So, on the weekend I'm listening to someone talk about how in the coming years the church and Christians are going to bear much hardship. I'm thinking, well, if we carry on doing what we're doing...yep, that's the truth. Church numbers will continue to dwindle, enrollment in bible colleges and seminaries will continue to drop and more churches will have financial difficulties. The hardship won't be from the message of the gospel...or from persecution...it will be because we've bought into the same culture, the same economy and the same empire.
Lost in translation...that's where were at. It's like Jesus was speaking a foreign language ( which he was ), and we had to translate it so it was understandable. In doing so, THE GOOD NEWS, is nothing more than a sales pitch for a better life...a philosophy...a more social conscience.
Last week, I shared this quote by Walter Wink about wrestling, and the Holy Spirit being there the whole time strengthening us both. How much do we let the Holy Spirit strengthen us...and just let Jesus speak to us afresh again. Jesus said if we have the eyes to see and the ears to hear the knowledge of the Kingdom of heaven would be given to us.
Maybe it's time to spend more time immersing ourselves in the Gospels...listening to Jesus...seeing and hearing the Kingdom. Do we really need to have the voice of Jesus filtered through that of man? Do we need some one to put a lens over the scenes in the gospel to create a more comfortable cultural image?
Read it...look at it...the scenes are vivid, and clear...and his voice left people in awe. If your having problems understanding, pray for the friend, the counselor that Jesus promised...go to your room, pull out your mat and wrestle...the truth will come.
It becomes startling clear in the gospels that Jesus pitched his tent in the midst of the messiness of humanity...the unacceptable, the oppressed. There were no boundaries, no borders, all lines of exclusion were erased...His table an open invitation. We read and we see the Kingdom, Jesus says, " I only do and say, what my Father is already doing and saying." How can we ignore that reality...how do we distort the voice of Jesus, how do we filter the life out of such images.
Thats why I say we are lost in translation, we've downloaded our version into our culture co-opting a mere glimpse of the Kingdom with the power of earthly empires.
When Jesus called together his band of stumbling misfits, his message wasn't for them to hang in there until the Godhead decided to pull the final curtain on the stage of life and picking everyone up at the front door, taking them home.
Reading the gospels, you just might get the crazy idea that the Kingdom was about Now...as much as it was about the future. You could get the idea that Jesus was in favor of outrageous hospitality, and scandalous forgiveness and grace...where the last were first, where those that did a half days work got paid as much as those who worked all day...where the sinners where saints. Small radical communities that were criticized for there extravagant giving, for accepting the wrong people...for pouring out grace as if it were free. Also reading the gospels you might even come to believe that the sacred could be found outside the temple, in back allies filled with dumpsters and dirty syringes, and skid row hotels. That glimmers of light could be found in the darkest places of the world.
We don't need to translate the gospels, use a lens to filter their images. We need to live them. The more we live them...the more the Kingdom becomes visible. And when the Kingdom becomes visible it will subvert the empires of the world.
Jesus in the Gospels, says we will do even greater things. Well, as a church we need to immerse ourselves in the gospels again, and pray earnestly for the same Spirit that brooded over creation, the same Spirit that filled Jesus, the same Spirit that resurrected Jesus from the grave...if that Spirit does not fill His church, it is dead.
We don't need a better, a more cultural understandable translation of the gospel...we need to be transformed into the gospel through the living reality of Jesus...and the power of the Holy Spirit. Only then will His will be done on earth as in heaven...thy Kingdom come.
You give hope. Bless you for that.
Yours is the hardest task. Loving the unlovely.
It is I believe, God's will and the very manifestation of the Lord.
Love and God's Blessings to one and all!
Posted by: Kudzu Fire | May 27, 2008 at 05:17 PM
My old church has remodeled its physcial structure so many times I've lost count, buying up land and buildings around it as it goes. Its present "mission" centers itself on a charismatic pastor whose family staffs its organization and whose "vision", it seems, is to broadcast his version of the message to the world.....
My present assembly is less focused on "self", but finds itself two and a half millions dollars in debt with its physical structure while attempting to finance other outreach....
Somewhere we've lost the truth that the Gospel is simply Christ "in" me unto others. That fact doesn't require bigger barns to hold our possessions and a demand for the world to "come unto us"....
Great post, Ron...
Posted by: jim | May 28, 2008 at 03:36 AM
Great post, Ron ...
What do you think of Stanley Hauerwas' comment - that our primary theological issue is NOT translation BUT embodiment?
Posted by: Randy Hein | May 29, 2008 at 05:20 PM
Randy, What do I think of Stanley Hauerwas' comment? It's absolutely brilliant...he cuts through my 12+ paragraphs to one sentence to simplicity and clarity. A theology embodied, reflects Paul's words of " Christ in me " Oh that in the comings and goings of my day that people could see that.
Posted by: ron | May 30, 2008 at 09:07 AM
Two and half million...must be a huge community Jim. Sadly, I'm hearing alot of those stories. It makes me think of these words from Hebrews 12...
So don't turn a deaf ear to these gracious words. If those who ignored earthly warnings didn't get away with it, what will happen to us if we turn our backs on heavenly warnings? His voice that time shook the earth to its foundations; this time—he's told us this quite plainly—he'll also rock the heavens: "One last shaking, from top to bottom, stem to stern." The phrase "one last shaking" means a thorough housecleaning, getting rid of all the historical and religious junk so that the unshakable essentials stand clear and uncluttered.
You really begin to wonder id the Lord isn't doing a little house cleaning.
Posted by: ron | May 30, 2008 at 09:31 AM
Kudzu Fire, thanks for visiting and for the encouraging and hopefull words. Blessings...Ron+
Posted by: ron | May 30, 2008 at 09:35 AM
Ron,
Great conversation on an issue that I am passionate about. It is so hard for us to get our heads around the fact that the kingdom is "now and not yet". For those who struggle to understand how a loving God can allow events like the cyclone in Myanmar or the earthquake in China as well as the horrors of war and even cancer the fact that the kingdom is present in our world today seems like a dream. I think that is one of the reasons that so many people focus on the "not yet" of the kingdom and look forward to pie in the sky by and by.
I love Rene Padilla's concept of how we live in an "in between time" of kingdom reality. We do not see the full outworking of Christ's redemptive sacrifice in our world today but every time we reach out and heal the sick, feed the hungry, set the oppressed free and preach the good news to the poor we are bringing something of that kingdom into being and we are able to bring people a glimpse of the God who will one day make all things new in Christ
Posted by: Christine Sine | June 03, 2008 at 10:08 AM