Coffee Culture Kingdom

Behold Your God!

nobody@vox.com(Phil) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 17:12:49 -0700

Exodus has a great theme embedded in the English title meaning, "Exit" or "Departure."

The great beginning of the world, and of the people of God, is traced in Genesis. Exodus begins with a pastoral scene--albeit a bloody one--where we see in miniature the deliverance which will be more fully detailed in the coming chapters.

Moses, in a fragile bed of reeds, floats to safety into the arms of--his own mother, who delivered him to death, only to be repaid with a Moses Resurrected.

This Great Delivering God has some competition, however. Mainly from the imaginations and culturally ingrained traditions of the "chosen people" who did not escape Egypt without some baggage. And I don't mean the plunder either! (See Exodus 4 and 12 to see what I'm talking about.)

Their baggage was spiritual, it was religious. When push came to shove, their trust was not in this Delivering God, but in the gods of their childhood: the gods of Egypt.

Afraid Moses missed his connecting flight, the people grew impatient and demanded an all-too eager to please Aaron to build them a god they could "really put their faith in." He did (Exodus 32):

...Aaron said to them, “Take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” 3 So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. 4 And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”

This is affirms what Bethlehem Baptist executive pastor (Minneapolis, MN), Sam Crabtree, has observed about the basic nature of worship and "seeing": "We become what we behold, so we behold God to become like him."

These ancient believers became lovers of themselves, lovers of pleasure. In their dancing orgy, they longed for the True God, but had replaced Him with something Less. Thus, they forgot their creator, and the Fact of their creation: satisfaction comes in serving and loving the One Who Made Us.

In this sense, true worship, true seeing, is obedience.

What god are you beholding today? Who or what are you serving? The answer will tell you what you're becoming today.

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Swan's Bones

nobody@vox.com(Phil) — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 09:23:13 -0700

a trumpeter swan

Speaking of death, I read a poem today by a friend, Mary Setliff, recently recognized by a local poetry festival, in which she potently describes cancer taking a friend. Her poem is called "The Bones of a Swan (for Will)."

Reading it, I was reminded of something that I read recently: swan bones are used in mythology to describe a magical building material out of which anything can be made. Imagine that: enchanted swan bones givng us "make-anything-you-can-dream-of" two-by-fours.

With my swan bones, I would build a city where anything you can dream comes true. And in that city, cancer, and death, wouldn't take anyone, but would transform them.

What a miracle that such a city has already been built, not with swan bones, but with the flesh and blood of a perfect Man, Jesus, whose death and resurrection works the most Perfect Magic of All.

And then, the last enemy, death, shall be defeated.

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Paying Taxes, and Death

nobody@vox.com(Phil) — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 21:17:30 -0700

Death and Taxes

I heard a fascinating line of poetry yesterday, quoted by Maya Angelou, who is celebrating her eightieth birthday. The poet she quoted was Edna St. Vincent Millay, who fancied, in this composition, "Conscientious Objector," that though she couldn't avoid death, would only give it only what was due, and not a penny more:

I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death.

The idea that we can have some measure of control over what we give to Death is part of the fabric of the human heart. After all, God has embossed Eternity there, and the soul's vector necessarily launches us into another, invisible world.

But St. Vincent Millay's words are, in the end, no more than wishful bravado. Ancient David has a more certain hope, and one more comforting as we think about the Tax Man's, or Death's, Approach...

I will not die, but live, And tell of the works of the LORD. (Psalm 118:17)

Death, as certain as taxes, takes its mortal toll from every man, woman, and child. But some pay Death more than they must, for they pay the pound of flesh from their own breast. Others find release from such payment in God's own offering of Himself to Death on the cross.

For such ones, death is all that is paid to Death, and not a penny more.

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Resurrection in History

nobody@vox.com(Phil) — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 06:44:28 -0700

More from Newbigin, on the occasion of Easter:

The truths which Buddhism teaches would (as Buddhists understand them) be true whether or not Gautama had discovered and promulgated them. But the whole of Christian teaching would fall to the ground if it were the case that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus were not real events in history but stories told to illustrate truths which are valid apart from these happenings. (the Gospel in a Pluralist Society)

The Christian message--what is radical about the Message of the Gospel--is that it is not, as with other faiths, other religions, about "truth for life." It is about Truth in History.

The Gospel is not a myth in the sense that it communicates principles or generic notions of truth. Newbigin shows that it is true in the sense that it relates to Events Which Took Place in History.

So, this connects to what a friend said to me yesterday: "I believe all people in all cultures are good." I agreed, and added: some people in some cultures are decidedly better than many professing Christians. Still, something else must be said: it isn't about whether or not I am good or not...or you are good or not.

It is about whether He was dead and rose again. That makes all the difference.

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Tween Thongs

nobody@vox.com(Phil) — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 20:24:54 -0700

How far will marketers go?

David Kuo has a great post last month highlighting excerpts from a troubling article by Stacy Weiner from The Washington Post. Ms. Weiner's article is called, "Goodbye to Girlhood." In his blog, David laments the "nauseating trend of younger and younger girls being taught to be 'sexy' with their bodies, their clothes, and their attitudes."

The article itself reads long, and pits one side vs. the other. But, there are some startling statistics that emerge; brace yourself--here are a couple of the more disturbing claims:

Ten-year-old girls can slide their low-cut jeans over "eye-candy" panties. French maid costumes, garter belt included, are available in preteen sizes. Barbie now comes in a "bling-bling" style, replete with halter top and go-go boots. And it's not unusual for girls under 12 to sing, "Don't cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?"

and:

...in 2003, tweens -- that highly coveted marketing segment ranging from 7 to 12 -- spent $1.6 million on thong underwear, Time magazine reported.

David Kuo finds himself angry and dumbfounded after reading the piece. (Here is the link to the APA's original report.) As the daddy of four precious girls, I can't help but resonate with his initial reaction.

But then, as is always the case, there is a bright lining to this cloud. Statistics aren't people. And girls who are doing this respond to love and acceptance. The statistics sit there unmoved, but these girls blossom when they are welcomed into families where real beauty and strength are prized, not in a formula, or a home-brewed recipe, but in the grace-lived life of the Gospel.

He is risen! Resurrection power still has the last word.

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Happy Crossmas?

nobody@vox.com(Phil) — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 05:39:42 -0700

Fashion jewelry?

James Martin's article in Slate yesterday (Happy Crossmas? Why Easter Stubbornly Refuses Commercialization) offers an insightful look into the troubling nature of contemporary Christian celebration of the birth of Jesus.

He also asks: why is it that Easter hasn't gone that same route? His answer is the Easter message doesn't sell:

Despite the awesome theological implications (Christians believe that the infant lying in the manger is the son of God), the Christmas story is easily reduced to pablum. How pleasant it is in mid-December to open a Christmas card with a pretty picture of Mary and Joseph gazing beatifically at their son, with the shepherds and the angels beaming in delight. The Christmas story, with its friendly resonances of marriage, family, babies, animals, angels, and—thanks to the wise men—gifts, is eminently market

able to popular culture. It's a Thomas Kinkade painting come to life.
On the other hand, a card bearing the image of a near-naked man being stripped, beaten, tortured, and nailed through his hands and feet onto a wooden crucifix is a markedly less pleasant piece of mail.

Martin suggests that it isn't only the cross, though, that defies crass commercialization; it is the resurrection story of Easter that won't easily budge:

Even agnostics and atheists who don't accept Christ's divinity can accept the general outlines of the Christmas story with little danger to their worldview. But Easter demands a response. It's hard for a non-Christian believer to say, "Yes, I believe that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified, died, was buried, and rose from the dead." That's not something you can believe without some serious ramifications...

Seems to me that some good, old-fashioned temple cleansing is in order.

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Feasting and Death

nobody@vox.com(Phil) — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 22:51:06 -0800

Persephone

Reading the New Yorker recently, I came across a fantastic quote:

Without a killing, there is no feast.

Doing a quick search online, I found that it is quoted nowhere else except here, by an actor and instructor of acting, on his blog. (Interesting blog, too.) I'd love to know the author of this quote, someone who is, apparently by the author of the article, a "philosopher."

But its significance to me goes beyond the field of acting or even philosophy.

Think for a moment: the Christian faith is compared to a feast. Themes of satisfaction, fullness of joy, and being filled (with the Holy Spirit, with grace, with love, etc.) abound.

What is remarkable is that this bounteous feast of grace has been prepared for us through the death (and resurrection) of Jesus. Even more remarkably, the one who prepared it, the Host, is the one whose death was required.

Reading elsewhere online, I came across this quote from Old Spurgeon, the famous 19th century Baptist pastor:

Gospel joys are elevating, they make men like angels. As in the gospel God comes down to men, so by the gospel men go up to God. I might also have shown you how absolutely peerless are the provisions of grace. There is no feast like that of the gospel, no meat like the flesh of Jesus, no drink like his blood, no joys like that which crowns the gospel feast. (Spurgeon on Isaiah 25:6)

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Waking Up

nobody@vox.com(Phil) — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 20:19:35 -0800

In an ode to suffering we all can relate to, John Mayer writes in one of his ballad tunes:

When you're dreaming with a broken heart;
the waking up is the hardest part.

Waking up is indeed the hardest part. Wake up, O Sleeper! Rise from the dead! And Christ will shine on you!

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Spiritual Diagnoses

nobody@vox.com(Phil) — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 21:43:45 -0700

Finished Donald S. Whitney's book which provides the reader ten questions, and ten essays, on spiritual health.

Donald Whitney's Ten Questions

Donald S. Whitney

Sprinkled throughout with a liberal dose of puritan, Piper, and "princely" (i.e., Spurgeon) quotes, it is worth reading if only for his citations.

But Whitney brings up some other important points as well. One, which I appreciated most, I think, was his chapter on love. You know you're spiritually healthy if you love others--whether they are Christians or not.

Recently I've reflected on how, relatively speaking, in certain situations, those who do not claim to be Christians are sometimes easier to love than those who claim to be Christians. More of us who claim to follow Jesus could use the old saying--was it Calvin? Augustine?--"But for the grace of God, there go I."

A humble person, an unpresuming person, a person who is not arrogant--this is a person who is easy to love. Yet love is not an "easy virtue." Its expression is tested in the hard cases, as Jesus said: "what good is it if you love those who love you? Do not even the tax collectors do that?"

I took issue with one part of Whitney's work, his final essay, longing for God, in which he asserted, with quotes from the likes of Jonathan Edwards, Martin Lloyd-Jones, and Joni Erikson-Tada, that heaven is not merely about "being at peace" or "getting a new body," but about being free from sin and being in the presence of God.

Whitney's emphasis came across as an "either or." I take heaven to be a "both and." That is, both flesh and spirit, both spiritual graces and resurrection and incarnational (i.e., "fleshly") experiences. Jesus had them both (in a manner of speaking, for he never sinned) at the same time; ours is "already and not yet."

No, spiritual longing for heaven is not merely for forgiveness, but for our new bodies, for peace, and for the end of pain. Both And.

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