Tag: Christ

In Judas we see our need for community

The Last Supper
The Last Supper | Via Wikicommons

Judas carried with him into that field the burden of not receiving God’s grace because he was removed from the community in which he could hear it. In Judas’ ears there never was placed a word of grace. And let me tell you. …that’s not something the sinner can create for him or herself. – Nadia Bolz-Weber’s sermon on Judas

She continues…

We cannot in our isolation manufacture the beautiful radical grace that flows from the heart of God to God’s broken and blessed humanity. As human beings there are a lot of things that we can create for ourselves. Entertainment, stories, pain, toothpaste. We cannot create the thing that frees us from the bondage of self the thing the frees us from the shackles of sin and death and the guilt of all of it. We cannot create for ourselves the word of God. We must tell it to each other. You cannot as it was said of Judas “turn aside and go to your own place” of meditation or yoga or your own place of resentment and anger or your own place of voluntary simplicity or even prayer and create the proclamation of God’s grace. That’s why we have community. So that we can stand together under the cross and point to the Gospel. And it takes a good sinner to really get the gospel; which Bonhoeffer says is frankly hard for the pious to understand. Because this grace confronts us with the truth saying: You are a sinner, a great, desperate sinner, now come as the sinner you are to a God who loves you. God wants you as you are; God does not want anything from you; a sacrifice, a work. God wants you alone.

Nobody said this to Judas.

How would that early Christian community have been different if Judas had received forgiveness as the rest of them had. Again and again Jesus had said they should preach forgiveness of sins in his name. I mean, it was forgiveness of sin that got Jesus in trouble with the pious folks. He was pretty serious about the whole thing – mentioned it all the time even.

Maybe Judas was destined to betray Jesus. Maybe it all had to go down just like it did. And maybe Judas chose death too soon. Maybe he didn’t avail himself of the means of God’s grace…. But maybe his community never sought him out and offered. Maybe extending the Word of God’s forgiveness to Judas was simply too painful for them. Maybe it was easier for Judas to be the identified problem in the family. Certainly would have been tempting to me. Judas is the traitor…not us. We need a villain so that we don’t have to sit in the awkward and discomforting reality that it is actually all of us. Maybe his community failed him….

Read the entire sermon.

What do you think?

Did the community fail Judas? Or was he simply beyond redemption?

Perhaps the greater question…. Who in your community are you failing?

Listen to Nadia’s story on this week’s episode of the something beautiful podcast.

Christ-branded consumption

Researchers are not able to differentiate the behaviours and values of self-identified Christians from non-Christians with on exception — what they buy. As total sales of religious products reaches $7 billion annually, it appears that God’s people are constructing and expressing their identity through the consumption of Christ-branded products. As Mark Riddle observes, “Conversion in the U.S. seems to mean we’ve exchanged some of our shopping at Wal-Mart, Blockbuster and Borders for the Christian Bookstore down the street. We’ve taken our lack of purchasing control to God’s store, where we buy or office supplies in Jesus’ name.”

– Skye Jethani The Divine Commodity

What do you think?

one.love

one.love

one.love Originally uploaded by dirtChurch.

Tomorrow is inauguration day. Many of my friends are really excited about Obama’s presidency. I’ll admit, I’m looking forward to seeing what happens over the next four years as well — but I hope I don’t forget where our real hope should be placed.

Anyways… what do you think?

Just a heads up…

I’m really hoping to get other folks in my family/tribe/elsewhere on the “don’t buy me a Christmas gift this year” bandwagon – primarily because there’s really nothing I need. Sure I could come up with a list of really cool gadgets I might want – but is it really necessary? Couldn’t so much more be done with that money?

Find out more at :: adventconspiracy.org and rethinkingchristmas.com
(HT: Shaun Groves)

Re: Dominion over all

Ok. Just so you know, I finished reading the article and I can say I agree with most of what the author said. Although I don’t think homeschooling is the only way this “bottom-up” philosophy can take place – I think “bottom-up” is the way we should be making change in our world.

Calling it dominion is a huge turn off to me, but changing the world through our own personal actions and faith and not by legislation is what I’m totally about.

It’s impossible to expect that a culture that’s been in meltdown mode for over a century can be rescued by some kind of miraculous, overnight, 51% to 49%, “top-down,” legislative acts that might hopefully force the country move “our way.”…
Our national mindset of “government as eternal safety-net” is too dead set against it. Besides, even though almost all legislation deals with matters of right and wrong, the kind of restored morality we’d like to see simply can’t be legislated. Laws alone can’t force people to “be good;” only Christ and adherence to His moral standards can do that.

AMEN! The author goes on to say that while some of these homeschooled, “Christian Soldier Repairmen” will become elected officials, they can still have an affect through their lives, regardless of what laws are in place.

…the bottom-up principle still retains a powerful place in the halls of government because the lives of young Christians seeking to become lawmakers are always under the critical magnifying glass and microscope of public opinion. So, whether in pre-candidate mode as a next door neighbor or ultimately as a respected regional representative, exemplary behavior will serve as a life-style model as to what truly good governors and governments (minimal, freedom oriented and Bible-based) are supposed to be about. This “bottom-up-ness” will be especially vivid as Christian officials make their Bible-based moral compass and biblical worldview principles explicit through the quality of their legislation and their public speeches and writings. They’ll also be making a difference by direct impact on the personal lives of their fellow office holders, and the same as it relates to ever-skeptical cynics in the humanist media.

I think he’s painting too broad of a paint stroke here with the “humanist media” but I understand his point. No matter where we are, as elected officials, as road workers, as bankers, as members of the main stream media, or even as bloggers or members of the non-so-main stream media, we should be having a positive influence on those around us.

This huge army of fully engaged adults will, daily, be influencing their fellow workers through winsome friendship evangelism as well as by bringing character, integrity, good example and product-advancing, employer-pleasing breakthroughs to their jobs.

YES! “Work not as unto man, but as unto the Lord.”

Sure, the bottom-up philosophy is a tall order, but, by thinking in terms of one voter, one new office holder, one new group of friends at work, one new child being taught at home by God’s people, it won’t be long before millions will have observed and become convinced, voluntarily, that the way of the Lord is the better way.

It takes one person standing up for Christ to make a difference. And that one person tells another one, who tells another one, who tells another one, until everyone is convinced, voluntarily, that the Lord is the better way.

And to answer my previous questions – Jesus didn’t call His disciples to take on political office, or mass protests, or fighting back against authority because His way was/is different. He called His disciples to make changes one on one and to change hearts, not laws.

Colossians 2:6-23

6-7 My counsel for you is simple and straightforward: Just go ahead with what you’ve been given. You received Christ Jesus, the Master; now live him. You’re deeply rooted in him. You’re well constructed upon him. You know your way around the faith. Now do what you’ve been taught. School’s out; quit studying the subject and start living it! And let your living spill over into thanksgiving.
8-10 Watch out for people who try to dazzle you with big words and intellectual double-talk. They want to drag you off into endless arguments that never amount to anything. They spread their ideas through the empty traditions of human beings and the empty superstitions of spirit beings. But that’s not the way of Christ. Everything of God gets expressed in him, so you can see and hear him clearly. You don’t need a telescope, a microscope, or a horoscope to realize the fullness of Christ, and the emptiness of the universe without him. When you come to him, that fullness comes together for you, too. His power extends over everything.
11-15 Entering into this fullness is not something you figure out or achieve. It’s not a matter of being circumcised or keeping a long list of laws. No, you’re already in—insiders—not through some secretive initiation rite but rather through what Christ has already gone through for you, destroying the power of sin. If it’s an initiation ritual you’re after, you’ve already been through it by submitting to baptism. Going under the water was a burial of your old life; coming up out of it was a resurrection, God raising you from the dead as he did Christ. When you were stuck in your old sin-dead life, you were incapable of responding to God. God brought you alive—right along with Christ! Think of it! All sins forgiven, the slate wiped clean, that old arrest warrant canceled and nailed to Christ’s cross. He stripped all the spiritual tyrants in the universe of their sham authority at the Cross and marched them naked through the streets.
16-17 So don’t put up with anyone pressuring you in details of diet, worship services, or holy days. All those things are mere shadows cast before what was to come; the substance is Christ.
18-19 Don’t tolerate people who try to run your life, ordering you to bow and scrape, insisting that you join their obsession with angels and that you seek out visions. They’re a lot of hot air, that’s all they are. They’re completely out of touch with the source of life, Christ, who puts us together in one piece, whose very breath and blood flow through us. He is the Head and we are the body. We can grow up healthy in God only as he nourishes us.
20-23 So, then, if with Christ you’ve put all that pretentious and infantile religion behind you, why do you let yourselves be bullied by it? “Don’t touch this! Don’t taste that! Don’t go near this!” Do you think things that are here today and gone tomorrow are worth that kind of attention? Such things sound impressive if said in a deep enough voice. They even give the illusion of being pious and humble and ascetic. But they’re just another way of showing off, making yourselves look important.