More Than Stone

From N. T. Wright’s book “Evil and the Justice of God”

We are not told-or not in any way that satisfies our puzzled questioning-how and why there is radical evil within God’s wonderful, beautiful and essentially good creation. One day I think we shall find out, but I believe we are incapable of understanding it at the moment, in the same way that a baby in the womb would lack the categories to think about the outside world. What we are promised, however, is that God will make a world in which all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well, a world in which forgiveness is on e of the foundation stones and reconciliation is the cement which holds everything together. And we are given this promise not as a matter of whistling in the dark, not as something to believe even though there is no evidence, but in and through Jesus Christ and his death and resurrection, and in and through the Spirit through whom the achievement of Jesus becomes a reality in our world and in our lives. When we understand forgiveness, flowing from the work of Jesus and the Spirit, as the strange, powerful thing it really is, we begin to realize that God’s forgiveness of us, and our forgiveness of others, is the knife that cuts the rope by which sin, anger, fear, recrimination and death are still attached to us. Evil will have nothing to say at the last, because the victory of the cross will be fully implemented.

We return to the point at which we began. In the new heavens and the new earth there will be nor more sea, no more chaos, no more monsters coming up from the abyss. And, as with all Christian eschatology, the best news of all is that we don’t have to wait for the future to start experiencing our deliverance from evil. We are invited, summoned, bidden to start living this way in the present. I suspect that the problems this poses for us—the immediate problems of forgiving ourselves and our neighbors, and the practical and political problems of working for a world in which people no longer wish to become terrorists, in which people no longer enslave one another with crippling debt, and in which those who live at great risk of the natural elements receive special protection form civil authorities—are the real problems. The philosophical problems often function simply as a smoke screen behind which we try to hide. And I suspect, therefore, that the more we learn the meaning of forgiveness in our own lives, the more we shall glimpse the deep theological truth that all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well, and the more we shall be enabled to anticipate that reality even in the midst of our suffering world.

Technorati Tags: suffering, Virginia+tech, social+justice, poverty, aids

Oh, and Nestle just acquired Gerber

Technorati Tags: nestle, boycott, malnutrition, starvation, formula, gerber

HT JR Woodward

To quote Bono…

“His Truth is Marching on….And to those in the Church who still sit in judgment on the AIDS emergency, let me climb into the pulpit for just one moment. Because whatever thoughts we have about God, about who He is, or even if God exists, most will agree that God has a special place for the poor. The poor are where God lives. God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house. God is where the opportunity is lost and lives are shattered. God is with the mother who has infected her child with a virus that will take both their lives. God is under the rubble, in the cries we hear during wartime. God, my friends, is with the poor.”

Technorati Tags: bono, AIDS, Africa, NAACP

Abot 5:10 There are four sorts of people. ` He who says, “What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is yours” —this is the average sort. `And some say, “This is the sort of Sodom.” ` “What’s mine is yours and what’s yours is mine”—this is a boor. ` “What’s mine is yours and what’s yours is yours”—this is a truly pious man. ` “What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine”—this is a truly wicked man.

The ancient Jewish sages, in the above quote from the Mishna, state that the run of the mill individual has the mindset of “what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is yours.” They also liken this attitude to the Sodomites.

There are two words in the OT that are frequently translated righteous or righteousness. One is ‘tzedek’, the other, ‘yashar”. The word translated righteous in the above verse is tzedek. Tzedek (Hebrew: צדקה) in Judaism, is the Hebrew term most commonly translated as “charity”, though it is based on a root meaning “justice”. The word charity in Hebrew, ‘tzedakah’ comes from the root word ‘tzedek’ or justice.

Allow me to take a moment to compare the definitions of just/justice to righteous/righteousness in English before comparing the words tzedek and yashar in Hebrew.

Righteous:
1. Morally upright; without guilt or sin: a righteous parishioner.
2. In accordance with virtue or morality: a righteous judgment.
3. Morally justifiable: righteous anger. See Synonyms at moral.

Just:
1. guided by truth, reason, justice, and fairness: We hope to be just in our understanding of such difficult situations.
2. done or made according to principle; equitable; proper: a just reply.
3. based on right; rightful; lawful: a just claim.
4. in keeping with truth or fact; true; correct: a just analysis.

Yashar
1. upright
2. straight
3. right
4. upright behavior

Tzedek
1. justice
2. equity, balance
3. to have a just cause

So often, when Christians throw around the term righteousness, we are referring to being morally upright, when often, scripture is talking about justice and fairness to others. ‘Tzedek’ is more than legal justice. Perhaps ‘tzedek’ is the practical attempt to return things to a better balance in which power is restored to those who do not have any because of the imbalances that human activity inevitably produces. Perhaps righteousness includes just and proper social order to the helpless, the poor, the oppressed, the widow, the orphan, the resident alien, in legal procedures, in worship, all effected by God’s “Tzedek-Tzedekah” (justice and charity).

Lord, may we pursue tzedek, and not be led astray. Amen.

Matt 10:22
All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved

Mark 13:13
All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.

Luke 6:22
Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man.

Luke 21:17
All men will hate you because of me.

These 4 verses are thrown around in the US Christian culture a lot. It’s a “badge of courage”. The problem is that Jesus was not only talking to His disciples, many of whom were martyred, but also, across the ages to Christians in places like China, Sudan, and the Middle East. I do not think that Jesus was talking to us, here and now, to give us an excuse to be careless and unkind. If my basic understanding of the Scriptures is correct, those who were persecuting Jesus, and then the church, were the religious system and the empire of Rome. Persecution came as a result of challenging the Pharisees. Persecution came because Jesus challenged the empire that oppressed and abused those who were weak. I do not see evidence that persecution came because Jesus hated first.

“All men will hate you because of me.” How we love this statement. We love it because, if we can say it’s true, it somehow proves that we are genuine followers of Jesus. We love it because, if we can say it’s true, it puts us in good company. We love it because, if we can say it’s true, we will grow spiritually through the persecution. The problem is that most people that throw this statement around are taking it out of context and using it to be insufferably arrogant and cruel.

Think about the times you have heard one of the above Scriptures used. What was the context?

· People will hate you because they don’t like their sinfulness being exposed.
· People will hate you because they look pretty good until contrasted with true righteousness.
· People will hate you because you don’t laugh at their dirty jokes.
· People will hate you because you believe in 6-day creation.
· People will hate you because you picket at abortion clinics.
· People will hate you because you call homosexuality an abomination.

AMEN, Brother! REJOICE in the persecution!!! Now, perhaps the above examples are the far leaning “right” kinds of examples. However, I recall a conversation recently with a friend. This friend is not what I would call a fundamentalist. I was talking to him about Rob Bell, and how I love the fact that Rob focuses on the redemption of the world and Jesus’ love, the fact that Rob doesn’t use all the “churchy” language like “substitutionary atonement”. My friend replied, “It doesn’t matter how we talk, or if we change our approach to presenting the Gospel, because the world hates us.” It doesn’t matter. Really? It doesn’t matter…because all men will hate us. Then what are we doing? What’s the point? No wonder we all just sit around waiting to get to heaven. There’s no point doing anything in this world, because all men will hate us, anyway.

Isn’t this just a tired old excuse to be judgmental and hateful? Or an excuse to not have to examine the way we’ve been doing things in the Church? Or an excuse to stay locked within the church walls fraternizing with all the other Christians that the world hates? Could it be that when Jesus said the world will hate us, he meant that they will hate us because we are breaking the dominions, empires and structures of this world that oppress? That we are truly setting captives free, not just from their own sin, but also from the sins of others? That we are setting people free from religious institutions that keep people from the freedom that Jesus promised? Could that be what he meant?

Jesus challenged the power hierarchies. He challenged the hierarchies of kingdom, religious structures, wealth and social status. When Jesus said the world will hate you because of me, could it be that we would be hated because we;

· Love everyone, not just those we call our “brothers and sisters”.
· Invite the lame, poor, maimed and blind to our parties.
· Do not continue to amass wealth within an unjust system.
· Proclaim that in the Kingdom of God there are no slaves or masters, no men or women, no teachers or students.
· Challenge the systems that tie up heavy loads and put them on men’s shoulders.
· Have fellowship with outcasts, thus rejecting the views of those who demand separateness from an unclean world.

Could that be what Jesus meant?

John Smulo says:

“I could develop a list of things to say sorry about that could go on until tomorrow. But over the last few weeks I’ve been thinking through a few different ways for the Christian community as a whole to say “we’re sorry”.”

If you’ve ever regreted the way you’ve acted, or things you’ve said “in the name of God”, take a look at John’s website and join the chorus of apologies.

Phil Wyman of Square No More, pastor of the Salem Gathering, said that the Scripture about the sins of Sodom, caught his attention in this video. I jumped over to You Tube to view it. It addresses just about everything I’ve posted on in the last few days. Take 6 minutes and 42 seconds to watch this.

Technorati Tags: poor, needy, social+justice

I was reading Sojourners articles about Red Letter Christians.

Tony Campolo says that “purpose of this gathering was not to create a religious left movement to challenge the religious right, but to jump-start a religious movement that will transcend partisan politics.” Hmmm…a faith that transcends partisan politics. That sounds eerily like Jesus.

I decided to google them to see what kind of reponse this idea is getting. Again, I was shocked and dismayed by those in the church that use hyperbole and misrepresentation to describe to their audience what this organization is about.

Here is a little taste….

In the article Red Letter Liberal Christians: A New Front Group For Democrats, it states

“These “Red Letter Christians” are supposedly trying to alert American Evangelicals to the importance of living the words of Jesus as highlighted in red in many Bibles. Their idea of living the words of Jesus, however, is somehow reinterpreted to mean support for every liberal political agenda on the horizon.

These pseudo-evangelicals would have you believe that the Bible only contains the Word of God. True Evangelicals believe that the Bible — each word, each sentence — is the Word of God. This is how you can tell the difference between these pseudo-evangelicals and true Evangelicals.”

Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission states

Dalmation Theology: The idea that the Bible is inspired in spots, and we’re inspired to spot the spots. The new group of “Red Letter” Christians founded by Jim Wallis is a good example.

In an article written by Matt Friedman, a professor at Wesley Biblical Seminary, he states:

One wonders, of course, if the real reason they have decided to use Scripture this way is that Jesus never actually uses the terms “homosexual” and “abortion.” The Red-Letter designation ostensibly frees these passionate lefties from the issues they despise the most…

In an article by Mark Tooley, who directs United Methodist committee at the Institute on Religion and Democracy, it states:

These Red Letter Fundamentalists are claiming to follow the words of Jesus. But most church goers will recognize that these “red letters” more closely resemble the editorial pages of The New York Times.

And last, but not least, in an article entitled No, Jesus Is Not a Socialist, Tom Snyder says

A group of self-described “progressive” Christian evangelicals calling themselves “Red Letter Christians,” and led by the left-oriented Sojourners magazine and left-oriented
Liberals and socialists like the “Red Letter Christians,” are violating the commands of Jesus Christ, who is God in the Flesh. They are also violating the commands that God gives all of us in the Hebrew Scriptures as well. If they truly want to follow the words of Jesus in the New Testament, they should stop their opposition to the real Christian movement in America and join it. One of the first things they should do immediately is help cut government programs for the poor.

Christians must stop the ungodly, immoral rape of American citizens with the totalitarian, socialist welfare state!

Pseudo-evangelicals. Passionat leftists. Liberals. Socialists.

Wow. I wonder if Tom Snyder ever had a child get sick without health insurance. I wonder if he had a child that needed medicine that cost $2000 per month. I wonder if Tom Snyder ever had to thank God for government programs because the church didn’t come through.

Technorati Tags: Tony Campolo, Red Letter Christians, Richard Land, Matt Friedman, Mark Tooley, Tom Snyder, Sojourners, Republican, Democrat, Partisan Politics, Religious Right

Lev 25:10-14 And you shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you; and you shall return every man unto his possession, and you shall return every man unto his family. A jubilee shall that fiftieth year be unto you: you shall not sow, neither reap that which grows of itself in it, nor gather the grapes in it of your untended vine. For it is the jubilee; it shall be holy unto you: you shall eat what it yields thereof out of the field. In the year of this jubilee you shall return every man unto his possession. And if you sell anything unto your neighbor, or buy anything of your neighbor’s hand, you shall not oppress one another:

Luke 4:18-19, 21 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.

Messiah’s arrival was to proclaim the year of Jubilee, the “acceptable year of the Lord”. Jesus inaugurated the arrival of a perpetual Jubilee. Jubilee year was God, setting things back to rights. It reflected God’s standards for how people should treat people. In the year of Jubilee, debts of the poor were forgiven, slaves were set free and land that had been sold off was to be returned to the original owner. God set in place a system of caring for the oppressed; putting humans back on equal playing fields with one another. He knows that power and money corrupt and allow for the usury and oppression of those without.

How is it, that we have so spiritualized His words that preaching the Good News to the poor, healing the brokenhearted, freedom for captives, and recovery of sight to the blind has simply come to mean telling people that they are going to hell if they don’t accept Jesus? Did God not mean those things? Are we not to set the prisoners free? Feed the poor? Heal the sick? Where is this Jubilee that Jesus proclaimed? How am I bringing the Kingdom of God to bear in this world?

God implemented Jubilee, Sabbath and the Sabbath year to remind us of who we are and who HE is. The land is on loan to us. Food is a provision from God for all. God cares for the poor and oppressed. Exodus people must never return to a system of slavery. In Biblical Israel the cycle of poverty began when a family fell into debt, it deepened when they had to sell their land to pay the debt and reached it’s climax when they only had their labor to sell, becoming bond-servants. In the Sabbath year, God demanded not only that bond-servants were to be set free, but also that they were to be given enough resources to make it on their own. (Deuteronomy 15:12-17)

I am absolutely fascinated by the Old Testament. So often, we miss the beauty and power of the principles that God laid out for us. Will we continue to downgrade these scriptures as obscure snippets that have no meaning for us while we continue to add to our own pockets? Hunger, homelessness and systemic poverty can only be viewed as a lack of obedience on the Church’s part.

John Haughy, a Jesuit theologian said:

“We read the gospel as if we had no money, and we spend our money as if we know nothing of the gospel.”

Technorati Tags: poverty, social+justice, Exodus, Messiah, Jubilee+Year