Thursday Morning Rambling

Sometimes, my heart breaks at how Christians can be so mean.  Some people claim that we need to get back to the word and understand Scripture better.  They argue that people like me, whom they often call a heretic, need to memorize the Bible better.  Apparently, memorizing Scripture changes everything!

My response to these suggestions is simple, if you memorize Scripture shouldn’t you become more like the Author?  If we’re all about loving Jesus through Bible memorization then why do many in this category not resemble the Author more in their lives?

Folks, I never claim to have everything figured out.  A God who is fully comprehensible is no god at all.  I think some great theologian/philosopher/fictional author wrote that one time.   What I do know is this…when people encountered Jesus they encountered love, grace, mercy and hope.  Jesus was never condemning [read John 3:17]…even towards the many groups of his day who claimed to understand the kingdom of God better than He did.

Jesus’ message was life-giving.  People who truly encountered Him for who He was experienced something incredible, they experienced the love of God, the very presence of God, in their midst.  And, maybe for the first time, they truly knew what love was.  It wasn’t whoring out their lives like the prostitutes did.  It wasn’t becoming incredibly greedy and accumulating mass amounts of wealth like the tax collectors did.  It wasn’t being in positions of great power like the centurions had.  Instead, Jesus showed these people that true love is available to all.  There is no such thing as love of God.  Jesus was love because God is love.  People who experience Jesus shouldn’t know about love…they should know love.

We all journey on this globe that’s spinning rapidly through our solar system.  In our towns, schools, homes, workplaces we encounter hundreds (maybe thousands) of people a week.  For followers of Christ, is the world better because it has encountered us?  OR, is the world left condemned because it didn’t measure up to our values, to our religion, to our understandings of polite, to our notions of good hygiene?

Jesus was radical because when people encountered him, they encountered Heaven.  You see we have a very messed up understanding of Heaven.  It is not some hyper-spiritual bubble in which we will read the Bible for eternity.  It has no chubby angles playing the harp while sitting on a cloud.  Even we will not be sitting on a cloud for an eternity.  The world will not be destroyed at the end of time.  Revelation is clear about this foundational truth…God will establish Heaven on this Earth!

So, what is Heaven?  Heaven is simply the presence of God.  What more do we want it to be?  Jesus spoke often of the kingdom of God but He also called it by another name; the kingdom of Heaven.  As the Church exists in the world, it should be a window into the heavenly realm.  People should see Christians and see people who are aglow because their eyes have seen the glory…the glory is our Risen Lord, Jesus Christ.

I love Scripture and cling to the teachings that flow out of its rich story [by story I do not mean that I believe it is false].  Scripture, though, is not enough.  Teaching Scripture is not enough.  Heaven will not be an eternal sermon and change is not produced by sermons alone [although good teaching has great motivation].  Instead, Heaven is the presence of God.  The presence of God is available to us if only we seek Jesus in the midst of the chaos of our lives.  The hope of Revelation is that one day the distractions will be called away and we will be able to simply be with Jesus!

My challenge to myself and to you is this: are you experiencing the reality of Jesus in your midst?  Do you know Jesus or do you know about Jesus?  These are two different things.  I know about George W. Bush.  I know, intimately, my wife.

The Hebrew has a beautiful word for the way in which God knows us and we’re to know Him; yada.  Yada is the type of knowledge a spouse has of their mate.  The links between sexuality and spirituality are so deep because God is a romantic, loving King who desires for his mates to come back to a close, intimate relationship with Him.

The problem with intimacy is that it’s uncomfortable.  Intimacy is not climbing into bed, getting your jollies, and then moving on.  Our world seeks for us to believe that.  Intimacy is time-consuming because it takes time to build.  It is uncomfortable because it requires us to open up, become vulnerable, and to be known as the real, insecure, narcissistic people that we are.  It requires sacrifice because intimacy builds commitment that requires us to die to our interests to fully embrace the interests of another.  Intimacy, truly, involves marriage because only in a committed relationship like marriage can a husband and wife explore the vast, unrestrained journey of two people becoming one flesh.

This is what God desires from us in His relationship with us.  He has no expectations of you memorizing the entire Bible unless you meet Him in the process and become more and more like Him.  He has no desire for you to tithe to your local church unless you encounter Him and catch His giving Spirit in the midst of your tithing.  He has no desire for you to share the good news unless it is truly good news for your life.

We argue so many times about forms.  Should we teach this way or that way?  Should we share the gospel this way or that way?  Should we memorize the Bible or not?  The real issue: are we experiencing Jesus as such a reality in our own lives that we cannot help but share His marvelous love with others?

I meet many Christians and many churches who are truly experiencing Jesus and I applaud them.  Many in the church I serve know Jesus so incredibly deeply that when I leave their presence I am a better person.  You know why?  Because I met Jesus through their witness, their stories, their openness, their vulnerability, their time to simply be available to journey with me.

Some claim that meanness is okay in the kingdom and I totally disagree.  Jesus was never mean.  He was assertive but not mean.  He did not have aggressive agendas and never sought to tear people down (even His enemies) in the name of truth.  You know why?  He was/is the Truth.  The Truth is relational, it is a person, the Truth is Jesus Christ.

May Christians be known as a people of love to ourselves and to the many neighbors who do not have the hope we have.  May a hallmark of Christianity be a people, on a mission from God, to redeem this broken down place we call a home, and to share a little slice of Heaven in the conversations and places we roam.

“In the essentials, unity.  In the non-essentials, liberty.  And in all things, charity.” ~St. Augustine

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This entry was posted on January 08th, 2009 and is filed under Jason Barnhart. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.