The Storehouse behind the Trickle

Some days because I am so scattered, to soak in what the Spirit is saying, I have to write it down.

In reading the passage below this morning, I was overwhelmed by how much that I do not "get" the love of God...how often I take his character of love for granted or sentimentalize it to simply be "good feelings."

But in this passage I got a glimpse (a tantalizing glimpse!) of the love of God. The glimpse is like a trickle of water from the Hoover Dam. The God of the Universe has a storehouse of love to give away and for his people to understand... while we only grasp a trickle.

Oh, to understand and joy-fully rest in this love!

Oh, for the Spirit to manifest his love in his people!

Oh, for the Spirit to give everyone around us a glimpse of a cross-defined love that would burn us and heal us to our core!

Please may it be, Father.

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.
Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his Son into the world, so that we might live through him.
In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 
Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought to love one another.
No one has ever seen God, if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

1 John 4:7-12 (ESV)

Crossing Each Person's Culture

People around us are deep mysteries. To love my neighbors means I need to understand them, to know them deeply even if they try hard not to be known. Every person has a culture and every relationship I have with someone is crossing over into their culture.

The only way I will ever really understand someone is if the Spirit gives me insight into them but, that doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t do the work of listening to them and observing what they love. Everyone who is a child of God is also a missionary to the people they spend time with. That means we need to think like people who cross cultures, even if we don’t recognize that we are crossing cultures.

In their book, Everyday Church,  Tim Chester and Steve Timmis give counsel on how to observe people and discern culture. They give questions to ponder in discerning how to love people deeply by understanding them and their culture:

Where?

• Where are the places and activities that we can meet people (the missional spaces)?
• Where do people experience community?
• Are there exiting social networks with which we can engage, or do we need to find ways of creating community within the neighborhood?
• Where should we be to have missional opportunities?

When?

• What are the patterns and timescales of our neighborhood (the missional rhythms)?
• When are the times that we can connect with people (the missional moments)?
• How do people organize their time?
• What cultural experiences and celebrations do people value/? How might these be bridges to the gospel?
• When should we be available for missional opportunities?

What? 

• What are people’s fears, hopes, and hurts?
• What gospel stories are told in the neighborhood? What gives people identity (creation)? How do they account for wrong in the world (fall)? What is their solution (redemption)? What are their hopes (consummation)?
• What are the barrier beliefs or assumptions that cause people to dismiss the gospel?
• What sins will the gospel first confront and heal?
• In what ways rate people self righteous?
• What is the good news for people in this neighborhood?
• What will church look like for people in this neighborhood?

Common Sense and Worldliness

That won't help much Mr. Lemming.

Maybe we could define "Common Sense" as the sense that everyone has but hardly anyone uses.

That is the internet joke anyway. If you googlize the words "common sense" you will find a lot of Thomas Paine quotes and also the meme that says "Common sense: so rare it is a superpower." (I got a laugh out of that.)

What is funny about that is that everyone at some point looks at another person doing something crazy and wonders "Don't they know better? They should know better!" Then the part we may not say out loud: "I know better." I saw a guy walk up the street yesterday, dressed up in full costume as a comic book character. As the guy at the table next to me and I joked about how our neighborhood is now a much safer place (from ninjas and invisible pirates), I watched the guy walk down the street and thought "I know better. He should too."

Common sense right?

There is a common sense in this world. There is a sense that everyone has AND that everyone uses. All of the time...and it may be the predominant religion in the world.

I was too afraid to drink this because mountain goats were upstream.

Hiking affords some elegant views of the origin of mountain streams. As I type, water is furiously rushing down the slopes of Mt. Rainier from an ice source at the top of the mountain. Because the ice is pure (for the most part) the stream is pure (for the most part). One thing is true, the water flowing down the mountain will never be more pure than the ice melting at the top.

The source of common sense (don't hate me for saying this) is sin. Now, I am sure that objections come to mind immediately. I have some too, but the reality is that what is most common among people in this world is a sin nature. Even the very best intentions we might have to do the very best things we can think of are born from a sin nature. Come by my place and listen to someone talk about saving the world through recycling or irradicating homelessness (both good things) and, if we lean in to really listen, we can hear the pride of self-righteousness subtly welling up and spilling out of his (my) words.

Let me illustrate it another way. What if some random guy came up to you on the street and said "If you want to learn from me and be like me, you need to die to your deepest desires and come follow me around?" If he was dressed up like a comic book hero we might laugh and then walk on. Most likely, we would be creeped out and then go blog about the insane man we met outside the place we get our morning coffee. What a loon, right?

There are a lot of reasons why we wouldn't take him seriously, but the greatest of these is that what he said goes against our common sense. Our common sense tells us to seek what we think will give us the greatest happiness at the least amount of cost.

Here are other ideas that push back on our common sense:

• Seek to see others as more important than ourselves...and act that way.
• Our greatest joy will only be found in surrendering our deepest desires.
• Move away from safety and security of family and friends to a country where people will reject you because of Who you want them to know.
• Lay up treasures where Jesus is...and, more importantly, treasure Jesus more than the treasures. 
• Live a life that will make sense in 100 million years even if it doesn't seem to today.

So, I am not saying that we need to reject EVERYTHING we know and try to rethink whether it is good to stop at a red light or not. Please, stop at red lights and don't wear Deadpool costumes around the neighborhood.

Stopping is a Good Thing

What I am saying is that maybe we hold on tightly to some things we call "common sense" because we treasure the sin behind the ideas. Maybe we hold on the concepts with a death drip because we cannot believe that what God has said is actual better, more pleasing, than how "the World" has discipled us to this point. Maybe, someone is like me and afraid to pay too much attention.

What we often call "common sense," the Bible often calls "worldliness." All I know right now is that everything that is from God requires that I trust Him with all my heart.

Spirit, please help us discern the difference.

Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. (Matthew 7:13-14 ESV)

The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. (1 Corinthians 2:14-16 ESV)

That's Me in the Corner, That's Me in the Spot...Light

To get some work done this morning, I rode by bike to a local coffee shop. It has been my office over the last two weeks because we just got internet access at the house. It is also a good excuse to people watch with the hope that I can see what the Father is doing in the people of our area.

I did something that felt really foolish. I even started to sweat a little because it felt like I committed a public and cultural faux pas: I opened my Bible at the table to write about Matthew 9. All of a sudden it seemed that all of the air in the room was sucked out by the collective gasping and that the spotlight was on me. The spotlight makes me sweat. I don't like to sweat for that reason.

Of course that is not how is actually was, but the two ladies sitting with me at our shared table did notice...but didn't let on. Their conversation up until that point was about what power moms talk about: science projects, how to juggle the things they are involved in at their kid's school, what programs to put their children in his summer in order to better them, and how to manage the chaos of renovating a home.

The pace of their conversation was feverish to the point that I was getting out of breath. Well, not really, but I was amazed that they had enough breath to keep up with one another. As soon as they

recognized that a Bible came out, though, there was a brief, but noticeable pause. The conversation changed to talk about how to handle in-law's expectations about religion and how they want kids to be able to think about their worldview for themselves.

They sounded religious. They sounded as if they wanted their kids to be better for being religious.

They are strivers and striving to have a better life is a sacred, Western cultural value. There aren't any sculpted statues that extoll "striving" but there are the little lives that are being shaped everyday to be "strivers" like their parents. Smaller images reflecting the values that mom and dad aspire to.

I saw it clearly, because I live that so dearly. I am fearful of losing my (striving) religion.

The reason why people do not treasure the gospel of the cross is not that people have to give up specific sins. We give up specific sins all of the time in order to be accepted in our own eyes and in the eyes of society. The problem is giving up THE sin, the sin that defines and motivates us: "I made myself somebody!"

The desire of the flesh is to be able to stand on top of the world and say "I am somebody because I got myself here!" It shows itself in many ways, but mostly it shows itself in not wanting to hear the truth that we are really helpless. The gospel does not make sense to many because it does not reflect sacred cultural values. We do not have categories for it.

As I sit here and type those two ladies have gone on to try to conquer life's chaos. I am still writing this because I am asking the question, how do I communicate a message of Christ's weakness actually being real strength? How do I communicate to people that real life is found, not in striving to be the best "me" I can be through any kind of religion, but in being foolish with the King of Fools?

How can people who religiously strive to be somebody ever let go and see that Jesus is all the Somebody we need?

Spirit, 
We try to live as if we can work hard enough that you might owe us something, be in our debt. I want to earn things, demand things from you. I want to be entitled to good things. But, will you please show us another way? Will you please open the eyes of those who are blinded by self-promotion and show them something radically different? I do not have the words to show them what you have shown me. Will you please do miracles in the lives of the people we are around? Please write the gospel so deeply on our hearts that we cannot help but share what we have seen an heard of you.