Category: Uncategorized

Am I an artist?

Apparently!

Inspiro Arts Alliance is an international ministry that exists to cultivate and empower artists globally to spark beautiful worship and witness among the least reached. One of their core desires is to nurture artists and to live incarnationally in their com­munities, using their local art forms to inspire local Jesus followers to worship Him in Spirit and in truth.  They reached out to me a couple months ago after discovering my blog post, Woodworking and God’s Poiema. They wanted to include a version of that post in their November newsletter, VIVID.

So, let me introduce you to the e-version of their new edition of VIVID magazine, including my article with the same title as the blog post. The magazine is one of many resources Inspiro Arts Alliance uses as they inspire, train, and equip a global movement of artists living out God’s beauty among the world’s least reached.  From their reveal email…

This edition of VIVID focuses on recognizing God’s masterpieces in art, faith, and community. Do you see yourself as a masterpiece? Nowadays, people have distorted self-images as they are bombarded by social media and the pressure of status, whether financially, in their jobs, or socially. Certain groups of people are also looked down upon if they are not the majority or if they are different. This issue delves into what the Bible says about masterpieces so people can find their worth in God’s truth. We pray that the articles empower readers to base their identities in God while also showing them examples of ways to help others see themselves as God sees them. 

You will need to scroll down a bit to find the article. For Americans, this will give you something to do as you recover from your Thanksgiving meal. For the rest of the world – something to read and consider on a typical Thursday.

So there you have it – I’m officially an artist!

Joseph, Thermuthis, and Moses

If you have never watched Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat, you must. Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber musically tell the story of how the Israelites ended up in Egypt instead of Canaan, the land provided for Abraham and his descendants. It is brilliantly and humorously done and guaranteed to help one remember the story.

We know the story pretty well. Jacob (renamed Israel – see Distracted) had twelve sons. Joesph, the eleventh son, was by far his favorite. Joseph seemed aware of his place in his father’s eye and tended to push his older brothers’ buttons (if you have a younger brother, you might know of what I speak). He had dreams of them one day bowing down to him. It’s one thing to have such dreams. It’s quite another to tell one’s older brothers about them. Oh, and apparently, he had an ornate coat that his brothers envied.

One day, Joseph was tasked by his dad to check on his nomadic sheep-herding brothers, which he did while wearing his special, ornate coat. Envy and jealousy reared their ugly heads, and murder by brothers was imminent. The prudence of the oldest brother, Ruben, prevailed and Joseph’s life was spared. However, the other ten brothers sold him to slave traders headed to Egypt. How do you explain a missing favorite son? Smear his ornate coat with a slaughtered goat’s blood to convince Jacob that some ferocious animal must have devoured Joseph.

If you are thinking that things are not “on earth as in heaven,” you would be right.

Fast forward a lot of years. We find Joseph, aided by his God-given ability to interpret dreams, high in Pharaoh’s administration as the Secretary of Agriculture, overseeing preparation for and wheat distribution during a seven-year famine. The drought reached as far east as Canaan, forcing the brothers to grovel before Joseph, unbeknownst, for sustenance. With identities revealed and forgiveness granted, the entire clan of Jacob relocated to Egypt, settling on land provided by Pharaoh.1 (If you prefer more detail, read all this in Genesis 37-47.)

It might have now seemed like “on earth as in heaven,” but nope…

A couple hundred years after their relocation to Egypt, the tide shifted. A new king (a Pharaoh) “to whom Joseph meant nothing” came to power, recognized a potential threat the foreigners could pose, and acted swiftly and shrewdly. He enslaved them. Oppressive slave masters worked them ruthlessly, I assume seven days a week. They worked in the fields, in brick manufacturing, and as laborers for Pharaoh’s building projects.

Interestingly, the more the Israelites were oppressed, the more they multiplied. Pharaoh feared the expanding population of slaves might rebel and join Egypt’s enemies should war break out. So he acted with murderous shrewdness. He demanded that midwives kill baby boys at birth. The midwives feared God (and presumably not Pharaoh) and refused. When asked why the refusal, the midwives explained that the vigorous Hebrew women popped the babies out before they could arrive to assist.

Pharaoh ratcheted up his determination to control the population of the foreigners. He demanded that all baby boys immediately be cast into the Nile (there is no indication in scripture as to how this was accomplished).

Enter Moses into God’s redemption project

As you might recall, the baby Moses was hidden from the authorities for three months. When he became too active to conceal, his parents crafted a plan to spare his life as long as possible. This is how Jewish historian Flavius Josephus described the plan…

They made an ark of bulrushes, after the manner of a cradle, and of a bigness sufficient for an infant to be laid in without being too straitened: they then daubed it over with slime, which would naturally keep out the water from entering between the bulrushes, and put the infant into it, and setting it afloat upon the river, they left its preservation to God; so the river received the child, and carried him along.2

Scripture indicates that Moses’ sister followed her little brother as the ark floated along the Nile to see what might happen to him. Pharaoh’s daughter (Thermuthis, according to Josephus) found the baby boy while bathing in the Nile. She recognized the crying baby as a Hebrew child in need of a meal. The infant’s watching sister offered to get a Hebrew wet nurse to feed the child. The wet nurse was, of course, his very own mother. Scripture indicates that he became the son of Pharaoh’s daughter…

When the child grew older, she [Moses’ mother] took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, “I drew him out of the water” (Moses sounds like the Hebrew for draw out). Exodus 2:10, NIV.

Josephus, the ever-embellisher, tells the story this way…

Hereupon it was that Thermuthis imposed this name Mouses upon him, from what had happened when he was put into the river; for the Egyptians call water by the name of Mo, and such as are saved out of it, by the name of Uses: so by putting these two words together, they imposed this name upon him. And he was, by the confession of all, according to God’s prediction, as well for his greatness of mind as for his contempt of difficulties, the best of all the Hebrews, for Abraham was his ancestor of the seventh generation.2

Through scripture and the historian Josephus, we see God’s hand in the continuation of his redemption / new creation project, though not without a fair amount of messiness. I suppose that should be expected, given his desire to continue to use flawed image-bearers to carry out his purposes. The descendants of Abraham, God’s kingdom people, were still called to be his ambassadors to the nations.

So the story continues…

1It should be noted that Jacob’s clan (Israel) and the Egyptians had a shared ancestry in Noah (see the reference to Ham in Psalm 105:23). Shared origins remind us that Israel was chosen from among their related clans. They were no better or righteous. God simply chose them for a particular task.

2Josephus, Flavius. The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged (p. 491-2). http://www.DelmarvaPublications.com. Kindle Edition.

Distracted…

I can easily get distracted and sidetracked. I’m guessing I’m not alone. Though never diagnosed with an attention disorder, I would be willing to bet I might land somewhere on the spectrum. The advent of the internet has not been my friend. My top CliftonStrengths (Intellection, Connectedness, Ideation, Context, Input) make me ripe and susceptible to internet rabbit trails that deter me from intended purposes. Again, I’m guessing I’m not alone. It must be a human vulnerability that the satan is well aware of. Distraction might be his best work!

Consider how he distracted the original humans in the Garden.

They were tasked with caring for part of God’s kingdom, the earth they inhabited. The satan distracted them with a shiny object, and they bit. The result? They lost focus of the original intent to serve as kingdom stewards. It reminds me of the old saying:

When distracted by the swarming alligators, it’s hard to remember that the original intent was to drain the swamp.

Not only did Adam and Eve lose sight of their calling, but their action created fissures in the kingdom on Earth. The created order was broken. So, God embarked on a project of new creation. His desire to continue to use his created image-bearers to be stewards and workers in the redemption project, even though they got distracted, is fascinating. As discussed in the last post…

God chose Abram and his descendants to be catalysts in the redemption of the kingdom. They would be workers for God’s kingdom. God would bless Abram and his descendants for the express purpose of, in turn, blessing the image-bearers around them. Abram and his offspring were to help reestablish God’s will “on earth as in heaven.” Ambassadors for the kingdom, as it were.

Well, the people got distracted again. They appeared to have lost sight of the original intent as ambassadors. They liked the idea of being blessed. But being a blessing to the peoples around them somehow got lost. As we all tend to do, they got distracted by helping God in ways he didn’t ask. A synopsis…

God promised Abram that his descendants would outnumber the stars in the sky or the sands on the seashore. Accordingly, God renamed him Abraham, meaning “father of many [nations].” Abraham got distracted by the reality that he and his wife, Sarah, were very old, beyond child-bearing age. Taking things into their own hands, Sarah suggested that Abraham sleep with her servant, Hagar. Cultural custom allowed such an arrangement, deeming the child “theirs” if the baby was birthed onto Sarah’s lap. Abraham bit, and Ishmael was born.

Ultimately, Abraham and Sarah had a child of their own – Isaac. Once Issac was weaned (evidence that he had avoided the dangers of infant mortality?), Sarah had Hagar and Ishmael sent away. But God, in his generosity, took care of them in their exile. Arabic Islam tradition holds that Abraham fathered their nation through Ishmael.

Issac fathered twins Jacob and Esau. Esau was the first-born and thus the rightful heir. Jacob was a hustler and a deceiver (his name actually means “deceiver”). Apparently, his mom, Rebekah, was a deceiver too. Together, they tricked Isaac into giving Jacob, her favorite, the first-born blessing.

However, the heir apparent to the Abrahamic “blessed to be a blessing” calling got sidetracked for a few years. A lot of years, in fact. Escaping the wrath of Esau, Jacob ended up on his uncle Laban’s sheep ranch. The hustler negotiated a deal with Laban for the hand of his daughter Rachel, who he fell for down at the watering hole. Jacob agreed to work for his uncle for seven years to earn Rachel as his wife. However, Laban tricked the trickster, and Jacob found himself married to Rachel’s sister, Leah. Argh!

Long story short, Jacob ended up with Rachel as his wife, too, but it cost him several more years of his life serving Laban. As you can imagine, being married to two sisters created some interesting familial dynamics. God’s image-bearing ambassadors were not only sidetracked but appeared headed for derailment. Ultimately, the now humbled Jacob returned with his dysfunctional tribe to his homeland to face Esau. Much to his surprise, Esau ran to embrace Jacob!

(As I write, I can’t help but think of Jesus’ parable of the prodigal brothers. In this case, it is the older brother who surprisingly runs to embrace the wayward younger brother. Perhaps he was stepping into the role his late father once held.)

After returning to his homeland, Jacob wrestled with a man (some think it was God or an angel) for an entire night. (Who among us hasn’t wrestled with God in some manner over the years?) Jacob would not let the man go, even after experiencing a significant hip pointer. He demanded God’s blessing, WHICH HE RECEIVED! God, in his generosity, continued to work with his flawed image-bearing ambassadors and recognized Jacob as the rightful heir.

God renamed Jacob “Israel.” Israel means “let God prevail” or “struggle with God.”  God changed Jacob’s name to signify that he had become someone different and was now seeking God instead of relying on deception.

The name Israel was significant because it represented the covenant between God and Jacob and the promise that he would receive the same blessings as Abraham and Isaac.  The mission of Abraham’s descendants to bless the nations was back in motion. The redemption project was back on track.

Or was it?

On Earth as in Heaven…

In the previous post, I described an upcoming series exploring my broad understanding of the kingdom of God, the kingdom Jesus ushered in and proclaimed…

Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:14-15)

What was this kingdom that Jesus proclaimed, and why didn’t his hearers ask, “What kingdom?” So, apparently, they had some kind of understanding of God’s kingdom. It wasn’t necessarily “news” to Jesus’ first-century hearers. However, it appears that Jesus’ proclamation was that his news about the kingdom might be new and fresh – good news.

Let’s start with an understanding of God’s kingdom through the ages.

We should start with the description of a kingdom. Dallas Willard in The Scandal of the Kingdom1 offers a simple definition of a kingdom…

A kingdom is a society of people with a structure in which there is one person, a king or queen, to whom all the citizens offer loyalty, service and respect.  The sovereign’s part of this relationship is to provide care, protection, and service for the good of the people.  

In his book The Divine Conspiracy2, Willard describes the kingdom of God as the range of God’s effective will, where what God wants done is done. This “effective reign” is present wherever God’s will is actively carried out. To Willard, the kingdom of God is not just a spiritual or internal experience but encompasses all aspects of life, including social, political, and personal domains. 

Genesis 1. Starting with the creation story, which we are quite familiar with, we see God as the creator. His kingdom encompassed the entire universe, including the third rock from the sun that we inhabit. To the ancients, God resided in the heavens (note “the heavens,” not heaven). One could also say he lived in “the sky.” Since the sky, to them, was everything above the Earth (think atmosphere), God wasn’t far away as we tend to believe today. At the time of creation, it wouldn’t be a leap to assume God’s will (reign) was on earth as in heaven (where have we heard that before?).

Integral to God’s creative activity was the creation of his image-bearers (Genesis 1:27)…

So God created mankind in his own image,
    in the image of God he created them;
    male and female he created them.

He entrusted his image-bearers to care for his earthly kingdom according to his will. (Think, Thy will be done on earth as in heaven.) They were tasked as stewards to care for the Earth in a way that reflected God’s heart – both environmental and relational stewardship. By definition, a steward is someone employed to manage another’s property. They were workers in and for God’s kingdom. They were to be fruitful and multiply, adding to the number of those serving the kingdom.

Genesis 3. We know what happened next. The image-bearers decided they had a better idea of how to steward the planet. With the encouragement of the serpent, they decided they could manage things as well as God. The serpent got Adam and Eve to take their eyes off God and his will with an enticement to “become like God” (Genesis 3:5). The rest is, as we say, history.

Their decision (sin) meant that the kingdom of God on earth was broken and in need of redemption. One result was that the relational closeness Adam and Eve experienced with God was broken. God’s kingdom didn’t cease to exist. God was still the king of the universe. But, things were not on earth as in heaven! The entirety of the scriptures post-Genesis 3 is the story of God’s redemption (new creation) project, using his image-bearers to assist in the process.

Genesis 12. God kicked his restoration project into full swing by singling out Abram as his ambassador…

2“I will make you into a great nation,
    and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
    and you will be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you,
    and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
    will be blessed through you.”

God chose Abram and his descendants to be catalysts in the redemption of the kingdom. They would be workers for God’s kingdom. God would bless Abram and his descendants for the express purpose of, in turn, blessing the image-bearers around them. Abram and his offspring were to help reestablish God’s will “on earth as in heaven.” Ambassadors for the kingdom, as it were.

This King/ambassador relationship with these kingdom people was a covenantal relationship, sealed by God himself (see Smoking Pot in the Old Testament). There is a theme/thread woven throughout the entire redemption story known as the covenant formula. The formula is integral to gaining an understanding of and seeing the kingdom of God throughout the biblical narrative. It can be found throughout scripture as some form of…

I will be your God, and you will be my people.

We will pick up Abram’s story in the next post. Meanwhile, you might want to check out the wealth and richness of covenant formula instances. I created a Google Doc with a list of such Biblical occurrences for your perusal. (When I discovered this thematic thread, it was a game-changer!)

1 Willard, D. (2024). The scandal of the kingdom : how the parables of Jesus revolutionize life with God. Zondervan Books.

2 Willard, Dallas. The divine conspiracy: rediscovering our hidden life in God. HarperOne, 1998.

Almost Getting It…

Our small group had a “kingdom of God” discussion a while back. We were talking about the common confusion between kingdom and heaven. Someone in the group said, “I understand that heaven and the kingdom of God are not the same, but I’m not sure I could explain why.” We all agreed that the kingdom of God and its “at-handedness” was Jesus’ core message. We understood that Jesus ushered in the kingdom, but describing what that meant was another issue.

With three to four decades spent seeking to understand God’s kingdom as it relates to present-day life—especially given the longstanding emphasis on heaven—I felt somewhat equipped to add depth to our conversation. I felt like I was starting to get it. Then, the question that sent me back to the drawing board: “If Jesus was ushering in the kingdom, where was it before?”

Drats! Just when I was almost getting it!

The question drove me back from whence I had spent years noodling. It required me to step back and wonder what I was missing or not seeing. So I noodled some more—for several weeks. Then something clicked, and I started to “get it” (which is a bit scary to say, knowing that the next good question might send me back to the drawing board again).

While listening to the New Testament scholar and Israel historian Gary Burge on a Holy Post podcast, something resonated. Something clicked. I jumped on my computer and pounded out a bulleted outline I dubbed Kingdom of God: A Synopsis, a working document. Yes, a “working document.” I keep numerous working documents on my computer as I explore, revisit, and refine my theological perspectives. Keep in mind the definition of theology that informs this blog…

Theology is the attempt to understand God and what he is up to.

By this definition, capturing one’s theological perspectives on paper must be a working document because we are in constant discovery and learning mode. Our theology is a work in progress. God is consistently honing our perspectives.

I’ve often shared that this blog is my space to process and document the journey of discovery that God is leading me on. Writing out concepts that are starting to make sense for me sharpens my critical and creative thinking skills. This experience is transformative for me, and I hope it can be beneficial for readers, too.

For several years, I have thought about embarking on an explanation of what I’ve been discovering about this kingdom of God that Jesus said was at hand, that was good news–the gospel. I have made several attempts, each time coming up empty. I find it challenging to put into words my journey of exploring what Jesus truly meant when he spoke of the Kingdom and its essence. Have you ever noticed that when Jesus talked about the nearness of the Kingdom, his followers never asked, “What kingdom?” That has tripped me up for a long time.

I am going to give it another try. I’m going to begin a series of posts exploring my present understanding of the kingdom of God, utilizing thoughts from my working document. Please understand that I will be fleshing out what presently makes sense to me, but it’s the tip of the iceberg. As time passes, I’m sure I will need to tweak and refine some of my thoughts. First, a bit about the journey that got me to this point (which I have talked about in chunks throughout the blog, but let me pull it all together).

About 40 years ago, after a decade of gospel immersion, it became blatantly obvious that Jesus’ core message was the kingdom of God – its arrival, nearness, and nature. However, most teachings and sermons I heard did nothing to help me/us understand why that was Jesus’ focus. I/we were led to believe that Jesus’ main message was about getting people saved and to heaven, which he rarely addressed.

Enter Dallas Willard’s 1998 book The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life In God. He started with the story of a young fighter pilot who, in the early 1990s, was taking her jet through maneuvers, got disoriented, attempted a steep climb, and drove it into the ground. She had been flying upside down, unbeknownst. Willard posited that in our misunderstanding of God, his kingdom, and Jesus’ message, we have been flying upside down for so long that we don’t know what right-side up is. I know I didn’t.

As I continued working through The Divine Conspiracy and the gospels, I listened to hours of NT Wright lectures as he developed his own kingdom theology, which culminated in his 2008 book, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church. Wright caused me to rethink almost everything! In tackling the question of life after death, Wright demonstrated that most Christians have it wrong. Rather than leaving for heaven, we are resurrected here, with heaven descending to earth—a distinction that makes all of the difference to how we live here today. A game-changer!

With this brief background, I will next start to plow through my “working document.” It will be interesting to see where this takes us. As we embark on this adventure, let’s keep asking God the hard questions like “Where was the kingdom before?” God loves good questions. And who knows, maybe more of us will be able to say…

“I’m almost getting it!”

Getting It…

Some years ago, I was sitting with a group of colleagues, discussing our roles as youth ministry professionals. The discussion at hand was centered on recruitment and development of volunteer leaders. We had immersed ourselves in Gospel reading, which led to pondering the types of people Jesus invited to follow him. More specifically, we wondered what he might have seen in the Twelve that separated them from the rest of his followers. It led to a lively discussion.

We then wondered about the qualities and characteristics Peter, James, and John possessed that caused Jesus to spend inordinate amounts of time with them and their development compared to the other nine. Some words we used to describe what Jesus might have seen in them were openness, willingness, teachable/coachable, hunger, authenticity, etc.

Translating to youth ministry, I asked what we looked for when recruiting volunteers to join us in our ministries. We agreed that the same general characteristics applied. I followed with this question: “Considering our existing leaders, what qualities do our best leaders possess that others may not?” We concluded they shared the same traits we believed Peter, James, and John had. We noted that other leaders might exhibit some of the traits but not all of them.

We decided to tackle a simple, one-sentence definition or descriptor of this x-factor that our best leaders seemed to have. After wrestling with several renditions, one in our group said, “I don’t know how to describe it. They just ‘get it’.” But what do we mean when we say someone “gets it?” Wrestling with that question for a while, we somehow landed on this:

If someone gets it, no definition is required. If they don’t get it, no definition will suffice.

I wonder if this is what Jesus meant when he said, “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.” Thinking back to the previous post (Best Prof Ever…), I wonder if some of Jesus’ brilliance in his teaching style was that he didn’t seem to be overly concerned with making sure people “got it.” He would tell stories about the nature of the kingdom of God to the crowds, sometimes feed them, and then go somewhere else.

Did he leave their questions unanswered? Did they even have questions in the first place? Did he simply give them something worth pondering and wondering about?

Maybe that’s why Jesus was such a good question-asker. “Getting it” doesn’t come simply with the provision of a definition or answer. Getting it usually happens when we ponder and wrestle with a question(s) over time. Looking at the youth minister example above, we wrestled with a number of questions. Jesus wanted people to reexamine their understanding of God and their cultural presuppositions of the nature of the kingdom. People do want answers but often seek answers to the wrong questions. Jesus would often do a reversal and ask a question that wasn’t even on their radar.

Jesus’ questions usually show up as blimps on our radars that we cannot ignore!

Looking back over my journey, I can remember several great questions asked by wise people that caused me to pause and do some rethinking. One in particular comes to mind: Early in my journey, I was wrestling with the manifestation of some of the spiritual gifts that well-meaning people suggested were missing in my life. Lots of people were providing “answers,” telling me what I ought to believe. However…

It was a wise sage in my life that asked me the exact right question: “Are you seeking the gift or the Giver?” That’s all I remember him saying. (I wonder if he might have been thinking, “Well, if he has ears to hear…”). Whatever he was thinking, it was transformative.

I wonder if it might behoove us to emulate Jesus’ approach when helping people get it, whatever “it” happens to be. I remember someone lamenting that their adult kids weren’t as connected to God the way they had hoped. I asked what they thought was the disconnect. Their response? “I don’t know. I certainly told them [what to believe] enough.” Our Western approach of telling people “how it is”1 doesn’t naturally lead to transformation, especially if they don’t have ears to hear. But a well-formed question can lead to discovery. I know a group of youth ministers who will never forget the discovery…

If someone gets it, no definition is required. If they don’t get it, no definition will suffice.

1Borrowed from Dallas Willard: Willard, D. (2024). The scandal of the kingdom : how the parables of Jesus revolutionize life with God. Zondervan Books.

Best Prof Ever…

As you may know, I took the looong route to obtaining my bachelor’s degree in Structural Engineering. I call it “The Nine-Year” plan. I started my higher ed journey quite traditionally, attending a reputable engineering school. But after the first quarter of my junior year, I dropped out, precipitated by various circumstances related to finances, lack of a sense of purpose, the Vietnam War, etc. I took a position with a local company with whom I had been employed in the engineering department (drafting) since my junior year of high school.

Within a few months of leaving school, I continued my pursuit of a degree in engineering. I commuted an hour after work to the University of Minnesota, taking many degree-fulfilling courses available through the extension program. Unfortunately, some of the required courses were unavailable through the extension program.

So, to complete the final 30 credits toward a degree, I took a two-quarter leave of absence. One of the required courses unavailable via the extension program was engineering physics. Physics proved to be a larger challenge than I had anticipated. I was several years removed from using calculus and the metric system. The pace was break-neck with a rhythm of 1-2 chapters/topics per week and an exam every two weeks. I knew the key to surviving and thriving in college-level math and engineering classes was to work problems – as many as possible, especially via a study group. Amazingly, I knew a couple guys in the class of 150 and we formed such a group.

My physics professor proved to be one of the best professors I ever had. I don’t remember his name, but I surely remember him. He knew his physics, but more importantly, he knew his audience. I remember him dedicating class the day before an exam to address questions we had. We were free to ask about the practice problems from the book that stumped us (“we,” of course, meaning all 150 of us).

He was brilliant in his approach. He would merely set up a problem, then casually remark, “You will be able to take it from here.” His approach allowed him to address 15-20 different problems – exactly what we needed. We didn’t need him to work a problem out to completion. We only needed him to get us started, sketch out the problem, and point us in the right direction. He set us up to “get it.” He didn’t do the work for us – he merely pointed us in the right direction.

How good of a professor was he? He made dreaded physics enjoyable. I learned! I started to “get it.” My presuppositions of engineering physics faded. He set me up to get an “A” in the class, a grade that didn’t come easy for me in college.

Two of my favorite authors, Dallas Willard and Howard Hendricks, both reminded readers that Jesus is the smartest person in the universe and that we would do well to learn from him. He was the best prof (rabbi) ever. He knew his material (the Hebrew Scriptures) and his audience (his apprentices, the religious leaders, and the general populous). He also stayed true to his purpose as a teacher—the proclamation and explanation of the nature of the kingdom of God which had arrived with his appearance.

The kingdom of God is an elusive concept lost on most of us for various reasons. Two-thirds of Jesus’ parables and most of his main discourses (i.e., the Sermon on the Mount) focused on the good news (gospel) of the kingdom’s arrival. Unfortunately, the kingdom of God has become equated to simply “heaven,” a place we go after we die. Such reduction of the gospel does injustice to the kingdom Jesus ushered in. Reading scripture through this narrow lens hinders our ability to fully grasp the true nature of God’s kingdom.

The same was true for the first-century adherents of Judaism. The people were familiar with a coming kingdom but didn’t fully grasp its true nature. They were aware, through less than stellar professors (the religious leaders), that God’s kingdom would arrive someday, but it would arrive in power and glory, overthrowing the pagan kingdoms. The kingdom of God had been reduced to a form of nationalism. Jesus’ teaching aimed to dismantle and challenge their false presuppositions.

For 30-40 years, I found it challenging to reconcile Jesus’ central message about the arrival of God’s kingdom with the teaching I often heard, which emphasized getting to heaven. Closely following the means to heaven attainment were sets of ethics to follow until we finally get to depart this earth. There was no kingdom. There was no explanation of the kingdom’s nature. Most of Jesus’ kingdom teaching was reduced to moralism—behavior modification. There was no transformation. There was no life.

In his recent posthumously written book, The Scandal of the Kingdom, Dallas Willard offers a conceptual understanding of a kingdom…

A kingdom is a society of people with a structure in which there is one person, a king or queen, to whom all the citizens offer loyalty, service and respect.  The sovereign’s part of this relationship is to provide care, protection, and service for the good of the people.

The Hebrew Scriptures contain the story of God and his people, warts and all. Threaded through the narrative are stories that point people to an understanding of a King who provided care, protection, and service for the good of the people (think righteousness, justice, love, and faithfulness—see It’s Foundational). We know this story—the people struggled to embrace God as their king.

The foundational story was highjacked in favor of sets of ethical rules to ensure correct behavior. The professors became moral guardians. No transformation and certainly not life-giving. Jesus’ task was to wrestle the false concept of God’s kingdom away from the highjackers and help the people understand the nature of what was really at hand. Wrestle away? It appears Jesus suggested that’s exactly what he needed to do…

From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of [God] has been subjected to violence, and violent people have been raiding it. (Matthew 11:12, NIV)

How was Jesus a stellar professor? He brought people back to the story of God and his people. He pointed people to the intent and nature of the Torah, not just the letter of the law, as the highjackers had done. He pointed people to an understanding of a kingdom where the King offered a covenant loyalty and asked the people to respond accordingly.

His stories and discourses wrestled a moralistic and ethical kingdom concept from the moral guardians and gave the people a different kingdom concept. He didn’t provide people with exacting instructions on how to live. Instead, he told stories of what life in the kingdom could look like and invited hearers to become subjects. He told stories that reversed the moralistic view of the kingdom and pointed to a different “ethic.” Oh, and his stories indicated that the kingdom was for anyone and everyone. All were invited.

Like my physics professor, Jesus didn’t work out all the details. He told stories that described the nature of God’s kingdom. He sketched out the concept of the presence of God’s kingdom and let them “take it from there.” And many “got it”—those who had ears to hear. He simply pointed people in the right direction and then said…

“Follow me.”

Silo-Filling

I have always loved autumn for a variety of reasons. In Minnesota, we get to experience warm days and cool nights. At night, the AC is turned off, and the windows are opened again, capturing all the outdoor sounds as we sleep. During the day I can fling open my shop doors and enjoy the smells of fall as I do my woodworking.

Growing up on the farm, autumn also meant harvesting the fall crops. After waiting all summer for our spring planting efforts to come to fruition, we enjoyed the fruits of our labor and patience (I think of Mark 4). By far, my all-time favorite harvest was chopping corn for silage, especially the associated smell of fresh chopped corn. It’s the same smell you get when husking out sweet corn.

When the corn stocks were still mostly green and the kernels beginning to dent, we took to the fields with a chopper and wagons to harvest the crop that would ultimately become silage (think sauerkraut). Wagonload after wagonload of chopped corn were taken out of the field and brought to the farm yard to be blown 50′ up into a silo. We called the whole process, “silo-filling.”

Part of the enjoyment of silo-filling for me during my junior high and high school days was getting to miss school for several days to man a tractor and wagon. I made several trips per hour out to the field, returning to the silo with a loaded wagon for emptying into the blower. I loved every bit of it and have great memories as I write this.

Year after year, I lived with one hope – that I would “happen” to be bringing a loaded wagon up to the silo at the same time that the school bus came by at the end of the day. How glorious to have my peers see me at work while missing school. I would strategically try to make it happen. It did happen, but only once. But it was glorious! I felt rewarded for all my work and strategy.

For the last several weeks I have been working my way through the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s gospel. I recently read Jesus’ admonition regarding prayer…

Whenever you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, because they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by people. Truly I tell you, they have their reward. (Matt. 6:5, CSB)

It’s my understanding that in the first century, at the time of Jesus’ earthly ministry, Jewish religious practice and traditions included fixed times of prayer – morning, afternoon, and evening. Modern Hasidic Jews still observe the fixed prayer times. When we were in Jerusalem several years ago, we found ourselves at the western wall of the Temple Mount (the “wailing wall”) around 3:00p, where many Orthodox Jews had gathered for prayer. Interestingly, at the same time, Muslims were gathered in the mosque on the Temple Mount for their time of afternoon prayer.

In the first century, if a worshiper could not get to a synagogue for prayer, they stopped where they found themselves, faced the Temple, and recited their prayers. I was once on a train from Minneapolis to Chicago when at 9:00a several Hasidic Jews stepped out into the aisle to recite their prayers (known as davening), including the traditional rhythmic swaying back and forth.

I understand that in Jesus’ day, religious leaders would strategically position themselves for the best possible exposure at prayer time, hoping they might find themselves on a busy street corner for all to see. They were praying, as they should, but their motives were wrong. Their piousness was a pretense. Etymologically, pretense and pretend are connected.

So, Jesus rightly referred to these strategizers and hypocrites, as pretenders. The point Jesus made to his disciples and the crowd listening in this discourse was that the righteousness of the religious leaders was insufficient and incomplete. In God’s economy, the righteousness of kingdom people must (will?) surpass that of the religious leaders who did the right things but for the wrong reasons (see Matt. 5:20).

Here’s the thing that’s a bit scary to consider: the religious leaders did not see themselves as pretenders. They were faithfully practicing standard-fare pious acts religiously (giving to the poor, praying, fasting, etc). They were probably completely stunned to be called pretenders. And, as we discover, they were angered to no end.

Jesus encouraged pious practices but sans strategy. In the same section, Jesus discussed the practice of giving to the needy. In their “righteousness,” the pious leaders practiced giving to the poor. It was a good thing to do. But in their incomplete righteousness, they were doing the right thing but only pretending they cared about the needy. Jesus was teaching that in God’s economy, the righteousness of kingdom people will exceed that of the calculating religious leaders.

We think of hypocrisy as “saying one thing and doing another.” Jesus seems to view hypocrisy as doing something with wrong motives – pretending. And that’s scary because our motives are always a bit suspect. But there is good news. As kingdom people, we are being transformed into the image of the King in which a modus operandi of pretending fades. But when it does surface, we can declare confidently with the Apostle Paul…

Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 7:24-25, NLT)

“Jesus!”

Billy attended school with me during my early Junior High days. He was in most of my classes. He was also our pastor’s son. He clued me in on something in seventh grade that might have had a larger impact on my life than I might have expected.

We were part of a Sunday School class of all boys (at least, that’s what I remember). I also remember that we were a typical group of seventh graders with built-in ADHHHD. Paying attention to the teacher or lesson was not high on our abilities or agendas (I suspect most of us were not in the class by choice). Billy’s clue was related to our Sunday School class. He told me he learned from his dad that if asked a question by the teacher and unsure of the answer, “Jesus” was always a safe response – a “Sunday School answer.”

One Sunday I was particularly distracted when, toward the end of class-time, our teacher asked me point-blank if I knew the answer to the question he had just asked. I had no idea what he had asked! And I was pretty sure he knew I hadn’t been paying attention – I suspect the question was his way of letting me know. Remembering Billy’s suggestion, I said, “Jesus!” emphatically and with confidence. The teacher looked a bit surprised and said something like, “Yes! And don’t ever forget it!” Class was over. I got the answer right and I didn’t even know what the question was!

“You can’t get second things by putting them first; you can get second things only by putting first things first.”  C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock. 

C. S. Lewis spoke of first things throughout his writings. Just yesterday I was speaking with someone who had recently stumbled onto one of his essays that pointed readers to first things. I wonder what Lewis’ answer would have been if asked, “What is the first thing?” I suspect he would have said, “Jesus!” emphatically and with confidence. And he wouldn’t have been offering up a Sunday School answer.

Today if asked about the first thing, I answer emphatically and with confidence, “Jesus!” Many would agree with me. However, the answer begs a follow-up question: “Which Jesus?” Sounds like an odd question, but not really. One could be talking about the Jesus of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, whose job is to make us happy and show up when we need him. Or the Jesus of economic prosperity who lavishes us with material blessings. Or the Jesus we draw into our political bents to help us gain control over the ‘other.’ Or the western version of Jesus (or eastern). Or a Jesus whose main role is to simply get us to heaven. These incomplete Jesuses are a result of putting second things first – which is what he can do for us.

The first thing must be the Jesus of scripture, the real Jesus, not a ‘Jesus’ informed by culture, ideologies, or what he can do for us. The first thing must be Jesus only. Period. It takes concerted time and effort to see past the pseudo-Jesuses to the Jesus of scripture. I speak from experience. This is why I require young people that I mentor to be immersed in the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John). I can say from experience that it is worth the time and effort. It’s transformative.

It all starts with an open, honest perspective of where one is now.

So, ponder for a bit: In what ways might the ‘Jesus’ you know be shaped by outside ideologies?

Where the Right and Left Agree!

Election seasons can be pretty frustrating. I was once part of a conversation involving people from opposite ends of the political spectrum.  “Part of the conversation” meant I mostly remained quiet and listened, wondering what and if anything I had to offer.  Then someone, noticing my silence, asked me what I thought.  I responded that we might want to consider what God thought.  Their follow-up question: “And what do you think God thinks?” I struggle during election seasons primarily because far too many of us are not willing to consider what God may think.

We tend to invoke Jesus’ name in support of our particular political ideologies but not necessarily inviting Him into the process of developing them.  I watched a friend over the past several years become a serious follower of Jesus – giving Him permission to speak into his life, to grow his understanding of grace, to mess with and shape his ideologies.

As a result, I heard this friend say a few years ago that he was really struggling with how he should vote in light of becoming a thoughtful Christ-follower.  In the past he may not have asked that question but simply voted his “party line.”  What a novel idea – to ask Jesus how we might vote as opposed to telling him how we want to vote and assuming he agrees with us.  Or not include him at all.

The conversation reminded me of an article I read in the old, now defunct, youth ministry magazine, The Wittenburg Door.  The article was an interview with the late Brennan Manning, author of many wonderful books, including The Ragamuffin Gospel, Abba’s Child and Ruthless Trust.

What I most remember from the interview was Manning’s interesting musing as he wondered when liberals and conservatives might realize they are fundamentally aligned and in agreement.  Manning suggested that what unites these opposite ideologies is the proposition that Jesus is impractical in the real world. Manning:

“The bottom line is that conservatives and liberals are united, the left wing embraces the right, Pilate and Herod becomes friends, and the one proposition that unites them is that Jesus is impractical.”

People tried to press Jesus into their civic and political agendas and he would not allow it.  In their mind, Jesus did not seize the opportunity to change the course of history.  Jesus was political for sure – just not the way people wanted.  He made it very clear that Caesar was not in charge.  Nor was the high priest.  The people’s attempts to draw Jesus into political debates on their terms fell short.  He pulled no punches in reminding them that they were pretty clueless about the grand scheme of things.

Likewise, our attempts to draw Jesus into our political agendas fall short. He’s on a different playing field.  He is King of kings (King over all who think they are or should be kings) and Lord of lords (Lord over all who think they are to lord it over others).  Because the resurrected Jesus humbled himself as a servant, even to the point of a criminal’s death, “God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord…” (Philippians 2:9-11).

In free countries, we take elections very serious, as we should. But we must remember that it is God who is sovereign!  He is sovereign over kings and dictators, over presidents and prime ministers, over liberals and conservatives and, yes, over nations.  We take our privilege of voting very serious, but it pales in comparison to the privilege of knowing and following the King of kings.