a child
her eyes wide
bright
with eager anticipation
excitement
longing.
May you await the working of Christ in your life with such eyes
May you see with wonder
the hand of God
moving in you
and through you.
mclaren – is everyone in?
But what about heaven and hell? you ask. Is everybody in?
My reply: Why do you consider me qualified to make this pronouncement? Isn’t this God’s business? Isn’t it clear that I do not believe this is the right question for a missional Christian to ask? Can’t we talk for a while about God’s will being done on earth as in heaven instead of jumping to how to escape earth and get to heaven as quickly as possible? Can’t we talk for a while about overthrowing and undermining every hellish stronghold in our lives and in our world?
…
Imagine you are driving down a country road on a journey west from New York to Los Angeles. You find yourself at a flashing red light somewhere in South Florida. You can turn left, turn right, or go straight. The road to the left heads toward Boca Raton. The road to the right leads toward Naples. The third road leads south toward Key West, through the Everglades. None of the roads leans in the general direction of Los Angeles. What do you do? Which road do you take? What are you doing in Florida anyway? The fact that you have to choose between these three destinations means that you are already far off track! But you have to go somewhere, so what do you do?
Here’s what you do: you admit that you’ve been lost for a long, long time – like for the last 750-plus miles. You whack yourself in the forehead for not realizing this sooner, and then you make a U-turn and head back north until you find I-10, which will send you west toward the City of Angels.
This is how I feel when I’m offered a choice between the roads of exclusivism (only confessing Christians go to heaven), universalism (everyone goes to heaven) , and inclusivism (Christians go to heaven, plus at least some others). Each road takes you somewhere, to a place with some advantages and disadvantages, but none of them is the road of my missional calling: blessed in this life to be a blessing to everyone on earth.
One signpost tells me that some people aren’t ever going to be blessed, so I should just rejoice that I am one of the blessed – meaning I can retire in Naples, Florida, and enjoy the blessings of golf on the Gulf. One sign post tells me that everybody is already blessed, so I can watch the sun rise each morning from the beach in Boca Raton. The other signpost tells me that maybe some are blessed and maybe they aren’t, which means I proceed straight ahead into the swamp and feel confused, not knowing what to do.
But my mission isn’t to figure out who is already blessed, or not blessed, or unblessable. My calling is to be blessed so I can bless everyone. I’m going to Los Angeles!
a generous orthodoxy
for those of you who haven’t picked up brian mclaren’s new book, a generous orthodoxy, do yourself a favor and grab a copy. i have only two chapters left after starting it this morning, and i’ll probably finish it soon. a seriously good book.
on discussing “personal salvation”:
1. Can’t seeking my personal salvation as the ultimate end become the ultimate consumerism or narcissism? In a self-centered and hell-centered salvation, doesn’t jesus – like every company and political party – appeal to me on the basis of self-interest so that I can have it all eternally and can do so cheaply, conveniently, easily, and quickly? Doesn’t this sound a bit shabby?
2. Doesn’t being preoccupied with our own individual salvation put is in danger of being like selfish people on the Titanic who were scrambling for the life rafts, more concerned about themselves than others? Doesn’t it make us less concerned about the possibility of saving the whole ship? Doesn’t it reinforce exactly the kind of “sanctified self-centeredness” that the real Jesus would have condemned?
3. Doesn’t the very importance of my personal salvation pose a kind of temptation – to want heaven more than I want good; to want escape from hell more than I want true reconciliation to God or my neighbors? An overweight man was concerned about his weight, so he had a stomach bypass surgery, after which he continued to eat unhealthy foods. In the end he died sooner from a heart attack than he would have died from obesity. Couldn’t this approcah to salvation tempt us to be like this man? By wanting thinness more than he wanted health, he ended up with neither – this is the danger of wanting personal salvation above all.
4. And doesn’t the preoccupation with hell tempt us to devalue other things that matter? in other words, isn’t hell such a grave “bottom line” that it devalues all other values? It so emphasizes the importance of life after death that it can unintentionally trivialize life before death.
deep stuff. more to come.
more macro
so after visiting houston camera exchange and being convinced that i don’t want to do lens reversal but rather to use extension tubes, i was also convinced to go ahead and buy a cheap vivitar 100mm macro lens. unfortunately it’s manual focus, which means that it doesn’t meter on my camera and therefore i have to do a lot of exposure guessing, but in some preliminary results it seems to take pictures that are every bit as good as my sigma – probably even a little sharper.
here’s four i took just after getting it: full res versions
keep in mind that these are handheld and at twilight.
the eucharist
The Eucharist is not only about the cross.
It is not simply about the death of Jesus or his glorious resurretion three days later. It is not about thirteen men who gathered together to have a passover meal not so unlike many they had eaten before.
The Eucharist is about all of those things, but it is so much more. It is a celebration of the life of Christ. It is an anticipation of the life we will live with Christ eternally.
But it is also a reminder that we live daily with Christ in the present moment – that our lives intersect his in a real and intimate way such that we become one – we eat his flesh and drink his blood.
So as we come to the body and blood of Christ let us not empty our thoughts of all save the cross, but rather fill our minds with the rich and fertile life we have – now – in Christ Jesus.
The Eucharist is not only a place for us to reflect on our shortcomings and Chrsits’ perfection, but to embrace our unity with a perfect and joyous Savior who asks us not to hide our lives, but bring them to his table.
The Lord’s table.
