Re-Routed

I am in the process of switching to a new blog site.  Now all new posts will appear at:

http://neisssteps.wordpress.com/

See you there.

A World of Engagement

E-mail?  Love it.

Connecting with old friends on Facebook?  Amazing.

Research at your fingertips?  Unbeatable.

Providing information to the world about your product and/or services?  Cheap, effective and immediate.

A place to share ideas in a Areopagus-like setting?  Very cool.

The Internet has opened to me, and so many of you, a world that we only dreamed of twenty-five years ago.  In a word: engagement.  We are able to be connected in ways that are mind-boggling.

But I have sensed that my world has shrunk to fifteen inches of two-dimensional pseudo-reality.  I have become increasingly connected to the universe on my laptop, while become less and less engaged with the actual universe surrounding me.  I realize that many of those cyber-connections can enrich my life, but only in somewhat superficial ways.  The Sirens of the ancients are luring me to a rock-strewn shore.

The attraction of the screen is hypnotic.  It began with movie screens, drawing us into an alternate reality on Saturday mornings.  I can remember being dropped off with friends on Saturday mornings at the Mellett Mall cinema to see a movie, complete with a couple of cartoon shorts, for a quarter or fifty cents (I forget).  I escaped from long days in school and boring afternoons in the neighborhood.  The massive screen before me carried me around a dirt track with Herbie or soaring in a winged-car with Caractacus Potts and Truly Scrumptious.

Then televisions became the fascination (and still leave a majority of us semi-comatose for the evening hours at home).  Soon computers, then cell phones, palm pilots, iPods, Blackberrys, et al.  We have been sucked in by the sirens of technology - not by our ears, but our eyes.

The lure is unmistakable.  I have seen it in the strongest of us.  A spare moment suddenly becomes an opportunity for reflection, prayer, conversation, or service. . .  and we opt for a screen.  Texting, surfing, scanning, anything but engaging with the world in the same room.

I am guilty as so many of you are.

Do we dare say "No" to it all?  Fasting from the screaming screens?  Engage in the world around you today.  You won't simply avoid the onset of a repetitive motion injury, but you just might save yourself and those around you from isolation and irrelevance.

Your thoughts?

+ + + + + On the Fence + + + + +

"If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.  Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

- Jesus (John 8:31-32)

How is it that truth sets me free?  Truth is about black and white.  Truth is the baking concrete under my feet in the summer, reminding me that life is hard so I better deal with it.  Truth is the whip of the master, the razor edge of the knife, the blow of the hammer.  Truth is an unyielding, unforgiving, uncompromising tyrant gleefully watching my failure and not quite satisfied when I do manage to fall within the boundaries.  Truth is a dizzying array of pigeonholes.  Truth is a puzzle with every piece different and fitting in only one place.  Truth is a checklist with an infinite number of pages.  Truth is the electrical leads attached to my skin, waiting for a reason to surge voltage through my tender muscles.  Truth is the cat waiting for the mouse to make a wrong move.

Or is truth something else?

Truth has received a lot of bad press.  The reason being that the human heart, much more fond of deception and fantasy, feels condemned and imprisoned by truth.  When do we ever hear the word "truth" in an upbeat sense?

"I realize that you were told. . .  but the truth is. . ."

"Do you have time to talk?  I need to be truthful about something. . ."

"I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God."

"I've heard both sides of the story.  Now I want the truth."

Not happy conversations usually.  The air is thick with tension.  The room grows quiet.  Someone is going to go away wounded.

The harbingers of truth in Jesus' day were the teachers of the law.  The truth marshals.  If you want to know the way God expects you to behave, ask those guys with the long beards and boxes strapped to their heads.  They'll tell you what to do, not to do, and how to do it (or not do it).  Truth will set you straight or beat you into submission.

Why didn't Jesus say that?

"You will know the truth, and the truth will beat you to a pulp."

Nope.  It will "set you free."  How far from the truth is that in your experience?

Note several important contextual factors in John 8.

• Jesus' audience.  Jesus is in the midst of a people obsessed with finding, knowing and practicing the truth.  Often this clouded their pursuit of God Himself.  The problem was, for many of them, that the truth of the Law had become an oppressive ogre, rendering them so exhausted at checking off boxes while looking over their shoulders that following God became miserable.  They began to drift away from following God altogether.  Truth had become detached from the Truth-Teller.  Jesus had come to rescue them - not with a different "truth" but with clarified truth, and, more importantly, the truth that was dynamically connected to the Living God.  It was the truth that came to bestow life, not suck life out of them.

• The source of truth.  Jesus' first words leading to the discovery of truth are focused on Himself and His teaching.  This could be considered a rather bold challenge to the truth believed to be inherent in the Mosaic Law.  The truth was now more clearly seen once the centuries of varnish was wiped away.  The traditions of moral bean-counters were no longer clouding the vision of what was true.  Jesus brought truth personally into the neighborhood for He was/is truth (see John 14:6 and its context).  Truth is not a list of neatly crafted axioms.  Truth is the presence of God.  Truth is not a periodic golden brick upon which we step to keep our way.  Truth is Jesus Christ walking just ahead of us.  Jesus did not come to replace the old list with a new list.  He came top replace the list with Himself.  We follow HIM.

• The place of truth in the journey.  The statement of Jesus lays out a progression.  Note:  Held "teaching" leads to "disciples" who "know the truth" and then become "free."  Jesus does not slap the shackles of truth on His listeners and then try to convince them that they are now free.  Jesus calls followers to be with Him and, as He does, He teaches them.  Learning with Jesus causes us to become more like Him.  We begin to walk like Him, behave like Him, think like Him, and our transformed life helps us see Him and truth evermore clearly.  That truth so embeds itself into us that we find ourselves immersed in the light of truth.

Suddenly the claws of truth retract.  Truth is not an intimidating beast.  Truth is the fruit of relationship.  Some have considered it a bitter fruit, but its sweetness should be savored.  Truth offers the nectar of freedom.

Those who view religion as oppressive do so because it brings rigid form or rigorous disciplines which tend to strangle the adherent.  A new way of life turns vision away from the old life and toward a new life - one which seems narrow and less fun than that life previously known.

This is not the way of Jesus.

Instead, picture a follower of Jesus being brought inside a fenced area.  The fence represents the boundaries established by a commitment to Jesus.  We must be honest enough to admit that Jesus introduced a fence of sorts.  His call to "deny self, take up your cross and follow me" (Luke 9:23) and similar challenges certainly draw lines in the sand.  But these lines are different than the laws of religious philosophies.

• The fence is divinely-organic, not man-made.  What essentially changes is the human heart, not the boundaries around us.  "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts" the prophet said (Jeremiah 33:33).  The warped, scarred and broken image given to us in Eden is restored and we have a conscience again - a conscience that more closely resembles God's heart than our sinful one.  Our compulsion to obey and be holy is not driven by our fear of become shredded by the barbed wire of law, but we are given a heart with the capacity to hurt when we stray from the Father's design.  We begin to love holiness as much as He does.  This is definitely a process which takes time, but as God is allowed to meddle in us, truth molds our inner fences.

• The fence does not restrict, but protects.  Fences have two sides and create two contrasting perspectives.  From one side we feel like the monkey in the zoo, wondering why we can't be "out there."  From the other side we feel like the secure citizen, happy that the man-eating lion is contained.  This is why truth in Scripture is so often associated with light as contrasted with darkness.  It is the place of hope, rescue, blessing, favor and joy.  The fool regards truth as the guard rail on the mountain pass that restricts one from the freedom to drive into gravity's maw and discover the bliss of injury and death.  The wise person sees quite another picture: truth is the protector of life, for it knows what a ride to the valley below holds for us - chaos, pain and death.

 

• The fence contains more than it prohibits.  If we must view truth as a fence, then make a 180 degree turn.  Instead of standing at the fence and looking out at your old life, longing for what God has taken from you, turn around.  Look at the vastness within the perimeter of His truth.  You will discover that your old longing was for a small patch of thorns, while what God has protected within His truth is a paradise bigger and more beautiful than the grandest vistas of Montana.  Your old life gave periodic happiness.  Your life in Christ gives eternal joy.

The depths of truth's freedom has yet to be fully fathomed.  Only as we increasingly surrender do we begin to discover that there is freedom that enables the Christ-follower to be at ease in any and every situation.  Our secrets evaporate and playing the part of untarnished sinner can be cast aside.  Living by the script is ludicrous when we can live from the organic pulse of truth.

If the truth is killing you, turn around.  Embrace the Truth and discover the wideness of His mercy.  Allow His holiness to bathe you in joyful surrender.

Only on the lips of Jesus could truth become a tender song beckoning the battered and bruised to drink deeply from the river of true life.

ΙΧΘΥΣ

Pasting the name of Jesus on your life view is a popular practice.  Whether in regard to individual lives, college mission statements, church purpose statements, or even some corporate mantras, hitching philosophies and behaviors to Jesus Christ as a model has almost become chic.  The question is, which Jesus is grasped, or rather, which aspects of the genuine Jesus have become the point of fascination?

Some adopt the social paradigm of Jesus (His world view).  The perspectives of Jesus in the first century are considered as counter-cultural today as then.  His insistence on justice for those marginalized and His emphasis on peace in the face of conflict have become attractive to some.

It never hurts to appeal to a figure like Jesus for a precedent on world view.  If a small percentage of Christians became devoted to Jesus' war on injustice the effects would be staggering.  But this stance is not popular because the only thing peaceful about it is the outcome.  Along the road to justice and peace a lot of blood will be shed by the peacemakers.  And that is a sacrifice few of us are truly willing to offer.

Some march according to the lifestyle of Jesus (His behaviors).  Imitating a model of sacrifice, generosity, purity and righteous anger serves as a great rallying point.  We could do worse in a culture so self-obsessive and self-destructive.

This, too, is an unpopular choice, for throwing our materialism, comfort and self-centered schedules on the altar is too radical.  It would kill most of us.  Which is, of course, the point.  The rebel within us must be put to death and most of us are too squeamish for that.

Others embrace the God-ness of Jesus (His deity), worshipping Him and appealing to Him for blessing and guidance.  His wisdom and power reach into my weak and misguided life to provide hope.  His immanence is not considered as much an asset as is His transcendence.  Because He is NOT like us, He can reach down into our miserable existence and lift us, change us, conquer for us.

The great thing about Jesus is that we needn't necessarily pick and choose.  The early church developed a symbol which served as a cryptic reminder of their faith in times and places in which being a Jesus follower could be hazardous to your health.

Sort of like a gang sign flashed to quickly mark allegiance, the fish was reminiscent of the calling of simple fishermen in Galilee to surrender their literal nets and join a movement to catch people by the grace of God.  But for the Greek a fish is an ICqUS (ichthus).  The letters in their word for "fish" were anagrammatic for Jesus' identity.  He is Jesus (Ihsou"), Christ (Cristo"), God's (qeo") Son (Uio"), Savior (Sothr).  He is ALL these things, not just one.  And although even these facets do not completely convey His essence, they are a powerful reminder of His most prominent attributes.

It is tempting as we develop spiritual and philosophical roots to discover that one BIG IDEA which serves as a magnetic pole for our world view, purpose, behaviors, and attitudes.  Indeed, in Christ, we have that pole, but Christ Himself cannot possibly become defined in one idea.  Is He prophet?  Yes.  Is He miracle-worker?  Yes.  Is He teacher?  Yes.  Is He deliverer from injustice?  Yes.  Is He Creator, Life-Giver, Almighty God?  Yes, yes, yes.  His capacity is limitless.  John alluded to that.

Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.

John 21:25

It almost seems criminal that such a limitless One should be encased in a human body for thirty-three years and limited to a few hundred square miles of terrain, doesn't it?  But within those shackles He has managed to touch every life, every place, in all time, in every way.

The aspect of Jesus Christ that must be grasped above all others, however, is His authority.  Will He be Lord?

In John's Revelation Christ is depicted as a montage, but always as Lord.  Slain Lamb, yes; but alive and at the center of the worship of elders and living creatures.  Son of Man robed in white, certainly; but with eyes of blazing fire, and a voice of rushing waters and sharp, double-edged sword.  The blood-stained Rider of a white horse, indeed; but leading the armies of heaven, wearing numerous crowns, and bearing the name "King of kings and Lord of lords."

By the time John had recorded his visions, Paul had penned these words 40 years previous.

God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Philippians 2:9-11

Above all, He is above all.

An Evening with Chen, Smetana & Dvorak

I just returned from an evening out with my wife hearing the Formosa String Quartet.  This was as high brow an experience I've had since I was in grade school and took a trip with my classmates to a special presentation of "Amahl and the Night Visitors" followed by a fancy beef stroganoff dinner at the Onesta in downtown Canton, Ohio.  Both events are unforgettable, but I'm not sure what I experienced either time.

I needed this night.  The musicians were exquisite.  The accolades bloated their bios in the program to a full page each and none of them could have been out of their twenties.  It's just that my exposure to high culture has been rather limited.  Having people like me in the audience was akin to slipping caviar into a Spam can.  It is a far cry from what people like me are accustomed to witnessing.

The evening consisted of 3 works - the first contemporary and the other two from the late nineteenth century.  I am sure that Shih-Hui Chen is a talented and lovely woman, but her composition, less than 2 years old, didn't seem to hold up to the works of Bedrich Smetana and Antonin Dvorak.  Granted, I am no musical critic to ANY degree, but the older works were so much more pleasing to my ears.  Then again, I am the same guy who just can't understand the fascination with canvases that appear as they have been decorated by the colorful excrement of seagulls when around the corner are paintings of recognizable images so vibrant and breathing that they cause me to stop and stare with delight.

My cultural stretching exercise has allowed me to appreciate that there are many ways to convey the soul in music - some which will be liked by one and sound repugnant to the next.  But it also opened my eyes to something else - that the oldies are classic because they have tapped into something organic in us.

People who consider themselves culturally relevant can converse and recognize the classic artists (in musical art, visual art, architecture, literature, etc.).  They may be acquainted with the newer artists and their freeform expressions, but the tried and tested masters are the meat and potatoes of cultural high browism.  The old-timers are not only cool; they are the standard upon which all others are judged.  At the end of the day the music we want to hear is from Beethoven.  The paintings we want to see are from Rembrandt.  The sculptures we want to touch are from Michelangelo.

This gives me hope in a world that seems to want to throw Jesus under the bus.  The Jesus of history and Scripture (they are one and the same if we are talking about actual history and the canon of Scripture - don't let the double-talkers fool you) is, when all is said and done, the One people want to hear, see, touch and know.  He will draw a crowd and move hearts as no other.

This gives me hope that we don't have to dazzle people with the newest thing, because the Ancient of Days is enough.  I mean, if Bach has been packing them in for 300 years, the Creator and Sustainer of all things can awe the crowds pretty well.  The simple, beautiful, heart-breaking melodies, harmonies and rhythms of His presence is the greatest, and only genuine, hope for the world.

I probably will attend a limited number of concerts like I did tonight.  I have a shelf full of classical music CDs that I play once in while when I need some background music for reading and/or study, but my staples will probably continue to be the Beatles, Elton John, James Taylor, Sara Groves, Bruce Springsteen, Phil Keaggy, Rich Mullins and the like.  To some of you, these are the oldies.

And in my soul-walk I will always find joy in learning from C.S. Lewis, Max Lucado, Gordon MacDonald, Eugene Peterson, John Stott and Lauren Winner.  But the classic Book and the classic God is the foundation which never gets tired, stale or irrelevant.  It keeps my toe tapping right into the forever of tomorrow.

Meeting Grandpa

For most of my formative years (those years when you learn to walk, use a toilet, read, write, pick friends, kiss a girl, drive, and dream about your adult life) I lived near my extended family.  Both uncles and their families and both sets of grandparents were a bike ride away.  Allow me one asterisk for that last sentence.  My mother's dad - Grandpa Mac, short for McVay - died shortly before my second birthday.  I have no conscious memory of him.

Until this last November.  I was home (Ohio) visiting my mother, father and sisters, and while I was alone with my mom she told me about the day her father died.  Mom said that Grandpa Mac and I were pretty tight, so much that whenever we went to their house I would immediately go from room to room until I found him.

On the day he passed from this life my mother and I went to Grandma Mac's house, and when I stepped in the door I stopped, looked around, and just shook my head from side to side.  I knew he was gone.

Even now, as I type those words, my eyes tear because somewhere down inside of me there is a lingering bond to a man I can't remember.  The moment Mom told me it were as though I had just been told I had a long lost twin or something.  I was dumbfounded.  And almost immediately I began to love this mysterious man who I can only recall through faded photographs and second-hand stories.  The child-heart in me revived and I have thought about him more often in the last two months than I have in the last 45 years.

You might think this would create a sadness, a longing for something that is irretrievably lost, but it hasn't.  Instead, I am filled with a hope and an impatient joy as I look ahead to seeing him again someday.  I will have eternity to know this man I forgot I knew.

And I can assure you of this - on that day I will go through every room until I find him.

I miss you Grandpa Mac, but it won't be long.

Buggies on the Highway

For those who live in Amish country, this is no laughing matter.  In fact, I saw an update on the news while I was back at my home in northeast Ohio in November about a court case still in process concerning a driver who hit a horse and buggy driven by an Amish family.  A little boy in the buggy was killed in the accident and the driver of the car was under the influence of a controlled substance (why do they call it a "controlled" substance when it leads to a lack of self-control?).

But I thought about the intersection of Christ with culture as I was nearing my mom's home on one of those days.  On a four-lane highway passing through Amish country, a horse and buggy pulled up to the highway, stopped, waited for a break in traffic, then dashed across.  The picture before me was rather striking.

The Amish have established a way of life which attempts to stay true to Christian simplicity.  You and I would probably differ on many of the specifics that constitute a life of holiness in Christ.  But the willingness of the Amish to maintain a separation between themselves and the world system is honorable.  And yet, that separation cannot be maintained to the extreme.  Every once and a while the buggy has to cross the highway.

Some friends in our church family have been very thoughtful in their approach to raising their family in the midst of culture.  Their business, education of their children, and vision for the Kingdom of God as it is pursued in all their endeavors has been thought through extensively and they provide an exemplary model for other Christian families.

One of the clarifying themes which they have worked through is defining the differences between being people who are exposed, isolated, or insulated.  Those who are exposed have been so left to the influences of the world that they succumb rather easily to the mindset and behaviors of the world.  Those who are isolated from the world become naive and unable to cope when those periodic and inevitable collisions with the world occur.  But those who are insulated have protection from the onslaught of worldly thinking while still being connected to people in the world.  Only those who are insulated (with the Holy Spirit, the word of truth, the power of prayer, and the fellowship of believers) will become influential rather than influenced.

Those three categories are visible all around us.  So many in the church have revered relevance to the point that they unwittingly have wandered into the jungle of compromise and have little that sets them apart for the Kingdom.  Others, though far fewer, seek to be cloistered away in communities of hibernation from the "world" and become ineffective.  The Jesus way, pursued by far too few, manages to be among the people of the world while maintaining distinction and integrity.

In order to accomplish this third way, we will have to become comfortable with discomfort.  The other two ways are all about comfort zones - either ensconced in worldly ways, or in refuge from all threat of battle with evil forces.  Jesus' way meant a life of constant tension - accepted by masses at times, and, at other times, in the cross hairs of their wrath.  If you find yourself drifting back and forth between those two extremes, you are probably following Jesus closer than you know.  You will be loved by some in the world in the morning, and then hated by them in the afternoon.  You will be revered by the church on Sunday, then declared a heretic on Wednesday.

Pretty enticing life, eh?