Dietrich Bonhoeffer - Life Together

People on all sides of are forgetting that we are supposed to see each other as family, that we are supposed to love everyone the way that God loved us.

One of the most frequent and thought provoking images that the Bible uses when it talks about how people relate to God is the idea of God throwing a party. God wants everyone at the party but there are all these reasons that should keep us from getting an invite. In one text we find the story of two brothers who are both disconnected from their father there is a young brother (whom we might call a law-breaker), and an older brother (we we could see as the rule-maker). The younger brother decided that he wants to go off and have a party on his own terms. So he basically says to his Dad “Dad your a rich guy, and when you die I know your gonna leave me a nice chunk of change…do you think I could get that now?” The younger son takes the money and starts partying like the quarterback of the Pittsburgh Steelers, but soon he burns through all that money and he is broke. So he decides to go back to his father and ask for one last favor–to hire him to clean out the pig stalls. We the son gets back his father is so happy that his son isn’t dead and that he has come back that he decides to throw a party.  When the father throws this massive party (think as big as a wedding) the older brother is really upset and refuses to attend–he feels its wrong to throw a party for his reckless brother when he never had a party like that and he always did what he thought his father would want. At the end the father leaves the party to go after his moping older son, and we are left wondering if he accepts the invite to the party.

Its important to remember that God wants to have a relationship with both types of people, law-breakers and rule-makers. All of us have acted like one or both of the brothers in this story. We think we should be rewarded for our rule keeping while ignoring a real relationship with God. Or, we take stuff (money, time, gifts etc.)  God has given us and blown it on really nasty and messed up things. All of us need an invite to God’s table entirely isolated from what we’ve done with our lives.

The sad part is that often folks who were rule-makers tend to be more forgiving for other rule-makers and law-breakers tend to favor law-breakers. So what happens is that both types of people want to exclude the other from God’s table.

The sense I get from reading different sites is that the younger brothers want to be more gracious with people outside of their tradition than they are with people they have taken vows to serve along side. On the opposite side I see many  older brother unanimously, demonizing and scrutinizing well meaning younger brothers.

I am happy to be in the Presbyterian Church in America, but genuinely hope that its a denomination that is big enough and wise enough to realize that the party will be incomplete with if either group is forced out.

You want to know the really sad part, there are a ton of folks watching us just waiting to see when the two brothers will start taking swings at each other. And I’m sorry that I even have to remind church leaders about this but there is one who will hold us accountable for every countless word, that we say or write, and I’m pretty sure the internet is gonna be a big part of the tally.

3 Reasons why I’m encouraged in overhearing this conversation:

1. God is already doing stuff is Lawrenceville.
2. There are countless other Christians out there struggling and fighting for their faith.
3. Nothing this guy is saying new (It’s the same stuff that Christians have wrestled against since Jesus ascended).

“It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
(Galatians 2:20 ESV)

The author is saying that the new spiritual life he has because of Jesus is so powerful that it takes hold of his entire existence.

Very often as a Christian I hope that non-christians will begin to follow Jesus, but when I consider my own life I am living by my own set of rules. I do not see my life in such radical terms.

Most of the time I feel like I have tried to make some deal with God, where he gets a certain percentage of my week, but the rest is mine as long as I can keep my nose clean.

I wonder how different my life would be if I stopped living for myself, and began living my entire life by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. I think my free time would be different. I know I’d care for my wife more. I probably wouldn’t avoid eye contact with people that I didn’t want to talk to. I might actually begin to follow Christ in a way that showed my friends and neighbors what it could look like for them to be reconnected to God.

I’m a hypocrite and thats one of the reasons why I need Jesus.

One very sad trend among many Christians is how quick they are to throw other Christians under the bus to prove they are better and more thoughtful about their faith. This often comes into clear focus when you read comments that Christians post around the web.

I don’t think most Christians realized that they only have two options when they are speaking about people:

1. The person is connected to Christ, and therefore we are connected to them, they are family.

2.The person is not connected to Christ and is what John Newton calls  an”object of [our] compassion”

John Newton who is most well know for his hymn amazing Grace, was a pastor and wrote many letters. In one of these letters he spoke about how Christians disagreements should be characterized.

I wish more Christians would take Newton’s advice when he says “before you set pen to paper against him, and during the whole time you are preparing your answer, you may commend him by earnest prayer to the Lord’s teaching and blessing.”

Questions:

Are you really so short sighted as to assume that you are the only one who is a critical thinker?

How often do you pray for people that you publicly or privately  disagree with?

You can read Newton’s entire letter here.

Total Church

There was once a missionary in Korea, named Harvie Conn, who shared the gospel with a group of prostitutes he was ministering to. At first they simply could not accept the offer. He discovered that the women thought that what they had done was too much for Jesus to accept. The missionary had to convince them that they were wrong, and that there was no sin that Christ could not cover, but was he wrong? Are there certain sins that Christ will not forgive? Would there be certain illicit activities that these women might have done that would have barred them from grace?

Bringing this closer to home, would we allow a women to become a member of our church if it was known that she had previously been involved in the pornography industry? What if she were a prostitute? Would we bar her from attending? Would we right a list of sins that could be forgiven, based on what she did? and who she did it with? Would we decided that certain lewder activities made her unredeemable? Do we see this kind of refereeing anywhere in the NT? Jesus does not seem to think so, because he brings the same grace to the rabbi that he does to the serial cheater.

Of course different sins have different consequences, but do some of them extend so far as to exclude people from any hope of salvation?
Is having to register under megan’s law an unforgivable sin?
It is a sin to not protect and care for our children, but isn’t it also a sin to add to God’s word by saying that certain actions make a person so defiled that Christ will not cover them? Could it be that we do not want to associate with certain types of sinners, because Christianity says that no sin is any more deserving of condemnation than another. I admit that ministering to certain types of ex convicts will have its challenges, but I will not accept the idea that Jesus only saves clean sinners. I think most of us still find part of our identity in what we have and have not done. So we seek to feel validated because we have not committed certain sins. We say “thank God that I am not like that person the…”.

The truth of the matter is that Christ’s standards are much higher than ours, and his grace and his forgiveness is far more extensive that we would permit. We need to be honest with ourselves and realize that if his grace was more exclusive than all of us “lesser sinners” would never have a chance at redemption.

Certain passage to consider:
Judges 2:17 God says that idolatry is “whor ing” around.
Ezekiel 23:12-20 God compares idolotry to some very lewd acts.
1 Corinthians 6:9-11 Paul speaks to the transformation in Christ.
2 Corinthians 5:17 New Creations in Christ.

Listening to Bazan he is plain and settled in his distaste for God, as understood by Christians. He seems to want to make it clear that he sees it as stupid or ill-conceived.

So do we honor David Bazan’s honesty and authenticity even if he is authentically taking a jab at Christianity. I guess defending Jesus wouldn’t be hip.
Some people seem to be fine with Bazan still being treated as some Spiritual guide, even though I doubt he would call himself one.

One final question, in regard to Hard to Be: Do you think its easier for him to be, now that he has walked away from Jesus and all that makes up Christianity?

He points out in the book that both the sons care more about what they can get from the father, than they do about their relationship with him. The younger might be more brash, but the old is more subtle and in the end unwilling to change.

The thing that I have found interesting is that Keller points out that Jesus was surrounded by more people who would fall into the brash Younger Brother category.

The question that I am wrestling with is how do we interact with the older brothers and the younger brothers? To be more specific how do we learn to forgive apologetic younger brother and still try to show the older brothers that they also need to be forgiven. Forgiveness is something that people want. Take for instance yeasayer’s track on the Dark Was The Night album:

“So your wishing that you never did all the embarrassing things you’ve done? and you wishing you could set it right?”

Do most Non Christians even think that grace–forgiving and forgetting mistakes–is something that Christians do well? If not why? What are we preaching instead? What are we living out instead? What crap has taken the place of the message of Christ forgiving people no matter how deep or stupid or life altering their mistakes.

But I thought to myself–did they just say that in the New York Times?!?

The article makes me proud and a bit sad.