the Father's joy

I am looking forward to tomorrow…Sunday…church day…a work day for me. I am mulling over the sermon I am going to preach in less than twelve hours…. “The Father’s Joy.” That phrase has been in my heart and mind all week long….the Father’s joy…the Father’s joy… What is it that brings the Father joy? How much of my life is spent thinking about what makes me happy, but how about God, what makes him truly happy? It seems to me that the Father receives joy from his children. Zephaniah 3:17 (NIV) says: The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.

It is humbling to think that the Father takes delight (finds joy) in me. It seems to me that the Father is overjoyed when his purposes for me are fulfilled—specifically when I partner with the Holy Spirit in allowing my life to be conformed into the image of Christ. “The Father’s Joy” is the first part of my trinitarian vision of spiritual transformation—the Father’s Joy, the Son’s example & the Spirit’s work. God is stirring this in me.

I have been listening to Jason Upton’s album Faith. Good stuff. Jason reminds me a lot of Keith Green—same spirit and at times, same sound. I have been particularly drawn to the song “Come Up Here.” This is the song in my head these days. Here are the lyrics:

Come up here (John on the Island of Patmos)
w/m Jason Upton

I was dreaming of the holy city
I was wearing my wings
Then I looked up and saw a doorway to heaven
And I heard you calling me

Come up here, come up now
My beloved, my beloved
Come up here, come up now
My beloved, my beloved, come

I want to fly, like an eagle in the sky
I want to fly through that doorway in the sky
And Come

Why I Am Not Trying to Be A Christian

Today I read Betrand Russell's Why I am Not A Christian. Russell originally presented this as a lecture in London in 1927. It was later published in a pamphlet and in countless Philosophy anthologies. It has been an influential piece in humanistic circles. Russell attacks some of the classic rational arguments for the existence of God. He also attacks the character of Christ's followers and the teachings of Christ. For example, he writes: You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world. I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.

Reading Russell's article got me thinking of my own walk of faith. I was reminded of something I heard John Ortberg teach years ago -- "You cannot do by trying, what you can do by training." I have explored this in various sermons in the past and I have tried to live it out. But...oops...there it is -- "tried," trying has been my constant mistake. "Training" for Ortberg is another way of talking about spiritual disciplines. He writes: "(Training) means to arrange your life around certain exercises and experiences that will enable you to do eventually what you are not yet able to do even by trying hard." (John Ortberg, Growth: training vs. trying, Zondervan: 2000.)

Russell is correct that Christians have often failed to live up to the standard of their Master. This is why I have quit trying to be a Christian. I have put together my ten reasons why I have quit:

Ten Reasons Why I Have Quit Trying to be a Christian
1) Trying leaves me frustrated, because I am continually unsuccessful in reaching my goal of becoming like Christ.
2) Trying leaves me shallow.
3) Trying causes me to focus more on my ability than God's generosity.
4) Trying makes me feel guilty when I fail.
5) Trying causes me to confuse faith with good intentions.
6) Trying lacks hope because it has a built-in assumption that failure is possible
7) Trying makes me settle for mediocrity.
8) Trying is the result of man-made religion and the tradition.
9) Trying is futile, knowing that for all of my self-righteous attempts to reach God, I have fallen short of his glory.
10) Trying overlooks the fact that I have been chosen by God, called me, set me apart and that he is changing me, empowering me and developing me into a Christ-like person.

So I have quit. You can consider this my letter of resignation from any kind of religious system, Christian or other, that requires me to try. From now on, I will train. And training is something that you do or do not -- there is no trying. Mr. Miyagi said it best: "Man walk on road. Walk left side, safe. Walk right side, safe. Walk down middle, sooner or later, get squished just like grape. Same here. You karate do 'yes,' or karate do 'no.' You karate do 'guess so, just like grape. Understand?" (Mr. Miyagi, Karate Kid, 1984)

It’s a bird…it’s a plane…no, it’s a fish???

Wesley and I, along with Papa Wes and our guide Mr. Ernie, headed out on a fishing adventure on the Missouri River. In less than an hour we returned with four 15-20 lbs. asian carp. The interesting thing is that we went fishing without poles. The fish just jumped in the boat. I know what you are thinking, no way. Right? I didn’t believe it when I was told that we were going fishing without poles. I thought they were kidding when they said that the fish would just jump in the boat. These fish don't just jump...they fly.

As we eased the boat over into some of the coves, the fish started jumping. The first one that jumped in our boat hit Wesley right in head. It doesn’t sound so bad, but we weighed that fish in at about 15 lbs, which is about a fifth of his body weight. He was brave and we continued on until we had about four good-sized asian carp in the boat. No one knows what makes them jump (or fly). Some people think that the vibrations from the boat motor causes them to become irritated.

There are four kinds of asian carp in the US, bighead carp, black carp, grass carp and silver carp. We “caught” silver carp, which are native to China, but have been in the US since the 1970s. They can grow to over 70 lbs. and four feet in length.



For more info, go to:
http://fisc.er.usgs.gov/Carp_ID/html/hypophthalmichthys_molitrix.html
http://www.asiancarp.org/

Wanna see these fish jump, go to: http://www.fishingpixels.com/asiancarp1.html to watch a video of the jumping asian carp.

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Here is a great quote that goes at the heart of the missionary spirit of the Church. Missions is not something that we do as Christians. It is something that we are.

He who is not a missionary Christian will be a missing Christian when the great day comes. Therefore, ask yourself daily what the Lord would have you to do in connection with the work of carrying the news of salvation to the perishing millions. -- A.J. Gordon (1869)

Independence Day Reflections

I am currently in Albany, Georgia visiting friends on this fourth of July. Yesterday, I began preparing for our patriotic service Wednesday night July 5th. In my preparation I did a lot of reading about out founding fathers -- were they Christians? Did they found our nation to be a Christian Nation? [In the treaty of Tripoli (1797), our leaders say that our country was not founded on the Christian religion.] There is a huge debate over the faith of our nation's founders and the ongoing issue of seperation of church and state. I think that there are two ruts in this tireless debate. On one side are those who want to remove all references to God in our nation's history. This secularization of American history is a mistake. The other rut is those who want to make out all of the founding fathers to be born-again Christians. They were not. Thomas Jefferson, the writer of the declaration of independence was a deist. John Adams was a unitarian. George Washington would never receive communion. While the founding of our nation was within a Judeo-Christian perspective, it was hardly founded to be a Christian nation. The most valuable component to the founding of our country is the freedom of religion that we have in the US. It has helped the proclaimation of the gospel. I am thankful for that.

I did read a great article about the "evangelicals" of the 18th century. According to this article, the Christians that we would call "evangelical" where in favor of the seperation of church and State. Much more than the political evangelcial movement of today. Here is the first couple of paragraphs of the article that I read. Happy independence day!

The Framers and the Faithful
How modern evangelicals are ignoring their own history.
By Steven Waldman

Thomas Jefferson stood, dressed in a black suit, in a doorway of the White House on Jan. 1, 1802, watching a bizarre spectacle. Two horses were pulling a dray carrying a 1,235-pound cheese—just for him. Measuring 4 feet in diameter and 17 inches in height, this cheese was the work of 900 cows.
More impressive than the size of the cheese was its eloquence. Painted on the red crust was the inscription: “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.” The cheese was a gift from religious leaders in western Massachusetts.

It may seem surprising that religious leaders would be praising Jefferson, given that his critics had just months earlier been attacking him as an infidel and an atheist. In the 1800 election, John Adams had argued that the Francophile Jefferson would destroy America's Christian heritage just as the French revolutionaries had undermined their own religious legacy. Adams supporters quoted Jefferson's line that he didn't care whether someone believed in one god or 20, and they argued that the choice in the election was: “God—And a religious president...[or] Jefferson—and no God.”

But in a modern context, the most remarkable thing about the cheese is that it came from evangelical Christians. It was the brainchild of the Rev. John Leland—a Baptist and, therefore, a theological forefather of the Rev. Jerry Falwell and Franklin Graham. Even though Jefferson was labeled anti-religion by some, he had become a hero to evangelicals—not in spite of his views on separation of church and state, but because of them. By this point, Jefferson had written his draft of the Virginia statute of religious freedom, and he and James Madison were known as the strictest proponents of keeping government and religion far apart. Because Baptists and other evangelicals had been persecuted and harassed by the majority faiths—the Anglicans in the South and the Puritan-influenced Congregationalists in the North—these religious minorities had concluded that their freedom would only be guaranteed when majority faiths could not use the power of the state to promote their theology and institutions.

Each side of our modern culture wars has attempted to appropriate the Founding Fathers for their own purposes. With everything from prayer in school to gay rights to courtroom displays of the Ten Commandments at stake, conservative and liberal activists are trying to capture the middle ground and win over public opinion. Portraying their views as compatible with—even demanded by—the Founding Fathers makes any view seem more sensible, mainstream, and in the American tradition. And in truth, you can find a Jefferson or Adams quote to buttress just about any argument. But there are a few facts that might actually be stipulated by both sides in the culture wars. First, the original Constitution really didn't say all that much about religion. God is not mentioned, and the only reference to religion is a ban on providing religious tests for holding office. (Ask why, and the arguments would resume with fury: Conservatives say the Founders left it out because they wanted the states to regulate religion; liberals say it was because the framers were secularists who wanted strict separation between religion and government).

Second, there was a widespread view among religious people of all flavors that the Constitution would be much stronger if it had a Bill of Rights that more explicitly guaranteed religious freedom. The 18th-century evangelicals were among the strongest advocates of this view and of the Bill of Rights, which declared that “Congress shall make no law regarding the establishment of religion.” Throughout the states, evangelicals pushed hard for ratification of the Bill of Rights in the state legislatures. Indeed, part of what made Jefferson cheese-worthy in the eyes of a Baptist leader like Leland was his advocacy of a Bill of Rights.

Modern Christian conservatives concede that point and hail the First Amendment, but they argue that it by no means follows that either the Founders or the proto-evangelicals wanted a strict separation of church and state. They point out—accurately—that neither the Constitution nor the Bill of Rights includes the phrase “separation of church and state.” And they argue that what the First Amendment intended to do was exactly what it says—and no more: prevent the “establishment” of an official state church, like the ones that had been prevalent in the colonies up until the time of the revolution. In the book The Myth of the Separation, religious conservative David Barton argues that the Founders simply did not support separation of church and state. Indeed, he maintains, this was a Christian nation founded by Christian men who very much wanted the government to support religion. The contemporary intellectual battle over the role of religion in the public square will be determined in part on who can own the history.

It is ironic, then, that evangelicals—so focused on the “true” history—have neglected their own. Indeed, the one group that would almost certainly oppose the views of 21st-century evangelicals are the 18th-century evangelicals. John Leland was no anomaly. In state after state, when colonists and Americans met to debate the relationship between God and government, it was the proto-evangelica1s who pushed the more radical view that church and state should be kept far apart. Both secular liberals who sneer at the idea that evangelicals could ever be a positive influence in politics and Christian conservatives who want to knock down the “wall” should take note: It was the 18th-century evangelicals who provided the political shock troops for Jefferson and Madison in their efforts to keep government from strong involvement with religion. Modern evangelicals are certainly free to take a different course, but they should realize that in doing so they have dramatically departed from the tradition of their spiritual forefathers.

To read the rest of the story, click here: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0604.waldman.html

Cyprian Norwid

In preparing for a week full of activity (notice I did not use the word b*sy, which I have agreed to remove from my vocabulary when used with the first person “I am…”), I have found myself mulling over a statement from Polish poet, Cyprian Norwid. (I was reading Relevant Magazine and read this quote in an article by Craig Borlase…thanks Craig.) Norwid was born in Poland and traveled through out Europe before immigrating to the US in 1853. Pope John Paul II called Norwid “one of Christian Europe's greatest poets and thinkers,” noting that Norwid’s thinking and writing “reinforced our hope in God” during the Nazi occupation of Poland. Nowrid died in poverty and obscurity, but currently there seems to be a revival of his work. Norwid’s statement is in the context of the three essential requirements for a fulfilling life. Norwid answers:

something to live on, something to live for and something to die for. The lack of one of these attributes results in drama. The lack of two results in tragedy.

My tendency would be to over-analysize this statement with fruitless questions like… “What does he mean by that….what does he mean here…etc.” I think it is better left unexamined. Instead, I want these words to roll around in my head in more of meditative form….something to live on, something to live for, something to die for… Is this the kind of life that I am living? This life/death kind of living is fulfilling because it is transcendent…it takes us beyond ourselves. Am I ready for that challenge? I want to go beyond myself, but I feel the kingdom of self pulling me back in…God help me! Those who inspire me and form our heros in film and literature are those who go beyond…who have found something worth living on, living for and dying for. I don’t want my life to be a tragedy…and I don’t want no drama.