Seeing Visions and Dreaming Dreams

I've been preoccupied with a lot of work that really needs to be done and that really takes a lot of time. I haven't blogged faithfully - to my readers or my Savior - for a while, and I truly apologize.

While I'll be taking a break this next week or so, in an attempt to figure out whether I am old enough to be dreaming dreams or still young enough to see visions, please enjoy these rather random quotes I've enjoyed finding on that subject. (Most - except for the last one - are favorites of Carl Townsend, founder of Strategic Resources Ministry.)

For the revelation [vision] awaits an appointed time, it speaks [as to kindle a fire] of the end. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay.
Habakkuk 2:3 NIV

What could be worse than being born without sight? Being born with sight and no vision.
Hellen Keller

If your vision is for a year, plant wheat. If your vision is for a decade, plant trees. If your vision is for a lifetime, plant people.
Chinese Proverb

Individuals and churches that are content to operate solely on the basis of their mission in life generally flounder because their perspective is too broad, too ill-defined. Those that focus on their vision as marching orders have a much higher chance of success because they establish more realistic priorities and because they are more likely to be people-centered.
George Barna

For reasons I do not fully understand, some power is released through setting positive goals that would otherwise remain dormant.
C. Peter Wagner

Soon after the completion of Disney World someone said, "Isn't it too bad that Walt Disney didn't live to see this!" Mike Vance, creative director of Disney Studios replied. "He did see it - that's why it's here."

The future does not belong to those who are content with today. Rather, it will belong to those who can blend vision, reason, and courage in a personal commitment.
Robert Kennedy

Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.
Proverbs 29:18

Not much happens without a dream. And for something great to happen, there must be a great dream. Behind every great achievement is a dreamer of great dreams.
Robert Greenleaf

I think there is a world market for about five computers.
Thomas Watson, 1950s president of IBM

If you stay committed, your dreams can come true. I left home at 17 and had nothing but rejections for 25 years. I wrote more than 20 screen plays.
Michael Blake (Academy Award-winning screenwriter of Dances With Wolves)

If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out they would have had opportunity to return. But as it was, they desired a better country.
Hebrews 11:15

Men and women do not possess visions of the future. They are possessed by them.
Robert Bundy

And the Lord said to me, "Write my vision on a billboard, large and clear, so that anyone can read it while running and rush to tell others."
Habakkuk 2:2b

The absolute goal of vision for ministry is to glorify God.
George Barna

In Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, Alice gets to a fork in the road and she asks the cat. "Which way do I go?" "Where are you going?," asks the cat. "I don't know." "Then it really doesn't make any difference," replies the cat.

The Church is, by definition, open to all. A vision statement always focuses, and therefore excludes. There will always, then, be some fallout. Some people will always react to forming a vision statement because of the exclusion sense.
True visionaries are never lukewarm.
George Barna

The future is not a result of choices among alternative paths offered by the present, but a place that is created - created first in the mind and will, created next in activity. The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating. The paths to it are not found, but made, and the activity of making them changes both the maker and the destination.
John Schaar

Tell me what your vision of the future and I will tell you what you are.
Frederick L. Polak

The future is not a result of choices among alternative paths offered by the present, but a place that is created - created first in the mind and will, created next in activity. The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating. The paths to it are not found but made, and the activity of making them changes both the maker and destination.
John Schaar

Not much happens without a dream. And for something great to happen, there must be a great dream. Behind every great achievement is a dreamer of great dreams.
Robert Greenleaf

It all comes from the mind. I've seen the most incredible success stories - because a person had a dream and it was so powerful no one could touch it. He'd feel it, believe it, think about it all day and night. That would inspire him to do things necessary to get the results he wanted.
Arnold Schwarzenegger

The pilot light is out on my flame of ambition.
Winnie the Pooh

The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.
Winston Churchill

Some of the world's greatest feats were accomplished by people not smart enough to know they were impossible.
Doug Larson (Far Side cartoonist)

God does not place timetables on how quickly He expects us to capture his vision. In fact, He may take more pleasure in our attempt to know His mind than in our eventual ability to capture that insight. The key is that we develop a life-style characterized by the vision-capturing process- that is a life in which He is preeminent, in which our desires are to know and please Him and our activities center around our relationship with Him."
George Barna

The major credit I think Jim and I deserve is for selecting the right problem and sticking to it. It's true that by blundering about we stumbled on gold, but the fact remains that we were looking for gold.
Francis Crick (co-proposer of the double-helix structure of DNA)

People will never attain what they cannot see themselves doing.
Karen Ford

That which holds our attention determines our action.
William James, Psychologist

Many an object is not seen, though it falls within the range of our visual ray, because it does not come within the range of our intellectual ray
Henry David Thoreau

People need BHAGs - big hairy audacious goals.
Jim Collins, Jerry Porras (co-authors of Built to Last : Successful Habits of Visionary Companies)

I have never been disabled in my dreams.
Christopher Reeve

The future belongs to those who believe in their dream.
Eleanor Roosevelt

The very essence of leadership is that you have to have a vision.
Theodore Hesburgh

Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.
Carl Jung

Some men see things as they are and say why? I dream things that never were and say "Why not?"
Robert Kennedy

I would be delighted with my trifocals if one pair of lenses simply let me see the world clearly; the second let me see the world as others see it; and the third let me see it as God does.
Keith Brenton

Things I Suspect About Worship

I'm no expert about worship. Frankly, I'm not sure I "get" it at all.

Sometimes my heart is engaged. Sometimes I'm just going through the motions. Sometimes I'm focused. Other times I'm distracted. Sometimes I'm with others. Sometimes I'm by myself.

But these are a few of the things I suspect about it:

• God wants us to worship Him because it's good for us to realize how much we should depend on Him ... not because He needs to hear it.
• Worship was never meant to make us comfortable. Frankly, the whole idea of sacrifice at the heart of it makes me really uncomfortable, because it pounds into my brain that sinleadstodeath sinleadstodeath sinleadstodeath; that graceleadstolife graceleadstolife graceleadstolife; and that despite all of my best efforts I am going to be and imperfect, bumbling, pitiful failure at the morality game. And bringing up sacrifice only weekly, or just at Easter - instead of daily - makes it a bit more comfortable for me.
• Worship has to come from the heart, not from an indexed book of rules with check-mark boxes beside each one, legislating every conceivable "thou shalt" and "shalt not" with regard to the way I express my bewildered awe of the Creator.
• Worship in spirit and in truth - despite all the ways I've heard it explained - is a concept that still somehow eludes me, and I wonder if that's intentional.
• When Jesus brought up the subject of worship in spirit and in truth, it wasn't a command. It was a prophecy. For some it has already come true. For me - and I'd bet a lot of others - it's mostly yet to happen.
• Worship can't be forced. If it could, there'd be a lot more rules about it. Sure, quote your Old Testament chapters at me all you want. Underlying them all is still the plain fact that people need and should want to worship God; to understand that He is a jealous God; to feel that He is a loving God; to accept that He is a just God; to be drawn closer to Him as a Father God. And that it calls for extraordinary effort.
• Some ways that you worship God are probably really different than some ways I do. A few of mine wouldn't make sense to you or "speak" to you at all; and vice-versa. My guess is that I don't have a right to require you to adopt mine any more than you should expect me to adopt yours. The final arbiter on any given point would be God, wouldn't it? Wouldn't pleasing Him be the goal? Wouldn't it please Him for me to feed you by participating in the ways that nourish your spirit, and for you to reciprocate for my hunger? Could that be why He calls us to dine together in the first place?
• Seeing, hearing, experiencing God's activity in the world persuades me to want to worship Him. Walling myself off from God's activity with anything - especially my own activity - has the opposite effect.
• Worship is virtually impossible when the name of Jesus isn't even mentioned, except maybe to close a prayer or a casual reference in communion. He's the Go-Between. The Intercessor. The Mediator. The One whose Spirit interprets the groanings of us pitiful would-be's to the incomprehensible language of the Great I AM.

That's just a few of them. I suspect more, but I'm feeling distant and grumpy and cold right now, and not in the mood to search them out and confirm them among the shouts and pleas and whispers of His word.

I don't "get" worship tonight because I might begin to "get" God ... and I just don't know if I could handle the change that it would make - and break - of my heart.

'I Will Get Him'

"Woman," he said, "why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?" Thinking he was the gardener, she said, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him."

When the full story of Mary in the Garden was read aloud in worship this morning, I was moved to tears by this simple verse. It had never struck me this way before.

Mary, no matter what it took, would have brought Jesus' body back to the tomb. Even if she had to do it herself - since Peter and John and the other women had left the scene.

'I will get him,' she said.

It was one of those moments of amusing spiritual irony - she was speaking to Jesus, but couldn't recognize Him - made all the more poignant by her simple spunk and deep affection for Him.

And I asked myself: Would I go and get Him?

With the seal on the tomb broken and the governor's authority breached and the lynch mob still passionate from their victory in executing Him, would I go by myself and get Him?

Do I "get" Him today?

Do I really, fully comprehend who He is; what motivates Him; how humanity balances divinity in His nature?

Of course not.

How many times have I encountered Him, thinking He was just the gardener; not recognizing Him as the planter of Eden?

No, I may not "get" Him today or tomorrow or even in this life.

But some day I will.

Blogiversary #2

Two years ago today I began blogging. (Look at the bottom post on the linked page. Best I can do. Blogger has changed its archive system since then.)

I blogged about faith becoming fact. Two years later - on this Good Friday - I'm not sure how to gauge whether my life's faith has become fact in a greater degree.

In some faith matters, I've become more emergent. In others, more recessive. I'm not proud of it. That's just the fact I need to face, and change.

Whatever miracles Jesus must have seen done by His own hand; whatever great teachings He must have heard His own lips speak for His Father ... when soldiers held His lacerated back to a cross and nailed His hands and feet to it, I wonder if His faith became less than fact for a few moments. If He was tempted to call the legions of angels to rescue Him. If He felt like struggling against the torturers with his last ounces of futile human strength to escape the pain, the asphyxiation, the inevitable.

The fact is, He didn't act on any lack of faith He might have felt. And that made His faith fact. It made Good Friday good. It made all of us who believe good - in fact, perfect in His sight - whatever deficits of faith we might have; whatever timidity in acting on our faith; whatever horrible facts confront us.

He has been there.

And He knows.

The Judas Monologue

Eleven years ago, a dear sister at my church asked me to write and deliver a monologue in the character of Judas to her women's class. The recent resurfacing of the Gnostic Gospel of Judas and the proximity of Easter and the preceding Betrayal Night has prompted me to look it up and post it for your perusal. I didn't read the scripture citations - they were for any Q&A that might take place afterward. I think most of the women in the class were so stunned when I threw a velvet bag of coins over their heads and across the room at the end of my delivery that they must have forgotten their questions. Most of what I write doesn't hold up this well over time, in my opinion - but it is still very, very subjective and conjectural ....

You - women of God's people - I know you've come here to the women's court of the temple to pray. Perhaps some of you have come to pray on behalf of Jesus whom they crucify even now. But please - I beg of you - pray for me, too. I have to tell you ... I have to explain to someone ... what I have done. I have to make you understand.

My name is Judas, son of Simon; I'm from a little town called Kerioth. If you haven't read the book of Joshua you've probably never even heard of it. I've traveled with Jesus these three years - through Israel, Judea, even Samaria. He chose me for this - and the other eleven. He took us up on a mountain and called us apostles. (Mark 3:13-19)

Why, the very word means "one sent forth." Then he sent us forth with no money, no bag of extra clothes, or sandals or even a staff. (Matthew 10:9-10)

He never understood that it takes money to conduct a campaign of any kind. Even later on, when he entrusted me with our treasury, Jesus still never understood the value of money. (John 12:6)

Whenever we needed money, I was the one who would have to beg of young women like you to give out of their household money - women like Mary Magdalene; Susanna; Joanna, the wife of Herod?s chief steward, Cuza. Why, if she had been caught, Cuza could have lost his job; she could have lost her life! (Luke 8:2-3)

That was just the power Jesus had over people through the words he spoke. And he didn?t even fully understand or appreciate that power, either.

People followed him everywhere. Into the desert .... up the mountainsides ... across or around the lakes ... just to hear him speak. They didn't care if they missed a few meals or even lost their jobs to go and hear him speak. They didn't pack a lunch or a bag. They just followed. And Jesus fed them. Thousands of them. Five thousand-odd one time; some four thousand the next. And he'd say that the food he had to give them that was important was what God had given him to say to them. I've always known that God was with him. What I can't understand is how he could not see that those people would have lived and died at his command.

Jesus would take people to these far-away places and talk to them about his kingdom, but he would never make the first move to establish it.

We didn't ask for the Romans to occupy the land God gave us. We didn't ask for their puppet kings or their tax collectors or their occupation soldiers. We didn't ask for Herod the Great to kill our children or for his son Herod to steal his brother Philip?s wife and cut off the head of John the Baptist just to please her and her exotic dancer daughter.

We needed Jesus. We needed a man of God to be our King. Jesus was perfect for the job; he was born in the kingly tribe; he was a prophet. And I really thought just a week ago when we came into Jerusalem that Jesus was ready to accept the responsibility.

The crowds turned out by the thousands to watch him ride into town on a donkey, placing palm leaves all along the path - even throwing their coats down to make his way clean!

Then what did he do? The very next day, he threw over all of the tables of the concessionaires here in the temple's outer court; rebuking them for turning a house of prayer into a den of thieves. So, in one stroke, Jesus embarrassed the priests for allowing the trading to take place here and alienated most of the wealthy men in Jerusalem - men who would have rushed to support the cause of economic freedom from the Romans! They were only here doing their jobs; making it a little easier for everyone who travels here at Passover to buy an unspotted sacrifice and to be able to give to the temple of God in our own coinage - and not some filthy Greek or Roman currency!

But that wasn't what set me off. What really infuriated me was two days before, in Bethany. Simon the leper, a Pharisee, had been gracious enough to hold a pre-Passover feast in honor of Jesus at his own house. He invited Mary, Martha, Lazarus, all twelve of us, and many other Pharisees. Mary took a notion to break open a jar of perfume worth a year's wages and poured it on Jesus' feet and wept over them and wiped his feet with her hair, so that the whole house reeked of it. And he just sat there and let her do it. (John 12:1-3) She is not a woman of good repute, and it did nothing to enhance his image to be seen letting her touch him. So when Simon called it to his attention, Jesus rebuked him! Said she had treated him better than Simon, his host, had treated him!

Then he told her that her sins were forgiven, which did not go over at all well with the Pharisees. (Luke 7:36-50)

Well, I was not going to let it go at that. I told Jesus that she was wasteful; the perfume could have been sold and the money at least given to the poor. And Jesus said, "Leave her alone, she's done a beautiful thing, preparing me for my burial." (John 12:7-8).

He was always talking about dying and being buried, when he should have been talking about living and fighting and dying for something worthwhile!

I was angry. Jesus embarrassed me. He embarrassed a good man with the same name as my dad, hosting that dinner. A wealthy man; a man who could have supported our cause. He didn't show any political sense for what Rome was doing to our people and had no interest in doing anything about it. He didn't seem to care whether we were taxed to death, whether we had money to live on, or whether we lived or died.

I was furious, and that doesn't make right what I did next. I knew the priests and the Pharisees wanted Jesus and Lazarus, too, because Jesus had raised him from the dead. They didn't know where Jesus would be at any given time; he never seemed to have an itinerary. (John 12:9-11)

And it's not surprising Jesus avoided them; they had tried to stone him once before - right on the temple grounds, against the Law! - because he had said that he had seen Abraham. But he slipped away and escaped then. (John 8:58)

I'm not sure what was going through my mind, I was so angry. I'm not sure whether I thought I could control the unavoidable confrontation by being the "inside man," or if I could force Jesus to a moment where he would have to lead the people against the Romans and truly become their king. I thought about the wasted money - the money we needed just to be able to make our sacrifices and enjoy the feast in Jerusalem - maybe even to buy swords to defend ourselves. I went to the chief priests and asked them what they would be willing to give me if I handed him over to them. (Matthew 26:14-15)

It was sickening. They seemed delighted. (Mark 14:10) And they counted out for me thirty silver coins. (Matthew 26:15) Then they promised to give them to me if I would lead them to him. So I waited for the best opportunity to do it. (Mark 14:11)

And for days, I couldn't bring myself to do it. It was nauseating to think that the religious leaders of our people would sell the life of a man so quickly ... right here in the temple. But then they've been selling us out to the Romans for years.

Jesus taught here almost every day after that. They could have taken him right here; they didn't need me! I guess they were afraid of the crowds. They'd try to trap him in His own words; they?d ask him things like, "Should we pay taxes to Caesar or not?" and he asked them to look at a coin and tell him whose name and picture were on it. And he said since it's Caesar's name and Caesar's picture, then give it to Caesar ? just days after he had thrown out the men who exchanged Caesar's money for our own!

Then the first day of Passover came, and instead of going back to Bethany, Jesus somehow knew about someone who would give us his guest room in town to celebrate the feast. But our host had failed to provide a servant to wash our feet when we arrived. So Jesus took off his clothes and wrapped a towel around his waist; poured water into a basin and washed our feet. And when Peter objected, he said we were clean, but not all of us. (John 13:2-11)

And I thought to myself, "Does he know what I've done?"

Then he started talking about death again. When he gave the blessing for the paschal feast, he called the bread his body, and the wine his blood. And he said one of us would betray him. Peter got John to ask Jesus who it was. And Jesus took the bread and dipped it in the wine and said, ?The one I give this to.? Then he gave it to me. Instantly, I thought of the Psalm - the one that says ?Even my close friend, whom I trusted, he who shared my bread, has lifted up his heel against me." (Psalm 41:9) Like the others, I said, "Surely not I, Lord." He looked right at me and said, "Yes, it is you."

He knew.

He said to me, "What you are about to do, do quickly." I guess the others thought he was telling me to buy more for the Feast or go give some money to the poor. I wasn?t sure why he told me this. Did he want me to do it? Had he changed his mind about becoming King? It was the perfect time, on Passover, with all of the people from all of the tribes in Jerusalem, to lead the revolt against the Romans.

Or did he just know that I had been agonizing all week over the deal I had made ... and it was time to do what I had promised? Was he just telling me that he'd be going out to the Garden on the Mount of Olives at his usual time that evening?

I guess I secretly hoped maybe he would prepare the others for what was about to happen. So I left. I came here to the chief priests and led them and the temple guard out to the Garden where I knew he'd be. (John 18: 1-2)

And he saw us coming before we saw him; saw the lanterns and torches and called out "Who is it you want?" The guards answered "Jesus of Nazareth." So Jesus said, "I am he." We thought we were being ambushed, and the guards and the priests all jumped back and fell over each other. Nothing happened. While they were getting back up, Jesus said again, "Who is it you want?" And they said again, "Jesus of Nazareth." So he said, "I told you that I am he. If I'm the one you're looking for, let these others go." (John 18:2-9)

"Are you coming after me with swords and clubs, as if I were leading a rebellion? I was with you every day in the temple courts, and you didn't lay a hand on me. But this is your hour - when darkness reigns."

Still, nothing happened. I looked at the other apostles with Jesus. They weren't prepared. Two of them had swords, if you can call Peter's fish-gutting knife a sword. I looked at the priests and the guards. They looked back at me, and I realized it was me they waiting for. The time had come. Was it possible they weren't sure it was him? That this was still a trap? No, they knew him.

But they'd made a deal ... with me. I took a step forward and said, "Greetings, Teacher!" and started to kiss him.

He looked at me and said, "Judas, are you betraying the son of man with a kiss?"

There was nothing I could do. I'd made a promise. No - I had made a deal. I had sold him out. I kissed him, and the priests and guards leaped forward to arrest him. Peter drew his big knife and made a ridiculous attempt to defend him, and Jesus even put a stop to that.

Then all the apostles ran. I wasn't the only one who betrayed him. The priests arrested Jesus and took him away. Then they made their payoff. Look, here it is: thirty pieces of silver. The price of a man's life.

The priests took him and tried him for blasphemy, because he said he was the Son of God. They spit at him. They blindfolded him and punched him and told him to prophesy who it was that hit him. Then the guards took him and beat him. (Mark 14:65) All I could do was watch.

By morning the chief priests and priests and the whole Sanhedrin handed down a guilty verdict, but they realized they couldn't stone Jesus to death without the Romans' permission. So they trumped up a charge of treason and took him to the Roman governor Pilate. I thought for a moment, Jesus might have a chance. Of all the ironies, the Roman governor said the charges were groundless and he didn't recognize blasphemy as a crime. So he offered to release Jesus. And the crowd screamed for him to release Barabbas, a thief, instead.

When Pilate asked what they wanted him to do with Jesus, they started screaming, "Crucify him!" So it wasn't just me, and it wasn't just the priests, and it wasn't just the apostles who betrayed him. It was everyone. All those people who used to follow him anywhere. I guess they were disappointed because Jesus wouldn't be the king they wanted him to be. So Pilate had Jesus stripped to the waist and flogged with a whip 39 times. Then he put a purple robe on his bloody back and pushed a crown made of thorns on his head and made fun of him again.

I couldn't stand it any longer. I ran back here to the temple to try to undo this deal. I went to the priests and offered to give back the money. I told them that I had sinned; I had betrayed innocent blood. They refused to take the money. They acted like it was none of their concern. They said it was my responsibility.

And it is. That's why you've got to pray for me. They're nailing him to a cross right now, and he's going to die a long, torturous, terrible death - pushing up against the nails in his feet, scraping his beaten back against the wood to take the next breath - maybe for hours.

I don't want to die that way. When they've killed Jesus, they'll hunt down the rest of us apostles and kill us too. I want to go quickly. Just a snap of the neck. "Cursed be the one who hangs on a tree," that's what the Scripture says. Well, that's me. I deserve worse, but I'm not going to wait around for it.

Look at it. Thirty pieces of silver. About a month's wages. For thirty pieces of silver, I've killed my master - and my friend.

An Heretical Hermeneutic

I call it that because it's an accurate description ... and because "A Generous Orthodoxy" was already taken.

I'm not going to attempt to defend it; only to propose it. Or, rather, to quote it:

I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be (or "will have been") bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be (or "will have been") loosed in heaven.

The heresy is in my interpretation. It comes from my hermeneutic that maintains there may be more than one correct/right/valid way to interpret a given passage of scripture; that scripture may have many complex layers, given the complexity of the One who reveals it and the creatures He created.

In this quote from Jesus (Matthew 18:18), the burden for making some decisions within the fellowship of believers seems to rest upon believers. It does not say, "Whatever God binds and looses in heaven, you had better be absolutely certain that you perfectly understand and inerrantly bind and obey on earth."

It just does not say that.

The context is Jesus' teaching on teaching children well; on handling conflict; on forgiving others - all in answer to the question "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?"

(Insulting question on its face, isn't it? Especially to ask of the One who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.)

But the answer seems to be that those who are bold enough to live Christ-like lives are given the authority within that kingdom to exercise judgment ... judgment about what is right and what is wrong - not about who is right and who is wrong. Because this enigmatic quote is sandwiched between the admonition to go to a brother who has sinned/or has something against you - and in two or three agreeing to ask God to do something for them.

Am I imagining it, or is this all connected? Not just a dissociated grouping of various sayings by the Master, but an ongoing thought:

Somebody has a problem with someone else. They get together. One is stubborn. The other brings friends who validate his point of view. If the stubborn one remains stubborn in the matter before the whole big group, the others are to turn away from him. What they have decided - binding or loosing - will be (or already will have been) decided the same way in heaven. Because God will listen to those two or three and decide that way.

Given the fact that the original language can be interpreted in two different tenses, I even see the tinge of meaning that the God who was, who is and who is to come rules on the matter from the perspective of eternity.

Does that mean that eternal law is cast in that decision?

What happens when two different sets of two or three agree on points of view that as far from each other as the east is from the west?

Does God bind their belief on the ones they have gone to and spoken to about this matter? Does He require them to follow their siblings' belief even though they do not hold it?

Or does God bind belief on the one who holds it?

That, to me, is the gist of Romans 14 - that our instruction isn't to go imposing our beliefs on other brothers and sisters, but to try to avoid offending their consciences while remaining true to our own. That God holds us responsible for remaining faithful to the beliefs we hold, not that they hold. That there are some things that are just simply a matter of conscience.

Eating meat sacrificed to idols is apparently one of those things. Participating in ritual sex with a temple prostitute is not.

Maybe that's why the Spirit's support for the resolution of the Council at Jerusalem seems so tepid in Acts 15. The letter goes out from the council phrased "It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and us ...."

Only seemed?

Was that because the Spirit was in favor of half of the measure - forbidding fornication - but was not interested in passing church law on matters that were primarily Jewish kosher food and sacrifice customs? Matters that were moot, since Christ put animal sacrifice to death and since sacrifice to pagan gods was empty ritual because those gods were imaginary?

If that's so ... how many times have we as Christians made our walk with Christ much more difficult by binding items of belief on ourselves that Jesus never intended us to bear? Are our consciences so burdened with nonessential beliefs that we've bound our own hands and hearts to do good in His name?

I'm thinking about stuff that has passed for doctrine within my lifetime, folks ... and some of it that still passes for doctrine, even though they're things that scripture doesn't even mention.

I'm thinking about forbidding charity to missionary societies, orphan homes, Bible camps and anything else that smacks of "cooperation."

I'm thinking about requiring accountability partners, multilayered church authority hierarchies, signatures on documents of commitment, attitudes of being 100 per cent "sold-out" 24/7.

I'm thinking about forbidding applause, hands raised in worship, new songs, old songs, solo voices, musical instruments, silent contemplation.

I'm thinking about a few dozen other things that have absolutely nothing to do with preventing or guaranteeing our closeness to God through His Son.

But most of all, I'm thinking about a mindset that requires explicit, detailed authority and permission (referenced from isolated book, chapter and verse) for everything that God supposedly wants us to do as being a very damned convenient excuse for not doing anything at all.

Pardon my French, but that's the word that comes to mind ... because if God does bind these very restrictive beliefs - good, bad or indifferent - on a Christian, then the least violation of that voluminous rulebook is an act of self-condemnation. (Isn't that the very kind of thing Jesus was talking about when he said the Pharisees were eager to bind on others a lot of rules they had no intention of keeping themselves, nor in helping others keep?)

And if they are so bound on earth - and manage to remain true to those beliefs - does that mean that they would remain bound to them in heaven?

Wouldn't that take some of the life out of the party both here and hereafter?

The point, to me, is that a lot of our self-devised rules are pretty arbitrary. They serve to separate, not to unite. They do so by creating castes of "I'm better than you" folks who can live by those rules and look down on those who don't; who can preach them into hell for their infidelity. They create super-apostles versus lesser believers who can never feel confident of their faith. They foster an "I'm right and you're wrong" attitude that is totally inconsistent with the truth - that we are all wrong, and only Jesus is right.

You see, I'm not sure that Matthew 18 is entirely about the proper procedures for handling conflict between brothers.

I'm thinking it might also be good tongue-in-cheek advice for how not to impose your fifty-volume perfect-bound personal rule book encyclopedia on someone else: Just leave them alone. Let them struggle through their own challenges, not yours. Because if you love them, you can't possibly excommunicate them forever, based on your imperfect knowledge and your imperfect judgment.

C'mon. Can you really picture Jesus saying, "... treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector" without a hint of a smile playing at the side of His mouth? The One who came from heaven to redeem pagans and to call tax collectors to follow Him?

Is it possible that the struggle to determine and dedicate one's self to what is right is far more important than being eternally right about the details of rules and regulations? Wasn't it Jesus' consistent teaching that the Pharisees and Saducees had found God's own rules insufficient and lacking, producing volumes and layers of their own interpretation and legislation to complete the deficit?

Didn't He say that we will be judged as we judge others?

Wasn't it for freedom itself that He set us free ... not to live lawlessly, but in love with Him and each other?

Isn't all of that the heresy that He instigated with regard to man's view of God's Word, which is Himself?

Ain't it called grace?

Did I Sell Out?

Sunday morning I was privileged to lead communion thoughts at the Lord's table. I was asked to read I John 3:16-20:

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.

Then I retold a brief story:

Years ago, I heard missionary Juan Monroy tell of working in a South American country where a very rigid caste system was in place; where a new young convert, who was a laborer, did not feel it permissible to look directly into the face of someone of a higher caste, such as a preacher - or to call him by his first name; only as "Senor" or "Mr.". After Juan preached what must have been a powerful sermon on how Jesus' sacrifice makes us all equal - just fellow-sinners saved by His grace - he positioned himself next to this new convert. It was the custom in this church, you see, for one person to pass the emblems of the Lord's Supper to the next person by addressing them by their first name and saying something to the effect of "This is the body of Christ, which was broken for you" or "This is Jesus' blood, which was shed for you." When the plate came to him, the young man looked right into Juan's eyes, a great smile across his face, and said, "Juan, this is Jesus' body. He did this for you."

Then I hedged. I said,

That's not our custom in this church, and some of us would doubtless be uncomfortable saying such a thing to another. But I wonder if, as we pass these emblems to each other this morning, we could do so looking right into each others' eyes with a look of love, a look that says "This is His body. This is His blood. He did this for us."

And I led the blessings for the bread and the cup.

I would have liked to have asked, just for one Sunday, to adopt this custom which speaks so richly to the vertical AND horizontal relationship we have as God's children and Christ's siblings at the Table. I think to do so might have been more distracting than fruitful. I felt like I at least introduced the possibility of more interaction during our time at the Table together.

What do you think?

Did I sell out?