Random Acts of Verbiage

I just realized that last Wednesday, May 19th, was the 6th anniversary of starting my blog! Hard to believe it was that long ago that I started letting my thoughts explode into 1s and 0s on teh interwebs. For good or bad, you’ve got 6 years of my inane verbiage for you to ingest, I wonder how long I will keep this up. My first post, which is largely devoid of content: Why am I here? and another post because I was recently asked about my thoughts on the issue: Sex sex sex!

Related to that, does anyone have any thoughts or opinions about posts such as that one on such a public forum that anyone could see (like employers or even students!)? It is a fine line and it is always hard to know how much to share on the interwebs. I know some think things should be completely private, others think we should be completely free to share our voices. Comments? Thoughts?

All Saints Church – Bill Berger
Hebrews 12:28-19:9
Message Notes

“The next best thing to being wise oneself is to live in a circle of those who are.” -C.S. Lewis

One of our church values: Authentic Community – Believe, doubt, seek. All on the journey together.

The importance of community: cf 12.28-29: the consuming fire of God’s presence in community with the Trinity. But we make ourselves the center. But all the things that give us joy will still be lacking, but point to the Ultimate.

To worship God acceptably… vs 13.1-4. Through the messiness of authentic community, no longer through ritual. We want to be a church about magnets. We are all nerdy, all of, but we come together on this journey and welcome anyone to join along. We should be a mission disguised as a church. Jesus built a community that was rich and deep. You don’t become part of a community by just showing up, you become part of community by becoming deeply involved.

The intensity of community: Love each other as family. Unconditional commitment to one another. There is a bond of obligation between family. In this radical understanding of community is a transparency and bond between family. Family is the single most shaping experience of your life. We are the product of the family we were raised in. We come from (who we are) the community we were raised in. In a family we are connecting at multiple points. Sharing teaching or coffee etc AT church doesn’t mean you have become part of a radical community, that takes effort. It is sharing life, more than just being part of a club. It is radical to live in this community, but it is hard: it takes accountability and openness. Wisdom and discernment is also a necessary part of it too.

The openness of community: Need both open and intense. Vs 1-2: commitment not just to family, but to strangers too. Welcome in people you would oterwise be suspicious of. Giving to those who cannot give anything back, to someone that we cannot get anything from. Vs 3-4: social justice and sexual purity – interesting combination. We live in a radically selfish society… willing to have sex with others outside of the community relationship, we are putting our selfishness above community. Same with money, radical transformation to become unselfish but to truly take part in community. Have to be willing to be marked as part of that radical community.

The power to create this community: vs 5: free from the love of money because God will not leave or forsake us. We are engaged in behaviors or desires that are unhealthy and painful for us… all those things will foresake us, but God will not. Even our closest relationships will break, people cannot handle the weight of our expectations or conditions, they will break. So our identity cannot be defined by those things. We need something more stable. How can we really know that we can have radical community? We go to the Cross, Jesus was foresaken so we don’t have to be any more. He is with us always because of His actions on the Cross. Authentic community is messy.

5 Radical Acts of Urban Hospality
1) open your home to people in your apt
2) Invite some to church and take them to lunch
3) Participate or lead a life group
4) volunteer
5) Care for the poor, the stranger

I posted this two years ago and recently stumbled across it. I like it so thought I would repost it.

Summarize your life in a six word memoir, with optional photo illustration.

My answer:

Happiness is only real when shared.

-Chris McCandless

It is truly tragedy that Chris didn’t figure that out until it was too late.

I’ve finally had the chance to start reading Justification: God’s Plan & Paul’s Vision, N.T. Wright‘s response to critics of The New Perspective on Paul with specific discussion of Piper’s The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright. I’m sure I will have comments about the book at a later time (I do definitely fall into Wright’s camp when it comes to placing Paul and his theology firmly rooted in 1st century exilic Judaism), but right now I wanted to share what he had to say in the book’s introduction about blogging. His comments are both insightful and important reminders to those of us who interact in the blogosphere and call ourselves Christians.

It really is high time we developed a Christian ethic of blogging. Bad temper is bad temper even in the apparent privacy of your own hard drive, and harsh and unjust words, when released into the wild, rampage around and do real damage. And as for the practice of saying mean and untrue things while hiding behind a pseudonym – well, if I get a letter like that it goes straight in the bin. But the cyberspace equivalents of road rage doesn’t happen by accident. People who type vicious, angry, slanderous and inaccurate accusations do so because they feel their worldview to be under attack. Yes, I have pastoral concern for such people. (And, for that matter, a pastoral concern for anyone who spends more than a few minutes a day taking part in blogsite discussion, especially when they all use code names: was it for this that the creator God made human beings?) But sometimes worldviews have to be shaken. They may become idolatrous and self-serving. And I fear that the has happened, and continues to happen, even in well-regulated, shiny Christian contexts – including, of course, my own.

I hope you aren’t offended by the mouse hover/caption to the xkcd comic, but I found it particularly appropriate for Wright’s comments. In any discussion we have with people we run the risk of our hubris taking over. Humility is crucial and necessary. We should always presume positive intent of those in discussion and we should always write and speak with positive intent. It’s a good rule of thumb.

All Saints Church – Bill Berger – Hebrews 12:18-29

This section is about us living the unshakable life, the life we want, the life that we would go to the self-help section for. We are looking for stability.

The Shakable Life: v18-21. Fundamental spiritual approach to life: with our worldview, how do we deal with things? “I tried my best…” That is how we generally face life and how we go through things. Or have we tried our best? “Do unto others…” Have we ever actually spent a day trying to meet the needs of others? Tried to put ourselves in their shoes? We are all failing. Moses introduced a world view for a God way of living: but it shook them! Not the God experience they were looking for. Why is it so earthquake-y to get near God? If we build our lives around specific traits (like being smart or having money or having a significant other), our world can crash when others are better. These things fall apart in the presence of God; our true selves our revealed, it gets uncomforatable. It is untenable to live in this way. Meltdown is inevitable.

The Unshakable Life: But… there is another way to live. v22: Mt Zion. Earthly vs. Heavenly city. I advance myself by using others. City based on power vs. Peace. Principle understanding is my life to serve you. What if we lived in a way that said me second, everyone else first? What would that look like? We can live part of that city, we can live as citizens of that city right now. We are told that if we live for God’s will we won’t be happy (what if he doesn’t want me to be rich?). We are holding on too tight, we need to let go. There is a reality and an ocean of joy out there for us. For us to do what He tells us, that is joy and happiness.

How to receive the Unshakable Life: Cf Luke 10: Go out, heal, pray, cast out. The disciples come back excited, but Jesus tells they are excited about the wrong things: not the achievements, do not build our reality on things that are shakable, but around Christ. Your identity is not wrapped up in the fact that we are broken. It has to go back to the cross of Christ, that is the final shake-up. The ultimate judge came down to be judged and was shaken so we could be unshaken. ALL relationships can be shaken (so don’t build our identity on them) because they are incomplete and point to the unshaken relationship that was created on the cross.

This business with Comedy Central, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and censorship is completely ridiculous. I won’t discuss the whole thing, Powerline has up a post, Bleeping Muhammad, that has some great things to read. I want to comment on two things: 1) how cowardly Comedy Central is, and 2) the Muslim double standard.

In an age where people over use “Freedom of speech” to mean they can say whatever they want, it is surprising how quickly Comedy Central folded. I am glad that in the US we do have freedom to say what we want (while I do think many take that freedom too far), and usually media giants love to tout their freedoms. But under a little pressure Comedy Central couldn’t uphold that freedom any more. What is the most sickening is not even that they would censor parts poking fun at Muhammad, but that they censored a speech about standing up to intimidation and fear. What is that crap? That speech is exactly the thing that I would want my students (many of whom I KNOW watch South Park) to hear. The irony is ripe: Comedy Central is intimidated so they censor a speech about fighting against intimidation? Lovely.

The reason Comedy Central caved is because of a glaring double standard. Mock Christians and Jesus all you want, but Muhammad and Islam are off limits. What bunk. Imagine a Christian objecting (even threatening life) to someone mocking Jesus. They wouldn’t be taken seriously at all; no one would care. Could you ever imagine Comedy Central censoring jokes about Jesus of Christians? I wouldn’t think so because they don’t and they mock all the time. Why is this double standard allowed to persist? Christians have to just deal with mockery (which I am fine with, God can handle it), but Muslims can just cry “You’re being mean!” and suggest someone might go the way of Theo Van Gogh and Muhammad becomes untouchable. Ridiculous.

Go read Powerline’s post as well as Newsbuster’s “Jon Stewart Notes Blatant Double Standard on ‘South Park’ Mohammed Censorship” and Mark Steyn’s “Not Too ‘Hip’ and ‘Edgy’ for Censorship”. And if you were so inclined, you could take part in the Everybody Draw Mohammad Day on May 20th.