Different Expressions of the Same Belief

Last week, for our final faith experiment for Theology two, our assignment was to visit a church whose worship is in a different stream of Christianity than Salem Alliance. I chose to attend the Mt. Angel Abbey and worship with the Benedictine Monks.

This was a completely new experience for me. I had been to the Abbey many times before, however, in all of my previous visits, I was just there to do my own thing. Whether it be a personal time of prayer, a quiet day to study, or just a day to trespass around in some cool old buildings. Whatever motivated me before to make my way up to the Abbey, it had never been to sit in and join my Christian brothers in worship.

Of course I was a little uncomfortable during the service, I really had no clue what I was doing, but I did all I could to keep my focus on the Lord and not on how stupid I felt for, I think missing the bunt sign? Anyway, while the worship was very different than anything I am used to and caused me to feel mildly uncomfortable, I didn’t see anything inherently wrong with what they were doing or feel the need to point out why I don’t believe it is necessary to do the sacraments and practices they do. It was just different. Their beliefs didn’t seem too different, just their expression of their beliefs. But that’s okay, as Ravi Zacharias said, “Uniformity of belief does not guarantee uniformity of expression.

The Course of Discovery

This course has taught me a lot about myself and about how I relate to the Father. It taught me how much I enjoy studying and learning about God and about the principles he created. It taught me how much I enjoy the challenge of turning those complicated theological principles into practical life applications. And while I already knew that I enjoy the mental gymnastics that go along with studying theology, I never knew before how much I enjoy the amalgamation process of turning those concepts into something practical; into the everyday.

I wouldn’t go back to carrying around a wooden cross. I wouldn’t become a permanent member of the Holy Catholic Church, or shove a rock into my pocket every time someone wrongs me. I will however, go back to the theology of the Cross. I will respect other streams of Christendom. I will show forgiveness in difficult situations. I will go back to studying theological ideas and practicing its implications because, while practical experiences can become dull and stale, the deep theological principles contained in the Scripture possess that divine preservative which never grows stale as they serve to bring me closer to the Father. These theological ideas always leave me wanting more. They leave me with the curious desire to believe that despite everything I’ve already found, there’s still more to discover.

Remember the Height from which You Have Fallen

When I first heard this assignment, I had somewhat of a bad attitude towards it. I heard the words, ‘Identity Gap’ and tuned out. To me that sounded like some emotional quick-fix for new Christians, or people struggling with self-esteem. I didn’t think anything was inherently wrong with the assignment, I thought it would be great for other people and surely makes them feel really good about themselves, but having heard about my inheritance as a Christian so much in my life already, it just didn’t give me the same warm fuzzy feeling as it would have years ago when my relationship with God was just beginning.

So, a few days went by without me even thinking about the assignment. I went to work, went to school, went to church, cleaned the house, spent time with my girlfriend, spent a lot of time watching football and playoff baseball, and even did a bit of homework and Bible study. It was an ordinary week. Then, when Monday evening came around, and I refreshed myself on what the upcoming assignments were, I revisited this assignment. Pulling the crinkled up little pamphlet out of my backpack from where it had sat all week, I looked over it with the same bad attitude I had before. But then, God convicted me of something.

What He brought to my attention was that I was viewing this little pamphlet all wrong. What I first approached as a just a cute little list of compliments that I didn’t feel the need for, now looked to me like a deeply thought out love-letter. Addressed to me, from the one I love, who put effort into it and even His own blood into it so that those “compliments” would actually be truths. Truths that were calling me to reevaluate the effort I was putting forth in the relationship. And I kind of ignored it. I treated it as if it were just stale flattery and as if there was nothing wrong with our relationship.

I scoured the areas of the Bible which I knew addressed this topic and landed on Revelation 2:4-5:
“You have forsaken the love you had at first. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.”

Praying over this verse, I remembered how I used to study God’s Word so obsessively. How often I used to spend time alone in prayer and in intimacy with Him. I used to wake up at the butt-crack of dawn just to find a quiet place where I could sit with Him. I used to take every opportunity to spend a day away with Him, or to have a staycation at home with Him. Back when I didn’t let work, or school, or other pressures and cares of the world, or even service to Him take place over intimacy with Him. That was my height to remember.

Remembering the height from which I had fallen in our relationship made me realize how much I had neglected intimacy with God, and how I had fallen into what Jesus warned about when he spoke of the cares of this life growing up to choke out the good seed.

Now God was calling me back to the way things used to be. Back to the “honeymoon period,” back to the “mushy stuff” described in the Song of Songs that is so intimate it’s almost uncomfortable to read. Instead of seeing those words as some emotional quick-fix, I now see them as a love letter. An invitation to spend time in the loving embrace of my ‘first love.’

There must be time for Him, just to love Him and have Him love us, no other agendas, no lists of prayer requests. These may come later, but we need to put loving Him first, because only as we are filled with His love, do we have love to give away. So many Christians cannot rest in His presence but must be constantly on duty … Our highest calling is to intimacy with the living God. (Carol Arnott)

First Impressions, Last Goodbyes, and a Two Foot Wooden Cross

This last week while carrying my cross, I was not approached by a single stranger asking why I have it or what it means. Most likely because I have such a muscular and intimidating frame. My friends and coworkers on the other hand, have been full of questions. Sadly, most of them were just trying to be funny.

Here is a list of all the questions I was asked this week:

Why is there a giant cross on your back?

What uh, whatcha got there?

Why do you have a cross?

Are you carrying around a roadside cross? Cause that's a really sad thing to carry around.

Is that one of those things they put on the side of the road after a car accident?

Who died? (With a smug look on my face I answered, "Jesus. But on the third day he rose again.")

What kind of powers does it have?

If I touch Adrian with it, will it burn him?

You made this? Is it heavy? Do you really take it everywhere with you? Do you have to sleep with it? Do you shower with it? Do you take it into the bathroom with you? (Makes a sour face) If you lose it will you go to Hell?

Are you embarrassed of it?

Have people been asking you about it?

Have any Jews gotten mad at you yet?

If he didn't mean it literally, why are you doing it?

Have you converted anyone yet?

Where do you have to take it?

Now, even though most of the questions I was asked were jokes, it wasn’t completely fruitless. I was able to have a lot of conversations about the reasoning behind this project with my friends and coworkers.

And God taught me something else…

You see, Monday was my last day at Levi’s. The whole night it was a running joke that my coworkers were taking mental photographs of random moments to remember me by. At the end of the night, as my coworkers and I were walking to our cars, one of my coworkers made the comment, “There he goes. We’ll always have this mental image of him walking away with a giant cross on his back.”

How fitting is it that the last time most of them will ever have seen me, I had a two foot wooden cross slung over my shoulder? 

Then, on Tuesday morning, I worked my first day at Costco. As I walked into the warehouse at 6A.M.—cross slung over my shoulder—the first thing a lot of them noticed about me was the two foot wooden cross on my back.

Its funny how this project fell on the week of both my last day at Levi’s and my first day at Costco. Because of this timing, some peoples' last memory of me will be me walking away with a big wooden cross on my back, and others' first impressions are me walking up, also with a cross on my back.

This is how our lives are supposed to be aren’t they? Not just when we have radical assignments from our Christian school. We are always supposed to live in a way that—as boldly as a two foot wooden cross—causes The Cross to be both the first thing people notice when they meet us, and the last thing they remember when we say goodbye.  

A Guilty Plea that Results in an Innocent Sentence

I don’t care to admit this, but I am usually the one who needs to ask for forgiveness. In this case however, I for once was on the other side as the offended party. You see, about a month ago, I found that someone who a few weeks prior had asked for my help in paying for their bills, was stealing money from me and using the money they stole from me to pretend to pay me back. Forgiveness was hard, but walking around with their theft constantly on my mind was exhausting. It was as Jeff described, "like walking around with a rock in your pocket." I needed to resolve the situation and offer forgiveness. I presented them with my evidence against them. They admitted their theft and accepted my forgiveness. The rock was gone.

Then, three weeks ago, I again noticed something missing. A few things actually. This time it wasn’t money, but things had been taken from me. I made an itemized list of all the things I knew were missing and began investigating where they could have gone. I knew I hadn't just misplaced them. I had an idea of what happened to these things and it made me sick. At first I didn't want to believe that this same person would steal from me again, especially not steal this much.

I found that the same person who had stolen from me a few weeks prior, had stolen from me again. They had stolen my things, sold them, and pocketed the cash. Even before I had evidence against them, I knew they were guilty of this theft, and I had to go for two weeks with this “rock” in my pocket as I investigated.

Last Wednesday I had enough evidence to convict them, then on Thursday we were assigned the "Rock and Rose" project. Weird how His timing works out huh?

After weeks of prayer, on Sunday this last week, I was ready to get rid of this rock that had been digging into my skin all month. I wasn’t going to demand they replace the items or pay me back. I was furious and after this second theft, I really just wanted to grab them by the collar and pin them to the wall, but I figured God wanted me to act more like Christ than like Al Capone. So on Monday, I gathered my evidence and made a plan to confront them with what they had done so that I could offer forgiveness and pray with them.

On Monday, I found them eating lunch and laid in front of them the itemized list of stolen goods. Before I could even begin my prosecution. They slammed their fists on the table, stood up from where they were sitting, and angrily said, “I didn’t F****** steal anything from you!” I wanted to remind them of the money they stole the month before, but instead I just presented my evidence for the current theft. They got angrier and angrier by the second. Then they got in my face and began swearing at me.

At this point, forgiveness had gone out the window in my mind. Instead, I secretly hoped they would hit me so that I could take the situation "Into my own hands." It's probably a good thing that didn’t happen...Instead, they just stormed off—still swearing at me. I knew confronting them and offering forgiveness would be difficult, but that wasn't the result I expected. I expected to be done with that annoying rock, and just as I was about to be done with that rock that had been digging into my leg for the past three weeks, they shoved it back into my pocket.   

After weeks of working towards a place of forgiveness, there I was back where I started, at a place of anger and resentment. As Paul said in Romans 12:18, “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.” But now for me it wasn’t possible as far as it depended on me. I had approached them, ready to forgive, ready to make amends, but they refused to admit their wrongdoing. How can there be forgiveness when the person wont own up to their sin in the first place?

There can’t be. Forgiveness is an offering that must be accepted, but in order to be accepted it first requires a prerequisite of a guilty plea; a confession. 

Yesterday in class, Jeff handed everyone in the class copies of 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins, and will cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

That is a conditional statement: "If we confess our sins.” Before we can be forgiven, before we can have a savior, we must admit our wrongdoing and our need for a savior. If we don’t confess our sins, if we deny our wrongdoing, then in doing so we look at Jesus on the cross and say, “That’s not for me.” And we miss out on the forgiveness that is offered to us.

The beautiful reality is that because of Christ’s offer of forgiveness, when we humble ourselves enough to face the Judge and to plead guilty, we convict ourselves of an innocent sentence. It is after we accept the charges against us that we may look upon the Cross and say, “May this be for me?”

 

My situation is still unresolved and it still feels like I still have that annoying rock in my pocket. The situation feels like it has gone out of my control. My only option now is to defer it to the Lord and to trust in "him who judges justly.” – 1 Peter 2:23

Bridge on the River Kenosis: From Officers Who Won't Work to Servants Who Will

I was challenged by my professor to write a blog post, reflecting on a personal experience with “kenosis” or a time from the last week that, “God allowed you to empty yourself and reveal more of Him to someone in your world.”

This whole idea of a Kenosis Experience comes from Philippians chapter two. In Philippians 2:7 it states, “Instead, he [Jesus] gave up his divine privileges he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being,” the phrase “gave up his divine privileges” in the Greek is the word Kenosis which means he emptied himself. This was a voluntary act of Jesus. We find that what he emptied himself of in order to become man, was his glory. As it is stated in John 17:5, “Now, Father, bring me into the glory we shared before the world began.” What Jesus was asking that the father restore to him was his position, his recognition and his status. (Barnes)

At work, there is often the temptation to view certain tasks as being below myself. These menial tasks usually include handling a customer that could be a bit of an annoyance, or cleaning up a mess that could take significant time, or even something like fulfilling a simple request for help made by a coworker. When presented with tasks such as these, it’s a temptation for me to say, I can’t be bothered trivial things like this, I’m a manager! and instead defer it to one of my associates. Every day there is an example of this by another manager and it frustrates me to see. 

This attitude that my fellow managers and I can take on in these cases is reminiscent of Colonial Nicholson, in the classic movie The Bridge on the River Kwai. In it, Sir Alec Guinness’ character, Colonial Nicholson, famously refuses to neither allow his officers to partake in the bridge building, nor do any sort of manual labor himself because of their status as officers. It is a recurring instance in the movie where Nicholson refuses the order given by the Japanese commander, Colonial Saito, and says, “Officers won’t work!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXdycEK_38Y 

We can often fall into having this type of mindset when it comes to our service of God. Because of our pride we view certain ministerial tasks as being below us. We see them as being the kind of manual labor that we “officers” simply should not partake in. Because to partake in labor of that sort would be a failure to recognize our “status” and our “position.” It would be humiliating to our egos. Having this mindset often leads us to avoid pouring ourselves out into the river, and instead step over the kenotic opportunity effectively building a bridge over the river Kenosis.

What we as Christians need to discover is that in order for us to be effective servants, in order for us to let God make the most use of our lives, we must have the attitude of Christ and we must experience this “kenosis.” We must empty ourselves of our own glory and recognition, empty ourselves of who we think we are, our titles, our status, our position, the praise and acclamation that we receive from men, our selfishness, our egos, our self-centeredness, our pride. We must empty ourselves and take up the position, not of an officer who won't work, but of the servant, who is filled and led by the Holy Spirit and will.

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