Day: June 2, 2020

Posted on

What is the Church?

A little over 10 years ago I had the opportunity to sit under Jurgen Moltmann for a few days of lecture. It was an amazing experience and one for which I am ever so thankful. So much of what he spoke about during those lectures shapes how I understand Jesus, the church, life, and ministry. Of course, continuing to read his works helps also. A few months ago I was reminded of the lectures and I tweeted about one of the statements that he made that really hit me.

Here’s the tweet:

It is such a small thing, asking ‘how do we do church?” versus asking “what is the church” but I think it has tremendous consequences. “How do we do church?” is all about the pragmatics of church and never really addresses or considers whether or not certain actions, programs, buildings, etc., etc. actually should be a part of the church.

“What is the church?” is about mission. “How do we do church? is about efficiency.

“What is the church?” leads us to ask if what we do actually fits into the core of who we are. Who Jesus has declared His church to be.

“How do we do church?” leads us to ask “does it work?” This isn’t a bad question, it just isn’t one of the most important questions.

After His testing in the wilderness, Jesus began His public ministry by reading from the prophet Isaiah. Luke records the following:

16 He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
       because he has anointed me
       to proclaim good news to the poor.
       He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
      and recovery of sight for the blind,
      to set the oppressed free,
19  to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21 He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:16-20)

When Jesus began His ministry He described His good news, His gospel, as being for the poor, the prisoners, the blind, and the oppressed. He didn’t enter the world just the set the captives free but the freedom of captives is the natural occurrence of receiving His good news.

In my opinion the danger with “how do we do church?” being the primary question we ask is that it can lead to some incredibly unChristlike actions being allowed and encouraged in the name of “doing” church better. These actions may be organizationally efficent. They may bring people in. They simply don’t represent Jesus.

His ministry began with a proclamation that declared a change in the lives of those who were viewed as weak by those in power. I am fairly sure that His church should follow His example.

It is who we are.

Or at least who we are supposed to be.

Posted on

Redemption

This post isn’t for the victims of evil. It isn’t a pious call for the victims to forgive those who have abused them. Instead, this post is for me and the fact that redemption confronts and defeats evil.

I once heard a speaker (I remember the statement but not who said it so I can’t give credit where credit is due) say to a group of us pastors that at our best we are typically preaching to our younger selves at the point in our lives when we came to know the grace of Jesus. That is probably why I focus on the community of the Trinity so much. When I came to know and experience God’s grace I felt alone and that salvation from isolation seems to direct the majority of my preaching.

Right now I need to be reminded that even for the worst of us the possibility of redemption through Jesus is real.

Right now that means for some people that I am really mad at for some racist behavior.

There are a few groups that are socially acceptable to actually hate (socially acceptable does not mean actually acceptable). Racists seem to be one of those groups. If your social media feed is anything like mine it is probably very full of people rightly decrying the evil of racism. I’m not criticizing this because proclaiming racism to be evil is the right thing to proclaim. Racisim is evil. No debate there. To devalue anyone created in the image of God is a sin. Moral outrage is appropriate in the face of such evil.

It is just that sometimes we seem to really enjoy our moral outrage. We fill our cups to the brim with the intoxicant of moral superiority and empty the cup over and over again in our social media posts. We point out how evil “they” are and somehow lift ourselves up by doing this. We merely fail to realize that our sense of moral superiority comes from standing on the bodies of evildoers. It’s okay though because they’re racists and racists, like sexual predators, are okay to devour for our enjoyment.

Or at least it seems that way.

Of course, no one I know would actually admit to being a racist. It is always someone else. I heard this described on the Mockingcast as like the word “yuppie” – no one admits to being a yuppie but everyone knows what one is. The racist is also someone else and whoever they are they are the absolute worst.

Who they actually are is someone who stands in the need of redemption and in Jesus redemption is possible. Even for the racist. Instead of seeing them as someone so hurt that they can’t even see the difference between good and evil, I am tempted to see them as somehow less than. Someone beyond Jesus’s grace. Their redeption may not be possible for humans but with God all things are possible.

Of course, redemption isn’t actually “letting someone off the hook.” If anything it is the opposite. If you think grace, offering mercy, is just saying “oh it is okay” then you don’t understand redemption. At least not biblical redemption.

Biblical redemption implies ascent to the fact that you have participated in evil. Redemption calls evil exactly what it is … evil. No bouncing around it for nicer words. Redemption begins with the perpetrator admitting that what they did was sinful, evil, and wrong. What I did was evil. It is acknowledging what I did and what that action makes me.

I am the one who did this. I am the evildoer.

This isn’t letting someone “off the hook”. If anything it is pushing the hook in deeper. At the end of the South African Truth & Reconciliation Commission, everyone actually knew what the evildoers had done. The perpetrators didn’t escape justice because they were given absolution. Everyone knew exactly who they were and what they had done. When they walked down the street they were known by the whole community as the one who did that evil. When they went to the store, the pool, the park, or even to the church, they were known for the evil they had done. This is why some of them would rather have faced judgment than receive forgiveness. Biblical redemption is tough.

This is one of the things I really like about Alcoholics Anonymous and many other recovery meetings. When you are in one of those meetings you don’t deny that you are a mess. You lean into the fact that you have done evil. “My name is Robert and I am a sinner … let me detail the ways for you.” You acknowledge what has defined you so that Christ may then place His definition upon you.

“God, have mercy on me, a sinner.“

I think this is why so few actually receive the free gift of mercy. It is simply too difficult for us to admit that we have sinned. To admit the evil that we have willingly perpetrated. We would rather just offer a vague meaningless apology than actually admit “I did this and it was evil.” The gate is narrow after all.

We bow our heads in shame and cry, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.“

And He lovingly says “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, I will have mercy on you.”

Man that is tough.

Posted on

The Letter to the Romans & Dawn

I am presently reading and studying Paul’s Epistle to the Romans for the next Tapestry message series. After reading through the letter several times part of what has hit me is that while the letter has some of Paul’s most amazing teaching it is also basically just a missionary appeal for support. Paul writes them to say “hey God is doing this work and you should support it and me in doing the work.”

Since Tapestry does much of its mission support through the Cooperative Program with lots of other Southern Baptist churches. We don’t have a ton of missionaries coming through asking for support. Instead, the missionaries that come through are usually saying something similar to “this is the work you have already supported.”

We do, however, support quite a few local ministries and those that specifically go out from us. Which is why I want to mention one of our own to you. For the good of this person’s mission, it is best that I don’t write her name, so we will just call this person Dawn

As I wrote, Dawn is one of our own. She is going to be working with an organization in helping Somalia refugees in the US. You should read about the work on her blog. It is good, God-honoring work, that reaches out to the stranger in our land. That’s why Tapestry as an organization is supporting her and many of us who make up Tapestry are supporting her individually. I believe in what she is doing in the name of the Lord and I would encourage you to consider supporting the work of which she is a part.

I don’t meet many Somalia refugees in my daily life, but when I support Dawn I get to be a part of Christ-loving these refugees through her. When you are family what one does we all do.