Quiet is for Listening

You may have been to one before: a men’s retreat. They exist only for one purpose and that is to make sure we never attend another one.

That’s what I thought, anyway. My church recently claimed that theirs was a men’s retreat for men who didn’t like men’s retreats. They had my number. I’ve never actually been to a men’s retreat, but my experience had me convinced that these were for high-end extroverts and the cheer-led crowd. I have been to a couple of Promise Maker rallies, where we are encouraged to commit to something besides football, beer, and sex. These rallies are usually highly motivational, full of chants and cheers, and peppered with big name speakers. Personally, I appreciated about 20% of the two Promise Keeper events I attended. I figured a men’s retreat would be about the same.

I have to admit that I was wrong on this one. It didn’t carry the kind of life-changing impact that a visit with the apostle Paul might produce, but from the start it was unassuming and humble. The message I got from the beginning was that we were there to hear from God and his Word by taking time to listen on our own, with the group and in worship. I was glad for the intentional times of retreat-within-the-retreat which allowed me to turn off the noise and listen. This is one aspect of our church which I am grateful for. When we show up for Sunday mornings, a retreat, or any other gathering, I know that we won’t be bombarded with noise, heavy church marketing, or flashy presentations.

Christian events are often planned with non-stop activity, with no time and space for quiet and solitude. I spent four days this past week at the Catalyst Conference in Atlanta, GA. Catalyst is one of the leading training and motivational events for leaders in their 20s and 30s.

The event was full of top notch speakers, powerful videos, and lighthearted fun. I realize that an event of this size would probably not attract as many participants with this approach, but I still wonder what it would look like to send 10,000 leaders into an extended time of quiet for reflection and prayer. This may or may not be a good idea for an event of this size, but I can’t help but think that we emphasize noise over quiet in many of our gatherings.

Why can’t the church take five minutes in a service for some intentional quiet? Are we competing for the short attention spans of people who are conditioned to a noise-saturated culture? Are we afraid that people won’t have anything to pray about and think about if we are not talking or singing into the microphones?

Consider how a Sunday morning would feel if we took five minutes out of seventy to simply be still, without any music or talking. It would probably feel awkward at first, but that kind of environment would eventually give our ears and our souls the space we need for listening to One worth hearing.

Grappling With God

I used to wrestle with a friend of mine in junior high and the first part of high school, and made a habit of having my butt kicked early and often. Early on in our duels, I was about as feisty as I was unskilled, which led to some interesting wrestling matches. The object was always to be the first to force the other to say “uncle.” Typically we would get to this point using a headlock, squeezing to the point where our eyes began to feel like they were going to pop out of our skulls. I rarely won the contests, but as time went on, I learned to endure more and more, which made it increasingly difficult to get me to say “uncle” and give up.

One afternoon I was under the grip of a headlock that usually led to my defeat. On that day, my determination was on full crank. He squeezed until my face turned blue, then finally my nose began to bleed down to his arm, probably the result of a popped blood vessel. In his shock from the sight of blood, he released my neck and I immediately jumped up exclaiming my “victory.”

Of course, I didn’t really win that match, but I certainly didn’t lose. Jacob of the Bible had a similar experience in Genesis 32 when he went to the mat with an God in the middle of the night. The story says that they wrestled until God had to put Jacob’s hip out of socket in order to subdue him.

The good part comes next, as Jacob refuses to let go, even with a dislocated hip. “I will not let you go unless you bless me,” he says. God changed Jacob’s name that night to “Israel,” which means God-Grappler.

God has established a clear pattern of initiating encounters with his people. Jacob’s wrestling match is one example that is not unlike the many times he has done this in our own lives.

God engages us in close combat because He wants us to know that relationship with him is not as easy as putting a coin in the candy machine. To know God is to struggle with him in the difficulties of life. To hear from him and be near to him doesn’t always mean that we sing nice, sweet Christian songs all the time.

Sometimes we are perplexed by His actions, and we question him like Job, David, Jonah, Jeremiah, Peter, Martha and others did in the Bible. To question God and wrestle with him means that we are interacting with him, which results in radical life change. You don’t come away from interaction with God without transformation.

Anyone else in favor of a name change?

Weakly Prayer – for Re-Formation

Compass God, defining my true north,
As I walk, believing you are leading me, but unsure of the direction,
Create the path that forms me into the image of Christ.
Even in my uncertainty,
Even in my poor sense of direction,
I feel confident that the path you create will
Re-form me into a living picture of the One
Who makes crooked paths straight.
Amen

weakly prayer – for faith

Lord of the blind,

I’m grateful that you have chosen to hang around, offering your healing for the scales that cover my vision. I guess you’ve noticed that I’ve desired to try things on my own, just to see if I could handle living life with the scales in place. Sure, my vision is poor, but I get that sense of accomplishment from trying to go at it on my own.

My prayer is a confession: I am more comfortable with doing things my way, blindly, than I am with experiencing your healing and walking in the freedom of sight. I suspect that you have some extraordinary plans for the future, once I’m depending on seeing things by your light, but I’m lacking the faith to make the jump into that future.

I join the apostles and a long list of your people who have said, “Increase my faith!”

Amen.

Quote of the Moment

“Sometimes, even we who decry the health-and-wealth gospel forget that the Christian life was never meant to be a cakewalk, that discipleship requires suffering, and that spiritual victory presupposes struggle.”
- Stan Guthrie

From an excellent article called “Stumbling After Jesus,” at Christianity Today’s website. If you enjoy the article, Stan has a terrific blog.

Reflections on The Secret Message of Jesus (part 3)

Jesus shared the meaning of the Kingdom by using parables. Ever wonder why Jesus didn’t just come out and say it? Why hide the message in stories that sometimes leave us with more questions than answers?

McLaren’s insight into Jesus’ parables helps those of us who have wished that Jesus would have just come out and said what he meant. The benefit of a parable, he says, is that they “entice their hearers into new territory.” He explains further:

With a clear and easy explanation, hearers can listen and achieve understanding and then go on their way, independent of the teacher. But when a parable confounds them, it invites them to ask questions, so they continue to depend on the teacher himself, not just their independent understanding of his words (pg. 45-46).

One of the most important points of this book is that the message of Jesus is hidden, not only in his parables, but also within those of us who follow him, no matter our denominational or political background. It can be easy to assume that my perspective is the only one in which the truth can be found. However, the gospel is hidden in all who are being transformed by the Spirit, even Democrats, Republicans, Catholics, Southern Baptists and Episcopals; each one of us a living parable, full of God’s message of transformation.

So Jesus told about his message with parables, demonstrated it with miracles, and then validated it with his death and resurrection. Is it any wonder that he described discipleship as a narrow, difficult way? I can’t calculate or figure out Jesus’ message completely, but once I accept it, I am brought close to him as my Teacher, my Friend, and my Lord.

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Though it is a little longer than I think was necessary, I recommend The Secret Message of Jesus. It will challenge your assumptions and put the gospel close in front of you for a very personal examination, leaving you with a desire to let Jesus initiate radical change in your everyday life.

Use this link to buy it at Amazon.com.

Reflections on The Secret Message of Jesus (part 2)

The following is what I am calling the take-home from the book. This doesn’t cover his every point, but these are the things that hit home the most with me.

It sounds obvious to say it, but the message of Jesus was revolutionary in every conceivable way. Why?

First, it presented not just a potential future reality, but a present reality. The gospel was good news for the first hearers because it meant a new way of living, immediately. For those who followed Jesus, ideas about God’s radical new kingdom were quickly turned into decisions that altered the way they did things, not just the way they thought about things. If it was an immediate message for them, then it is most certainly the same for us. Jesus’ message invites us to be transformed now, not just in the someday hereafter.

Second, it was inclusive of people who had not yet received it, a point made obvious by the fact that Jesus often ate dinner and interacted with prostitutes, social outcasts, and other “sinners.” What this means for me is that I am looking at people differently. I’m exploring my social-isms, and have found that they are many. For example, Jesus’ message of inclusion means that God may choose to use me to show the gospel to the segment of society that I loathe the most, whoever that may be. This will require a transformation within me that only God can accomplish (with my participation, of course).

Finally, the social and political backdrop of the gospels reveals that Jesus’ intended not only personal implications, but also implications for our social and political decisions. McLaren says it well in this passage from chapter 2:

“. . . This carpenter’s son from Galilee challenges every existing political movement to a radical rethinking and dares everyone to imagine and consider his revolutionary alternative.” That alternative is the kingdom of God, and “if you’re part of this kingdom, you won’t be blindly patriotic and compliant, . . . instead you’ll be willing to confront injustice, even at the cost of your life. You won’t nestle snugly into the status quo, but you’ll seek to undermine the way things are to welcome the way things could and should be” (p. 17-18).

Secret Message placed the message of Jesus uncomfortably close to my real life. I was reminded again that the gospel isn’t a museum where we look at what is presented and say “ooo” and “ahhh.” Instead, it is a living word, moving through our veins to transform us.

(Part 3 of 3 coming on Sunday…)

Reflections on The Secret Message of Jesus (part 1)

My first impressions of Brian McLaren’s book, The Secret Message of Jesus, were dead wrong. In fact, I must confess that I made some assumptions about where he was headed. Those assumptions tainted my reading of the first portion of the book, because I drew his conclusion before he did. As I previously wrote, I thought the title and initial portion of the book seemed pretentious. However, “the secret message of Jesus” is simply another way of describing the Gospel. I’m glad I pressed on to the finish––it was well worth it. Before I get into a summary of the book, here are a few general observations:

Throughout the book, I got the feeling that McLaren was reacting to something, but I spent a third of the way through trying to figure out what message he was responding to. The only definitive answer to that is “religious broadcasting,” which he specifically mentions as one of the culprits in spreading an inaccurate picture of Jesus’ message. My best guess is that he is also responding to Christian “pop theology” and your basic run-of-the-mill Christian fundamentalism. There were some points in the book where he went to unnecessary effort to point these things out. I doubt that there are any significant numbers from that crowd who are reading this book, so I felt that it was a waste of time.

Fortunately, his cynicism about their message led him to look at the Bible in its historical context. The view he gives into the stories which surrounded the writing of Scripture is what I appreciate most about McLaren’s book. There’s more to understanding the Bible than just the historical background, but it is an area that has been often overlooked in popular Christian theology.

For example, he discusses the idea that the book of Revelation is not primarily a book about specific future events, but is a book about the challenges of the immediate present. The early church was under heavy persecution from the Roman government, and needed a message of hope; hope that the reality of God’s kingdom was the source of their confidence and joy, even when facing death. John’s Revelation provided that hope for them and gives every generation a beautiful picture of God’s ultimate victory over any evil “principalities and powers.”

Because I already agreed with a lot of what he wrote, McLaren’s interpretation of the gospel didn’t feel as ground-breaking to me as it seemed to be to him but I was thankful for the way he articulated it with Scriptural and historical support. It helped me clarify some questions I had about how the message of Jesus was meant for first and twenty-first century people.

(Part 2 of 3 coming on Friday…)

Quote of the Moment

Today’s QOTM (quote of the moment) is from Sarah Cunningham, a former megachurch staffer, now author and high school history teacher in Jackson, Michigan.

“Few people see Christianity as a shift of allegiance that prompts us to make personal changes in beliefs, habits, and lifestyles. We must continually examine our churches to make sure our message is one that requires transformation.” *

That’s a good reminder that if our weekly worship and religious regimens don’t translate into real obedience on Mondays, then it doesn’t matter how fluently we can talk theology. A couple of good check points for me include:

Am I treating my wife and family with love and respect?

Do I regularly berate people in my thoughts and conversations?

Can I accept the people I interact with without requiring them to change first?

My answers to these questions on a regular basis give me a good idea of how much transformation I’ve allowed to take place in my heart lately. Also, I receive unbiased and sometimes painful answers to these questions when I let the people I’m close to answer them about me.

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*Quote was taken from the Out of Ur blog. Originally from “Dissing Illusionment” in the Winter 2007 issue of Leadership Journal.

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is Jesus’ message a secret?

I’m reading The Secret Message of Jesus by Brian McLaren and enjoying it, even though I’ve not bought in to his every point. I’ve wanted to read one of McLaren’s books for a while now, and my brother-in-law Brad gave me this one as a gift, so I figured I would start with it since it is his latest.

My first impressions started with the title. Upon seeing it I was immediately unsettled. The cover of the book shouted, “Can I have your attention everybody! Brian McLaren is going to tell us the secret message of Jesus. You think you know what Jesus was saying, but Brian is now going to explain what he really meant. And we would still be in the dark if it weren’t for BRIAN!”

I know that takes it a little far, and every author tries to give us a fresh perspective when they write (that’s the point of reading a book, right?). However, his title and first chapter seem pretentious.

The idea behind the title is that the deepest message of Jesus is hidden, only to be discovered by those who “look hard, think deeply, and search long in order to find it.” I hope it is possible to still understand the deepest meanings of Jesus’ message if I don’t agree with McLaren’s every point!

Our relationship didn’t start off very well, but I’m giving the book a chance because I share something important with McLaren. I also have a frustration with the way the message of Jesus has been distorted by extremes in some corners of Christendom. Well-known spokespeople on the left and the right sides of the spectrum have said things supposedly from a Christian perspective that make me cringe. Like McLaren, I think it is important to be sure that more than one voice is heard in the discussion of what the message of Jesus looks like when it is lived out in the present day.

I’ll post more praises or peeves as I go along in the book.
(My next question: Does McLaren want us to believe that Jesus is a Democrat? We shall see…)