Anyone reading or watching the news these days knows about the global turmoil involving an anti-Islam film. Muslims all over the world are incensed and the most radical are responding violently. There have been many attacks against embassies and consulates in the past week. Anger is rising from every side and the violence continues.
Harrisonburg, VA did not escape the hate. On Friday the Islamic Center in Harrisonburg was vandalized with graffiti. Friends of the local Muslims acted quickly to organize a community gathering to show support for our neighbors and demonstrate. Thanks to social media, the news spread quickly and momentum gained for this afternoon’s gathering.
Yesterday a private Christian school near Harrisonburg was attacked with the same type of vandalism. I don’t know if anyone knows if the two acts were connected, but they seem to be. This school was also incorporated into the community gathering.
So today a whole lot of people gathered at the Islamic Center of Shenandoah Valley. I’m no expert in number estimating, but it was a lot! There were many hundreds and I wouldn’t argue if someone told me it was over 1000. We filled the sizable mosque. There were folding chairs filling their meeting room and I joined hundreds in their smaller (yet still large) prayer room.
The event was fairly simple. It was mostly for s simple display of communal support, but there were a series of speakers who shared for several minutes each: the mosque leader, the Christian school board chair, a former Eastern Mennonite University president, a Harrisonburg City Council member, and a national Islamic rights advocate.
We listened, talked, met people from various schools, religions, organization. While we were there the county sheriff’s department sandblasted away the graffiti. It was a truly inspiring event! I’m pleased so many people in Harrisonburg respond to hateful acts in constructive, communal ways. I’m glad we don’t let differences separate us and bridge gaps to celebrate our common humanity.
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Living Consciously: perfection
Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Matthew 5:48
At the end of my last post I wrote that humans are imperfect. That’s quite true, but I also like to argue that the opposite can be true: humans can be perfect.
In order for this to make any sense, I have to redefine perfection. The debate then shifts away from whether or not humans can be perfect and toward whether or not my definition of perfection is adequate. If you accept my definition of perfection, then you also have to agree that humans can be perfect.
As a Christian, I view God’s will as perfection. It’s the highest way that the world can operate. If nothing but God’s will happened, then the world would be entirely perfect. All the other definitions of perfection really only grasp at the heels of God’s perfection. When we label flowers as perfect or plans as perfect or a day as perfect, we are judging on a very limited scale. We judge outwardly and at only one point in time. The perfection of God’s will digs deeper than we can imagine and stretches farther into time than we can dream.
If that is “perfection,” then humans can be perfect. At any time, any person can be used by God to fulfill God’s will. It doesn’t matter where you’ve been or what you’ve done or who you are, God can use you exactly as you are to accomplish a part of God’s perfect will, and therefore, you can be perfect.
I’m being careful using “can be perfect” and not “are perfect.” See, humans mess up. At any moment we can be perfectly used for God’s will, but often we miss those moments. We aren’t obedience or we lack the faith to step out and do something or say something. For example, one time I was in McDonalds. I was heading out the door actually, when I saw a teenage girl sitting by herself crying. I knew nothing about her, but her emotion came like a wave over me. Compassion was stirred up in me. And I walked out of the restaurant, got into my car, and drove away.
I was yelling at myself as I drove home. Right then I was perfectly positioned to fulfill God’s will. I don’t know what it would have been. Maybe I should have just walked by and put a hand on her shoulder. Maybe I should have sat in the chair across from her. Maybe I should have asked if I could pray for her. I was afraid of what she’d think or what others would think. I was afraid of getting involved in something that I knew nothing about. I’ll probably harbor a little regret about that moment for the rest of my life. I could have been perfect there. But I wasn’t.
Even if I had been perfect there, I would have been imperfect later. As humans, we can be perfect, but we never will be entirely. I’m a numbers kind of guy and sometimes I wish I knew my perfection percentage. I feel like it’d be pretty low, like 3%. Then I could set goals for myself to increase a percentage point every month or something like that. Although part of me wishes fulfilling God’s will would be that concrete, I’m really glad it’s not.
Here’s the good news: when we aren’t perfect God still loves us. And I think God’s love is the kind that sees our potential in an overly optimistic way. We may fall in line with God’s will 1% of the time, but God says, “I love you and I’ll never stop working you into my will. I created you and I know you’ll be perfect next time.” We may be 1% perfect, but we’re all 100% loved. My little human brain won’t ever fully grasp that, but it’s beautiful.
All of this is why living consciously is so important to me. It’s why my last post tried to encourage people to action. I want to empower people. We can easily hide behind our churches. We tell ourselves, “My church is doing the will of God and I’m supporting my church by showing up and tithing, therefore I’m alright.” I think that’s where we’ve missed Jesus’ point. He didn’t come to create a religious organization for us to hide behind. He came to create followers, disciples, lovers of all. The church is a great way to get involved, but God wants you personally to be faithful and obedient. God wants you to believe and act on those beliefs. Together, with God, we can be perfect.
At least that’s how I see it.
Matthew 5:48
At the end of my last post I wrote that humans are imperfect. That’s quite true, but I also like to argue that the opposite can be true: humans can be perfect.
In order for this to make any sense, I have to redefine perfection. The debate then shifts away from whether or not humans can be perfect and toward whether or not my definition of perfection is adequate. If you accept my definition of perfection, then you also have to agree that humans can be perfect.
As a Christian, I view God’s will as perfection. It’s the highest way that the world can operate. If nothing but God’s will happened, then the world would be entirely perfect. All the other definitions of perfection really only grasp at the heels of God’s perfection. When we label flowers as perfect or plans as perfect or a day as perfect, we are judging on a very limited scale. We judge outwardly and at only one point in time. The perfection of God’s will digs deeper than we can imagine and stretches farther into time than we can dream.
If that is “perfection,” then humans can be perfect. At any time, any person can be used by God to fulfill God’s will. It doesn’t matter where you’ve been or what you’ve done or who you are, God can use you exactly as you are to accomplish a part of God’s perfect will, and therefore, you can be perfect.
I’m being careful using “can be perfect” and not “are perfect.” See, humans mess up. At any moment we can be perfectly used for God’s will, but often we miss those moments. We aren’t obedience or we lack the faith to step out and do something or say something. For example, one time I was in McDonalds. I was heading out the door actually, when I saw a teenage girl sitting by herself crying. I knew nothing about her, but her emotion came like a wave over me. Compassion was stirred up in me. And I walked out of the restaurant, got into my car, and drove away.
I was yelling at myself as I drove home. Right then I was perfectly positioned to fulfill God’s will. I don’t know what it would have been. Maybe I should have just walked by and put a hand on her shoulder. Maybe I should have sat in the chair across from her. Maybe I should have asked if I could pray for her. I was afraid of what she’d think or what others would think. I was afraid of getting involved in something that I knew nothing about. I’ll probably harbor a little regret about that moment for the rest of my life. I could have been perfect there. But I wasn’t.
Even if I had been perfect there, I would have been imperfect later. As humans, we can be perfect, but we never will be entirely. I’m a numbers kind of guy and sometimes I wish I knew my perfection percentage. I feel like it’d be pretty low, like 3%. Then I could set goals for myself to increase a percentage point every month or something like that. Although part of me wishes fulfilling God’s will would be that concrete, I’m really glad it’s not.
Here’s the good news: when we aren’t perfect God still loves us. And I think God’s love is the kind that sees our potential in an overly optimistic way. We may fall in line with God’s will 1% of the time, but God says, “I love you and I’ll never stop working you into my will. I created you and I know you’ll be perfect next time.” We may be 1% perfect, but we’re all 100% loved. My little human brain won’t ever fully grasp that, but it’s beautiful.
All of this is why living consciously is so important to me. It’s why my last post tried to encourage people to action. I want to empower people. We can easily hide behind our churches. We tell ourselves, “My church is doing the will of God and I’m supporting my church by showing up and tithing, therefore I’m alright.” I think that’s where we’ve missed Jesus’ point. He didn’t come to create a religious organization for us to hide behind. He came to create followers, disciples, lovers of all. The church is a great way to get involved, but God wants you personally to be faithful and obedient. God wants you to believe and act on those beliefs. Together, with God, we can be perfect.
At least that’s how I see it.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Living Consciously: bible reading
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
John 1:1
The bible isn’t enough. It’s incomplete, inadequate. If Christians try to follow only the Bible then we miss out. God existed before Genesis 1:1. God interacted with humans between 300BCE and 0CE. And God was not dead after the early apostles stopped writing letters to the church. What we have in the Bible is a partial story of God interacting with people, but it’s not the whole thing. We need to live on more.
We run a great risk giving too much credence to the Bible. We risk missing Jesus’ whole point of coming to earth. We seem to understand his death and resurrection, the story of God’s amazing grace, but Jesus didn’t come to start a new religion. Jesus came to start a new, loving way of life. I’m afraid that misuse of the Bible transforms it into a prescription for Christian religion. Out of that we may draw the important things, like grace and forgiveness and love, but we also get rules, like you have to be baptized before you can receive Holy Communion, that don’t follow from Jesus’ teachings.
See, rules are easier. Especially for western churches, it’s easier for us to organize something if we already have a base set of rules and standards. So we take the most concrete thing we have, the Bible, and we mold it into a handbook for how to live a godly life. And then some of us miss so much because our views are too narrow.
The Bible has great value. Don’t misunderstand me here. I’ve devoted a huge chunk of my life to it; I will continue to read it every day for the rest of my life; and I’m about to start three years of seminary study that will inundate my head with Biblical knowledge. I love the Bible, but as a follower of Jesus I can’t limit myself to its words.
The Bible is our best reference for specific stories and examples of how God interacted with people. It’s our best glimpse into the person of Jesus Christ and the transformative power of his great love for humanity. It’s a wonderful tool for connecting Christians across continents and cultures. We need to know these things, but it’s only a base of our Christianity. This is only a starting point for how we live.
In his teaching, Jesus did not address every topic. Where Jesus did not speak, we look to Paul and hope that he addressed the topic. If Paul didn’t mention it, then we turn to our community, our churches, we rely on the Holy Spirit to discern what we ought to believe, how we ought to live. At first glance that seems OK to me, but I’m not sure it is throughout life. I will not discredit any of those steps of the process, but I want to empower the Holy Spirit speaking to individuals a lot sooner.
People can lie and deceive. Sometimes it’s intentional and sometimes it’s not. I understand why the Catholic Church at the time of the Reformation wanted to limit the public access to the Bible and didn’t want to empower individuals to interpret the Bible. That’s a messy process. Mistakes will be made. That’s still true today, but I think we’ve come a long way since the 16th century. People are more connected; scholastic work is more available. We still make mistakes, but I think we have a greater chance of living Biblically-centered, Holy Spirit-led lives.
What I’m talking about here are personal, daily, possibly mundane decisions that people make. If you don’t know what your church would advocate for or what Jesus would do, or exactly what the Bible would say, then trust the Holy Spirit working within you. Take a step, take action. There are hands to help us up if we fall down. There is forgiveness if we mess up.
I think the Christian church would be so much more obedient to God’s will if individuals were encouraged act without the restrictions of what may or may not be Biblical. We all need to read and study the Bible, but no one can know the fullness of God’s revelation. If something seems to contradict the Bible, then the community needs to step in because a nudging of the Holy Spirit may have been misinterpreted. No one should view themselves as greater than their Christian community, but no one should see themselves as less than an integral part of their Christian community and God’s mission in the world.
Read the Bible. Get to know Jesus and the nature of who he was. Continually ask the Holy Spirit to guide you. Then live and act and make decisions knowing that God will use you and never forgetting that humans (including yourself) are imperfect, but loved nonetheless.
John 1:1
The bible isn’t enough. It’s incomplete, inadequate. If Christians try to follow only the Bible then we miss out. God existed before Genesis 1:1. God interacted with humans between 300BCE and 0CE. And God was not dead after the early apostles stopped writing letters to the church. What we have in the Bible is a partial story of God interacting with people, but it’s not the whole thing. We need to live on more.
We run a great risk giving too much credence to the Bible. We risk missing Jesus’ whole point of coming to earth. We seem to understand his death and resurrection, the story of God’s amazing grace, but Jesus didn’t come to start a new religion. Jesus came to start a new, loving way of life. I’m afraid that misuse of the Bible transforms it into a prescription for Christian religion. Out of that we may draw the important things, like grace and forgiveness and love, but we also get rules, like you have to be baptized before you can receive Holy Communion, that don’t follow from Jesus’ teachings.
See, rules are easier. Especially for western churches, it’s easier for us to organize something if we already have a base set of rules and standards. So we take the most concrete thing we have, the Bible, and we mold it into a handbook for how to live a godly life. And then some of us miss so much because our views are too narrow.
The Bible has great value. Don’t misunderstand me here. I’ve devoted a huge chunk of my life to it; I will continue to read it every day for the rest of my life; and I’m about to start three years of seminary study that will inundate my head with Biblical knowledge. I love the Bible, but as a follower of Jesus I can’t limit myself to its words.
The Bible is our best reference for specific stories and examples of how God interacted with people. It’s our best glimpse into the person of Jesus Christ and the transformative power of his great love for humanity. It’s a wonderful tool for connecting Christians across continents and cultures. We need to know these things, but it’s only a base of our Christianity. This is only a starting point for how we live.
In his teaching, Jesus did not address every topic. Where Jesus did not speak, we look to Paul and hope that he addressed the topic. If Paul didn’t mention it, then we turn to our community, our churches, we rely on the Holy Spirit to discern what we ought to believe, how we ought to live. At first glance that seems OK to me, but I’m not sure it is throughout life. I will not discredit any of those steps of the process, but I want to empower the Holy Spirit speaking to individuals a lot sooner.
People can lie and deceive. Sometimes it’s intentional and sometimes it’s not. I understand why the Catholic Church at the time of the Reformation wanted to limit the public access to the Bible and didn’t want to empower individuals to interpret the Bible. That’s a messy process. Mistakes will be made. That’s still true today, but I think we’ve come a long way since the 16th century. People are more connected; scholastic work is more available. We still make mistakes, but I think we have a greater chance of living Biblically-centered, Holy Spirit-led lives.
What I’m talking about here are personal, daily, possibly mundane decisions that people make. If you don’t know what your church would advocate for or what Jesus would do, or exactly what the Bible would say, then trust the Holy Spirit working within you. Take a step, take action. There are hands to help us up if we fall down. There is forgiveness if we mess up.
I think the Christian church would be so much more obedient to God’s will if individuals were encouraged act without the restrictions of what may or may not be Biblical. We all need to read and study the Bible, but no one can know the fullness of God’s revelation. If something seems to contradict the Bible, then the community needs to step in because a nudging of the Holy Spirit may have been misinterpreted. No one should view themselves as greater than their Christian community, but no one should see themselves as less than an integral part of their Christian community and God’s mission in the world.
Read the Bible. Get to know Jesus and the nature of who he was. Continually ask the Holy Spirit to guide you. Then live and act and make decisions knowing that God will use you and never forgetting that humans (including yourself) are imperfect, but loved nonetheless.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Living Consciously: relationshiplessness
“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
Matthew 25:40
If tragedy struck today and the house you’re currently living in burned down, would you have a place to sleep tonight? Can you think of someone who would allow you to live with them until you could get another place to live? Chances are everyone who is reading this would definitely have another place to sleep. Chances are everyone reading this wouldn’t even be able to count the vast multitude of houses they could sleep in tonight if necessary. Family, friends, classmates, coworkers, church members—there are countless people who we could ask.
In Baltimore, where I currently live but know very few people, there are dozens of houses I could sleep in. In fact, in the past few weeks, during the incredibly hot weather, I had offers from several different families to come over and stay with them. See, the house I’m living in doesn’t have air conditioning and they were concerned for my comfort. Without even asking for help, people have been offering it. Relationshiplessness is not a problem for me.
When asked to identify the main cause of homelessness in Baltimore, I once heard a guy say, “relationshiplessness.” He fully acknowledged that it wasn’t a real word, but it communicates the cause perfectly. If current homeless people had a few strong relationships with people who weren’t homeless, then homelessness wouldn’t be a problem. As it stands though, those who are truly homeless suffer from relationshiplessness and do not have any place to live. They don’t know people who would welcome them in.
Now, I could use this post to continue to advocate that we all make relationships with homeless people, but I think that point has already been made. People are needy in this world. And sometimes all they need is us, not what we have, but just a relationship with us.
I admit that this topic is far bigger than anything I could write in one or forty blog posts, but I want to mention a few things. I want us all to think hard about the culture we live in. Generally speaking, society tells us that we should fend for ourselves first. It says, “You are the most important.” It tells us not to worry about the others we push aside as long we’re personally successful at getting to the front. “If you make it to the top, then you’re a success; don’t worry about all those others that you stood on to get there.” We live in an individualistic culture and I know Jesus would have been critical of it.
Jesus never allowed relationshiplessness to continue. In John 4 I think of him sitting down at the well in Sychar and talking with the Samaritan woman who came out to get water. A Jew talking with a Samaritan? A man talking with a woman? Jesus didn’t care. He saw someone who was searching for greater meaning in life and knew a relationship with him could offer it to her.
In John 5 I think of Jesus walking up to the paralyzed man near the pool of Bethesda. Jesus asked him if we wanted to be healed. Though the man wanted that very much, he couldn’t see how it was possible. Apparently the first person into the pool when the waters were stirred would be healed, but this man had no one to help him get in the pool. No one would help him, so he’d never be well. Jesus took the opportunity to be the relationship the man needed, though Jesus’ healing power was much greater than the pool’s.
The stories of Jesus reaching out to others could go on and on. He was a man of relationships. As I said in an earlier post, people mattered to Jesus. I think people should matter to us too. We should emphasize forming relationships with those around us. We don’t have to go anywhere to find people. Let’s get to know the mail carrier or garbage collectors. Find out the name of the janitor at work or school. Offer a gift to a neighbor. As an introvert, these are difficult things for me to do, but as a follower of Jesus, I think they’re important to do.
It’s not exclusive to Mennonites, but as a small Christian denomination, we play what’s called the “Mennonite Game.” Simply put, when you meet someone knew within the Mennonite circle, you try to form as many connections as possible. “Oh, I know your second cousin from that conference on peace building four year ago. We were in the same conversation group.” Or “If you attend ______ church, then you must know my roommate’s brother’s fiancé’s family.” I wonder if Mennonites (and other relatively small groups of people) suffer from a fear of relationshiplessness. To counteract it we prove that we have relationships by making it a game.
I guess the main idea here is that relationships are important. Because we are people, we have something valuable to offer: ourselves. Let’s not get stuck in our own little world and fail to take steps to value others. Some of the posts that are yet to come will elaborate on how we should interact with each other.
Matthew 25:40
If tragedy struck today and the house you’re currently living in burned down, would you have a place to sleep tonight? Can you think of someone who would allow you to live with them until you could get another place to live? Chances are everyone who is reading this would definitely have another place to sleep. Chances are everyone reading this wouldn’t even be able to count the vast multitude of houses they could sleep in tonight if necessary. Family, friends, classmates, coworkers, church members—there are countless people who we could ask.
In Baltimore, where I currently live but know very few people, there are dozens of houses I could sleep in. In fact, in the past few weeks, during the incredibly hot weather, I had offers from several different families to come over and stay with them. See, the house I’m living in doesn’t have air conditioning and they were concerned for my comfort. Without even asking for help, people have been offering it. Relationshiplessness is not a problem for me.
When asked to identify the main cause of homelessness in Baltimore, I once heard a guy say, “relationshiplessness.” He fully acknowledged that it wasn’t a real word, but it communicates the cause perfectly. If current homeless people had a few strong relationships with people who weren’t homeless, then homelessness wouldn’t be a problem. As it stands though, those who are truly homeless suffer from relationshiplessness and do not have any place to live. They don’t know people who would welcome them in.
Now, I could use this post to continue to advocate that we all make relationships with homeless people, but I think that point has already been made. People are needy in this world. And sometimes all they need is us, not what we have, but just a relationship with us.
I admit that this topic is far bigger than anything I could write in one or forty blog posts, but I want to mention a few things. I want us all to think hard about the culture we live in. Generally speaking, society tells us that we should fend for ourselves first. It says, “You are the most important.” It tells us not to worry about the others we push aside as long we’re personally successful at getting to the front. “If you make it to the top, then you’re a success; don’t worry about all those others that you stood on to get there.” We live in an individualistic culture and I know Jesus would have been critical of it.
Jesus never allowed relationshiplessness to continue. In John 4 I think of him sitting down at the well in Sychar and talking with the Samaritan woman who came out to get water. A Jew talking with a Samaritan? A man talking with a woman? Jesus didn’t care. He saw someone who was searching for greater meaning in life and knew a relationship with him could offer it to her.
In John 5 I think of Jesus walking up to the paralyzed man near the pool of Bethesda. Jesus asked him if we wanted to be healed. Though the man wanted that very much, he couldn’t see how it was possible. Apparently the first person into the pool when the waters were stirred would be healed, but this man had no one to help him get in the pool. No one would help him, so he’d never be well. Jesus took the opportunity to be the relationship the man needed, though Jesus’ healing power was much greater than the pool’s.
The stories of Jesus reaching out to others could go on and on. He was a man of relationships. As I said in an earlier post, people mattered to Jesus. I think people should matter to us too. We should emphasize forming relationships with those around us. We don’t have to go anywhere to find people. Let’s get to know the mail carrier or garbage collectors. Find out the name of the janitor at work or school. Offer a gift to a neighbor. As an introvert, these are difficult things for me to do, but as a follower of Jesus, I think they’re important to do.
It’s not exclusive to Mennonites, but as a small Christian denomination, we play what’s called the “Mennonite Game.” Simply put, when you meet someone knew within the Mennonite circle, you try to form as many connections as possible. “Oh, I know your second cousin from that conference on peace building four year ago. We were in the same conversation group.” Or “If you attend ______ church, then you must know my roommate’s brother’s fiancé’s family.” I wonder if Mennonites (and other relatively small groups of people) suffer from a fear of relationshiplessness. To counteract it we prove that we have relationships by making it a game.
I guess the main idea here is that relationships are important. Because we are people, we have something valuable to offer: ourselves. Let’s not get stuck in our own little world and fail to take steps to value others. Some of the posts that are yet to come will elaborate on how we should interact with each other.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Living Consciously: music
Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing.
Luke 15:25
I wonder if I spend more time listening to music than not. I don’t listen to music while I sleep, so that’s a huge chunk of “not” time, but most of my waking hours are spent with music playing in the background. Still, I bet the majority of my day is spent without listening to music. Unless, that is, “listening to music” includes listening to music that I’m creating. I’m that annoying person who’s always humming or whistling whatever song happens to be stuck in my head. Often the notes pouring out of me are subconscious. I guess I’m so accustomed to hearing music that I create my own in the absence of another source. That’s just how I work.
I wonder if Jesus was musical. As far as I know, we don’t have evidence pointing in either direction. If I had to guess though, I’d say that Jesus was not musical. From the Gospel accounts, we don’t see music playing any size role, considerable or not, in his ministry. He and his disciples didn’t attend concerts or form a band to rock out in their garage. They probably heard a bit of music at religious feasts occasionally, but that’d be it.
Don’t you feel kind of bad for people in the 1st century Palestine? They didn’t have most of the instruments that we take for granted today. They had voices, percussion, and harps. I guess there were shofars too, but weren’t they more for communication than music? Music wasn’t a staple of their society. It didn’t define them, or give them an identity. It didn’t entertain them or touch their emotions. It wasn’t a way to escape life or bring meaning to it.
Unfortunately, music isn’t all good though. I’m pretty critical of music. Jesus doesn’t necessarily back me up on this, but from what I know of Jesus I imagine he’d be critical of some music we listen to. The diversity of styles and genres would excite him. Jesus loved people universally, so perhaps he’d love music universally too. But, just as Jesus was critical about the inward motives of people, I imagine he’d be critical of the meaning of songs too. The music—the rhythms, pitches—would be lovely to him, but the lyrics and deeper messages might not be.
That’s where I think we could afford to bring a little more consciousness to our lives. Music is powerful. Even background music has impact on us. Stores attempt to control your mood with music. Elevator music tries to make you more relaxed, and therefore, more patient. How many songs can bring back memories to you? How many songs can completely change your mood the instant they start playing? Even if we don’t give music our conscious attention, it’s influencing us subconsciously. That’s kind of scary and I don’t want to leave what I hear up to chance.
So I’m picky when it comes to music. I don’t want to fill my life with hate or violence or unfaithful relationships, so I try to avoid those things in music. I want to fill my life with encouragement, motivation, and praise. And there is plenty of music that emphasizes those things. I have a feeling that the content of music has a much greater impact on our lives than we’ll ever know. I want music to make me live more like Jesus instead of less and I’m grateful that my parents chose that kind of music for me long before I could make the choice for myself.
Christian music isn’t all good. And secular music isn’t all bad. I would never tell someone to cut out secular music from their lives because that’d mean throwing out many songs that are lovely. I don’t agree with all of the music that falls under “Christian” labels either. There are some songs on the local Christian radio station that cause me to turn off the radio. In general though, I feel better listening to Christian bands and radio.
I wish I had more to say on this topic because it’s extremely important to me. Alas, I have no more to say. Maybe someone else does . . .
Luke 15:25
I wonder if I spend more time listening to music than not. I don’t listen to music while I sleep, so that’s a huge chunk of “not” time, but most of my waking hours are spent with music playing in the background. Still, I bet the majority of my day is spent without listening to music. Unless, that is, “listening to music” includes listening to music that I’m creating. I’m that annoying person who’s always humming or whistling whatever song happens to be stuck in my head. Often the notes pouring out of me are subconscious. I guess I’m so accustomed to hearing music that I create my own in the absence of another source. That’s just how I work.
I wonder if Jesus was musical. As far as I know, we don’t have evidence pointing in either direction. If I had to guess though, I’d say that Jesus was not musical. From the Gospel accounts, we don’t see music playing any size role, considerable or not, in his ministry. He and his disciples didn’t attend concerts or form a band to rock out in their garage. They probably heard a bit of music at religious feasts occasionally, but that’d be it.
Don’t you feel kind of bad for people in the 1st century Palestine? They didn’t have most of the instruments that we take for granted today. They had voices, percussion, and harps. I guess there were shofars too, but weren’t they more for communication than music? Music wasn’t a staple of their society. It didn’t define them, or give them an identity. It didn’t entertain them or touch their emotions. It wasn’t a way to escape life or bring meaning to it.
Unfortunately, music isn’t all good though. I’m pretty critical of music. Jesus doesn’t necessarily back me up on this, but from what I know of Jesus I imagine he’d be critical of some music we listen to. The diversity of styles and genres would excite him. Jesus loved people universally, so perhaps he’d love music universally too. But, just as Jesus was critical about the inward motives of people, I imagine he’d be critical of the meaning of songs too. The music—the rhythms, pitches—would be lovely to him, but the lyrics and deeper messages might not be.
That’s where I think we could afford to bring a little more consciousness to our lives. Music is powerful. Even background music has impact on us. Stores attempt to control your mood with music. Elevator music tries to make you more relaxed, and therefore, more patient. How many songs can bring back memories to you? How many songs can completely change your mood the instant they start playing? Even if we don’t give music our conscious attention, it’s influencing us subconsciously. That’s kind of scary and I don’t want to leave what I hear up to chance.
So I’m picky when it comes to music. I don’t want to fill my life with hate or violence or unfaithful relationships, so I try to avoid those things in music. I want to fill my life with encouragement, motivation, and praise. And there is plenty of music that emphasizes those things. I have a feeling that the content of music has a much greater impact on our lives than we’ll ever know. I want music to make me live more like Jesus instead of less and I’m grateful that my parents chose that kind of music for me long before I could make the choice for myself.
Christian music isn’t all good. And secular music isn’t all bad. I would never tell someone to cut out secular music from their lives because that’d mean throwing out many songs that are lovely. I don’t agree with all of the music that falls under “Christian” labels either. There are some songs on the local Christian radio station that cause me to turn off the radio. In general though, I feel better listening to Christian bands and radio.
I wish I had more to say on this topic because it’s extremely important to me. Alas, I have no more to say. Maybe someone else does . . .
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Living Consciously: sabbath
Then Jesus asked them, “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” But they remained silent.
Mark 3:4
I’m good at not killing and not stealing and not committing adultery. I’m pretty good at not coveting and not lying. I respect my parents and respect God and try not to make something an idol in my life. But this whole Sabbath thing is tough. Keeping the Sabbath day holy is one of the Ten Commandments, but it’s very often overlooked. Is that alright? I really don’t know. This post isn’t going to answer that question.
Earlier this year I read The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs. I absolutely loved it! He’s a great author and a terrific story-teller! His year focused much more on following the Old Testament laws as literally as possible than on following Jesus’ instructions. And as difficult as those Jewish laws are, I’m sure following Jesus’ teachings would have been much more difficult.
One of my favorite stories (and don’t worry, this isn’t much of a spoiler or anything) was when he locked himself in his bathroom. If my memory serves me well, it was something about trying to fix the doorknob and then shutting himself in without the knob in the door so that he had no way of getting out. He was stuck. His cell phone didn’t work and the window wasn’t any help. I think he tried to get some work done with the toilet as his desk, but that didn’t work. So he just sat there. And it was a forced Sabbath. Sometimes I wish something like that happened to me.
It’s pretty easy to see that Jesus didn’t care much for the Sabbath laws that the Pharisees upheld. By holding to the letter of the law, the religious leaders completely missed the point of the law. The Sabbath law wasn’t for God, it was for humans. God rested after creation and likewise people should set aside time to rest. We don’t rest for God’s sake; we rest for our own sake. God created us and knows what’s best for us, so we should rest.
Our culture doesn’t tell us to rest. It tells us to produce. It tells us to go and never stop. It tells us not to waste time when we could be working. On the other hand, there’s a portion of our American culture that tells us we don’t have to do anything. It says that the ultimate goal in life is to relax and do nothing, even if you have to work like a slave for decades in order to get that point. (Alternatively, you could win the lottery or have a rich uncle.) Where’s the balance? Where’s the happy point with enough work and enough rest?
I think we should keep a Sabbath. I don’t think it has to be Sunday. For pastors it can’t be Sunday. I think Sunday is pretty arbitrary. Jews rest from Friday evening to Saturday evening. I think Christians claimed Sunday simply because Jesus rose from the dead on a Sunday and we like to remember that. (And that’s certainly worth remembering!) Pick Sunday if you want to, or pick another day.
Actually, I don’t think it’s even important to pick a nice 24 hour chunk. We use “day” to talk about the Sabbath because Genesis 1 was translated as “day” and God rested on the 7th one. I’m a supporter of the idea that Genesis 1 is poetic and therefore isn’t talking about 24 hour days. There wasn’t even a sun to define days by for the first three “days.” These periods of time could have been a thousand years. (So let’s all pick 1000 years to set aside as our Sabbath! Maybe not.) Or perhaps God created things in a matter of minutes. I don’t think the length of the Sabbath has to be universally defined.
Let’s just put another layer to conscious thought into how much time we’re resting. Pick one evening a week and agree not to schedule anything. Then when the evening comes, pick something that’s not stressful to fill your time. Go for a walk. Call your mom. Bake cookies. Maybe you’ll find something that doesn’t stress you out that also helps someone else. (You love mowing lawns and find it relaxing? Maybe your neighbor hates it. I sense an opportunity!) Before you do anything, look at your time through this Jesus lens I’ve been talking about. And if seeing through that lens is difficult then maybe reading the gospels would be a good Sabbath activity.
I don’t think anything I’ve written here is revolutionary or anything. It’s just your friendly reminder to relax. Be still. The world won’t fall apart if you’re unproductive for a morning or afternoon or evening or Saturday or whatever.
I like taking mini-Sabbaths to play Minesweeper and listen to whatever my favorite music happens to be. Sometimes I just do that for hours. What does your Sabbath look like?
Mark 3:4
I’m good at not killing and not stealing and not committing adultery. I’m pretty good at not coveting and not lying. I respect my parents and respect God and try not to make something an idol in my life. But this whole Sabbath thing is tough. Keeping the Sabbath day holy is one of the Ten Commandments, but it’s very often overlooked. Is that alright? I really don’t know. This post isn’t going to answer that question.
Earlier this year I read The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs. I absolutely loved it! He’s a great author and a terrific story-teller! His year focused much more on following the Old Testament laws as literally as possible than on following Jesus’ instructions. And as difficult as those Jewish laws are, I’m sure following Jesus’ teachings would have been much more difficult.
One of my favorite stories (and don’t worry, this isn’t much of a spoiler or anything) was when he locked himself in his bathroom. If my memory serves me well, it was something about trying to fix the doorknob and then shutting himself in without the knob in the door so that he had no way of getting out. He was stuck. His cell phone didn’t work and the window wasn’t any help. I think he tried to get some work done with the toilet as his desk, but that didn’t work. So he just sat there. And it was a forced Sabbath. Sometimes I wish something like that happened to me.
It’s pretty easy to see that Jesus didn’t care much for the Sabbath laws that the Pharisees upheld. By holding to the letter of the law, the religious leaders completely missed the point of the law. The Sabbath law wasn’t for God, it was for humans. God rested after creation and likewise people should set aside time to rest. We don’t rest for God’s sake; we rest for our own sake. God created us and knows what’s best for us, so we should rest.
Our culture doesn’t tell us to rest. It tells us to produce. It tells us to go and never stop. It tells us not to waste time when we could be working. On the other hand, there’s a portion of our American culture that tells us we don’t have to do anything. It says that the ultimate goal in life is to relax and do nothing, even if you have to work like a slave for decades in order to get that point. (Alternatively, you could win the lottery or have a rich uncle.) Where’s the balance? Where’s the happy point with enough work and enough rest?
I think we should keep a Sabbath. I don’t think it has to be Sunday. For pastors it can’t be Sunday. I think Sunday is pretty arbitrary. Jews rest from Friday evening to Saturday evening. I think Christians claimed Sunday simply because Jesus rose from the dead on a Sunday and we like to remember that. (And that’s certainly worth remembering!) Pick Sunday if you want to, or pick another day.
Actually, I don’t think it’s even important to pick a nice 24 hour chunk. We use “day” to talk about the Sabbath because Genesis 1 was translated as “day” and God rested on the 7th one. I’m a supporter of the idea that Genesis 1 is poetic and therefore isn’t talking about 24 hour days. There wasn’t even a sun to define days by for the first three “days.” These periods of time could have been a thousand years. (So let’s all pick 1000 years to set aside as our Sabbath! Maybe not.) Or perhaps God created things in a matter of minutes. I don’t think the length of the Sabbath has to be universally defined.
Let’s just put another layer to conscious thought into how much time we’re resting. Pick one evening a week and agree not to schedule anything. Then when the evening comes, pick something that’s not stressful to fill your time. Go for a walk. Call your mom. Bake cookies. Maybe you’ll find something that doesn’t stress you out that also helps someone else. (You love mowing lawns and find it relaxing? Maybe your neighbor hates it. I sense an opportunity!) Before you do anything, look at your time through this Jesus lens I’ve been talking about. And if seeing through that lens is difficult then maybe reading the gospels would be a good Sabbath activity.
I don’t think anything I’ve written here is revolutionary or anything. It’s just your friendly reminder to relax. Be still. The world won’t fall apart if you’re unproductive for a morning or afternoon or evening or Saturday or whatever.
I like taking mini-Sabbaths to play Minesweeper and listen to whatever my favorite music happens to be. Sometimes I just do that for hours. What does your Sabbath look like?
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Living Consciously: church
“Where two or three come together in my name, there I am with them.”
Matthew 18:20
What’s the most identifying characteristic of Christianity? I don’t know this for sure, but if people were asked to respond to that I bet the largest response would involve church. Generally speaking, a Christian can be identified as someone who attends church, usually on Sunday morning. It’s important to us. For some, it’s the only thing that really matters in their Christian life. Some people identify themselves as Christmas and Easter Christians and only attend church twice a year. It’s that church attendance that does it though. They go to church, therefore they identify as Christian.
Jesus didn’t talk much about church. Where ever he happened to be, people gathered around. There was teaching and preaching and sometimes dialogue, but never church as we see it today. Does this mean that church might not be as important as we make it out to be? I say yes. Church is certainly important and there are many reasons why Jesus didn’t talk about it, but I don’t think church should be the crucial identifying feature of Christianity.
All of this has nothing to do with living consciously though. I think everyone should be actively involved with a church. As our most visible representation of Jesus to the world, we should invest our time and energy to the work of our personal church and the larger church, but as we do so, we should be asking ourselves some questions. We should insert a Jesus lens to our view of church.
Jesus cared about people. (I think that’s a pretty safe statement.) He cared about children and, to his disciples’ amazement, said people should be like children if they want to enter the Kingdom of Heaven (Matthew 18:3). He cared about the injured and disabled, healing them many times in the gospel. He cared about the diseased, even the outcast lepers. When ten of them came to him in Luke 17 he didn’t send them away as most people would have. He spent time with sinners that the religious leaders all excluded. Yep, Jesus cared about people.
So next time you’re in church (tomorrow?), take a look around you. Who do you see? Are the welcomed, included, valued? How do most people view them? How do you view them? How would Jesus view them? Hopefully your view and Jesus’ view are pretty similar, but I bet they aren’t the same. What if you were to sit with the visitors in church once a month instead of with your family or friends? Would that destroy your relationship with your family and friends? Almost certainly not. And then after the service you can introduce the visitors to the group you usually sit with. That’s not a terrible idea.
I plan to be a church leader some day. That means I’ll have responsibility in church before, during, and after the services. I’m not a fan of that aspect of my calling. It means I have less freedom to be social on Sunday mornings, yet it’s important that I am able to meet and talk with a lot of people. Hold this thought. I’ll come back to it at the end.
Jesus cares about people a lot, and didn’t seem to care about time at all. We never hear in the gospels about Jesus racing to meet a deadline or making sure his preaching doesn’t go longer than fifteen minutes. Now, granted, most of that had to do with the culture of the 1st century and reading it from the 21st century taints our perception and maybe our interpretation as well. Still, I have a feeling a strict time schedule would be something in our culture that Jesus would question. (For those who know Myers-Briggs personality tests, I’m a P. Therefore I realize this is much easier for me to write and probably hard for a J to read. Stay with me though.)
I’m not going to say we should throw out the concept of time entirely, but at least in church can we have a little more flexibility? Do we really have to cut out three verses of the closing song because it’s already 1 minute after noon? I think a good sending is important and deserves time. (Hold this thought. We’ll come back to it.) And do we really need to cut sharing time short because we’re a little long? Giving people a chance to share takes time and it’s what helps the service belong to the congregation. (Hold this thought too.) And do sermons really have to stick to a specific allotted time? I realize people’s attention spans don’t last forever, but sometimes the Holy Spirit inspires a preacher with a message that takes longer to deliver.
So instead of getting anxious when the timing of a service is off, let’s sit back and think a little bit. This is when we insert a little conscious thinking. If we came to church, then we must think it’s important, therefore we can give it the time necessary to run its course. Maybe we need to free up a little extra time on Sundays so that time is less of an issue. I understand that there are other factors, like children, or house guests, or sports events. If, for a particular Sunday, something else is more important than the service, then maybe it’d be best for a few people to slip out quietly instead of rushing the service for everyone. I dare even suggest that some Sundays it might be best not to come to church. Again, church is not the most important part of the Christian faith. Just be careful not to take this too far.
Living consciously requires us to put more thought into our church service. As a participant we have to ask ourselves if we actually should be participating. How often do we sing a song without even thinking about the words? In my tradition is way easier to pay attention to the music and totally miss the meaning of the song. What if you don’t even agree with the words? It’s also easy to automatically join in with the “people” part of a reading without really meaning the words we say. Stop. I think it’s better to be silent in church than insincere. Paul challenges us to examine ourselves before participating in the Lord’s Supper (1 Corinthians 11:28-29). How often do we simply eat and drink because the pastor invites us to without actually making it meaningful for ourselves? Choose not to take communion sometime. God won’t hate us.
Now for all of those thoughts we’re holding. The organization of a church and planning of a service usually could use a little more consciousness, a little more of the Jesus lens. It’s far too easy to do something simply because that’s the way it’s always been done. I don’t think that’s ever a good reason to do anything. That’s more of a convenient cop-out. I’ll never presume to know what’s best for other congregations, but I challenge us to start from scratch and re-imagine church starting with only what’s most important. If the church you build is the one you currently have, then good job! Don’t change anything. But if something seems out of balance, then let’s go through the tough work of balancing it.
You’re holding the thought about having responsibilities before, during, and after a church service. It’s true; there are lots of things to do to run a church, but no one person should feel over-burdened with it. We find it easy to toss all of that pressure on the paid staff, but the early followers of Jesus gave us a model of a church with everyone participating. Maybe not having a paid staff would make it easier for everyone else to step up.
You’re also holding thoughts about a good sending and sharing time during the service. These are just two elements of a service that I think are important. Teaching, praise, prayer, a gathering—these are also important elements. Church, with its non-essential status, is a break from a “24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year . . .” Christian life. We can pray and praise God any time. We can receive sound Biblical teaching just about any time too if we know where to look. Church is different because it’s a time for us to be together and share our journeys. I think space in the service for people to share formally with each other before God is essential and often overlooked. I also think a commissioning to send church-goers back into the world (aka benediction) is crucial and often rushed. Let’s put a little more conscious effort into these things—things that make church different from the rest of the Christian journey.
Woah! This post got really long! I could have broken it into 2 parts, but I couldn’t make you hold those thoughts for a whole day! Besides, if this is important enough to read then the time was well spent.
What are your thoughts on church? How could it be done more consciously or more Jesus-ly? Maybe you have a story of a church service that got it right.
Matthew 18:20
What’s the most identifying characteristic of Christianity? I don’t know this for sure, but if people were asked to respond to that I bet the largest response would involve church. Generally speaking, a Christian can be identified as someone who attends church, usually on Sunday morning. It’s important to us. For some, it’s the only thing that really matters in their Christian life. Some people identify themselves as Christmas and Easter Christians and only attend church twice a year. It’s that church attendance that does it though. They go to church, therefore they identify as Christian.
Jesus didn’t talk much about church. Where ever he happened to be, people gathered around. There was teaching and preaching and sometimes dialogue, but never church as we see it today. Does this mean that church might not be as important as we make it out to be? I say yes. Church is certainly important and there are many reasons why Jesus didn’t talk about it, but I don’t think church should be the crucial identifying feature of Christianity.
All of this has nothing to do with living consciously though. I think everyone should be actively involved with a church. As our most visible representation of Jesus to the world, we should invest our time and energy to the work of our personal church and the larger church, but as we do so, we should be asking ourselves some questions. We should insert a Jesus lens to our view of church.
Jesus cared about people. (I think that’s a pretty safe statement.) He cared about children and, to his disciples’ amazement, said people should be like children if they want to enter the Kingdom of Heaven (Matthew 18:3). He cared about the injured and disabled, healing them many times in the gospel. He cared about the diseased, even the outcast lepers. When ten of them came to him in Luke 17 he didn’t send them away as most people would have. He spent time with sinners that the religious leaders all excluded. Yep, Jesus cared about people.
So next time you’re in church (tomorrow?), take a look around you. Who do you see? Are the welcomed, included, valued? How do most people view them? How do you view them? How would Jesus view them? Hopefully your view and Jesus’ view are pretty similar, but I bet they aren’t the same. What if you were to sit with the visitors in church once a month instead of with your family or friends? Would that destroy your relationship with your family and friends? Almost certainly not. And then after the service you can introduce the visitors to the group you usually sit with. That’s not a terrible idea.
I plan to be a church leader some day. That means I’ll have responsibility in church before, during, and after the services. I’m not a fan of that aspect of my calling. It means I have less freedom to be social on Sunday mornings, yet it’s important that I am able to meet and talk with a lot of people. Hold this thought. I’ll come back to it at the end.
Jesus cares about people a lot, and didn’t seem to care about time at all. We never hear in the gospels about Jesus racing to meet a deadline or making sure his preaching doesn’t go longer than fifteen minutes. Now, granted, most of that had to do with the culture of the 1st century and reading it from the 21st century taints our perception and maybe our interpretation as well. Still, I have a feeling a strict time schedule would be something in our culture that Jesus would question. (For those who know Myers-Briggs personality tests, I’m a P. Therefore I realize this is much easier for me to write and probably hard for a J to read. Stay with me though.)
I’m not going to say we should throw out the concept of time entirely, but at least in church can we have a little more flexibility? Do we really have to cut out three verses of the closing song because it’s already 1 minute after noon? I think a good sending is important and deserves time. (Hold this thought. We’ll come back to it.) And do we really need to cut sharing time short because we’re a little long? Giving people a chance to share takes time and it’s what helps the service belong to the congregation. (Hold this thought too.) And do sermons really have to stick to a specific allotted time? I realize people’s attention spans don’t last forever, but sometimes the Holy Spirit inspires a preacher with a message that takes longer to deliver.
So instead of getting anxious when the timing of a service is off, let’s sit back and think a little bit. This is when we insert a little conscious thinking. If we came to church, then we must think it’s important, therefore we can give it the time necessary to run its course. Maybe we need to free up a little extra time on Sundays so that time is less of an issue. I understand that there are other factors, like children, or house guests, or sports events. If, for a particular Sunday, something else is more important than the service, then maybe it’d be best for a few people to slip out quietly instead of rushing the service for everyone. I dare even suggest that some Sundays it might be best not to come to church. Again, church is not the most important part of the Christian faith. Just be careful not to take this too far.
Living consciously requires us to put more thought into our church service. As a participant we have to ask ourselves if we actually should be participating. How often do we sing a song without even thinking about the words? In my tradition is way easier to pay attention to the music and totally miss the meaning of the song. What if you don’t even agree with the words? It’s also easy to automatically join in with the “people” part of a reading without really meaning the words we say. Stop. I think it’s better to be silent in church than insincere. Paul challenges us to examine ourselves before participating in the Lord’s Supper (1 Corinthians 11:28-29). How often do we simply eat and drink because the pastor invites us to without actually making it meaningful for ourselves? Choose not to take communion sometime. God won’t hate us.
Now for all of those thoughts we’re holding. The organization of a church and planning of a service usually could use a little more consciousness, a little more of the Jesus lens. It’s far too easy to do something simply because that’s the way it’s always been done. I don’t think that’s ever a good reason to do anything. That’s more of a convenient cop-out. I’ll never presume to know what’s best for other congregations, but I challenge us to start from scratch and re-imagine church starting with only what’s most important. If the church you build is the one you currently have, then good job! Don’t change anything. But if something seems out of balance, then let’s go through the tough work of balancing it.
You’re holding the thought about having responsibilities before, during, and after a church service. It’s true; there are lots of things to do to run a church, but no one person should feel over-burdened with it. We find it easy to toss all of that pressure on the paid staff, but the early followers of Jesus gave us a model of a church with everyone participating. Maybe not having a paid staff would make it easier for everyone else to step up.
You’re also holding thoughts about a good sending and sharing time during the service. These are just two elements of a service that I think are important. Teaching, praise, prayer, a gathering—these are also important elements. Church, with its non-essential status, is a break from a “24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year . . .” Christian life. We can pray and praise God any time. We can receive sound Biblical teaching just about any time too if we know where to look. Church is different because it’s a time for us to be together and share our journeys. I think space in the service for people to share formally with each other before God is essential and often overlooked. I also think a commissioning to send church-goers back into the world (aka benediction) is crucial and often rushed. Let’s put a little more conscious effort into these things—things that make church different from the rest of the Christian journey.
Woah! This post got really long! I could have broken it into 2 parts, but I couldn’t make you hold those thoughts for a whole day! Besides, if this is important enough to read then the time was well spent.
What are your thoughts on church? How could it be done more consciously or more Jesus-ly? Maybe you have a story of a church service that got it right.
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