eating meat

I saw some great friends the other day, they are both vegetarians, but that is NOT what this post is about :)

Instead, the title refers to what i hear some Christians say from time to time. It's not uncommon to have a very seasoned Christ-follower say, "I NEED to GET fed!" or in critiquing their local church saying, "I need more MEAT" Ever heard it? Ever said it?

On the surface this can be quite innocent, even admirable. But even though I'm sure I've said something similar at times in my own life, the comments have always bothered me. I guess the reason is that saying those things is supposed to make you sound more "mature" or more "spiritual." You know, because while others crave things that tickle their ears, you are longing for depth...and that IS admirable. But maybe it's just the way it's said, maybe it's the way my flawed ears hear it, but these statements often sound horribly IMMATURE and unimpressive.

Maybe it's because as a grown man (or almost grown :) ), i don't go around whining to my wife that i NEED to get fed... sure I'll ask, "when is dinner ready?" but if I'm starving, or she's taking care of more pressing things, I'm fully capable of going to refrigerator or pantry and feeding myself. It makes me wonder, if you are a mature follower of Christ, shouldn't you be able to do the same?

I am NOT saying that Christ-following is a self-guided endeavor, there is a need for guidance from teachers and pastors and fellow followers. So I'm not bucking the idea that some Christ-followers can and should help feed others, but i guess I'm frustrated with the DEMAND to be fed. That just doesn't seem Christ-like at all.

Up until Monday this week, I fought against this "me-theology" in a lot of ways, but in an email I got this week from someone, I heard one new explanation that I think says it all.

This woman was referring to her desire to follow Christ with everything she is and she quoted Jesus when he said, "My MEAT is to do the will of Him who sent me" (please look here
for the full context). Jesus' disciples were urging him to take a break from the masses who were coming out to see him and feed himself (actual food), but look at what the MOST SPIRITUALLY MATURE person in the history of the world said... "my food (meat) is to do the will of Him who sent me."

The next time your feel hungry, instead of thinking the only option is to go to deeper bible studies, or listen to more substantive preaching, or to pray longer, try doing what Jesus did when he was hungry for meat... do the will of Him who sent you... and begin feeding another. (NOTE: please don't stop doing those other things Jesus fed himself in those ways too, especially in prayer!)

The more we try to fill ourselves up and satisfy our appetites through taking and demanding and insisting and asserting our preferences, the hungrier we'll feel. But when we take the deeper bible studies, the substantive preaching, the stronger prayer-life and begin to use them to pour ourselves out to feed another, strangely that's when we'll start to feel full.

Think about it the next time you are feeling hungry for more meat.

"Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it"-Matthew 10:39

why it had to be a cross

Thank God for the brilliant minds of the people in His Church. In sharing a message the other day on sexuality, a guy came up to me afterward and said, "you've answered a question for me that i've always struggled with" ...I was afraid of what he was going to say, given the topic of the weekend.

But then he said this, "i've always wondered, if God can do anything, why did he choose to send Jesus to a cross to die in order to reconcile us?"

I admit i've had that question too. I've heard a lot of answers given about why Jesus had to be a man, why he had to be the sacrifice, why it had to be on passover, etc. But all of this stuff makes it sound like the whole Bible is the nothing but an extravagant process of God painting himself into a corner and then thinking, "uh-oh how am i gonna get out of this one? oh, i know, i'll send my son!" That's always been weird for me. I don't think Jesus had to go to the cross and i don't think God had to send him, not in the way we often think about it at least because God is God he plays by his own rules. Besides all of the Old Testament sacrificial stuff, all the commandments, all of the standards that God sets and we fall short of, all of that stuff flows out of what Christ WOULD be/do rather than dictating what he had to do.... he's the thesis statement, they are the supporting points.

So at this point in the conversation, i'm riveted, because i didn't recall saying anything that would help answer this age-old question. And after a long and dramatic pause [maybe this guy should start speaking on weekends!] the man finished his statement, "God chose to go that way to show us what love really looks like."

I agree completely. God could've waved his hand and forgiven our sins, but that would not have let us see how serious God is about his love for us. It wouldn't let us see how destructive our sins are to our relationship with him. And it wouldn't give US the example of what real love looks like.

Real love is sacrifice, pouring yourself out for the sake of another, laying down your life. The cross is not the answer to some math problem that God struggled with for centuries, it's the stuff of Shakespeare or great poetry. It's a stunning display of God's over-the-top love that he had been building up to for centuries. It's also a very specific measuring-stick for any of us who desire to be lovers.

please, the next time you see a cross, don't think about all the intricacies of the atonement, not first at least. First, please think about how much God must love us to do something so cruel, yet beautiful.

love me; love my dog

my mother-in-law has a very old Maltese named barkley. He's getting senile and mean (not to mention the fact that he's even outlived his own bladder control). But she loves her dog. Now some of you may know how i feel about pets (or should i say how my eyes, nose, and throat feel about pets? i'm allergic to most) even the pets i'm not allergic to i have a hard time warming up to. But i try to be careful around my mother-in-law, because she really does love her dog.

My father-in-law is always saying that he never knew the truth of the phrase, "love me; love my dog" until now (i admit i've never knew there was such a phrase) But it's definitely a phrase that carries truth! All of us in the family try to tolerate old barkley because he's so loved by my mother-in-law and we love her.

On this Valentine's Day i got to thinking of God's greatest commandments. Jesus said there was really only one, but kinda two. "love the LORD your God with all your heart...." that one makes a lot of sense. Then he said, "love your neighbor as yourself."

I've noticed that it is very difficult for most Christ-followers to take God seriously on the second one. Loving God sounds great. Loving yourself that's not bad either. but loving others? Hear me on this

If you aren't actively "loving others," then please start questioning the sincerity of your love for God.

Because these aren't really two different commands. They are one in the same, Jesus remarks that this "second command" is just like the first one. See, it's the "love me; love my dog" principle. I CANNOT say i truly love my mother-in-law (and i do!) if I refuse to consider her love for her pup. If we want to love God then that means we don't just tell him over and over in the words of a praise song or hymn, but that means we consider who/what he loves and work our tails off trying to love those things too.

Here's the big point: though God loves it when we pray, worship, make good choices, are generous, etc., the Scriptures teach that there is ONE THING that God loves above all... people, not just "good" people or "Christian" people, but all people (look here too).

I am definitely not perfect in my love for God (and by extension those that God loves) but i am getting less tolerant of Christ-followers who can claim to love God greatly but are going through life either ignoring or outright disdaining those that God loves. I'm assuming that most of us just don't know better. But now we do! Please don't claim to love God while you're punting his loved ones across the room, you're only deceiving yourself. I ask that anyone reading this does a heart-check and a scripture-check (i've provided references above as links) and begin loving God in a new way today... after all, it IS valentine's day :)

who's the problem?

was at a conference today at a local church known for it's ability to change. I'll be back there today. There were some good talks given about the necessity of change, and also some of the keys were given to helping a church change. It wasn't about change for "change sake" which is good, i think in my life sometimes change is an idol, it's my boredom-rescuer. The change they were talking about is the good kind; changing to become more missional (even if i don't 100% agree with their outcomes).

PLEASE NOTE: by talking about change, i'm not trying to bash st. matthew, i love what God has done/is doing at st. matt. Still, change is necessary for all of us, daily being transformed and conformed into the likeness of Christ, individually and as a body. So st. matthew people, don't get ruffled that one of your pastors thinks we need to change, truth is we DO! we all do and so does every church in the world!

Throughout all the sessions yesterday i had this battle with myself, who is the problem? i'm sure you've experienced something similar. i might blame the people in the congregation for being too resistant. or i might blame our history for being too enslaving over us. i want to look at other staff people and point out their inadequacies. or i even might blame our denomination for being too confining. All of those outcomes feel good for a second because that means i'm not really a part of the problem, they fuel pride (the bad kind)- i come out smelling like a rose (or something equally nice-smelling but more manly).

But i also find that pride is damning. All of these attempts at pointing the finger make me feel good for a second, but they also make me feel totally hopeless.

Truth is, if i'm a leader worth my salt (BTW, i've noticed that you can by like 20 pounds of salt for a nickle, so that means i'm worth about 40 cents?), i should be able to bring noble change to whatever God has entrusted into my hands.

I am the problem.

and maybe that's n0t a distinction i share alone, but i'm certainly a part of it. I guess part of that is an ego killer. Perhaps i'm not the leader that i thought i was. But the surprise that comes along with this acknowledgment is hope. Godly change can happen and "i'm staring with the man in the mirror" (please read/sing the previous line with all of mr. jackson's vocal hiccups, emotion, and slick moves-go ahead it's friday!)

So now i AM talking to you who might be a part of St. Matthew, or i guess any other local church on earth. What are you doing to make sure that your heart is being won over (changed, transformed) in greater measure, day by day, by Jesus Christ? AND what are you doing to help others experience this same kind of transformation?

It really does start with any/all of us who care. You don't need a pulpit or an elected position. one thing is needful-live out the transformation that Jesus is working in you, and love others enough to invite them in on it. it sounds trite, or overdone, but (for right now at least) it's an amazingly hopeful proposition.

karma

A few weeks ago my pastor-friend Joe brought up an interesting event in the Bible. So happens that I've been reading thru this section in my daily time in the Word. It centers around King David of the Old Testament. The king before him, a guy named Saul fell out of favor with God and so God had his prophet go out and anoint David as the new king over Israel. So you get this weird situation where there is technically a new king but the old king is still here (remind me to tell you sometime about how this connects with our understanding of the end times that Jesus has brought into existence NOW and NOT YET)

Anyway, Saul starts coming unglued because he knows that God's favor has left him and he gets very jealous of David because he can see that God is with David in mighty ways. So Saul tries to kill David, a bunch of times. There are chapters of this cat and mouse game starting in 1 Samuel 18 .

But the strange part is that David won't retaliate against Saul. David gets the chance to kill Saul a few times, and it would seem that David would have the right. He's been anointed the new king, God is with him, Saul is trying to kill him (self-defense). But David refuses each time to do anything against "the LORD's anointed" It gets even crazier IMO when Saul tries to kill himself and fails to do it all the way and begs a bystander to help him finish the job. The bystander does so because Saul is mortally wounded, is suffering greatly, and is about to be overtaken by his enemies. It's a mercy killing if there ever was one, but when this bystander comes and tells David that Saul is dead and explains how it happened. David has the bystander killed! Why? because this guy showed great disrespect and rebellion by ending the life of "the LORD'S anointed."

It all seems so weird. After all, David is also God's anointed, he's more of God's anointed than Saul is, because God's Spirit has departed Saul and rests on David. All this got me wondering if David was a believer in karma.

not in a weird way. But it seems that perhaps David was motivated by the fact that if HE mistreated the anointed, that he might be mistreated as the anointed. David had one of the most peaceable reigns (internally) of any king of Israel. I kind of wonder if that's because David set such a strong example for respect and reverence for the one God put in command.

All this is to say that David could be on to something... maybe it's true that "what goes around comes around" and "what you sow is what'll you reap." for some reason this reminds me specifically of families. One thing i've been thinking about is the idea that if you want your kids to treat you well when you're old, then be very careful how you treat your elderly parents. (sort of a variation on that great Harry Chapin song, Cat's in the Cradle). I guess my thought is that David had the right to take Saul's life, but he didn't exercise that right. He seemed to recognize that it would start a pattern of disprect and bloodshed for his reign and the reign of others. David had the foresight that many of us (myself included) lack. That how he lived and the choices he made really did have a "butterfly effect" that would set a tone for a long way into the future. That's true in families, in life decisions, in priorities... you feelin' it? or have i confused and bored you?