God's Kingdom?

"Jesus, remember me when you come in your Kingdom!"  These were a few of the words that the Gospel-writer, Luke, records from one of the thieves next to Jesus on a cross like His.  Jesus responds remarkably favorably to him, especially considering that these were probably no ordinary thieves.  Robbery usually wasn't cause for crucifixion - they may have been revolutionaries, guilty of at least murder.  Jesus' promise of being with Him in paradise must have been even more surprising to those around the scene, since Matthew and Mark report that both thieves were hurling insults at Jesus.  Something that Jesus did or said must have made a big impression on this particular thief, because despite probably having only second-hand knowledge of this unusual man next to him, he makes an amazing request.

This was a time when even Jesus' disciples, who had been with him on this journey for three years, didn't quite understand what Jesus meant when He kept talking about His Kingdom.  They kept thinking that Jesus was going to bring about an earthly Kingdom, overthrowing the Roman empire and setting up a Jewish state again.  Even when Jesus rose from the dead, His disciples persisted in asking Him about an earthly Kingdom.  Yet this thief next to Jesus looked at a man clearly dying and spoke with expectancy about his kingdom!  Nobody looks at a dying man and starts dreaming about his future reign (this is part of why His disciples were so upset by the crucifixion!).  This thief suddenly understood that Jesus' Kingdom was not of this earth - something that so many others who knew Him better had missed.  This may be why Jesus is so quick to commend him.

Are there situations today where we are acting more like Jesus' disciples than this thief?  We're still waiting for that Christendom to be set up here on earth, hoping that our next Presidential election will finally bring Christian values flooding back into our nation.  We're railing about homosexual marriage laws, abortion laws, prayer in schools, taking down the Ten Commandments statues, and so on, longing for a return to a day when Christianity will be the Law of the Land.  Are we looking for an earthly Kingdom instead of Jesus' Kingdom?  Is there a subtle difference between "Thy Kingdom come" and setting up Jesus as an earthly King?  Certainly doesn't mean that we don't get involved in politics and governmental affairs - quite the opposite.  But our ultimate hope is in Heaven, not in Earth.

You're so Judgmental!

Have you ever wondered why God seems so judgmental?  Throughout the Old Testament, God continually goes back and forth between telling His chosen people, Israel, that He is with them and that He is going to turn against them.  From wandering in the desert to being driven into exile, God's punishments against Israel seem to overshadow his promises of care.  And yet, over and over again, we see them side-by-side!  Many have looked at the Old Testament and cringed at this "judgmental" God that seems to constantly be destroying His own people.  But perhaps we are looking at this in the wrong way.

When we complain that God is judgmental, we are using a term that, in English at least, conveys a sense of finality.  A judgment is made by the judge, and you are going to prison or you are going free.  It's done.  However, the writer of Hebrews speaks of God disciplining His children.  The difference is in the relationship.  We usually think of discipline in terms of a parent and child relationship.  In this relationship, it's not final.  Discipline requires a commitment of fidelity that ensures the relationship will go on despite the firm stand for what is right.  Seeing this committed relationship between God and Israel changes everything.

I believe that perhaps we are mixing up terms.  God was not "judging" Israel in the sense that there was a finality.  He was disciplining them, because He had a covenant to remain with them.  Although they were faithless, God was faithful.  Even though He disciplined them severely, He never abandoned them.  My prayer is that we can adopt the same stance with people around us.  It's almost every day that Christians are accused of being judgmental for taking a stand on something.  If Christians are able to build a relationship with people, perhaps we can get to a place where "judgment" begins to be viewed within the context of a committed relationship.  When a good friend tells you that you are making a mistake, it isn't judgment, it's wisdom.

Enemies, or Victims?

What do you believe about punishment?  I had the chance to learn from a friend in my seminary class who is from Uganda.  As he described the situation going on in northern Uganda in which the Acholi people are caught in the middle of violence between the government and the rebels, I realized that we have something to learn from them.  The Acholi people do not believe in punishment.  They believe in restoration.  They have cultural rituals in place to restore people, because in their view, if somebody does something to hurt you, it's not their fault, it's everyone's fault.  The society is a community.  Therefore, when you are hurt, you have to stand strong to avoid losing your humanity so that you can pick the other person back up.

So now there is a situation where the children of the Acholi tribe are being kidnapped at a young age and brainwashed into soldiers.  What are the Acholi to do?  You cannot punish the rebel soldiers - not only are they your brothers and children, but it is not really their fault.  They were themselves the victims!  Therefore the rebels need to be restored and rehabilitated, not punished.

I believe that we have a similar situation as Christians.  While Christians often have an instinct to treat those who are not Christian like enemies, that is very far from what Jesus taught.  The Jews wanted Jesus to stand up and punish the Romans, but Jesus knew that the Romans were not the enemy, they were in fact victims of the same enemy that we all have.  Therefore, the Romans do not need to be fought against, they need to be liberated and restored just the same as the Jews did.

Are there any people in our lives whom we are treating as enemies when they are actually victims?

Exponential

First published on "Stories of LINC North Texas"

What would it look like to achieve exponential growth in an organization?

I would like to take a moment to consider what the word exponential means.  It's a term that we talk about a lot, but I'm not sure that we're looking at the whole picture.  This graph (source: Wikipedia, "Exponential Growth"), shows such a line.  Let's consider each of the three lines as if they were a church congregation.  The red line is "linear" growth.  Every year, 50 new members are added.  That's great growth!  The blue line is "cubic" growth.  Each year, the church grows at a faster and faster rate.  That's even better - this would be a great goal for any church.  But the green line represents what is truly exponential growth.  Each year, the number of members doubles.  This represents incredible growth, staggering to nearly any organization!

But what does this term, exponential, mean to us, really?  It seems that most of us, when we think about exponential growth, think about that overwhelming point of growth....later on down the line.  We are looking at the growth that the graph shows around year 9 and 10.  But if we look back toward the beginning, the line looks stagnant!  Even further down the graph, it takes 9 years to surpass the linear growth, and 10 to surpass the cubic growth!  Many of us would look at the growth happening on the green line for the first five years and conclude that the project was a failure.  In reality, that project is preparing to reach a tipping point where it will far surpass all of its peers.

Let's think seriously about how to start out if we want to achieve exponential growth.  I believe that this graph reminds us that we need to be prepared to start slowly and be okay with staying small for quite a while.  At LINC North Texas, we are blessed to be well down the line.  I would place LINC NT at about the 7 point on the graph - after years of investing in the foundation, we are starting to see incredible things happen, and we as a staff are getting more and more excited about what God has in store for us on down the line!

A Touch of Culture

I don't make much secret of the fact that my favorite TV program is a show that most people have probably never heard of.  CBS' Sunday Morning runs from 8-9:30am on Sundays, an hour when most people are perhaps just getting up, or heading off to church.  I didn't watch it as much until I got married, when the reality of being married to a worship leader set in that I would usually up by 6am on Sunday mornings to help my wife get ready for church.  But now it's a cherished tradition for me, beginning with a nice homemade latte and continuing with all of my ironing for the week.  The show always ends with a moment of nature - a wonderful segment of beautiful scenery from around the world.

Sunday Morning is a touch of a different side of television from what you can normally get.  Hosted by the slightly-quirky but endearing Charles Osgood, the show is a televised magazine of news and human interest stories, taking a break from the usual doldrums of the daily news.  On Sunday mornings, I get a tour of off-the-beaten-path current events, culture, and knowledge that I would never have otherwise gained.  Over the last couple months, I've learned about the dark side of the extra-virgin olive oil industry, the incredible cure for cancer developed by a brilliant high school student, the art of automatons (the supporting cast member from Hugo), the dramatic Olympics of art festivals in Venice called the Biennale, and more.  Much of it is punctuated by a bit of commentary - it's a news show that makes no attempt to be unbiased, but you won't find traditional party lines here, you'll find opinions expressed from all over the field.

Maybe it's a bit of a silly enjoyment, but I find great value in the opportunity to hear something that I'm not hearing from anybody else, learn something that I never would have learned otherwise, and hear a unique perspective that nobody else is speaking.  I can't hope to gain wisdom unless I keep my ears open in this way.  It's worth everything.

Limits or Liminality?

I have a small bust of Aristotle on my desk.  He watches me while I do my work here at home.  My wife wasn't a huge fan of him on our bookshelves watching us eat, so he has moved here.  My good friend and brother Daniel gave him to me along with one of my favorite quotes, which evokes a sort of Network-like feeling, that the real challenge and goal is to be "angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way."  I appreciate so much of what Aristotle wrote about, particularly about moderation and how the ideal is to live within two extremes.  When Paul wrote in Philippians 4:5 to let our ἐπιεικής (may be translated moderation or appropriateness) be known to all men, I think of Aristotle telling us to not be too courageous, nor too cowardly; not to be too gluttonous, nor too starving.


And yet today, we seem to have thrown most of that moderation out the window.  Everywhere we look is excess.  I think of enormous parking lots that drive traffic to those enormous temples of human consumption (translate: shopping malls, Walmarts, etc.) as places of excess that no longer serve the function that they could have.  In Aristotle's time, they had enormous markets, but they served not only as places to buy and sell, but as places to discuss ideas and meet new people.  The Greek markets didn't require enormous plots of land for parking because everyone walked.  Of course, I'm not simply bemoaning cars or malls - my wife and I have a few errands today and it's very possible that we will use my car to drive to a mall - but I'm bemoaning the fact that a bit of the social landscape has been lost.  I'll be the first to argue that Facebook is a bit of the modern Ἀγορά but Facebook inherently revolves around your preexisting social circles.  Try to befriend somebody new on Facebook.  I'm bemoaning the fact that our gluttonous use of cars is ruining the environment.  And I'm bemoaning the fact that our dangerous bent on consumption is unsustainable.


Capitalism is built on the necessity of growth.  Stagnation is death.  In order to pay off the loans required for startup, growth is necessary, which requires more loans and investments.  The cycle continues.  In order to keep growing, they must inspire us to use their products and services - therefore it's necessary for a business' survival to turn us all into bigger and bigger consumers.  The more we grow, the more we outstrip our planet's natural resources, and the more we face our own man-made deserts and dry wells.  Some experts already believe that in many places around the globe we are already reaching the limits of the planet's resources.  Cities are inherently parasitical - they require vast amounts of land to produce the resources they consume.  With the global urbanization being the greatest human migration in history, what does this spell for us long-term?


I don't mean to be apocalyptic, but I do believe that we should be at least cognizant of these issues.  I believe that there is value in Aristotle's virtue of moderation.  It seems that the concept of living within limits was very much alive and well until the relatively recent past.  It used to be a virtue.  Now buying securities on margin, credit card debt, and endless growth are the virtues.  The Latin word that has become our English word "liminality" refers to a threshold.  Are we abandoning limits and finding ourselves at liminality just before great danger?

This is what we are about.

What is your role in working for the Kingdom of God?  How much will you accomplish?

Bishop Ken Untener wrote the following prayer for Cardinal John Dearden in 1979:

It helps, now and then, to step back
and take a long view.

The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is even beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying
that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.

We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation
in realizing that.  This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well.  It may be incomplete,
but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference
between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.

We are prophets of a future not our own.

When I am reminded of this prayer I know that I have been guilty of a pride that knows no bounds.  In working to accomplish something great for God here on earth, I have minimized the work of those who have come before me, those who will come after me, and most importantly, the work of the Lord himself.  If it is true, as Ronald Reagan suggested, that we are only as great as we are able to stand on the shoulders of the generations before us, then surely we owe everything to the great heroes of the faith from the day the foundations of the earth were laid up to the mentors who passed the torches to us.  I am not the master builder.

Indeed we have forgotten what it is all about, when we think that the next big initiative of our church's strategic plan will really get the church to where it needs to be, and change the community around it.  Surely we have lost the plot when we believe that we, as individuals, churches, organizations, or communities can change the world.  Truly, we are off the mark when we put our faith in a program or activity.

May we always remember our roles - as little hands and feet scurrying about trying to obey God.  Jesus said, "If you love me, you will obey what I command."  God alone is the master builder and messiah, who directs a mighty orchestra.  On this side the prophets, on that side the evangelists, now the servants, now the administrators.  Bring up the teachers, let the pastors lead the melody.  And now hear the shouts of the great cloud of witnesses, that awesome chorus of encouragers from ages past.  May we be encouraged today to stand firm in our oh-so-small, but vitally important, individual roles.