(Dura Europos – Fresco from 2nd C Synagogue Jews cross the Red Sea pursued by Pharaoh.)
The Jewish people have a big event, a central story, that encapsulates what the Jewish (and Judeo-Christian) faith is about:
Crossing a sea: Crossing from slavery to LIBERATION
“Let my people go!”
This is the cry of (the Jewish) God, the Living God, through Moses; and it’s really the cry of freedom in every human heart.
So what do we want to be liberated from?
Oppression.
Yes, of course.
…and oppression takes many forms.
But, we tend to also want liberation from authority…and that’s not what God has in mind. That misses the mark and produces precarious results.
In fact, the best liberation we can have is one that happens internally.
Our heart is liberated from sin and death and then we receive peace and life.
This is no marginal quality of our faith tradition. Liberation is found not in fleeing something (or someone) but in returning.
A homecoming. A reception by the Father for the children he loves.
Liberation must always be about fleeing to someone (the One).
…and that someone isn’t just another warden in a different prison, but One who wants our peace to be fully realized.
It’s about community identity and belonging.
Each brings freedom and saves us from ourselves.
Sometimes we suppose liberation means freedom to act autonomously and unilaterally for our own interests. True liberation is the antithesis of that.
When I consider, in this very moment, what I hope to be liberated from in my own life, it seems to concern being free from believing lies. Lies about myself, others, and any sorts of ignoble things that imprison my future in a jailhouse of smallness.
A confined place that is missing the grandeur of what it means to be a sentient being enjoying the majesty of creation that a benevolent incomprehendable Being has fashioned.
This is the last bit of reflection on the Leonard Sweet event hosted by Evangelical Seminary this week. (Here’s the first one in the series. Here is the second post.)
Sweet claims we are living in TGIF times.
Thank God It’s Friday?
No.
Twitter
Google
Instagram
Facebook
Sweet leaves out YouTube which is huge omission. I sense that slipping a V into his acronym wouldn’t be as nifty. (But, I think he’d agree with me that it’s worth inclusion in any assessment of how our current culture learns and is entertained.)
Notice this: All but one of these vehicles of media prominently feature images instead of text. Twitter is driven by 140 text characters (and usually less than that) and this apparently is enough to be radical. Though Twitter is often used for tiny newsy bursts and quotes, tweets tend to include internet links to articles or videos which include visuals.
A new image driven age emerged with televisions in every home in the 1950-1960s. Film? It got super popular and this has never been more true in our current age. Can you think of any other time when you shut off your phone for 3 hours? No. People hate that, but they will sacrifice what that love for something they love even more: Cinema. Nothing solidified the domination of our image age more than the advent of images on the internet. Add to that, the innovative ways of sharing Videos and Images on devices we routinely carry (laptops and smart phones) a major and permanent shift in how we prefer to engage the world occurred. Period.
So what?
Well, we haven’t adjusted, and that is going to really matter. And soon.
Protestants have a substantive Identity crisis because they have lost the story. Disciples have stories: Guiding narratives that set them apart so they don’t have to discover who they are; they can just move forward and be innovative and transformative.
Sweet used the example of Identity in the Jewish culture and ethic group:
• There are about 7 billion people living in the world.
• There are only about 13 million Jews (How much of the world’s population %? is that? Scant.)
• Those with Jewish heritage make up whopping 25% or so of Noble Prizes winners, Oscar winners, Pulitzers, Tonys, and many other commendations for exceptionality in a variety of fields. How can this be?
A bunch of social science research projects tell us that what lies behind the wild success is namely a firmly formed Identity.
By 12 years old they know who they are, where they come from, and they see themselves in the larger Story (by religious imperative and rites actually: it’s mandatory).
• Jewish culture also has many times of “play”, that is, festivals that tell them who they are. The sit around the table speaking about and interrogating the Story also. This creates a solidified Identity for flourishing.
The last tidbit from the Len Sweet event: Play Ethic
In our mad rush to work and do we have forgotten how to play. God was wasn’t working during Creation, he was making mud pies. He was Creating which isn’t work really. He still is. Labor came hit corruption entered the world and things got messed up. Jesus is always at a party or eating or cooking or making food out of thin air. He loves Martha’s cooking, but when caring for Jesus became work he told Martha of a better way. He didn’t want her to work, but to enjoy. “Sit down and let the rest go.”
If ministry is soul-killing, if it’s a heavy burden and labor, you’re doing it wrong. Ministry shouldn’t be [slow] suicide, says Len Sweet. “Worship is the playground of the Spirit.”
So, really the question remains: Will Protestantism stand the test of time? Signs point to “no”. But, critical to its survival and virility is the concept of creating a lasting and potent Identity that starts with a Story well-told.
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What is called The Triumphal Entry is celebrated each year, on Palm Sunday, a week before the celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ (most often called Easter, which a a variation of the name of a pagan god, but I digress.)
It’ll take you 45 seconds to read the short donkey ride story here: Matthew 21:1-9.
The crowds heading to Jerusalem for Passover feasting were caught up in the pandemonium of this celebrity sensation–a peasant healer from the boondocks, who had just raised a dead man, four days after he died (his friend Lazarus in the town of Bethany).
Hopes were high that this miracle-worker could liberate the Jews from their Roman oppressors. Some 250,000 lambs would be roasted, likely feeding more than 2 and a half million people during this festival. So, the throng was indeed enormous.
In virtual mob hysteria, hopeful Jews stripped nearby palm trees of their fronds, and threw their coats on the road to pave this unorganized and roisterous parade. A hundred years prior, war hero Simon Maccabaeus was welcomed in the same manner after his conquest over Syria. Now Jews again shouted “Hosanna”, which means “save we pray”. They yelled out the call from Psalm 118:26–a song of deliverance, conquest, and rescue.
Several times previously, Jesus had escaped the momentum of enthralled crowds who hoped to make him their rebel king by sheer force of mob will. Desperation was in the air. They longed for rescue, but Jesus was not that kind of King. He rebuffed all attempts at typical authority, political prestige, religious posturing, or military command. As he put it to Roman authorities, “My kingdom is not of this world.” He came mildly, to be a selected as our king of hearts, and to have victory over our sin and brokenness–reconciling us again to our Creator, a holy and good God.
Fulfilling a prophecy from Zechariah, hundreds of years earlier (Zechariah (9:9)), Jesus rode a plodding little colt of a donkey into the city. The colt was encouraged to continue by keeping its mother in the lead.
For Jews, the donkey was considered a conveyance for the noble classes, and ridden by Jewish priests or nobility. It was also a helpful metaphor to display the Prince of Peace–the true Savior. It drew a sharp contrast against the mood of the raucous Zealots.
This type of entry marked a vast difference from the Roman commanders who would ride in celebratory victory pageants atop their mighty war horses. Wagons full of pillaged gold and silver rode along with the procession through grand Roman archways. Musicians and carriers of fragrant incense would accompany the cavalcade. Captives and conquered enemy honchos were chained and paraded –all for vanity’s sake.
Many Jews hoped for the dream-Messiah of the military persuasion. That was the glory they wishes for.
Jesus was misunderstood in his entry. The mob would show its intrinsic fickleness when, just days later, in bitter disappointment, they would turn on their would-be Messiah, screaming “Crucify him! We have no king but Caesar!” to the local Roman governor, Pilate.
I have a spiritual challenge to give you this weekend. It is to respond in word and deed to this surprising action of God, in human form.
In Christian circles, this season is sometimes called, Holy Week. It has nothing to do with the week itself, but rather it refers to setting aside time to recount the stories and consider this Prince of Peace: his nature; his life and ministry to the needy, poor, and sick; his unjust execution; and the power of his Resurrection to life, witnessed by over 500 people.
Once confronted with this story that changed the world, each must ask, “Who is this Jesus?” and “How must I respond?” Are we willing to give our heart to this lowly yet almighty King, the Prince of Peace?
How will the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the Messiah change who you become? It is your saving grace.
Please share your thoughts, or Palm Sunday & Eastertide reflections.
It’s not so much a matter of who we are, but who we belong to.
This poem was written by a man who would soon die at the hands of his Nazi captors. At the end of his life, he could question who he was, and who he had been, but his resolution to all of that rests in Theological principle, in worldview.
I’m finishing a paper of the I Corinthians 8:9 verse about being a stumbling block. (It had to do with Paul’s response to the Corinthians’ problem of whether eating meat sacrificed in pagan temples was advisable/allowable.)
The nutshell:
Paul says, it’s not about the food. It’s actually about the care taking of other people who don’t share the same previous experiences, or who have different convictions. The “strong” (so-called by those who wish to be called that) say they have no problems with eating meat of that nature. The new converts, they term, “the weak” are conflicted about eating meat in their former places of worship, etc. Paul advises the “strong ones”.
He says, no one should be forced to accept or do something that goes against their conscience. Knowing God, for who God is, means many things stop being about simply matters of right or wrong. In the end, what matters is that we gracious provide for each other, and we do not burden other believers on amoral issues. He mentions he’ll never eat meat again, if eating will bring someone to ruin, yet he has no problem with eating it himself.
For my paper, I had to come up with a contemporary situation that manifests itself in a similar way. There are plenty of things to choose from. Can you think of any?
I came up with Christians and Tattoos:
So- What you think?
Are tattoos a witness, or a stumbling block?
Both? Neither?
What’s your opinion?
Here is a video of an interview of a Christian tattoo artist that shows the issue from his unique vantage point. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYzPQlWo61Q]
