Disciples are light.

"You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house." (Matthew 5:14-15)

I might be taking a giant leap here, but like yesterday's post, I think this passage has a great deal to do with culture, and specifically how followers of Christ interact with culture. It could be that I'm just in that frame of mind because of the combination of my good friend Justin Bower's teachings at Common-Cup and the recent trip at Alive, but I think that this is a bigger issue than any of us realize. How do Christians interact with culture in a healthy and responsible way?

What we tend to do seems to be exactly what Jesus warns us not to do in this passage. We have an incredibly well lit lamp in some places (not so much in others...). There are Christian bands that are making a tremendous amount of great music (Jars of Clay, Mute Math, David Crowder Band, Switchfoot, Relient K, Skillet, Needtobreath, Grungor, and Family Force 5 just to name a few), but what we tend to do is keep them entirely to ourselves in some kind of Christian sub-culture. Now a lot of these bands are getting with the program and touring with "secular" bands, but I think there's still an atmosphere of exclusion in the Christian sub-culture. We want to keep it to ourselves and our culture safe from the world "out there." We light the lamp, but then we put it under the basket of the Christian bubble.

A couple of thoughts. If you scan the scriptures, you will never see the word "Christian" used as an adjective. If we hold true that truth comes from the scriptures, and that we are meant to guide our lives by it, I don't think we should use it as an adjective. What makes a band Christian? What makes a book Christian? If I write a song that doesn't mention Jesus, yet I'm a Christian, does that make it a Christian song? If it's not a Christian t-shirt, does that mean it's worthless and unredeemable? Because another word that won't show up in the scriptures is "secular," and I think that means something for us today.

How has your walk with Christ impacted the culture at large? Would the world actually know you're different by simply examining you, or would they only see the part of your faith that you let out in the world, reserving the rest for our Christian festivals? Is your light shinning, or do you have it under a basket?

If you made it through the whole post without humming "This little light of mine," +5 cool points.

More later,

Jason

Disciples are salty

"You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men."

Ok, I'll admit it. I pour salt on just about every food imaginable. Chicken, steak, French fries. Sarah yelled at me once for putting salt on kraft Mac and cheese. That was the day that I learned about sodium levels in my food.

But the truth is that I salt everything because I love the flavor of salt. Some people reach for the chocolate, and others like me reach for the potato chips. Now imagine that my favorite steak dinner is sitting in front if me, and I sprinkle some of those delightful white flakes on my meat, and they don't have any flavor to them. Nothing. I get all the harmful effects of extra sodium in my diet, but no flavor. I would feel completely ripped off, not to mention completely unsatisfied.

Some people who have preached on this passage have gone into all different uses for salt, which it definitely has a couple, but I don't think we should ask too much of this passage. Jesus doesn't say that we are salt that doesn't melt ice, he says we might be salt without flavor. So for the sake of argument, let's say that this passage is a call to us to spice things up.

I spent this past week at the Alive festival, which is a wonderful Christian music festival in Ohio. While the music and the worship were awesome, as I walked around the festival grounds and through the merch tent and everything, and I saw how all our t-shirts and everything, I realized we were trying to hide from the world. And I got really sad, because if we spend all of our time hiding from the world, we're probably not doing a good job of spicing things up. If we keep to ourselves, if we create our own sterile culture rather than influencing and creating culture at large, are we just salt without flavor? Are we doing the world a great disservice by trying to keep ourselves safe from it?

Or perhaps put another way, are we shinning a bright light all the while keeping it under the basket of our safety? More on this thought tomorrow.

Godspeed,

J

Disciples are in trouble.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matthew 5:10-12 ESV)

When I was in college I had an experience where this passage was abused far beyond the limits of what it should ever be intended to mean. I was walking to class one morning, when a group of people were walking around the oak grove with huge signs. Seriously, they had to have special belts that would hold these signs up. The signs said things like "SInners will burn in hell" and "God doesn't approve of your actions" and "God hates the gays". I shuddered even a little bit more when I discovered that their special belts came with holsters for their huge study bibles. This was trouble.

As someone who was considering at that point a career in the ministry, I walked up to one of the women with a sign and I asked her if she thought that her actions were going to be at all effective. Basically I said I thought she was doing a better job of getting people to hate Christians than she was at getting people to be one. In response, she quoted the verse above.

There are really two sides to that verse. To those of us who are in comfortable situations, I think it's a challenge. Can you really live the life Jesus called us to live and be completely comfortable? Or is there are part of the redemptive lifestyle that will always be a little bit uncomfortable? When we're called to be generous (more on this later), can we ever really be comfortable having an abundance? If we worship in a church or a congregation where everybody agrees with us, will we ever grow? The redemptive lifestyle (at least at first) is a little uncomfortable.

But then I go back to that lady in the oak grove. Should we actually be out looking for trouble? Should we be poking people with a stick and then running and hiding behind this verse? I don't think so, and there's one line that gives credibility to that thought: ..."and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely..." Jesus seems to understand that people are going to make stuff up about us. They are going to claim things that simply aren't true about the followers of Jesus. But if people are claiming things that are absolutely true about us, and those things are troublesome, then we need to re-examine our actions.

Yes, disciples will find themselves in trouble from time to time. But that doesn't mean we should go looking for it.

More later today.

Godspeed,

J

Disciples are pure.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. (Matthew 5:8 ESV)

This is a tough one, isn't it?

What exactly does it mean to be pure in heart? I took a quick look at google definitions and found this:

free from discordant qualities

Which was all great and good, until I had to look up discordant.

not in agreement or harmony; "views discordant with present-day ideas"

Ah, not it starts to make some sense. Something is pure when it is free from qualities that make it out of agreement or harmony. Something that lives in tension all the time can't possibly be pure, can it? To be pure means that everything works together, everything flows together, everything fits together. When you look at pure gold, there's not an ounce of anything else in there, all the gold flows together quite nicely and creates something exceptionally beautiful.

So what does it mean to be pure in heart? What does it look like to have a heart that is completely harmonious? And for that matter, harmonious with what (or who)?

Let's make some assumptions here. The first is that when Jesus says "Pure in heart", and we take that to mean living in harmony with something or someone, that the someone is in fact God. To be pure in heart means to live with a heart like God's heart, to be in complete harmony with God's will, God's actions, God's desires. Purity in heart means to live the way God called us to live.

Someone should do a blog series about that...

The question takes a turn here. We develop a problem, specifically the problem of sin. Speaking from a personal place, I know first hand that sin can creep into a person's heart and make it shall we say "discordant". As long as there is sin in my life, as long as there is sin in the world, I don't know that I'll ever actually be pure in heart.

Or will I?

Is it possible to overthrow the power of sin in a person's life? Is it possible for Christ to come in, clean us up, and rather than waiting until we die to see heaven, to actually align our hearts with God's for any significant period of time? Or are we doomed to live a completely discordant (hey, it's new, I'm going to use it as much as I can!) life this side of heaven?

I think it is possible, through the power of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit to live a pure life. I know it seems far fetched, and I know it seems ludicrous, but I think it's possible. More over, I think it's dangerous to believe it's impossible. If I don't think that I'll ever be able to have a pure heart, then it's not very likely that I'll work on purifying my heart. I'll just wait until I die, and Jesus will clean up my mess when I get to heaven.

That doesn't sound like a very exciting life to me...

So take some time this day to clean up your heart. What would it look like to live in harmony with God? It would probably take some time in God's word, but more than just reading it. It would probably take going out and doing something about it. And it would probably mean doing that without regard for the kind of reward that might be in it for you. It would mean living for God, simply because you wanted to live for God.

More tomorrow!

Jason

Disciples are forgiving

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. (Matthew 5:7 ESV)

One of my favorite questions to ask the kids at Veritas lately is "What does forgiveness look like?" It's actually a pretty deep question, in that there are several layers or degrees of response to it. On the surface, there's the simple answer "letting go of someone who wronged you." But if you dig a bit further, when you examine our relationship with God and how much he had to forgive us, and then allow that to trickle down into our relationships with each other, you get to the heart of forgiveness and you see that it's willing to go as deep as we are.

In my humble opinion, forgiveness is the most beautiful thing in the world.

In our staff bible study, we read from another piece of scripture that I found interesting:

All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. (2 Corinthians 5:18 ESV)

Can you remember the moment when you realized how much you needed God's mercy, and how beautiful it was to realize it was there for you? Even if you're like me and you were baptized before you really had an opportunity to screw up, you grew up in the church, I bet there was a moment of revelation in your life. And again, if you're like me, it was beautiful. It knocked you off your feet with it's simple invitation to be loved in spite of all that you had done, in spite of your past, and in spite of your junk.

What Paul and Jesus are saying to us is that we get the awesome responsibility to hand that redemption and reconciliation to other people the same way God gave it to us. When someone wrongs you, as painful as it might be in that moment, you have a new opportunity to participate in the redemptive process. If it's done right, you can experience the joy and grace and beauty of forgiveness at your finger tips.

However, don't forget a couple of things. Mercy in fact implies that the other person doesn't deserve it. We certainly didn't deserve the treatment Christ gave us, but that didn't stop him. In fact, that's what made it so beautiful. So the trick is to go beyond forgiving the people we feel like forgiving, and forgiving the people who under no circumstances deserve or warrent our forgiveness. Jesus isn't giving us an easy thing to do to check off the list here. This is a challenge. This is a commitment to the redemptive lifestyle. This is going to be difficult.

But ask yourself: Would you want it to be any other way?

Who do you need to forgive? Right now, today, this second, can you take a few steps towards spreading the ministry of reconciliation to some other people around you? Can you share the beauty of the grace and mercy that have been given to you?

Don't wait for another second. Forgive now.

More later today possibly? Who knows!

Godspeed,

J

Disciples are hungry

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. (Matthew 5:6 ESV)

Sometimes it's the simple things that kill us.

For example, I'm writing this right now from the diner down the street from our house. For about 6 bucks, I've purchased more food than I need. I'm leaving behind two slices of toast, a hand full of french fries, and a couple shards of scrambled eggs. I've got coffee beside me (as is typically the case for a blog post) that will be refreshed as many times as I need it to be. Those six bucks that this meal cost me are ultimately not that painful to part with. My guess is during the course of my week I'll hardly notice they're gone.

And this is all well and good, until you realize there are people in the world that live on $2 a day. That's it! It would take folks like that three days to be able to afford the meal I've just consumed, and that's if they put aside all the other conveniences I've neglected to mention like the gas it took me to get here in my car that I make payments on from the house that I rent each month. The truth is that there are people around the world for whom just the SCRAPS I left behind would be a feast and a half.

Something isn't right.

Something isn't right when dad splits and leaves a single mother to care for her tiny children alone. Something isn't right when parents are forced to choose between feeding themselves or feeding their children. Something isn't right with a father has to bury his own son. Something isn't right when rather than receiving help, a homeless man is shunned because he "brought it upon himself."

Something isn't right, and whether we're ready to admit it or not, it's the same "something" that causes people to hijack planes and fly them into buildings.

When we come to this realization (which is an accomplishment in and of itself in many cases), we're faced with a choice. We can either shake our heads, say "that's a shame", and return to our comfy cushions and our cups of coffee. We can try to ignore it and pretend it's not happening. We can explain it away, saying things like "I'd help if I could, but I'm just one person..."

Or...

We can be hungry! We can insist that this is absolutely not the righteousness that God intended for the world when he created the world. We can do more than dream the big dreams, we could actually believe they could happen and then act on it. We could resign ourselves to the fact that complacency is for pansies, and that the job of the Church will not be done until the wedding feast of the Lamb.

The world is broken. If you don't believe me, turn on CNN or Fox or whatever your news channel of choice is. Better yet, go spend a couple hours in the worst neighborhood in your city. The question at the end of this blog post is what are you going to do about it? Will this blog post actually inspire action, or are we just used to hearing the cry to battle?

If you need just a little more assurance, and you don't mind a somewhat violent metaphor, Jesus has loaded the gun and placed it in our hands. The end of this passage tells us that if we are truly hungry for justice in the world, we'll see it happen. Do you believe that? I mean when the rubber hits the road, do we believe that Jesus meant what he said? Not just the parts about saving us (though that's super important to believe too!), but this kind of stuff. Do you believe that if you actually hunger and thirst for righteousness, you'll see it come to fruition? You'll be satisfied?

If you do, then join me. Set the coffee down for a bit, and let's change the world.

More tomorrow!

Jason

Disciples are quiet.

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. (Matthew 5:5 ESV)

Definitions of meek on the Web:

• humble in spirit or manner; suggesting retiring mildness or even cowed submissiveness; "meek and self-effacing"
• very docile; "tame obedience"; "meek as a mouse"- Langston Hughes
• evidencing little spirit or courage; overly submissive or compliant; "compliant and anxious to suit his opinions of those of others"; "a fine fiery blast against meek conformity"- Orville Prescott; "she looked meek but had the heart of a lion"; "was submissive and subservient"

Do those words describe you? Are you in fact humble in spirit or manner? Do you get in people's faces at all?

What about the Church? When people outside the Church look at us on CNN or Fox or even our own stuff like the 700 Club, do they see us as docile? Are we in fact as meek as a mouse?

Sadly, I don't think we are. I think most people (myself absolutely included) find that when they feel they are right about something, they go out of their way to prove their rightness. They will defend their rightness. They will even scream and yell about their rightness from time to time. When people feel like they're absolutely right about something, meekness leaves the equation.

Take for example our political system. When someone is running for office of any kind (with the possible exception of inspector of elections) they typically start out feeling as though the deserve the office. Perhaps they have some sort of experience that will give them an advantage against everyone else who's running. Perhaps they feel the person they're running against has no advantage whatsoever. Whatever reason it is that they feel certain that they deserve the office they're running for, politicians seem to be the least meek group of people ever.

Now, what's interesting here is that even from my desk on the other side of the computer screen, I can hear you all now bemoaning how awful and terrible and disgusting some of these politicians can be. Pennsylvania just went through our primary season, and I think we're all breathing a sigh of relief that it's over and those horrible commercials are off our TVs. But we have to ask ourselves, do we act like them?

When we're trying to spread the Gospel of Jesus, are we nothing more than a loud and annoying political commercial? Are we just annoying to the people we're preaching to, or are we actually getting somewhere? The real question you have to ask yourself is are people more likely to listen to someone who's yelling about Jesus or someone who's living like Jesus?

I think it's the later. And according to verse 5, so does Jesus.

So let's try a little experiment this weekend*. Let's be quiet. Let's not insist on our own way (1 Corinthians 13), but instead let's spend a whole weekend listening to the people around us. Let's listen to the people that we agree with, and let's even spend some time listening to the people we know we disagree with. Let's be quiet. Let's be meek. Let's try our best to live like Jesus.

More on Monday,

Godspeed,

Jason

*I've decided that weekends are too crazy to try to continue a blog series, so we'll keep this up during the working week.

Disciples are sad.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. (Matthew 5:4 ESV)
When was the last time you mourned? When was the last time you truly felt a sense of loss, of tragedy in your heart? When was the last time you actually allowed yourself the opportunity to cry?

I say this as a guy who very infrequently cries. I don't think at all that it's because I have some sort of macho complex, that I feel like I'll lose a bit of manliness for letting a few tears fall. I have other areas on my life that prove I'm not the most Chuck Norris-y guy, and I'll readily own those areas of my life. But for reasons beyond my understanding, I don't usually feel the need to cry.

I don't know why it is that we feel the need to put up these huge defenses all the time against allowing sadness into our lives. At least in the American culture it seems as though we’ve gotten pretty comfortable equating sadness with weakness. If something or someone causes you to feel sad, you’re obviously attached to that something or someone. They must have a certain power over you to make you feel that way.

Typically when we think of mourning, we think of a loved one passing away. But really, in that and in several other situations, mourning is identifying and experiencing a sense of loss. I think you can mourn a break up with a boyfriend or girlfriend. I think you can mourn a terrific television show (read: The West Wing) coming to an end. I even think you can mourn an empty coffee pot when you are in need of a fix.

But frequently we don’t. Frequently we just pretend the loss isn’t real, that it didn’t affect us, that we are fine either way. And when we do, we close ourselves off to a deeper healing. We close ourselves off to the comfort that Jesus promises here in verse 4.

You know what I mourn deeply? The loss of a relationship with my heavenly Father.

When I look at the world as it is and compare it to how it could be, I realize that I’m feeling a deep and terrible sense of loss because I don’t have the relationship with God that I want so badly. Things aren’t right, and that truly makes me sad.

Disciples should be sad. Disciples should look around the world and feel a deep sense of loss from our expulsion from the Garden. When we see people homeless in the streets, our hearts should break. When we hear stories of women being raped as a weapon of war in Africa, we should break down inside. When we hear about a war or rumors of a war, our tears should begin flowing. Disciples should understand the break between us and God and all the symptoms it provides.

But Jesus promises that comfort is coming. Jesus reminds us that if we open ourselves up to this kind of mourning, of feeling a deep sense of loss from our relationship with the Father that Jesus will provide comfort. And that’s exactly what he did on the cross.

So take some time today to mourn. Let yourself be sad. But don’t stay there long. Start looking for ways to be comforted, usually found by providing comfort to others.

Godspeed,

Jason

Disciples are poor.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 5:3 ESV)

Ok, like any good piece of scripture, this one causes more question than I think it answers on the surface. Is this a blessing given to people who are already poor in spirit, because they've had to deal with such a hardship they are given the gift of the kingdom? Or maybe it's a suggestion to all of us that if we have intentions on entering the kingdom of heaven we need to become poor in spirit? What exactly does it mean to be poor in spirit? What does the kingdom of heaven look like? Is it a real place, or more of a state of being? Why is such a thing worthy of being "blessed?" And for that matter, what is a blessing?

I don't know if I could give an easy answer for what it means to be poor in spirit. For that you're going to have to pick up your friendly neighborhood commentary or bible study software. But as someone who's been following Jesus for an extended period of time, I know that I have been poor in spirit, and I know what it feels like.

Even explaining the feeling associated with being poor in spirit is difficult. I try to imagine sometimes that my life has a little dashboard associated with it, and there are all kinds of gages on it. One gage tracks how much physical energy I have left in the tank, and when it's out I need to nap. Another tracks how much emotional energy I have, and when it's out I need to clear my mind and try to get some of the negative thoughts out in a healthy manner. And there's this other gage, and when it's empty, I know that I'm feeling far away from God. When this gage nears the proverbial "E", I am poor in spirit.

Can I get an "amen?"

Now here's some killer irony. I know for a certain fact that anyone who has followed Jesus with any kind of regularity or intensity has felt this. We all go through peaks and valleys in our faith. We all find times where we're surrounded by darkness, feeling separated from God. And in truth, if you can take a moment to look back to the valley when you've come out on the other side, you realize that you do an incredible amount of growing in the valley. You become the person God meant for you to be in the valley. And yet, one thing that the secular world seems to think about us is that we are a collective people who have it all together.

The image we send to the world is one that says getting off the mountain is wrong.

And yet here in the opening line of Jesus' masterpiece sermon, he tells us that we're blessed in times of distance from God. We're blessed when we're poor in spirit. By no means am I a great theologian, but I think the point behind this is that we need to admit our separation from God (read: sin) in order to be set free from it (read: allowed into the kingdom) by Christ. We need to actually admit our need for a savior in order to be saved. So why are we afraid of this? Why do we need to look like we have it all together?

Take a look at the original disciples. They didn't have it all together. In fact, by all accounts they barely had anything together! And yet these 12 guys in spite of their flaws were given the keys to the kingdom of heaven, and given the responsibility to usher as many other people into it as they could. The truth is, without these messed up burnt out nobodies, you and I wouldn't have a faith to speak of.

So let's be honest. Let's let the guard down for a little while. Let's admit that we are in fact poor in spirit from time to time. Let's open up the door for the Savior and then actually have the courage to let him in and have a look around. And let's open ourselves up to all the blessings that come with that.

Tomorrow: Disciples are sad.

Godspeed,

Jason

Disciples Are...An Introduction

Ok, what say you and I dive into another blog series together?

I actually think this might turn into the skeleton of a book, but let's take this one step at a time. This series started with a truly simple question that I think we all ask with a fair amount of consistency: "What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus?"

I mean on the surface, it seems like a perfectly simple and non-threatening question. We all go to church. We all do our best not to say curse words. We all stay away from filthy things like cigarettes and getting drunk. Surely this is all enough to keep Jesus happy isn't it? Or maybe if we're honest, if we strip it all away and break it all down, our faith winds up looking a lot like the video at the top of this post. We get in trouble when we slip up and (a slightly too effeminate for me to be comfortable with) Jesus gives us a slap on the wrist, with a dollop of grace and we're back on our merry way. But while we're being honest, can I ask if that kind of "discipleship" is satisfying to you? If you make it through the day without missing a quiet time or swearing, do you really feel closer to God?

Or perhaps there's more to being a disciple than we put on ourselves...

So, we're going to dig deep into that question. For our centering text, we're going to look through the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus basically laid out what it looks like to live as a citizen of the Kingdom. Obviously we'll pull from some supporting texts too, but if you're interested in following along I highly recommend reading these texts with me. I've gone through and outlined 28 (!) attributes of a disciple we can take home from the Sermon, so we're going to be at this for a while. I'd promise to do one every day for the next four weeks, but you know me and how quickly I get sidetracked!

So we'll start things out tomorrow with our first attribute: Disciples are poor.

Till then!

J