Spiritual Fast Food

WWJD. A few years ago these letters appeared on bracelets and were repeated at youth conferences. "What would Jesus do?" It's a great question, but it's application was often superficial and lacked content. Without theological instruction (helping students dive head first into Scripture rather than wading in the shallow end) and thoughtful application (prayer, worship, and obedience) all this movement did was drive students toward cultural obedience and make them more sensitive to peer pressure. Sure, that norm and peer pressure came from the Christian community, but without the depth of theology and personal experience with God, that influence is easily usurped by the world. Social conformity and peer pressure are not the same thing as the liberating, life-changing work of the Holy Spirit.

Gordon Fee writes, "Contemporary Christians have a right to be concerned. In an increasingly secular, individualistic, and relativistic world–dubbed "post-Christian" in the 1960s and now called "postmodern"–the church is regularly viewed as irrelevant at best and Neanderthal at worst. Frankly, much of the fault lies within the church, especially those of us in the church who pride ourselves in being orthodox with regard to the historic faith. For all too often our orthodoxy has been either diluted by an unholy alliance with a given political agenda, or diminished by legalistic or relativistic ethics quite unrelated to the character of God, or rendered ineffective by a pervasive rationalism in an increasingly nonrationalistic world." (Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God, by Gordon D. Fee)

We tend to point our fingers at outside forces to explain the current state of things, but Scripture won't let us do that. Yes, the world is screwed up. It has been since the fall, continues on a suicidal course now, and will continue down that road till Jesus returns. That is a Biblical given. But we are to be salt and light. If we are less effective in that role today, then we have to point the finger back toward ourselves and ask, "Why?" Politics, legalistic responses to the soul-crushing immorality around us, and a rationalism divorced from experience have sucked away the vitality of the gospel. We have allowed ourselves to be shaped by the sin of the world. Our reaction to sin has too often been to look at the effectiveness of the world's methods - the fads, hype, and instant gratification - and adopt its superficial methods of coercion. The result has been spiritual fast food.

Where does Fee find a cure? In the Holy Spirit. This might sound like a pat answer, but such a belief reveals a spiritual cynicism and the diminished role we have given God in our understanding of the Christian faith.

Christianity is not primarily concerned with politics, sexual abstinence, logical constructs of reality, what music to listen to, liturgy, or a multitude of other concerns. It is about God. But not any God, a God who has expressed himself as a Trinity, one God in three persons. And the person of that Trinity that we interact with on a daily basis is the Holy Spirit. It is this Spirit that illuminates Scripture, changing our Bible study into a dynamic encounter with God. It is this Spirit that acts as a counselor and a guide. This Spirit that empowers us and transforms our lives. It is this Spirit that made the early church a force for change in a first century world that in many ways reflects the thoughts and the practices of today.

The cure for spiritual fast food is the real food of the Spirit. Instead of the weak sentimentality of our current understanding of a "personal relationship with Christ," we need to help tomorrow's leaders enter into a dynamic relationship with the Holy Spirit. Instead of limiting the Spirit to a still small voice (an image used only once in Scripture), we need to also see him as the hurricane, the fire, and the dynamite of Father God. Our overly rationalistic apologetics will never move anyone without the Scripture's emphasis on the apologetics of the Spirit. Our vague understanding of a relationship with God needs to be replaced with an unapologetic New Testament theology of a dynamic, ongoing, life-giving experience of the Holy Spirit.

I will not argue that politics, morality, and rational thought are not important. Our culture and practices are important to God. But they all flow out of relationship with the Holy Spirit. We don't react to the world. We are led by the Spirit. If our faith does not begin with the Holy Spirit, if it is not sustained by an active pursuit of the Spirit, if we don't strain toward the goals the Holy Spirit lays before us, and if we are not actively transformed and empowered by the Spirit, then it's all just spiritual fast food. By any other name still junk food.

Shades of Gray?

It is often said that healthy morality is never made up of blacks and whites but of shades of gray. Really? Is that our only choice? Gray is still just a mix of black and white. A true choice would be between black and white on the one hand and color on the other. Jesus leads us into a world of color.

Black and white are about safety. On this side of the line your okay. On that side? Not so much. Grays are about insecurity. "I'm not sure I'm safe, right, excusable." Black, white, and gray are about limitation. Color is for dreams. Color moves us beyond ourselves into something healing.

Can you imagine Jesus sitting his disciples down and saying, "That is the way the world should work." Referring to some past decade. "That was the moment in time when everything was going okay. Just keep doing that, maintain this set of rules, don't associate with anyone who disagrees, and everything will be okay."?

If you can, then Jesus has become a black and white cartoon character for you, and one that doesn't represent the Jesus of the New Testament.

Jesus came to bring change. Since humanity's rebellion against God, there hasn't been a single moment that Jesus could point to and say, "This is how life was meant to be." Since the moment of the Fall, God has been pointing forward to something new, to our healing, to a time when we would live together as we were meant to, a time when the broken hearted would be mended, the handicapped would be healed, and the ignorant would understand. A day when God's benevolence would be fully experienced, when the kingdom of God would be revealed.

The morality of black, white, and shades of gray is about protecting the past. It is often motivated by a fear of change and the unknown. The morality of color is about birthing something new. It is impatient with the present. Not in a harsh and judgmental way. The impatience is born out of a glimpse of the future that Jesus provides. It sees the broken, deceived, disillusioned people of the world and is excited about the changes that God's grace can bring.

"But we need to be realistic." Those words have brought down so many dreams. But what is more realistic, believing that we need to accept the world at face value, or believing that the God of the universe, who brought Jesus back from the dead, will finish the work by miraculously changing lives through the power of his Holy Spirit? If you have never tasted that Spirit, then it seems impossible, but if you have met this Jesus, how could you settle for anything less than his vision for the future?

Following Jesus is not about being safe. Yes, there really is right and wrong. We are called to follow Jesus and obey, but to what end? To prove that we were good enough? If that was the case, then Jesus wouldn't have had to die on the cross. To prove we are better than everyone else? That would just be a return to crushing pride. We obey out of love for Jesus, out of love for his vision, and for the sake of all those people he loves. That is a colorful morality. That is a dream worth giving our lives to.

Black and white people become bitter over a lifetime. The rules are not enough. The world never seems to get better (Jesus warned us it wouldn't till he returns, but we forget). People who follow Jesus' vision aren't surprised that the big picture still needs a complete overhaul, but they are encouraged because they aren't just looking at the big picture. They were looking at the individual's that Jesus loves and gave his life for. On that scale, lives are being transformed and healed every day. There is real, tangible progress.

The cynical is caught in the black and white. If it isn't all better, than it's all bad. Life doesn't work like that. Our lives and attitudes either draw color away from the world, or we become windows through which God's grace can flow. It isn't a matter of whether or not you are moral. Everyone is to some extent even if that morality is confused. What matters is whether your morality invests in the false security of rules and barriers, or whether it is shaped by the life-giving purposes of God. It isn't safe. It got Jesus crucified. But it is able to feed and enrich your life like nothing else can.

Don't tell me about the rules. Tell me about the vision. It's easier to let God shape me to the vision than it is to find any good coming from hiding in the corner and trying to stay safe. The vision is a lot more inspiring. Go with the color.

Turn and Face the Strange

Change is a constant and still we act surprised. Civilization has marched forward, sideways, and backwards, but it never stops. It keeps marching. And still we act as though we are shocked by change. Do we think Jesus didn't anticipate the twenty-first century? Do we really believe Christianity has to be completely redefined because there is opposition from a unredeemed world? Or are we tired?

"Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." (Gal 6:9) Compassion fatigue is nothing new. We are a culture that wants to see quick results. We are impatient and lose interest when the fruits of our labor are not quickly experienced, but we are warned against this impatience. God warns us that the harvest will come, but the kingdom of God is not like a vending machine. The danger is that we would lose faith in God's way of doing things and begin to conform to the wisdom of our age in order to see quicker results. We see this occurring quickly in the early church as some tried to reshape the gospel to make it more palatable.

But that doesn't mean that we can ignore the times either. We are trying to reach real people in a real culture at a particular moment in time. Paul "became all things to all people." He matched the people around him as much as possible so his communication would be effective. There were limits. First, he learned the truth and chose truth over error. He knew his purpose was to become like those around him so he could bring the truth of God to them. His goal was to transform the world through the power of the spirit.

The second limit was sin. He did not want to lose what Christ had won for him. By sin, I mean active sin. There is nothing righteous about avoiding people who sin. In fact, that would be sin itself. We are following Jesus who came for the sick, not the healthy. There are many ways I can interact with my neighbors without actively sinning. And if that means I hear some swearing or have to inhale some cigarette smoke, then so be it. I can endure small discomforts for the sake of the gospel. Either that, or I will have to go cower with the self-righteous.

Change will continue to occur and I can work to keep up or I can disconnect and let the march go on while I ineffectively watch from the sidelines. I choose to keep up, but I refuse to become trendy. What's the difference? Where I engage. If I want to know my neighbors, then I need to spend time with them and become involved in the community they live in. No one should need to tell me about the changes going on around me. I should be experiencing them firsthand.

I become trendy when I get my news from the trend makers. Entertainment shows and gossip sheets thrive by creating a fictional "hip" for the uninformed. These are created by marketers trying to sell you the next big thing, and their products are mostly bought by shut-ins who don't yet have a life of their own.

I become trendy when I use Christian books and media as my primary way to get to know my neighbors. Don't get me wrong. I believe Christian literature is an important part of growth, but it is never a substitute for personal experience. By the time a book on contemporary culture is researched, printed, and marketed, it is often more than ten years out of date. The only way you know your neighbors is by spending time with them. There are a large number of outrageous Christian books and hastily produced Christian TV and radio that create fear and distort reality. Their end result is to produce fear and drive a wedge between us and those who need the truth of the gospel. I am careful of what I consume.

By the way, if you didn't get the reference in the title, David Bowie's Changes, then you have a little catching up to do (about four decades). Jesus didn't give us a large set of rituals, patterns for church services, or a detailed formula for sharing our faith. He gave us an active relationship with himself and universal guidance about the life he called us to. He isn't surprised by changes. The entire gospel does not need to be rethought because it's the twenty-first century, but our interaction with the world, our relationship with our neighbor, and our service and communication need to be.

Most of all, a lack of change makes us feel comfortable as we stay to the safety of our old ruts in the road. When we leave the ruts, we are in unfamiliar country. We need to depend on Jesus more. We need to follow the comfort of his voice rather than the comfort of tradition. We grip his hand a bit tighter when we turn and face the strange... changes.

Will You Let God Be The Hero?

Almost every day I pass one particular statue. It's a series of sweeping black, iron arcs that push up into the sky. Stylized black birds race up the arcs representing the pigeons that took flight, startled by the gunshot that killed Martin Luther King, Jr. Today is the anniversary of the day he was killed for representing the gospel.

King was educated at, among other places, at Boston University. I work with students there today. The crowds pass between classes as they did in King's day. They are talented, learning, and eager, but what will set them apart? In King's case, it was because he was willing to answer the call of God to do something he didn't feel particularly suited for. That made all the difference.

There is one theme that is repeated throughout every story in Scripture. God is always the hero. I often hear David and Abraham and others held up as role models. While I want to learn from their stories, I don't want to be like them. David may have been a man after God's heart, but his life is filled with mistakes that cost him, his family, and those around him dearly. It wasn't David who was the hero. It was the God of love, mercy, and justice who is able to transform and redeem a life who was the hero. The God who can work through fallen humanity to bring beauty and grace.

King wasn't perfect. None of us are. We can't use our imperfections or those of others as an excuse for our inaction. It seems like grumbling, complaining, and mocking have become a national pastime. The mockery of the likes of Bill Maher and Rush Limbaugh squeeze out the hope of the gospel, turning people bitter, angry, and dismissive of God's higher call.

None of us are perfect, but that has been the case since the fall. We aren't perfect, but the One who calls us to follow him, to become his hands, feet, and voice in the world is. The One who is the hero of every Bible story challenges us to reach out and let him again be the hero through us.

All of us are called to make a difference. The gospel is about loving others in the power of Christ.

As I travel the country, I see God at work as someone volunteers to assist a family with an autistic child, as people help feed the homeless, as businessmen are thoughtful about the growth of their community, as teachers spend extra time with students in need, as churches make sure that high school language classes don't close because they lack funds, as people care for the developmentally disabled... I think you get the picture.

We talk a lot today about the dangers of entitlement. As believers, we need to make sure we don't believe we are entitled to a blessed life. A blessed life is the result of following God's call to establish his kingdom through sacrificial love.

We won't all make the headlines for our obedience. There is plenty of evidence that King would have loved to have lived a lower profile life. The publicity cost him his life. Most of God's work goes unnoticed by the crowd, but we should never underestimate the difference it makes.

So let's celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr.'s death by putting an end to grumbling and complaining and by allowing God to prove himself the hero through us.

Tugboats, Persuasion, and Head-On Collisions

I have always lived in port towns. The Bay of Alaska could be seen from the hospital room where I was born. My dad was a longshoreman, so when we moved down to the lower 48, we settled next to the largest port on the Columbia river. So I spent time around boats, and I was fascinated by tug boats. I have learned that tug boats can teach us a lot about communicating our faith.

As I write this, I am visiting Vancouver, B.C. If you travel up the mountains that tower over the city, you can look out over the whole Straight of Georgia. There you will see a string of big cargo ships making their way to Vancouver. They come in with such inertia that they can often cut their engines at the beginning of the straight and come in under very little power.

The little tugs that meet them are almost all engine, but in many ways they are not a match for these big ships. If they confronted them head on, you would soon see them bobbing up in the big ship's wake. But that's not what they do. They come along side. From that position they will have some influence on a big ship's course no matter what the ship does.

This is how a good argument is formed. You start by coming along side. You start, not with disagreement, but with agreement; not with the phrase, "Your wrong because..." but with, "I agree with you there."

Any good persuasive argument begins by finding shared understanding and truth. There has to be a place of agreement to build from. We see this in Acts 17 as Paul speaks to a crowd that should be unsympathetic. Paul finds that he shares common ground in religious concern. This concern has had a different outcome in Paul than in his audience, but it is a starting point they have in common. Paul will teach his audience a different conclusion from this shared concern. Paul then finds teaching from the two contending group of Athenians that he can endorse. He comes alongside. He finds shared truth. Then he builds on it to correct their mistakes about God and the gods.

Too much apologetics and evangelism doesn't follow the model we are given in Scripture. If we want to impress other Christians with our radical stances, then we begin aggressively, proving from the start how different (and judgmental we are). Rush Limbaugh and Bill Maher are not good role models for persuasion. They speak to keep their ratings up with people who already share their personal prejudices, but they seldom win new converts.

I am forever grateful to my middle school teacher who taught me how to write good persuasive essays. He taught me that the thesis statement should alway include the oppositions best, valid point and then build on it to show a better next step.

In today's polarized culture we are seeing few minds changed as people are increasingly preaching to the convinced for approval. Too many arguments begin with the points of deepest conflict, and too many arguments fail. Good arguments begin with shared truth and build from there. If you haven't found that point of shared truth yet, then dig deeper, because you are not going to change anyone's mind until you can first say, "I agree with you there!" From there you can say, "That's why I believe..." and you are much more likely to be listened to. You don't want to start with a head-but. Instead, come along side.