It's me, mike hillebrecht

I am of the age where I can recall the awe and wonder of listening to the radio for hours on end, music and local news, and of course, Paul Harvey’s The Rest of the Story program. I never bought into the television being a fad simply because I could hear more readily than the need to see. That makes me an auditory person, a fact that causes great dissension with my wife, a visual person, simply because I don’t need to see you, or even be in the same room, when you’re talking to me, like she does.
While a
picture may be worth a thousand words, a spoken word is worth a thousand pictures. We live in an age where a thousand pictures are bombarding us regularly all in an attempt to win a battle of the mind, our mind, to fulfill an agenda, deliver a late breaking report, soothe erectile dysfunction despite serious side effects, control or accelerate our appetite for food, wealth, clothing, cars or exotic vacations to far-away lands, or insure us that we are in good hands when chaos strikes. Turn the sound off and it becomes very evident that these pictures are smoke and mirrors which, in and of themselves, mean absolutely nothing. A word must accompany them to convey meaning, a word must give them descriptive value to promote a cause.

How many of you remember this little childhood ditty? Sticks and stone may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. We’re grown-ups now so let’s put this piece of BS where it belongs. Those damn words hurt us greatly, and for a lot longer than the battering we encountered with the sticks and stones. Our identity, in many instances, is attached to those words, words which have images attached to them, images which ravage our mind and cause doubt when belief is demanded.

Grandma use to tell me, “…if you can’t say anything nice about someone you shouldn’t say anything at all.” She never liked to watch the news for that very reason. Accusation, fault finding, bickering, resistance and slander are the stock and trade of news. Nice doesn’t sell.

An entire generation has grown up under the domain of publicized accusation. It has spawned an entirely new industry, a home-grown news empire known as social media. All of us are now given the air space to act like investigative reporters and provide late-breaking news to our community of sycophantic friends. My words matter, damn it; I don’t give a tweet what you think, or even if you do think for that matter. I have the right of free speech to say, or act, in any fashion that I want. This right also means I don’t have to tolerate anything you feel needs your response. I can piss into the wind and you cannot stop me – it is my right.

In a land and a time far, far away, an accusation, a slanderous intention had a name which anyone could employ. We don’t employ it as effectively today as they did then since we somehow have relegated it to the realm of mythology. But I’m all for bringing the name back into its rightful use. Back then, people could justify that they were inspired, stimulated or stirred to hurl accusations and resist the actions of another. Today, I see this festering, quivering mass of putrid, vile, dehumanizing form of public discourse overflowing the air waves and net waves. So, I think it’s time to resurrect the proper term for these antics.

Henceforth, if you want to verbally accost, criticize, disparage or revile someone for something you disagree with, your words, your dialogue, your actions shall be known as: the satan, or for a more modern interpretation: the devil.
That folks, is the rest of my story.

I had a discussion with a good friend the other day about a posting that I made on Facebook regarding faith. I was granted the opportunity to share what I wrote to my friend as my further response. But I think it might be best to include both postings that warranted this. Posting one is as follows:

Faith is for those who have doubts or are uncertain, not for those who believe or are assured. Abraham was a father of uncertainty a lot more than certainty. Hebrews 11 is a hallowed testimony to the unknown interactions of God rather than the certainty of how God will move. God never considers our certainty, our possibility as the norm for His actions. Impossibility, doubt, uncertainty are what please God. How? We have to be certain God exists in the things we can’t explain, except (or accept!) by seeing Him in them. We must rely on Him to give us the new words to understand and convey the indescribable. It is the unknown of God that is faith. That is certainty.

My follow up to this posting was this:

Consider this in light of my previous description of faith. Which would you call a faith-based church:

Scenario A: people assemble, sing pre-selected songs; listen to a message delivered by a person who has the exact message needed for everyone in attendance; prayer lines using crafted prayers to deliver congregants from health or poverty issues; people leave sated.

Scenario B: people assemble not certain what will transpire; sing songs spontaneously as the direction warrants; enter into a dialogue with each other about a topic pressing the group on that occasion, moderated by a different person every time; prayer extended as requested by members permitting the wording to be designed for the unique situation being confronted; people leave hungry.
Which is the description of your church? Where is your faith more welcomed?

My friend asked me to provide some additional thoughts on this faith issue and this is how I responded:

Faith is not for the believer, it is for those who have doubts.

In Paul’s letters, he often is trying to convey how it was the trust Jesus had in his relationship with the Father that enabled him to complete the mission which was before him. Often those who transcribed the narrative used the word “faith” to indicate these acts and motives. This however would mean that there were things that Jesus had doubts about, which is contrary to his claim that he only does those things he sees his Father do.

Consider the two concepts promoted the most from Paul’s writings are faith and righteousness – our faith in the righteousness of God which we have been given. My claim is that faith is an action conducted in the arena of uncertainty. We therefore are uncertain of our righteousness! Clearly not something we’ve been told, but experienced nevertheless.

Again, I’ll draw from Ester. Haman was in right-standing [righteous] with the king, yet Ester was in a relationship with the king. Paul’s efforts have been greatly diminished I believe because we have adopted a 15th century interpretation of a “trusting relationship” to be “faith in righteousness.”

Ask yourself, can a believer have doubts or uncertainty? We know that they can, however, the path to certainty is a bridge of faith founded on the trust of our relationship with the Father. Whatever failings occur on our journey across this bridge can never undo the trust we place in his oath that he will never leave us or forsake us.

Abram was called out his homeland to place he knew not. This is what faith looks like. He believed that God could raise the dead and it was accounted to him as righteousness. This is trusting in the relationship where what was promised would be fulfilled.

We must recognize there is a place for faith and trust. Our relationship is secure in Christ, no faith required, trust me. The path we believers take to fulfill our destined purpose is entirely a journey of faith. We have faith for abundance, healing, deliverance, and restoration simply because we aren’t certain how it will occur.

I think that the description, “the faithful few” is inaccurate. Far too many are uncertain and doubting more than ever. “The trusting few” may be more realistic. I’m finding more comfort in being faithful, experiencing uncertainty and doubts in their fullness. It challenges me to discover truth, which makes me believe and trust. Religion places too high a demand on certainty; denying people the opportunity to seek through questioning, to experience faith fully.

A question will always challenge a belief not anchored in trust. Consider the difficulty of trying to live by faith in your identity and purpose as a child of God. If any question confronts this faith, what happens? Trust is vital in this area, not faith. But if you’ve only been taught this comes by faith, then you never know, you never believe. You think, you try to feel but you’re not certain. You’re in faith. A sanctified form of mental hell.

I think that today most teachings are relaying the message of faith far more than how to trust God. Yes, it sells well to the sheep who don’t know any better. Regrettably, it also scatters the sheep just as fast when any question arises. The largest question all of face is how does 2,000-plus year old text relate to me today. If you’re going to sell this solely on the basis of faith, there will be no way to see people mature. Like the writer to Hebrews points out, people are still drinking the milk when they should be eating the meat.

Leader need to step away from the pulpit of easy sermonizing and plunge themselves into serious study which questions all your presuppositions and doctrinal structures. I’m not saying that you need to abandon everything. You need to accept the challenge a question brings. You’ll soon find out whether you have faith in the scriptures or trust them. Then you’ll know how to help your people mature.

But you must take care not to make them into faithless believers by removing the mystery with pat answers, something doctrine in notorious in accomplishing. Admit it when you don’t have an answer or better yet, when the answer you have always used just doesn’t seem to fit anymore. There is no law that says you must be certain at all times. Personally, I tend to stay away from people like that simply because they seem to want me to be just like them and I know that has never been the Father’s intention for me.

So to bring this to a close today, embrace uncertainty just like you embrace trust. Learn to know the difference. If your bible says “faith” determine to understand whether the writer means “trust due to relationship” or the unknown, the foggy, the shadowy path heading to trust. Because everybody has faith for something, but few can trust someone, even God.

There is no denying that everyone seeks power in some degree somewhere. Whether it is the capacity to determine if you stay up until 7:30 pm or the reins to the nations, children of all ages want the right to exert their power. If you say you don’t want it then you’re living in deception, sugar. Power means freedom. Power means prestige. Power means affluence. Power means you never need to take crap from anyone anymore. Right?

Much of the religious community has adopted some form of the philosophy of dominionism, relying on a particular reading of the Genesis narrative where God give dominion to Adam over all the animals and plants of the world, coupled with messianic fulfillment of Jesus’ launch of the kingdom of God upon the earth. These people believe that they are commissioned to go and take authority of their territory, which includes their town, their schools, workplace, marketplace and any place that their blessed little feet touch. As long as it’s God and them, they hold the majority. Real power.

Everyone knows that money is true power. In a capitalistic economy like ours, money speaks. Everything has a price and if you want something, a price has to be paid. This is what an economy of exchange expects. You scratch my back, I scratch yours. This is how power is secured. The trouble with this thinking today is that it is outdated. Our currency, our money is fiat money. Slips of paper that our government has declared to be legal tender for one thing: debt. Don’t believe me? Go look at any bill you have and read what it says. If money is true power, debt is true power in our economy – he who holds the debt has the power.

Warning: I’m about to intentionally step on all toes.

What if the miracle, wonder-working power that every believer thinks they’re operating under in their grab for dominion wasn’t what we thought it was? What if the power of the kingdom of God wasn’t ruling over territories and its people? What if the miracle power we’re seeking already resides in us but we’re unwilling to use it because the personal cost is too much?

Consider the following: In the book of Acts, Jesus, before ascending, tells the disciples to go to Jerusalem and wait until they receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon them. In the fourth gospel, the writer tells us that Jesus appears to the disciples who are hiding after the crucifixion. Jesus breaths on them and says, “receive the Holy Spirit.” Did they receive it or not? The book of Acts would kinda make you think they didn’t…unless they aren’t the same disciples, which is for another time. What I want you to look at is what Jesus says to the disciples after he breaths on them.

Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said unto them, Receive you the Holy Ghost: Whose so ever sins you remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose so ever sins you retain, they are retained. (Joh 20:21-23)

So, they receive the Holy Ghost and then Jesus tells them that THEY now have the right to remit or retain sins. Now this term remit is foreign to a lot of people, so let me put it in a context that everyone will identify with. Remember how the disciples asked Jesus to show them how to pray? One of the lines he said was, “…Forgive us our debts and we forgive our debtors.” The word “forgive” here is the same word as “remit” in the other passage. Jesus tells them whatever sins you forgive are forgiven. I submit to you that this is the power, the miracle working, dynamic power we are endued with by the Holy Ghost. Furthermore, I submit that this power to forgive, is a power no one wants. Stew on that for a moment.

Look around your life for just a moment. Why would anyone want to forgive anyone? This isn’t a matter of declaring someone right or wrong, it’s about forgiving them for any, or all the pain, physical, emotional, and mental suffering you’ve endured, yes, endured for weeks, months, and years. Why should anyone be released of this debt they have exacted from you? Where is your restitution, your pound of flesh, your rights, your privileges, your honor, your self-worth?

No one knows the shame you’ve suffered, the guilt you’ve buried deep down, so far down it only comes out in eating binges or weekend drunks that last five days. Don’t tell me I need to forgive that S.O.B. who stole my innocence; who shattered my hopes, my desires, my dreams; who made me hate myself and those who remind me of who I use to be before…

I have no authority to tell you to forgive someone who is egotistical, homophobic, racist; misogynist, opinionated, arrogant, divisive, belligerent, maniacal, the sort of scum that shouldn’t have any influence in this world.

But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.
(Mar 11:26)

Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. (Luk 23:34)

There is a power we are all seeking. None want this power I’m talking about simply because we can’t see giving up the debt we’ve amassed thinking it was wealth. We have become so encumbered by the things we think are owed to us we don’t see what true wealth looks like. We fear losing something more than what could be gained. Everything we’re holding onto is simply a mental accounting trick we’ve employed to balance the books of our pain. Its power is defined by how much it taxes us and how much it depreciates our self-worth over time. We have become bankrupt without declaring it. It is a zero-sum game we play by ourselves.

If you want to have power, see things change in your life, make a difference that is truly real, then do the one thing you’ve never intended to do, the one thing that you’ve already received. You have everything to gain.

“…for his mercy endures forever.”

Quick, what is the first thing about mercy that comes to your mind when you read that line?

Recently a young man was sentenced to death for the crime of killing of eight people who were attending a bible study. The mother of one of the victims is reported to have said that she has forgiven the young man for his actions. Does your view of mercy have any correlation to these type of events? If it does, do you think it has a biblical foundation rooted in loyalty or justice?

PSA, penal substitution atonement, is a theory advanced by John Calvin during the times of the Reformation. Calvin, who was a lawyer, presented his case for the death of Jesus using his familiarity of the judicial system, the courtroom, the prosecutor, the witness, the defendant, and evidence leading to innocence or guilt, and restitution from guilt to craft a narrative of explanation for how humanity did the unthinkable: killed God. While it is still a theory, it continues to dominate not only the doctrines of thousands of churches, but more importantly, its influence has spread even to how we think and act daily in our world of believers and non-believers alike.

Mercy is a topic wrapped up in this PSA vortex. The dominate image that all draw upon whenever they are confronted with trying to define mercy is the accused person, pleading with body wrenching sobs of desperation, throwing themselves upon the “mercies” of the court. This is not mercy. This is the image of a peon entreating their overlord not to send them to the dungeon; a slave beseeching clemency before the master’s whip; the bereaved mother holding her dead child in her arms while a gang member presses a pistol to her temple. These images and references to mercy no one wants to endure forever. Regrettably, this is the only solution churches seem to be able to present under PSA.

There are two particular stories of Jesus interacting with women in the gospel narratives. The first is the woman caught in adultery who is cast before Jesus’s feet to be stoned for her actions. It is an attempt by the religious class to trick him into denying the validity of their laws about such conduct. Jesus turns the tables on them by saying whoever hasn’t broken any of the law should be the first to throw the stone. Suffice to say, there was a trail of stones leaving the scene.

The second is the Samaritan woman at the well. Jesus has a conversation with her when, by all social standards of the day, he should not have even been in the region of Samaria, let alone speaking to a woman. In this dialogue, he reveals to her that he knows she has been married to several men and the current man she is with, she is not married to. According to the law, she is an adulterous too.

I want you to think about of these examples for a moment. They are guilty; they both deserve the punishment described by the law. Neither one cries out to Jesus for mercy, yet that is exactly what he delivers – pre-PSA.

Let’s step back for a moment and discover how you would deal with the issue presented by both of these women. Let’s say that your partner is caught, or confesses to, being in an adulterous affair. (I understand that this may be a tender subject for some, my intention is not to pick at a wound, but to try to offer some relief.) After the initial feelings of betrayal, hurt, disgust and abandonment, do you know mercy as Jesus did, one that endures forever? This is where the rubber meets the road as a believer. I’ve skirted the issue long enough so here is the point.

The Hebrew word often translated as mercy in the word “chesed.” Whenever this word was encountered by the Greek translators they could only use the one word that they had in their vocabulary, “eleeo” which to them meant, mercy or compassion. Now consider that for all the times this word is used in the New Testament, only three times is it ever rendered as compassion, and only two of these times was it used by Jesus in this compacity.

Chesed, or hesed, is a multi-faceted word that is foundational to Israel relationship with God. It is a covenantal word. In the Hebrew scriptures, it is transcribed at times as mercy, but more often as love, kindness, compassion, lovingkindness, goodness, or favor. It describes the relationship between parties and how they interact, one with another, and with others apart from the relationship. It demonstrates kind deeds one for another. However, it is most prominently displayed where the weakness of one member is supplanted by the strength of the other. The word, and its corresponding actions, demonstrate a fidelity to the relationship independent of the character of the parties.

Before anyone jumps on that last statement about character, understand that this description is within the confines of human covenantal relationships. When the Divine enters the picture, it takes on a whole different perspective. The character of God is love from the start. He is not going to change that with His covenants with humanity. He is not trying to get love from someone, He is it. A covenant simply gives Him another means to give who He is even when the weaker can’t give it themselves.

I want to draw your attention to a lack of judgment about the actions of the partners with chesed. This does not mean that what each does isn’t important to the other, but that the integrity and security of the relationship supersedes the predilections of those previous commitments made to one another. It is expected within the nature of chesed that the relationship will last indefinitely, the stronger, as required, always covering the weaker until they recover from the effects of their transgression.

Some of you probably have a hard time dealing with these claims about chesed. This is some of the same reasons why people can’t accept the grace of God. It looks too much like chesed. They are very close in action. When relationships get torn apart from infidelity, fidelity to the relationship is the last thing we are able to commit to. We want justice, recompense from the embarrassment we incurred. However, many forget that God covenanted with us first. He is our strength in this weakness. He is insuring our relationship when we’re too weak to give a care.

Disclaimer time: Some of you have had issues here or continue to. I want to make it very clear here, if you are in a situation in a relationship where you are in harm’s way, do everything in your power to protect yourself and those being affected by the circumstances. I am not endorsing staying in any relationship that promotes and/or keeps you in danger.

Jesus demonstrated to both of these women that fidelity to the relationship they shared as people of the covenant was just as vital to him as it had original been intended. He stood beside them independently of the results of their actions and offered his aid to bridge the chasm of self-inflicted shame and doubt. He offered a new view on life with a future void of disgrace from the one helping.

“Blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy.” Beautiful thoughts, difficult reality. Chesed for those who act in lovingkindness or grace. Grace for those who are strength to the weakness of those they love. Love to those whom love seems so distant from the acts committed against them. Love, not judgment; grace, not weakness; chesed, not mercy. It endures…

It is freaking cold outside! Like someone moved the polar cap to my front door.
This posting is not about this phenomenon, but it is about extremes. This nation, if not the world at large, seems to have shifted. Battle line have been drawn, the camps are entrenched behind their dogma and self-righteous doctrine. It is either this cause or that cause, period. Classic dualism.

In a recent article at Edge.org, Professor Steven Pinker explains the principle of the second law of thermodynamics as follows:

The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that in an isolated system (one that is not taking in energy), entropy never decreases. (The First Law is that energy is conserved; the Third, that a temperature of absolute zero is unreachable.) Closed systems inexorably become less structured, less organized, less able to accomplish interesting and useful outcomes, until they slide into an equilibrium of gray, tepid, homogeneous monotony and stay there.

I think that Professor Pinker’s explanation is a proper declaration for what occurs when we divide ourselves into camps of interest whether they are camps devoted to politics, religion, sports, food, cars, clothes or any other camp whose identity is established on a standard that opposes another camp. Camps are closed systems. Republicans do not think like Democrats; Catholics don’t believe like Protestants; Ford truck people don’t know anything like Dodge truck people do. It is everywhere.

Yet, according to the good professor’s claim, these closed systems are less able to accomplish interesting and useful outcomes. Point at Washington D.C. and any other political center across this globe and you can see this as the daily grind from the clash of camps. Look at our spiritual centers around the world and you’ll witness the proclamation of exclusion rather than the gospel of inclusion as communities of believers fracture more and more around doctrinal issues rather than face the mandate of going into the world to make disciples.

Disciples. Not converts. But disciples of what? Dualistic thinkers are always stuck right here. They can never see any choice that doesn’t align with their meta-narrative on either side of the issue.

Paraphrasing author Cynthia Bourgeault from her book The Law of Three, when there are two forces, one opposing and one agreeing, each committed to their ideology, progress never happens. Only when a third force is introduced, will any change or movement occur. This third, or reconciling force, will pull from the other two and develop a new direction that neither had the ability to construct on their own. The new direction will create the next agreeing and opposing forces over time which, as in our example of above, achieve entropy until the third force is introduced again. No advancement or sustained movement will occur without the involvement of the third, reconciling force.

Did that help you see what type of disciple? No, then how about this little beauty:

Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us; we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. (2Co 5:20)

God does not care what camp you belong too because He reconciled you. You are a new creation. Neither camp could create you, only God could. Now you are to be the reconciling force that causes things to move forward. Believers are not members of a political party; they reconcile parties into a new direction that neither party could advance on their own. Believers aren’t members of a denomination; they are the force that changes the world by advancing the reconciling fact of God’s love for them. Nations/states are not God nation/states; they are regions of reconciliation between nation/states who are unable to move into their destiny because of polarization of ideologies.

Hunger, homelessness, child abuse, abortion, sex trafficking, pollution, terrorism, military intervention, economic upheaval, just to name a few things; the world has issues, real-life matters that are not being addressed by anyone, simply because battle lines have been drawn. It’s time to take the role we’ve been placed in and use our God-given talents to make things happen rather than choosing a side we think God wants us to be on.

Don’t for one moment think that these matters can’t be changed by the likes of you. Small things make a big impact on global issues. Quit waiting for someone to do something when you’re the reconciling force. Start somewhere, look for an impasse and make it passable. If you can’t envision yourself doing this then it is quite possible that you have succumbed to the second law of thermodynamics, an equilibrium of gray, tepid, homogeneous monotony content to stay there. Sounds like church to me.
You have been called to always be the separation between the entropic institutions of church and state.

Over the past year, I’ve been trying to figure out a series of questions, rather important, but seemingly overlooked by most people. I’ve expressed it here as one my concerns. Recently I read a book by N.T. Wright, possibly one of the foremost New Testament scholars we have around these days. His most recent book entitled The Day the Revolution Began is rather a bold declaration upon the stale field of religion. Within the pages, I found someone who was asking and grappling with the same questions I have. What impressed me the most was how Mr. Wright willingly admitted that the material he was presenting actually went counter to a number of claims that he had made in previous sermons and publications, but that his research had produced a new line of thought which he believed aligned much better to the understanding that the first church possessed. What follows is my attempt to convey one of the answers as he sees it.

Whenever I am confronted by a die-hard believer, I have two standard questions I ask them to determine if they know how to study. The first: Do you believe Jesus died for our sins? A simple question that has one answer in any Christian doctrine. The follow up is the one which reveals their understanding. If Jesus did die for our sins, how is it that he didn’t die on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement according to the Hebrew calendar, and died instead on Passover, the celebration of the exodus of Israel from Egypt? What’s your answer? Before you dismiss it as being irrelevant, you better think again. Its impact is monumental.

In the books of Moses, God instructs the children of Israel to celebrate a number of festivals and holy days. Each one has a very specific meaning and there is a great deal of preparation that went into these events both by the priestly class and the people. Three festivals were required to be attended by all the males in the land every year at the Temple: Passover; Pentecost; and Tabernacles. Yom Kippur is a holy day where the high priest would present a sacrifice once a year for the sins of the people. This day falls a few weeks before the festival of Tabernacles, an autumn celebration of the final harvest of abundance provided by God in the land.

Passover is a springtime event, celebrating the release from captivity in Egypt the children of Israel. This ceremony reenacted their last night in Egypt where Moses had instructed them to sacrifice a lamb and place its blood over the lintel and upon the door posts of their homes to prevent the angel of death from coming upon their household as it did to the people and king of Egypt. The lamb was to be cooked by fire (BBQ!) and eaten with bread which was unleavened because they didn’t have time to wait for it to rise. This was fast food for a quick departure.

Josephus, the Jewish historian during the days of Jesus, comments that Passover in Jerusalem was always a time of high anxiety with both the Jews and the Romans. Since the history of this festival celebrated the release from captivity, the Jews were on high alert their Messiah would appear during this festival to remove the foreigners from their land, while the Romans did everything in their power to squash any uprising.

Consideration must also be made for the topic of sin as it related to the Second Temple time period. You’ll recall that the first temple, built by Solomon, was destroyed when the Babylonians invaded the land and took the people away. This series of events had been foretold by the prophets to the kings of Israel and Judah but their words were never heeded. Every warning declared the cause for these actions: the worship of idols rather than the worship of Jehovah. Throughout their Babylonian captivity, it was made very clear to all that their condition stemmed from their sin of worshipping idols.

When the people were permitted to return to the land, they immediately began rebuilding a new temple for worship to Jehovah. However, the second temple never experienced the same infilling that the first had even though the same ceremonies were conducted every year. Furthermore, because Israel was viewed as subjects in a number of empires after their return, they still held to the belief that their sin of idolatry was still keeping them from the fullness of the blessing of Jehovah. This is the backdrop to the environment on that fateful day when the revolution began.

What reason could Jesus have to choose the Passover ceremony as the time to present himself to death for the people of Israel? If the prevalent idea during the Second Temple period about sin meant the act and results from idolatry, how does this affect us today when we think sin has to do with a moral failure? How did those who saw Jesus as the Messiah understand his role at the crucifixion as being completed or a complete failure? Was the crucifixion truly an atoning act in the minds of the second temple followers?

Maybe it’s time to step back and seriously rethink what we’ve been led to believe throughout the centuries about this whole matter. Is it possible that the story of what was truly accomplished on that day can still turn the world upside down when it’s told properly? I think so.

You’re possibly sitting there waiting for the answer to my questions. Well so am I. This book is a great resource for exploring them, but you’ll need to make the discovery yourself. After all, if I give away the ending what did you get out of it? Maybe you need to start asking the questions you know aren’t being asked and then see what comes from it.

In the beginning, God created…

That is a pretty monumental opening to a book with the story that most are familiar with. However, what does it require the reader to assume? First, and this is just my thoughts, they must know that there is a God. Second, that God existed before the beginning, whenever that was. So let’s take a moment to address the first assumption.

God, the divine, Creator, El, Yahweh, Jehovah or a whole host of other name, all boil down to one thing: The writer believes in a higher power than themselves to create the world’s stage. Sure, some don’t believe in the existence of this being, but that only means any of us can have a different perspective too. Let’s go with the popular opinion for the last several thousand years and say that according to a super-majority of people over that time frame, God exists. Now comes the fun part.

What is the nature or character of God’s existence? This helps us to understand why He created. There are two schools of thought. Since the time of Luther, and the reformation, there has been this campaign to depict God as a vengeful, retributive deity living out there in the cosmos who is fed up with the sinful nature of humans. His justice requires that a price be paid in order to set aright the effects of the fall of mankind initiated by Adam in the garden. Ultimately, this price was paid by Jesus, the son of God, on the cross at Calvary where all the sins of humanity were placed on him and God turned His sight away from the entire incident. The blood of Jesus became the redemption price for our sins and now allows us the opportunity to come before God claiming our unworthiness has been redeemed through our faith in Jesus. If I left something out, you can add it in.

This fall/redemption cycle of interpreting the story of salvation has a large following. IT also has a large number of detractors too. Consider this in light of the opening line. It would seem that God created humanity in order to beat the dickens (not the word I really wanted to use, but there are children in the vicinity) out of it. This portrayal of God as being concerned about honor and justice has led civilizations to adopt laws and the enforcement of those laws to be the example of a Godly people. This has also influenced how nations relate to one another in the worldly theater of solving conflict. Retribution seems in many of the instances to be the only path available to resolve the conflict that is mounting. The appearance of being right is often more valuable than the fact of being right – particularly if there is a law that can back your position without you having to change.

Is it possible that you thought this belief structure couldn’t be that influential? Zits don’t appear on your face simply because you looked in the mirror. Something happened internally because of what you ate. These are just a drop in the bucket of the consequences that this type of belief produces. There are a number of social issues that demonstrate this same panache towards order and control right down to how you should act in church. (I’m not going to go there cause you all know what I’m talking about to one degree or another.)

The second school of thought about the nature and character of God is illusively hidden within the scriptures. God is Love; His mercy endures forever; you are saved by grace, not by works…but as a gift; …come to the throne of grace to obtain mercy and grace to help in the time of need; … you are ambassadors of reconciliation; …I will have mercy, not sacrifice…

This representation seems foreign to many. It however was the predominate understanding of the first church. It depicts God as someone who cares about things and all the people who are called by His name. It shows a God who is actively involved in all the inner workings of humanity, not to dictate or order according to moral rectitude, but to accompany through the journey of discovery.

Almost everyone who has read the book of John knows the preamble to his gospel narrative. In his opening passages, John takes the opening of the Genesis narrative and gives it a spin that relates to how he will depict Jesus while keeping within the scope of the Genesis text. This passage is an example of the second school of thought. The following is my version of this same text, the preamble to my gospel.

In the beginning, before the beginning, there was a creative divine dialogue about being love, being with love, and how love was God. This inspired dialogue fashioned all things through the nature of love and there wasn’t anything neglected to be created according to the nature of love. This divine love was the truest essence of a full life and this life became the bedrock of man’s nature and character. Apart from this divine love man could not understand his design or purpose and it often would appear hidden to him. (Mike 1:1-5)

I want you to consider how this narrative impacts our lives today. Can it affect nations trying to deal with political unrest? Can it impact social conditions that minimize people groups? Can it influence power structures that capitalize on scarcity as a tactic for domination? Can it be employed to bring a true semblance of unity to diverse people groups, not just those in the church?

Each of us has to reach a demarcation point in our lives where we have our own narrative that describes the nature and character of God. Honestly, I don’t care which school you come from. I’m more concerned that the thought truly belongs to you and that you’re not just parroting someone who could get dressed up fine and inspire you with great oratory. Frankly, most church pews are filled with these people. Having the capacity to think and reason for themselves, they allow others to do it for them and then think that they have done the work themselves.

We’ve all heard the phrase, “Don’t think about pink elephants.” The result is that you can’t stop thinking about them. This applies to these two schools of thought. If you’ve been brought up in the first one I mentioned, there is no way apparently to change your viewpoint. That is until I tell you to not think about a God who is loving, cares beyond comprehension about everyone, desires nothing more than to be your Father in the truest sense, and walk with you daily in completely fellowship. If you can’t think about this then it might mean that you’re stuck in the first school. It just might be time to graduate into a school as old as the first church. Who knows what impact it might have on your community.

If you’ve grown up in any rural community then chances are quite high that you know all about the 4-H club, probably participated in it or know of someone who has. Its focus has been on instructing youth through improved farming and farm-homemaking techniques, skills which to a city-slicker might seem antiquated but provides a vital component to the life in rural communities. This note is not about the 4-H clubs but about another that has been around a whole lot longer and works across rural and urban areas. You’ve been a member from your birth but probably never even knew it. Welcome to the 4-L club.

I have given it this name after recently reading Parables of Grace by Robert Capon. This man has a command of the English language that sends you into fits of laughter and serious contemplation within moments of each other. According to Mr. Capon, Jesus came and ministered to four types of people: the least, lost, last, and lame. Pretty much everyone at one time or another in their life.

Notice who is evidently missing from this club: the most, found, first, and whole. This crowd looks down on the select of the 4-L club not wanting to even recognize that they too have come up through their ranks, or on their way to rejoin them. As exclusive as their elite ranks may appear to be, 4-L membership is open to all, 24/7/365.

Jesus speaks highly of the 4-L club in all his parables pulling characters from within it to confound the elite in their myopic thinking. Blind, leprous, tax collecting, Samaritan, adulterous, harlots and children all become the poster child for a here’s-a-plank-in-your-eye story from the master. If you don’t fit into one of these descriptors it doesn’t matter, you’re included in spite of your condition. As a matter of fact, your condition is what qualifies you as an honorary lifetime member.

How often has your peers held up their index finger and thumb to their forehead and mouthed the tag line, “Loser” to signify their verdict on your acceptability? That symbol is the secret handshake to the kingdom of God. When the world uses your insignias to demoralize, you need to praise the one who wore it with pride. His societal insignia of a bastard child was the lowest of lows. He never let it interfere with his purpose to lift those around him who shared his de-valued status in the minds of the world.

We all like a champion, one who rises above the ranks to take the head of an industry or nation. We hold their struggle as our own, the declaration that even we can succeed like the hero because they went through the same difficulty we have, or are going through. As our role model, they work for us to raise our belief in what is possible. Yet, when our life is finally accepted as ours, and the realization that we aren’t like the role model, the pain of our false identification is all that Jesus needs to welcome you into the club. If you count on glamor to determine your value in a group, this is the richest one to belong to.

Blessed are you, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. (Mat 5:11-12)

Now I know that no one likes to be classified as being the least, the lost, the last, of the lame. As Jesus points out this position is cause for people to revile you for an indeterminate period of time. This position also creates conditions within our own mental configuration to revile ourselves just as others do. This perpetuates our conditions in an on-going negative-feedback loop. But I’m here to tell you are in the prime of life now. The way the Kingdom of God works is not like anything you ever seen in this world.

Have you ever noticed how worldly, rich, successful people don’t think they need Jesus? Have you ever looked at all the people who come to Jesus? They aren’t rich or successful. They’re broken, battered and bruised. They are bona fide members of the 4-L club and they don’t even know it. Salvation is like that – you don’t know you are until you feel like you ain’t. The trouble with worldly, rich, successful folks is that don’t know they’re members of a larger club than the one they want to think about. The door is always open and the light is always on.

As the last Adam, Jesus came to find the lost, love the least of the brethren and heal the lame. In Him, we are destined to do the same as fraternal members of a divine club. In the 4-L club everybody plays at the same level with the same rule. Love.

Here are some claims that most of us have heard. Tell me if it is a fact, a theory, or a metaphor. Wait! If I go any further with this, we are going to run into a real issue if we’re not all operating from the same standard of meaning. Ok, let me define fact, theory and metaphor according to dictionary.com:

Fact: noun; 1. Something that actually exists; reality; truth; 2. Something known to exist or to have happened; 3. a truth known by actual experience or observation; something known to be true; 4. something said to be true or supposed to have happened

Theory: noun; 1. a coherent group of tested general propositions, commonly regarded as correct, that can be used as principles of explanation and prediction for a class of phenomena; 2. a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural and subject to experimentation, in contrast to well-established propositions that are regarded as reporting matters of actual fact; 3. a particular conception or view of something to be done or of the method of doing it; a system of rules or principles; 4. contemplation or speculation; 5. guess or conjecture

Metaphor: noun; 1. a figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest a resemblance; 2. something used, or regarded as being used, to represent something else; emblem; symbol

Now we can split hairs all day on how best to use these terms but for this exercise let’s say that a fact is real, it happened, and it has witnesses to attest to its validity of occurring. A theory is a hunch that still needs to be confirmed to become a fact; it is a proposal of a viewpoint in an attempt to become a fact. A metaphor is a style of language used to show a relation between two or more diverse objects. If you have difficulties with these three definitions I have supplied, then you are than welcome to reference the fuller ones previously mentioned.

Since we have useable definitions, let’s begin. Tell me if the following is a fact, a theory, or a metaphor.

A. God is Love.
B. God cannot be around sin.
C. God is angry, wrathful and vengeful.
D. Jesus died in exchange for our sins.
E. Jesus died so that we can go to heaven.
F. The blood of Jesus washed away our sins.
G. Believers are the temple of God.
H. No sins are forgiven without the spilling of blood.
I. The wages of sin is death.
J. All mankind is saved by grace.
K. The kingdom of God has come to earth.
L. The apocalypse is the end of the world.
M. A person must be saved before they can call on God.

I understand that some of these might have multiple answers or be very difficult to fit a definition to it. The purpose is to get you to think rather than agree with what we always been told. This is where the truth you know will make you free. We need to create a dialog not a wall of separation. I know I do not have all the answers but I’m looking. If it’s good news, it has to be good for all, or its good for nothing.

If you’re willing to explore these further, then great. If you’re not, then great. Either way is right for you. My path is to find truth. You’re welcome to tag along if you want. Simple rule though. We don’t have to agree on everything to travel this road together. Your theory has just as much weight as mine and they both may be right or wrong. We celebrate truth.

“A voice crying in the wilderness, ‘Prepare ye the way of the Lord.’”

This verse leveled me one day for reasons I still do not understand. I heard it in a song and became completely undone for the rest of the day into the following one. Frankly, deep inside, I still haven’t regained my composure now years later. So let me speak to you about something pertaining to it.

How is your life going? Are you seeing progress in your journey? Are you fulfilled? Are you striving successfully towards your goals and aspirations? Are you living in your purpose?

Here is the real foundational question to all of these: Do people know about what’s going on in your life? IF so, why?

An obscure holy man wades into an ankle deep, bone chilling mountain stream proclaiming to those about him that the realm above the empire of all humanity is about to show up and, despite what you think it will look like, you’ll be wrong. Those who want to experience this new realm will need to come into the water with him and be immersed into the ice-cold shock of a new thought running over your body. Only then will you be prepared to what the divine realm is about to produce.

The wilderness is filled with three types of people. The first are the lost. They have no clue why they’re there or even how they got there. No one likes the feeling of being lost, let alone thinking that there is a purpose for it, but that is for later. Back in the day when I was growing up, I had a few occasions where I got lost from my parents in the department store. Instinctually, after looking around for them for a few minutes, I went back out to the car to sit and wait for them to show up, which they always did. Sometimes you have to go back to what brought you to your lost-ness to be found, again. (That piece of advice is free and might be what your negative answers were searching for.)

The second type of people in the wilderness are people going through it. Unfamiliar terrain doesn’t phase them because they’re focused on arriving at a destination. They’re the kind of people who can drive for hours through the most scenic places on the planet and once they arrive at their destination, can’t even describe the beauty they have been through. Think of snowplows and you’ve got their attitude and drive firmly fixed in your mind. People often follow them, but just don’t try to pass them.

The last type of person is the least found. Those who stay in the wilderness, obscure on purpose. These are people who listen to the faint whispers of the wind and know what it is saying. They are one with the environment and move according to its rhythm. They embrace the fact that they must be sought out to be found for a relationship. They are not encumbered by anything that bounds the wilderness but live in abounding fullness every moment.

A holy man in the wilderness proclaims that the lamb of God has arrived – in the wilderness. A king would appear in his regal garb in the place where subjects would exalt him; that’s what kings do. Carpenters would appear where the work of constructing or repairing is needed; that’s what carpenters do. Moves of God using world changing people with large agendas and small recognition appear always in the wilderness, equal with God, but taking on the form of a servant, humbled by the truth of who they are in God’s eyes and heart, and obedient to their calling to be obscure to the least of these, our brethren.

If your answer to my foundational question is yes, people know about it, I’d ask your then, are you blowing through life? There is sacredness in being obscure while doing good. Accolades are good to have, but matters of the heart, aren’t measured by goals accomplished, but by a simple statement: This is my son in who I am well pleased. There is not a chill in that thought at all.