Tag Archives: kingdom

What does faith cause you to do?

12 Thursday Jul 2018

Posted by in Church, Theology

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What does the faith that God gives each one of us cause us to do?  How do we respond to it?

How has faith changed your life?

Is church just something that you’ve always done, so you’ll just keep on doing it?  Or does it impact your life, cause a change?

Is church just a social club where you get together with people who you like and look forward to seeing them each week or however often you go?  Or is church a training ground and refueling station from which you are sent back out into the world to participate in the unfolding of the kingdom of God?

Is it your faith, or is it the faith that God gives you?

Does this faith ever make you uncomfortable or inconvenienced?  If not, why not?  Do you believe that faith should never make you uncomfortable?  What about those that are afflicted or suffer injustice?  Does that affect you at all?  Or are they just a bunch of whiners?

Does it ever afflict you in your comfortableness?  Does it comfort you in your affliction?  Does this faith demand that you take steps without knowing where you are going, what you will be doing, where things will be coming from, and will not have all the information that you desire?

Does this faith cause you to seek out people who Jesus spent time with?  Does this faith make your hands dirty?

Does this faith question and poke you in ways you would rather not?  Does it question your loyalty and allegiances?  Is this faith costly?  Does this faith guide you in the midst of trial and trouble?  Can this faith be there when it is most needed?  Or does it only work when times are good?

Does this faith cause you conflict with the ways of the world?  Ways of anger, fear, violence, blaming, scapegoating, desiring safety above all else, having enemies, coveting other people’s stuff, believing that buying more stuff will give you meaning, and more.

Does this faith cause you to weep when you see the world – does it break your heart?  Over and over again?  Does it grab hold of you and not let go?  Does it present a way forward and show you that there really isn’t another option – everything else doesn’t make any sense?  That the ways of the world fail us over and over again and yet we have this sick addiction to keep trying them?  How many wars do we need to go through, how many times do we need to use violence, how many foreigners do we need to blame and dehumanize, how many enemies do we need to create and blame, how many people do we need to curse and damn, how many people do we need to take pleasure in their suffering?  How many until we see that these ways don’t work?  That’s why we have to keep doing them over and over and over again.  They don’t work.  When will be see the stupidity and insanity of the ways of the world instead of embracing these ways?  When will be follow the way of Jesus instead?

Does this faith make you understand the prophets and their desire to run far away from God – yet you follow anyway because where else are you going to go?  There is no hope outside of God and God’s way.

Does this faith wrestle with you and leave you with so many uncertainties, yet you know the most important thing there is – that God will not abandon you and God keeps God’s promises?

Does this faith give you life, especially when you walk through the valley of the shadow of death?

Does this faith demand you die daily so that the real you can be released and flourish?

Does this faith remain unsatisfied with just surviving, but pushes you forward, cajoles you into thriving life?

Does this faith see beyond you as an individual and show you how you are connected to so many others and their well-being?  That to turn a blind eye on those suffering around us isn’t just ignoring them and keeping you safe, but keeps us trapped in a cage with a thick wall around us.  We become prisoners of our own desire for safety that can never be fulfilled.

Does this faith that you have been given have impact on your life?  Does it call to your deepest self and invite you to participate in the unfolding of the Kingdom of God?

Is this faith worth devoting your life to and ultimately dying for?  If not, then why not?  What are you afraid of?

How do you respond to that?

By sitting and waiting?  By being scared?  By delaying?  By running?  Or do you take a risk and take a step in faith?  A risk that could lead to utter desolation.  Or a risk that leads to unbelievable life.  I know this much, the alternative – the way forward without faith – without responding to this gift that has been given to us – leads to certain death.  Always.  No exceptions.  It’s just a matter of time.  And when we consider that, which is really riskier – not responding to faith or taking a step in faith knowing that God walks with us?

The invitation remains to all.  The gift has been given.  Will you unwrap it and respond, or will you put it on the shelf for a more convenient time?

I am grateful that God doesn’t consider the same question for each one of us – will I encounter you or just put you on the shelf for a more convenient time?  God invites us to participate in the most amazing thing ever.  What are we waiting for?  Now is the time.  You aren’t alone.  Let’s take a risk together. Jesus is with us and risks it all for us.

We’re still waving palms at the gate

09 Thursday Jun 2016

Posted by in Humanity, Politics, Society, Theology

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Can we stop putting our hope of salvation in a human politician, authoritarian figure or a general now?  I look through history and pretty much what I see is a record of near constant death, war, destruction and failure.  But hey, maybe we’ve just tried the wrong person, right?

Are we really any different than the people waving palms at Jesus at the gate of Jerusalem?  They wanted a savior on their terms.  And what were their terms?  A military hero who would ride in on a white horse to kill the occupiers and those who would rule them, those who were a threat to their way of living, those who believed differently.  All so that this type of savior could set up a kingdom that would enslave and kill the oppressors – ie become that which the people hated, only they’d be the one in power and in control.

We haven’t changed in 2000 years.  If we are honest with ourselves, we still want this.  We want out leader to be the strongest, the one who will make the military strong and make the nation great.  We want a leader who will put our enemies in their place or better yet, kill them, so that we can revel in the glory of battle – we want blood.  We want a leader who can evoke God’s name on behalf our nation, a self-proclaimed chosen people of God, where we can wrap God in the flag of patriotism and use God to smite our enemies.  Kind of like all the other great nations that have gone before us – Rome, Greece, Babylon, Assyria, Egypt, Britain, Russia, etc.

We still want the military hero or a strong leader that the people at the gate of Jerusalem yearned for 2000 years ago.  And Jesus is still disappointing us by not being that type of leader.  Instead, he’s offering an alternative – not the alternative of trading places with Rome either.  No the alternative is a completely different kingdom, with a different set of rules about citizenship, peace, grace, love and forgiveness.  A kingdom that actually transforms the world and all the people.  A kingdom that heals and restores and rehabilitates.

Instead, we trade this in, not believing it really.  It sounds too good to be true, so it must be false.  We pay lip service to our beliefs about the Kingdom of God and trade in our beliefs so can follow what we really believe – faith in a flawed system because at least we know what we are getting.  We can have a sense of control.  We can control what we are angry and fearful about.  What a way to live!

Does this mean we should abandon government and politics?  By no means.  But these things should not take precedence in our lives and thoughts and hearts.  Those things belong to God.  Let me ask you a question – how much time do you spend concerned over what the President or your Senator or Representative or Governor said today?  How much time did you spend concerned about what God has to say?  Are you waiting with baited breath to hear the latest pronouncement out of Washington or some campaign every day, but kind of cranky when the pastor preaches past 12 minutes, once a week, if you show up that often?  How much of your week is inundated with the speeches, rhetoric, mantras and slogans of campaigns and political parties?  How much of you week do you willingly listen and talk with God?

What if we actually started living out what we say Christianity teaches?  What if we showed grace and respect to those we disagree with?  Yeah, you reading this, who just posted a meme on facebook bashing those supporting the opposing candidate.  Oh wait, you thought others were supposed to show grace and respect to you first.

What if we forgave our enemies?  Or did you think forgiveness started with someone else who was clearly wrong and wronged you?

What if we asked for forgiveness for ourselves from others?  What if we loved those who seem unlovable because they are so different from ourselves?  Or is everyone just supposed to change and be like us because we’re considered normal?

What if we actually let go of this human desire to control our surroundings and those around us?  What if?

What if we really followed Christ?  It would be scary.  It would feel like we were free falling without a parachute.  It would change our lives, and not in ways we might want.  It might even mean death.  Those are costly things.  You’re probably thinking – Way to sell it Matthew.

Yet, that’s what Christianity is really about.  I think that for too long we’ve pushed aside the radicalness and transformativeness of Jesus because it’s beyond uncomfortable – the message is one that we really can’t control.  But unleash it and get out the way and look out – things change, people change.  That might be too much for some.  Then again, it might just change lives for the better and change the world in ways we could only imagine and ways that we can’t control.  It might be described as the onset of the Kingdom of God.

Or we could just keep doing what we’ve been doing throughout human history.  It’s worked so well up to this point, hasn’t it?