Category: Blog

This piece was originally published at Patheos on January 9, 2013.

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How is a justice movement sustained? In my first post on this subject, I wrote that first and foremost, a justice movement is sustained by knowing that Jesus alone can and will sustain it. Apart from him, we can do nothing (John 15:5). Another key factor that we must realize is that when we serve others we are serving him. What difference might it make to you and me in caring for a sick person, an elderly widow, someone imprisoned, or an orphan in distress if we were to sense that in caring for them we are serving Jesus?

In the account of the sheep and goats in Matthew 25, Jesus is recorded as saying, “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me…Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’” (Matthew 25:34-36, 40) While it may very well be the case that the Lord is talking first and foremost about caring for his followers in need, I believe his words bear upon ministering to all people. When we serve them, we serve him.

So, how shall we serve? Will we use those we serve to benefit us or our ministries? All too often, we find our worth through serving people rather than serving them in view of the worth we have in being loved by God. By the way, it is worth noting in this regard that the sheep here in Matthew 25 don’t even realize that they are sheep. Whereas the goats seem to be surprised to find out that they haven’t been caring for Jesus, the sheep are not cognizant of having done so. I take this to mean that they are not self-conscious, but conscious of the other (See Matthew 25:37-39, 44). Jesus tells us this story because he definitely wants us to keep in mind that when we care for others in need we care for him and because of him we are to care for others in need.

The more we grow in the love of God the more we serve not so as to benefit ourselves, but to benefit the one who loves us. Our joy flows from loving the one who loves us and who loves those we serve. If I care for others because I want to assure myself that I am a sheep and not a goat, I am not really caring for them, but for myself through them. But as I know the love of God revealed in Jesus and that in serving them I am serving him who identifies himself with them I believe I will come to love them truly and freely with no strings attached.

A justice movement that uses people to build one’s ego or one’s ministry profile is no justice movement at all. Justice flows from the loving and compassionate heart of God and leads to the love of the other with whom Jesus identifies himself in prison, in hunger, in loneliness and abandonment, in sickness and in various other forms of need.

This piece was originally published at Patheos on January 8, 2013.

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Perhaps you have seen bumper stickers that read “Jesus is changing the world one individual at a time.” This statement takes into account the very personal nature of Jesus’ engagement of us. Notice how often in the Gospels Jesus engages individuals—Zacchaeus (Luke 19), Mary and Martha (Luke 10 and John 11), Nicodemus (John 3), the Samaritan woman (John 4), the rich young ruler (Luke 18), the Canaanite woman (Matthew 15), the lame man (John 5), and blind man (John 9). For all my concern for systemic issues of injustice, I must never forget that Jesus never forgets the individual and how he often transforms the person’s life such as Nicodemus or the Samaritan woman from the inside out. In fact, my wife who is a Japanese national will always remind me not to lose sight of this focus on the individual. She came to Christ in Japan. She had never heard talk of a personal God who loved the world, even her. When she heard the good news that Jesus loved her and gave his life for her (John 3:16), she responded in faith to him. To this day, it is the best news she has ever heard.

This same Jesus who changes individuals’ lives is also changing structures. He’s changing the world one relational structure at a time. Just think of the Samaritan woman. Jesus breaks through the cultural taboos by reaching out to this Samaritan woman. He talks to her. He asks her for a drink. John chapter 4 tells us that Jews would not even use the dishes that Samaritans have used (John 4:9). Jesus did not allow the cultural taboos and ideology that separated his people from the Samaritans to keep him from breaking into her life with God’s life-giving water of eternal love (John 4:10, 13-14).

Jesus even put himself in a position of need. He really was thirsty and he really did ask her for help (John 4:6-8). Here, too, he is breaking down barriers. I doubt many of his people would ever wish to ‘stoop so low’ to engage this woman and share with her God’s love. How far will we ‘stoop’? What cultural barriers will we cross and taboos will we challenge to share God’s love with others? Even Jesus’ statement that it is not a matter of worshipping on this or that mountain but in Spirit and truth that constitutes the worship that God seeks (John 4:21-24) challenges once again the structures that separated the Jews from the Samaritans. He relativizes their cultural boundaries and personalizes religion and makes it accessible to all equally, thereby making it possible for this least likely of Samaritans (having been married to five men and now living with one to whom she is not married—John 4:17-18) to succeed in receiving eternal life and be his witness to her whole community (John 4:28-30). Jesus is indeed changing the world one relational structure at a time.

This piece was originally published at Patheos on January 7, 2013.

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A dear friend and advisor of mine who is African American is battling cancer. As we spoke on the phone yesterday, she told me that “Disease neutralizes racism.” Her statement was based in the reality of her recent experience with fighting for her life, not the result of sterile, idle reflection.

While waiting for her cancer treatments over the past several weeks, she has built a bond with other cancer patients and their families in the waiting room. Cancer is no respecter of persons, including diverse ethnicities. Her new friends are from various ethnic backgrounds. While originally polite though reserved and distant, they have developed a heart connection. My friend has given them little angel figurines. Their eyes light up, whenever they receive these gifts of friendship. My friend assures them that she is thinking of them and that they are not alone.

My friend’s statement that “Disease neutralizes racism” struck me as so true. I should add that she has been engaged in the battle against racism for a long time. She is a tireless though winsome warrior whose battle against cancerous hatred and indifference no doubt influences her in the battle against cancer in her body and in the waiting room. She won’t allow the sense of hopelessness and despondence and numbness that the war with cancer brings to people’s hearts and lives keep her from reaching upward to God and outward toward those engaged in this waiting game between life and death.

I have learned a lot about life from my friend. She continues to teach and strengthen me, even when I call to encourage her. I learned from yesterday’s conversation that as a society we need to discern far better where the real battle rages. Death is a far greater foe than those ideological enemies like racism, which we create in our minds concerning those of different ethnicities.

Notice that my friend did not say that disease kills racism. Just like when troops return home from war, the racism that separated them as those of diverse ethnicities before they were guarding one another’s backs and lives in battles with much larger foes often returns to divide them after they return home. If only we could somehow keep our larger foes like death in view all the time. Then perhaps the disease of racism would never be able to return.

We need to know who our true friends and real enemies are. It shouldn’t be the case that ethnicity divides us. We are all locked in a waiting room waging a battle between life and death. The cancer of racism can steal our lives and ravage our souls. We don’t have the strength to wage racial battles against the ethnic other.

My friend who touches people’s lives with precious angel figurines has been touched by more than an angel. She draws her strength from the one who destroyed the grip of death through his resurrection from the grave (See for example 1 Corinthians 15:54-88). Death has no lasting grip on her. Jesus’ life and love do. The same powerful love that raised Jesus from the dead and that lifts my friend’s spirit and brings the glory of God into waiting rooms in cancer wards is the same powerful love that will not simply neutralize but ultimately destroy racism (See for example Galatians 3:28). Like my friend, may we live now in light of that day.

This piece was originally published at Patheos on January 5, 2013.

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Last night as I was driving home, I turned to a classic rock station that was playing AC/DC’s song, “Hell’s Bells.” The menacing tune with ‘for whom the bell tolls’ sounds might or might not be intended to send chills down the listener’s back with talk of Satan’s impending grip on you. Whatever the case might be, the song did not appear to have any grip or impact on what followed: a wide-ranging infomercial and light-hearted discussion on such topics as Lasik eye surgery.

I’ve heard talk of rock groups playing the Satan card to make more money and fill their bank vaults. I don’t know what the case was or is for AC/DC, but I do know the church of various stripes throughout its history has used Hell and Purgatory talk to load its coffers and treasuries. Perhaps the lack of impact or relevance concerning Heaven and Hell talk in many circles today results in part from people being burned out on religious establishment schemes to make money based on such verbiage. It’s almost as if the subject raises as much interest today as plugs for Lasik eye surgery and tooth extractions do for many people driving home.

For Jesus, on the other hand, the discussion of Heaven and Hell has incredible relevance for all people driving home—not simply for the future, but for how all of us live today. Jesus talked at great length about the subject and brought it to bear on such topics as caring for the poor and marginalized. Contrary to how Heaven and Hell has been portrayed in some Christian circles, where it is preached that because the Kingdom of God has been given to his followers they don’t need to care for the poor, for Jesus, because the Kingdom of God has been given to his followers, they will care for the poor.

Following on the heels of the passage in Luke’s Gospel where Jesus develops a parable of a rich man whose life is taken from him because he greedily invests in himself rather than in God (Luke 12:16-21; see also the preceding text that introduces the parable—Luke 12:13-15), Jesus says, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Luke 12:32-34). To the rich man who stored up riches for himself and not toward God and others, Jesus declares that God says: “‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God” (Luke 12:20-21).

The rich man could have benefited from spiritual Lasik eye surgery. He may have perceived well how to make money and invest it for himself; but he was completely blind to spiritual and relational matters. In contrast, I recall with admiration a team of Christian medical doctors who had renounced lucrative careers in the West to invest in the arduous work of setting up an eye clinic in an impoverished and distant corner of the world. Among other things, they removed cataracts so that people could see clearly. They took seriously Jesus’ unending plug for spiritual Lasik eye surgery and the need to see clearly spiritually and to care for the poor. These doctors were rich toward God and not turning into modern day versions of the rich fool. AC/DC’s song about Hell may or may not be a serious reflection on what the rock group believes awaits people here and beyond, but I can assure you that to Jesus and these doctors, all his talk of Heaven and Hell and the Kingdom of God is more than a great parable or infomercial.

How well are you and I seeing spiritually today?

This piece was originally published at Patheos on January 3, 2013.

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There’s so much interest in zombies today due to The Walking Dead television series and video games with zombies, among other things. In preparing my piece on Ezekiel’s vision of the valley where the vast army of dry bones comes to life, I even came upon a reflection comparing this army to zombies. Zombie mania.

Zombie mania raises all kinds of interest on a variety of subjects, including questions about the afterlife and the relation of the soul to the body. What’s the difference between a zombie and a person bodily raised from the dead? Generally speaking, zombies have been cast as having no consciousness and whose bodies are not transformed. They are quite simply the walking dead. For some, the Christian notion of an embodied soul and the resurrection of the body is as fictional as the concept of a zombie-state. Regardless of what one makes of these concepts, what is not so fictional is the ethical import that such concepts generate.

What’s the difference between killing a zombie and killing a human? If zombies were to have consciousness, what import would this have for video game shootings, where mesmerized youths and adults go into a zombie-like state of gunning down these walking dead eating machines? It’s one thing to shoot up a bunch of walking corpses; it’s quite another to bludgeon human characters, no matter how fictional they are. My friend John Morehead, who has written on zombies (See for example his co-edited work, The Undead and Theology), drew my attention to the first episode of The Walking Dead, which includes a segment where a man’s dead wife comes back as a zombie. She shows signs of possible memory, as she returns to her house and looks in the keyhole. The husband wants to kill the zombie form of his dead spouse, but cannot bring himself to pull the trigger on his gun. Would we pull the trigger or pull the plug in video games or in reality if there really were zombies with consciousness? Would we pull the trigger or plug if we weren’t talking about zombies, but about people who were brain dead, or if we viewed people’s conscious state as nothing more than a bodily, material function?

Now if humans were not to have souls or a state of consciousness that is more than a bodily material function, but were simply eating and consuming masses not yet dead, why not shoot them up? Is there anything sacred about the material mundane beyond mere sentiment and emotional associations that we make with certain human bodies we prize? How does killing zombies affect our consciousness as humans? How do such killings and the questions about them affect our consciousness of other humans?

Fictional or not, could it be that zombie mania suggests that we are all wired to long for something more than mere matter and more than only one shot at life, including perhaps the resurrection of the body and the fundamental union of souls with bodies? When noble fictions or doctrinal truths such as these are jettisoned or longing for them suppressed, what rational and ethical grounds are left to safeguard against zombie mania leading our culture into a zombie rampage killing spree?