A Fresh Perspective

It seems to me a huge waste of time when religious people get caught up in the game of determining who goes where, when, and how, of separating the world into the chosen and the un-chosen, the lost and the saved, those going to heaven and those not. I don’t want to suggest that those who believe such things are bad people. What I am saying is that it just seems to me to be an immense waste of energy and time. I am confident that all our futures are in the hands of a merciful, gracious God, who is far more generous, forgiving, compassionate, patient, kind, and good than the best person any of us know. This God, who I see beautifully embodied and made visible in the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, will never abandon any of us, even in our worst moments—even when such moments makeup a lifetime. It seems to me that our time could be more wisely invested in opening our lives to this gracious God right now. The Spirit wants to teach us how to love well, how to nu...

I mentioned in the opening sentence in my last blog that one of my favorite texts as an evangelical was Acts 16. It was a text I used in evangelizing. At that stage of my journey I had some very simplistic notions of salvation. When the jailer asks, “What must I do to be saved?” he wasn’t asking, as I thought then, how to go to heaven. He was asking, “What must I do to be made whole, to be healed, to be put right.” The word “saved” could be translated “to be made well, to be made whole, to be made complete.” When Paul says, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved” what he is saying is: Trust in and be faithful to the Lord Jesus. Transfer your trust and allegiance from the Empire of Rome to the kingdom of God as embodied and lived by Jesus, whom God has made Lord. Paul is telling this Roman citizen to transfer his allegiance. He wasn’t saying, “Here’s this doctrine about Jesus you have to believe in order to go to heaven.” He was saying, “ Rome is no longer ...

The conversion of the Roman jailer in Acts 16 was a favorite text of mine in my evangelical beginnings. What was it that compelled the jailer to become a follower of Jesus? I hardly think it was the message itself. There is nothing in the text to suggest that the jailer’s conversion had anything to do with the reasonableness, truthfulness, logic, coherence, or appeal of the message itself. What made the difference was the jailer’s experience of the message lived by Paul and Silas. It was the earthquake and what transpired afterward. Paul and Silas refused to flee. Had they fled the jailer would have been held accountable for their escape. It may have cost him his life. The jailer is emotionally, psychologically, and physically shaken. He comes trembling: “What must I do to be saved?” It was his experience that changed his perspective, that opened and readied him to receive the good news Paul proclaimed. It has been fascinating to observe the cultural shift in perception a...

Richard Rohr says that we grow spiritually much more by doing it wrong than by doing it right.  He also observes that people who consider themselves to be morally superior are often the last to learn this. The demand for the perfect is often the greatest enemy of the good. Brennan Manning tells a wonderful story from India about a water bearer who had two large pots. Each pot hung on opposite ends of a pole that he carried across his neck. One of the pots had a crack in it. So while one pot always delivered a full portion of water after the long walk from the stream to the master’s house, the cracked pot arrived only half full. The perfect pot was proud of its accomplishment, but the pot that was cracked was disappointed and ashamed. After two years of this the cracked pot said to the water bearer, “I am ashamed of myself and want to apologize for my failure.” The water bearer responded, “As we return to the master’s house, I want you to notice the beautiful flowers alon...

Jesus says to his disciples in his farewell discourse in John’s Gospel, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and not let them be afraid” (14:27). This bestowal of peace occurs in a context where Jesus promises the gift of the Holy Spirit (14:26). The Johannine community (the church/community out of which the Gospel of John emerged and to whom it was primarily written) clearly associated God’s gift of peace with God’s loving, dynamic presence. On our part, the gift of God’s peace is inseparably connected to our capacity to trust in the provision and sufficiency of God’s loving presence. The phrase in our passage where Jesus says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid,” recalls an earlier statement by Jesus at the beginning of this chapter, where he says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me” (14:1). Can we trust in the provision of God’s love? ...

In his farewell discourse to his disciples in the Gospel of John, Jesus says: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34–35). Jesus creates community, not on the basis of purity codes, levels of holiness, or degrees of worthiness, but on the basis of a transcending, inclusive, loyal love. The command to love is itself not new, but what is new is the emphasis and centrality Jesus brings to it. The duty of humankind toward God and toward each other can be gathered up in the command to love. If there is one virtue that is foundational to all other virtues, if there is one quality or attribute that stands above all the others and is the source of all the others it is love. This is the essential mark of Christian discipleship. The commandment is also new in the way Jesus makes God’s love tangible, visible...

In John  10:27 Jesus says:  “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish.” Eternal life in John’s Gospel is as much about quality of life as quantity of life. It is not merely life without end; it involves a particular kind of life that is without end . This Gospel offers a rather simple, but profound explanation of what it means by eternal life. In John 17:3 we read: “This is eternal life,  that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” From the perspective of the Johannine community, eternal life is knowing God and Jesus Christ whom God sent into the world. This “knowing” is not simply knowing about, it is not information based knowledge. It is intimate knowing, experiential knowing, relational knowing, intuitive knowing; it is deep, innate, inner, spiritual knowing. Faith, of course, is vital in nurturing this kind of kind of knowing. It is critically impor...