Look! It's Cheesus!!

Seems that Jesus is showing up everywhere these days: cat fur, sink stains, burnt toast. But this one has to top them all. It was even given a name, and you won't find it on eBay.

If I discovered this in my bag of Cheetos, I would've thought it to be an odd coincidence and eaten the thing. And I don't give names to snack foods I ingest.

It's a Cheeto.

I repeat: IT'S A CHEETO!! Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!

An Inside Job

I've been a little bit lax in posting of late. Sorry about that.

From the parables of Jesus this past Sunday, it occurred to me that the Kingdom of Heaven doesn't force itself upon us in a romp and stomp kind of way. It doesn't come with storm and fury, but gently, in a way that could only be described as an inside job.

In Matthew 13, Jesus describes the Kingdom of Heaven as being like a treasure hidden in a field, a merchant looking for a pearl, and a fishing net. Why a buried treasure in a field and not a fireworks display at the village commons (or a giant purple hot air balloon with the LCMS logo on it)? Why a merchant and not a mercenary or a murderer? Why a net and not a hookline or a harpoon?

A hidden treasure, a merchant, and a net seem so...unassuming. They just go about doing what they do best-- hiding, purchasing, and gathering. What does this say about where we find God doing His work? Where do we usually look?

Like most people, we look for God in places too high and too far. When we're asked to answer the question, "Where is God?", our answer usually includes one finger up in the air, pointing skyward.

We don't find hidden treasures, merchants, and fishing nets above the clouds. These are very down-to-earth realities. Such is God's Kingdom (or the Kingdom of Heaven, whichever you'd prefer). Merchants saunter quietly through the marketplace searching for that one pearl to purchase. Fishing nets are used to catch fish in a stealthy fashion. A hidden treasure quietly gives the field its value.

Jesus is the Treasure, the Merchant, and the Net all at the same time. He regularly acted out the reality of God's Kingdom in his ministry. The ones on the periphery of society were bought, caught, and valued by Jesus. He never did this with unusual force or with a heavy hand. But, he did do this right under the noses of those who were looking for God in places too high and too far.

The Kingdom is all around you. Stop looking up and imagining things (like people sitting on clouds playing harps). Open your eyes and look at reality. God is more likely to be seen in the ordinary, rough-and-tumble of life than in pie-in-the-sky, sweet-by-and-by flights of fancy.

Hat

"Gad, yer hat!"-- Suspected criminal Drew Peterson to TV reporter Joanie Lum as she was asking him about the new incriminating evidence against him.

Gotta love that southside Chicago dialect!!

God Is

God is not something to believe in or not. God is. The issue is one of trust. God is either trusted or not trusted.

The Pharisees believed in God. They didn't trust God, as could be seen by their scrupulosity and rigidity. The Sadducees believed in God, but they didn't trust God, as could be seen by their manipulative cultic and ritualistic practices. The Scribes believed in God, but they didn't trust God, as could be seen by their construction of a "fence around Torah." The Zealots believed in God, but they didn't trust God, as could be seen by their sharpened swords to fight a holy war.

Belief says, "God should do things my way."
Trust says, "God does things His own way, and it is always good no matter the situation."

Belief is something that should be left for the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus (or other mythical creatures). Trust is reserved only for God. I trust that God is. My trust waivers from time to time. I'm only human. But in moments of silence and reflection, my trust builds and I submit to the way of it all. Whatever happens, happens. I may or may not like it, but it is still what happens, and there was very little I could have done to prevent it or change it. Something will come out of it, and I can't prevent or change that either.

God is.

A Great Weekend

My parents, older sister Cyndi, and niece Kathryn were in town this past weekend. For the short time we spent with each other we had a very good time.

My parental units arrived on Friday via their van. Cyndi and Kathryn arrived at Union Station in Chicago via Amtrak. They walked around downtown Chicago and had lunch at the original Potbelly's. Kathryn works at Potbelly's in Dearborn, MI, and wanted to see how it all got started. When she informed the manager of the original Potbelly's that she was a Potbelly employee, she and Cyndi received a free lunch! Who says there's no such thing?

Saturday saw all 8 of us going to the movie theatre after having lunch at Pizza Hut. Mom, Dad, and Cameron saw Journey to the Center of the Earth; Cyndi and Michelle saw Momma Mia; Kathryn, Chris, and I saw The Dark Knight (which, by the way, was a great flick. Heath Ledger was superb as The Joker!). After relaxing at home we loaded up the vehicles again and went to Silver Cross Field to watch the Joliet Jackhammers take on the Gary-Southshore Railcats. Close game, but the Railcats prevailed in the end. The aftergame fireworks were spectacular. I like things that explode and make colors.

After church on Sunday I cooked some burgers on the grill and we all had a nice lunch together. Then, after picture taking and hugs we said goodbye. We got Chris ready to go to Walcamp. We loaded up the car and drove up to Kingston after stopping in Sycamore to have supper at Culvers. We got Chris to camp and situated him in the treehouse where he'll be spending the week. It's going to be a quiet week around the house. But when he gets back... the chaos will resume! Chris is definitely someone who makes things happen.

At the end of the week, after Chris returns from camp, Chris and Cameron are going to purchase a Playstation 2 and Guitar Hero paraphernalia with the money they have been saving. I'm really proud of those guys. They worked hard helping Michelle and me keep the household running with the daily chores that must be done. With the combination of weekly allowance, getting paid for performing tasks above and beyond the call of duty, and birthday money they managed to save enough for their entertainment wants. They have been dying to have their own Guitar Hero game instead of waiting to play everyone else's.

Yes, I do have a life apart from the world of pastoral ministry and theology!

Made-Up Jesus

I wanted to get this down on the blog while it's still fresh in my mind.

Jesus was someone who couldn't have been invented. If I were a Jewish man living in the first century, and if I wanted to invent a Messiah, it certainly wouldn't have looked like Jesus. I would have invented someone who kicked some Roman butt and told fabulously glorious militaristic stories on just how he accomplished it. I would have never made-up a story about Messiah getting crucified. Messiahs don't get crucified, period. They would die of natural causes, just like everyone else-- the way of all the earth.

This gives Jesus, as he's presented in the Gospels, a true ring of authenticity.

Hunker Down

I've been watching some vids of Christians debating Atheists on the existence of God. Christians, of course, offer proof of God's existence; Atheists, of course, offer proof of the non-existence of God.

The winners of the debates were already decided before they even aired. Christians are going to side with the Christians no matter what the Atheists say; Atheists are going to side with the Atheists no matter what the Christians say. So who won? It depends who you talk to.

I personally don't like these debates as they are absolutely pointless and merely add to the futher polarization that we experience in our society. People just choose their sides and hunker down, accusing the other side of being intellectually and morally wanting. It's just slinging arrows over the castle walls.

As a Christian myself, I can tell you that no one, absolutely no one, can be argued into the Kingdom of God, nor should they be. An Atheist doesn't become a Christian simply because he or she lost the debate. Similarily, a Christian doesn't become an Atheist simply because he or she lost the debate. Both sides go back to their drawing boards, lick their wounds, and stock themselves with more ammo for the next battle.

The Bible never tries to prove God's existence. It assumes God's existence and works from there. I see no need at all to prove God's existence to anyone. I would rather talk to people, as a Christian, about things that we already know as we experience them everyday. There are commonalities among us simply because we are humans living on a little blue dot in view of an utterly massive universe. We ought to be looking to build bridges. Perhaps we can seek ways to talk about the same things using different words. Let's take sin, for instance.

In Christianity, sin is defined as incurvatus in se, Latin for "turned in on the self". In a word-- selfishness. Christians and Atheists agree, as far as I can tell, that people are inherently selfish. An Atheist would explain this by saying that we are all equipped with reptilian and mammalian parts of the brain that work solely on instinct to survive. Christians would say something like "our hearts are in the wrong place." Fine. But I think we can both agree that selfishness is a willing rebellion, for whatever reason, against something that we know to be proper and right. I'm willing to go so far as to say that we have a part of the brain, the pre-frontal cortex, that is the seat of conscience. This is a part of the brain that mammals and reptiles don't have. It really doesn't matter how it got that way. We have them. Can we leave it at that? Maybe we can't, I don't know. But here's my point:

We all have a conscience that has the ability to "rope in" our rebellious ways. Christians believe that this conscience is informed by the Spirit of Christ. Atheists say that we have evolved from the instinctual actions of our very ancient ancestors. Alright. But we still have a conscience that can help us overcome our selfish and destructive ways. We were in bondage to sin or to our baser instincts-- two ways of saying the same thing.

The cross shows that the instinct to survive, while very real, doesn't save anyone. If the crucified Christ shows us anything it is that suffering in this world is inevitable for everyone. It's salvific to know this. So, instead of trying to rid ourselves of sin through self-flagellation, we would be better off if we tried to own up to our sinful nature/instinctual drives and accept them as part of our makeup, and seek ways to use them for the common good. This would make salvation from sin more realized to the average everyday person, Christian and Atheist alike.

And I could be wrong, but I see this as a viable alternative to the hunker down and lob bombs mentality. What do you think?

Change Your Life

For once I would like to see a book entitled, "I'll Change Your Life For The Worst". That would be so refreshing!

Really! I'd like someone to write a book about how they went from joyously happy to bottomless pit depressed-- and stayed there. Wouldn't that qualify as a "change in life"?

Yeah, I'm just being a wiseguy. I know that kind of book won't sell, which is why next to nobody's writing one.

Look, I'm all for changing one's life for the better. It's just that there are a plethora of books, articles, films, and websites about how to make life better. We're on self-help overload!! Just go to your local bookstore and you'll see that it's the largest section in the whole place. Looks like there's money to be made in this market! Climb on board if you want a piece of the action!

So, I'm going to write a self-help book. Alert the media!!!

I'll change your life. I just can't promise that it will be in the direction you want.

Proposed book titles:
How To Sleep All Day
Enjoying Everyday Lounging
Become a Bitter You
Learning to Loath
A New Girth
Sloth For Dummies
I'll Take All of Your Money
Victories of Vice
Become a Total Schmuck in 90 Days
The Purple-Skinned Life-- A Primer in Asphyxiation
Sucks-ess

Please let me know if I can be of any help to you.

Gadzooks!!!!

Check this out!

What's even more frightening is why they cancelled this giveaway.

Creation and Evolution

I have no interest in the ongoing Creation vs. Evolution debates. To me, they end up be contests on who can spit the farthest (or arguments on who has the better scientists). I'm not even remotely interested in harmonizing modern scientific discoveries with Scripture. The Bible is not a science text. Unfortunately this seems to be the modus operandi of Biblical apologists, as seen here and here. I'm one who firmly believes that religion and science do not necessarily have to be at constant odds with each other, but in fact can enhance one another by pushing each other to reach farther and deeper.

Science tells us that we theologians may have to do some rethinking on deep-seated beliefs. This is nothing new. Copernicus had the nerve to say that our solar system is heliocentric and that the planets revolve around the sun. He was quickly excoriated by the Roman Catholic Church as a heretic for even suggesting such a thing. Today, we know he was correct. The church should welcome scientific discoveries as possibilities rather than problems when they don't fit our dogmatic texts. It could very well be that our dogma needs freshening up a bit. Rethinking Genesis 1 might be a great start. It might very well be a metaphoric account of the creation of Israel and not a play-by-play account of the creation of the universe. There's always something about a literalistic and mechanistic reading of Genesis 1 that rubs the wrong way.

Theology informs science by holding it accountable. It's not enough to just look at raw data and draw conclusions. Any conclusion drawn from empirical data is debatable. Peer reviews, science journals, further experimentation, and new data should be welcomed as futhering the scientific enterprise. In other words, any finding should never claim to be absolute truth until all the data has been reviewed and all of the theories have been proven (which usually happens when all of the challenges to said theories have been thoroughly debunked). Science should never settle for overly simplistic answers and realize that their "pictures" may not be the "big picture".

Working together, science and religion can and should constantly call each other to humility, wonder, and awe, and not get so apoplectic when challenged. I am amazed when I see images from the Hubble Telescope. I am humbled when science tells us that stars throughout the galaxy are exploding and shooting all of the elements of the periodical table out into space. I'm also amazed that many scientists are beginning to view the universe as an organism and not a machine. The universe seems to have an emergent creativity to it. It's almost as if the universe has a goal as celestial bodies die and come to life, and order emerges from chaos. One could say that the universe is giving itself away and being reborn constantly.

Is This Even Possible?

I officiated a funeral today. After the committal service at the cemetery, one of the relatives of the deceased said to me, "God reaches out to us, but we have to reach back."

This sounds strangely like the addage, "God helps those who help themselves." This is nowhere found in the Scriptures. It even isn't implied.

I'm sure the gentleman meant well. He was probably expressing a deep frustration that his family members aren't much into church and religion. But the general implication of what he said makes God sound distant and untouchable.

I think a better way of saying this would have been, "God is with us and is all in all, whether we reach back or not. We then reach out to others in love."

Self-Talk

Do you talk to yourself? We normally judge people who talk to themselves as a bit eccentric, but there may be Biblical precedent for doing this. Read Psalms 42 and 43.

Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. (42:5)

A Little About Me

In case you were wondering about the man behind the glasses (me) and what makes me tick, please refer to my sidebar on the right. I have a sentence there that tells my Myers-Briggs Temperament Instrument (MBTI) type as ISFP (Introverted, Sensing, Feeling, Perceiving). I won't get into the nitty-gritty details about what it all means, but I can give you a description of the ISFP type from people who have studied temperament and personality. I deviate from overall description in a few ways, but overall it describes me very well.

If you would like to find out your MBTI type, there are many sites online that let you take an instrument for free. Here are a couple of links:

Personality Types

Jung Typology Test

The ISFP Profile (The Artisan Composer):

More than the other Artisans, Composers are in tune with their senses, and so have a sure grasp of what belongs, and what doesn't belong, in all kinds of works of art. While the other Artisans are skilled with people, tools, and entertainment, Composers have an exceptional ability-seemingly inborn-to work with subtle differences in color, tone, texture, aroma, and flavor.

Although Composers often put long, lonely hours into their artistry, they are just as impulsive as the other Artisans. They do not wait to consider their moves; rather, they act in the here and now, with little or no planning or preparation. Composers are seized by the act of artistic composition, as if caught up in a whirlwind. The act is their master, not the reverse. Composers paint or sculpt, they dance or skate, they write melodies or make recipes-or whatever-simply because they must. They climb the mountain because it is there.

This ability to lose themselves in action accounts for the spectacular individual accomplishments of some Composers, and yet on their social side they show a kindness unmatched by all the other types. Composers are especially sensitive to the pain and suffering of others, and they sympathize freely with the sufferer. Some have a remarkable way with young children, almost as if there were a natural bond of sympathy and trust between them. A similar bond may be seen between some Composers and animals, even wild animals. Many Composers have an instinctive longing for the wilds, and nature seems to welcome them.

Composers are just as plentiful as the other Artisans, say nine or ten per cent of the population, but in general they are very difficult to observe and thus greatly misunderstood. Very likely the difficulty comes from their tendency not to express themselves verbally, but through their works of art. Composers are usually not interested in developing ability in public speaking, or even in the art of conversation; they prefer to feel the pulse of life by touch, in the muscles, in the eyes, in the ears, on the tongue. Make no mistake, Composers are just as interested as other types in sharing their view of the world, and if they find a medium of non-verbal communication-some art form-then they will express their character quite eloquently. If not, they simply remain unknown, their quietness leaving their character all but invisible.

Us and Them

Be careful who you label as "them", because when it's all said and done, "them" just might turn out to be you.

This was the thrust of Jesus' criticism of Israel. If you have ears to hear...

And Now For Something Completely Different

Speaking of worldviews, just what exactly is a Biblical worldview and is it possible to have such a worldview? Keeping in mind that the Bible was written at a different time, in a different culture, in different languages, and with a different cosmology, I have my doubts.

We've been told that in order to fully understand Scripture one must learn to think like an ancient Jew and obtain a Jewish mindset and worldview. I completely agree. But I don't believe it's possible. To try to internalize a different and ancient worldview so that it becomes our own is like trying to shove a square peg into a round hole. However...

We can study the Biblical worldview. We can learn from such a study and apply it to Biblical interpretation. This is good and necessary to do. But to take on a Biblical worldview (whatever that means) as my own is impossible. The life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus were interpreted through the lenses of a worldview and a story that was Jewish through and through. At the end of the day, I'm still going to view the world like a 21st century American. And so will you. We operate based on a completely different "Scripture", if you will.

Whatever that "Scripture" is needs to be cracked open and examined (in good old westernized fashion). This is what St. Paul did at the Areopagus in Acts 17. He broke open their "Scriptures", which turned out to be Greek and Cretan poetry. He then used them to proclaim the resurrection of Christ.

What would be examples of today's "Scriptures", and how can they be used to proclaim Christ? What would this do to our preaching?

Since I'm Not Preaching This Sunday...

... I thought I would give some random thoughts on the Gospel reading for Sunday (Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23).

The Parable of the Sower is a parable about parables and their effect on the people of Jesus' day. Some would hear and hear and hear and just won't buy it. And of course, Jesus' preaching had that effect upon the religious elite and their minions, who sought ways to have Jesus taken out. Some people just don't appreciate getting rained and snowed upon, not knowing that precipitation is necessary for growth and renewal.

We can be like little children who sing, "Rain, rain, go away. Come again another day." The Word of God is showered upon us "as the rain and the snow come down from heaven" to make our hearts fertile so that we become fruitful and multiply in works that "give seed to the sower and bread to the eater."

But instead, we come in out of the rain for one reason or another. It could be fear that God sends acid rain instead of pure water. It could be fear of becoming wet with the image of Christ. Or maybe we don't want to go through the troublesome task of drying off.

But what if we're never supposed to get dry in the first place? Baptism drenches us with water (the basis of all life) and Word (the sustenance of all life).

Jesus accomplished what God sent His Word to do. Parables were just the start of how he did it. Some people wouldn't have any of the freedom that Jesus was offering them. They were so used to their own ways and ideas of what freedom should look like that they were blinded to what God was revealing in Christ.

The tour de force was the cross. If people refused to see what was happening there-- the destructiveness of their own hatreds and biases and the identity of who they were to be-- then they would suffer the same fate, and suffer dearly. But if their eyes were opened to what God was doing-- showing the door to freedom from a destructive and self-defeating system--they would be transformed and become people with a mission.

Freedom never comes "as you want it". This is not bad news. The futility of thinking that we are the masters of our own destinies comes at great cost. Self-interest at the expense of the whole destroys the self. We are not the islands we believe ourselves to be. But by grace we are knitted together as self-interested individuals into a body that benefits from the body and blood of Christ, given and shed for us in the Eucharistic Feast, so that we reach and benefit those outside of the faith.

Moonwalkin'

A thought just occured to me and I wanted to get it out before I forgot.

What would the Bible say if humanity had its origins on the Moon and not on the Earth? How would it read? I suspect it would be quite different because the Biblical authors would have had the moonscape as their point of reference. How would Genesis 1 read then?

Just wondering.

Letters to Libraries (and beyond)

A letter.

Then alphabetized letters.

Letters combine to form words.

Words combine to form sentences.

Sentences combine to form paragraphs.

Paragraphs combine to form pages.

Pages combine to form stories.

Stories combine to form books.

Books combine to form libraries.

There would be no libraries, books, stories, pages, paragraphs, sentences, words, or alphabets if it weren't for letters.

Reality is series of nested whole/parts (holons). Each holon represents something that is whole but is part of a bigger whole. Every stage of development is dependent on the previous stage. Books can exist without libraries; libraries cannot exist without books.

These are not my ideas, but they make perfect sense to me.

God can exist without the universe; the universe cannot exist without God. God is the only "holon" (for lack of a better term) who is the "Whole", but yet is not a "part", and yet is immanent with every part "wholistically".

Make sense? Think about it!

Foxhole Faith

As the saying goes, "There are no atheists in foxholes."

In response to this, an atheist once said, "If I'm being bombarded in a foxhole, I'm going to do whatever I can to get out of there. I'm not going to sit around and wait for some God-guy to come and rescue me."

Exactly. This is what I call "foxhole faith". It's a faith that's just as valid a belief as any that I've ever heard. Perhaps even more so.

The late George Carlin once quipped, "Religion has convinced people that there's an invisible old man in the sky." And yes, that is the trajectory of most religious discourse. Unfortunately, it has led us to where we are today-- a world full of deists, atheists, and agnostics. This is why most churches are empty on Sunday mornings. An invisible old man who doesn't seem to know what he's doing is hardly worth getting up out of bed for.

To me it's quite simple: we're going to have to give up the interventionist and invisible God-guy if we're going to speak intelligently about our faith. We're going to have to stop speaking of God as an interplanetary cop watching and waiting to catch bad guys. In fact, we may even have to stop speaking of God in ways which imply that God is a sort of superhuman being who reminds us of how much we screw up. But what do we put in his place?

I propose we start speaking in terms of Ultimate Reality out of which all reality we experience with our senses arises, and that this God is constantly being revealed to us through ongoing discoveries in nature--medicine, physics, sociology, astronomy, archaeology, geology, anthropology-- as well as discoveries in Biblical and theological scholarship, linguistics, history, etc. Aren't discoveries made in these fields "revelations"? Aren't things being constantly revealed to us?

Of course, as Christians we believe that God was ultimately revealed to us in the person of Jesus Christ. That is something that cannot even be questioned. But I wonder if Jesus can be looked at from different angles. I believe that he can; it's why there are four Gospels and not just one. The first Christians saw in Jesus the fulfillment and the goal to which their collective stories pointed.

Today, our stories are huge by comparison and getting bigger by the day with the exponential explosion of our knowledge base. Wouldn't it be right to say that God is the Ultimate Reality out of which all of our discoveries and revelations, even our stories, emerge? We could even call this (to use a bit of Christianese) Divine Service. To use my own sophomoric term: Foxhole Faith.

No Scripture

What would the Christian faith look like if the Spirit hadn't inspired the Biblical authors to write? Almost all scholars agree that almost everything we have in the Bible started out as oral traditions, including the Gospels. According to Dr. Ken Bailey, the Gospels were written primarily out of necessity. The oral traditions and stories about Jesus were kept guarded in the various faith communities by the eyewitnesses of the events of Jesus' life. In the earliest Christian communities in Palestine, reducing oral traditions to writing was the same as burning them, which is why they waited until the last possible moment to write them down. The eyewitnesses (guardians) of the traditions were dying as the years passed, and writing would have been the only means of preservation. So...

What would the Christian faith look like if all of the original eyewitnesses of the life of Jesus died before their stories were written down? Remember, at the time of the apostles there was no such thing as a written New Testament, and the faith caught on like wildfire throughout the Mediterranean world.

Just wondering. Thoughts?