Archive for the ‘Jesus’ Category

Because Jesus didn’t have kids.

Thursday, July 30th, 2009

Something struck me for the first time today: Jesus didn’t have children.

I know, duh, right.  Like wow Jason, Seminary, really?!?  There’s 30grand well spent!

But here me out.  For many reasons i have been feeling a sense of fear and anxiety about my kid lately.  Not the existential kind of fears like will he grow up to be a good guy? will i survive the phase when he hates me?   But honest to God fears for his safety.  I think this has been brought on by a handful of things.

1st, Tara and I just watched a mini series on the BBC America (yep, we’re nerds) called Torchwood:Children of Earth and it was compelling, entertaining and disturbing.  I recomend it for those of you who don’t have kids, for those who do — not so much.

2nd, There’s been a bit of an uptick in crime in my neighborhood these last few days.  And it makes me nervous because it is happening during the day which is when i am home alone with Ethan.

3rd, I have been following the adventure’s of my friends the Alt’s who have traveled (along with a 8(?) year old daughter) to Guinea, one of the world’s poorest countries.

All of these things together have got me wondering how radically faithful am i willing to be now that I have a wife and especially a son.  Don’t get me wrong, its not that I was radically faithful before, but i have a better sense of what that could look like now and a better sense of how my life doesn’t look like that at all.

So the question is, is there a limit of how much like Jesus I can be with a kid?

or put another way…

If He were in my life circumstance, what would Jesus do?

No one knows.  Why?  Because Jesus didn’t have kids.

Posted in Ethics, Faith, Fatherhood, Jesus, Uncategorized | 7 Comments »

In Defense of Story

Thursday, May 14th, 2009

I had a wonderful conversation a few weeks back with a friend who I think could be described as being on the margins of Christianity looking in.  And in the conversation I had to “defend” two things that I have rarely, if ever, had to defend before: Story, and Prayer.  And in defending them I found a connection between the 2 I had never seen before, let me explain.

This wonderful person understood perfectly well the radical nature and importance of the teachings of Jesus.  In fact, if we all held Jesus’ teaching so seriously the world would most certainly be a better place.  But what she didn’t get was why it was important to read the “rest” of the Bible.  Why spend so much time and energy on all these “stories” when what really mattered was the teachings of Jesus?  Why did the OT matter?  Why did the resurrection matter?  Why did the early church and Pentecost matter?  She wasn’t being confrontational, she just didn’t understand, and she wanted to.

In addition, she didn’t understand why it was important to do anything other then read, learn, and try to put into practice, the teachings of Jesus.  Why do we pray?  Why do liturgy?  Worship?  Communion?  Stations?  Etc.  Etc.

And in my stumbling answer I found that there was really one answer to both questions: a relationship with God.

We read the stories of the Bible because it is in the stories of the Bible that we are introduced to this particular God named Yahweh.  We pray, worship, etc. because that is the way we foster our relationship with Yahweh.

Granted, many of our churches spend a lot of time on fostering their relationships with God without dealing with the radical ethical demands of God’s primary revelation — Jesus.  And this is a failing that many of us in the Emerging Church recognize and are trying (with various success) to correct.  But I strongly believe that to fail in the other direction is just as dangerous to the church, our soles and ultimately the world.

Because, and this is really my point, the message of Jesus’ teachings divorced from the relationship with Jesus as God is not good news; is not gospel.

The stories of God, the stories of Jesus, introduce us to the God that loves evey one of us.  The ethics of Jesus are based on the reality of that universal love.  I am afraid that without the understanding of God’s universal love for us the ethics of Jesus become a damningly unattainable ideal devoid of any hope of fulfillment.

So we read the stories about God and Jesus and the church, to meet and fall in love with this God that we see in Jesus.  And we pray, worship, etc. to foster that love affair.  And we study the ethics of Jesus to try to be the beacons of that loving God to a hurting world.

Posted in Emerging Church, Ethics, Hope, Jesus, Story | 2 Comments »