Simon was an ordinary man.  He and his family were devout Jews, in fact they had come from Cyrene a little Jewish outpost in Libya to Jerusalem for the Passover.  He and his wife and their two boys Alexander and Rufus were probably excited about being a part of the festivities and being in the very presence of God’s temple.  Simon didn’t know that he was about to get closer to God than he ever imagined.  As they were coming into the city form the country they heard a lot of yelling and they knew something was going on.  As Simon drew closer to the crowd lined along the road he could see that their piercing eyes and jeers were directed to a bloody and mangled body that was slowly and painfully taking steps towards a nearby hill, carrying a thick wooden beam on his shoulders.  As he looked at this man pain and disgust filled his heart, and then he made eye contact with one of the Roman soldiers that was prodding the man along.  “You,” he said to Simon, “come and carry this man’s cross.”    He submitted and carried the cross. 

Has your life ever come into contact with the cross?  Has the path you are walking ever intersected the via dolorosa – the way of suffering.   Ultimately the way of the cross is the way of submission and service.  Now when we here those words:  submission and service, we tend to get all sorts of distorted images in our head.  Different people and groups have monopolized what submission should look like.  That is why when many people here those words in a Christian context they think of women submitting to their husbands.  I want to tell you now that submission is not meant as something that brings gloom and stifles life, but rather something that frees us and brings the life that is truly life.  The reason we practice the Disciplines is not for the Disciplines sake, but rather that they bring freedom.  The freedom that comes from fasting is that we know how to be content with much or with little.  We do not need all the luxuries this life can afford and frankly we learn to not desire them.  The freedom that comes from submission is that we are able to lay down the terribly heavy burden of having to have our own way.  Do you realize how many marriages would be saved and how many churches would not split if people just learned submission – if they learned that they did not have to have their own way, and that certain things aren’t really that big of a deal.  That is not to say that we should simply be a door mat for people to scrape the mud off their shoes, but through practicing submission we learn how to discern between things that are really important and things that will not cause the world to collapse if they aren’t done as we suppose they should be. 

Submission was the cornerstone of what it means to be a disciple.  In Matthew 16 Jesus says that if anyone wishes to become his disciple they must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow him.  For when we lose our life for his sake we find it.  C.S. Lewis said it this way: “Nothing is truly ours until we give it away.”  True life – life that is really life, life that is different from the hum drum cycle of work, eat, sleep, play, work, eat, sleep, play, work, eat, sleep, play – only comes when we choose to grab hold of the life that God has for us and lay down our lives before him and say “not my will but yours”.  And if we are honest with ourselves we will have to admit that there are parts of this Bible that clearly tell us what the will of God is, but we lack the courage and conviction to do it. There is freedom in submission.  There is joy in submission.  

People who keep up with harps and harpists say that Lily Laskin, the French harpist, took the harp out of the living room and made it a featured solo instrument on concert stages all over the world. She died on January 4, 1988, at the age of ninety-four. Upon her death, she was credited with popularizing the harp and reviving many musical scores written for it by such composers as Handel and Camille Saint-Seans. She started playing the harp as a child and continued giving public performance well into her eighties. At the age of sixteen, she became the first woman harpist at the Paris Opera. Best known for her interpretation of Mozart she gave a landmark performance of his concerto for flute and harp, at the Salzburg Music Festival in 1937. She recorded it many times during the years, along with works by Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy.

Pete Maravich, the outstanding basketball player of modern times, died on January 5, 1988. While at LSU, he averaged forty-four points per game. No one defensive system in the Southeastern Conference could stop him. Some coaches devised complicated double-team defenses to shut him down. Others let him shoot at will and put pressure on the other four players. As a professional player, Maravich consistently knocked the bottom out of the basket. His dazzling rerformances sold tickets for big bucks. Host teams could be assured of a sell-out game when "Pistol Pete" came to town. Ironically, Maravich died at the age of forty just after playing a pick-up game at a local church gym.

Both Lily Laskin and Pete Maravich gave themselves to that which they considered important. She was totally submitted to the harp, and he was in subjection of basketball. Lily once said, "I have built my life around the harp." On many occasions Pete observed, "Basketball is my whole life."

What is your whole life?  What has the love of Christ compelled you to submit to? 

Many of us will wait in long lines of traffic, get to the arena early, an stay up late just to watch a lady VOLS game.  Some will sit through the rain and snow and cold, and wade through the massive crowds at Neyland stadium to watch a football game – and pay good money to do it.  But when it comes to really sacrificing for the flesh and blood people Christ died for – when it comes to laying our lives down – we shrink back.  Submission is the mark of a disciple, and it begins with submitting to the will of God.  

When we submit to God we need only to obey, we do not need to broadcast our submission.  When we submit to others silence is often the best method.  A submission that demands recognition is more akin to passive aggression – it is a ‘OK – I’ll do it your way’ submission.  When we submit we are fighting a spiritual battle.  Especially when we submit to others.  Our flesh cries out for us to have it our way, but the Spirit beckons us to surrender.  There are two battles in submission.  The first is the outward act.  When we submit to someone else and we do something their way or allow something to be done a way besides our own – this is first part of submission.  This is the easy part.  The second and harder battle is the inward battle.  For we can easily assent to doing something someone else’s way while inwardly rebelling and holding contempt.  The flesh will cling to many reasons why we are right and they are wrong, but all the while the Spirit is telling the flesh – be crucified, be crucified, be crucified. 

Submission frees us to truly love our enemies.  When we can freely lay our will down, God enables us to ask for blessings upon our enemies.   When we don’t have to have it our way we can have compassion on those who want it another way.

Many times submission and service go hand in hand.  Service is often times the outworking of submission.   True service is a hidden lifestyle.  It regards the smallest task as worthy as the biggest.   Many times our pride and self-importance hinder service actually being authentic in our lives because we do it with the wrong heart and we do it self-righteously.  Self-righteous service insists upon serving.  True service recognizes that sometimes it is better to not force service upon someone.  Self-righteous service demands recognition.  True service yearns for secrecy.  Self-righteous service relies on feelings.  True service is driven more by the will than by feelings, and is ready to serve even when feelings are not present.

When Jesus was with his disciples before he was betrayed – he served.  He was gathered with the 12 in the upper room and he served them.  He was the most powerful person in the room and he did not insist on his way.  He did not even give an eloquent speech.  He did not draw attention to the fact that he was about to die and his soul was tearing apart.  No – he knelt down and washed the crap from their feet.  When he was the most powerful person in the room he served. 

Jesus came to wipe out the pecking order.  It wasn’t that he wanted the first and the last to simply switch places.  He chucked the whole system and did away with firsts and lasts because we are to love all regardless.  The last is supposed to serve the first and the first is supposed to serve the last. 

Read Matthew 27:32

Simon’s life intersected the cross and nothing was the same.  His family was changed.  In Mark we find that Simon is the father of Rufus and Alexander.  The fact that they are even mentioned says that they were esteemed in the first century church and their names were common amongst the church.  I am convinced that if Simon’s life had not intersected with the cross, we would have never known Alexander or Rufus by name.  I have a feeling that when that Roman Centurion recruited Simon to carry the cross Simon’s life was changed.  As he saw the bloodied body of the Son of God taking step by step the road to the cross.  And as he walked behind him and saw the deep gashes that submitted to the worst of crimes.  He saw the ultimate submission first hand.  Has your life intersected the cross?
 

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For someone with a philosophy background and a love for apologetics when two Mormon missionaries show up at your door it is almost like getting a package in the mail on your birthday.  Last Friday was the first time this had happened to me since seminary so I was excited to invited them in and offer them some coffee (ha - just kidding about the coffee). We had a great discussion.  All three of us shared our testimonies.  I tried hard not to debate with them.  I did bring up to them the illogical idea that God was once like we are and that he himself had a 'heavenly father'.  If this were the case then the genealogy of gods would extend infinitely into the past with their never being a beginning.  I have written a paper on this here.  This made them pause and wander for a bit, but it did not hold them back for too long because the litmus test for truth for them seems to be a warm-fuzzy feeling you get when you ask God if the book of Mormon is true or not.  They held this up as the ultimate answer.  

I didn't know where to go from there.  I tried telling them that a subjective feeling is not a great indicator of truth, but to no avail.  I have compassion for them.  In a sense I wander if what they are doing was similar to what Christians did before there was good evidence for the validity of their faith.  I don't believe the Mormon faith will ever be proved valid by science or history (that would involve finding an ancient Jewish temple in North America), but their faith is sincere and hopeful that it one day will be.  I guess part of my sympathy comes from the fact that Christianity has stood the test of time and has the backing of history and reason now, and they are left to wrestle with the reality of their faith.  And seeing the painfully-true colors of something you have rested your whole life in bleed through the paint that your family and your faith community have painted over it is gut-wrenching, and I am guessing that most of us if faced with it would probably turn a blind eye.  

I am saddened that, like what happens in many churches today, these two young men have been sold on the idea that faith should be blind.  God is not a God of confusion.  He hasn't created reason, and science, and nature one way and asked us to believe in something contradictory to them all.  That is the beauty of Christianity - as time goes on the core of the Christian faith witnessed in different areas of life.  It is like seeing the true colors of something good and beautiful and holy shining through the superficial spirituality that many have painted over the church.  When we see it, it makes us want to tear away the fake paint.  And as our culture takes the form of post-Christendom we still see that a genuine faith lived out by lovers of Jesus looks more true and more beautiful day after day after day and the darkness will not overcome it.  

Posted In: theology life

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Peter Joseph's 2 hour 'documentary' (which really amounts to a conspiracy theory gone digital) entitled 'Zeitgeist' is full of falsities and poor research.  Dr. Ben Witherington gave a magnificent review of the historical and academic reliability of Joseph's review.

His review can be found here:

http://benwitherington.blogspot.com/2007/12/zeitgeist-of-zeitgeist-movie.html 

Posted In: theology life

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There is this passage from the Bible that has haunted me for some time now.  It isn't one of those passages that is confusing and you have to wrestle with it academically to find the correct interpretation like Psalmists exultation of smashing the babies of his enemies on rocks (Psalm 137).  No this is a passage that is so plain that you can't get around it - and that is the hard part.  It so blatantly calls us to something difficult that we often read it and simply ignore it.  

We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.  How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?  Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.

-1 John 3:16-18 

This is one of those passages that could just be a sermon in and of itself and nothing really needs to be said.  So I won't at this time.  But I do want to announce a new section of my blog that is dedicated to love in action.  Here you will find links to other sites.  Some are sources for news that you won't hear on CNN or Fox that are relevant to this dualistic age of hunger and affluence.  Some are sites that are dedicated to the eradication of poverty, slavery, or war.  On most of the sites you will find links to other similar sites.

One thing I learned from our trip to Catalyst is that people are willing to do good.  However, we have lived in the bubble of affluent America so long that we are not aware of the needs of the world or the practical ways we can help.  So this addition to the site is primarily for education.  If you are a follower of Christ and ignorant of the needs of the world, be cautioned before learning of them because you will be judged for how you respond.  So here it is.  Do something.  Love = Truth and Action.  

Posted In: social-issues theology

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Catalyst 2007 has come, but hopefully it has not gone yet.  It is now 1:22am Saturday morning and we just got back about an hour or so ago, so I am extremely tired and will write a very short blog about it, but with more to come (with more pictures too).  Right now I feel as if I have just been shopping (for cool things, gadgets and what not) and I got so much stuff that when I try to carry it from the car to the house I drop things left and right.   We had the opportunity to hear some of the most influential Christian leaders of our day.  Speakers like, Dave Ramsey, Erwin McManus, Shane Claiborne, etc. were there and most really brought an inspirational message from God.  However, I feel like I heard so much good stuff, that I havene't had a chance to process it all and I feel like I am losing it.  Also we broke 2 world records and set a new one. Well, since I am falling asleep as I type I will continue this again soon... 

Posted In: church theology

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One of my all-time favorite bumper stickers says, "Jesus told us to love our enemies, not kill them".  It is so simple but we get it messed up so often.  I am reminded of a recent 4th of July celebration that I am sure had echoes in other communities across the nation.  It was the last song of a night of hymns and celebration of freedom, 'Battle Hymn of the Republic'.  My verdict is still out on how exactly we are to mesh our spirituality with patriotic themes.  However, as we sang this song people were waving their small American flags that they recieved as they entered the outdoor ampitheater that night.  It was somewhat frightening to hear:

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword;
His truth is marching on.

 accompanied by the waving of the American flag.  I am not quite sure if the folks doing the waving really understood what they were doing.  It seemed to be one of those peer pressure things, like when everybody stands during a worship service.  One of the more striking verses in the hymn, which I might add is not included in most hymnals, but reveals the true nature of the song is this:

I have read a fiery Gospel writ in burnished rows of steel;
“As ye deal with My contemners, so with you My grace shall deal”;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with His heel,
Since God is marching on.

'Gospel writ in burnished rows of steel' - Julia Howe wrote this song in the midst of a Union camp in the Civil war and one can only take the 'burnished rows of steel' to be the lines of artilery!  The only Gospel I know was written by the self-sacrifice of a humble man an old rugged cross.  Mrs. Howe seems to have gotten the roles mixed up and assigned the bearers of the Good News the role of those who kill, rather than those who are killed.  

Yet we seem to partner our faith with our nation all the time.  We seem to forget we are an 'alien' people.  We are citizens of a New Jerusalem and our only allegiance is to the Kingdom of God alone.  To paraphrase one leading evangelical preacher, "When our young men and women go and die for our country we call them noble, but when they sell all they have, give to the poor and follow Jesus we call them crazy."  I believe we have for too long left an 'American Idol' to have its way in the hearts of Americans and we have left it untouched for so long in the church that it has found a permanent resting place that will be painful to remove.  It is the American flag in the sanctuary, it is the pledge of allegiance at Bible school.  It is the Battle Hymn with flags waving.  

Yet, the question of Christian involvement in war and politics has been one that has never been answered to the approval of all, and I am doubtless that it never will be.  Of all the things I am incompetent at, politics is probably second only to cars and sports.  Which is why this topic intimidates me - it is unchartered waters for me.  My question comes when I try to think about the long-term well being of those in countries that have horrible governments who are turning a blind-eye to crimes against humanity or who are withholding much needed resources.  

A team from our church recently went to a country that is now being oppressed by the government.  The two weeks they were there they did not have any bread that was made in the country.  In fact, people were waiting in lines 4 and 5 hours long to get one loaf of bread for a week.  However, one of the team members smuggled some bread and other groceries into the country from a neighboring country (The very idea that you would have to smuggle food into a starving country is just crazy!).  But the point is that they had to operate 'below the radar' to help the people they were there to serve.  

So here is the question:  How do we as followers of Christ advocate for those in other countries that need outside help in moving/transforming their current corrupt governments?  It seems that to do this in an effective manner eventually military leverage would have to be used.  But this seems counter-intuitive to the call of Christ.  Is there a way to effectively be international advocates in a non-violent way?  Recently Jan Egeland gave 10 challenges to Christian relief agencies and one of them was, "We are there to change things, not just to keep people alive.  Humanitarian aid cannot become an alibi for moral and political change." My question is, are there instances where 'political change' will not come peaceably?  If so, what is the Christ-follower's response?

Posted In: social-issues theology

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I will never forget the opening chapel of my second or third semester at Asbury.  There was this huge painting of Jesus crucified at the front of the chapel.  And as J.D. Walt was finishing his sermon he pointed to the painting and said, "Behold your syllabus".  Those are probably the most significant three words of my life.  This is the man we are called to imitate?!  It is the most absurd thing, yet the most world-changing thing that could ever be imagined.  Dying to live.  Becoming last and least so that others might become first and more.  Loving wrecklessly because he has wrecklessly loved us!  That kind of love always leads to a cross.

 

Posted In: theology spirituality

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I am usually not one to promulgate divisive issues amongst Christians – but for anyone who might stumble upon this video and have seen it elsewhere I want you to know that we are not all like this.  In fact there is nothing portrayed in this video that is inherently Christian, and much that is anti-Christian (or anti-Christ to speak in the tone of the subject).

Rapture Ready: The Unauthorized Christians United for Israel Tour from huffpost and Vimeo.

Posted In: theology wierd

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If you are a Tennessean you probably know that we are having a sever drought this summer.  Temperatures were staying steadily above 90 degrees about a week ago.  It has been very hot and very dry... so dry that:

that the Baptists are starting to baptize by sprinkling,
Methodists are giving out wet wipes,
the Presbyterians are giving out rain checks,
and the Catholics are praying for the wine to turn back into water! 

Posted In: theology funny-haha

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The blogging world is so vast that it is hard to jump into it. It is in a sense like looking at an ocean. If you are just starting out, you have no idea what other coast lines look like – or how far they are away. So maybe this post is about a small part of the coastline that I have found. It is the one with a lot of sharp pointy shells in the sand.

I have run across several websites lately that are bent on pointing out modern-day heresies that span from Rick Warren to Harry Potter. And while I agree that we must guard the orthodoxy of Christianity, in the long run it seems like these particular conversations aren’t really doing anybody any good.

As I was talking with my new partner in ministry, Wil, today we had a long conversation on what makes a mature Christian – Bible knowledge or Faithful living. Now I don’t want to make it seem like the two are opposed to each other, because they are not. But so many times it seems that the modern-day ‘gatekeepers’ of Christianity are so focused on doctrines and theological minutia that have no eternal consequence for people. Whereas, those whom they oppose are often voicing a need for not only orthodoxy (right belief), but orthopraxy (right living) as well.

But, to get to the point of this blog – I have got to ask those on both sides of the blogging battle – “Where is the love?” Both sides can seem a little pissy with the other at times and more often than not, the ‘gatekeepers’ seem overly-sarcastic and condescending.

It would be nice to explore the ocean of blogs a little more and maybe find some edifying dialogue, but geez – who has time for that?

Posted In: life theology

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