Category: Archive

I posted on my Facebook, a question, ‘what does spiritual but not religious’ mean, and have received quite a response.  I invite more from the neophytes…One difficulty is the definition of both ‘spiritual’ and ‘religious.’

 

Chech this out.

http://www.jazztheologian.com/findingthegroove/2009/04/jazz-soul-nights-finding-the-groove-live.html

My wife and I went to the first night and were blown away.  Not only was it challenging theologically, it rocked.

Theology in a Jazz club with insights on Jazz and the gospel.  God is doing something with this!

 

Cristo ha resucitado! Khristos voskres! Al Maseeh Qam! Christos Anesti! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed!!

“First and last alike, receive your reward.
Rich and poor, rejoice together!

Conscientious and lazy, celebrate the day!
You who have kept the fast, and you who have not,
rejoice, this day, for the table is bountifully spread!

Feast royally, for the calf is fatted.
Let no one go away hungry.
Partake, all, of the banquet of faith.
Enjoy the bounty of the Lord’s goodness!

Christ is risen, and you are cast down!
Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen!
Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice!
Christ is risen, and life is set free!
Christ is risen, and the tomb is emptied of its dead.

For Christ, having risen from the dead,
is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

To Christ be glory and power forever and ever. Amen!”

Thomas A Kempis said:

JESUS has always many who love His heavenly kingdom, but few who bear His cross. He has many who desire consolation, but few who care for trial. He finds many to share His table, but few to take part in His fasting. All desire to be happy with Him; few wish to suffer anything for Him. Many follow Him to the breaking of bread, but few to the drinking of the chalice of His passion. Many revere His miracles; few approach the shame of the Cross. Many love Him as long as they encounter no hardship; many praise and bless Him as long as they receive some comfort from Him. But if Jesus hides Himself and leaves them for a while, they fall either into complaints or into deep dejection. Those, on the contrary, who love Him for His own sake and not for any comfort of their own, bless Him in all trial and anguish of heart as well as in the bliss of consolation. Even if He should never give them consolation, yet they would continue to praise Him and wish always to give Him thanks. What power there is in pure love for Jesus—love that is free from all self-interest and self-love!

Talk about Lent to most folks and they either have no idea what you’re talking about, or they think it is some exotic season of superstition and (mardi gras) pomp.  Yesterday I was at St. Arbuck’s and some young professionals were meeting for a work project.  In walks a priest in a black cassock.  After the priest left, one of the slick urban professionals said, “That priest thinks he is something dressing like that…he just wants free coffee or to show everyone else how hoooly he is.”  At that point I caught one of the young ladies out of the corner of my eye pointing to me (I was wearing clericals, though no cassock) and whispering, ‘hey there’s another one!’ presumably so Mr. blowhard wouldn’t put his foot further in his mouth.  The didn’t see her, however,  and proceeded to say, “Yea that priest just wants to look like Neo,”  to which I then replied, ‘Hey that’s why I dress this way…’

A perfect postmodern Lenten moment.  No respect for religious leaders and suspicion over every motivation a priest/pastor might have.  A misunderstanding of the clerical cassock and the black that it represents.

So do we still need Lent?  How about priests?

“The church grows when congregations are committed to the historic faith. God is in charge of us, He is in charge of his church and his world and he is not going to forsake us. He is going to stick with us regardless of our mistakes”—Retired Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey

The fathers of the desert fled society because they felt it had a ‘deep sickness.’  Not only did they flee from the sickness of the culture, but from the sickness of the church of the post-Constantinian era.  Jarslov Pelikan said,

“These monastic athletes, as one scholar has put it, ‘were not only fleeing from the world in every sense of the word, they were fleeing from the worldly church.’  The monasticism of the fourth and fifth centuries was a protest, in the name of the authentic teaching of Jesus, against an almost inevitable byproduct of the Constantinian settlement, the secularization of the church.”

At a  seminar/retreat a few weeks ago, we watched two very different films whose characters have similar impulse and similar inclinations.  Out of Great Silence, a silent documentary on the Carthusian monks in France and Into the Wild, Sean Penn’s depiction of the tragic journey of 22 year old Christopher McCandless, who fled to Alaska in the early 90s to escape the sickness of the world and the dis-ease in own his family.

In the films there is a beauty to solitude, being enraptured in nature and the deep quietness of the wilderness.  While there are numerous problems with our world, what stands out to me is our inability to see and to hear; that is, our inability to use our senses in their fullness–both physical and spiritual.

So I don’t watch a whole lot of TV.  Too much stuff to keep away from the kids.  But that 24 is just so danged addicting!

My wife and I watched 5 seasons in two months to catch up with season 6 in the Fall of ’07 (now we’re in season seven) and are back in the saddle, writers strike notwithstanding.

Anyone else in this place?

By now you can kind of guess what happens next–that every agency is ‘compromised’ and that Jack is the only one who can save the world–but man I can hardly wait till next Monday.

Best line from last week:

‘Following the rules makes us better than them [the terrorists],’ to which Jack replies,

“Not today.”

OK. after much prodding, I finally read The Shack.  There were some theologically weak and amusing moments (I think Young’s model for God was the ‘Oracle’ from the Matrix), but overall I would say it was a good read.  It was even powerful at times and brought me to tears once or twice.  (I am not one to give in to the dark side of senitmentalism, by the way).

What I found compelling about the book, was it cut to the heart of the human problem of pain and did a decent job of weaving God right in without giving in to Calvinist determinism or willy nilly process thought.  For anyone who has little girls, it is especially moving and troubling (the basis of plot and weekend with ‘God’ is brought about by the death of a young girl), and is probably why it was so gripping for me.  Read it, with discerment and an open heart!

Dallas Willard writes, “Some time ago, I came to realize that I did not love the people next door.  They were, by any standards, dangerous and unpleasant people…As I brooded over them one day, indulging my irritation, the Lord helped me see that I really had no love from them at all…I realized how little I trule cared for nearly all the people I dealt with through the day…I had to admit that I had never earnestly sought to be possessed by God’s kind of love, to become more like Jesus.”

I watch my denomination fall apart and some of those reasons are understandable.  Some of those reasons even transcend the current direction the of unscriptural path we have been on for the last few decades.

It begs the question, ‘what would Jesus do?’  Stand up for truth?  Pronounce Woe?  The most difficult fights are those that occur within the same household.

If it is diffcult to love our neighbor, how much more difficult it is to love your brother or sister who sins against you.  What would it look like in times of conflict to ‘be possessed by God’s kind of love, to become more like Jesus’ when times of conflict are the only real tests of God’s love anyway.  I don’t mean squishy feelings but a love that washes feet and goes to the cross; a love that transcends fuzziness but is a reflection of God’s very heart.