Would Jesus Start the Kind of Church We Attend?

The following is the most well written paragraph I think I've read concerning the thought it expresses.  In the first chapter of his book Prodigal God, which I am currently reading for a Bible study group at church (shocker!)*, Timothy Keller beautifully and succinctly communicates the fearful truth that our church must be missing the point.

Jesus's teaching consistently attracted the irreligious while offending the Bible-believing, religious people of his day. However, in the main, our churches today do not have this effect. The kind of outsiders Jesus attracted are not attracted to contemporary churches, even our most avant-garde ones. We tend to draw conservative, buttoned-down, moralistic people.  The licentious and liberated or the broken and marginal avoid church. That can only mean one thing. If the preaching of our ministers and the practice of our parishioners do not have the same effect on people that Jesus had, then we must not be declaring the same message that Jesus did. If our churches aren't appealing to younger brothers [as in the wayward son in the parable popularly known as "The Prodigal Son"] they must be more full of elder brothers [as in the brother from the parable who resents his father's forgiveness of his less righteous brother] than we'd like to think. 

* The shocker! comment is not ironic; I've steered clear of church Sunday school classes, Bible study, and the like for a while now.  I still fear that many/most exist for good Christians to regurgitate the "right answers" and congratulate each other for knowing the faith so well, but I want to quit being so closed.  I do believe that people grow and learn from community with others, and my condemnation of the communities around me does nothing for anyone and is bitter sin on my part.  It is time for me to quit judging and loathing what I suspect to be wrong and start learning and living what truly is right. 

Not Fair

"For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.  About the third hour he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing.   He told them, 'You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.'   So they went.  He went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing.  About the eleventh hour he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, 'Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?' 'Because no one has hired us,' they answered.  He said to them, 'You also go and work in my vineyard.'  When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, 'Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.'  The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius.   So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius.   When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner.   'These men who were hired last worked only one hour,' they said, 'and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.'  But he answered one of them, 'Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn't you agree to work for a denarius?  Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you.   Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?'  So the last will be first, and the first will be last."

the words of Jesus in Matthew 20:1-16

Eager for God to Come Near

Shout it aloud, do not hold back.
Raise your voice like a trumpet.
Declare to my people their rebellion
and to the house of Jacob their sins.
For day after day they seek me out;
they seem eager to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that does what is right
and has not forsaken the commands of its God.
They ask me for just decisions
and seem eager for God to come near them.
'Why have we fasted,' they say,
'and you have not seen it?
Why have we humbled ourselves,
and you have not noticed?'
Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please
and exploit all your workers.
Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife,
and in striking each other with wicked fists.
You cannot fast as you do today
and expect your voice to be heard on high.
Is this the kind of fast I have chosen,
only a day for a man to humble himself?
Is it only for bowing one's head like a reed
and for lying on sackcloth and ashes?
Is that what you call a fast,
a day acceptable to the LORD ?
Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe him,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.
Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.
The LORD will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.
Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.
If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath
and from doing as you please on my holy day,
if you call the Sabbath a delight
and the LORD's holy day honorable,
and if you honor it by not going your own way
and not doing as you please or speaking idle words,
then you will find your joy in the LORD,
and I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land
and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob."
The mouth of the LORD has spoken.
Isaiah 58

Crazy Love

Before The Sacredness of Questioning, I read Francis Chan's Crazy Love.  The following are some quotations from this book that I marked and am taking time today to revisit (bold emphases are mine).

Psalm 115:3 reveals, "Our God is in heaven; he does whatever pleases him."  Yet we keep questioning Him: "Why did You make me with this body, instead of that one?"  "Why are so many people dying of starvation?"  "Why are there so many planets with nothing living on them?"  "Why is my family so messed up?"  "Why don't You make Yourself more obvious to the people who need You?"  The answer to each of these questions is simply this: because He's God.  He has more of a right to ask us why so many people are starving.  As much as we want God to explain himself to us, His creation, we are in no place to demand that He give an account to us.  (pg. 33)

Worry implies that we don't quite trust that God is big enough, powerful enough, or loving enough to take care of what's happening in our lives.  Stress  says that the things we are involved in are important enough to merit our impatience, our lack of grace toward others, or out tight grip of control.  Basically, these two behaviors communicate that it's okay to sin and not trust God because the stuff in my life is somehow exceptional.  Both worry and stress reek of arrogance.  They declare our tendency to forget that we've been forgiven, that our our lives here are brief, that we are headed to place where we won't be lonely, afraid, or hurt ever again, and that in the context of God's strength, our problems are small, indeed.  Why are we so quick to forget God?  Who do we think we are? (pg. 42)

[a subheading that says it all and says everything I have so much trouble doing]  Thank God We Are Weak (pg. 45)

...I eventually rejected what the majority said and began to compare all aspects of my life to Scripture.  I quickly found that the American church is a difficult place to fit in if you want to live out New Testament Christianity.  The goals of American Christianity are often a nice marriage, children who don't swear, and good church attendance.  Taking the words of Christ literally and seriously is rarely considered.  That's for the "radicals" who are "unbalanced" and who go "overboard."  Most of us want a balanced life that we can control, that is safe, and that does not involve suffering.  Would you describe yourself as totally in love with Jesus Christ?  Or do the words halfhearted, lukewarm, and partially committed fit better?  (pg. 68)
Suppose the flood have never come-- Noah would have been the biggest laughingstock on earth.  Having faith often means doing what others see as crazy.  Something is wrong when our lives make sense to unbelievers.(pgs. 114-115)

Harlots Bought as Brides

If you could love me as a wife and for my wedding gift, your life Should that be all I'd ever need or is there more I'm looking for and should I read between the lines and look for blessings in disguise To make me handsome, rich, and wise Is that really what you want? I am a whore I do confess, But I put you on just like a wedding dress and I run down the aisle and I run down the aisle. I'm a prodigal with no way home, but I put you on just like a ring of gold, and I run down the aisle to you. So could you love this bastard child Though I don't trust you to provide With one hand in a pot of gold and with the other in your side? I am so easily satisfied by the call of lovers so less wild That I would take a little cash Over your very flesh and blood. Because money cannot buy a husband's jealous eye When you have knowingly deceived his wife. --"Wedding Dress" by Derek Webb When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, "Go, take to yourself a wife of harlotry and have children of harlotry; for the land commits flagrant harlotry, forsaking the Lord." (Hosea 1:2) For their mother has played the harlot; She who conceived them has acted shamefully. For she said, "I will go after my lovers, Who give me my bread and my water, My wool and my flax, my oil and my drink." Therefore, behold, I will hedge up her way with thorns, And I will build a wall against her so that she cannot find her paths. She will pursue her lovers, but she will not overtake them; And she will seek them, but will not find them. Then she will say, "I will go back to my first husband, For it was better for me then than now!" (Hosea 2:6-9) "I will destroy her vines and fig tress, Of which she said, 'These are my wages Which my lovers have given me.' And I will make them a forest, And the beasts of the field will devour them. I will punish her for the days of the Baals When she used to offer sacrifices to them And adorn herself with her earrings and jewelry, And follow her lovers, so that she forgot Me," declares the Lord. "Therefore, behold, I will allure her, Bring her into the wilderness And speak kindly to her. Then I will give her her vineyards from there, And the valley of Achor as a door of hope. And she will sing there as in the days of her youth, As in the day when she came up from the land of Egypt. It will come about in that day," declares the Lord, "That you will call me my husband, And will no longer call me my owner. For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, So that they will be mentioned by their names no more. In that day I will also make a covenant for them With the beasts of the field, The birds of the sky And the creeping things of the ground. And I will abolish the bow, the sword and war from the land, And will make them lie down in safety. I will betroth you to Me forever; Yes, I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and in justice, In lovingkindness and in compassion, And I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness. Then you will know the Lord." (Hosea 2:12-20) Then the Lord said to me, "Go again, love a woman who is loved by her husband, yet an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the sons of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love raisin cakes.  So I bought her for myself for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a half of barley.  (Hosea 3:1-2) Mercy speaks by Jesus’ blood hear and sing, ye sons of God justice satisfied indeed Christ has full atonement made Jesus’ blood speaks loud and sweet here all Deity can meet and, without a jarring voice welcome Zion to rejoice “all her debts were cast on me, and she must and shall go free” peace of conscience, peace with God we obtain through Jesus’ blood Jesus’ blood speaks solid rest we believe, and we are blest should the law against her roar Jesus’ blood still speaks with power “all her debts were cast on me, and she must and shall go free” --"She Must and Shall Go Free" by Derek Webb

A Call: Are You Loving?

If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.

John 14:15

He who has my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves me will be loved by My father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.  Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, "Lord, what then has happened that You are going to disclose Yourself to us and not to the world?"  Jesus answered and said to him, "If anyone loves Me, he will keep my word; and My father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.  He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father's who sent me.

John 14: 21-24

If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.  My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.  Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love.  If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love.  These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.  This is my commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.  Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.  You are My friends if you do what I command you.  No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.  You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.  This I command you, that you love one another.

John 15:7-17

Think it's important to Jesus that we love each other?  Think that means we have to love everyone?  How do I measure up next to such a command?  If I do not love others, do I really love my Lord?

Can't Get No Satisfaction?

In high school, all of my devout Christian friends and I went through a hardcore "Christian Music Only" phase brought about by several impassioned messages given by friends in the Christian clubs FCA and First Priority.  We believed that putting only Christian input into our minds through music would influence a more Christian output in our lives.  I don't know that it ever proved true, and I have long since abandoned the idea that truth cannot be revealed through that which is labeled "secular" as much as that which is labeled "spiritual" by the Christian subculture.   Our quest for greater spirituality, though, was genuine, and our intentions were noble; we wanted our lives to be filled less with the world and more with God.  That is still the desire of my heart (when my heart is not distracted by other, less worthy desires), and I do often find wisdom and encouragement in the "Christian input" of music produced by "Christian music labels."

The following lyric caught my attention today while listening to a little "old school" Stacie Orrico.  I definitely jammed out to this crazy, poppy stuff back in high school, and the cheesiness of the music makes me laugh a little listening to it now.  Still, the lyric is a good one and a simple declaration of the yearning I've been feeling throughout the past few years of uncovering the inherent problems with the American Dream and the ideals of capitalism and consumerism.  The lyric is a bit cliche; countless people have identified the need for "something more," and many a trite Christmas flick has commercialized the human need for more than more commercial stuff.  Still, commonplace though the "more to life" sentiment may be, how many of us actually start making real changes to live life for something more than the "temporary high," and how many of us actually manage to restrain and refocus our urging desires for "MORE" toward a more valuable MORE?  I would do well to pray a constant question each time I seek more of something-- Lord, of what do YOU desire MORE in this world, in my life?  

There's gotta be more to life...
Than chasing down every temporary high to satisfy me

Cause the more that I'm...
Tripping out thinking there must be more to life
Well it's life, but I'm sure... there's gotta be more
Than wanting more

-- "More to Life" performed by Stacie Orrico

Lord, if I must be on a constant quest for MORE, make it the MORE that You desire and not my or my country's or my imperfect human ideology's idea of the most acceptable more. 

O satisfy us in the morning with Your lovingkindness

That we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.

Psalm 90:14

You open Your hand

And satisfy the desire of every living thing.

Psalm 145:16

Why do you spend money for what is not bread,

And your wages for what does not satisfy?

Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good,

And delight yourself in abundance....

Seek the Lord while He may be found;

Call upon Him while He is near.

Let the wicked forsake his way

And the unrighteous his thoughts;

And let him return to the Lord,

And He will have compassion on him,

And to our God,

For He will abundantly pardon.

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts,

Neither are your ways My ways," declares the Lord.

"For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

So are My ways higher than your ways

And my thoughts than your thoughts."

Isaiah 55:2...6-9 

Convicting Statements for Pondering and for Action

I am currently highly under the influence of the book I most recently read, David Dark's The Sacredness of Questioning Everything.  This book has re-inspired me  to question, to think, to read, to experience, to grow, and to write.  The following are some quotations from the book that drive my current questioning and searching and that convict me to go beyond my brain and out into the world to make it more what it should be.

My religion is my practice.  It's what I do. (pg. 35)  Will we allow a religious critique of our practice of religion?  Are we up for a redeeming word?  Show me a transcript of the words you've spoken, typed, or texted in the course of a day, an account of your doings, and a record of your transactions, and I'll show you your religion.  (pg. 38)

What is my religion?  If it is shown in what I do on a daily basis, by every word, by every deed, by every decision I make, and by every way I choose to spend a dollar, does my religion point to Christ?  Is my religion of my daily life one that I can say would match the words of Jesus, the commands of God, or the leading of the Spirit?  Or is my religion a patchy, inconsistent, and inadequate attempt?  Do I even give a genuine attempt each day to live the love I claim to have made a difference in my life?  What if every person claiming to live as a "Christian" examined each day what the religion of a Christian should be and what the religion of our lives really is?

We only receive art when we let it call our own lives into question.  If the words of Jesus of Nazareth, for instance, strike us as comfortable and perfectly in tune with our own confident common sense, our likes and dislikes, our budgets, and our actions toward strangers and foreigners, then receiving the words of Jesus is probably not what we're doing. We may quote a verse, put it in a PowerPoint presentation, or even intone it loudly with an emotional, choked-up quiver, but if it doesn't scandalize or bother us, challenging our already-made-up minds, we aren't really receiving it.  Not religiously anyway.  (pg. 42)

Goal: Reread all of the Gospels.  Do the words of Jesus scandalize, bother, and challenge?  What are the challenges He gives you?

For some, their religion is nothing more than a special interest group, a bastion of offendedness and anger, the powerhouse of the saved rather than a place from which life can be viewed and lived more redemptively.  (pg. 44)
Lord, this is the yearning of my heart...  "a life that can be viewed and lived more redemptively."  Teach me to see your redemption, to live it out, and to express it to others.
If all our friends and news sources require of us is a "Ditto" and "I think what you think," we might be in danger of becoming impenetrable of wisdom, immunized against the sensation of sympathy, resistant to the pleasure of being amused by our ignorance, and closed to the joy of being wrong.  (pg. 58)
In what aspects of my life do I have a tendency to seek sources and people who allow me the blind, dull pleasure of the "Ditto" response?  What sources and people DO challenge my thinking, and how can I seek more opportunities for my ignorance and incorrectness to be exposed so that I might have deeper understanding and sympathy that lead to action?

Life Requirements

He has told you, O man, what is good;
And what does the Lord require of you
But to do justice, to love loving-kindness,
And to walk humbly with your God?
Micah 6:8

Just a Stirring in My Soul

I wonder sometimes about the outcome of a still verdict-less life.  Am I living it right?  Am I living it right?  Am I living it right?  Why?  Why, Georgia, why?

So what?  So I've got a smile on?  Well, it's hiding the quiet superstitions in my head.  Don't believe me, don't believe me when I say, "I've got it down."

Still, "everything happens for a reason" is no reason not to ask myself if I'm living it right.

Am I living it right?

-- who else but John Mayer?  "Why Georgia"