Americans 12:9-3:10

Below is an adaptation of a paraphrase I wrote for Romans 12:9-3:10 on February 5, 2007:

Church, don’t be fakers when it comes to love (love is too important to fake). Fight evil as you embrace good. Lovingly commit to each other like family, respecting one another (instead of seeking your own self interests), not growing weary but burning with passion as you serve our Lord. Be joyfully hopeful, tenacious in hardship and persistent in prayer as you care for the needs of your spiritual family and live out radical hospitality.

I know it is hard to accept, but this hospitality extends to your enemies too. This means that you should bless them (and never curse them).

Laughing with the happy, crying with the sorrowful, live in unity with each other. Don’t be snobs, rather be friends with those who are “beneath” you. I know that arrogance and pride are at epidemic proportions in America, but knock it off. Stop thinking that you are better than everyone else.

The sort of humility I’m asking of you applies even to bad people. You should love them too. When someone does evil, don’t strike back with evil. I know this is an American past-time these days, but remember what I said earlier in my letter? Don’t do what you see everyone around you doing (Romans 2:2). Remember: people are watching to see what you do.

Because of this, I want you to do your best to live at peace with everyone. Don’t seek revenge—that sort of thing should be left to our Father. That’s why he said: “I’m the Avenger; I’m the one who settles the score.”

Instead, do what God tells you to do in Deuteronomy 32:35: If your worst enemy is hungry, shell out a few bucks and take them to McDonalds. If your worst enemy is thirsty, pull out some extra change and buy them a Coke as well. This sort of thing will not only surprise your “enemy” but also show them that you love them.

I guess what I’m trying to say is: don’t be overwhelmed by evil, but overwhelm evil by doing good.

This applies to your relationship to the local and national government as well. We have pledged our allegiance to Christ, but that doesn’t give us the right to rise up against the Empire. Instead, you should submit to them. Why? Because God is in charge and America is restrained by God. And if you rebel against America, you will get slapped down.

Most of the time, you’ll be safe if you do good. Usually, you’re only in trouble if you do evil—and if the police punish you for doing evil, your punishment is deserved. You need to remind yourself that the police and the army have weapons for a reason (and have no problem using them), and when they punish bad people for the evil they do, they are, in a way, serving God’s purposes. In addition, even the government can find good behavior praiseworthy…so just stick to doing good and you’ll usually have nothing to fear.

And so, it is important that you submit…not simply out of fear, but because of your conscience.

And here’s the point: his is why you shouldn’t resist the IRS, for the US Government is (generally speaking) serving God’s purposes. Give everyone what you owe, whether it is taxes or tributes or fear or respect.

The only debt you should have outstanding is the debt of love, because when you love your neighbor (in the Good Samaritan sense of the word), you fulfill the Law.

Jesus himself taught us that the commandments (you know: don’t commit adultery, don’t murder, don’t steal, don’t covet, etc.) are summed up with this: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore Love fulfills the Law.

Mark Van Steenwyk is the editor of JesusManifesto.com. He is a Mennonite pastor (Missio Dei in Minneapolis), writer, speaker, and grassroots educator. He lives in South Minneapolis with his wife (Amy), son (Jonas) and some of their friends.

Who Is My Enemy?

“Love your enemies” is the logical (if extreme) extension of “love your neighbor.” When asked, “Who is my neighbor?”, Jesus tells a story in which a Samaritan — not necessarily an enemy but certainly not your average Jew’s first choice for a cribbage partner — is the protagonist and moral exemplar of neighborly love.

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spring always comes

Editor’s Note: Below is the 2nd Prize winner in the doxis category for the Stepping into a Violent Wind Writing Competition:

The promise of spring didn’t used to excite me. Growing up in Michigan, springs were chilly and muddy. But after five years of scraping ice off my car on cold, dark Chicago mornings, and two years of feeling frozen and empty inside and grieving losses, the first hint of warmth-reminding me spring is coming-brings something to life in me. And when the warmth comes in earnest, when the grass turns greener than I ever remember it being and flowers burst out everywhere, spring is a powerful reminder to me of what can come to life, and what life can come out of.

I think initially the disciples viewed Jesus’ promises about the Spirit like I viewed Michigan springs: they knew the Spirit was coming, but they didn’t understand the power that promise held. Just hours before Jesus’ crucifixion, he promised he’d send his Spirit as a truth-teller, an advocate, a comforter. But I’m guessing his promise felt hollow to the already-overwhelmed disciples, who were still trying to comprehend his pending death. It was like an adult telling a child, “Your parents are going to die, but we’ll send your aunt to take care of you.” Who will be there gets largely overshadowed by who won’t.

Jesus also talked about the Spirit’s coming when he taught on prayer. “Which of you . . . if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? . . . If you . . . though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” Yet, without knowing how good the Spirit is, I wonder if the disciples thought it strange-even disappointing-that, though they were free to ask God for anything, no matter what they asked for, all he would give them was the Spirit. Did Jesus’ idea of prayer seem like a cheap invitation to them?

After Jesus’ resurrection, he gave his disciples a command about the Spirit’s coming: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” But once again they missed the magnitude of Jesus’ promise. “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” they asked. In other words, “Is the Spirit’s coming going to finally bring about political victory for Israel? Because that’s what we need-that’s the answer to our prayers.”

I think we’re captive to similar misunderstandings about the Spirit. He’s here, but do we really know how powerful he is? Do we really want the Spirit to be God’s answer to our prayers, or do we just want the healing/provision/guidance we asked for? We acknowledge his presence and power, but most of the time we leave him out of our prayers because we don’t really understand why he’s such a good gift, what he does or how he fits into our daily life.

What we forget, or haven’t understood-what the disciples didn’t understand until Pentecost-is that the Spirit, quite simply, is the answer to our prayers, the power that allows us to participate in God’s work in the world and help bring his kingdom to earth.

When the Spirit came at Pentecost, the disciples “were all together in one place.” And, based on Luke’s earlier statement that “they all joined together constantly in prayer,” I think we can assume they were praying when the Spirit came. Luke doesn’t tell us what they prayed for. But if Acts and the rest of the New Testament and the millions of Christ-followers around the world today are any indication, it seems safe to say that the Holy Spirit was a sufficient answer. From Pentecost forward, the fearful, selfish men who denied and deserted Jesus were empowered and transformed by the Holy Spirit, the One Jesus promised. They became martyrs, evangelists, church planters, disciplers, wise leaders who gave witness to who Christ was and were used by him to bring his kingdom to earth.

Today, the Spirit is still the all-sufficient answer to our prayers. His living in us and working through us means that bringing God’s kingdom is not up to us. He frees us from having to figure out the best strategy or say the right words on behalf of God, reminding us instead that God’s work (thankfully) is not based on something as flawed and tenuous and prideful as our own intelligence and efforts. ” ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the LORD Almighty.” Our job is to listen, to wait for the Spirit like the disciples did, and then respond in obedience, free from the burden of having to plan and act in our own strength.

Furthermore, in a world with values so different from God’s, the Spirit reminds us what’s true about God’s kingdom, and how to live that out so others can see it. He corrects our clouded vision and thinking so that we can clearly see who God is, what he values and what his kingdom looks like here, now. The Holy Spirit still comes as the truth-teller, the God-revealer, the courage-giver.

And he comes like spring: powerfully, faithfully, in ways that are more life-giving than we can imagine.

Spring is here in Chicago now, the promise fulfilled yet again. And it’s more powerful than ever for me as I watch trees and flowers come to life, as storms bring rain that renews the soil. And every day, even more powerfully, the Spirit is here. A fulfillment of Jesus’ promise. The answer to our prayers. The power that brings God’s kingdom to earth as we respond in obedience. He shows up strong like a spring storm, bringing life all over.

Author Bio: Lisa Rieck is a reader and writer who likes to discuss good ideas over hot drinks, gets inspired by the sky, and is amazed at God’s redemptive work in our broken world. She takes in all kinds of good ideas as a proofreader and copy editor for InterVarsity Press and posts thoughts on life and faith at the blog Strangely Dim (http://strangelydim.ivpress.com).

Image: A Lovely Spring Day in Manitoba by Accross and Down

Pentecost: Peace Carried on a Violent Wind

Editor’s Note: Below is the first place winner in the doxis category for the Stepping into a Violent Wind Writing Competition:

It was a feast to mark the end of the harvest season.  Hebrew people, having been scattered throughout the world like so much seed by the whims of political fate and fortune, had gathered in the holy city on pilgrimage to observe Pentecost, the fiftieth day of what was once newfound freedom from harsh Egyptian rule.  History had filled the gaps in-between, obscuring at least in part the significance of that miraculous day from the collective memory of those chosen people.  With time came the rise and fall of a Jewish dynasty, followed by one oppressive regime after another, leading ultimately to this pilgrimage, standing at the end of a long procession of feasts observed and traditions handed down, today in the shadow of the mighty Roman empire.

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Behold the Man: the Passion as Coronation

One of the salient political aspects of the early church is that they claimed allegiance to a king who was not there except by dint of having his spirit poured out on all his followers. The claims of kingship are deferred in the ascension and then disbursed at Pentecost in a way that is — if you’re the powers that be — unsettling and anarchic.

The Romans called the early Jesus followers “atheists” for their refusal to sacrifice to the Roman Gods but, given the political significance of the imperial cult, “anarchist” is not too far off the mark. “Christarchist” works but it comes to much the same thing: where is this Christ to whom we profess our loyalty? Where do we find him except in our midst as we make decisions together, or in the face of the stranger or the enemy? It is, in the logic of the market or the state, one hell of a way to run a railroad.

If Christ’s is an upside-down kingdom, Christians have managed in many cases to keep the language of inversion while turning most of it right-side up again. We’ll toss out phrases like “servant leadership” much faster than we’ll grab a towel and basin. We’ll invoke authoritarian structure as a hedge against chaos by calling it accountability. Even some of us who claim a pacifist ethics do so partially by acquiescing to the idea of an eschatological violence. “Vengeance is mine; I will repay”, says the Lord, and we assume this means that we can love our enemies because God will smite them if need be — if not in this life then in the next. John Dominic Crossan makes a distinction between distributive justice, which is the purview of the church, and retributive justice, which God reserves for himself.

Logically, it’s a neat package. If God wants to use the Allied forces to stop Hitler (just as he might have used the Assyrians or the Babylonians or even the Romans to accomplish his purposes), that’s his prerogative. Such a reading of history is, I think, available to us (more outlandish readings have certainly been offered). We cannot claim with definitude that God has acted in this way over and against the normal interplay of powers against one another, but it is possible. And it doesn’t justify Christian involvement in armed conflict, because we are called to a different ethics of the kingdom. We are living God’s future, as Miroslav Volf puts it, but God is still God of the nations, lord of the saeculum. How God orders the powers is none of our business. It allows us to maintain the integrity of divine sovereignty while embracing the ethical ramifications of the lordship of Jesus. On a certain level, this works very nicely.

This has become, however, less and less satisfying to me. I’ll be honest: I’ve struggled with claims of Jesus’ divinity, not because I’m metaphysically challenged but because I can’t quite reconcile Christos Pantocrator with the man on the cross. I’ve been leery of substitutionary atonement, not because that kind of forensic language is absent from the New Testament witness, but because it’s one of many metaphors and our focus on it to the exclusion of other metaphors seems to aid and abet our cultural narcissism: Jesus died for me, me, ME. Isn’t he grand?

But what if those claims of Jesus as YHWH tell us less about Jesus than they do about the true nature of YHWH? Much of the way Jesus’ story is narrated is paralleled in the wider culture of the time (Mithraism and all that) and some critical scholarship suggests that these claims were made of Jesus in order to present him as a player on the cosmic scene. I don’t know that we need to be afraid of this idea, but I am wondering if this doesn’t miss the point; what if these are, like so much else about Jesus, actually inversions?

The various and varied claims made of Jesus, whether they parallel ideas from Jewish messianism or the imperial cult or mystery religions, mean something very different when they are applied to someone who willingly suffered crucifixion. Maybe we miss the point by embracing a politically subversive Jesus but hold in reserve an ass-kicking apocalyptic Jesus who can beat up Mark Driscoll.

What if part of the beauty, even the utter necessity of substitionary atonement, is that God, who reserves the right of retribution, has already rendered judgment — meaning that we love our enemy not simply because God has forgiven us (when we were still enemies) but because, in the Cross, God has already forgiven our enemies? True, it seems a bit scandalous — talk about your foolishness to the Greeks and stumbling block to the Jews — and it plays fast and loose with our whole sense of justice. Do we dare go that far?

In the passion narratives, Jesus is given a purple robe, and a crown of thorns, and is hailed “King of the Jews.” We see this as sadly ironic, of course; those poor saps, they didn’t know that Jesus really is the King not only of the Jews, but the whole world. Too bad for them when he comes in his glory. But what if the irony goes deeper? What if this plays out the way it does because the early believers recognized the passion not as an ironic prelude to Jesus’ true lordship, but as the example par excellence of exactly what that lordship looked like? That the christological scandal is not that we crucified God but that we claim as God the one whom we crucified? That the passion is not something that obfuscated Jesus’ true identity but unveiled God’s?

It would mean that the resurrection, ascension, and cosmic reign of Christ are not something from which the passion is a tragic but necessary detour, but are instead a way of affirming the Cross, and the Way of the Cross, as the realpolitik of the Gospel:

Here is your king.

Author Bio:: Ted Troxell is the only janitor at Central Michigan University who is also an adjunct instructor.

Everybody Must Get Stoned

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“Now a New King…”

The story of Joseph is usually told as a hero tale, and in general it wants to be read that way. We might interrogate it for more meaning — there might be some significance to the roles of the other brothers in light of the later tribal relations that probably color the telling of the story — but the ‘hero tale’ designation seems to hold. Joseph is marked as a kind of seer, lauded for his moral certitude in the face of temptation and his placid acceptance of his fate. The story, like many such stories, has an ironic twist at the end where everything predicted comes to pass in an unexpected way and everyone lives happily ever after.

Except they don’t. The opening lines of Exodus add another twist, a dark and almost deconstructive turn that throws a wrench in our expectations and shatters the fairy-tale ending. Without getting into speculations about who redacted what and when, Exodus 1:8 unsettles the usual reading of Joseph’s story: “Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.” This sets the stage for YHWH to deliver and claim the Hebrew people in a formative act of liberation; in some ways, the import of Joseph’s story is that it gets them to Egypt. But it is more than a narrative device or literary convention. Read in light of verse 8’s unsettling revelation, we can see that Joseph, though he meant well, leveraged the short-term survival of his family against the future of his people.

It is impossible to say what Joseph should have done — the story has to end the way it does, for any number of reasons — but his acceptance of privilege under Pharaoh, this sidling up to power that he uses to his family’s advantage (and understandably so), results in betrayal, in tragic loss, becoming the dark ground against which the figure of redemption and liberation will be defined. All it takes for Joseph’s collusion with the superpower of his day to turn ugly is a regime change, which is not so much a random stroke of bad luck as an inevitable part of life in empire.

In a way, we should see this coming. Joseph’s life is full of circumstances wherein some sort of privileged status turns around to bite him. He rises to prominence in Potiphar’s household in a sub-plot that often serves to underscore a Protestant work ethic: be diligent, and you might just be put in charge of the whole operation. On the dark side, you might also get seduced by the boss’s wife and thrown in jail. Or the privileged status — the technicolor dreamcoat and all that — that raises the ire of his brothers and lands him in slavery to begin with. Sit with this thread long enough and you begin to wonder if maybe if Joseph isn’t really a tragic figure, who never quite learns. The happily-ever-after ending is not just subverted by the opening lines of Exodus, it’s unmasked as false to begin with.

This thread is present in other parts of Genesis as well. Abraham is called out of Ur of the Chaldees, which have been Sumeria and thus the height of civilization at the time. Regardless, Abraham is called out of a settled existence to become a nomad, wandering in the direction of God. Along the way, none of his compromises with the powers-that-be seem to turn out well; he does much better when he simply trusts God for provision and resists brokering deals for protection or support. The Babel narrative is one in which an attempt at civilizational grandeur is thwarted in favor of a diasporic existence, quite possibly an allegory of exile, as is the creation narrative itself. We don’t have time to go into it here, but whether you read covenant and exile as a recapitulation of creation and fall, or creation and fall as a redactionary foreshadowing of what YHWH’s children would learn in exile, the structural similarity is striking.

The life and ministry of Jesus, the message of Jesus and the message that is Jesus, confirms what Yoder calls the “Jeremiac turn”: that the life of diaspora in exile is not an unfortunate cul-de-sac but a new way of being God’s people. A way that eschews power and privilege, seeking solidarity with those for whom such formulations are out of reach. A way that identifies with the “least of these”, knowing that there is always a base of the lowly and the meek on whose backs the burden of injustice rests. A way that seeks to tabernacle in the negative space of empire.

The story of Joseph, read through the lens of this new way, becomes a cautionary tale: when we sidle up to power, when we seek to claim for ourselves the benefits of privilege, or fail to interrogate it even when it seems to be providential, we lose something precious. Sooner or later, the situation will turn and we will stand, as we always do, in need of redemption.

Author Bio:: Ted Troxell is a PhD student at Michigan State University researching Christian radicalism.

A Take On An Evangelical Manifesto

Apparently “radical” Christians are not the only ones getting in on the manifesto love. A committee headed up by Os Guinness has recently published a document entitled An Evangelical Manifesto. With the emphasis being on the “An” (because one has to have a disclaimer on anything one writes now a days), the focus of the document is on recovering the essence and definition of the term “Evangelical,” particularly in the public square. So far the watchdog bloggers have been kind, but it is probably only a matter of time before Os and company get grouped in with Marx and the Unabomber for using the word manifesto.

Despite the unwanted baggage the term “Evangelical” has picked up over the last several decades, this manifesto is a declaration that that label, if properly understood, still conveys “all-important truth.” This is the twenty first century Evangelical’s attempt at doing what John Wesley did with his sermon The Character of a Methodist: distinguish what a true Evangelical really is in light of recent public questioning and counterfeit productions. This delineation comes in three mandates, written in the first person plural:

1. We Must Reaffirm Our Identity
2. We Must Reform Our Own Behavior
3. We Must Rethink Our Place in Public Life

There is as much to love in the document as there is to loathe, and everyone will have their favorite targets. The early responders have focused on who was and was not invited to be charter signatories, and then drawing conclusions from the snubbed list as to the true intention of the manifesto. Among this crowd is Warren Smith (who wonders where the conservatives are) and the Emergent Village blog (which briefly notes that Brian McLaren, Tony Jones, and Doug Pagitt were not asked either).

Please brace yourself for my next statement…but…I actually agree with Al Mohler’s take quite a bit (wow, that felt good to get off my chest!). The prime definition of “Evangelical” given in the manifesto is the sort of lowest common denominator approach that doesn’t really say anything at all. I realize the goal is unity and consensus, but the question of “what is an Evangelical” is tied up in history that makes the whole “Evangelicals are people who simply define themselves according the ‘good news’ (from the Greek word for gospel)” a little too a-historical for me. The authors insist that while the term “Protestant” has lost its usefulness, “Evangelical” still endures. They assert that the essence of “Evangelicalism” is pre-Protestant. Am I missing something in my reading of history? Then again, Mark Noll– a Christian historian of the top shelf– signed it, so what do I know.

James K. Smith has made these connections as well and has thrown one more in there that really gets at the heart of the issue. In response to the first mandate’s identity markers, Smith writes:

“…such definitions define “Evangelical” by what evangelicals THINK and BELIEVE, rather than what they DO. That, I think, reflects just the sort of modernism that gives us evangelicalism (and fundamentalism) in the first place. In contrast, what defines Orthodoxy or Catholicism is liturgy, the practices of the faith.”

Much of the manifesto is dedicated to repenting of behavior unbecoming to a true “Evangelical,” but most of the attitudes and actions listed seem to be aimed at the more Fundamentalist side of Christianity. This leads me to believe that one major aim of the document is to place further separation between Evangelicals and those political Fundamentalists that are still getting all the press. This group of “Evangelicals” has little to do with Colorado Springs, and they want to make that clear without resorting to finger pointing. The major question that many of us should ask is whether or not this group of “Evangelicals” is simply falling into the trap of creating a Religious Left to battle the Pat Roberton’s of the world. Not to say that you are guilty by association, but Jim Wallis’ signature should be in all CAPS. He might as well have taken a few of his articles from Sojourner’s, smashed them together, added a few more devotional phrases, and Os Guinness could’ve written his bit about “civility” and taken the rest of the year off.

But as mentioned above, there are good things that need to be said of the manifesto. The document is highly Christocentric, something that has been sorely missing in Evangelical public engagement in the past few decades. The constant focus on the person and work of Jesus should make us all shout out an “Amen” or two. There is also call for constant renewal and reformation that strongly denounces any falling in love with the status quo. Of particular interests to the Jesus Manifesto crowd, coming byway the section entitled “The Way of Jesus, Not Constantine:”

“We Evangelicals trace our heritage, not to Constantine, but to the very different stance of Jesus of Nazareth. While some of us are pacifists and others are advocates of just war, we all believe that Jesus’ Good News of justice for the whole world was promoted, not by a conqueror’s power and sword, but by a suffering servant emptied of power and ready to die for the ends he came to achieve.” (18)

So what are your thoughts?

Have you read this Manifesto? Would you sign it?

Where do you place yourself in the spectrum–are you an “Evangelical?”

Michael Cline is a co-editor of the Jesus Manifesto. He considers himself a freelance pastor and and over-employed learner who currently attends Bethel Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. When not snuggling with his wife, he’s blogging at www.reclinerramblings.blogspot.com

Pentecost – The Tongue Untied

How did God choose to release the Church into her calling? Pentecost. How did God start off Pentecost? By getting His Spirit to get a hold of, and control of, the tongue.

And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. (Acts 2:4 NKJV)

God created the tongue as a powerful member of our body. James compares the tongue to the rudder of a ship and the bit that controls the horse (James 3:3-5). Great ships and their rudders are designed with great care, because these ships are useless if they cannot be controlled. A magnificent vessel cannot fulfill its purpose without a rudder capable of maneuvering it through every port, storm or shoal. Similarly, these great vessels require a captain at the helm capable of taking firm control of the rudder and directing it.

It is just like God to go for control of the rudder. He always goes to the core of every issue – whether it is the root of bitterness, the need to forgive or the call to be a rejoicing and thankful people in every situation. When He released His Church into the world, God started by firmly placing His hand on the helm controlling the rudder – the tongue. He sacrificed so that the Church could walk in freedom and now He directs it so that it fulfills its freedom destiny.

God loves to release blessing through things mankind considers insignificant. Paul describes God’s choice at overcoming the strong through using the “weak” (1 Cor 1:26-28). He confounded the wise by using the “foolish.” And using the “least” gift, He started His great Church – the gift of tongues (1 Cor 12:28). I believe God did this for several reasons. First, He wants us to know that He does not need our abilities nearly as much as our submitted availability. He can use anything available to Him and do spectacular things with it. Second, this encourages the weakest member within the Church. God honors and uses the least to do spectacular things. I would likely have chosen some other gift to release salvation to thousands – maybe healing, or the prophetic gift or the gift of evangelism. That would have been more “reasonable”. Third, if God can do that with the least gift, what can He do with all the spiritual gifts He has placed within you?

The tongue has one final and critical role – it is the mouthpiece of our heart’s expression.

For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things. (Matt 12:34-35 NKJV)

All that lies within our soul will find its expression through the tongue. All that we treasure will find its way out through the tongue. When God controls our heart, then the tongue releases His Word for our world. If hurts, pride or ambition have a root there, then our tongue will betray that we refused to allow God inside to deal with these issues.

Pentecost is a great day to declare afresh in the Church that God controls of the rudder. He has control of our tongue – my tongue – and it speaks as “the Spirit gives utterance.”

Author Bio:: David Peacock is one of the pastors on staff at The Lighthouse Church in Kuwait. His wife Becky and two youngest children live and minister there with him.

Biblical Economics 1-0-what?

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