A Return to Blogging

Due to popular demand, I have returned to blogging.  Oh, all right…despite the lack of any real popular demand, I have returned to blogging after a substantial period of absence.

There are a lot of reasons for my absence, not the least of which was a perceived need on my part to stop talking for a while and process my thoughts internally rather than externally. I have embarked upon new experiments in living out my faith which have yet to lead to any firm conclusions, but they are leading to some interesting possibilities. I hope to be able to share these new thoughts with you in the future.

In the meantime, I invite you to read below my first posting for some time entitled, The Trail to the Left.

The Trail to the Left

Today I went on a hike in my beloved Superstition Mountains. It was a good hike.

It was good in the same way that they say any airplane landing you can walk away from is a good landing. In other words, I survived this hike but it was, by all other objective standards, a failure.

First, let’s talk about preparation. It was late last night when I decided that, even though the hike I had hoped to take with my daughter, Beth, didn’t work out, I was still going to go hiking. So I set the alarm for 5:30, with the goal of being on the trail by 7:00.

Two minutes after driving away from the house, it dawned on me that I had forgotten to bring any food for the trail. So I turned around and went home for my usual trail snack of an apple and cheese sticks. It’s really too bad that, at that moment, I didn’t think to ask, “I wonder if there’s anything else I forgot?” If I had, perhaps I would have remembered that I hadn’t used the inhaler which helps me with the mild asthma I suffer during demanding physical activity. Or I might have recalled that I had failed to put on the knee wrap I wear on the trail thanks to an old volleyball injury.

Oh, I did eventually remember these things. I remembered them after about five minutes on the trail. I could have turned back then, but that goes against my push-through-the-pain philosophy. As a result, within minutes, during a steep ascent, I was wheezing like an old woman with a three pack a day habit. There were also some moments when pain shot through my knee like I’d grabbed hold of a live wire. Still I pressed on. These were mere inconveniences to overcome.

“What about him? What about them?”

It was an anxious time for Peter. He had some serious fence-mending to do. Just days before, Jesus had been arrested and placed on trial in the courtyard of the home of the high priest. After the arrest, his disciples had followed at a distance. Without their leader they were confused and troubled. Their world was surreal, upended, chaotic.

On the edges of the crowd, not once but three times, some bystander confronted Peter with the charge that he knew Jesus. More than that – the accusation was that he was one of Jesus’ associates, one of his disciples.

Each time Peter denied the truth of the accusation with increasing ferocity. Finally, in his exasperation, Peter called curses down on himself and swore his denial. Just then, Jesus turned and his eyes met Peter’s and Peter wept bitterly at his cowardice. To save himself, he had denied his Lord.

Now, little more than a week later, the world which collapsed into chaos at the arrest, condemnation and crucifixion of Jesus has been transformed. There is still a sense of everything in disarray, but it is different now. It is no less disorienting, but it is no longer the disorientation that leads to despair, but a wildness and a newness which gives birth to hope.

But for Peter there is a great shadow which casts its pall over this new dawning. It is the shadow of guilt and distance caused by his denial of his Lord. Could there be forgiveness and restoration? Sitting in his fishing boat on the Sea of Tiberius that question repeats itself over and over. Then a man on the shore calls out, interrupting his thoughts. The man tells these professional fishermen that despite their fruitless efforts through the night, if they would just cast their nets on the other side of the boat, they would take in a catch.

And what a catch! As soon as the fish are hauled on board, John recognizes that the man on the shore must be Jesus. But it is Peter, so eager for reconciliation, who is the first to act. He dives into the water and makes for shore. And, later, when Jesus asks for fish to eat, it is Peter who rushes back to the boat to grab them. No one is more motivated than he is to please the Master.

The High Price of Belonging

One of the things I feel most acutely in this particular stage of my life is the sensation of being alone.

No, against all odds, Susan hasn’t tired of me and asked me to leave. I have not been cast out by anyone. I know of no place I would care to go where I would be openly treated as unwelcome, though I do know one or two individuals who seem not to take any pleasure in my company.

But still I feel this nagging sense of being an outsider and, honestly, I find it very unsettling to something deep inside of me. It is a sense of “other-ness” that conflicts with my desire to feel as if I belong among those around me. The desire to belong is potent, almost irresistible in its force.  Frankly, it is what has driven much of my behavior for the majority of my life.

There’s a line out the door at Joshua’s Restaurant

Joshua was a man on a mission. He had a business concept paired up with passion. He wanted to open a restaurant that would introduce his neighbors in his new adopted home in America to the cuisine of his homeland, Basileia. Though his new home was in a large metropolitan city, there were very few Basileians living there and no places that featured his native food. So he looked forward to being the first to introduce his community to the unique, savory delights of his homeland.

So Joshua scraped together all the money he could (as well as some money of family members who put their faith in him) and, after months of hard work, he opened his restaurant. Those few Basileian expats who lived in his city would frequent the restaurant and rave about the food. It was just the way that their mamas had cooked back home.

There was a not-so-minor problem, however. There weren’t many Basileians in that city. And, as is often the case with first-generation immigrants, they were not particularly well-off, so they couldn’t afford to eat out at Joshua’s restaurant very often. And the few Americans who tried it found its tastes a little too unique and unfamiliar. Few came back. Some nights he had no guests at all.

A Conversation with Gandhi – Part IV

If you’ve been following this series of posts, you’re already familiar with the scene. Early in the twentieth century, western Christian worker E. Stanley Jones developed a friendship with India’s Mahatma Gandhi. On one occasion, Jones took the opportunity to ask Gandhi’s advice as to how Christians could make a more favorable impact upon the Indian people on behalf of their faith.  

We have already looked at each of Gandhi’s first three recommendations: One, that we Christians should live more like Christ. Two, that we should live out an unadulterated version of our faith that has not been watered down. And, three, that we should put an emphasis on the centrality of love (as a force, not a feeling) to the Christian faith.

Today we look at Gandhi’s last recommendation. It was this: “Fourth, I would suggest that you study the non-Christian religions and culture more sympathetically in order to find the good that is in them, so that you will have a more sympathetic approach to the people.” In effect he is saying, “You don’t really know us or our ways, so you don’t treat us or them with respect, so how can you expect us to believe that you genuinely love us?”

He had a point. The Christian workers in India were frequently prejudiced against the very people and culture which they had traveled half-way around the world to reach with the gospel. The people recognized the dissonance between the workers’ stated love for Indians and an attitude which was patronizing and smug. As a remedy, Gandhi suggested a more sympathetic approach.

I believe that we still need to look carefully at our attitudes toward those who do not share our faith. Do we profess love for people of other faiths yet, within our own circles, speak of them with disrespect or suspicion, taking our talking points from arguments based in misunderstandings and stereotypes?

A Conversation with Gandhi – Part III

In the two previous posts (here and here) we’ve observed Mahatma Gandhi conversing with one of his contemporaries, E. Stanley Jones, a western Christian worker in India. Jones asked Gandhi how Christians might make their faith more appealing to the Indian people. Gandhi replied with four separate recommendations. As I’ve already shared, it is my conviction that this is counsel that we should listen to today. In fact, because we continue to disregard the matters he raised, we find ourselves still failing to appeal to our own society nearly a century later.

Gandhi’s first observation was that Christians needed to live more like Jesus. It’s a seemingly obvious thing, but often overlooked in our desire to win people to faith in Christ.  All too often, we don’t look or act like the one in whom we are asking them to place their belief. We have been guilty, at times, of promoting a religion based in the claims about Jesus, without seriously considering how Jesus would have gone about accomplishing the same goal. (Hint: He’s already showed us how he would accomplish it, and the evidence would suggest that we’re largely not willing to walk that hard, costly road.)

A Conversation with Gandhi – Part II

As was discussed in an earlier post, we are looking at a conversation involving the premier political and spiritual leader of India of the twentieth century, Mahatma Gandhi. He was asked by the western Christian worker, E. Stanley Jones, if he had any insights as to what Christians could do to present Christianity in a way that would be more appealing to the Indian people.

In the first post, we looked at Gandhi’s initial response; that Christians must begin to live more like Christ. In this post, I want to look at the second of four observations which he made.

Here is what Gandhi said next, “I would suggest that you must practice your religion without adulterating it or toning it down.”

In reflecting on these words, Jones wrote, “The greatest living non-Christian asks us not to adulterate (Christianity) or tone it down, not to meet them with an emasculated gospel, but to take it in its rugged simplicity and high demand. But what are we doing? As someone has suggested, we are inoculating the world with a mild form of Christianity, so that it is now practically immune against the real thing. Vast areas of the Christian world are inoculated with a mild form of Christianity, and the real thing seems strange and impossible.”

A Conversation with Gandhi – Part I

When considering the people of the last century who have influenced the world through their moral and spiritual stature, almost any short list would have to include Gandhi. In fact, although his given name was Mohandas, many knew him as Mahatma, “great soul,” a tribute to the respect in which he was held. He was the pre-eminent spiritual and political leader of 20^th century India, as well as of the Indian movement for independence from foreign rule. This movement was notable in that it was carried out through principles of nonviolence and civil disobedience, rather than through warfare. Martin Luther King Jr. credited Gandhi for inspiring himself and many others within the Civil Rights movement to follow this same path of nonviolence and civil disobedience.

It is widely known that Gandhi was greatly influenced in his life, his thinking and in his methods by Jesus. He frequently quoted Jesus’ teachings, especially those of the Sermon on the Mount.

In the 1920’s there was a Christian worker in India by the name of E. Stanley Jones who developed a friendship with Gandhi. On one occasion Jones asked Gandhi, “Mr. Gandhi, though you quote the words of Christ often, why is that you appear to so adamantly reject becoming his follower?”

Do we believe Jesus?

Susan and I have enjoyed a brief escape from the heat of Phoenix over the last several days, so there have been no new posts to the Eikon Project. However, we’re back and I am posting this new offering.

What is the difference in believing in Jesus and believing Jesus himself? Stop and think about it for just a moment. Is it possible to believe in Jesus and not actually believe him?

I want to suggest that not only is it possible – I’m prepared to confess that it is the way I have lived most of my life, and it may be the dominant situation of most believers today.