A Redeemable World

Here’s an excerpt from the sermon I mentioned a couple posts back–It was a sermon reflecting on what I learned in seminary:

Sin, I’ve learned, is more comprehensive and far-reaching than I ever thought. It isn’t just something that makes me guilty before God. It is that, but its also more than that. Sin makes everything in our world out of whack. It’s what happens when something that was part of God’s good creation is used in a way it was never intended to be used. Sin goes against God’s established patterns and designs for creation. But here’s what this doesn’t mean. It doesn’t mean we can abandon God’s creation or hide from our culture. God certainly hasn’t. We need to name the problem of sin for what it is. It’s taking what’s good and beautiful and using it, perverting it and twisting it in ways that violate its original function.

I think about how our culture is obsessed with sex. It’s taken on a life of its own, becoming an obsession, when it was never meant to function that way. Sex is God’s idea, it is good and it is intended to be this deeply relational encounter. But in our falleness, we have distorted and perverted it, turned into some kind of game that’s not about relationship and mutuality, but self-gratification. And Christians, it seems, are ashamed to talk about it. From the way we treat it, you would think the whole idea of sex is wrong. But its not. And we can affirm with Genesis 1, that no matter how distorted it has become in our culture, that sex, when its used in the right way, is fundamentally good because God made it.

Its the same thing with music and dance and money and power. These things are not sinful in themselves. It’s when they become distorted, when we horde our money or spend it wastefully, when we abuse our power, or misuse music or dance–when we use them in ways God never meant for them to be used that they become wrong.

Imagine I have a son. I don’t really, but you can imagine I do. I want him to participate in this soapbox derby because its something I feel he would have fun with. So I design a car just for him, getting all the right measurements so that it fits him perfectly, and he’ll be able to navigate the race track without any troubles. I build the car: the seat, the brakes, the steering wheel, the levers, each piece is perfectly adjusted for him. He loves the car, and I watch with satisfaction as he takes it out for test runs on the sidewalk and learns to use all the features.  But one day, instead of riding it on the sidewalk, he decides he wants to use the car as a boat, so he takes it off the street and goes plunging into the pond in the park, where he is quickly disappointed by its performance. He comes to me soaking wet, and complaining that the car didn’t float. Not only does the car not float, but the water has caused the gears to rust and some of the wood to warp and so it doesn’t drive completely straight anymore. So what am I left to do? I’m not just going to throw the car away and start over. Its salvageable. We can change out some of the equipment and replace the warping wood. But there’s another problem, my son still has it in his heart to use the car in ways it wasn’t meant to be used. If I want my son to flourish with his car, I have to deal with my son’s heart. He has to learn to see the beauty of driving the car the way its supposed to be driven. Otherwise, he’ll just keep getting himself into dangerous and destructive situations.

So here’s where we’re left: God has designed our world, and designed us to function within it in certain ways, ways that lead to flourishing for all creation, but we’ve rejected those ways. We left the sidewalk and drove God’s world into the pond. But, keep in mind, a fallen world is not a throwaway world in God’s eyes. It can be salvaged, or in the words of Scripture, “Redeemed.”

If you’re interested in the rest of the sermon, you can download the full sermon text.

N.T. Wright on Jesus as a Moral Example

I’m reading N.T. Wright’s After You Believe which is a call for the church to rethink discipleship as putting on the virtues and learning the habits of God’s Kingdom. This discipleship begins not by imagining Jesus as our moral mentor, but by heeding his call to take up our cross and die. Here is an excerpt:

“The suggestion that we treat Jesus as a moral example can be, and in some people’s thinking has been, a way of holding at arm’s length the message of God’s kingdom on the one hand and the meaning of his death and resurrection on the other. Making Jesus the supreme example of someone who lived a good life may be quite bracing to contemplate, but it is basically safe: it removes the far more dangerous challenge of supposing that God might actually be coming to transform this earth, and us within it, with the power and justice of heaven, and it neatly helps us avoid the fact, as all four gospels see it, that this could be achieved only through the shocking and horrible events of Jesus’ death. Jesus as “moral example” is a domesticated Jesus, a kind of religious mascot. We look at him approvingly and decide we’ll copy him (up to a point at least, and no doubt he’ll forgive us the rest because he’s a decent sort of chap). As if! If all we need is a good example, we can’t be in quite such a bad state as some people (including Jesus himself) have suggested.

(After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters, p. 126)

A Robust Theology of Creation

Here is a quote from Dr. Al Wolters on the foundational importance of understanding God as Creator not only of the natural world (birds and trees), but also of families, politics, beauty and justice. In other words, all good things have their origin in God. He made it all, and “it was very good.” Dr. Wolters is the author of Creation Regained. This quote comes from a piece he wrote (found here) for the Spring 2010 issue of Comment magazine, which I highly recommend.

“In the biblical view, creation is everything which God has ordained to exist, what he has put in place as part of his creative workmanship. To be sure, this includes the great variety of physical entities and processes, and the enormous diversity of flora and fauna that God has created “according to their kind,” but it also encompasses much more. Creation includes such human realities as families and other social institutions, the presence of beauty in the world, the ability to appreciate that beauty, the phenomena of tenderness and laughter, the capacity to conceptualize and reason, the experience of joy and the sense of justice. An almost unimaginable variety of objects, institutions, relationships and phenomena are part of the rich texture of God’s creation.”

I’m planning to touch on this idea in my sermon this coming Sunday. But we can’t stop with Creation. If we maintain that God’s creation is comprehensively good, it follows then, that sin is equally comprehensive in its destructiveness, infecting every part of our lives, and our world–distorting our good desires, feelings, and thoughts, and also fracturing our relationships, corrupting our institutions, and destroying our neighborhoods. This sets us up for a rigorous and robust (biblical) view of redemption–that God hasn’t given up on his good world, but rather, through Christ,  God is renewing and restoring all things–families, institutions, persons, schools, farms, oceans, governments, businesses, cities, societies, cultures–every square inch of our world is under the lordship of Christ, and being restored and put back together, and will one day function again as God intended.

In the words of Abraham Kuyper, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’”

When Missions Becomes Toxic

This post “When Missions Becomes Toxic” by professor William Black (of Nairobi Evangelical Graduate School of Theology) is generating some interesting discussion about how missions is changing/needs to change. He was a missionary himself when he first came to Africa, so when he speaks critically, keep in mind he also speaks as an insider.

Here are several excerpts in which he talks about how Americans typically view their role in mission, and how that needs to be adjusted in light of the reality that the majority of Christians today live in the Non-western world (Africa, Asia and Latin America).

“…missions has been ‘sold’ to individuals and to churches in my home (US and UK) contexts as God’s call for us as Christians to supply what is lacking, Christianly-speaking, in other parts of the world. So off we go to ‘preach the gospel,’ to ‘plant churches’, to translate the Scriptures, to train leaders, to ‘build capacity’, to build and staff clinics, hospitals and schools, to care for orphans, and generally to reach the (fill in the blank) for Christ.”

“The other big change is that, while I was in my country of origin (the United States), we very much thought we were at the center of the world and at the center of what God is doing. When I travel back to my ‘people’, I find this still the assumption, whether in local churches or theological colleges/seminaries. But I’ve also observed that, increasingly, Americans are almost the only people left who think this way about Americans anymore. The Christian world has moved along, and our multi-billion dollar ‘Christian’ music and publishing and conference and education industries, um, ministries are all busy generating the sorts of things that they have always generated, but with less and less relevance to the rest of the world.”

“Now that I’ve been here (on the ‘field’) for a while, I am realizing that we Western missionaries are not the wonderful blessing from heaven to all these poor and lost people that we like to think of ourselves as. While we have been certainly busy ‘preaching the gospel’ all these years, we’ve actually succeeded in reproducing some of our less savory attributes much more than anybody is admitting.”

Reflections Pt. 1 – What I Saw

(The following is a part of the reflection paper I wrote in response to our urban pilgrimage at the end of March. As of yesterday, I am finished with all my coursework at City Seminary. Graduation is May 27!)

WHAT I SAW

In the Spring of 2010, I had the opportunity to visit with pastors, professors and ministry leaders in Nairobi, Kenya and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

While I was there, I experienced the harsh realities of slum life in Kibera, Korokocho and Addis Ababa–the stench of sewage and rotting garbage rising from the streets. I saw children kneeling to play in mud and sewage, a contaminated wasteland their only playground. I saw entire cities constructed of corrugated steel and mud, structures Westerners would consider dilapidated and unfit for residence, filled with families, made into homes. In the same streets, I saw the ingenuity and resourcefulness of men and women setting up and running their own businesses. I saw the determination of a group of pastors, sensing the need for local, affordable training and formation, coming together at the grassroots to start a seminary program in the slums. I saw the dedication but also the exhaustion of teachers working dark, overcrowded classrooms. And in the eyes of the children learning there, I saw hope for a better future.

I witnessed the daily work of women and children in the mountains overlooking Addis,  carrying on their backs bulky bundles of dried manure and Eucalyptis branches to be sold in the city for a meager price. I saw the diversity, energy and organized mayhem of the Addis mercato. I saw God’s story imaged in panels of stained glass at Trinity Cathedral and in the paintings and symbolic carvings of the Lalibela churches.

I also witnessed a robust Christian theology that engaged the full spectrum of human existence–whole persons, families and communities. Here are a few examples:

To a land marked by devastating violence and conflict, Pastor Irene Jacca of Nairobi Pentecostal spoke a powerful word about the Prince of Peace who calls peace-making disciples (Matt 5). Dr. Priscilla Adoyo of the Center for Peace-Building and Conflict Transformation equips students for the important and prophetic work of peace-making. Through training in conflict intervention and discernment, they seek to embody the paradigm of Ephesians 2:14-15.

In a land stripped of forests and natural resources, I watched as pastors at Kibera Evangelical Seminary heard the call of Genesis 1 to be stewards of God’s creation.

I listened to the story of an abandoned Korogocho street kid who had struggled with drug addiction but found dignity, hope and purpose–a successful business, a home and a family of his own–through the care and support of the local church.

I saw churches in Kibera and Korokocho committed to the hard work of educating children and orphans who could not afford to pay tuition elsewhere. They sought innovative ways to generate income while also teaching their students skills like raising chickens and sewing school uniforms and dresses. This is the slow, hard work of redemption and transformation.

Through International Justice Mission’s work, the dignity and legal rights of Nairobi’s most vulnerable were being restored and defended, and a corrupt and under-trained police force was learning how to properly conduct investigations.

In Addis, where poverty is present across the board, where 95% of housing is slum housing–we saw the fruit of IHA-UDP leaders listening to the voices of the local community–in new housing units and complexes, in a day care center for seniors, in a youth recreation center, and in the Institute for Urban Workers that trains leaders from all over the city to do more of the same–to holistically address the complex problems of poverty–in their own communities.

I witnessed the history and beauty of the Ethiopian people and their culture as I wandered in and out of traditional clothing shops, each one offering a unique selection of colors and styles. In the taste of injera, in the sounds of live music and in the talent and precision of the traditional dancers at the Fasika restaurant. In the gracious hospitality of Dr. Jember and her staff at the Integrated Holistic Approach-Urban Development Project, and in the carefully prepared meal they provided.

More Pictures from Africa

Here are a few more pictures from our pilgrimage. Our young adult group from church watched Hotel Rwanda tonight, and it reminded me of the places we had been, and the people we had met. I think I saw the film a little differently this time, because now I see Africa a little differently, even after being there such a short time. And I’m not saying that all African countries are just like Rwanda, but I definitely noticed some parallels in the movie to the places I visited, most notably, how the legacy of European colonization is still playing out in conflicts/crises today: Rwanda was occupied by Belgium, Kenya by Britain and Ethiopia by Italy. These places are dealing with massive housing and food crises, ethnic and tribal conflicts and corrupt governments, all of which can be traced directly or indirectly to decisions made by exiting colonial powers.

Eugene Peterson: On the Church in N. America

The writings of Eugene Peterson should be on the shelf of every pastor and every Christian for that matter. In this quote, taken from his latest book, Practicing Resurrection: A Conversation on Growing Up in Christ, he tells about his own coming to grips with the church’s capitulation to American consumerism:

“I have been a participating member of the Christian church in North America all my life (for 75 years). For fifty of those years I have had a position of responsibility as pastor in the church. Over the course of those fifty years I have seen both the church and my vocation as a pastor in it relentlessly diminished and corrupted by being redefined in terms of running an ecclesiastical business. The ink on my ordination paper wasn’t even dry before I was being told by experts in the field of church that my main task was to run a church after the manner of my brother and sister Christians who run service stations, grocery stores, corporations, banks, hospitals, and financial services. Many of these experts wrote books and gave lectures on how to do it. I was astonished to learn in one of these best-selling books that the size of my church parking lot had far more to do with how things fared in my congregation than my choice of texts in preaching. After a few years of trying to take all of this seriously, I decided that I was being lied to.” (P.23)