RUN IN SUCH A WAY, AS NOT WITHOUT AIM

Our Thursday evening gatherings are currently in the middle of studying the Gospel of St. Luke a chapter a week. The following is the homily given for chapter 9. It’s pretty intense subject matter, but I guess most of what we read in the Bible is. It would be great if it got some dialogue rolling. Let us know your thoughts.

Holy week and Easter Sunday have come and gone. We’ve meditated on the death of Christ and celebrated his resurrection, and now, as St. Paul the Apostle tells us, in the first chapter of Colossians, “He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions”, and he also “disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them…” This is good news. We can truly be free from all oppression inward and outward, but now there is much work to be done; as his disciples and together as his church we now need to bear the fruits of his work, his resurrection, his forgiveness, his triumph over the rulers and authorities, into all the world and into Jackson County.
Christ is our risen King and all of our allegiance is to him and all of our work is to center around witnessing to the presence of his Kingdom in the midst of this civilization that rejected him and so has rejected God. Naturally this will lead to conflict in this world in the same way that our Lord’s life led him to the cross. But we have no reason to be afraid for Christ has overcome this world. And has given us his Spirit to teach us the wisdom of life. Wisdom, as Paul proclaims in the second chapter of 1st Corinthians, “not of this age nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away; but…God’s wisdom…which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it they would not have crucified the Lord…”
Even before Jesus literally hung upon the cross, in space and time, the symbol of the cross and the concept of dying to self was central in his teaching to his disciples, even if they didn’t always understand what he was talking about. And if we want to understand what he is talking about we need more that just Good Friday to ponder it of course. Because the cross is central, Paul even said that he preached nothing but Christ, and him crucified. So I’m glad our study of Luke has led us here to take yet another look. –Here read Luke 9:20-27—
Here we first see Peter take his stand with Christ. He acknowledges that his teacher and friend Jesus is the Messiah. He confesses with his mouth and believes in his heart. He steps across the threshold of faith. But this is not the completion of his salvation, this is only a beginning. Because to take your stand with Christ is to accept the responsibility of a “costly grace” as Dietrich Bonhoeffer describes it. Who also says, in his book The Cost of Discipleship, “When Christ calls a man he bids him come and die…[Grace] is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life.”
But what is this Cross that Jesus bids us to take up daily? Christians have often used the cross as a metaphor for any and every kind of suffering, sickness, or tension in our lives that we must grin and bear until we make it up to heaven. But is this what Peter and the other disciples would have understood as the cross? Crucifixion was the Roman penalty for rebels and revolutionaries, those who would not bow to Caesar, those who were a threat to power. These are the images that would come to mind when the disciples heard the phrase “take up your cross”. And though they may not have understood yet that Jesus was literally going to be killed, they would have started to understand already that this kingdom he was always talking about was deeply subversive.
John Howard Yoder, in his book The Politics of Jesus, elaborates quite well on what this subversive Kingdom and cross mean for our lives today (I recommend reading the whole book because he writes from the perspective of responding to questions mainstream evangelicals may have towards a more social/political reading of the gospel, plus he roots a lot of his study in the book of Luke). First he reminds us that the only way in which the bible specifically demands that we imitate Christ is in his cross and that, “The believer’s cross must be, like his Lord’s, the price of his social nonconformity.” And again he writes that Jesus calls us to live, “an ethic marked by the cross, a cross identified as the punishment of a man who threatens society by creating a new kind of community leading a radically new kind of life.”
One of the ways that Jesus was so threatening to society is that he claimed, quite outrageously to some, that allegiance to him and his kingdom community should take precedence over any other relationship in our life – our relationship to family, nation, possessions, and our self. This was too rigid a request for many, so many turned away from following Jesus as we see at the end of Luke 9. Yoder ponders the difference of the modern church trying to make discipleship popular and attractive to the masses, while Jesus’ ministry started thinning down the crowds when they realized what he was actually up to, but he comments that in the end, “the point is not the tactical question, whether Jesus wanted many disciples or few, what matters is the quality of the life to which the disciple is called. The answer is that to be a disciple is to share in that style of life of which the cross is the culmination.”
Wow! Read that last line again. That’s heavy stuff. But wait. Does that mean we have to look for ways to get ourselves killed all the time (or at least arrested, as may P & J activists seem to make a career out of)? No. The life style Jesus gives to us is one of freedom, life, and joy; learning the glory of sharing everything in common, serving, community, and becoming fully human. However it is these very qualities that are incompatible with “the powers that be”. As Yoder says about Jesus, “His very obedience unto death is in itself not only the sign but also the first fruits of an authentic restored humanity. Here we have for the first time to do with a man who is not the slave of any power, of any law or custom, community, or institution, value or theory. Not even to save his own life will he let himself be made a slave of these powers.”
Paul exhorts us that “to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” This narrow way Christ offers us is gain! It is good! It is the most fulfilling, joyful, and liberating life there is! Liberating for us and for all of creation. But if that is so then why do the powers want to kill it? Well, why have they always killed everything that is good and beautiful and true? Because they are not those things and they are jealous, and besides those things don’t give them more power. The biblical writers clearly understand this. (For a thorough study on the biblical critique of power see Jacques Ellul’s Anarchy and Christianity)
But if it is so good for people why don’t more people choose this life. Well, Jesus did say his was the narrow way. It takes deep belief in God’s promises, and a lot of courage, and a lot of grace. All the powers of hell are working to thwart you from this way. We are in a war, as Paul describes it in the 6th chapter of Ephesians, “against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in heavenly places.” So we face a spiritual battle yes, but we also face forces of darkness physically manifested in this world. What are these forces, these rulers and powers in our world today? We live in a complex world where our rulers are not really individuals (we don’t fight against flesh and blood) anymore, but rather systems. In my opinion (and let me know if you have a better idea) the ruling systems today are government, bureaucracy, and corporations –empowered by the religions of technology and science along with the strong arm of the military and police (if I had more time I would go into Ellul’s idea of the phenomenon of “technique” which I think plays an important roll in these systems. See his The Technological Society).
Collectively these powers are the driving force of modern civilization. And they want people to believe that the progress they are working for is our modern Messiah, our salvation. They want us to believe that their way, and truth, and life, is the only way and truth and life. And if someone is to reject that view they will be punished. But even before it comes to that the powers try and get us to live our daily lives as cogs in their machine, at the same time being dependent upon them to the point where rejecting their Lordship over us doesn’t even seem like a possibility. Here’s a quotation from Derrick Jensen’s book Welcome to the Machine that shows how the powers sort society into fulfilling rolls that only benefit their machine:

“The most highly valued are the rich and other rulers; they are given the primary fiscal benefits of the sorting system. Also high in the hierarchy are those trusted strategists who can make sense of the vast information apparatus. Below them are technicians who are privy to the data collected by the surveillance machines. Below that are the people of the middle class who enjoy enough benefits so that their sense of privilege out weighs their nagging feeling of never quite reaching the top. Below the middle class are working-class people, who run and maintain the machines that produce the consumer goods. They, too, enjoy enough benefits to keep them at work, to give them the illusion that they are living a good life, and to keep them from looking for a different way to live. And, as Henry Ford saw early on, it is essential in an industrial system to give at least some of the workers enough pay to buy at least some of what they build, or else the system’s inevitable overproduction has no outlet. Toward the bottom of the value scale are those who are “of little substance who carry the sick, bury the dead, clean and do many vile and abject offices” (from a 17th century order for dealing with the plague). But even the unemployed and the homeless are of some value to the system. For example, they keep wages low by making the working class fearful of losing their jobs and by making sleeping under a bridge seem the only alternative to the treadmill of rent or mortgage. Below the value scale altogether are those who will not partake of the benefits of the system: the hunter-gatherers, the subsistence farmers who own their own land, the gypsies, the odd free spirit who will not settle for mortgage and salary [and that strange group that calls themselves Christians. No, Jensen didn’t actually say Christians, but I wish this were the group the Church was numbered with.] These are worse than useless to the system, because they provide the system’s servants with alternative visions and lifestyles. Because the existence of these alternatives cannot be tolerated, lest the servants become restless, those who live these alternatives must be banished from the servants’ view, or destroyed altogether.”

And so they tried to destroy Jesus, but it didn’t work. He rose again! And he is still alive today in each of us that have a relationship with him. And his call for us to get more active in his mission is urgent. Feel the urgency in these next verses: --Here read 57-62—
There’s not even time to go say goodbye, to bury the dead, not even a moment to take a glace back. It’s not wrong in itself to say goodbye or to bury the dead, but if that or anything hinders us in our kingdom work then it must be left behind. Remember we read in chapter 5 how the first disciples left everything behind to follow Jesus. But that is not the only option when it comes to our relationships with people, you can always invite them, in fact probably should always invite them, to come along! Andrew first invited Peter to come meet Jesus, and Jesus’ mother even took to the road with him. Everyone is welcome to come, but the point is you just have to do it. Don’t procrastinate! But then we’re back again to the question of what exactly it is we are supposed to do. When Jesus said vs. 58—the part about not having anywhere to lay his head that meant he’d given up land ownership, which was the primary possession someone would have in those days; if you didn’t have land you didn’t have anything (a point brought up in N.T. Wright’s Jesus and the Victory of God. A book extremely helpful in understanding the context of the ministry of Jesus). So the prospective disciple says, “I will follow you”, but Jesus only responds, seemingly without slowing his pace, “are you really ready to give up everything, as I have?” And if you are ready for that it is still hard to know what actions to take isn’t it? I mean if Jesus were right here walking down the street then we could just start walking after him and do whatever he did. But we have to take what we can get from the gospels and try to apply it to our present world as best we can (Well, not just that. He did send his Spirit to “guide us unto all truth”(John 16:13). God did say He would “never leave us or forsake us” (Heb. 13:5). He is near to us and will lead us still if we are attentive.).
There is not only one specific course of action we all must take. We are each uniquely gifted to offer something to this resistance movement called the Kingdom that no one else can offer in the same way. We need to find out what our gifts are and then do something with them. I mean really. We can’t get caught up in thinking and talking about it so much that we never get anything done. We don’t need to try and play the hero (if we had time we’d go over the debate amongst the disciples about who was to be the greatest starting in verse 46). Just pray for wisdom and do the next thing you can think of that would witness to the Kingdom. And don’t try and go it alone. Christ has called us to work with each other, not as a bunch of Lone Rangers.
And also we should remember that like anything this way of life takes practice, and there is grace for our mistakes. At the start of this chapter is a scene where the disciples are getting sent out for some training: --Here read verses 1-6—
Now that’s a pretty hardcore class, but it seems they did well, yet shortly after, in the middle of the chapter, we see they are not able to cast out a demon in a boy. And it sounds like Jesus expected they should have been able to, but He didn’t turn them away, and they didn’t give up. They just kept on following Jesus, and kept on practicing his Way. Just as Paul encouraged Timothy, “discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness.” God is full of grace for our shortcomings, but it is imperative that we take our training seriously because the fate of the whole world is at stake and also of our very souls. I conclude with this passage from 1 Corinthians 9:23-27:
“I do all things for the sake of the gospel, so that I may become a fellow partaker of it. Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air; but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.”

the earth is the Lord's, and all it contains (psalm 24:1a)

the spring is here! and it doesn't matter that i was having a snowball fight with my family on easter sunday. you can smell the change in the air.

last year at this time i was living in camden new jersey. i tried to take daily walks and it seemed like i could never walk far enough to get away from "city". it was endless. one city lead to the next. the most peaceful place i could find that was actually a little bit like being around green, living things was a large cemetery (where walt whitman happens to be buried). other places i've stayed have been in areas where the suburbs seem endless, which is even worse because in the suburbs the residents act very suspicious of a stranger walking through their streets.

but i don't think any place i've lived in jackson has been without some area within walking distance where i could go to be in "nature", with several other places an easy bike ride away, and several other places a short drive. the three houses i lived in with my parents, each in a different zip code, all had close by woods. even when i lived in apartments downtown i could always walk the tracks and find some trees or fields somewhere, or go over to ella sharp park. of course sometimes there is not an official park or nature area near by and getting into some woods means trespassing. but i always think of woody guthrie's song "this land is your land" and the verse that says:

"there was a big high wall there/ it tried to stop me/ the sign was painted/ said 'private property'/ but on the back side/ it didn't say nothin/ this land was made for you and me."

the earth is the Lord's, not individual's who have pieces of paper that claim it is theirs, so if you are acting respectfully towards the creator and his creation then roam where you want to, despite what the signs say. because not only is it wonderful to immerse yourself in nature, and not only does God reveal himself through his creation, but we have an urgent need to reconnect ourselves to the natural world for so many reasons. humans were created as part of the natural world and separating ourselves from it has brought disastrous consequences for all of life on this planet. in some blogs to come i'll bring up more specifically why i think it is so urgent and necessary for us to reconnect to the earth and i'll talk about some ideas such as rewilding, anarcho-primitvism, the coming "crash", etc. but for now i just wanted to encourage anyone who may read this to get out into the "wild" wherever and whenever you can just because it is beautiful, and it is spring, and it will make you feel happy and healthy about your day.

as you can see to the right we've posted links to some "legal" parks we enjoy, and of course there are many more -sackrider hill, the bridge park, one of jackson's many fine lakes, etc. if you are ever looking for someone to go out with get ahold of us. we frequent places like these. -J.E.S.

work day cancelled...

Maundy Thursday

here at the kairos house we have been hosting thursday evening potluck meals followed by worship in a sort of folk-liturgical style and a "radical" bible study. "radical" meaning we are trying to get to the roots of our faith, so we can root ourselves more deeply in it (and radical because Christianity is a counter-cultural way of life). currently we are in the midst of a study on the gospel of luke. another way to go deeper into the way of Christ is to join in with the members of Christ's body all over the world in celebrating together particular important days in the Church's calender. days that help us remember and re-focus on the work of our Lord so that we can continue that work of growing his kingdom here and now. western Christianity is in the middle of the most important days of the church's year right now, what is called -Holy Week. this week will lead us through the darkest depths of the crucifixion and to the highest heights of rejoicing because: "Christ has risen! He has risen indeed!"
but first, we prepare for all of that through the experience of Maundy Thursday. here's the basic facts about the day brought to us by wikipedia:

"Maundy Thursday" is the name for this day in England. It is therefore the usual name also in English-speaking Protestant Churches that originated in that country... The word Maundy is derived through Middle English, and Old French mandé, from the Latin mandatum, the first word of the phrase "Mandatum novum do vobis ut diligatis invicem sicut dilexi vos" ("A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you"), the statement by Jesus in the Gospel of John (13:34) by which Jesus explained to the Apostles the significance of his action of washing their feet.
On this day four events are commemorated: the washing of the Disciples' feet by Jesus Christ, the institution of the Mystery of the Holy Eucharist at the Last Supper, the agony of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, the betrayal of Christ by Judas Iscariot.

we are planning to participate in this day by meeting here at the house (918 S. Sutton) at the normal time (5:30pm) for a potluck meal. then we will carpool over to the jackson first church of the nazarene for a maundy thursday presentation by Jews for Jesus called Christ in the Passover (here's some info on the presentation: http://www.jewsforjesus.org/programs/cip). the roots of the Christian faith are Jewish (Jesus was a Jew of course) and it is extremely important for us to stay connected to our Jewish roots. they have much to teach us about what it means to be the people of God. this will be a great opportunity for exactly that.
may our Lord grant to each of us the grace to be able to love as he loves, -ransom

Eternity is Now

The purpose of this blog will be to share information, events, and happenings that we are involved in and want to share with all our friends, family and anyone else who wants to be involved. Coming soon there will be pictures, event listings, stories, art, poetry and more.