Southmoon & A Cup of Java

Many things have shaped what I think about God over the years.  Maybe I should restate that.  Many things have shaped not only what I think about God, but how I think about God.

It’s been many years ago since I learned the traits of God.  Omniscient (all knowing) Omnipresent (everywhere at once) Omnipotent (all powerful) Omni-benevolent (all loving).   There are other groupings of the traits or attributes of God but these are the ones I encountered in my earliest serious study of the Bible and efforts to come to know God better.

In recent times I have come to discover that a pursuit of understanding God demands a shift in not only what we think but how we think of God.  The “O’s” of God aforementioned are helpful as kind of categorizing of God’s attributes but come up short in allowing us to pursue a deeper relationship with God.

So I am going to throw out a few ideas which have helped me to come to think of God in different and hopefully, deeper ways.  If you are on a quest to a deeper relationship with God, I invite you to consider these ideas and add a few of your own.

How has God revealed himself to you the past 6 months?  What tragedies and triumphs have you experienced?  I want to be quick to point out that it is quite common to lose God amidst extreme life events.  Whether you’ve had triumph or tragedy, it can sometimes take a while for God to reappear after such experiences.  Actually God has been there all along, we just lose him in the fog of extremely challenging experiences.  In your reflection of these experiences, there should be some vivid and concrete things you observed about God as you made your way though these events.   Take some time to  write down what you learned, how you felt, what you thought.  Not only will journaling these things help you right now but you can reflect on these ideas later as a path to continued growth and understanding.

Secondly, if we want to know God at a deeper level, we must be willing to allow for a deeper penetration of his presence into our lives.  C.S. Lewis wrote that prior to his conversion, one of the greatest hindrances to allowing himself to believe in God was his aversion to interference in managing his life for himself.  He realized that as he came to know and accept God he would be giving up ownership of directing his affairs simply based upon what he wanted.  Atheism, according to Lewis, left him free to be left alone to his own selfish plans and purposes.  As believers, we sometimes continue in this resistance to God’s interference in our lives.  Then ironically, we complain that when we experience an extremely challenging life experience, we ask, “where was God in all this?”  What have you been doing either consciously or unconsciously to keep God at the perimeters?

Thirdly, we must allow God to transform our character, our attitudes and our conduct if he is to be recognizable as a presence in our life.  When we perform a benevolent and selfless act on the behalf of someone else, we mirror the character of God.  When we see the reflection of God in our own actions, God becomes more real, more concrete and evident.  Genesis 1:1 opens Bible’s revealing of the nature of God with these words-  “In the beginning God created….”  From the start we are given the insight that God is doing something.  He is working for the benefit for all creation.  If we want to understand God better, we must be willing to do what he does.  Create, invest, engage yourself in doing something for the betterment of Creation.  In doing so, you will come to understand God in fresh new ways.

I’ll leave these ideas with you to mull over and expand upon.  I would love to hear from you about your ideas and insights.  Notably absent from the ideas I have shared are the components of prayer, scripture reading, fasting and other spiritual disciplines.  There is much to be explored.

I think it was J.I. Packer who once said, it is part of the nature of man to seek God…..it is the nature of God to be findable.

Of all the portraits of Jesus, the metaphor of light, is to me, the most intriguing.   Much like the three faceted, “way, truth, life” metaphor of John 14, the idea of Jesus as light is conceptual.  It communicates a different idea than the physical metaphors like shepherd, vine, Great Physician or lamb of God.

Thinking of Jesus as light seems almost “new-agey”.   But there is more to this than Jesus being some sort of energy form.  In a moment we will say more about what it means that Jesus is the Light.  The apostle John is particularly fond of the idea of light.  He uses the term in his prologue in John 1: 4-9.   His fondness of the term gets re-introduced  in the famous  “God is life, God is light, God is love”  trifecta in his epistles, noted particularly 1 John 1.

There is another place in John’s writings where I recently discovered the idea of Jesus as light in an even more profound way than I had previously noticed.  It is in John 3 in the conversation and narrative regarding Nicodemus.  Usually when I visit John chapter three,  I focus on the “born again” idea.  It certainly is a prominent and significant theme in the discussion between Jesus and Nicodemus.  I won’t try to diminish this for one moment as I think the text clearly features this as the metaphor which Jesus chooses to underpin his important discussion with Nicodemus, the member of the Jewish ruling council.

As their discussion continues through verse 15, it is difficult to determine whether the content of verses 16-21 is the extended dialogue of that conversation or if it is an element of John’s inspired editorial work as he organizes his material.   Scholars themselves seem to have a variety of views on this as well.  Since I view John’s work as guided by the Holy Spirit, it matters little to me which choice one makes.  There is something important which comes to view as we keep this material linked to the earlier part of the Nicodemus exchange.

My point is to draw attention to the summation of this section and what is featured in verses 19-21 in particular:

“This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil..  Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.  But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.”  (NIV)

Notice the opening phrase:  “This is the verdict….”  The language here would have been of particular interest to Nicodemus.   Recall that he is a part of the Jewish ruling council.  It is their duty to hear arguments, to view evidence, and to consider testimony as a pre-requisite to their judgments.

The phrase: “This is the verdict….” is a way of saying, this is what we have been getting at.  This is the outcome of our consideration.   In some translations, the term “judgment” is used here.  It is the Greek word, “Krisis” and yes, the etymology of our English word, “crisis” is connected.   To use this term to introduce the next part of the discourse is to telegraph that what follows is of utmost importance.   It is the pronouncement which carries enormous importance to what has preceded it.  We’ve all seen enough courtroom scenes in movies to know that when the judge is told,  “we have a verdict, your honor”,  the whole courtroom waits in baited breath until the verdict is read.   At that moment we are at the point of crisis, the unveiling of what everything has been pointing to until now.

So what follows the phrase in John 3:19?  “Light has come into the world….”  To appreciate what is being said here it is helpful to know that John’s use of light generally points to the idea of illumination of what is real and true.  It means the unveiling, the revealing.  This is in contrast to the idea sometimes attached to light as a metaphor for goodness as contrasted with darkness as a metaphor for evil.  This is not to say that sometimes light and darkness are used in this way but in John’s use, the word light indicates that which allows us to see the world as it really is.

Have you ever walked through a darkened room at night with only shadowy images of your surroundings?   You can negotiate through a darkened room but the chances of encountering the corner of a coffee table or stepping on a sharp object is a greater risk than when the lights are turned up.  Enlightenment allows us to know what the next step should be.  It instructs on what paths are to be avoided and which paths are to be taken.

Jesus appears on the scene in the gospels as one who helps people see the world in full light.  Shadowy corners are seen in full light and we realize how many false assumptions we have had about the realities of our environment.   John’s text instructs us that darkness is loved because people generally don’t desire to be shown that we have constructed our own reality, and have gotten pretty comfortable in our darkened version of reality.  It is precisely this that John refers to as evil.

Even though the religious officials had the law of God to instruct them, they were interpreting it as in a darkened room.

There’s more we could say about the darkness/light idea here in John 3 but let’s take a look at another passage in John’s gospel where the idea comes up again.

In John chapter 7 from verse 45 we encounter a scene where the identity of Jesus is being debated.  The chief priests and Pharisees are critical of the temple guards for having let Jesus slip away.   In the middle of this discussion in verse 52 we encounter Nicodemus once again.  John takes the time to remind us that he is the same one spoken of earlier in his gospel.  Nicodemus has obviously been contemplating his earlier conversation with Jesus as he asks his peers:  “Does our law condemn anyone without first hearing him to find out what he is doing?”  (Jn. 7:51)   In this question Nicodemus is revealing that he is not ready to deliver a verdict on Jesus.  He takes some heat from his peers for his insistence that there may yet be presented evidence that will show Jesus to be who he says he is.

Many Bibles will have a note in the margin which states that there is a question about the material of John 7: 53- 8:11.  The question concerns the fact that this material is not found in the earliest and most reliable manuscripts.  This can mean that either it was not part of John’s original material or that it may be of authentic Johannine origin but placed incorrectly.  Let’s consider the second of the choices and see what this does to the flow of the narrative and what themes get linked together.

If we read 7: 50-52 then move to 8: 12ff we would observe, linked to this Nicodemus dialogue once again, the metaphor of light.  For in verse 12 we observe Jesus saying,  “…..I am the light of the world.  Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Just as Jesus’ earlier discourse with Nicodemus came down to the verdict statement: “Light has come into the world” (John 3:19)….we have here, the summation of the discussion converging on the idea of Jesus as light.

It seems clear to me that in both cases, Jesus is showcasing the idea that mankind will live in a vague shadowy understanding of his world until he views the world in the Light.  That is, unless we form a world view with Jesus as centermost reality, we are living in shadows, even darkness.  We are like blind men if we try to live without this light.  We will get tripped up and crash into things continually unless we choose to live under the light, Jesus.  Walking in darkness will set us up for painful surprises, bumps in the night that disrupt, discourage and disappoint.  Living in darkness brings constant confusion and false expectations.  Light and life are inseparable concepts abundantly supplied in Jesus.

It is exhilarating to observe the continuation of the story of Nicodemus as we next encounter him in John 19:39.  After the death of Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea asks Pilate for permission to take the body of Jesus to the tomb.  The text says, “he was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night…”

The verdict, it seems, is finally in for Nicodemus of the Jewish ruling council.   And the verdict is…..

Jesus is the Light.

In my recent sermon series titled Portraits of the Christ, I have found delight in viewing afresh some of the characterizations of Jesus in the Gospels.  In a recent excursion in the Gospel of John, I encountered again the oft explored metaphor of the 15^th chapter where Jesus proclaims himself “the Vine”.   He claims, in fact, that he is the “true vine”.

Jesus is drawing upon a familiar term here.  He fully understands that his Jewish comrades have long been familiar with the term, “vine” as descriptive of God’s people.  He is, in fact, aware that the term is used to describe the unfaithfulness of Israel in several Old Testament texts.  Ezekiel 15: 1-10, Jeremiah 2:21 and Hosea 10:1 are representative of such Old Testament usages.

The vine is recognized by Israel as a graphic image of God’s view of his people and his desire to bring about His divine agenda for the world through them as His people.   The vine is featured prominently over the doors of synagogues, on coins and other artistic representations of Jesus’ day.

When Jesus speaks to his disciples, and proclaims himself the “true vine”, they might have been intrigued by the metaphor but they most certainly would not have been confused by the term.

He establishes his theme clearly in John 15:5 as he exclaims:  “I am the vine; you are the branches  If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”

We, his branches are attached to the vine.  If we as disciples  are to remain alive we must maintain our connection to the life source.  This is especially evident in the New International Version where the word “remain” is used 11 times in verses 1-17.  At every turn, we are reminded that we must stay connected.

The clear idea here is that the disciples remain true to the agenda of the “true vine”.

So what is this true agenda? 

It is found in the new command of v. 17.  “Love one another”.    This is an echo of chapter 13:34 where the exhortation to love one another is expressed as the criteria by which all men will know we are his disciples.  The sweeping transformation of bringing heaven’s agenda to earth will only be sustainable if there is commitment and consistency made possible only in love.  Real, honest to goodness, I’ll never give up….love.

His model prayer had made the plea:   “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven…”   This “heaven on earth work” will only be sustained by people who love.

One more word about vines.  If you’ve ever been around vines, you know that vines are invasive and aggressive.  The tendrils of a vine grip and find a growing place and will cover a surface completely in time.

Jesus, the true vine, is not about finding one little special place in your life to hide out.  Jesus wants to envelope you and cover you and dominate your world view.  He wants to have a say in your behaviors, your language, your thinking and your actions.  He desires to make us love like he loves, with an insatiable, “I will die for you” love.  He calls his disciples to love the world like he loves the world.  He is calling us to bring about transformation of this world by loving enough to serve, sacrifice and restore things to God’s original order.

This is the work of God.  It has always been His work.  He calls us to join Him.  To remain in Him.  To participate in His divine agenda.  God’s Holy Spirit will empower and accompany us in this great work.

In this, we  find……. not just challenge…….but joy.

I’ve always had a fondness for Daniel.

I recently revisited the prophet’s story and was once again impressed by a man of devotion, determination and discipline.  His name means “God is My Judge”.   He clearly lived up to his name.  It didn’t seem to matter what others thought of his actions and his resolve.  When God is your judge, you care little of what others may think or how they may judge you.  Hence, the first important lesson learned from Daniel is in just contemplating the meaning of his name.  The court narratives in Chapters 1-6 are thrilling to be sure, but they will mean far more if you stop for a moment and meditate a bit over the phrase, “God is my judge.”

As you likely know, Daniel is one of a multitude of Jews who are exported to Babylon around 586 B.C. as a result of the conquest of Nebuchadnezzar.  He is most closely associated with his three friends and fellow Jews, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah.

They are unfortunately known better by their Babylonian names, “Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego”.  I say unfortunate, because I think we show them greater honor if we refer to them by their Jewish names.  Each of their Jewish names refers to an aspect of God, whereas their Babylonian names refer to astrological terms or other pagan references.  I’m kind of thinking it was their faith in God at work which left them un-parched after their ordeal in fire.  If the media had got an exclusive on this story, I think the three would have identified themselves and Hananiah, (Yah has been gracious) Meshial (Who is what God is?)  and Azariah (Yah has helped).

When I teach the lesson of the firey furnace to young people, I take great pleasure in asking the trick question, “what are the names of the three Jewish lads who were cast into the furnace of fire?”   The kids always give the Babylonian names and I say, “Wrong!”.   They look back at their Bibles and get a bit perturbed as I insist that their answer is wrong.  When I tell them the correct answer is Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, they groan and complain and insist I am just being a smart aleck…..which, of course…..I am.  But they don’t miss the point.

One’s identity is better attached to God and our having been made in His image, than any other identity the world might dole out to us.

As I poured over the Daniel epic I pondered over how difficult it must have been for those exiles to look over their shoulders as they were led from their beloved Jerusalem.  As they exited they would have been aware that the temple was being ransacked, their sacred place of worship pillaged and plundered.  Fire and smoke rose from God’s holy temple.  For Daniel and company, it would have been their “9/11″.  This would be their day of infamy.  They were leaving the land of their Father in a journey to a distant land.

Contemplating this story anew, I thought of a comparison between Daniel and the Prodigal Son of Luke 15.  Each is a story about a young man going to a distant country.  One is removed by force and his God and holy Father accompanies him.  In the other story, the son of Luke 15 leaves his Father by his own choice and wastes his inheritance caring little of his Father’s agenda.  He is in the far-away land to live for himself.  He judges for himself what matters and what matters not.  For Daniel, God is his judge. The holy life he pursues is not in a temple made with hands but in a place in his heart occupied only by God.  He never leaves God, and God never leaves him.

In the prodigal story, the son comes to himself, returns to his senses and journeys home.  The Father, waiting and watching, sees him a long way off, runs, embraces and welcomes the son home.  Fatted calf, ring and robe reveal to us the enormity of what was lost and is now found.  No grander story is in the whole of scripture.  In my estimation, it is the meta-narrative of God’s divine agenda.

Now, back to Daniel.  He knows God is Judge.  Everything Daniel does is under that banner.  As far as we know, Daniel never returns to the land of his people.  In Ezra and Nehemiah we are thrilled to see the exiles return, but no mention of Daniel.  Various traditions lean toward Daniel having been buried in Babylon, modern day Iraq.  In that sense, he never returns home.  But Daniel’s home seems to be not so much in the holy hill of Jerusalem as it is in the holy heart of God.  His place with God is not determined by zip code, region or proximity to a sacred landscape.  He never left God and God never left him. 

Many have rightly observed that the central message of the book of Daniel is the sovereignty of God.  God is over all.  Daniel understood this as well as anyone else in all of scripture.  Before Daniel is done, he unfolds in dramatic fashion how God will be there when kingdoms come and kingdoms go.  He explains in visions and interpretation how a kingdom will come and conduct heaven’s business on earth.  It’s heady exciting stuff.  If you haven’t read Daniel in a while, treat yourself to a story who has a true hero at its center.  A man for whom only God is judge.

In a few hours Deb and I will be going over to the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh campus to speak to a group of students about healthy relationships.   The meeting is sponsored by His House Campus Ministries and I cherish the opportunity to be a part of the event.

Deb and I will seek to share a few things we’ve learned…and are still learning….about relationships.  Being that it is Valentine’s day, we have been asked to speak a little about marriage and husband/wife dynamics as relates to the greater context of healthy relationships in general.  I’m looking forward to exploring with these young adults in this great and challenging theme.

As I was preparing my thoughts it occurred to me just how many of my favorite passages are grounded in the relational.    This is, of course, not a rocket science observation, as the Bible is a book about relationships from cover to cover.  We have a tendency to make it about commandments, thou shalts and thou shalt nots…and forget that scripture is primarily focused on how God is drawing us back to the relationship He had in mind from the beginning.

Take a look at the following:

Matthew 22:34-40 – Jesus sums the law, the prophets and entire Divine Agenda of God.  Love God.  Love your neighbor (all other humans)  Get God in the proper place at the core of your identity.  Love him with all that is within you.  And then turn that God/love thing loose on the rest of humanity.  It’s relational.

The core of the Bible is relational-  Think of these great passages:

Ps. 23    John 3:16  Romans 12  1 Cor. 13   Gal. 5:22 ff  John 13 

Jesus said:  John 15:13  “Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”  Its pretty hard to miss the idea the even in the scheme of redemption, it wasn’t just a matter of solving a theological problem.  This was about friends working things out through sacrifice and devotion.

Note in the Creation epic the distinction made when God transitions from creating things to creating humans: Gen. 1 “Let there be…light, land, water, vegetation, fish, animals….”Let there be….”

1:26  “Let Us make man in our image…in our likeness….let them rule….(Purpose-Function-Primacy-Participation)

Gen. 2:7  Even better:  “the Lord formed the man from the dust of the ground….and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life….”  God is portrayed in the creation epic as more than an energy force working mighty acts in cosmic proportions.   When it comes to mankind it is obvious that there is a personal intimacy going on here which is not evident in the other creative acts.  Mankind is made in the image of God, formed in his hands from the dust of the ground, as it were,  and has breath “breathed in” by God.

It is evident from the very earliest glimpse, that God intends to stay close to this project of His.  He will have relationship with us and we with Him.   This connection will not be easy for God.  God becomes vulnerable when he establishes this relationship.  In Genesis 6:6  in the Noah and the flood narrative, it is said,   “The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth and his heart was filled with pain.”

God’s agenda has always been about fostering and maintaining a healthy relationship with His Creation.  He never intended distance, nor even a casual relationship.  He always intended intimacy.

Our desire for healthy relationships finds everything it needs to know in observing the way God loves and invests Himself in Creation.

“God is love.  Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.  In this way love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him.”  I John 3: 16-17

Last week I had a visit from a young graduate student from Syracuse University.  He has a degree in Architecture and expressed an interest in our uniquely historic and architecturally intriguing church building.

  Many of you are probably aware that the congregation where I serve as minister, known as Oakhaven Church, meets in a renovated dairy barn.  I have previously written about its spiritual implications.  Read the piece that started it all here.

The architect, Doug, has a fascination in structures which have been reconfigured for re-use.   Old barns transformed into Church houses are not all that common so his interest in our project was not surprising.  I was delighted to tell him about the transformation process and as I was giving him a tour through the building, I pointed out a wall which is finished with materials reclaimed from an old granary which, at one time, sat next to the barn.

The granary looked like an old chicken coop and was originally used to store grain for the livestock.   The granary was one of the most functional buildings on this property back when it was a working farm.  This was back in the early part of the twentieth century.   When our congregation attained ownership of the property, the granary was rickety. in shambles and looked worthless.  I shared with Doug that we tore the granary down and salvaged what we could with the idea that some of those materials could be used in the renovating the barn.   I don’t know that we were thinking “green” as much as we were thinking “cheap”.   As I gave him a tour of the office area, I pointed out one old board in particular, which measures approximately 1” X 20”.  That’s right, I said, one inch by twenty inches.  By the way, don’t go to your local lumber yard and expect to find many one by twenties in stock.  This old plank was from one of the sawmills of long ago when boards were turned out in varying widths and thicknesses.  This old plank is truly one of a kind.  

“We saved these old boards….. and as you can see, they have found new life here in the office area” I said, as I pointed at the office wall.  “Much of the lumber from that old granary could not be saved, but this one was salvaged and serves its purpose to this day.”

It was right about here in our conversation that my mind began reaching, as it often has, for a spiritual application in the sharing of the Oakhaven barn story.   I have written about it before, but this time there was a nuance to the story I had never considered.

I considered that when we speak of being saved,  I think we often take a shallower view of salvation than God does.  By that, I mean, we frequently hear the word “saved” in theological discussions, to mean someone was living badly but found Jesus, got saved and started going to church and stopped doing wrong-headed, immoral activities and saved means escaping the “burn pile”.

Now granted, much of the old granary got put on the burn pile and subsequently got the match.   But my story of the old “one by twenty” just hit me like a ton of bricks or a two by four upside the head.  (Pardon the construction metaphor…but after all, this is about a wooden plank.)   So the insight that presented itself relates to how salvation needs to be looked at as more than just saving someone from the “burn pile”.

It has to do with opening oneself up to being part of the on-going project of God to serve in His purposes and His work.

Thank God, we are redeemed and saved by God and his redemptive work in Jesus.  Thank God that we are not saved from the “burn pile” only to be stacked in a warehouse with other planks and boards without a view to be utilized in some good purpose.

Indeed, as I directed my young architect friend to look at the old board which partially covered that office wall, I realized how sad it would have been to have saved the old plank only to just have it stored away somewhere on a shelf with no function, no purpose, no sense of glory.  It’s a fine purpose to save something from being burned up, it’s a finer purpose still, to bring something to purpose, meaning and function.

Kind of like what it would be to have church members stacked on pews on Sunday morning.  Saved from the “burn pile” but really having no sense of participating with God in His Grand Project of renewing a world, bringing about a new creation.  The Grand Architect has a higher purpose.  Being “saved” has far deeper meaning than it is often given.