Sacramental Living

I love the Pauline letters to the Corinthian church.  I’m amazed that he included in those writings some of the things he did.

Paul must have known that his reading audience in Corinth would be reading these letters thinking, “Paul is a complete idiot,” “He doesn’t grow the church the way Apollos does,” “Paul is weird,” “Paul sure seems stuck on himself and his way of following Jesus,” “Paul just doesn’t understand what it’s like to live in Corinth,” and so on.

I find myself identifying with Paul’s missionary plight more and more in recent days.  I wish I didn’t.  I mean, even the religious elite in his own movement (i.e. Peter and the Council at Jerusalem) would look down on him … not to mention his former tribe (the Jewish leaders).

And yet, in the face of opposition from every side, and even from those who should be supporting him, Paul writes:

But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. - 1 Corinthians 1:27

It’s frustrating to be considered foolish.  It’s frustrating to have “the system” breathing down your neck because leaders have aligned themselves more closely with the cultures of this individualistic, business-driven world than they have the Prince of Peace and God’s Kingdom.

Part of me wants to see the “shaming of the strong.”  God forgive me for that, even as much as I forgive the strong.

Still clinging to foolishness …

SO TELL ME SOMETHING:
How do you deal with walking the foolish path of Jesus?

——

Brian Niece
www.brianniece.com
If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

So I caught a bit of a Headline News segment last night called “To the Point” featuring Doug Pagitt and John MacArthur. They were asked to debate whether yoga was diametrically opposed to Christianity or not.

I said aloud “Ecky Thump!” (Ever since receiving the latest White Stripes CD by the same title, spelled “Icky Thump” I’ve become fond of the phrase.) Loosely translated from northern England, it means “What the heck?”

Has Christianity really become so irrelevant that all the main stream media can consult us on is yoga? Well, that does nothing to make me feel we are being missional. I can see it now …

“Hello, Pastor Niece?”

“Please, just call me Brian.”

“Well, um what is your stance on the yoga debate?;

“Excuse me?”

“I’m with the local paper and wondering where you and your congregation stand on yoga.”

“Well, some yoga poses do require you to stand … those are the easier ones. I used to do yoga three times a week when I was in the theatre. Is that what you mean?”

“I guess we’re wondering if you think it’s Christian or not.”

Good grief! Our Lord must shake his head in shame and disappointment when Christendom leaders like John MacArthur say that to relieve pressure and stress we should read the Bible rather than push our bodies through physical practices like yoga. Has he ever tried to read Job when stressed? Give me a break.

Apparently, we still suffer from the neo-Platonic divide of mind and body. This is a notion Jesus and the first disciples never expressed. The body was the body … and the mind was just a part of the body. The gospel of Jesus was for the whole person … the whole body.

If it didn’t make the Church look so ridiculous, I would laugh at the whole thing. But in reality, it’s heartbreaking to see that we have so distorted the message of Jesus, and been so unable to live the gospel, that now we are consulted on such silly things.

SO TELL ME SOMETHING:
What have you noticed lately that is an “Ecky Thump” moment?

——

Brian Niece
www.brianniece.com
If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

Tags: Headline News, Doug Pagitt, John MacArthur, Ecky Thump, missional

My last post has generated many interesting discussions (of course, those are happening by way of email or phone or IM, since many of you read but usually don’t post comments … no big deal; part of the fun of web 2.0 is that we can communicate however we choose).

I’ve been in discussions with like-minded folks and listened (or read) patiently while someone blasts my “radical” notions.

Having been an English (and Theatre Arts major) in school the first time around, I thought I’d put to use some of those history-of-the-English-language skills.

RADICAL: etymologically, the word “radical” comes from the Latin (radix) meaning “to the root.” Feel free to check me on this by clicking here. Looking at radical’s synonym visual family yields this:

From this visual it seems that a “radical” is someone who is revolutionary or extremist to the root about something in particular.

Don’t you think the Christian faith, the Christ-follower is to be radical? Shouldn’t we be engaged in life-long transformation to the root of all that we are? Shouldn’t every aspect of human experience be under constant conversion to the very base of all we do? Shouldn’t our core theme be radical discipleship? It seems this is what Jesus often calls for, invites others into. When Jesus says, “Come and see,” accepting that invitation means a life of change … to the root.

So allow me to stir up the hornet’s nest some more …

Here’s another un-truth I’ve learned from the church: the world is made up of two kingdoms (dualism).

I learned from the church that we Christians should gather in the “church” building as often as possible so that we might escape the evils of the world, be discipled to be more unlike the world, and be equipped to go out and win the world for Christ.

I don’t find that world-view with Jesus at all. Our ancient spiritual ancestors from the pages of Hebrew scripture displayed a type of dualism. They saw good and evil. Sometimes they saw both good and evil coming from God (try to make that one fit in our postmodern orthopraxy!). They felt “called apart” as a specially chosen people.

But Jesus fulfilled what they were progressively learning: God is dreaming to reconcile all of creation to God’s self!

Grappling with this revelation causes us to stop looking at parts of the world as sacred and parts of the world as … well, the world. All of it is God’s creation. All of it is sacred. All of it is being reconciled.

The question for the church is: Are we engaging with God’s activity in reconciling all of creation? Are we making disciples outside the church walls (into all the “world”)? Do we really believe that God’s grace goes before us and that Christ’s Spirit is already at work everywhere?

What I’ve unlearned about dualism is that Christ-followers should see all of creation as Jesus sees it. This is called messianic. And we see ourselves in this creation as ambassadors of and co-workers with the Messiah … everywhere we go!

SO TELL ME SOMETHING:
Do you have a dualistic or messianic view of creation?

——

Brian Niece
www.brianniece.com

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

Tags: radical, Christian, Christ-follower, discipleship, un-truth, dualism, messianic