Colors

Did you ever notice how many colors there are?  How many hues of green alone are in the world.  Tints and shades, glossy and matte.  It is rather amazing the infinite number of colors around us.

It is Autumn once again and the trees are a menagerie of colors.  Each solitary leaf will itself journey through a range of colors.  It is beautiful to behold.

And what I find fascinating about all this color around me is the pure beauty of it.  Because honestly the world does not necessitate such vibrancy.  It would be quite possible for the world to have been created with half the colors we know or for there to only be one shade of orange.  Some aspects of creation are necessary because of the nature of God and His character.  "Love" is "good" in creation because God is good, God is love, and love is good.  So why so many colors?

As with everything the answer comes from the character of God, but it is an expression of personality.  It is not utility that spurs this myriad of shades.  We have so many colors simply because God is extravagant.  He does not just make a color, a few colors, but He made a number of colors beyond human comprehension.  God is a God of beauty.  He values things for more than utilitarian function.  He is a God of the concrete and the abstract.  And He chooses to express Himself in awe inspiring ways.  God is extravagant.

Consider God's love for us, each of us personally.  God loves us so much, beyond our understanding.  His love is independent, rooted in Himself.  Now consider my love for God.  My love is rather weak and feeble, and even at my strongest is still entirely dependent upon God and His love.  He initiates I respond.  This imbalance is okay, it is how eternity works.  God loves me with some extravagant and awesome love; a love that He alone is worthy of.  I love God with a small love; a love that is imperfect like me yet God somehow in His extravagance chooses to be blessed by.  How awesome is that?  God loves me as He alone deserves, in response I weakly love God back, and God chooses my love and receives it as more than it is.  It's crazy.  I don't understand it.  But God is extravagant.

Whenever you see colors around you may it remind you of how incredible God is and how extravagant His love is for you.

"Where are you?"

Have you ever wondered what was the saddest moment in history?  What has been the darkest hour in creation?  I would submit that there are two equally and intrinsically linked saddest moments, and that they both revolve around the question "where are you?"

Scene 1:  The Garden.

God has finished His work of creation and everything is good.  We see humanity as the pinnacle of God's creativity.  Scripture describes Adam and Eve as being "naked" which I think may be one of the most beautiful descriptions in Scripture.  They were naked before God and naked before each other.  Perfect relationship.  Nothing hidden.  Fully present and fully known.  Adam and Eve had an intimacy with God that we will only know in Heaven.  Adam and Eve had a depth with each other that we can only catch glimpses of now.

Naked.

And then the Fall.  Their ate, their eyes were opened, and they knew that they were naked.  They knew they were naked so they hid themselves.  This beautiful and perfect state was broken and stained.

Then God comes walking in the garden.  He calls to them "where are you?" (Gen 3:8) not because they were hiding from an omnipresent and omniscient God.  God said this as an expression of the severed intimacy.  In one bite Adam and Eve went from perfect relationship with God to complete isolation.

Scene 2: Palestine

Emmanuel has come.  Jesus has been leading his band of misfit disciples around the countryside and now they have come to Jerusalem to start the revolution.  Everything seems perfect.  But then in a flash Jesus is arrested, tried, convicted, and executed.  Upon a hillside between two bandits Jesus hangs dying.  

As Jesus takes on the sins of humanity, my sins, Jesus who was one with the Father (Jn 17:11) suddenly becomes isolated from the Father.  Jesus who is God, and knows an intimacy with the Father that is beyond my comprehension, was cut off from God.  His perfect relationship was eclipsed by my sins.  In that moment of Hell Jesus cried out "where are you?" (My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Mk 15:34).

Jesus died alone to save me.  He also decided to stop being dead that I may know life.  Jesus went through the Hell of isolation that we may no longer be isolated.  We have hope.  We can go home.  Jesus has overcome.

a lesson in herbs: pests and parasites

Last spring I decided to plant an herb garden in our one-bedroom apartment.  I chose herbs because they are edible and small.  So I bought some pots, soil, seedlings, and began the experiment.

There have been several ups and downs with these herbs.  I have lost a couple plants along the way, while others grow almost effortlessly.  I have learned that basil doesn't really like to grow in-doors and that just slightly over-watering mint will spawn destructive powdery mildew.

When we moved into our current apartment in June the garden moved from the dining table to the balcony (and the basil was very thankful).  I have had to deal with a variety of pathogens and parasites from aphids to mildew to caterpillars that have all been merciless toward my little plants.  Poor peppermint, RIP.

But God has been speaking to me through this little garden; the act of getting your hands dirty and creating, cultivating life.  I have seen how desperately I need to be watered daily, and while this seems quite obvious it is intriguing to see play out.  I have also seen how completely helpless the herbs are to the attacks of these insects.  The herbs can do nothing to stop the ravenous appetites of the caterpillars or aphids.  Left alone the plants would each be overcome and die at the hands of these bugs.  The only hope for basil and oregano is that I will regularly sit down and pick off the pests.

And God showed me that my life is similar.  I still have places of selfishness and sin in my life.  These areas within me still dog me, drain me, and pull me down like these parasitic bugs.  And I am equally helpless to remove these parasitic parts of me; I am sinful and I cannot heal myself.  Thus I need a savior.

Praise God for sanctification.  But in this process I have found that my tendency is to try facilitating my own healing.  I act like for God to move in an area of my life I need to present it to Him.  While it is good to present our needs and requests to God, it's important to not fall into thinking that God is limited to only our requests and that the burden of our sanctification is dependent upon us.  My part in my healing is much smaller than I like to think.

Contrary to my habit of bringing specific requests this summer God taught me to seek Him by sitting down and just saying "Lord I have caterpillars in my soul."  I have had to stop, be still, and rather than trying to order or direct, allow the Master Gardener to pluck out my weeds and bugs; to trust Him to remove pathogens that I am not even aware of.  Praise God that we have such an attentive gardener who waters, fertilizes, prunes, and removes our parasites.

Nick-Names

Did you ever notice that Jesus likes nick-names?  That God loves a good name change?

Simon gets to be Peter "the Rock".  James and John become the "Sons of Thunder."  Can you imagine how cool it would be like to have Jesus who is LORD God Almighty say "Dude, Sons of Thunder, how you doin'?"

Jesus loves nick-names.  

But actually God just knows our identity.  He knows who we are and who we have been created to be.

Peter and Andrew, James and John, Jesus finds both sets of brothers in Galilee learning the family business of fishing.  In Jewish culture this means that they were not the best or the brightest.  The best youths were asked to be followers of various rabbis.  The fact that these four guys were fishermen means they were not picked.  They were not good enough.  Until a different rabbi came along.

I love the verse John 1:42

"He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, ‘You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas’ (which is translated Peter)."

Jesus looks at Simon, sees him, knows who he is, and then calls him Cephas.  It's not that Jesus looked at Peter and said "I'm never going to remember a name like Simon so let's call you Peter instead."  Jesus looked at Peter, knew his identity, who the world saw him as, and then called him by the identity that Peter had been created for.  Jesus did not seem Simon the blue-collar fisherman, he saw a pillar upon which his church would be founded and so he called him Peter.  Jesus defined Peter not by his past, education, achievements, but by his God-given future and identity.  Jesus called Peter into true life.

We see this same idea play out in the Old Testament.  Jacob had grown up with the identity of "Deceiver", that was who he was.  Until he wrestled with God.  Then God changed his name to Israel.  Starting from his grandfather (whom God changed from Abram to Abraham) God was creating a people who would be a light to this dark world, a holy nation set apart, and Jacob now Israel was a part of that plan.  God radically changed Jacob's identity.  God also broke his hip because sometimes we have to hit bottom before we allow God to speak over us.  If He has to God will break our hip to change our identity.

What names and nick-names does God have for you?  Who has God declared you to be?

Are we the Empire? Part 3.

In Ancient Rome it was understood that a crucified messiah was a failed messiah.  When Jesus died the Empire thought it had won again.  Little did they know how wrong they were and how revolutionary Jesus was.

While on earth Jesus engaged His culture in profoundly creative and controversial ways.  Jesus rocked the boat of the "blessed".  He challenged the the status quo and opposed Empire everywhere He saw it.  He did all of it in a manner that was not condescending but agitating.  I have heard it aptly said that He "comforted the afflicted and afflicted the comfortable."  Jesus is still agitating and benevolently afflicting today.

And then we have Jesus' death and resurrection, the most revolutionary action ever.  Eternity changed.  Nothing would ever be the same.  He rose again and conquered sin and death.  Jesus engaged the world in a way that was reviving to our souls individually, transforming us back to our true original selves, and inviting us to live in His Kingdom which is entirely alien and revolutionary from our old human ways of living.

We need to rethink everything.  I need to rethink everything.  I need to carefully (and painfully perhaps) allow Holy Spirit to dig through my mind and soul to root out the lies of Empire; I need to question everything I take for granted and compare it to Jesus, and His ways, not to society.  And as I am doing this I need to engage my culture in constructive ways.  We are called to create and reimagine how life is and should be.  And then we need to step out into these ideas, take the plunge into reality.  Naivety is wrong.  New ideas are not sufficient.  Actions must form and flow from these new ideas.

How, when, and where do I spend my money?

How am I called to view all that God has provided me?

How do I invest my money?  Do our investments fuel wars, slavery, and exploitation?

What can I do that will engage my culture and culture’s view of money, luxury, and pleasure?

How am I blessed?  How am I being a blessing?  Is how I am blessed in proportion to how I am a blessing?

As much as I want to fall into cynicism that is not what God has called me to; that is not what Jesus died and rose again for.  Jesus has not given up on humanity.  We are not to called condemn or reject society, but to fight for the people within society.  Jesus has already said we are all worth it by His death.  We are here to save both the oppressed from the brutality and injustice of Empire, and the oppressors from the greed and idolatry of Empire.

What are ways to agitate how we live?  What do we need to give up, give away, or give more of?  How does my spending change?  How do my expectations change?  How can I be more conscious of my place within humanity and God's creation?  Where can I live out the economic principles of the Kingdom and sacrifice?

May our steps be ever more in the ways of Kingdom, and may we never be too content to ask where the lies of Empire still cling to us as we continue walking from death into Life.