I haven’t forgotten about you.  I haven’t stopped writing.  I’ve been working over-nights and taking care of my children, so my writing time has been devoted to a personal thing that I am working on.  Sorry.  But here we go…

I’ve roughed out several posts for one ongoing thought.  I think that you’ll like it.  Or maybe you’ll really hate it.  I pray that you’ll have some strong reaction.  Beginning this Friday I will resume my Tuesday/Friday blogging regimen.  <Everyone cheers!>

Below is a sampling of my forthcoming thoughts, though I have withheld the word that ties them all together.  Consider it a teaser; my gift to you.  We’ll see you on Friday…

No one ever talks about it because it’s just not popular; and it gives the impression of a kind of resignation, unacceptable to the people grasping for control, those who are earning their way in and proving their value.  Should you embrace it like wine before bedtime; you best keep it to yourself.  Because if you find it, if it finds you; many will not understand.  It’s hard to fit in when you’ve learned to stop seizing upon the opinions of others.  You still care, but with a palm instead of a fist.

Recessions, depressions, traffic congestion – you learn to live around them.  You sing your sad songs with a tilted grin.  Truth, it exists, and you can study her contents.  It’s okay to mourn if you’ve got to.  And by the way, “okay” means okay.

This certain grace is trying to find you.  To accept it, you lay down your undying quest for happiness.  Don’t worry, you’ll get something better, not fleeting.  You’ll work and you’ll dance.  You’ll eat and you’ll pray.  You’ll know something.  Not a lot.  Not everything.  Just enough for this day, and probably the beginnings of tomorrow.  You won’t appear wise to everyone, but you’ll forget to care.

Vision and history will line up in perspective as hope and informant for the unfurling present.  The op-ed pages will cease to make as much sense as they once did.  Newsprint looks like a coloring book, all black and white, waiting for some child to scribble over the lines.  Youthful Ideals have peace talks with Aging Disappointment.  They decide they are both right about certain things, neither of them change their ways; they just become friendlier and reside in their familiar places.

Lying down on your bed you think, “To eat, and to drink and to find satisfaction in your work… this too I see is from the hand of God.”  Rest as if your faith has been proven, “become sight,” as an old hymn says.

On Thursday, Kendra was placed on a heart transplant list.  Last night at approximately 9 PM, her transplant surgery began!  It is a bitter-sweet answer to prayer when life is passed on to one family from another.  I am rejoicing for Kendra and her family, while I am gripped by a certain heaviness for the family that gave a hallowed gift.

Please continue to pray for her body to adjust and heal.

You know, I’ve been thinking a lot about prayer.  Specifically how, being raised Pentecostal, I’ve been taught to believe in miracles and in things like healing.  What is it that makes a person continue to pray? 

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According to rabbinic tradition and Acts 7, Moses tended sheep in the wilderness for forty years.  His first forty years were spent in a king’s palace.  His final forty years were spent leading a liberated, yet still grumpy people toward the Promised Land.  It’s the middle forty, the desert years, that seem pointless.  He got married, had some kids, and inhaled the smoke of a burning paote bush that led him to believe I AM WHO I AM was telling him to lead his people out of Egypt.  Forty years is a long time to listen to  sheep.  It is a long time to believe the words of a flaming bush.

What’s more is that God tells him the job he is preparing him to do will fail.  Exodus 4 paraphrased says, “You’re going to do all these miraculous things, but I’m going to harden Pharaoh’s heart so that he won’t listen to you.  It’s not going to work.  It’s not you; it’s me.”  Encouragement like that probably made the octogenarian long to hear the bleating of sheep. 

There has been much ado about a recent issue of Newsweek which pronounced the decline of American Christianity.  Conservative Christian media outlets and bloggers have taken to chastising editor Jon Meacham, dismissing the Episcopalian’s editorial treatment of a study by the American Religious Identification Survey, which cited a 10 percent drop in Americans who claim to be Christians.  Rather than damning Mr. Meacham to that old Christian woodshed somewhere below the earth’s crust, why not consider the subject of the study?  Though lopping off the ear of the messenger is temporarily enjoyable it is rarely fruitful.  If a man has one hundred sheep and ten of them go missing, the good shepherd asks why.

Now I’d rather crank up my iPod listening to a band that sounds like Modest Mouse with positive lyrics and pretend that someone just found the LORD through a Christian t-shirt I was wearing.  Avoidance is a helpful tool.  The cultural version of American Christianity has been visibly suffering for two decades.  Signs are everywhere.  If your local Christian bookstore still exists, for example, congratulations.  Pick up a pack of “Testa-mints” from the checkout area and mail them to me.  For the rest of us: let’s list the why’s…

6 reasons why cultural Christianity is declining

1. Cultural Christianity has easily definable enemies. The reason the Bible is so darn long, has something to do with the fact that it is an ongoing story about a God who loves his creation.  Much of it deals with how followers of Christ are to treat their enemies.  People who oppose school prayer.  People who are pro-choice.  People who are gay.  People who were born in the Middle East.  People who believe in evolution.  Clearly enemies, right?  Clearly bound for judgment and destruction, right?  Love those that hate you.  Bless them that curse you.  Pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.  Romans speaks of God’s kindness drawing all of us to repentance; even those of us who assume we’ve sinned a great deal less than the next guy.  How does anyone learn that God is kind in a world of constant brokenness?  Through grace demonstrated by others.  Be slow in choosing your enemies.
2. Cultural Christianity hopes for judgment. When you have a list of enemies, you must have an intended purpose for them.  The book of Amos says: “Woe to you who desire the day of the LORD!  Why would you have the day of the LORD?  It is darkness, and not light.”  God does intend to judge the righteous and the wicked.  Those desiring judgment to fall quickly may find themselves in the latter group.  The target audience of the Hebrew prophets was God’s chosen people, Israel.  It was their culture that God detested and rejected.  When the prophets of scripture spoke against Israel’s enemies, it was done in passing.  “Babylon will get theirs, don’t worry about them.  Vengeance belongs to someone else.  What about you?”  Israel was promised liberation, not victory.
3. Cultural Christianity embraces escapism. Rapture theology allows Christians to say, “we”re outta here!”  This theological idea is less than 200 years old and is a peculiar position in light of Jesus teaching his followers to pray that God’s kingdom would be experienced on earth.  Cultural Christians live with the idea that they won’t be here for long.  The bible of course tells us the exact opposite.  We will be here on the earth forever as God redeems his creation and establishes a holy city on the earth.  Vastly different than being given wings of ignorance and a harpsichord.  Imagine eternity spent in the exact same location where you refused to love your neighbor.  Not a very heavenly feeling, is it?  Because Christians believe in a kingdom not built with hands that extends for eternity, we should embrace every opportunity to demonstrate that belief.
4. Cultural Christianity is too political. Theologian and pop singer John Mayer asks, “Is there anyone who can remember changing their mind from some paint on a sign… or someone yelled real loud one time?”  I have a friend who lives near a Planned Parenthood.  When I meet up with him for morning coffee there is a group of people standing outside holding protest signs.  I wonder if anyone has driven by and thought, “Gee, I guess abortion is wrong.  I just changed my mind.”  If anything this has an opposite effect, further strengthening the belief that Christians only care about winning a cultural battle for conservatism.  Perhaps you’ve noticed that the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction recently.  It’s not uncommon to hear Christians with a liberal bent berating those who are more politically conservative.  “Good morning” to believers who must attach a political adjective to your Christianity, you’re actions are exactly as offensive to the other side as the actions of the other sideare to you!  The tactics are the same, only the sound bites are different.  The false dichotomy of American politics is being exposed, hence the tension in our country.  Followers of Jesus embrace the sanctity of life, all of life, from unborn to the feudalist peasant, to the  minority, to women, to the dying elderly.  They recognize all injustice and work to lovingly correct it, regardless of which party claims the injustice as “their issue.”
   

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5. Cultural Christianity has a graven image problem. According to the book, unChristian, by Dave Kinnaman, the negative effects of Christian marketing are up to ten times greater than positive outcomes.  If a mass mailing produces one new Christian there are ten people who have been moved further from faith in Christ.  If you’re a pastor, I know what you’re thinking: “Those marketers don’t have my graphics guy!  They don’t have my clever phrasing.”  I know this because that’s what we all think.  Mass marketing of Christianity through mailings produces one half of one percent return.  20 thousand fliers = 100 people who might check out the Jesus you’re selling.  Potentially 1000 people who will decide to permanently ignore your message.  Save your money.  Forget your image.  Sit down and pray with someone instead.  Christians should consider prayer their greatest marketing tool.  Jesus doesn’t need to be cooler.  He just needs to be seen.
6. Cultural Christianity “sees that hand.”I remember listening to an evangelist’s sermon when I was a kid.  It ended typically, “You don’t know when the last trump will sound.  With every head bowed and every eye closed… (then there was a dramatic pause)… (still pausing)…”  With the church keyboard turned up to 11, the trump did sound, thanks to the keyboard player.  Hearts all across the auditorium stopped beating.  Old people died.  Many of us were audibly impaired for about a week.  Additionally there was a certain odor coming from the hind section of people’s Sunday Bests.  Becoming a disciple has very little to do with a repeat-after-me-prayer.  Loving one another as believers is the absolute best form of evangelism, or so taught Jesus.  When Christians care for other Christians everyone notices.  When we work together to make ourselves and one another look more like Christ, we’ll “see a lot more hands” in a figurative sense of course.

Within the Christian subculture opinions are flying like ravens sent from an ark.  According to subculture pundits, some churches have been preaching a false gospel, some don’t talk about sin enough, some are too stuffy, some aren’t relevant, some have signs with cute slogans and some don’t.  Some believe that the Newsweek article is leftist propaganda to undo Christianity.  Some believe it’s a call to arms.  Maybe we should say, “It is what it is.”  Maybe we should notice that the article says very little about authentic Christianity; it is largely about the subculture of Christianity and its unraveling. 

Missionaries take their message to the culture into which they have been called.  That is, they strip themselves of the culture they know in order to present a greater message to a culture they must learn.

Grace.

Part 2 Friday: “Responding to the Eulogy.”

Let’s not forget that Holy Week – from the passion, to the death, to the glorious resurrection – is what we’re all about. The twin mysteries of the incarnation and the pasch define the transcending meaning of Christianity. We’re so used to this message that it is easy for us to forget just how incredibly radical this idea is.

The Holy Cross itself is a sign of contradiction. A horrible means of torture and death becomes the ultimate symbol of love. It is a stumbling block for the Jews, foolishness for the Gentiles (1 Cor 1:23). But even this we try to normalize, file it away in the background of life. The Utah Highway Patrol argued in the Utah courts that the crosses they erected on the side of Utah highways to memorialize fallen state troopers were a nondescript, generic symbol of death, and not a religious symbol. How sad if this were true! How sad that there are those who believe it!

Let’s take a moment and remember just how amazing this idea is. That Christ would even come to earth as a human being, flesh and blood, is itself a wondrous start. Human ideas of God are almost always lofty, separated, set apart on a higher, untouchable plain. But here we have God-become-man walking among us, living among the poor and simple people. Then add to this the idea that he would DIE, the sacrificial lamb willingly led to the slaughter out of love to save a people who so willingly turn their backs on him. This is LOVE. All the hymns suddenly make more sense than ever. Amazing grace. What wondrous love is this?

We celebrate Easter because it changed our lives. Christ conquered death. Our sinfulness died with him, we are raised with him. We have hope at last!

By the Lord has this been done. It is a marvel in our eyes! (Ps 118:23)

You have preserved my life from the pit of destruction,

When you cast behind your back all my sins. (Is 39:18)

The Lord is our savior;

we shall sing to stringed instruments

In the house of the Lord

all the days of our life. (Is 39:20)

This Easter, pause to revel in the wonder, awe, and love that is Christ’s paschal mystery.

It’s Thursday.  Maundy Thursday.  Maundy is from a Latin word meaning “mandate.”  Something about the celebration of this particular day is mandatory.

The footwashing. 

The Eucharist.

If the doctrines of Christianity hold true, we must accept that God himself washed the feet of his followers and that God himself served bread and wine to these same followers.  Even the guy he knew was going to greet him with a deadly kiss.  Even the guy who would spend the rest of the thin, night hours lying about his status as a follower of this God-made-flesh.

Mandatory.

God himself… God incarnate… the God-Man… makes imitation mandatory.  That part is not surprising.  All gods mandate likeness.  This God makes non-imitation forgivable and that is what sets him apart from the “would-be’s.”

He hears the cries of Hosanna – Save us now, Son of David… Save us now, King of Israel!  And he responded.  In the way only a God who was familiar with human suffering could “save us now.”  Liberating humanity from itself.  Liberating me from me through mandating two things on a Thursday evening, “Remember what you are going to experience over the next days, and and in your remembering, serve one another.”

A far-off god would never be so silly as to entrust men with now-clean feet to walk about the world serving bread and wine.  But a God who became a man, who knew these men, even the one who would turn him over, even the one who would cower before a girl in order to deny this God, he might understand the power of liberation.  A God who would invade history from outside history might save us all from “me,” from the false comfort of becoming our own god.

The first sin wasn’t taking a piece of fruit; it was striving for equality with God.  That is the importance of the flesh cloak taken up by God himself.  In the flesh he understood humanity’s grand brokenness, the “me-ness” central to human depravity.  He demonstrated life in a foreign manner.  He did not consider equality with God something to be grasped.

Wait.

He was God.  Even in his bodily form, still God.

And yet…

He taught humanity to live apart from the constant striving of one seeking god-status.  Apart from the cover-up that sets me just a fair shake higher, nearer God than you.  Hearing the Hosannas, he responded.

Save us now, God-made-flesh.

Last week at RoP we focused on the idea that we are more than what we produce.  This week we’ll be exploring an idea that is woven together with production: we are more than what we consume.  According to the New York Times the average city dweller (and by that the Times is referring to NYC) is exposed to around 5,000 ads a day.  Most of us who live outside of NYC are exposed to just over 3,000 per diem.  Think that’s bad?  Studies estimate that we’ll spend 3 years of our lives on this planet watching TV ads.  (Read this post for a great perspective)

3 years is a long time.  Thank heavens for Tivo, right?  What if we defined ourselves according to what we’ve managed to be sold?

More later…