Caution: Don't Read (part II)

"Yeah, those bits from Jesus were tough, but what do you expect? He's perfect. Nobody else, not even people that love Jesus, would say or do anything like that." [If that's your best defense against the stuff in the previous post, again, don't read any further--the following was written by actual people who trusted Jesus and his words.]

• "But those who want to be rich fall into temptation, a trap, and many foolish and harmful desires, which plunge people into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is a root [a] of all kinds of evil, and by craving it, some have wandered away from the faith (A) and pierced themselves with many pains. 11 Now you, man of God, run from these things; but pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, (B) endurance, (C) and gentleness."
• "Now all the believers were together and had everything in common. (AQ) 45 So they sold their possessions and property and distributed the proceeds to all, as anyone had a need. [j] 46 And every day they devoted themselves [to meeting] together in the temple complex, and broke bread from house to house. They ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, (AR) 47 praising God and having favor with all the people."
• "But know this: difficult times will come in the last days. (A) 2 For people will be lovers of self, (B) lovers of money"
• "For an overseer, as God's manager, must be blameless, not arrogant, not quick tempered, not addicted to wine, not a bully, not greedy for money"
• "Your life should be free from the love of money."
• "Instruct those who are rich in the present age not to be arrogant (E) or to set their hope on the uncertainty of wealth, but on God, [a] who richly provides us with all things (F) to enjoy. 18 [Instruct them] to do good, to be rich in good works, (G) to be generous, willing to share"
• "But the one who is rich [should boast] in his humiliation, because he will pass away like a flower of the field. (A) 11 For the sun rises with its scorching heat and dries up the grass; its flower falls off, and its beautiful appearance is destroyed. In the same way, the rich man will wither away while pursuing his activities. (B)"
• "Therefore, it is already a total defeat (F) for you that you have lawsuits against one another. Why not rather put up with injustice? (G) Why not rather be cheated?"
• "And I say this, brothers: the time is limited, (S) so from now on . . . those who buy [should be] as though they did not possess, 31 and those who use the world as though they did not make full use of it. For this world in its current form is passing away. (U) 32 I want you to be without concerns."
• "For we brought nothing into the world, and [a] we can take nothing out. (B) 8 But if we have food and clothing, [b] we will be content with these."
• "You ask and don't receive because you ask wrongly, so that you may spend it on your desires for pleasure. (A) 4 Adulteresses! [a] Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? So whoever wants to be the world's friend becomes God's enemy. (B) 5 Or do you think it's without reason the Scripture says that the Spirit He has caused to live in us yearns jealously? (C) [b]"
• "Do not love the world (W) or the things that belong to [d] the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him. Because everything that belongs to [e] the world— 16 the lust of the flesh, (X) the lust of the eyes, (Y) and the pride (Z) in one's lifestyle—is not from the Father, but is from the world."
• "If anyone has this world's goods and sees his brother in need but shuts off his compassion from him—how can God's love reside in him?"
• "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ: although He was rich, for your sake He became poor, so that by His poverty you might become rich."
• "And walk in love, as the Messiah also loved us and gave Himself for us, a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God."

Is it just me, or do even the conservatives read the New Testament a little less literally when it comes to money?

Caution: Don't Read

An interesting self-inspection: I'm wondering if what we really love and trust has anything to do with how we 'interpret' these bits from the gospels, mostly from the Man himself:

• "No one can be a slave of two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot be slaves of God and of money."
• "[Jesus] instructed [the apostles] to take nothing for the road except a walking stick: no bread, no traveling bag, no money in their belts"
• "Don't be afraid, (A) little flock, (B) because your Father delights (C) to give you the kingdom. (D) 33 Sell (E) your possessions and give to the poor. (F) Make money-bags (G) for yourselves that won't grow old, an inexhaustible treasure (H) in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. 34 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
• "He also said to them, 'When I sent you out without money-bag, traveling bag, or sandals, did you lack anything?' 'Not a thing,' they said."
• "And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of the unrighteous money so that when it fails, they may welcome you into eternal dwellings."
• "The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, were listening to all these things and scoffing at Him."
• "Then Jesus said to His disciples, 'I assure you: It will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven! (A) 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.'"
• "Blessed are you who are poor, because the kingdom of God is yours. . . .But woe to you who are rich, because you have received your comfort."
• "As for the seed that fell among thorns, these are the ones who, when they have heard, go on their way and are choked with worries, riches, and pleasures of life, and produce no mature fruit."
• "Someone from the crowd said to Him, 'Teacher, (Z) tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.' 14 'Friend,' [d] He said to him, 'who appointed Me a judge or arbitrator over you?' 15 He then told them, 'Watch out and be on guard (AA) against all greed (AB) because one's life is not in the abundance of his possessions.' "
• He also said to the one who had invited Him, 'When you give a lunch or a dinner, don't invite your friends, your brothers, your relatives, or your rich neighbors, because they might invite you back, and you would be repaid. 13 On the contrary, when you host a banquet, (L) invite those who are poor, maimed, lame, or blind. (M) 14 And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you; for you will be repaid (N) at the resurrection of the righteous.' "
• "But I say to you who listen: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. (X) 29 If anyone hits you on the cheek, (Y) offer the other also. And if anyone takes away your coat, don't hold back your shirt either. 30 Give to everyone who asks from you, and from one who takes away your things, don't ask for them back. . . . If you do [what is] good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? (AB) Even sinners lend to sinners to be repaid in full. 35 But love your enemies, do [what is] good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. (AC) For He is gracious to the ungrateful and evil."

I told you not to read it.

Where have I been?

It's been a while since my last post, but life has been continuing, surging even. I've probably got a few posts 'built up' in me now, so we'll see if I increase my 4 posts-per-year average. Much is afoot.

A few highlights from the last several months, that I hope to explore more fully in some upcoming posts:

• On a personal note, I continue to be drawn to the core of Christianity. I love keeping the main thing the main thing. That, of course, begs the question, but more on that later. Suffice it to say for now that Jesus, the kingdom he announced (and leads), the way of living he taught and modeled, the real help he offers in this world and the next--I'm still amazed and pulled by that Core. I love hearing and thinking about what he's really offering us all.
• The (12) steps are back. Well, they never totally went away; I just semi-stalled in doing them. The fact that I was largely doing them on my own may have had a bit to do with that, and the return of traveling partners is part of their resurgence. More on that later.
• Ecclesiology is also on my mind (i.e., how the heck can we be most helpful to each other? i.e., once we collectively accept a 'get Christ fully formed within' goal in place of a 'get your ticket to heaven' goal, does anything stay the same in corporate life !?!, i.e., if . . . you get the idea). Much more to come.
• Relatedly, A new book released by Frank Viola and George Barna called Pagan Christianity? is going to be shaking things up all things 'church' for a while. There's already a lot one can read about it online--it's an explosive book. Personally, I'm not as interested right now in deconstructing typical church patterns and paradigms (the goal of this book) as I am in constructing helpful ones. Regardless, this book is and will continue to be an important piece. More on that later as well.
• I've been deepening my connection to the folks at Urban Youth Impact for some time. The small church, of which I am part, that was recently born out of this 'parachurch' ministry is, right now, trying to follow Jesus into restructuring ourselves around a shared goal of maturity, of "Christ formed fully within." We're also finding some ways to pursue this without constantly leading from the top down. Very exciting.

Anyway, it'll be good for me, I think, to flesh a lot of these things out--and soon. Maybe even more helpful to get feedback. And yes, other than the Pagan Christianity bit, all the above are related.

God's love to you.

More than compassion

Hey, here's an easy question for my fellow evangelicals: What made Jesus so amazing to his contemporaries? What convinced everyone that God himself was doing something with this guy?

While we ruminate on the obvious, let's talk about some words that have fairly big roles in evangelical Christianity: salvation and gospel. What images come to mind when you hear salvation? Do you think of someone 'praying to receive Christ' for the first time? Or of heaven after death? Or maybe God's pronouncements of (by)passage through final judgement when many will be accepted by God because of Jesus. If you grew up like me, 'salvation' is about pretty heavenly stuff, generally speaking. What about gospel? What do you think of when you hear that? Again, if you grew up like me you maybe think of some of the same stuff as with salvation. Maybe something, too, about Jesus' death and the forgiveness of sins through believing he 'died for us'. But now, back to the original question. What made Jesus so amazing to his contemporaries? Was it offering that kind of 'salvation'? His promises of heaven and threats of hell? Was it his forgiving nature and acts? His brilliant (and radical) take on the Hebrew Scriptures? All of these, I would suggest, he could have done and not drawn any particularly widespread loyalty or hatred, though he likely would have been made into an irrelevant outcast himself, given his contrast with the Judaism of his day. What made everyone (even his enemies) take him so seriously, and not just dismiss this Galilean woodworker? If the gospels are to be believed, it was quite obviously his power that drew deep responses. Namely his power to heal the sick, to remove demons, to raise the dead, to control nature, to rise from the dead himself. It was more than good intentions and compassion towards people. Many feel compassion in those times and today. He was more than just "willing" to help--that made him a nice person--what made Jesus the center of the largest movement in history was that he was "willing and able" to save people from this world's brutalities with power so great it had to be from God.

Here's a similar question: What made the small group of poor and uneducated people (who were adding to their non-credentials the claim that their publicly crucified leader had "risen from the dead") so amazing to their contemporaries? What convinced everyone that God himself was with these people of no account? Why did anyone listen to their messengers who had such global claims? Again, while we think on the obvious, let's discuss our terms for a second. First, when the gospel writers talked about the 'healing' Jesus brought people, they used the same word when talking about the 'salvation' Jesus brought people. In the NT writings, Jesus' physical healings and the more heavenly salvation that he offers are related closely enough to use the same word for each. Whatever we think 'salvation' is, the NT writers didn't just think about heaven when they heard that word. They thought about really being helped--whether in heaven or on earth.

Now, in relating 'gospel' to 'salvation', I've always taken the one (gospel) to be the key, the mechanism, for how the other ('salvation') works. In one scripture the apostle Paul puts it this way, "I'm not ashamed of the gospel, because it's the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes." What happens, though, when we stick a NT concept of 'salvation' into that verse? The 'power' referenced in that verse gets appreciably larger--it goes from being a 'power' about heaven and life after death, to a power concerning heaven and earth--a bigger power. Interestingly, it echos something Jesus said about himself, just before his ascension: "All authority on heaven and on earth has been given to me." All authority. heaven and earth. What's more, he said this right before giving what's called 'the Great Commission': "Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations . . ." Even without these particular verses, it's clear from the Gospels and Acts that the 'salvation' people sought and received from Jesus and his disciples wasn't just a heavenly one. It's also clear that Jesus didn't understand himself or his disciples as having no authority over earthly things. They used God's power to save in every possible way, in every possible venue. In that context they invited people to trust Jesus with everything (in heaven and on earth).

Is there a difference between the "salvation" and "gospel" we've announced and the one Jesus and the disciples did? If so, what's the difference? To me, the difference in a nutshell is that we announce a Jesus that lacks power (or willingness) to do things on earth, at least the kind of power that made Jesus' own contemporaries and those of his diciples after him take him and his message seriously. This isn't just an academic issue, either. To misrepresent the power of any king or his kingdom is serious a slander of that king or that kingdom. It might be the most serious slander. It's a particularly effective slander if it comes from that king's own subjects. Before we continue to stand on such a potentially slanderous theology or practice, we ought to have overwhelming biblical support, especially in light of the role that Christ's power to heal played in Jesus' own evangelism, in the disciples' witness, and their disciples' witness (Stephen, Barnabas, etc.). The NT examples are too frequent, the momentum toward practicing the miraculous too strong, to be overthrown on any questionable or scripturally thin theology, and too much is at stake. Out of love for Jesus and the sakes of those to whom we are sent as his ambassadors, we need to honestly ask and seek what kind of 'salvation', what kind of 'savior', that Jesus and his disciples offered the world, compare it to what we offer, and make whatever adjustments are required.

'Cause I'm a lawyer, dagumit.

In response to this story*, I did exactly what the author invited the readers to do (and made easy to do by creating a wonderful link to the website of the governor of Georgia). Please read the story--it's short and easy to follow. Here's my two bits to the governor (feel free to plagiarize if you want an even easier way to say something):

The attorneys for the State of Georgia who continue to pursue additional prison time and/or the official label of "sex offender" for Genarlow Wilson make a mockery of the legal profession and make the State of Georgia appear to be either completely ignorant of what justice is (which I know it is not), or, worse, willing to to use the power of the State in furtherance of far more disturbing impulses than those which occur at a party between a 17 year old young man and a 15 year old young woman. It would be a travesty regardless of the young man's race, but doing this to a young black man in the South adds fuel to the fires of racism that are still burning, sometimes violently, in every community in the United States, despite much continuing work against them.

I urge you, as the governor of the State of Georgia, to quickly and decisively end the inexcusable pursuits of your subordinates who threaten to further erode the barely existent confidence of the African American community in the American system of "justice." You and your officials aren't just acting for Georgia in this case--in the minds of African Americans accross the country, what you do with this young man will be painted on every prosecutor, every police officer, and every state official for every state in the union. It will either be another reason for distrust and bitterness or a small reason to hope that we are becoming just.

*Caveat: I have not fact-checked the linked story, mainly because it came through yahoo news and not just a blog somewhere. If you want to do more digging before doing anything, cool. I'd appreciate any update on the facts, myself.

Oh, the logical consistency of Jesus

One of the assignments I gave my business law students last term was to read every passage in the NT that had some logical bearing on how to handle money or business issues, quote in full the passages that struck them, and give a brief comment on those passages as well as any themes that emerged. I highly encourage anyone to do this, that is, if you're a person who wants to be loyal to Jesus and also have to use money. Of course, I then had to grade these collections, which meant I got to read a lot of these scriptures several times, along with my students' reflections. I really never believed my own teachers when they talked about how much they had learned from teaching a class. Now I do. I can't really go into everything I got out of that experience in one post, but one important aspect is the logical connections between so many of Jesus' teachings.

Jesus says to love our enemies, even to love them by giving to them. He says to respond to takers with even more giving.*

He says in another place that to be his disciple, we have to be willing to give up all that we have, even our own life. If we don't we can't be his disciple.

He says in another place, we can't serve, pursue, God's interests and Money's. We're going to have to choose whose instrument we're going to be, which master we're going to trust and obey.

He says in yet another place that the message of God's governing of earth, the good news, can be heard but rendered fruitless--producing nothing in a person--by the worries, cares, and desires of this life.

He says people who don't really know God are constantly concerned with things to wear, eat, and use, but that we should be concerned with letting God lead again, and all that stuff will be taken care of by God's undeserved kindness.

There are more, but do you see the connections?

*Incidentally, it is this feature of Christ's teaching that hasn't exactly caught fire among his "followers." It also happens to be God's plan for overcoming evil. So I guess loyalty to money = no fruitful loyalty to God = evil keeps on truckin'.

True or False?

Here's a true/false question I put on my most recent test in business law:

Based on the New Testament's examples and teachings, Christians in a business dispute should be primarily concerned with the money that they have been given by God to steward.

Now, I actually don't think the question is that hard. The fun part, I think, is that it raises other questions for Christians in business (not that I expect the students to remotely think about them during an exam): If building and maintaining my stack of cash shouldn't be the primary objective when in a dispute with others, is it ever supposed to be our primary objective from a New Testament perspective? Is money supposed to be our main goal in planning our advertising? In product design? In customer service? In family relations? "Wait a minute," you may say. "Of course not in family relations, but the other examples are different. They're business, and the reason to be in business is to make money." Really? So, if we spend the bulk of our time at work week to week and year to year, whose servants are we? Another way to look at it would be to talk about whom we are called to love. If we say that family relations are about the good of each person (love) and money is a mere object in comparison to their importance, how do we biblically keep that kind of priority structure within our biological families alone? If I owe the same duty of love to all, how then can it be a cheapening of family relations to make them primarily about money and not with other relations? On what basis do we make actions in business that clearly affect other people about (our) money instead about their good, biblically speaking?

You may say to me (as some students have implied), "But T, none of the economic activities you mentioned would happen at all if not motivated primarily by money." I'm sure there are a lot of activities that wouldn't happen without money being the primary motivator (I'd be happy to see a lot of those ads go, to be honest), but there would still be a whole lot of services and goods produced at God's leading and inspiration alone. There would even be ads, though it would interesting to think about what form they would take. It's interesting to think about what activities would disappear and which ones would emerge if God was the Master behind all activities, if Love was our master even in business. We give money too much credit and God too little if we think that nothing productive would happen without money being our main objective. Jesus didn't just talk in parables, he fed the multitudes; he restocked the wine at a wedding; he healed the sick. Paul talks about doing something useful (for others) with our own hands, and he practiced the same. God gave the Israelites the wisdom of letting their soil rest before science revealed the reason. Just imagine what would happen--and what wouldn't--if serving Jesus' agenda was our primary objective in all our activities, including whatever we might get paid for doing.

Further, I don't see how a 'business is about money' attitude is compatable with the idea of God calling us or leading us to our work for the good of the world, let alone compatible with a gospel of the inbreaking governing of God. Either God calls and continues to lead or money does, and whoever is leading will shape and color the whole activity. My thinking here is essentially based on Jesus' statement "You can't serve both God and money" [at the same time]. Money, of course, tells us, as God does, that it must be given top priority--it is the bottom line, the plumb line, for deciding whether an endeavor as successful or not. This is how money has made even God's people its ambassadors and instruments rather than God's for the bulk of their lives. It is this single dynamic that I think is at the root of all kinds of issues that plague the Western Church as a whole and make the international Church so shocked at the severity of our dualisms. We just trust money more than God for life in this world. Money, in our estimation, gets things done. Jesus may be lord in heaven, but money is lord on earth. This is what our lawsuits, our ads, our schedules and our spending scream to the whole world, as routinely as the earth and stars speak of God's beauty and power.

The only solution to Money's current leadership position that I can think of is to individually increase our personal appreciation for what God does right now in the physical world, and decrease our faith in Money. Money doesn't actually make the world go 'round--God does. Money doesn't actually keep me and my family on this earth, but God does. Money doesn't actually give me my brain and everything else I have to use in the world, but God does. Money doesn't actually control the billions of intangible things that keep my life (including my business) from falling apart. God does. Money didn't lead me to my wife, to my current business and professorship, and it didn't give me my daughter. God did. To reimagine an old Psalm, "I look up to the high rises and skyscrapers, hosting the earth's powers. Does my help come from there? No. My help comes from the Lord, maker of heaven and earth." Maybe as we think about all that God does in this world, in our own lives, out of mercy alone--really take some time to wonder about it--we will begin to trust his ability to take care of the practical things and then make his leadership, his reigning, our primary concern. Then, maybe, the activities of the world--even the economic ones--will slowly take a very different shape and character.