Ron Cole : unplugged, unorthodox, sacrilegious

A Jesus to worship...but to Godly to imitate

The cross must be raised again at the center of the marketplace as well as on the steeple of the church. I am claiming that Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles, but on a cross between two thieves; on the town garbage heap, at a crossroads so cosmopolitan they had to write His title in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek. At the kind of place where cynics talk smut, and thieves curse, and soldiers gamble, because that is where He died and that is what he died about and that is where christians ought to be and what christianity should be about. 

- George McLeod ( founder of Iona Community 1938 )

 A mysterious star navigates through the dark space of infinity, through the star fields that God told Abraham would be as numerous as his descendants. It stops on the fringe of humanity and it illuminates the spot where God will become one of us, taking on flesh and bones. I am always captured by the profound reality in the gospels that Jesus the God man is birthed on the periphery of humanity and religion and dies in the same place...abandoned by religion and humanity. Even in the gospel of John when the writer pens that he pitched his tent in the midst of humanity, into our neighborhood...Jesus lives on the margins.

It is easy when your stuck in the " church bubble " to forget what Jesus was all about. We have been indoctrinated to believe that Jesus is all about personal salvation, he died to forgive your sins, guaranteeing a ticket in your hand for flight and accommodation in that eternal retirement home called heaven.

We forget that Jesus was the culmination of the prophetic voices that still echo along the corridor of history. Like resonating sound waves that join in unison and finally collide with Jesus he speaks with crystal clear passion about one thing...the Kingdom of God, and his passion for justice.

We need pause, to be still and listen deeply to the prophets. They speak about God's passion, and Jesus is the fullfilment of the passion.

"The Lord is exalted", proclaims Isaiah. " He dwells on high; he filled Zion with justice and righteousness." ( 33:5 )

" I am the Lord " announces Jeremiah in the name of God. " I act with steadfast love, justice and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight." ( 9:24 ) 

Again Isaiah, " Is such the fast I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and lie is a sack cloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord? Is not this fast that I choose; to break the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? ( 58:5-7 )

From Micah, " He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God. ( 6:6-8 )

Lastly from Amos, " I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. ( 5:21-24 )

 We forget Jesus the God-man lived on the margins of humanity. He lived amidst its poverty, its injustice, its oppression, its sickness and its sin. He lived so deeply in the midst of the human wreckage that the Pharisees could not really tell him apart of the sinners. As profoundly strange as it sounds he was one of them. We as christians have a real problem with a fully human Jesus, it's extremely uncomfortable to wrestle with that reality. We like a Jesus that is 90% God and about 10% human. That is a far more comfortable Jesus. We keep our distance from that kind of Jesus. We can worship that Jesus without having to imitate his life, and live out and reenact his profound mysterious parables.  

We have pulled Jesus out of the world, out of the stench, out the filth and brokenness of humanity and put him under house arrest in the church building convincing ourselves that Jesus is far more concerned about the sterile vacuum of a sacred holy space. Do we imagine him wandering around a church that stands empty most week days eagerly waiting for Sunday morning when he can inhabit the praises of "his" people?

And when did this Jesus of the gospels all of a sudden aquire an appetite for worship music to appease him, and keep him happy?The prophets seemed quite clear on the type of worship God desired and music didn't seem to make the cut. Jesus profoundly seems to inhabit a more worldy, a more human...a more secular worship space.

   I was hungry and you fed me,
   I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,
   I was homeless and you gave me a room,
   I was shivering and you gave me clothes,
   I was sick and you stopped to visit,
   I was in prison and you came to me.'

 "Then those 'sheep' are going to say, 'Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?' Then the King will say, 'I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me." ( Eugene Peterson's The Message; Matthew 25 )

We come to the profound conclusion that we worship Jesus in the face of broken humanity, not before the altar of the temple.

As christians we are very good at compartmentalizing life and people. We draw lines all through life, barriers, the boundaries of sacred and secular. We draw circles around people, groups of people...we have insiders and outsiders. Life in the context of the profound mysterious reality of Jesus is seen different way.

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 Petersons The Message; Colossians 1 )

Jesus is the intermolecular force, the gravity that holds all reality together, sacred and secular. Despite how tarnished, filthy, broken and cracked the human image was, Jesus could always see past it...and see the image of God hidden in everyone.

I want to encourage people to really think, reflect deeply on that reality...of finding Jesus in the midst of life. When I hear people say, " I wish we had a space where we could sing christian songs, worship songs." Or, " I can't sing those songs because there not christian." It saddens me deeply.

We forget in the gospels Jesus wasn't speaking christians. He didn't speak christianeze, theological garble when to talked to people. He used a mysterious language, of parable that captured the imagination of humanity. People had to wrestle with them, moving them into a liminal space where they saw God and humanity differently. Often it wasn't the obvious black and white, it was more color that spilled out over the lines...it was more mystery as truth. It gave people a glimpse of a new world, of abundant life. It left people in awe.

I think of how often I listen to music today, so called " secular music " and a line of lyrics will awaken me like a flash of light.  And at the same time the neurons in my brain begin to spark, and the harddrive in my mind begins to whirl...and I think. You could almost say it's an " epiphany."

1. a usually sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something; 2. an intuitive grasp of reality through something; 3. an illuminating discovery; 4. a revealing scene or moment; 5. an appearance or manifestation, especially of a divine being.

 

03 God Put A Smile Upon Your Face

Is it only in christian music, worship music that this can happen? I don't think so. There is so much good music out there, with profound, mysterious spirit-filled lyrics...deeply human and divine. We just need to have the same redemptive imagination as Jesus and engage people in conversation. Draw them into that mysterious place where the Psalmist proclaims. " deep calls to deep ", where spirit talks to spirit.

 

 

 As long as the church retreats, stays in the building, reinforcing and protecting itself, our culture will never experience an epiphany. 

Over the last few decades, the church has been pushed further and further onto the periphery of culture. Or in many instances, the church has retreated to the comfortable confines of its Christian subculture. So we are inside our churches looking out, but we really find ourselves on the outside looking in. God is calling the church out of the church and back into the midst of humanity that Jesus lived " in." 

wrestling with God, and pulling the fire alarm...

“To deal with the word of Jesus otherwise than by doing it is to give him the lie. It is to deny the Sermon on the Mount and to say No to his word...That is why as soon as the hurricane begins we lose the word, and find that we have never really believed it. The word we had was not Christ's, but a word we had wrested from him and made our own by reflecting on it instead of doing it.”  Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I think there is only one outcome from wrestling with God...it is to be left limping, permanently. It is to be left exhausted in the struggle of clinging to the things that you thought were important. In the deepest and most profound sense, it is to be stripped naked.

For me , it has been about a 40 year wrestling match, and it's only been that past few years that God had pulled the last bits from my clenched fingers. I could have avoided the wrestling match altogther has it not been for John Dear, convincing me to spend a couple of years of reading nothing but the gospels.

I was 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 me who has 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' questions 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, and present new creative and redemptive possibilities.  He himself does not usually wait for or expect specific answers.  He hopes to tweek, or ignite a person's imagination.  He wants to engage a person, with the image of the Kingdom confronts the person, and with the process of transformation itself.  Thus his questions are worth examining because they, along with the parables, reveal his basic style of encounter with humanity.

It is to reboot imagination to an alternative subversive world, the Kingdom of God; to get people to reorient there lives as to live in the Kingdom now; to get people to redeem, and rebuild the world around them in the redemptive imagination of Jesus' Kingdom...on earth as in heaven; and lastly to draw humanity into this Kingdom exactly as Jesus did.

Instead, Jesus asks questions, good questions, unnerving questions, re-aligning questions, transforming questions.  He leads us into liminal, and therefore transformative space, much more than taking us into any moral high ground of immediate certitude or ego superiority. He subverts up front the cultural or theological assumptions that we are eventually going to have to face anyway.  He leaves us betwixt and between, where God and grace can get at us, and where we are not at all in control.

This was the reality of my wrestling match, I hobbled away limping...my forty years of, " yeah, you don't need to tell me, I've got it all figured out. " " Doctrine, I know it all front to back, side to side." All of this stuff in confronting Jesus in the gospels was ripped from my hands and vanished before my eyes. Because the reality was, I was more secure in the " stuff " than I was in Jesus.

I think sometimes we get so wrapped up in our doctrine, our theological correctness...that it becomes a blind fold from seeing the real Jesus, rather than the one we imagine.

Now I hobble around the neighborhood with nothing more than the Jesus of the gospels, his whole radical scandalous love-filled life ( all his actions, all his words ), and his relentless passion for the Kingdom of God. That is faith for me.

I know why the church avoids the gospels. Yes, I know it will read bits, and pieces, but to spend a great amount of time in the gospels is extremely dangerous. It's like pulling a fire alarm without no real evacuation plan. People only know one thing, " they need to get out of the building fast, there life and lives depend on it."

We have turned it into a bed time story. A comfortable story that lulls people to sleep to dream filled place that everything thing is all right and when they wake up " all " will be heaven. There is no where in the gospels where you come to the conclusion that Jesus came to tell a story to believe in. That we would just keep telling it over, over, over and over again almost like a hypnotic pendulum going back and forth. It was an earth shattering story that could only be lived to discover its profound mysterious eternal truth.

It's in living the gospels that we confront anew the questions of Jesus and his actions; unnerving questions, questions that move us out of our comfort zones into that liminal space where everything is realigned...in the laboratory of life it's in this reaction chamber where we are transformed. All the certitude, and concrete trite answers on which we stand crumbles under our feet. It's here living the gospels we confront our God assumptions, our cultural and humanity assumptions. It's here we are left to wrestle in the context of living life, where in that awkward space we are left teetering where we can only reach for grace and love.

If we read the gospels for a season, immersed ourselves into " all " of it...I have no doubt someone would have the courage to pull the fire alarm and evacuate the building...and live the fullness of Jesus and the gospels. 

AIDS...and confronting the terminal illness of judgement

 

Last night, working in the emergency department we had a woman maybe in her seventy's come in with her forty year old son. To look at him you would never guess he was forty. He looked older than his mother, he was thin, gaunt and literally wasting away. He didn't have to say a word, you could see pain, suffering, shame and guilt written all over him. He was in the end stages of AIDS. Ravaged by the disease, he was severly dehydrated and dying of malnutrition...and his mom wasn't coping with it all.

Around her neck, I could see she was wearing a cross, so I asked her if she was a part of a church and if she was getting help and being supported there. At this point it was as if I had touched an open wound. Tears started to stream down her face. Handing her some Kleenex she told me, no, that she couldn't tell anyone about her son.

Even if it is not blatantly obvious, it is overt...maybe in her church, tucked in the corner you can see it ...judgement. This lady knew it. Homosexuality she has been told is a sin, and it will be judged, and AIDS is the consequence, the earthly judgement. If that's not bad enough her son still has the eternal torment of hell to face yet. And, of course this judgement I'm sure in her mind is partly about her. I mean, homosexuality is a choice...perhaps if she was a better parent her sons outcome would have been much better.

Who is " this Jesus " that many churches worship...I do not see him anywhere in the gospels ?

And, all the time tumbling around in my mind is this image of Jesus...hanging out with the most marginalized in the world. Somehow, he always seemed to be in the midst of sick, the blind, and crippled beggars...those possessed by demons. He touched the lepers, he kissed and healed them. He touched prostitutes, he came to their rescue...they washed his feet with tears and perfume.

And here is this woman whose gay son is dying of AIDS and there is no one in her church that she can tell. I think, I know Jesus would embrace and love this man without any judgement...and then I see a church, the body of Christ unwilling to move it's legs, to wrap its arms around this young man...or to move its lips and kiss him.

I know some one is going to say the trite, " love the sinner, hate the sin." Sorry, I'm gonna have to cry bull shit on that one. You can't love and judge at the same time...that is a very tainted kind of love. Jesus says we are to simply love...the way he did. The gospels are permeated with this kind of radical scandalous redemptive love. Can we please just learn to LOVE, LOVE, LOVE and LOVE till it kills us...a love that you sacrifice everything for.

We should get a bus, and bring them to church...

  

Last Sunday while on the streets with Victoria's innercity community and CARTS  someone made the comment to me, " We should get a bus and bring them to our church." Our CARTS community, I call it that because that is what it is...volunteers, and our inner city friends; homeless, poor, addicted, mental health issues, working poor...or a mix of everything. Some we see on a regular basis. Some for 5-7 years. Some we connect with during the week on the street. Some at the Rainbow Kitchen. We have built up a relationship over time. We've seen each other in the good times and the bad times. We've seen each other on sunny days, and we've seen each other in the bitter cold and snow. We've gone out with abundance, and we've gone out when the cupboard has been bare. The point is we've gone out because it has been more about love and friendship than anything else. When we've run out of that we'll put the CARTS away.

" We should get a bus, and bring them to our church." Really! My biggest question would be why? Would it be anything more than hanging a trophy prize on your wall like some hunter would. Nothing more than " Poverty Pimping " to make the church look good. Would it be just to bring them in for some cutting edge worship music, and a three point sermon where they could get some sound bytes to plug into there lives, push play and make their lives better. Would that be why we would get the bus.

Ok, church...I'll get the bus if...

1. Your willing to can the music...can the sermon. They've been preached at enough.
2. Your willing to serve an extravagant meal. But don't sit off on the sidelines, or watch from the kitchen door. Sit down and listen to their stories...you might find God is already there.
3. Your willing not look at this a " short term " mission, something you'll do once a month. Think " relationship ", long haul...relationships take time, effort, commitment. They've had enough people dump and run, come once or twice and never again.
4. Your willing to provide shelter for some on a permanent basis.
5. Your willing to provide food, clothe and quench their thirst ( Matthew 25 ) on a regular basis.
6. Your willing to find help for their addiction, mental health and health issues. Mentor, build deep friendship...live life together in real community in real time, not just Sunday, or once a month.
7. Your willing to see your church financial statement go into the red for awhile.
8. Your willing to see things get a little messy for awhile.
9. Your willing to be taken advantage of...be willing to understand servant-hood, and sacrifice in a whole new reality.
10. Most of all, if your willing to understand grace and love in dimensions never before seen.
11. Your willing to discover Jesus in a whole new way.
12. Your willing to be their advocates, to be thier voice in places where they have no voice at all.
13. Your willing speak, and act against injustice...speak against the power of the day, religious or political.

Ok, church...do you still want to get the bus?

church...at the crossroad

 

There may have been a time when the church had an impact on the traffic in the crossroad of everyday life. Insiders, have huddled around their sacred story formulated by the early church fathers for centuries, we have defended and protected our theological thinking...even to the point of killing those who would dare tell a different story. We may not kill today, but, we have ways of sending our dissidents in to exile.

If this early church story is that good...why is it having no impact in the crossroad of everyday life?

Is there a better story that would engage the imagination of humanity to envision life, life for " all " humanity filled with hope beyond anything we are imagining now?

I think there is...but, the insiders are not going to like it.

First it will demand the church re-discover its prophetic voice again. That same sacred cry of Jeremiah, Isaiah, Amos, Micah and Hosea. This proclamation from Isaiah is as relevant today as when it was first spoken. If we put our ear to the ground, we can still hear it ringing down the corridor of history.

"The Lord is exalted", procalims Isaiah. " He dwells on high; he filled Zion with justice and righteousness." ( 33:5 )

" I am the Lord " announces Jeremiah in the name of God. " I act with steadfast love, justice and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight." ( 9:24 ) 

Again Isaiah, " Is such the fast I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and lie is a sck cloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord? Is not this fast that I choose; to break the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? ( 58:5-7 )

From Micah, " He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God. ( 6:6-8 )

Lastly from Amos, " I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. ( 5:21-24 )

This voice of justice and righteousness cries out the voice of God all through the Old Testament, to miss it...is to be both deaf and blind. This voice takes on flesh and bones in the life of Jesus.

 As Isaiah proclaimed, " That on high Zion is filled with justice and righteousness." Jesus would pray, " Your Kingdom come, on earth as in heaven." The profound redemptive imagination of Jesus Kingdom is about two things...justice and righteousness. The Kingdom is not a final destination to an eternal resort, for saved souls waiting patiently in a church for the glory train to pull up out front.

I honestly don't believe we can speak prophetically today, while still holding tightly to our old story. If believing, being saved, having your sins forgiven, and eternal life is the best we have to offer...then, the church deserves to die. Even now it is like a geriatric patient on life support, the latest technology keeping it going...and a spurt to life every time old memories are rekindled. Is anyone gathered around this death bed? Does anyone care?

I don't believe anymore Jesus died for my sin. I believe he was killed by the greatest act of injustice imagined...by worldly empires, political and religious. And, if were really honest, all humanity had a role in this violent injustice. Because, really, we like injustice if it serves us.

Was Jesus death required by divine necessity, predestined and pre-meditated murder? I'll let my fundamentalist friends fight over that one...I can safely say it was virtually a human inevitability. This is what systems of domination and oppression do to people who challenge them, publicly and vigorously.

Jesus was not simply an unfortunate victim, a peasant who stepped out of line, a sinner who committed a religious crime that needed a death sentence. It was much much more. He was a protagonist filled with passion. His passion, his message was about the Kingdom of God, the abundant life found in justice and righteousness. He spoke to the peasants, the hungry, the homeless, the oppressed, the poor and the sick, as a voice of religious protest against the economic, political and religious institutions of his day. He attracted followers, disciples taking his movement to Jerusalem during the feast of the Passover. He challenged the economic, political, and religious authorities with living out the reality of the Kingdom, and speaking about the Kingdom using the redemptive imagination of parables. All of this was the passion of God, lived and spoken through Jesus...God and the Kingdom of God, God and God's relentless passion for justice.

Jesus passion got him killed. His passion for the Kingdom of God, his passion for justice led to his death and suffering. To think of Jesus passion only in the terms of Mel Gibson's " The Passion of the Christ "...is to completely remove Jesus from the passion that filled his life.

Did Good Friday have to happen? As Divine necessity?

Good Friday is the cosmic collision between the passion of Jesus and the domination system of his time. Or, prophetically it is the collision between the Kingdom of God, and the empires of the World. Many, will say I'm going lightly on sin...that there is no sin in this alternative story. No! there is sin and it looms large. Jesus died because of sins of the world.

The sin,the injustice of the domination systems of politics, economics and religion killed him. Injustice so routine that it is apart of the world's status quo.  But, so radical, so scandalous and dangerous that we had to kill him to protect our interests.

Interesting that the church covets the cross, this religious icon cast in shiny gold and sliver. The irony is that it was political, and instrument of death used on dissidents that opposed, or who were a threat to the empire. It was an instrument of oppression, and injustice...a public act of oppression by the empire. Any understanding that negates the political meaning of his death on the cross betrays the very passion for which he was willing to sacrifice his life. His passion was the Kingdom of God...it led to his execution by the " powers that be." The domination of a worldly empire killed him. God did not kill Jesus.

God raised Jesus from the dead. The followers of Jesus continued to experience him after his death. They coninued to know him as a figure of the present " now ", and not simply a distant memory of the past. The resurrection, meant God had vindicated Jesus. That the empire would not have the last word. That the prophetic Word made flesh would not be muffled, silenced. God said " yes " to Jesus and the Kingdom of God and God said " no " to the powers of injustice that killed him.

The resurrection means the powers of this world do not have the last word. As the writer of Colossians puts it, " God disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them triumphing over them in the cross." The resurrection is about " Christus Victor "...God in Jesus triumphed over the powers that enslave and afflict " All " creation.

We can have abundant life now, eternal life now. We find it in taking up the cross of Jesus...the path of confrontation with all systems of oppression and domination, its injustice and violence. His passion was the Kingdom of God, what life would be like on earth if God reigned over all creation, and the rulers and systems of this world were not. It is that world the prophets spoke of, a world Jesus imagined and lived out of. It is a world of distributive justice in which everyone has enough, where war is no more, where all fear dies and hope lives. It's not a political dream...it is the reality of the Kingdom of God.

This dream can only be realized by our being grounded more deeply in God whose heart is justice. Our only hope is to believe, to enter in to the reality of the gospels...and follow into the life of Jesus. To live the gospels...build the Kingdom that Jesus imagined. Mysteriously we will find eternal life...on earth as in heaven. Now and forever.

Living...radical christianity::podcast with Jarrod McKenna

 

I first came across Jarrod McKenna a few years ago reading the writing of John Dear. You could also say that Jarrod is the Australian version of Shane Claiborne. I don't think Jarrod would mind the comparison, seeing as he and Shane are good friends. He is part of a radical element on the the fringe of the church that sees faith and works, the practice and action of faith as being critical. The teachings of Jesus put into practice must be lived out, as radically today... to dilute them, co-modify and embed them in western church culture is not the redemptive vision and imagination of Jesus. This radical fringe believes Christianity is in trouble because it has become to passive and culturally accommodating. They are stirring the luke warm pot of status quo Christianity.

Jarrod is also part of " Empowering Peace Makers in Your Community." EPYC is an exciting initiative to give young people the opportunity to learn about nonviolence in theory and application. In our troubled world, this is a timely offer. We must find ways of dealing with conflicts at the personal and political levels other than through violence.

Around the world there is an emerging generation of young leaders who are rediscovering the radical implications of Jesus message and are letting their lives speak of these alternatives to the cycles of violence, poverty and environmental destruction. 

I invite you and encourage you to listen to a recent podcast from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Sunday Night with John Cleary where he interviews Jarrod McKenna. If your wondering what deep radical Christianity might look lived out today, Jarrod McKenna gives us a great vision, to encourage us all, to live and dig deep.

You can listen to it here, and come back...I'd love to hear your impressions.

Kingdom of God...go to hell

 

In Karen Spears Zacharias' book " Will Jesus buy me a Double Wide ", Hugh Hollowell is the marine in the book. Last week he was on the stage with Shane Claiborne and Jonathon Wilson-Hartgrove at Big Tent Christianity. I think these words from Hugh are timely, and should greatly challenge us all...and the church.

The justice of Jesus is brought about by sacrifice, love and suffering. And to the extent that we do not exercise sacrificial love, suffering and proclaim the Reign of God, we are far from the way of Jesus.

Jesus calls us to serve, not lead. The way is not about political solutions – in fact, Jesus said political power would be used against us as we sought to bring about God’s justice. The way does not involve courting those in power – the Apostle Paul told us Jesus made a spectacle of the powers of this world.

There are any number of passages in both the Hebrew scriptures as well as the New Testament that speak of God’s love for the victims of injustice and our responsibility to work to bring that justice into fruition. The one I am thinking about right now, however, is Matthew 16:18, where Jesus tells Peter that …”I will build my church, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it”.

I am not the first person to note that Jesus refers to the gates as a defense measure. Those gates are there to keep us out. Just what does Jesus expect of us?

Jesus expects us to storm down those gates and invade Hell itself. Jesus is telling us to go to Hell to be with the drug addict and the alcoholic. Go to Hell to be with the victims of abuse, and with the abusers. Go to hell and liberate the adulterer, the homeless man, the pornographer. In hell is where we will find the single mother and the embezzler, the pimps and the pimped, the hungry, the broken, the forgotten. We, you and I together, should be wading into hell itself and proclaiming that there is a new way to live and a new way to love, and that new way is bringing about the justice of God.

The justice of Jesus is a personal justice. It involves sacrificial, relational love. It involves dying to ourselves, our ambitions, our preconceived notions of how things work. The way of Jesus invites us to be the means by which God’s justice comes into being. It invites us to go to Hell, for the sake of those imprisoned there.

You can read Hugh's View on what he said, saying it's 95% accurate...here on Hugh's blog.  

Moot's Mobsby, McLaren...muse future faith

In a cafe' in London in late June, Ian Mobsby of Moot Community sat down with Brian McLaren. In this podcast interview, Brian McLaren dialogues with Ian Mobsby exploring the future of church and mission. In conversation, a wide range of issues are discussed including new monasticism, mission to spiritual seekers, and the challenge of church in the twenty first century.

You can listen to the podcast...Here.

Kester Brewin...a must read

Has What Emerged Retreated? | Returning to Institutions [3]

Read the whole post ... HERE.

gun point evangelism and big bang theologies...

Do you ever get that question emerging in your mind that's like a nagging persistent itch that just has to be scratched? I have dove into the depths of the gospels from it's shores in all directions. And breathless, I come to the surface gasping, empty handed. I can't find it.

Where in any encounter does Jesus confront an individual, like a hostage with a life threatening decision, " believe...or it's to hell with you."

From the opening chapters of Matthew's gospel, after the imprisonment of John, Jesus moves to Capernaum, by the lake in the area of Zebulun and Naphtali...

 People sitting out their lives in the dark
 saw a huge light;
   Sitting in that dark, dark country of death,
  they watched the sun come up.

   This Isaiah-prophesied image came to life in Galilee the moment Jesus started engaging and talking to people. He picked up where John left off: This is the dawn of a new day; it's a new page in the story of humanity; there's a new road to travel. Turn your lives around...it's time for humanity to re-boot the hard drive of it's operating system. " The Kingdom is Here."

From there it's Jesus wandering the shores of the Sea of Galilee, choosing friends to join him in proclaiming, revealing and building the Kingdom. Absolutely, fascinating that there is no conversion moment in the selection of disciples...no statement of faith, no scratch on the scroll to for confirmation of membership. We're not even sure they were baptized in the Jordan. If ritual proof was prerequisite, one would imagine Jesus pulling his disciples out of the baptismal font. Again, we are left to guess. There is no question of, " believe in me...or your going to hell." It is nothing more than the profound simplicity of a friend, inviting friends, to " come and follow."

The journey takes them to the countryside, villages, towns, the sea shore and dusty roads. Jesus shared stories of the radical scandalous redemptive imagination of the Kingdom. As wild as the stories were, it left people in awe to see them come to life before their eyes. People were brought to him who were all ill with various illnesses and disease, the lame, the blind, the demon possessed...and in the presence of Jesus, and the Kingdom, all were healed. Again, this uncontainable, unpredictable, scandalous, forgiving, gracious and healing Kingdom,turned the world upside down...it was " Hope " reimaginined.

I sense with all my imagination, and all my heart...that the Kingdom was so powerful, so beautiful, so miraculously good that it captivated human imagination. Jesus did not have to use " Hell " as a tactic to scare people into the Kingdom.

 God's kingdom is like a treasure hidden in a field for years and then accidentally found by a trespasser. The finder is ecstatic—what a find!—and proceeds to sell everything he owns to raise money and buy that field.

 Or, God's kingdom is like a jewel merchant on the hunt for excellent pearls. Finding one that is flawless, he immediately sells everything and buys it. ( Eugene Peterson's The Message: Matt 13:44-45 )

The Kingdom is so profoundly precious that you will sell everything to live in it...it is so spacious, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in it 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 the Life of Jesus. A life we all have access to, a life we can all enter into. A life, through the power of the Spirit of God, we can let Jesus live...if we are humble enough to sacrifice our lives...to let him live.

The gospel, the good news is not a gun point threat of " heaven or hell." It is about the Kingdom. It is about a full-blown re-imagining of all creation. It is about a profound mysterious journey across the threshold of this world, into the redemptive imagination of Jesus and his Kingdom. The good news is the truth, that the Kingdom is here, now. It's not a place where we drift off to in some spiritual trance, a place where we visit occasionally as a tourist. Jesus calls us to live in it, during every moment of our daily living. Not only to live in it...but to build it with him.

We are so consumed with heaven and hell, behaving like landlords, or like inn keepers, micro-managing as to who is getting a room in what place. Wow!...hey did you here that. Stop...listen!

Keep on asking and it will be given you; keep on seeking and you will find; keep on knocking [reverently] and [the door] will be opened to you.

For everyone who keeps on asking receives; and he who keeps on seeking finds; and to him who keeps on knocking, [the door] will be opened.

Maybe we're content with just mending our lives, throwing on a patch here and there. Maybe we're content with a nice three point sermon, a nice life application we can pop into our mouth like a placebo, cross our fingers and hope it atleast makes us feel better. Better is only as good as us, and the problem with better...it doesn't last long. Like tylenol, it's better for about 4 hours, and then you back to where you started. Maybe, it's time to knock, to seek with all we have, and cross the threshold into Jesus and his Kingdom. 

As humanity lurches along this long corridor of history where we look off into the distance and are really not sure whether there is a horizon where hope might rise. Profound uncertainty, leaves us scared, it breeds fear...and the weight of hopelessness falls like a curtain as the actors prepare to exit the stage. But there is hope. In the gospels people sat ,dwelt, enveloped in darkness, they saw a great Light, and for those who sat in the land and shadow of death, a light dawned. It was, and is the dawning, of Jesus and the Kingdom.

The church, and every follower of Jesus must re-imagine the gospels beyond heaven or hell. We must hunger, thirst for the mind of Christ, to have the redemptive imagination of Jesus. Jesus and his Kingdom are the hope of all humanity, of all creation. Our words, our actions must reveal, and build the Kingdom. It will become that hidden treasure to the by-passer in our neighborhoods, that precious pearl that a friend will sell everything for...just to live in. The hope of humanity will be in the re-booting of its hard drive from a world operating system...to a Kingdom operating system. In the Kingdom is the redemptive imagination of God, for living today, and eternal life...our only hope is in finding it.