Hanging Out in or Near the Kingdom

 

Hey, Cobblestone,

      With my fat, arthritic fingers, I just typed a “d” into Cobblestone ahead of the first “e”. It happens a lot, catching the edge of one key on the way to another. Usually, I simply backspace, correct, and move on. But this particular typo struck a chord: Cobbldestone… “Cobble-dee-Stone.” Somehow, it seemed to represent a subtle, self-effacing humor. It’s hard enough to take seriously a church with a name like ours, without the “d”; so much more when the name sounds like something out of last Sunday’s pre-school classroom. “Cobble-dee-Stone” – the more I say it the more I like it. This new and playful name reminds me of how we’ve been cobbled together from various bits of history. Only God could write such a truly implausible story. It also reminds me of how, among the twenty-one so far, our best years have been those in which we’ve taken ourselves not so seriously – when agendas were put behind people, and honoring people was essential in honoring God.

     Think on the Great Commandment (see Mark 12:28-34). If you were reading the Distilled Version of the Bible (no such thing, far as I know, I just made it up), the passage might read: “Love God, love others.” As a believer, you could bear witness to your love for God in several ways – singing, testifying, praising, declaring his mercies, and so on. But how do you prove your love for God? Jesus gave the means: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31). Isn’t it just like Jesus to chase the most important matters out of the realm of the theoretical?

     I have finally recovered (well, almost) from the shock of Mark’s Gospel, seeing Jesus set the bearers of God’s image, and their precious eternal souls, far above policies and politics, economies and cultures. In the twelfth chapter, the scribe there agreed with Jesus in his assessment of the greatest commandment. And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God” (verse 34). As important as it is to agree with Jesus, I desperately want the lingering shock of Mark’s Gospel to remind me: “not far from” is not close enough. I want to work the kingdom of God from the inside out.

     As our Bible reading plan rolls into Luke’s Gospel, what do you see? You see Jesus faithfully setting imago Dei at the top of the created order. He healed on the Sabbath. He touched the leper. He let the roof be destroyed. He ordered a huge catch of fish into empty nets, simply to astonish Peter and James and John. For each of those choices, there was some policy somewhere, set in opposition. Don’t think Jesus was breaking the Law of the Lord – he came not to abolish the Law but to fulfill it (see Matthew 5:17). The policies, however, were another matter entirely.

     In his first coming, Jesus initiated the kingdom of God on earth. The clearest mission statement for that first coming is what Jesus himself pulled from Scripture and declared to the people:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
    and recovering of sight to the blind,
    to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor” (Luke 4:18-19). 

     Surely he wouldn’t want us to miss his emphasis on honoring the image of God in people. Policies can only be good if we’re tracking with Jesus on his mission.

     The Lord is cautioning me in this moment, steering me away from going too big. Oh, how I want to address the “big issues”! Maybe later, if he gives permission… and just the right words. For now, if I’m understanding his leading correctly, I’ll point you to Andrew Holzworth’s sermon from this past Sunday. Yep, our very own Andrew, speaking at little ol’ Cobble-dee-Stone. He preached from Luke 7:36-50, and if I’ve ever heard an anointed sermon, this was certainly one of them. If you missed it, get it. If you got it Sunday, get it again – http://www.cobblestonechurch.com/media/sermons.

     Honoring the image of God starts small and it starts close. Andrew spoke on removing shame, as Jesus removed shame from the “sinful woman” in the house of Simon the Pharisee. If you see yourself as a shame-magnet, see what Jesus did in Luke 7, and own it. If you see yourself as more of a shame-caster – same. Jesus wants neither of those roles for you. Honoring the image is so close, it’s inside.

     It may look like the world is going to hell in a handbasket, as the old saying goes. Romans 8 and Revelation 21, for starters, say otherwise. There absolutely must be avenues of restoration, operating in this very moment. The Creator of all things has declared restoration – it’s got to happen. In the end, it’ll be glorious. Between now and then, it’ll be glorious – only in smaller doses. Enter into the restoration plan; enter into exalting the image of God as he does.

     I’m convinced there are people in our church right now who will do large and laudable work for the kingdom of God. I’m equally convinced of – and equally glad for – all of us who will do the easily unnoticed work in homes and schools and hospitals and all manner of workplaces. And even for the large-and-laudable, when others are astonished by the power of Jesus on them, I can imagine how the conversations will go:

“What was your sending church?”

“Cobble-dee-Stone.”

“Never heard of it.”

“I’m not surprised.”

Grace and Peace (in the midst of the kingdom),

John          

Glory and Honor

 

Hey, Cobblestone,

     Nigh onto fourteen years ago, I was leading a Bible study in the Psalms. We didn’t get all 150, only a handful. Psalm 8 was on the list. When we got to verses 3-5, one dear lady’s eyes welled up and she began weeping:

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
    the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
    and the son of man that you care for him?

Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
    and crowned him with glory and honor.

     Why the weeping? I knew her story from way back. It was anything but glory and honor. You could probably count on one hand the number of people who had affirmed her by calling attention to her worth as a person created in the image of God. Her husband had been foremost among those who had not. The Scripture brought on a flood of grief in that moment – if glory and honor was what God planned for those made in his image, what was she?

     From the time Cain murdered his brother, dehumanizing has been a problem. What’s surprising is how pervasive the problem is. There have been the super-villains, the scant fraction of a percent who have propagated genocide and holocaust – for the rest of us, the sin of dehumanizing is ever “crouching at the door” (Genesis 4:6).

     Pop Bible quiz from Genesis 2 – Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him” (verse 18). What happened next? I’ve asked roughly two dozen people that question; all but one has said, “God made Eve.” Bzzzzzzzzt – wrong answer. God did put Adam into a deep sleep, took a rib from him, and made the first woman. But that was later, in verses 21-22. What happened in between?

    Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him (verses 19-20).  

     Of all the creatures on earth, not one was fit for Adam to be one flesh with; nothing less or other than a fellow image-bearer would do. Adam began to see creation God’s way (compare verses 18 and 20) when he began to see God’s image God’s way. Imagine him coming to the last animal and asking, “What else ya got?”

     The only way I’ve ever known to keep from dehumanizing is to actively humanize – to see God’s image God’s way, and set humanity above all the rest of the created order. This is not a cerebral or philosophical exercise; it exists in every “here” and every “now.” And it’s not automatic; preferences, politics, ambition – heck, the crankiness of any given day – will clamber to the top, given the least bit of a chance… just as it did with Cain. Humanizing is a constant endeavor involving mind and body, will and emotion.

     This description of active humanizing gains credence in the example Jesus sets in the Gospels. Jesus blows up systems to save people. Two thousand pigs, and the livelihoods they represented, were destroyed to deliver the Gerasene demoniac. Matthew was called right out of his tax-collecting booth. Moneychangers’ tables were turned upside-down. Sabbath rules were turned right-side up. Zacchaeus got redemption in exchange for his racketeering. And you don’t see Jesus turning aside from needy people to heal somebody’s dog or cat or canary. Imago Dei is above and beyond.

     Last week I asked you to engage the mind of Christ whenever you pick up news. How’s it going? Over the past several days, I’ve come to call it “reading the paper with Jesus.” Yes, I read actual newspapers – and I read them with Jesus, actually. He keeps me alert to the imago Dei issues in every article… to a degree I couldn’t possibly attain without him. He also keeps me alert to the imago Dei issues in my living room, bedroom (whoa, look out!), jobsites, and office. The cab of my truck has become a Holy Spirit counseling center, and I’m the client. I ask again: How’s it going?

     The super-villains of dehumanizing have simply been those who were really effective in channeling the dehumanizing propensities of many individuals into a certain direction or against a certain people group. Without the individuals, the villains have no ammo. And that’s not a difficult concept to grasp – we’re all smart enough to pick up on it – so I’m proposing an approach that’s less ethereal and much closer to home.

     Start by unabashedly setting humanity above anything else in the created order. Jesus does. I’ve heard dolphins are smart. Throw a little algebra at a dolphin. Write the problem in Sharpie on the flank of a baitfish, and you’ll have your answer tomorrow. Meanwhile, there are people all around us who are living in a deficit of glory and honor. Surely, from the abundance of God’s glory, we his people can put some into circulation.

     The lady who wept in the Bible study – I get to see her several times a year. I’m happy to report that there are several people in her life these days who discreetly and authentically bestow glory and honor on her. This is active humanizing in its purest form. And I’m thoroughly convinced Jesus is pleased.

 

 Grace and Peace (and a right-side up view of creation),

 

John         

Snookered

 

Hey, Cobblestone,

     Arriving on the scene, the first thing Jesus did was call attention to their goofy argument (Mark 9:16). His disciples were tangled up in debate with the scribes (verse 14) instead of healing the demonized boy whose father had brought him for prayer. Who was to blame for this sideways situation? Not the scribes – they were going strictly by the script, on a mission to derail the mission of Jesus. No, it was the disciples who were sideways. They had let themselves be drawn into a strategy of distraction, and were taken completely off-task. At nearly the same point of history in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus is quoted as saying, “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters” (11:23). Even if the disciples had won the argument, they would not have gathered anyone. That leaves only one outcome: scattering. You can see why Jesus was so eager to snatch up the situation.

     Without Jesus’ perspective on the image of God in people, anybody can be drawn into a strategy of distraction. But isn’t it especially ironic when we who have the mind of Christ (1Corinthians 2:16) let ourselves be pulled off-mission? “Ironic” is the kindest word I can think of at the moment. Like with the demonized boy in Mark 9, damage is done while the debate rolls endlessly on. “Lord, help us. You’ve given us your mind… help us to give it first say.”

     In a “Hey Church” letter not long ago, I wrote: “Governments weren’t put on this earth to legislate morals; governments were put on this earth to recognize what’s moral and create legislation that makes it possible for the governed to live morally, legally. Governments are famous for doing this poorly; the governed are famous for letting it happen” (Politi-What?, July 20, 2018). Before you start shaking your fist in the direction of Columbus or Indianapolis or Washington, please hear the following: It’s taken way too long, but I’ve finally stopped expecting non-Christians to think and act like disciples of Christ. Last week I wrote about accepting people on an image-of-God basis, unconditionally, knowing that agreement and approval are separate from acceptance. I can walk and work with someone a long way who isn’t a Christian. But when it comes to separating moral issues from political ones – making a distinction between what’s political and what’s been politicized – the mind of Christ is the only right tool for the job.

     The disciples were puzzled. They had been given authority to cast out demons, but couldn’t expel this one. They asked Jesus why. Props for asking – may we duplicate their example when we bump up against puzzlement. Jesus said, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer” (Mark 9:29). Is this kind the only kind that can only be driven out by prayer? Is there anything else that goes out, anything else that gets made right, only by prayer? The passage doesn’t forbid something else to be made right by prayer, does it? And in Ephesians 6, of all the armor of God (verses 13-18), prayer is given the job of cinching it all together – praying at all times in the Spirit. Some issues can be left in the realm of debate; most everything else lives in the realm of prayer.

     I’m leaving this letter short to give you a homework assignment: However you get your news – and everybody gets it somehow – engage the mind of Christ in you. Make a conscious decision to give the mind of Christ the first say. Think like Jesus. Pray like Jesus. Watch and wait. While you’re waiting, contrast how you might have received the same news without engaging the mind of Christ. I think you’ll realize: moral issues, especially when they involve the image of God in people, can’t be resolved by political, cultural, or social means. It was God who created us in his image, and the Son of God who honored imago Dei time and time again in the Gospels. Don’t get snookered into using ineffective methods.

     Don’t get snookered into scattering.

 

 Grace and Peace (to pray in the Spirit at all times),

 

John

 

Four Words

 

Hey, Cobblestone,

    Straight off the Mount of Transfiguration (Mark 9:2-13), Jesus finds his disciples in an argument with the opposition (verses 14-18) – and losing. A frantic father had brought his young son to be delivered of a demon. Instead of casting it out, which the disciples had authority to do, they got sucked into a second-grade shouting match with the scribes. Jesus was not pleased.

     Assessing the situation, and snatching up the attention of all the interested parties, Jesus then spoke four of the most clarifying, crap-cutting words in Scripture: “Bring him to me.”

     Jesus promptly cast the demon out of the boy. Apparently, he was the only one onsite willing to lock onto the issue at hand, and throw out the nonsense and noise. “Bring him to me.”

     Please indulge the dime-store historian in me as I highlight a similar moment in more recent history. Mary Todd Lincoln, First Lady of the United States from 1861 to 1865, was from Kentucky. Leading into the Civil War, some Kentucky families sided with the North, some with the South. Mrs. Lincoln’s relatives, by and large, went with the Confederate cause. You can begin to imagine the troubles this caused her husband. Mary’s younger sister, Emilie, was married to Ben Hardin Helm, who was a general in the Confederate Army (President Lincoln had offered him a commission with the Union, but he refused). Helm was mortally wounded at Chickamauga and sent to a hospital – the prognosis was grim. Emilie was sent an urgent message to come to her husband. He died before she arrived. In grief and great need, she appealed to her brother-in-law for refuge at the White House. Mr. Lincoln was pleased to grant the request. On the way to Washington, she was detained at Fort Monroe – unwilling to pledge allegiance to the Union, the commanding officer there was equally unwilling to let her pass through Union lines, even with the President’s permission. The officer sent a message to his commander-in-chief, explaining his logic. Lincoln replied with a telegram of four one-syllable words: “Send her to me.”

     And with that, Mrs. Helm was on her way to Washington. While there, she was as much a rebel as in Kentucky and Virginia, and a frequent thorn in her brother-in-law’s backside. The headline in one newspaper read: “A Confederate in the White House!” As a political issue, this was about as complicated as it gets. But as an image-of-God issue, few things could be simpler. Here was a widow and three fatherless children. In the Bible, James 1:27 says, Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. In the time of their greatest need, Mr. Lincoln chose to meet his sister-in-law and her children at the level of imago Dei. He and Mary provided refuge and comfort and loving companionship. Whatever else they may agree or not agree on, this much must be done. While the critics had their fun, Mr. Lincoln’s favorite name for Emilie was “Little Sister.”

     Over the past two years, how many news reports have you read or heard, claiming these to be the most contentious days in our history? They are not. They’re more urgent, being now and not then, and with 7.4 billion humans onboard and the speed at which information travels now, maybe the sheer quantity of contention is at an all-time high. But it’s the same ugly knot Jesus faced two thousand years ago, the same tangle A. Lincoln faced in the late summer of 1864. The real question is: How to begin untangling it?

     There’s an especially clever tactic in play – and yeah, probably more in our time than in times past – and observation reveals that Christians don’t typically deal well with it. It’s the idea that acceptance and agreement and approval come as a package deal – to accept people on any level, you have to agree with everything they say or do or stand for. If you don’t challenge this idea, here’s what happens: you’ll go straight for any and every disagreement that may (or may not) come up, and acceptance on any level goes out the window. Many of us don’t even have to leave our beds in the morning to find someone to disagree with. Can I get an “Amen” from the married folks? Moving on into the day, the possibilities are potentially endless – unless the concept of the package deal is seen for what it is: too many moving parts to deal with at one time. Let’s consider a better tactic.

     In last week’s letter, my aim was to make you a little self-conscious of your use of the word “that.” People aren’t that’s; people are who’s. (OK, more than a little self-conscious.) This week’s th-word is “they.” In your interactions with fellow image-bearers, be asking yourself, “What makes them ‘they’?”

     Honestly, I’m still fuzzy on the finer points of rolling this out, so maybe we can learn together. Best I can tell at this point, it would go mainly like so: I know I can accept anyone on an image-of-God level, based on at least these three passages from Scripture…

     So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them (Genesis 1:27).

    Know that the Lord, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture (Psalm 100:3).

    “And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us…” (Acts 17:26-27)

     From there, I think I’ll reach out and grab a truly ridiculous point of disagreement. For example, my friend Scott owns a Ford truck. But me, I drive a GMC. How’s that supposed to work? How can we be friends? Easy: first, I set aside the fact that the GMC was given to me, and I would gladly have received a Ford. Then I remember that his truck and mine have already shown up on some of the same jobsites, doing the work each is best designed to do. Where’s the disagreement? Other than a little car-guy foolishness – Found On Road Dead, Garage-Man’s Companion – we leave it alone. This part of the exercise serves only to remind me that the acceptance/agreement/approval package deal, unchallenged, will run to the ridiculous in a great big hurry.

     The next step requires the most finesse (read: Holy Spirit guidance) – so let’s see if we can help one another out, Church. Back in the realm of reality, and with imago Dei as the baseline, I want to proceed to the first legitimate point of disagreement – and there will certainly be one. This is what makes them they (at least for now). From that exact spot, I want to do a quick about-face and survey the common ground. It will be vast. Turning again, this is where I choose between honoring the image of God in “them” – or not. Once I choose the route that honors, God gets to use me – and probably them too – in good work none of us might have imagined otherwise.

     In any of our interactions, here’s what I’ll urge: to let the mind of Christ in us be asking a couple simple questions. “Lord, what truly is the issue at hand? What connection do you intend for me to make with this other, who is obviously a fellow image-bearer?”

     Abraham Lincoln was not Jesus. But at times he used his influence to do Jesus-like work – to honor the image of God in someone who was, by the world’s standard, irretrievably other. And I think it’s remarkable that he used nearly the same four words to accomplish the work for his little sister. (I’d also like to feel the chill the CO at Fort Monroe felt when he read the terse telegram from Pennsylvania Avenue.) I know the Bible reading plan is rolling on, and we’ve moved into Luke today. But Chapter 9 of Mark won’t leave me alone, so I won’t let it leave you alone either, Church. Jesus cutting through the noise and blazing a trail through the hubbub is exactly what his disciples needed to see then – and right-the-heck now. More on honoring the image, next week.

 Grace and Peace (and four good words, when the time is right),

 John