Our Own, Personal, Secret Garden?

I was delighted to hear Pastor Tim refer to The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett last Sunday. I was not acquainted with this story growing up, but my wife knew it and read it out loud to our two daughters as they grew up. So I got to hear it as an adult.

The story centers around a girl named Mary who is sickly and unwell but discovers a secret garden where she is so filled with the joie d’vivre that she becomes healthy. She then meets a sickly boy named Colin who is depressed and bedridden. He can’t believe that he can gain health or vitality as Mary did. But Mary is relentless in forcing him up and out and into activity. She shares her secret garden with him and lo and behold, he in fact finds health and vitality after all.

But Mary is relentless. Not only that she is quite unsympathetic, obnoxious sometimes, never taking no for an answer, and always poking and prodding Colin into further action. Her message to the unwell Colin was (my paraphrase) “Oh, get over yourself and do as you’re told.” She is quite pushy, very insistent, and is more stubborn and determined to get Colin up than Colin is determined to stay put. It is a battle of wills that Colin, much to his own happiness, loses.

And the brilliant part about using this story in a sermon is that Pastor Tim clearly intended us to see young Mary, the eleven or twelve year old cousin of Colin, as a type of Christ, the Christ-figure of the story. Tim seemed to be suggesting that Jesus pushes us to expand when we contract. That he is capable of forcing himself upon us when we become frightened and make the wrong choices based on a scared-to-death view of ourselves, of the world, and of God - that maybe Jesus doesn’t give up on us when we give up on ourselves and maybe he pushes and pulls and prods us toward spiritual health and freedom and usefulness and productivity.

I think Tim hinted at all that. And that’s good because we really, really need to be pursued and helped. Because truth-to-tell we are all spiritually like Colin, we are not at all like Mary, no matter who we think we are. We are Colin not Mary. Jesus is Mary.

Generosity, compassion, gratitude. Those are the themes of this series. Who among us doesn’t know we should be more generous? Who among us does not believe we could use a little (or a lot) more compassion? Which one of us can say we are filled with gratitude and thankfulness all the time?

Nobody, that’s who.

It is like the great commandment, love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength. Who among us has ever managed that kind of a spiritual state of mind for more than two seconds, consecutively? Hmm? (Don’t lie to me, this is the Gospel Crank you’re talking to).

Where are we going to get the gumption to do, be, or have any of these things - generosity, compassion, gratitude? From within ourselves? Should we do a gut check and tap into our secret stash of will-power and make ourselves behave in these ways? C’mon now, everybody, grab those spiritual boot straps and PULL!

Doesn’t work? Maybe just fake it then. Put on a happy face.

Or does the power, is the source, does the force come from somewhere else, or from someone else or from somewhere outside of us?

If we are all Colins (and we are, don’t argue with me on this one), is there a Mary who will come and get us and show us who we are in her world? Is there a rescuer who will not believe in our version of ourselves, but show us a new version to believe in?

Is there?

The Gospel Crank

Who Is the Sinner?

I asked my wife if she could tell me the theme of Pastor Tim’s sermon on Sunday, January 17th. It was from Luke 15 and the Lost Coin and the Lost Sheep. She said, “It was that God’s love for us is crazy; He’s more interested in finding us than we are determined to be lost.”

She always was smarter than me. Well put, I agreed; that was the theme. And I added that the practical application was “therefore go hang out with sinners. It’s okay.”

That’s good news. We get to go out and meet the world. By all means let’s go hang out with sinners. Most of us like the idea. Most of us have a nice little fantasy movie in our heads that shows Jesus hanging out with oppressed and rejected peasants who just need to be given a chance, and they seem to love Him so much. They just needed someone to believe in them.

It’s the myth of the “Noble Savage.” It would make a nice 3-D animated movie that would make fourteen year old girls cry. You could end the movie with Jesus and all the oppressed sinners holding hands in a big circle – a true Kumbaya moment. However, I think reality is much more sobering. Hanging out with sinners is probably much less romantic than we imagine. It probably wouldn’t be any more rewarding than hanging out with church poeple. I mean, people are people. What they’re going to do is hurt us and let us down, just like church-people. What’s worse is, we are probably going to hurt them and let them down – just like we do church people.

I was pondering the well-known statistic proclaiming that the divorce rate inside the Church is about the same as the divorce rate outside the Church. And I started wondering if that was true across the moral board.

If we took a giant back-hoe scoop and scooped up a bucket-load of people randomly from a Sunday morning church meeting (say a thousand or so) and another giant bucket-load of people from say, a Giants game (another thousand), and we compared the two groups, would we find about the same percentage of drug addicts, adulterers, closet drunks, sexual predators, chronic liars, superficial materialists, and self-righteous moralists? Would we find that some of these have turned to Jesus and some have not, just like in church?

Hmm? We wonders, yes we wonders…

- The Crank

Not Apostolic

One thing we might take away from last Sunday’s sermon is this: the “Hell-first” version of the gospel is not apostolic. None of the apostles, as far as I can read, tried to convince their listeners of hell, damnation, an angry God, sin-counting, or a Dante’s Inferno with Satan as the living Captain of Industry down there. None of the apostles had the devil getting bigger headlines and more inches than the Savior.

I think it is safe to say that the “hell-first’ message was an invention of the Middle Ages and not at all what any of the apostles preached. Therefore we can safely banish it from our repertoire of gospel messages.

Anybody agree? Disagree? Any challenges? Anybody out there?

The Goepel Crank

Better off a Shepherd than a Wise Man

Sheep herders. That’s who got the message first, besides Joseph and Mary that is. It wasn’t the high priest or the Jewish prelates or the most holy person in Israel or the most avid practitioner of the law to whom God revealed his plan. It was sheep herders. That’s one step down from camel wrangler. It might have been the lowest rung on the prestige ladder in ancient Israel, like being a sheet rock hanger or a house painter today (my apologies to those of you applying your honest trade, I was a house painter for many years, so I speak from first hand experience). It was shepherds heard it first.

Not Oprah. Not the new CEO of General Motors. Not the chairman of some Senate committee. Not the Three Wise Men.

Here is what the Scriptures say happened and I will embellish them with my own wild speculations to round out the story. These shepherd boys were doing their job as usual, which means they were staying up all night in the middle of winter (if it was winter) guarding sheep – not a glamour position. Guarding sheep against what? Well, predators first - dogs, wolves, etc., but undoubtedly sheep-rustlers too. Sheep, I have heard, can be somewhat suicidal and I’m sure their job included keeping the more adventurous sheep from wandering off into self-destruction. I’m thinking this may have been very boring, demoralizing work. These shepherds could easily have been guys who were unemployable losers. Maybe they lost their jobs at Starbuck’s or In ‘n Out Burger (for smoking pot behind the dumpster) and they couldn’t go back to live with their mothers and now they’re out of options and doing what nobody else wanted to do – living in the fields trying to keep stupid sheep from killing themselves. I would further guess they found um… less-than-socially-approved ways of keeping themselves amused while they performed this incredibly unsatisfying work. I will not speculate here what they may have been doing all night because this is a family program and I don’t want any small children to end up on the psychiatrist’s couch when they’re forty years old recounting vague and disturbing memories of what ancient shepherds did when they were bored.

So it was a typical night, nothing unusual … when suddenly “an angel of the Lord came upon them and the glory (doxa) of the Lord shone around them (perie-lamps-en = shone like a lamp) and, as the Greek text says, “they feared a great fear (ephob-ethe-san phobon megan).” Fear like that rarely comes to the likes of you and me. I mean here they are rolling dice and drinking and telling lies about the girls they’ve known when all of a sudden the glory of God turns on like a lamp and bang! they are sitting or standing in the light. What were they thinking? The same thing you and I would think, I think.

“Busted!”

“Please don’t destroy us; we’ll be good from now on.”

“I’ll be in the synagogue this Sabbath, I promise.”

“Does anyone have any extra underwear?”

“You don’t scare me; my dad’s a lawyer.” (Okay, none of them thought that.)

And the angel says to them, “No fear. No need to be afraid because I hereby announce to you all a great joy (karan megalen)…” and the angel goes on to touch on the basics of Christmas. That God is coming to earth. The Word, the Logos, is coming as a human born of God, and he will reconcile all people (laos) to himself. Nobody, not even you losers will be punished for your evil deeds because God has reconciled or made right, your relationship with him – from his side. It’s like the Year of Jubilee has come permanently to earth. And we’re not just talking about the Jewish nation; we’re talking about all the people (panti to lao). “Can you boys grasp how joyous this news is?” the angel seems to ask.

I think they do. I think they get it. I think they get it real good.

And the angel tells these shepherd boys to go into Bethlehem and check it out and see for themselves. And they do and they beat the three wise men there. They’re first. The sheep herding loser crowd is first to the barn where Jesus lay. I think this is very significant.

But before they leave for Bethlehem, something even more amazing takes place with the angel. Suddenly it’s not just one angel with a glory lamp, suddenly it’s a giant heavenly army (plathos [multitude] stratias [army] houraniou [of a heavenly]) praising God. It’s like this giant army of angels were sort of hiding there in secret but when they hear the angel explain the Christmas story, the Father’s plan of redemption for the world, they lose control, blow their cover, reveal themselves and erupt with applause and praise and cheers and rejoicing because the plan is so … cool. They just can’t help it.

And the whole giant army shouts out “Glory to God … who figured out how to save these people by becoming one of them! Who saw that coming? Who knew? What a plan!!! God is great and every human being (anthropos) who agrees with, or accepts, or approves, or has good will toward this plan, or says ‘yes’ at the right place will have peace with God and be the direct beneficiaries of the complete work of the Son of God!!!”

And the sheep herders realize that they have just gotten the biggest break they will ever get in their whole lives times ten and they forget about the sheep and go looking for the Savior in Bethlehem.

And so it was that the persons who first heard the Christmas message were the ones who needed it most. God bless those boys. That’s why we would be better off as a shepherd than a wise one.

And this tells us something very important about God. God is patient, not willing that any should perish, not even loser shepherd boys who can’t hold a job.

True Confessions: I am Frodo

…more on self-crucifixion…

I finally figured out what’s wrong with me. I am Frodo. I am just like Frodo. I will always do what Frodo ultimately did. Here’s what he did:

He dutifully carried the evil ring, with its growing weight, hundreds of miles. For more that a year he voluntarily carried it through peril and against foes more terrible than he could imagine. He received help, often unexpected help, and encouragement from many quarters. His intentions were good and noble, but his soul was seduced by the allure of the ring. In the end he took it all back, all the good intentions, all the noble motives. Ultimately he couldn’t follow through with the one action that actually mattered. Finally he stood inside Mt. Doom on a promontory overlooking the great fires, the only fires that could destroy the evil ring. But he hesitated and did not throw the ring into the fires.

Instead he decided that the ring was too beautiful, too precious and he could not bring himself to destroy it. And he felt and thought “ after all, the ring is mine.” And Frodo chose to keep the ring for himself and not destroy it even though he had exhausted himself in bringing it to this place.

The ring is like the sin nature. I am like Frodo. I can spend years in church studying and learning with the intention of one day, or little by little, crucifying the flesh. I can coexist with the intention and purpose of learning how not to live according to my sinful nature.

But in the end, when the test comes, I cannot do it. I cannot willingly abandon the old nature. The alluring false promises of self-fulfillment and soulful-pleasure and final self-completion, and the possibility of touching wholeness in the here and now - not in the hereafter - are too beautiful. Besides, I want all the earthly joys and pleasures for my own.

Death to the old self: Like anything else important in my life, I need someone to do this impossible task for me. I cannot betray my own desires and so-called “needs.” I cannot crucify myself. I refuse. I choose not to do it. Like Frodo.

Who can help someone like me? Where is encouragement? Where is hope? Where is the happy ending? How can I, who fail every significant test, who nurture and protect selfishness in my heart, who want the illegal but beautiful things, how can I be saved?

Is there a hero who champions the cause of losers? Is there someone who will destroy my sinful nature for me? Instead of me? Because I can’t do it myself???

Do you know anyone like that?

Respond, if you please,

-The Gospel Crank

On the Happy Thought of Self Crucifixion

The whole idea of crucifying oneself gives me the heebie-jeebies. Crucifixion is a horrible enough picture to contemplate as it is but to consider doing it to oneself is, well, unthinkable. Besides, the fact is I am almost incapable of administering the smallest needle wound to myself. How could I even begin such a gruesome task? I’m just too squeamish. But all that aside, I don’t think self-crucifixion is a human possibility. I mean I can imagine a person nailing his feet to the wood. I can sort of imagine him leaning out and spiking his left hand. But then what? His right hand would be flailing around with no way to finish the job. It’s a physical impossibility.

Besides, if we’re not careful we can find ourselves wandering off the gospel rails. There’s something self-serving and almost narcissistic about the whole idea. We have to kill ourselves so that we can start to mold ourselves into a likeness of Christ? Sounds like the gospel plus something to me. It’s ironic that in an effort to kill off our own old nature we can find ourselves caught up more in self-salvation than when we started.

But this is where the finished work of Christ comes into play. If Jesus is the “author and finisher” of our faith how does the work of God in Christ on our behalf fit into this whole question of the crucifixion of the old man?

Scripture declares (especially Paul declares) that “of God” or by His doing we are “in Christ Jesus.” And, apparently we are to believe that the experience of Christ counts as our experience. If Christ was crucified, so were we. If Christ rose from the dead, we did too. 1 Corinthians 15:22 “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” If Christ ascended to the right hand of the Father and sits there now, then that’s where you’ll find us as well. Done.

John remembers Jesus simply saying that because we believe in Him we have already passed from death to life. Done.

This is a great mystery. Do any of us know what death is? I mean, really? Have any of us begun to appreciate what death can do? Do any of us understand anything about what it means that God, the creator of life, voluntarily entered death? God died? He became human and let us kill Him? And He co-opts death for His own purposes and now death is the only way to get to God, instead of being the only thing that could separate us from Him?

And then God declares His intentions: “If it happens to me, it happens to you. My death is your death. My resurrection is your resurrection. My new life is your new life. All of the old things, as far as I am concerned, have passed away, behold all things have become new.” Somehow we are already dead in Christ and risen in Christ and separated from our sinful nature in Christ so that this old nature cannot reign over us in this life even if we fail and cave in to its desires upon occasion.

We don’t need to kill off our own old natures. We need to believe that, thanks to the work of God in Jesus, we’re already dead! Hooray! Ain’t it grand? I’m dead and I’m starting to feel better already.

I love the way the King James puts it in Romans 6:11, “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive unto God through Christ Jesus our Lord.” Reckon. We are to reckon (figure, assume, count it as true, impute to ourselves, consider ourselves to be) already dead. And as everybody knows “Dead men don’t lie.”

I mean “reckon” has this great cowboy grade B movie ring to it.
Slim: Gee Tex, I heerd we wuz dead already in Jeezus.
Tex (Spitting first): Yup. I reckon.

And so if we reckon ourselves dead to sin in Christ, we can avoid the snare of trying to take that work away from God and falling into the do-it-yourself pit. Consider Jesus instead who is the author and finisher of our faith, and save yourself the embarrassment of walking around having applied a wide variety of tourniquets to our personality, and having hacked off a limb or two, and only making a botched job of it. We could end up half-dead. We might struggle all semester only to receive a grade of “incomplete.” We might find out we are just another “do-it-to-yourself-er.”

Or as Max the Miracle Worker once explained, “It’s a good thing your friend here is only mostly dead.” Only in this case it would not be a good thing.

Happy Thaksgiving

-The Crank

Apostolic Lenses

Apostolic Lenses

There are a lot of lingering questions out there regarding the Law. I think most Christians are not at all clear regarding what our relationship to the Law ought to be. We know we don’t want to sacrifice bulls and goats anymore. And we are pretty sure we’re not required to eat Kosher and just because God says in the Old Testament that certain things were an abomination to Him (like women wearing men’s clothing [read: pants]) that doesn’t necessarily mean it is still an abomination to Him … does it?

We all know we’re not supposed to lust after our neighbor’s wife, but what about the fourth commandment: Sabbath-keeping. I mean, Sunday is not the Sabbath. It’s Saturday. Who said you could switch days? Maybe our Adventist friends have it right.

As one alert reader put it: What’s the deal with the Law? Rationalists need to know.

Well, my answer - and I know this answer would have gotten me excommunicated at various points in history, and I know that Christian-moron-hate-bloggers would like to see me drawn and quartered and have the pieces boiled in oil, if they only knew me, which they don’t, happily - my answer has to do with what I call “Apostolic Lenses.”

I think we are supposed to view all scripture through these “Apostolic Lenses.” I will try to explain.

I think there is a priority to the parts of scripture. Some parts explain other parts. The life, death and resurrection of Jesus changed the way we are to look at all of scripture.

When the Christian message first began (see Acts 2) the message was quite primitive. It was raw, undeveloped. “We thought He was the Messiah, and you killed Him but God raised Him from the dead.” That was it. That was the message.

We are told that the early disciples gave themselves over to “the Apostle’s teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” At this point the full meaning, the whole interpretation of what the Jesus event meant, was not clear. Twenty-some years later, however, just listen to Paul, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created; things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible … for God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things … (Colossians 1)” and so on. And that’s just the abridged version.

After twenty years of living in the Spirit and being taught by the Lord through the Spirit the Apostles were actually led into “all truth, ” or at least more truth than you or I are going to be led into in our lifetimes. The Apostle’s doctrine is the Gold Standard for us. They explain what the Jesus event means. In other words, we look at Jesus through the lens of the Apostle’s teaching – and that’s a good thing. John, Paul, Peter, James et al tell us what it means! Likewise we look at the Old Testament through the lens of Jesus. John 5, “…it is they (Torah) that testify of me.”

All of scripture is about the gospel. All of scripture is about Jesus. All of scripture is about the Apostolic interpretation of what it all means.

Okay, baseball metaphor. Let’s say there is a game between two professional baseball teams – the Owls and the Pussycats. The Old Testament is the league office that scheduled the game-to-be back in January of the year. Jesus is the game that gets played on July 4th at the home of the Owls. And Ray Ratto and Lowell Cohn are the super-smart pundits that tell us what the game means to the pennant race, who needs to get traded, and why the manager has to be fired. And they tell us these things the day after the game was played after they had put some thought into it, we hope.

But confusion abounds regarding Torah nonetheless. Many current theologians dissect the Law, Torah, into three parts: civil, ceremonial and moral. They reason that since we are not Israel, a nation, the civil law part does not directly apply to us. Likewise, they conclude that the ceremonial part of Torah (the sacrifices and so forth) was fulfilled in Christ so it no longer applies. But then they come to the moral part (read: the ten commandments) and say that this is neither outdated nor is it fulfill-able therefore it remains binding on the believer.

And this makes a lot of sense to the rational mind. It’s just that the Apostles never, ever made that distinction, that breakdown. For them, Torah remains a whole. It remains the covenant between God and Israel, the covenant whose time had run out.

Finally, I point to Luke 24. On the famous Road to Emmaus Jesus sets us all straight by co-opting the Torah. He owns it. It’s about Him. Its value is that it foreshadows Him and His work. The Torah is a model of the gospel; at least it would be if we were not fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.

The Gospel Crank