02.26.2021 - week 94
i’m going to try for nuance this lovely saturday … something the inter-webs are not exactly known for cultivating lol.
god’s word says it. i believe it.
that settles it.
do you (still) believe that famous bumper sticker?
there’s a lot of deconstruction + reconstruction going on.
millennials + generation-z are rejecting the church + historic faith in droves for a variety of reasons, some fairer than others. for some it’s gender inequality and failures in protection toward women and children certainly contribute. for others the politics, the sexual ethics, the capitalism, the meritocracy of the conservative world are often reason people give for quitting their faith.
but there tends to be a personal element to it also.
i heard my friend john mark comer say this week
‘i know of almost no-one deconstructing who hasn’t been deeply wounded by the system.’
people get hurt by church folks or church politics or church conflict and it certainly contributes to the instinct towards rejecting all of it. i have certainly done a bit of breaking things down to the studs the last few years and examining what from my education and church culture i want to carry into the back half of my life.
often people come to this intersection and saying something like … i choose jesus, but not the church. or i choose jesus message but some of the bible is a little iffy. we must be careful that in choosing jesus, we don’t define him in our terms but his.
i just want to live jesus teaching.
i just want to follow jesus model.
i just want to live the red letters.
while these concepts can sound like an elevated understanding, they are potentially replacing an incorrect mentality with another one.
jesus isn’t ‘better’ than the rest of the bible. jesus fulfills it of course, but his message isn’t just the gospels, his message is the entire book. jesus loves every page, HE IS every page.
by this i mean, his message isn’t purer, his method not more prescriptive than peter’s or paul’s, and his words not more highly weighted than the rest of the book he and the rest of the trinity co-authored.
often (maybe not always) if someone is trying to elevate jesus words above the rest of the bible’s message, it is for an agenda. if you are frustrated by inconsistencies in the conservative christian dynamic you grew up with .. be careful you don’t exchange one reductive vision of the world for another one with better PR.
:)
so yes .. of course i believe the bumper sticker quote at the top, provided we acknowledge that who is interpreting ‘it’ has a lot to do with what ‘it’ says.
every generation must do the difficult work of stripping away the cultural stuff added to the revealed word of god and get back to studying it for what it actually says and trying to replicate it in personal life + church + culture.
Matthew 5: 17-19 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”
2 Timothy 3:16-17 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
2 Peter 1:20-21 That no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
KG Korner
(a few wise words from lady kristen macdonald)
A FOX! Against the new fallen snow the colors were a stark contrast. The burnt orange of his fur against the bleak white made our eyes bulge, we ran to the window. And before we could all gather he was gone, the only trace were the footprints he left behind.
Song of Solomon 2:15 says, “Catch the foxes for us, the little foxes that spoil the vineyards, for our vineyards are in blossom.” Everyone gets a little worried when Song of Solomon is quoted because there are some vivid images he portrays; yet this one although vivid is easier in theory than in actuality. Foxes are known for being sly predators looking for their next meal found raiding anywhere that can feed them. This particular verse is referring to relationships and how we can’t let something so sly and willing to injure affect it greatly; although it may seem small it has the ability to quickly seep into every area.
I know none of you who know Pastor Luke can ever imagine this happening (wink) but last week he did something that made me really mad. Like any wife I tried to sort it out with him, we talked about it more than I’m sure he would have liked to and then he moved on. The problem came when I couldn’t. The feelings of frustration circulated. 13.5 years in, I know that in marriage there are conflicts and the issue that vividly came as a fox ‘in my yard’ was unforgiveness.
The best way I can describe it is it was like I put a pair of glasses on and the lenses made me see everything through my frustration and unwillingness to let go of my hurt of what happened. As these thoughts churned in my heart on day three I was driving along in my car all angsty and realized how disgustingly unforgiving I was being.
Have I ever done something that hurt or frustrated my spouse? Has he had to forgive me? Was he merciful even when he had to bear the brunt of the consequences because it affected us both? Yes, yes & yes.
The verse that God laid on my heart in that moment was Matthew 6:14-15, “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their tresspasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” Gut punch to the heart, right where I needed it.
Like most things forgiveness is a process. The Lord had to deal with me first, I had to sort it out in my own heart and then come to Luke humbly and apologize graciously and fully. So often we hold onto unforgiveness and it only hurts us. It’s as if we catch a fox and put it in a garden we have spent much time nurturing. What does the fox do? He destroys the very thing we care so much about. But if we catch the fox and properly displace him fast enough we have the opportunity to fix or save what’s left.
The funniest part of it all was that the Lord dealt with me about my unforgiveness and then we found out that the thing that I was so frustrated about literally wasn’t even my husband’s fault. Beware: whatever foxes may be trying to get in the yard of your relationships may be sly but may you be all the wiser!
#cupofleadership
be a thermometer not a thermostat.
thermostats report the temperature. thermostats set it.
thermostats reflect current reality. thermostats shift it.
if you want to be a leader, you must learn how to you use your words + actions to change the atmosphere around you to what is necessary to achieve the goal.
conversely, if you are leader, learn the discipline of self-management that doesn’t allow a bad day to cascade emotionally across your team and make the temperature something no one wants.
book review
how to fight racism - jemar tisby
if someone was willing to dedicate time to read 1 book to understand how we got to the racial tensions in the church in america, it would be jemar tisby’s previous work ‘color of compromise.’ in this follow-up he answers a useful question … ‘what can i do to help?’
when confronted with the visually transformative events of may/june 2020 in our country, almost everyone asks some version of this question. the desire to move to action must be leveraged for the common good.
tisby does a wonderful job of briefly showing how increasing our awareness + relationships + commitment makes the difference in the fight for justice .. highly recommend.
#superchristianguy
stuff to click on
if you like this newsletter .. a friend of mine + i do a video version, this week was episode 6
my guy kirk franklin did a ‘tiny desk’ concert and it’s really really good.