ethans feet

I am a wonderful creation made to be the perfect image of a beautiful God, broken and inclined to evil all the time.

So we’re sitting on the couch having a toss with this plastic ring when the following conversation ensued:

“I’m tired of this game daddy, I’m gunna go watch TV”

“OK, bye bye bud”

“Daddy, I need you to come with me”

“Oh, bud, I don’t wanna watch TV right now, I’ll play another game with you, or read a book, or play with a toy with you”

…pause…

“OK, bye bye daddy”

A few quick notes from my preaching on Genesis 1 the last few weeks.

1. It’s all GOOD

1. Genesis 1 is a statement about the present – its liturgy.
2. Making that claim has real world ramifications – it’s an act of resistance against hate, fear, hopelessness and revenge.

2. Human beings ARE special

1. We are the IMAGE BEARERS of God
2. That should inform how we behave in the world

3. Garden is not the end of the story

1. Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth
2. Revelation 21 – what begins in a garden ends in a city
3. ours is not a religion that looks back but forward

4. We image a God of Sabbath
a. To work hard, and rest well, and to celebrate routinely, is the rhythm of life demanded by the task of being God’s image bearers on earth.

Come have dinner with us at Hank’s Tavern next Tuesday (9/22) as we are joined by author and speaker Brian McLaren as he talks about a christian perspective on care for the environment.

Get details and RSVP here: http://www.meetup.com/CollegeParkCohort/

I hope to see you there.

• What is the church? The body of Christ.  The people of God.  Church & Israel. 
• Where is the church? “Whoever hears you hears me.  Whoever visits them visits me.”  So Christ is in us calling us to proclaim Him AND Christ is in the outsider calling us to join Him.  A cyber church would be a church without the Eucharist.  Our “near” senses are under developed and our “far” senses are overdeveloped.  I still believe in the flesh community where we can engage each other with all of our 5 senses. 
• What is the role of the Eucharist? We do not celebrate our theories about his presence but his present.  Let’s start by celebrating His presence THEN we can talk about our different theories about how He is present. 
• The church is both a gathering and a sending. 

“We believe in the justification of human beings through faith ALONE and not through faith and heterosexuality” — Jurgen Moltmann.  So that’s that then.

This is a sketch of all this man has been through.  POW, veteran of WWII – on the German side, lost a son, brother euthanized for having a disability.  Yikes.  And this is the man who wrote A Theology of Hope.  Only in Jesus!

• Emergence vs. evolution. The idea that something NEW can emerge out of what is.  That the whole is MORE than the sum of the parts.  We cannot totally understand the something new simply by understanding the parts.  The world is not annihilated but transformed.  Deified (God indwelled).  The struggle between theology and science is better than mutual silence.

• Do we co-operate with God? Yep.  Even Paul says.  It’s not that god has NO hands but ours.  But God gives us the ability to respond and we have responsibility to do so.  He wants us to come of age and not to act like little children waiting for God to do everything.  And Calvin would agree with this.

• Original Sin: Augustan found this very important.  These ideas lead to a sort of Gnosticism.  We have received life and should give life to another generation.  Original sin has nothing to do with procreation.  The idea has more to do with COLLECTIVE GUILT, everyone is guilty of everything that happens in the world, because everything is inter-related.  We need a liberation from this universal guilt.  Sin came into the world through Cain and Abel.
• Atonement: Sacrificial language of Paul in the NT.  God is himself giving the sacrifice he is not asking for one.  God is always the protagonist.  Love takes God out of himself.
• Eschatology: New Creation is not the end but the beginning of the new creation.  Dispensationalism is not a Christian idea (it’s a Jewish one), based on the 7 day creation.  Creation is getting older and older until the end.