it in this age. " Charles reponds;

This is something that again points up what was always there, that is that there are all these different paths. Astonishingly enough in a very early part of the modern period before the West got really arrogant in the 19th century, there were missionaries, Jesuit missionaries for instance Matteo Ricci in China and De'Nobili in India, in China, who had this idea, well, that the faith is not something that belongs to western civilisation, it is something, people come at it from all these different directions, and we have to help the people here find their own very different path. Now in a certain sense that is already multiculturalism and in a certain sense it is the same spirit behind the notion of authenticity. So, a germ that was there has now really flourished in the 20th and 21st century in the west. This is not to say that we are compromising or shearing off parts of the Christian faith but we are finding a way for very different people to come together in it.

looking back...shades of blues

Download 01 Runaway Soul

... Back to the Gospel Blues Festival, Chilliwack August 2009

From the beginnings of this band ( Dr. Bones Blues Project ), it has pretty much been a God thing. So many things have just happened, the idea of God some how going before you, sort of already there and you walk face first in to it. I hadn't seen John for almost 15 years. We did a lot of competitive running, and race organizing in the early days of the Prairie Inn Harriers. But on a sunny November day two years ago, I found my self bumping into John on a church pew. Both at the same wedding and not really sure why we were there.

After the wedding as we headed out the back door, John stated to talk about music, blues...gospel blues. He and his wife Gail had just been to " Back to the Gospel Blues " festival in Chilliwack earlier that summer. I love the blues. Guys like Muddy Waters, John Mayal, Little Walter, Son House, BB King, Willie Nixon, Howlin' Wolf, Buddy Guy, Junior Wells, Robert Johnson, Etta James had a great influence on the music I played growing up. So when John mentioned the idea of a band I was hooked.

This band has been very different from other bands I've played in. From the first practice the focus of our music has been the gospel. And the challenge has been to remain true to that initial seed of inspiration that was planted.

Initially, once we had some skill, and a few songs tucked into our pockets, we did a bi-monthly thing at Saanichton Bible Fellowship called " Bread and Jam ." But like many things, it was a season...there was growth in us as a group, but it died. But as in nature, when things die, it's not the end. There are still seeds, new life to be planted.

Honestly...we new this band and what we did was never going to be a church thing. We've played in churches...but, I don't think they get us, or the music. And that's ok. The church is a culture with it's own music, worship...and our music is foreign.

Who couldn't find solace in a song like “Lost Ship,’” “In my Father's House,” or “Workin' on a Building”? The blues can also articulate our deepest suffering as broken humans in need of redemption. What’s missing is the full picture of life—even the full picture of Christ. That’s what blues music contributes. It helps us not just dwell on life in the minor key, but at least to acknowledge and recognize it. In the recognizing of it we have a more holistic, true, and authentic sense of who we are as human beings, the human condition, and even life.

We tend to gloss over the place of sorrow in Jesus own life and his seeming abandonment by God. You write that Jesus cry, " My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?", is probably the greatest blues line of all time.

That’s the most poignant moment in all of scripture. Jesus is suspended between heaven and earth at that moment. He’s been rejected by humanity and is abandoned by God, and so he has this ultimate cry of desperation. That’s something listening and being engaged in the blues helped me connect with. You see it in other places in scripture, too. Bono has referred to David as a “blues man,” and of course the Psalms have that minor key.

There is a sense in which the Kingdom is in the future when the realities of the kingdom are fully known, but we don’t have to sit on this side of Jordan’s shores and wait for the other side. We can seek God to be at work now, and we can even seek to be instruments of bringing that future kingdom life into the world as we know it, into our own experience.

So our initial seed of inspiration, was still filled with a life beyond us, the gospel, the very life of Jesus. Our prayer was that it would be carried by the wind of God's spirit in places where his Kingdom would grow and be revealed. I think God's prayer was, that we would be bold enough to chase the wind and seed.

And we have chased. The Mustard Seed has become home, it's community, filled with friends. We also found our way out to William Head Penitentiary in the summer, Back to the Gospel Blues Festival, Saanich Fair, and next month visit the penitentiary over in Mission.

This band has been a God thing, we really believe that he does go before us. We have learned patience, that we truly do only see through cloudy glass, that when the wind blows...it's time to move. We've grown as friends, as musicians...and we grow to see that the gospel, all that Jesus is can re-create a new world...his Kingdom.

Keepin' up with the Joneses...an urgent apeal for a missional adventure

The Jones family is traveling the world in their truck, exploring the world that God loves and seeking to bring real transformation and change. They have just visited 12 countries, hosting leadership training events, encouraging social enterprises, and supporting missional entrepreneurs in a sustainable and effective way.

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Video by Bill Kinnon.

Its been an incredible time but the financial crunch has caused a number of funders to drop out and now the funds are depleted, just as they head south and east towards the next 25 countries.

The Joneses need to raise $30,000 by the end of the year but the urgent need is $5000 for visas, diesel, ferry and plane tickets that are needed immediately. Can you help them by supporting them financially or by spreading the word?

There is a link in the top right hand corner of my blog, for info and how to donate. Or you might think about the following options...from Andrew.

I've followed Andrew's missional stories for years now...He's the real deal, on the ground doing it. It's not an extravagant holiday, it's living by faith a day at a time...providing great teaching and resources in places where they don't have the access. It would be great if we could all give a little to see the Jones family finish this missional adventure.

ancient proverb...the wisdom of listening

" A closed mouth gathers no foot "

author unknown

the whole gospel...a revelation of The Kingdom

" So words without deeds are empty, but deeds without words are dumb. It is stupid to set them against each other. It is, for example, stupid to say: “The one thing that matters is to go everywhere and preach the gospel; all other activities such as schools and hospitals and programs for social action are at best merely auxiliary and at worst irrelevant.” Why should people believe our preaching that the kingdom of God has come near in Jesus if they see no evidence that disease and ignorance and cruelty and injustice are being challenged and overcome? Why should they believe our words if there is nothing happening to authenticate them?

On the other hand, it is equally stupid to say: ” Preaching is a waste of time. Forget it and get on with tackling the real human problems of poverty, injustice and oppression.” That is to repeat the folly of the people who are fed in the desert. It is to confuse the sign with the thing it points to. Our best programs are not the kingdom of God; they are full of our pride and ambition – as the world easily sees. But apart from these obvious inconsistencies, we surely know that human beings have a greater and more glorious destiny than even the best of our programs can offer. To a hungry man a good meal looks like heaven; when he has eaten it he knows that it is not. We know that our true life is beyond our grasp, and we are deceived when we invest all our hopes, and encourage others to invest all their hopes, in programs that do not reach beyond the horizon of this present age.

I know that some will denounce this language as escapist, but in fact it is simply realist. The best of our programs are still full of the seeds of their own corruption. We do not establish God’s kingdom. That kingdom, that kingly rule, has been given to us in the form of the suffering servant, the wounded healer, the crucified liberator. God’s kingdom is a given fact, and our actions for justice and compassion are at the very best only signs, pointers to help men and women to turn round so that it becomes possible for them also to believe in the reality of that kingdom, to have a foretaste of its liberating power, to follow in the way of the cross and to find in it life – a life that death cannot threaten.

Our preaching is mere empty words if it does not have behind it a costly engagement with the powers of evil, with the powers that rob men and women of their humanity, and if it does not call men and women to share in the same costly engagement…“

Mission in Christ’s Way by Lesslie Newbigin, and to Tony Stiff who has had some great posts on Lesslie Newbigin's thoughts on mission.

more than the good Samaritan...

On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

Martin Luther King, Riverside Church 1967

the gospel...radical,scandalous, outrageous living builds the Kingdom

To understand " Missional", is to immerse ourselves in the reality of the gospels and rediscover that Jesus' church lived in the world and practiced an outrageous and scandalous table fellowship. From day one as Jesus calls his followers on a journey, he's not scouring the temples for the most religious and holy, he's not visiting the classrooms of Rabbi's for the wisest. Fisherman, tax collector, banker...a collection of the least likely to succeed on a faith journey. Jesus doesn't rent class room space to introduce a program, a plan, or start another religion. John's Gospel, in the opening chapters says Jesus pitched his tent in the midst of humanity, he moved into the neighborhood...Jesus moves his followers into the midst of humanity. They would journey dusty roads, back alleys, the open water...into poverty, oppression, sickness, homelessness, hunger.

The first experience of seminary on the road would be the Wedding Feast at Cana. Fascinating, that the introduction of the Good News would begin to unfold at a wedding, an instant snap shot of life. Here you would have the reality of life, community, family...the misfits, the dysfunction, the old, the young...the newly wed, and the nearly dead. Here Jesus, immerses, dunks his followers into the midst of humanity...as if to say, " this is what I'm all about...all of life, every speck of it. This is where I want you to live life, and give life."

This feasting and Table fellowship would weave its way throughout the gospels Here Jesus' followers would learn that missional may not be some arduous journey to a far off foreign land...that perhaps the longest journey maybe just sitting across the table of a stranger, the sick, the poor, and the oppressed. Whom you eat with defines whom you won't eat with. With Jesus it never appears to be a " social " program...it is radical, scandalous, outrageous...it's the Kingdom. It is the servant returning to his master's table with unopened invitations and list of excuses, and the master sending him out again. This time the servant heads to back alleys filled with syringes, skid row hotels, park benches, under bridges...any where, so his masters table will be filled to overflowing. All are welcomed all are invited. Here at this open table, we discover the world upside down...where suddenly the host is the guest, and the guest the host. Where the host is blessed more than the guest. Jesus entered into the other's world, and let them invite his followers as their house guests. In that way grace, life, healing, restoration could be poured back and forth.

Another story of outrageous table fellowship, is the feeding of the 5000.This table is not constructed of wood and four legs...it is the Lord standing on a hillside with 5 small barley loaves, and 2 fish, raising arms giving thanks and blessing. Two miracles here, one that 5000 people were fed...and 5000 people shared this table fellowship. There is the outrageous reality that in faith, we often find surplus when we welcome those outside our boundaries and borders.

These table fellowship stories could be the reality of what " Missional " is, it is " Sacramental Living." Not as a ritual, but as the redemptive imagination that is it's spiritual truth. It is sad in a sense that we have ritualized the bread and wine. This ritual of who's in and who's not...who's welcome and who's not. I wonder if Jesus imagined it to be that. Jesus table fellowship, the meals of bread and fish always reflected the Kingdom...surplus, and food the fed the poor. Jesus table fellowship always reflected the truth of the Kingdom, the truth of what missional should be about...redemption, restoration, justice, community, the reordering of a new creation.

And how can we forget the table fellowship stories after Jesus' resurrection. Jesus cooking fish on a charcoal fire on the beach. The disciples gone back to their old jobs fishing on the lake and not having much luck. Jesus calls out from the shore, telling them to drop their nets on the other side of the boat. They haul in an incredible draft of fish. Peter seeing his dear friend wades through the water to shore. On the beach Jesus, invites, welcomes, cooks fish for his friends on an open fire, and turns to Peter, " feed on my behalf." And I'm not talking just feeding food, a meal in the soup kitchen, I'm talking about feeding them the incarnational reality of the life of Jesus. In other words go and invite. To live in the neighborhood of Jesus...is to live and believe that all the world is welcome...to go. If the world is welcome to God, if my neighbor is welcome to God, then every living moment is a door into God into which the other is welcome. Our calling should be clear.

I love this quote that I heard from Ed Stetzer a couple of years ago, " It's possible to be a missionary without ever leaving your zip code." Missional is dispersed in the midst of humanity. Jesus mission started with leading of the Holy Spirit. He sends us into the world under the leading of the same Spirit. It is to bear witness, to build, to expand His Kingdom ...to redeem, restore, to feed, and to heal.

from there to here...thoughts in between, an honest truth

Having coffee with a new friend Tuesday afternoon, and amidst the conversation we got to talking about " post-modernity "from the context of faith. Later that evening trying to catch some sleep before I went into work, I got thinking. I think it's likely easier to understand post-modernity if we look at faith as sort of a journey, and look back down the road to see what we've navigated through by looking at road signs. It may help us to understand where we are at now, and maybe why we've left so many folks strewn all over the roadside along the way. But, more importantly...a way forward.

The basic idea is that all kinds of sophisticated visions, practices and subtleties flourished in the premodern world with a surprisingly high degree of mutual respect, understanding and flashes of emergent coherence. During the early modern period tooled up renaissance people fell in love with the idea of absolute certainty. When they couldn't quite attain it, they over compensated by constructing various formulations of provisional truth to be peddled as absolutes.

Thereby they lost much of the directness, openness, discipline, poetry and praxisof religion. All meanings were narrowed and noddied up for use as polemical rocks. Selective ignorance and paranoia bred various fundamentalisms , including atheistic ones. These are increasingly angry and desperate means of licensing the self to wallow in one, defined over and against all the others.

Taking this narrowed rationalistic approach is very limiting; like playing opera on tinny little speakers. We need to learn how to learn again and wake up to the possibilities for unlocking truth that is not intellectually reductionist and ultimately fascistic. It’s a plea for the recovery of something that wouldn't have needed saying until comparatively recently — that God’s a big lad, and he can look after himself, and we can enjoy the subtlety, poetry and joy of discovering him for ourselves best in communities that are logged in and logged on, not fundamentalist blockhouses.

Thanks to Alan Wilson for laying out the road anology. I would say most churches are stuck in modernity. That is not harsh criticism, it's just honest reality. Modernity worked well for a number of years. We've logged a lot of miles there. We've re-paved it a few times. The problem as we know is modernity is not sustainable, it's expensive to the point where most can't afford to re-pave, instead opt for patch jobs in the most damaged areas.

The loss beauty, mystery, openness, discipline, poetry, and praxis in modernity have narrowed the faith journey far more than the narrow path that Jesus spoke of. We look around us and we discovered that the certainty, and the absolutes science gave us, was a truth that threatened us, and religion had to compete . In our pursuit of truth, we may have lost more truth than we gained.

As science searched, we also searched and we discovered the pieces of the puzzle didn't fit together like we thought. But still we talked, and preached like we had it all together. The problem with narrow roads is it congests traffic, many don't get through, and many look for alternative routes to travel.

I really think this is where we have lost alot of people. I think of the temple veil being torn in two, from top to bottom, ripped wide open. What a shock it must have been to folks when there was nothing behind it...the glory had left the temple long ago. The charade was over.

I think the charade of absolute certainty, of innerancy, and infallability is over...and I think alot of people know that. We can speak of " Truth ", but, I don't think we can speak of it in those terms.

The fear is, can we have faith in a truth that is not absolute, and certain, that doesn't fit together perfectly, but a mystery that fills us with life, and hope for the things to come, things we don't fully understand. We really do look through a cloudy lens.

A week before I was having a glass of wine with friends and looking through the Royal Roads University continuing education calendar. It was filled with numerous courses on new age spirituality. I asked, " in a culture that seems to have a hunger for the spiritual, how is the Christian faith engaging these questions?"

I'm loosing my train of thought here...or I'm sure some of you would say I lost it at the start, but I want to say this. I don't think most people outside the church are looking for certitude, where a+b always equals c. They are looking for Truth, not the lower case truth. They want a truth that is open, honest and authentic. As much as they want to hear truth, they want to see truth. They don't want to know about life, they want to have life. I think questions engage them as much as answers. There is truth in mystery. And I think they would look for community that struggles with all this stuff.

I wonder why we don't create more space in our faith communities for messy conversation?