East or West?

“I have a riddle for you,” he said, as he was browsing the textbook aisles.

“What is brighter inner than it is outer?”

“The soul?” I responded. A little Platonic and not something I’d typically endorse, but he was first generation Asian and I thought it might be close to what he was looking for.

“Very close. Do you want me to tell you?”

“Let me think about it.” He was waiting for his girlfriend, so I knew he’d be around for a while.

After his 15 minutes of shopping I didn’t have any better answers. As I was ringing him up at the register he told me that the answer was “enlightenment”.

“So what makes you think enlightenment comes from within?”

“The world”, he said. “If you look around it’s always changing - never the same.  Like a river - you never step into the same one twice. Even my physical appearance might change - new hairstyle, new clothes - but the inner self stays the same. Enlightenment can’t come from change, otherwise you couldn’t keep it.”

Unfortunately there was another customer behind him, so I didn’t have a chance to say what I was thinking.

I didn’t mean enlightenment came from the world - I meant that it comes from God. Enlightenment (or whatever the Christian version of that is) comes from the God who exists apart from us. Our inner self isn’t static either. We have good and bad elements in us and if we let Him in God will change the inner self to be more like Him.

Genesis 1 says that all humans, male and female, were “Created in the Image of God.” The text specifically mentions male and female in this context and I think that’s an important thing to notice.  Men don’t bear the Image - neither do women. Both of us corporately bear the Image.

This may initially sound a little strange, but it is the best way to understand the passage. The passage is literally “‘Let us make humankind* in our image, according to our likeness...” (NRSV emphasis mine) God is referring to himself as plural - an interesting fact for the monotheistic Hebrew culture where this was recorded. I think it’s best understood as a literary device. God is described as plural to draw out the comparison to humanity’s plurality (male and female).This fits the author's intention to link humans and God as sharing the same image and likeness. (Sailhamer, Pentateuch as Narrative, Zondervan, pp. 95-96)

And in fact, the Christian understanding is that God himself exists in relationship. God is triune.  Three distinct persons who all exist as one God. It’s a confusing thing that I won’t get into here, other than to say that this ancient drawing does a pretty good job of conveying it.

                        (Image from Wikipedia)

The key point here is that Christians don’t follow a God who is an impersonal monad. His existence is a relational existence - just like ours is. Men and women wouldn't be complete without each other and the Father, Son, and Spirit likewise.

I wish I had been able to have a longer conversation about this. Even though I disagree with some central elements of the Buddhist approach there are still areas where this Westerner can learn from it. In many areas of our thinking the West hasn’t been entirely converted to Christ. For instance our tendency to try to fix the evil in others and ignore it in ourselves. This is where Buddhism (and Christ) has something to teach Westerners. They’re correct that it must happen from within. The consistent message of Christ in the Sermon on the Mount is to work on your own inner sin - don’t focus on the sins of others. The reason we are able to make progress in the inner life, however, is because of the (internal) Image of God planted in us, and the (external) work of Christ in the world.  Does change come from within or without? The answer is “yes”.

AHHHH!!!

As you may have discerned from the title of this post I've been pretty stressed out lately. I won't go into the details about my work except to say that I'm being expected to work a LOT more hours than I have in the past. This is in addition to some obligations I've taken on with my church and the normal problems of the Christmas Season. I think we all know what it feels like to get up in the morning and know that there isn't enough time in the day and then have that knowledge confirmed when you go to bed at night.

But I had an insight at church today that I want to share. I'll quickly sum up Jake Hendrix's sermon a bit later, but the insight that I believe God had for me was this:

There's still time to worship God.

I keep forgetting that the most important thing is not how much I get done - It's Who I'm doing it for. By worship, by the way, I don't mean just singing. I mean an attitude towards the world and its creator that allows God's Character to indwell my life. Even in the midst of 60 hour work weeks it's still possible to have this attitude. When I'm working late at work I can listen to sermons on my MP3 player. When I'm frustrated and can't get it all done I can offer up a quick prayer. It's possible to have the proper attitude of a creature before the Creator wherever I am.

The reason this is possible is because of Christ, which gets me to the message I heard today. And just in case this sounds like just another sermon please know that I was brought to tears today thinking about this. The message was on the incarnation - the doctrinal belief that God became Man in the form of Jesus. God becoming one of us so that we can become one with him. God became vulnerable to us, came as a little baby, so that he could be with us. Emmanuel, which means The God who is with us has come into the world (Matthew 1:23) And he'll be with us always, even to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20).

One quick picture from the message and I'll be done. Think about the deepest, darkest, time in your life. How comforting is it to hear platitudes of "It'll all be all right"? Contrast that with the comfort of someone just Being with you throughout it. I don't know that it will "all be all right" with my job and other responsibilities. But I do know that I'm already all right with God - that he is with me throughout.

Merry Christmas

Far, Far Away

I've been having laptop troubles lately and I may not be able to post for a while. But I listened to this song today and wanted to share the lyrics. It had been a while since I heard it and I had forgotten how it effects me. If you go to the above link you can hear the song.

"Far, Far Away" by Five Iron Frenzy

Staring at the shoreline
wishing for some hope
the weight of empty fishing
nets is more than twisted rope
And underneath stern faces
they wait with baited breath
with broken hearts from hoping
while casting out their nets
See the figure on the shore
He speaks His words like plain men sing
His hands they still have holes in them
glory to the King

chorus
Can you hear the bells are ringing far, far, away?
Can you hear the voices singing far, far, away?

And Peter was a liar
a traitor just like me
and Judas was a hypocrite
and Paul a Pharisee
When truth can be so distant
and hope evades our reach
Peter swam across the water
and found it on the beach

Isn't that an amazing story? I love the way they phrase it. "He speaks his words like plain men sing". Doesn't that just capture it perfectly? When people ask Jesus a question and he just blows their presuppositions out of the water. They ask 'Is it this, or this' and he answers 'yes' or sometimes 'neither.' It's as if he's focused on something farther away from their vision and all of their petty doctrinal concerns are so close that they're blurry.

But at the same time he's right there with us. "When truth can be so distant and hope evades our reach. Peter swam across the water and found it on the beach." He's right there - 2,000 years ago walking around with fishermen. And right now in our midst through the Holy Spirit and the Church (The Body of Christ). Isn't it amazing that this man that preached to the rejected people on the outskirts of the Roman Empire led to the church bells that ring amongst us today? I know those churchbells sometimes seem distant from the original intent of Jesus. And we as a church do depart from his will on a regular basis. But He's still IN us. He's still working out the salvation of the world through this church. He could have amped up the heavenly loudspeaker and broadcast the TRUTH to the world. But we wants to involve us in his plan. We're plan A (by the grace of God), and there is no plan B.

In Christ (literally),

Jeff

So it begins

I’m starting this blog so that I can share the details of my life with my family, friends, and random strangers whom I otherwise wouldn’t meet. One of the things that frequently frustrates me is the difficulty of getting into conversations with people about the really important things in life. So many relationships in our culture are deep only in their superficiality. There are a number of areas in my life where I am trying to work out what I believe and what are the most morally responsible things to do. One of my goals with this blog is to throw some of these ideas out there so that others can comment. I think that truth is best discovered in community. If you spend too much time by yourself staring into a fire watching wax melt your ideas won’t be challenged and they will be wacky. So feel free to comment on the things I say and tell me where you think I’ve gone wrong. We might both learn something.

-Jeff