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Is Anger Always Wrong?

11/13/2012

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“I AM MOVING THEM,” I barked!   I yelled loud...  in the front yard...  at 7 AM ... on a Sunday morning.   

     I would love my neighbors to come to church.  Our church is a friendly and encouraging place with kind and sincere leaders.  But that morning you couldn’t tell by how I acted.  I got angry over literally nothing.   

     All I had to do was move the speakers as we were loading up for worship early one Sunday morning.  All I had to offer was a strong back and an ounce of humility.  But instead, I wanted to do it my way, and even the fact that I had no knowledge of what the right way was did not keep me from getting angry. 

     Anger is everywhere.  Anger is hollering from the bleachers at youth sports.  It’s on cable news.  It’s inside the walls of our nice homes.  It is always stuck in traffic.  And it is filling up the local law enforcement and court system.  Anger comes out of people like us, almost everywhere we go. 

     Anger is an emotional response to not getting our way.  When we snap, rant, or  unload, we are responding to not getting our way.  

     Anger always reveals what we value, what we desire, and the way we want the world to be.  Anger, like our calendar, and like our bank statements, communicates what we value, and who we really are.  That Sunday morning my anger revealed that I have a hard time accepting the simplest instructions, that I want to do things my way, even when it is obvious I don’t know what that is.  So apparently, I value being a know it all.  My anger revealed a dark, stubborn side in me.    

     Often, in the name of religion, we are told to stifle our anger.  Some traditions speak of anger as one of the “seven deadly sins.”  While I agree that we can, and often do, respond emotionally to some of the most petty things, I also know that anger can be the most righteous response to a situation.  Anger is not always wrong.

     I know this because Jesus got angry.  One day he walked into the temple courtyard and completely blew his top.  The public gathering area to enter worship had been run over by con artists who sold sin-removing sacrificial animals and “clean” monetary offerings at ridiculously inflated prices.  Jesus hated seeing the people swindled as they tried to move towards God.  

     So Jesus got angry.  He created a whip of cords, and he drove out the money changers and let the sacrificial animals run free. Jesus‘ anger revealed what he valued; he valued people being able to access a relationship with God. (For a great video of this story go to YOUTUBE and search Jesus and Money Changers.  It is the first video to pop up; it is two minutes long.)    

     Take 30 seconds, and reflect on the last time you got angry (chances are you won’t have to think back too far).  Was it something petty or something life defining?  How did you not get your way?  What does your anger say that you value?  Does what you value need to be reconsidered?  Do not hide behind empty statements like “I can’t help it” or “I don’t know where that came from.”  Allow God to dig below the surface. 

     Anger is not always wrong, but anger does always reveal what we really value.     



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Adultery, Judgement, Death and Truth

4/13/2012

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The religious leaders thought they had set the perfect trap.  They had found a woman in the ACT of adultery, and brought her to Jesus.  The Jewish law was explicit - the penalty was death (Deut 22:22).  (Although the law called for both parties to be put to death - where was the man who had perpetrated the same?)  But the Roman law was looming in tension to the Jewish law; no death sentences could be carried out by the Jews upon penalty of death from the Roman occupiers.  If Jesus chose to follow the law of Moses, he would be accused by the Romans and likely killed.  He had already stated He had not come to abolish even a portion of the Jewish Law, but to fulfill it.  The religious leaders had failed repeatedly to arrest Him themselves, now they could just let this situation play out and let the Romans take over the dirty work of killing Jesus.

But when confronted, Jesus assumed a submissive posture, going low, bending to the ground.  Then He does the unthinkable; He inverts the situation to make it about the heart of each and every individual.  He asks the crowd a simple question, that only they can answer internally, giving them the green light to kill the woman as their law allows IF they admit the impossible - true perfection - that they have never sinned themselves.  And none can.  In the flash of a moment, He requires them to achieve introspective repentance, acknowledgement of sin, and in that truth, grace prevails.   In fact, it is only in fullness of truth that grace for each is acknowledged honestly as necessary.

After the crowd disperses, in their final conversation, the woman and Jesus reveal much.   Everyone misses the mark, says Jesus:  "Is there no one here to judge you?"   She replies, "No one, Master" using the Greek, kyrie, translated throughout the New Testament as "Lord", a term that denotes that she has completely devoted herself to him, a full confession of faith and belonging.  Acknowledging her statement of faith He replies, "Then I do not judge you either." He says,  "Go your way, but do not sin again."  Grace...surrender...freedom...truth.  He offers no threat, no judgement, and no condemnation.  She has sinned, everyone has sinned, He has intervened, she has believed.  He has forgiven her, and He has asked her to live better.

As believers we must proceed humbly, to serve the broken, out of the knowledge that we too have been broken and still are broken.   Jesus is as available for each person to approach personally, internally, as He is for us who have already appealed to Him.  And we can follow his example to offer opportunities to encourage people to pursue truth and grace - not through statements of judgement - but through gentle and honest examining of their own experience, their own heart:
   
"Is your life where you want it to be?"  

"Are you teaching your kids what love is?"   

"Are you good with your relationship with God?"
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What is Hell?

1/12/2012

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Since a snowstorm is raging, I thought it would be a nice time to reflect on a hotter target, say...hell.

Hell is a polarizing and often overly simplified aspect of Biblical Christianity.  

First it is referred to in sketchy contexts Biblically.  Certainly it has been fictionalized and expounded upon much more drammatically than its Biblical existence & description supports.  Second, it feeds into the unfortunate reality that we Christians do like tidy and devastating judgement to fall on others, don't we?  And how better to make our enemies pay than to imagine them floundering in constant fire?  (We'll get into the Bible of hell another time.  It will suprise some of you.)

The reality of hell is, like most eternal matters, uncertain and unknowable...until we are dead and it is too late to be pursuaded.  But it can be better understood by reflecting on God, Who God is, and therefor what God is not.

God is love, life, light, resurrection (fresh starts/ forgiveness) and truth...an ever-present counselor.  In all areas of living (and post-living) that we pursue those attributes of God, we are living in God's goodness and are likely experiencing characteristics similar to that of heaven. 

Conversely, despair, lonliness, the absence of relationship, darkness, absolute shame, death, and lies are not God and are therefor hellish whether it happens before or after death.  As I type that list I wonder if the much-touted fire was ever even a useful exaggeration as that all sounds completely miserable. 

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Funny stuff.

7/19/2011

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Sodom & Gomorrah - disco ball?! We will come back to that later.  These guys do some good work!  Check them out on Youtube if you like it.   Their Mother's Day video is classic.
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The Bible

7/15/2011

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We LOVE the Bible.  Sort of a bunch of Bible nerds around here. 
A couple things:
It is written in ancient languages.  No part was brought to humanity via English.  Ancient languages have many MANY fewer words...or different assignments of words.  Translators do their educated best, but there is ALWAYS fluidity in the meaning of the words. If something seems strange, it could be a translation issue.

It is housed in the context of ancient cultures.  We NEVER read or view Greek theater and expect it to conform to all our modern expectations of personal equality, social practices, etc.  But for some reason we take the ancient cultures of the Bible, often brutal, and reject its lessons because they lived a wild and different lifestyle.  That is just stupid.  It is OK to reject their lifestyle without rejecting the God lessons they reveal.

It is not opposed to science.  In fact, as a science student, I cannot imagine an ancient manuscript that is more mindful of the Big Bang or the lessons of modern physics.  More coming on this later when I am bored.

It is rich.  Like butter.  You may have seasons of eating a lot of butter, and seasons of eating less.  That is ok.  The more you eat, the fatter you will get.  Ok the analogy is breaking down a little.  What I am trying to say is that Bible is really good for you, and you will want to give yourself permission to read it some, a little, a lot...whatever is nourishing you.  I rarely plow through it, rather reading until I have found something I keep thinking about, and then I give myself permission to reflect.  That is ok.  Be flexible with yourself and it and allow it to change you.

Start with Mark.  Spend a lot of time on John.  Genesis is awesome.  The Psalms are the lyrics to songs - they don't rhyme in English though.  ;)  Proverbs is like what your weird uncle is always telling you...really wise but a little strange.  Revelation is a head trip, but cool.  You will find your own favorites and why!

Oh - and expect to be shocked.  Whoever made Christianity a system where everybody looks good all the time skipped over the Bible.  People were CRAZY!!!  Sleeping around, killin' folks, getting drunk.  It is a wild scene.  That is why it is so cool.  God will work through ANYBODY.  I love that.
 
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