Depart From Me

Matthew 25. Rough stuff.

Many would agree that the Christian walk depends on Christ dying for us. I know I would. And they’d also agree it means that we need to obey the Word’s commandments. Yep, sure. Awesome. But maybe the line would be drawn when we get to the point where our salvation depends on what we’ve done for others.

We don’t really do much for others these days, I don’t think.

We’ve been going over for the past few weeks the whole dilemma of how deeply individualistic modern Christianity is and the resulting consequences. And now we come to this: Christ wants us to help those who need it. And I’m not saying we don’t. But what I am saying is that most of us give lip service to the entire notion of “loving our neighbor/helping one another” while really being concerned with ourselves. And again, that might still be something a lot of people are aware of. But then, look at yourself and the people around you, friends and family and whatnot. How are they helping the needy? More importantly, how are you helping the needy?

I actually do see it, you know. Here and there. And that’s what appalls me. It’s here and there. It’s not everywhere, like it should be. It’s certainly not in me.

Isn’t it ironic? As Americans, we’re more or less wealthier than anyone else on the planet. But we probably give the least.

Huh.

There’s a degree of… “these are wonderful privileges God has blessed us with, to live in such an affluent position in the world. Nothing’s wrong with that, and we should enjoy what we have, because it’s a lot.” And that’s true. We don’t need to feel a bunch of guilt for having flatscreen TVs and three huge meals a day and the Internet and a safe neighborhood and a large house. Those are pretty good things. But maybe we should feel a little guilt when we think of the people who don’t have those things, who would go to bed hungry if they even had a bed in the first place… especially if we could do something about it. Which we can. And we don’t.

It’s not like this is a big surprise. As I said before, Christianity has become mostly about ‘me’ with a little Jesus thrown in for good measure.

So, yes. It all makes sense. But it’s not right.

There’s so many poor and hungry and sick out there, and so very few people willing to help. Many who need, few who give.

 

So. Where do we begin?

 

And some seed fell into good soil…

Jesus once told a now famous parable about seeds. You know how it goes–some seeds fell on the path and were trampled, some fell on rocks and grew but withered, some fell on thorns and grew but were choked, and then… some seed fell into good soil and grew and bore much fruit. It’s a fairly obvious analogy–God is sowing the seeds of the Word, and some receive it, and some don’t.

I’m going to focus on those middle two, the rocks and the thorns. The seeds of the path represent those who simply do not answer the call, but the others tell a far more tragic tale: the plants who grow among the rocks and wither are those who recieved the word of God–with joy, scripture says–but then, because they had no good foundation, withered away. The seeds in the thorns also grew, Jesus said, but were choked out by the cares and sins of this world. Think about what that means.

I think of the kids raised as Christians who go off to college and don’t come back, not spiritually. Probably some of you reading this will be one of those who grew among the rocks or the thorns. Maybe the one writing this will be.

I’d hope not, of course, I’d pray not. But what if what I have isn’t real, or what if I leave and never return? The Bible says some will come to heaven saying,  ”Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy and cast out demons  in your name?” “Depart from me, I never knew you,” Jesus shall say. Or, as stated in Hebrews 6:4-6, those who receive the Word truly but wander away will never come back. Are you one of those people? Am I one of those people? How can we be assured our faith is genuine?

Tying in with the parable of the sowing, the verse comes to mind where we are told that you will know a Christian by their fruit. But what exactly does that mean? It’s hard, so hard. I think it means… what you have done for Christ, what sets you apart from nonbelievers. Look at your life as I look at my life. What have you (I) done that sets yourself (myself) apart from the world? What are (am) you (I) doing? Where are (am) you (I) going?

Pray. Pray you were good soil that the word of God fell into, as I pray. And pray that you bear fruit a hundred-fold, all for Jesus, as I pray.

Amen.

 

Moral Dilemmas

“We should just take all our problems… and push them somewhere else.”

Yesterday in class we tackled some tricky issues. Let’s go over them.

The Computer

Basically, you find out that the extremely expensive, extremely nice computer you use for schoolwork was stolen by your father from a family of poor hobos who worked for years to buy it. While one’s immediate reaction is to think your Dad is a huge jerk, you’re quickly faced with a dilemma: should you give back the computer you yourself need for an education back to its rightful owners? Messy, complicated, but it’s pretty obvious that it’d be only right to give it back.

(A brief note: They weren’t originally hobos. Just wanted to spice things up a bit)

Now let’s make things a little more difficult.

Native Americans

Or ‘injuns’, if you prefer. In any case, the state of Native Americans in the U.S. is not a pleasant one. Alcoholism and malnutrition in high rates, miserable lifestyles, blah blah blah. All pretty terrible, eh? And to make matters worse, the lands their forefathers owned were invaded a few hundred years ago by crazy white Europeans who don’t really want to give it back. But it’s technically their’s. And, hey, legal–or moral, at least–precendent: we gave the computer back. So… should we give America back? Hmm.

It’s a tough problem, and American Indians need help, but I don’t think we can just give back America. Why? Well… think of it like this. Instead of finding out that your Dad stole a computer from a poor family of hobos, think of it as your great-great-grandfather stole an (old timey) computer from the family of hobos’ great-great-grandfather. Would you then be inclined to give that computer to the hobos? It was wrongfully taken, but it’s not really like it’s there’s either. You’d really want to help the hobos, but you wouldn’t feel inclined to give them the computer.

In short, comparing the computer case to the problem of Native Americans is a false analogy. But don’t get me wrong; they’re still in a pretty bad situation. I can totally see myself giving lots of money some day to help support the remaining American Indians in the U.S. They need help and maybe I could give it.

NOW LET’S TURN IT UP TO ELEVEN

Israel

Oh man is this… controversial, to say the least. I can’t even begin to scratch the tip of this iceberg. It’s such a colossal mix of problems that even mentioning it is daunting. What do we do in a situation like this? Instinct might say that the Jews belong in their ancient home, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s been the home of Palestinians for 2000 years or so. But then the Arabs want to fight the Jews and the Jews want to fight back and conservative Christians want to support the Jews but then that just leads to a huge war between the West and the Middle East and people are dying and blah.

What do we do?

I really can’t believe I’m saying this, but honestly I think the answer is to ask… what Jesus would do. You heard me. If we’re in a moral dilemma, why not address the most moral guy around? And hey, it’s not like I have any idea what to do. So… what would he do?

Probably go around preaching the gospel and performing miracles. Hmm. Why don’t we do that? I mean, hey, that might be thought of avoiding the issue, but it’s just so convoluted that, for my limited fifteen year old brain, the answer is beyond reach. So, in other words, we should just carry on being Christians. Woop.

Those were just the moral dilemmas presented in class. Limited, specific. They aren’t the only ones out there. Tricky ethical situations spring up in this messed up world constantly. It’s rough. But maybe not so rough as one might immediately think. You can’t fix all the wrongs in the world, but the Bible at least tells us what is right and wrong. That’s a pretty darn good place to start. And even when the Bible won’t tell you whether or not to support Israel in the Middle East, it does tell you what to do. Live for Christ, love your neighbor, make disciples of all nations. You can’t know all of the solutions, but you can still try to do what’s best.

—*ollies outy

Perception

Yesterday was… interesting, to say the least.  We were confronted with the possibility that, in all likelihood, what we perceive and know about the gospel might be quite different than what we have been taught. That’s not to say that key doctrines are different (the trinity, redemption, salvation, etc.), it’s just that… what if Jesus’ focus was a little different than what we assume? Mr. Bryant discussed how Mary and Jesus talked much about the poor and the humble in important moments. As Americans, we are very likely neither poor or humble. Does that mean Jesus has forsaken us? I don’t think so. But will we approach what Jesus says a lot differently? Yes.

Here’s the thing: Cultural perception. It is, quite simply, the way we perceive things–such as the Bible–because of the certain culture we’re in. How often do you think we read things into the text? How often do you think we twist the words of the Bible in our own minds to suit how we think and feel about the world? Think about some tribal villagers in Africa. They are given the good word and receive it with joy… but they still worship their ancestors, they still visit witch doctors, whatever. Are we really so different from them? We assume because we go to church every Sunday that we know more about the Bible. And to an extent we do; we certainly would not worship other gods or go to witch doctors. But we still integrate our culture into the Bible. Who’s to say we don’t perceive it as wrongly as those tribal villagers, simply in a different way? They practiced syncretism, mixing the faith of Christ with other beliefs. What if we’re doing that, simply on a more sophisticated level? Instead of mixing beliefs in the supernatural, we’re mixing ideas about how the world works, what’s right and wrong, ideas and concepts.

This all came over me in a flash and I had a hard time thinking it through.

And yet… at the last moment, I did not despair. It’s not as if we are lost and alone: God has left his holy Word with us, and no matter what ‘cultural perception’ we possess that alters our thinking, the Word is still true. And if there’s anything worth clinging onto, it is that. Just don’t think you’re all knowing, don’t think that you ‘get’ the Bible, ‘get’ Jesus. If anything, the more you read, the more you pray, the more you come to know them… I believe the further you’ll realize you are from truly comprehending its wisdom and his glory.

 

Inferno

Guys. Hey, hey guys. Guess what we get to talk about today?

Hell.

There’s a sticky subject if you ever saw one, not to mention very mysterious and very scary. Some people might think it’s the place where bad people go. To some, it’s the one thing that scares them into being a Christian. To others, such as Dante, it’s creative inspiration. Some people might think that it’s Satan’s Kingdom, where he rules over the damned and prods them with his fiery pitchfork and generally gets up to a bunch of wickedness.

And then there’s the Bible.

There’s a ridiculous number of views on the afterlife, and a sizable number of them involve Hell . And we’re going to explore them.

Biblical

Before we try to get all interpretational and analytical, let’s just look at what the Bible literally says about it. While usually it’s referenced when someone says something to the effect of, “being or doing such and such means you will be thrown into Hell,” it’s still interesting to look at the names they use for it: the lake of fire, the place where worms do not die, Gehenna, etc. We covered in class the fact that Gehenna was a flaming garbage dump outside of Jerusalem where babies were sacrificed to Molech and the the sick would be sent to waste away. I’ve actually been there myself. While the lepers and cultists are no more, and it more or less appears like any other rocky, scrubby part of Israel, the message is clear. The Bible compares Hell to basically the worst possible place you can imagine for a reason.

Traditional

Traditional views were, of course, based on the Bible. Except they thought it was probably a literal place and, as always, a lot of mythological trappings were placed on it. Suddenly, it became a spooky red subterranean lair of Satan. All the same, people were pretty much agreed that it was the place bad people went to. But then…

Modern

Just recently (last century or so), people started to realize: hey, wait! Hell isn’t nice. But we like nice things! So they created a few different doctrines we now know as ANNIHILATIONISM and UNIVERSALISM. Since we’re going to focus on the former, let’s get the latter out of the way: basically, because God is infinitely just and infinitely loving, everyone will come around and come to Christ eventually. It’s a nice thought, right? And I don’t mean that sarcastically. Universalism sounds really, really cool. Everyone who ever lived on Earth, ever, rocking it out in God’s kingdom for eternity. There’s just some serious problems: never does the Bible seem to indicate that at all. In fact, the Bible seems to be pretty sure that unbelievers are really going to get punished. Hmm.

Annihilationism, on the other hand, is a little bit trickier. Instead of everyone going to heaven, annihilationism holds that after being punished for a while, the unrepentant person’s soul will be utterly destroyed. Yikes. It’s not as warm and fuzzy as universalism, but it still denigrates the concept of Hell to a sort of… hardcore purgatory, except you are incinerated instead of ascended after the ordeal is over.

Me

There’s a lot to take in here. Obviously, Annihilationism, and even more so Universalism, are very appealing. God desires all to be saved, right? So maybe they will! Huzzah! Except… real life isn’t that easy. And the Bible indicates that Hell is a very permanent state. But, you say, but! But what about pagans who never would have heard of God? What about the argument where people shouldn’t be punished forever for just a finite number of sins and stuff? And so and so on!

Well, I say this. I’m sticking with the Bible, and I think the Bible says that Hell is very real and very eternal. Deal with it. But on the other hand, I can’t just instantly dismiss these arguments. That the idea of an eternal punishment would go against God’s mercy is a possibility. It’s just that we can never know. And so… I shall remain true to what I believe the Bible says. Hell is real.

If you’ll run with my imagination for a moment, here’s a word picture: I get the feeling that Hell is more or less like real life. Except it’s a lot scummier, maybe, and a bit in shambles. The sky might be covered with dark clouds or something. Some demons flying around and feeding off of the damned, and the damned feeding off of them. And… there is no presence of God. There are no more consciences. There are no more morals. Hell and its inhabitants continue to decay in both body, mind, and soul. “A lot scummier” eventually becomes “totally possessed with filth”. “Shambles” eventually becomes “complete ruins”. The people eternally lust after and destroy each other, trying to kill themselves and everything around them but unable to because of the eternity of souls. They hate and rage against the God who they rejected for rejecting them, but they also rejoice in the fact that he is leaving them alone in their agonizing ecstasy.  They are both infinitely free from God and infinitely bound to sin, even as the saved are infinitely free from sin and infinitely bound to God. The fallen keep trying and trying to ease the pain, but only by trying to gorge and pleasure themselves, which in turn only destroys them further. Never once do they consider that love of each other and love of God is the way. If God even extended an offer to carry them to Heaven they would spit in his face. This existence is terrible, yes, but to submit to God and be clothed in white would be even more horrible to them. This continues for eternity, reducing what were once people to broken, bleeding husks only held together by undying hatred. They never heal, they never learn, they never repent.

That terrifies me more than any demonic pit.

Some might agree with that word picture, only to add that in one final act of mercy God destroys them all. I don’t believe so, but… there’s a certain degree of ‘we’ll just have to wait and see’ playing into here, at least for me.

Bottom line: A lot of people wonder how God could send us to a terrible place like Hell . What could we do to deserve that?

I’ll flip it around. How could God send such terrible, sinful people like us to an amazing place like Heaven. What could we do to deserve that?

Oh, and one last view on the subject…

Ronald Weasley

BLOODY HELL

First/Twenty First

Let’s go back in time for a moment; back to, as always, the time of Jesus and his disciples. We’ve talked a lot about them; the miracles, the demonic activity, their (to our eyes) strange educational practices, their customs, all this and more. It’s easy to tell that times back then were very different from our times today. Two thousand years can do that. It’s not entirely different: God still works miracles, demons are still active in the world, and, hopefully, we are still educated. But on the other hand, you rarely see wandering preachers facing down Legion, or turning water into wine, and we certainly aren’t educated as much in the Bible as the Jews were–which I must point out is probably not a good thing.

In any case, you can see that, although things persist throughout time, they definitely change in the way they operate, save the steadfast Lord himself. Here’s something: the church. How has that changed? Look at the beginning of the church. Jesus has just claimed himself as Lord and is fervently teaching the gospel to and through his disciples. He is killed, rises again, and… then what? The disciples just keep on preaching. And preaching. And preaching. Churches are planted all over the world. Centuries pass. Orthodoxy, Catholicism, the Reformation, all of these things happen. That is the background we’re coming from; our church is built on a foundation of literally millenia of teaching. But the background the disciples came out of was quite different. People thought they were just a Jewish sect.

Think of it like this. There is a very big difference between a newborn baby and a very elderly man, correct? Sure, they’re small, wrinkly, and can’t control their bladder but that doesn’t change the fact that the baby has experienced very little of life and the old man has has decades of it.

The early church is the baby, and the church today is the old man. Miraculously–and I mean miraculously–some of us (definitely not all) have managed to hold on to the core doctrines of the faith, but that doesn’t change the fact that we are, in many respects, completely different from the early church. The respective cultures we come out of, the millenia between us… it’s quite understandable that we’re a little different. Let’s take it a step further, though.

Are those differences a good thing?

Back in the good ol’ days (for lack of a better phrase), the early church did not consist of nominal, “Sunday Christians”. These were people who were giving their all: their time, effort, property, even life for the cause of Jesus Christ. How often do you see that today? How much could you expect a Christian today to even give their time towards Christ, much less effort, much less property, much less their very lives? And yet in the Church today, we are brought up in a comfortable environment where you’re suppose to go to church, do good things, and maybe even pay a tithe while you’re at it. Sure, Christianity is ridiculed by science and the media, but it’s still the largest religion is America and, despite its many similarities with Rome, being a Christian here is not the same sacrifice it was there.

But what about a relationship with Jesus Christ? What about a dedication to Jesus Christ? Kids are taught all sorts of lovely truths from the Bible, and indeed they are lovely. But they aren’t given deep theology to be able to defend their own faith, much less evangelize it, and so when they go to university they get shredded and abandon the church–if they weren’t already spiritually slain in high school.

The point is this. The church is very different from what it was, and a lot of those differences are bad. The next step seems obvious: how do we fix these problems?

I can’t really go into specifics. There are too many problems, I don’t know all of them, and I certainly wouldn’t know how to fix them. But I do know a great place to start: the Bible. As I’m sure you know, the Bible is God’s Word. And although that seems terribly vague to just say “go read the Bible, all your problems will be solved,” where else can we go? If we can bring the church today closer to what Jesus taught and the disciples lived, would that not be a blessed thing?

Join the Hive Mind

Join the hive mind. Become one with the collective. Featured times innumerable in science fiction; whether it’s aliens taking over your mind, robots ‘deprogramming’ you, or tyrannical overlords brainwashing their subjects. Submission and conformity are taught as something to fear. Originality and individuality are praised. And, in of themselves, that’s not particularly a bad thing. But what if it wasn’t space robots from the future? What if it was Jesus Christ and his church?

Now, we don’t have to give up our personalities. Our quirks. Our uniqueness. What makes us who we are. But ‘laying yourself at the cross’ isn’t just an empty phrase.

Let’s recap: in class we were taught about Julius Caesar, Augustus, and the ecclesia. About how Mark took pagan phrases heaped up around mortal men and gave them to the one who truly deserved them, Jesus. About how the church stands for a group of people who have been conquered; only this time, not conquered by the Roman Empire, but by the true emperor, Christ.

Okay then. So where do we go from there?

By giving up our souls to Christ, we admit him as our emperor, our overlord. We give away our rebellious desires and rampant urges to sin. Christ is now the focus, not us. We give up control. Jesus take the wheel, right? And while we won’t dissolve into some bizarre hive mind, maybe the whole “alien/space robot” analogy isn’t too far off–ignoring the ‘negative connotations’, to put it mildly.

Christ has saved us, but the price is freedom–if you can call it that. What if this collective, this bondage to Christ we’re entering… is true freedom? What if what we call freedom is actually bondage? To ourselves, to sin, to death.

Ta-da. There’s the gospel.

Okay, so by now, you’re saying: yeah, yeah, I get it. Get to the point, Mike. Well, the point is… so many people don’t get this. Jesus isn’t this little friend you keep in your heart. Jesus is your priest and king. And while I seriously doubt he’s going to suck out your brains, you still owe your soul to him. You give him the little you have, and he will give you all he has.

He has a lot, by the way.

Hitting the Road

So imagine Jesus stops by your house and tells you to leave behind your friends and family and life and follow him. Is your first inclination to go?

I doubt it.

Fortunately, that’s probably not going to happen. But it happened to the disciples. Put yourself in their sandals for a moment. And I shall do so as well.

So here’s Jesus calling me, saying that I have to come and follow him. How would I react to that? While my first thought is that I would just drop everything and go (It is Jesus, after all. How could you NOT go with Jesus?), I’d like to go a little deeper than that. Even if I just dropped what I was doing and went, would something hold me back? Even if I was there with him physically, would there be something in my old life that I would still be emotionally tied to, that I would yearn for?

Yes. Absolutely yes.

Probably the first thing that would come to anyone’s mind would be family, but for me… well, I guess that wouldn’t be such of a big deal, actually. Sure, I’d miss them, but I’m already kind of restless at home and the thought of just leaving them behind and roadtripping (with Jesus, no less) is actually really appealing to me. But there is some other stuff…

Like my dreams. And plans. I want to learn a bunch of instruments and write stories and learn how to draw and all sorts of sweet stuff. I don’t know if I could give that up. I’d like to think that I could, and even if I did leave it all behind when the time came… would I be able to leave it behind in my heart?

Well, anyway, odds are that Jesus won’t stop by and recruit me or you to go travel and spread the gospel with him. But that doesn’t change the fact that we need to get our priorities straight. If something exists that keeps you from focusing on Christ (whether he’s asking you to be a disciple of his or not; whether it’s a good thing or not), maybe you need to re-examine your life a little.

Kids

You’ve seen it a thousand times. In books, in video games, in movies, wherever. Sure, they might just be a kid or teenager, but they are also THE CHOSEN ONE(S). Going along with their dreary little lives, they are suddenly recruited by the local old wizard guy and then sent on a mysterious quest to defeat the empire/dragon/demon lord, or whatever.

Star Wars. Lord of the Rings. Eragon. Homestuck. Probably every young adult adventure novel ever and definitely every RPG ever. And it goes on. Even, unto, it seems, the Bible.

The disciples are the chosen ones. Jesus is the sagely one. And the big bad guy is quite obviously sin.

Now wait, you’re saying. What does this have to do with Eragon? Weren’t the disciples all holy saint people with big white beards? As pleasing as the mental image is, no. As we discussed in class, not many people lived past forty, and a recruitment age for discipleship was in the later teenage years. It’s actually quite likely that James (if my notes are right) was around 17 and John was even much younger, around ten.

So now you’re at the “so what?” stage. So what if John was ten? So what if James was 17? Well, think about it. If you’re reading this you’re probably between those two ages. Right now your (and my) biggest responsibilities in life are school and chores. These kids were out with Jesus spreading the gospel in a world that had never, ever heard it before.

Hmm. Can we say ‘productive teenage years’? It’s kind of shocking to us, but not so much back then. Society encourages people to push off growing up; to push off responsibility. We have whiny manchildren who live in their mom’s basements in their forties. Like I said before, back then, a lot of people didn’t even live that long.

So Jesus comes up to a group of kids and teenagers and twenty-somethings and tells them to follow him. Drop your jobs, your parents, everything. You are the chosen ones and you’ve got a very special quest.

Fast forward about two thousand years.

Now you’re the teenager. And Jesus is telling you to follow him. You’re the chosen one and you’ve got a very special quest.

>Accept?

A New Journey: Mark

Alright. When I sat down, I thought I was going to write this blog post the normal way. But then, suddenly, a miraculous idea rushed upon me… I will rap this. THE BEG- okay no, maybe some other time. I don’t think you all are prepared–emotionally, spiritually, ecumenically–for such a display of slam poetry. Anyway, I would still like to apologize for the complete lack of blog posts recently–specifically, I was totally sick two weeks ago, and come to think of it, in the Hospital on Tuesday. Then last week posts were off, of course. THE POINT IS… we have now started the New Testament. Huzzah. A new journey, eh? So let’s go through Mark 1, shall we? (Or, at the very least, the first part of Mark 1)

Personally speaking I think this is a great way to start out the gospel. I mean, I know, I know, the NT starts with Matthew, but Mark is pretty much a restarting of that story. And I think it’s pretty brilliant. In the first few passages, we see: a passage out of Isaiah (connecting it to the Old Testament), confession, baptism, temptation, Satan, the Holy Spirit, Jesus, God the Father, all sorts of really important stuff.

Really important. Notice those last three I mentioned there: the Holy Spirit, Jesus, and God the Father. Right from the get go, we are presented with the very foundation of the Bible, of existence: the Trinity. We see them all together: Jesus, baptized; the Holy Spirit coming down like a dove and filling him; and finally, God the Father, blessing him from Heaven.

That’s how we begin. Let’s see how we end.