Jesus Holds A Business Meeting

Last week, Adam Palmer sent me a series of tweets he had received from our mutual friend, Mark Riddle. Here are just a few.

*Did Jesus always pray before his staff meetings?

*I’m guessing Jesus’ administrative assistant was tough to get past.  I’ll bet she protected him well.

*And then Jesus said, “Go into the world and cast my vision.”

*Then Jesus sat down with his exec team & said “What are your measurable goals for this year?”

*Then Phillip said to the Ethiopian, “When you get back, find some big dog power brokers in your church & get them on board with your vision.”

*And then Jesus said,  “Let the children come to me, because  if you get the kids, their parents will follow.”

*Then Jesus said, “Do not worry about tomorrow, but stockpile canned goods because the world will end soon.”

*When they gathered in the upper room for supper Jesus said, “This is my brand, created for you. Share it where ever you may go.”

Mark Riddle is a consultant to many pastors and churches in the country, primarily in the area of youth ministry. He has heard it all, and then some. Mark thought he would have a little fun and imagine what a business meeting with Jesus and his disciples would be like. Welcome Mark, and enjoy.  JD

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Quotes For Lent

Lent 2012: A Journey through the Wilderness

Quotes For Lent

On one such occasion the Shepherd said to Much-Afraid, “When you continue your journey there may be much mist and cloud. Perhaps it may even seem as though everything you have seen here of the High Places was just a dream, or the work of your own imagination. But you have seen reality and the mist which seems to swallow it up is the illusion. Remember, Much-Afraid, what you have seen before the mist blotted it out. Never doubt that the High Places are there, towering up above you, and be quite sure that whatever happens I mean to bring you up there exactly as I promised.”  Hinds Feet On High Places, Hannah Hurnard

The way of pure faith enables us to find God at every moment. What has to be done to produce such an amazing effect? Just one thing: let God act and do all he wishes according to our state in life. Nothing in the spiritual life is easier, and it is within everybody’s reach. Yet so wonderful and dark is this road that we need great faith to walk along it.  Abandonment To Divine Providence, Jean-Pierre deCaussade

Turnball glanced at the crucifix with a sort of scowling good-humour and then said: “He may look and see His cross defeated.”

“The cross cannot be defeated,” said MacIan, “for it is Defeat.”  Ball And Cross, G.K. Chesterton

The way a deer longs for streams of water, my soul has longed for you, God of Strength.

My soul has thirsted for my Upholder, for presence of the living God. When will I arrive and behold the light of your face?

My weeping was like bread for me—morning and night—when each day they said to me, “Where is your God?”

These things I remember and pour out my heart with sadness—how I passed through throngs of people, stumbling to the holy temple, through cries of joy and thanksgiving, sounds of the celebrating crowd.

Why are you bent so low, my soul? And why so in tumult over me?

Be hopeful, and wait for God.

Psalm 42, The Complete Psalms, translated by Pamela Greenberg

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A Refuge in the Wilderness

David, Chagall

Lent 2012: A Journey through the Wilderness
A Refuge in the Wilderness

• • •

Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me,
for in you my soul takes refuge;
in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge,
until the destroying storms pass by.
I cry to God Most High,
to God who fulfils his purpose for me.
He will send from heaven and save me,
he will put to shame those who trample on me.
Selah
God will send forth his steadfast love and his faithfulness.

• Psalm 57:1-3

• • •

I have a friend who can sympathize with David and his wilderness experiences. When his country was torn apart in civil war, my friend was forced to leave his home and survive on a trek through forests, desolate places, and dangerous check-points. He lost friends and members of his household. He had to fend for himself with regard to food and water and safe lodging. He eventually made his way to a refugee camp across the border where learned another language and did whatever he could to stay alive and provide for himself and his family. Through ingenuity, hard work, and faith, he demonstrated an initiative and ability that others noticed. He gained a sponsor and won a scholarship to come to the United States for an education. During his time here, he became convinced that God had called him to return to his homeland to serve Christ and his neighbors there.

My friend’s story is a remarkable account of God’s protection, guidance, wisdom, and faithfulness. For his part, my friend persevered in faith, sought and found help from others (and often found it from unlikely sources), and kept his eye on the goal of returning home.

That’s David’s story too. Even more impressively, his return home would mean a kingdom. But first he learned that God was his refuge in the wilderness.

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Moving from Oasis to Oasis

Desert Oasis, Christy Colsen

Lent 2012: A Journey through the Wilderness
Moving from Oasis to Oasis (Lee Adams)

1 How lovely is your dwelling place,
LORD Almighty!
2 My soul yearns, even faints,
for the courts of the LORD;
my heart and my flesh cry out
for the living God.
3 Even the sparrow has found a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may have her young—
a place near your altar,
LORD Almighty, my King and my God.
4 Blessed are those who dwell in your house;
they are ever praising you.

5 Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
whose hearts are set on pilgrimage.
6 As they pass through the Valley of Baka,
they make it a place of springs;
the autumn rains also cover it with pools.
7 They go from strength to strength,
till each appears before God in Zion.

• Psalm 84:1-7 (NIV)

• • •

When Chaplain Mike sent out an email petitioning submissions for Lent, with the theme of “A Journey into the Wilderness”, I had some immediate ideas.  I’ve done sermons on life in the desert before, and read the Desert Fathers a good deal.  I thought I could write something deeply spiritual for you all to consider; something that would make the reader a “better” Christian, and make me an even “better” believer in the process of writing.

One thing I love about the iMonk community, though, is its raw transparency.  Anything less in this forum is immediately detected.  So, like a lot of folks wandering in the wilderness, I paused, considered my course, and chose a different path.  Here goes…

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“Christ the Living Water Infiltrating”

Image from Cakedejour and The Joy of Caking

Because I have been away, the cabin has been unattended for a week. When I came in carrying my little propane heater, I saw the thin film of ice that forms in the low spot on my writing table was larger than usual, and I could not begin to write until I thawed it and wiped it up with a towel I keep for just that purpose.

The regular appearance of that sheet of ice (or on warm days puddle of water) disturbs me, for I cannot find its source. To all appearances my cabin is tight. I’ve caulked every crack I can find at least twice. Still the water, insistent and insidious, finds its way in and waits in the center of my table to disrupt my work. What is maddening is that the trail that should allow me to follow the water to the leak has always evaporated.

Today as I waited for it to melt, I saw it as an analogy for the way my sin, as subtle as water, finds the hidden cracks in my life, flows to the center of my work, and disrupts the wholeness of all my relationships. That is a good analogy to consider on Ash Wednesday, for an awareness of sin and a determination to be cleansed is the order of this day. But since the passing of my adolescence, I have never been able to focus long on my evil nature, nor on any particular acts of either omission or commission. I live rather in the awareness of my redemption, of the work of restoration Christ is doing in me and in creation.

Almost as soon as I drew the analogy of sin infiltrating like water, my imagination leaped ahead to another: Christ the living water infiltrating, coming on his own even when we are unaware, uninviting, to bring life to the land. These woods I love are filled with springs. In a few weeks the thaw will come and I will walk nowhere in them apart from water.

• John Leax, “Lent”
in Stories for the Christian Year

The King in the Wilderness

David and the Angel, Chagall

“David may be headed for a throne, but here he is still an empty-handed fugitive.”

• Walter Brueggemann
First and Second Samuel: Interpretation Commentary

• • •

Another classic collection of “wilderness” stories in the Bible tells about David fleeing from King Saul (1Samuel 21-26). These are adventure tales of the highest level, filled with drama, tension, intrigue, and surprises. The characters involved are complex and fascinating, the events riveting.

These narratives shape our understanding, not only of David, but also of the Son of David, Jesus himself. The trajectories of both stories reinforce that suffering comes before triumph, humility before honor, abasement before exaltation. The last shall be first. The poor becomes rich. The lowly are lifted to the throne. The “Great Reversal” brought about by Jesus has a forerunner in the story of David. These events were anticipated and celebrated by Samuel’s mother Hannah in her version of the Magnificat hymn, recorded in 1Samuel 2:

Talk no more so very proudly,
let not arrogance come from your mouth;
for the Lord is a God of knowledge,
and by him actions are weighed.
The bows of the mighty are broken,
but the feeble gird on strength.
Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread,
but those who were hungry are fat with spoil.
The barren has borne seven,
but she who has many children is forlorn.
The Lord kills and brings to life;
he brings down to Sheol and raises up.
The Lord makes poor and makes rich;
he brings low, he also exalts.
He raises up the poor from the dust;
he lifts the needy from the ash heap,
to make them sit with princes
and inherit a seat of honour.

Before David takes the throne in Jerusalem, he must hide in the wilderness. This he does, not by willing choice or because of divine chastisement, but because he was running for his life from his enemies. He did not seek the wilderness, he fled into it. His was the wilderness of suffering, unjust accusation, enmity, threat, and grave danger. The various desolate places he found turned out to be sites where David found refuge, learned to pray, made connections with others who had been marginalized by unjust powers, and where he even joined forces with other enemies on occasion in order to survive. David’s was the fugitive wilderness.

Sometimes the wilderness is thrust upon us as the only likely place we can survive.

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Sights along the Road… (3/11/12)

Paul Bunyan, Bangor, Maine

Welcome to our weekly edition of Sights along the Road. During this Lent season, we are taking a break on Lord’s Day afternoons to take a good ol’ Sunday drive through some of the things that I’ve been reading, hearing, and thinking about in recent days. On these leisurely outings, we also pause to ponder a few interesting roadside attractions we see along the way.

I’m declaring today “Paul Bunyan Day” here at IM. There are dozens of statues and markers celebrating the mythical, giant tree feller across America, who first appeared in print in a story published by Northern Michigan journalist James MacGillivray in 1906.

It is said that Paul and his blue ox Babe were so large, the tracks they made gallivanting around Minnesota filled up and made the 10,000 lakes. The appetites of Paul and the other lumberjacks was voracious, and they ate so many flap-jacks the cooks couldn’t supply the demand. Ole, the Blacksmith, made a gigantic griddle — you couldn’t see across it when the smoke was thick. Sourdough Sam had fifty men with pork rinds tied to their feet skating around the griddle to grease it. And don’t forget Babe. For a snack, Paul’s ox would eat thirty bales of hay…wire and all.

You get the idea of why this delightful legend told through “tall tales” captured folks’ imaginations throughout N. America. Today we look up to Paul Bunyan on our travels.

• • •

In line with our discussions this past week, we will start with one of my favorite songs (and my favorite rendition of it). This is “Ready for the Storm,” by Dougie MacLean, here performed by Kathy Mattea with MacLean, Jerry Douglas, and others. Some of you may remember that the late Rich Mullins also recorded this great tune.

 

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iMonk Classic: The Unresolved Tensions of Evangelicalism (3)

Lent 2012: A Journey through the Wilderness
The Unresolved Tensions of Evangelicalism, part 3
A classic Michael Spencer iMonk post from Nov. 2008

NOTE: On Sundays in Lent, we will run these classic essays from Michael Spencer on the evangelical wilderness.

I am continuing my look at the sources of disillusionment within evangelicalism. This will be a five-part series, with four posts on the sources of personal disillusionment and one on responding to these personal sources.

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Addendum to the “OTD” Post

In this week’s post, OTD: Obsessed with Tornadoes Disorder, I did not give enough emphasis to the most important point. It came up in the comments and should be given more clarity. So today I want to state it loudly and unequivocally.

• • •

When thinking about God and how he relates to creation and humankind, we must always start with Jesus.

The Lord Jesus Christ is the lens through which we know God and interpret his actions. “No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known” (John 1:18, NIV).

And what do we see in Jesus that might enable us to come up with an appropriate response to a tragedy like the recent tornado outbreak?

  • Well, how about this? — “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (Matt. 9:35-38).
  • Or, maybe this? — “A large crowd followed him, and he healed all who were ill….This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: …A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out” (Matt. 12:15-21).
  • Or, perhaps an old favorite, Jesus’ own mission statement, will do — “The Spirit of the LORD is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the LORD’s favor has come” (Luke 4:18-19, NLT)

Jesus is the compassionate One who brings in “the time of the Lord’s favor.” If you ask me where I would start in trying to analyze ANYTHING in life and how God fits in, there it is.

This is not to say that Jesus never gives warnings, never speaks of judgment. But when he does, it is almost always reserved for religious “experts,” those who think they can read the skies and know the “signs of the times” (Matt. 16:1-4), who claim to speak a true understanding of God’s nature and will. It would be good to remember that in Jesus’ day those folks knew the Bible better than anyone else, were devout in their lifestyle, and didn’t get it all wrong in terms of their propositions. However, they had one huge, unresolvable problem: they missed Jesus, and thus even the right things they said didn’t cut it. We dare not do the same.

I would urge Dr. Piper and all our Reformed friends to heed the advice of one of their own, Ray Ortlund, who wrote: “The remedy is to take your Reformed theology to a deeper level. Let it reduce you to Jesus only.”

 

Saturday Ramblings 3.10.11

Greetings and salutations, fellow iMonks. It has been a week. So much going on, it’s been difficult to keep from adding a Thursday Ramblings just to help out. We will shoulder through best as we can. So strap in and get ready to ramble.

You know, it’s always fun to go from not knowing a product exists to knowing my life is incomplete without one in a matter of three or four seconds. That was the case this week when I learned of a new speech-jamming gun. Seems two researchers in Japan have invented a devise that records one’s voice and plays it back in 0.2 seconds, thus discombobulating the brain and forcing a person into “vocal submission.” This article says it might be useful in a disruptive classroom or a noisy library. I’m thinking of church, when the preacher gets a little longwinded. What would you use this for?

As I write this Friday night, I’m already excited for March Madness, even though my ORU Golden Eagles and the Synonymous Rambler’s Tulsa Golden Hurricane have lost in their league tourneys and thus will most likely be relegated to the NIT (the Nobody Important Tournament) for the chance to say, “We’re number 69!” So as you get ready to watch Selection Sunday tomorrow night, you might try playing in the Lent Madness tournament. I can’t believe Evelyn Underhill is leading St. Nicholas, but that’s March for you.

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