Word of Life Church Podcast

<p>The book of Job is a test in how well the reader can resist scapegoating a blameless victim. The key to the whole book is found in the first verse. Job was blameless. But most readers fail the test and end up at some point agreeing with Job's three "miserable comforters" and the most vicious accuser of all, Elihu. But Job was BLAMELESS! Can the reader remember this all the way through? Most readers cannot; eventually they side with the accusers—the satan. We are possessed!</p>

<p>Mary’s anointing of Jesus at Bethany should restrain us from being too quick to judge some act of artistic worship as an unwarranted extravagance. In an age of secular pragmatism all prayer and worship is seen as an extravagant waste, the greatest of all wastes—the waste of time. The secular pragmatist says, “time is money.” But the worshiper knows better. The worshiper knows that time is a gift from God, and that we have not properly appreciated God’s gift of time until we return the best part of it back to God in prayer and worship.</p>

<p>The tenth station in the Scriptural Stations of the Cross ends with this prayer, "We love you Jesus; by your wounds heal us." The wounded of Jesus indicates that the way of Jesus includes suffering. Jesus suffered to leave us an example and on the cross he bore our sins, suffering so we could die to sin and live the life of justice. The cross is the center of our faith. The cross is where we see God enthroned. The cross is where we see sin condemned. As we continue to trust God, the wounds of Jesus can heal us, over time, both body and soul.</p>

<p>Jesus' parable of the Prodigal Son recast in a contemporary setting and told from three different perspectives. Robert's story, Mike's Story, and Lloyd's story.</p>

<p>Christ above <a href="http://me...Divine" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">me...Divine</a><br>Christ below me...Incarnation<br>Christ before <a href="http://me...When" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">me...When</a> Seen<br>Christ behind <a href="http://me...When" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">me...When</a> Unseen<br>Christ at my right <a href="http://hand...When" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">hand...When</a> I’m Strong<br>Christ on my <a href="http://left...When" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">left...When</a> I’m Weak<br>Christ all around <a href="http://me...Cosmic" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">me...Cosmic</a> Christ<br>Christ within <a href="http://me...Formed" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">me...Formed</a> within me</p>

<p>The way of Jesus is the way of peace and mercy. It’s what Jesus taught us in the Sermon on the Mount. It’s what Jesus lived all the way to Calvary. It’s the practice of enemy-love and radical forgiveness. This road is demanding, but it’s the narrow path that leads to abundant life. The question we face today is this: Do we believe in Jesus enough to follow him in the narrow way that leads to life? The stakes are high. If by nurturing fear and clinging to self-interest we choose the way of anger and resentment, hatred and scapegoating, nationalism and militarism, it will lead us to hell…and it will lead us to hell every time. Right now the Church desperately needs to live up to its lofty calling to be a city set on hill shining forth the light of Jesus. America needs the Church to be a beacon of love and mercy illuminating the way of peace.</p>

<p>G.K. Chesterton suggested that Saint Francis walked the world like the pardon of God. It’s an apt summary of the saint’s life. Francis embodied the grace of God as he walked the hills of Umbria barefoot in his patched brown habit and simple rope belt, preaching to birds and bishops. His life was a kind of performance art protest against the pervasive sins of thirteenth-century Italy — pride, avarice, corruption, and violence. Yet sinners themselves were drawn to Francis. How else do we explain why, in his lifetime, forty thousand people joined his rigorous order of radical Christianity emphasizing poverty, simplicity and humility? Like Jesus, Francis could uncompromisingly denounce systemic sin, while extending genuine compassion to the people caught in its pernicious web. To be a prophetic witness against systems of sin and a preacher of God’s pardon for sinners at the same time is the peculiar grace at which Francis excelled and to which the church is called.</p>

<p>Perhaps the most misunderstood and misused teaching of Jesus is his Olivet Discourse -- the teaching Jesus gave to his to his disciples on the Mount of Olives regarding the signs of "the end." The end of which Jesus is speaking is not the end of the world, but the the end of the Temple age. While the Temple establishment was plotting the end of Jesus, Jesus was prophesying the end of the Temple, the Temple establishment, and the Temple age. Jesus connected the demise of the Temple with the dawn of the Kingdom of God.</p>

<p>Patience is the heart of wisdom. Impatience is the essence of foolishness. When we demand “results” on our own timetable, we will most likely find ourselves out of step with the patient pace of historic Christianity. Impatient saints don’t exist. The saints have learned the secret of being patient with the world, with themselves, and even with God.</p>

<p>When we trust in Jesus, it does not guarantee that nothing bad will ever happen in our life. Evil, the destroyer of worlds is present in our World, but so is God, the savior of the worlds. In midst of suffering, we often have many questions about the goodness of God and the power of evil. What do we do with Evil? How do we respond when everything comes crashing down. Is there any hope to hold on to?</p>

<p>Jesus prayed that we would not be taken out of the world, but that we would be set apart while in the world. In answer to Jesus prayer, the tradition of Lent allows us to be present in, but separate from, the world. <br><br>We practice traditions like Lent and Ash Wednesday not because we are commanded to by Bible, but because we are invited to by the church. As we practice Lent, we find that it invites us to practice self-denial, gives us space to reflect and rethink, connects us with echoes from the past, creates contrast in our lives to prepare us for Easter, and ultimately it points us to Jesus.</p>

<p>On the Mount of Transfiguration Moses and Elijah appeared to Jesus and talked with him about the "exodus" he would soon accomplish in Jerusalem. This exodus is more than a euphemism for death. Just as Moses led Israel out of the empire of Egypt through a divine exodus, Jesus' cross opens the door for our exodus out of the empire of sin and death.</p>

<p>In announcing that God’s jubilee of liberation, amnesty, and pardon was arriving with what he was doing, Jesus omitted any reference to God exacting vengeance on Israel’s enemies. In claiming that Isaiah’s prophecy had been fulfilled in their hearing, Jesus is claiming to be Jubilee in person. But the scandalous suggestion is that this Jubilee is to be for everybody…even Israel’s enemies. Jesus has edited out vengeance, and this gives us a key to how Jesus read the Old Testament.</p>

<p>Ours is an angry and vociferous age. We’re constantly subjected to the noise of charged political rhetoric — the wearying din of the culture wars. Too often Sunday morning can be little more than a religious echo of this same noise. But shouldn’t Sunday be a Christian Sabbath, a time to quiet our souls and receive the gift of silence? What if, instead of being another contributor to this clatter, our churches became a shelter from the storm offering respite to shell-shocked souls?</p>

<p>When God gave Israel the Law, God also gave Israel a calendar. Included in Israel's sacred calendar was the year of Jubilee when debts were canceled, slaves were freed, and property inheritance was restored. The Jubilee was a divine liberation from debt, slavery, and eviction. During Israel's exile Isaiah prophesied of a Spirit anointed person who would announce the restitution of Jubilee. Six centuries later in the synagogue in Nazareth Jesus announced that he was fulling Isaiah's prophecy by announcing the arrival of God's jubilee</p>

<p>"Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace. Those four words seemed prescient. I don’t want to make too much of what was probably just a happy coincidence, but those four words did speak to me. Echoes, silence, patience, and grace. These were things I needed. I needed to hear echoes from the past. I needed to practice more silence in the present. I needed patience with the future. I needed grace to tie it all together. Like the five words in 2004, these four words in 2009 meant something to me. Four words from the Foo Fighters on the train to Assisi." - Pastor Brian Zahnd, "Water To Wine"</p>

<p>Why would the pastor of a large and successful church risk everything in a quest to find a richer, deeper, fuller Christianity? In Water To Wine Pastor Brian tells his story of disenchantment with pop Christianity and his search for a more substantive faith.<br><br>“I was halfway to ninety—midway through life—and I had reached a full-blown crisis. Call it garden variety mid-life crisis if you want, but it was something more. You might say it was a theological crisis, though that makes it sound too cerebral. The unease I felt came from a deeper place than a mental file labeled “theology.” I was wrestling with the uneasy feeling that the faith I had built my life around was somehow deficient. Not wrong, but lacking. It seemed watery, weak. In my most honest moments I couldn’t help but notice that the faith I knew seemed to lack the kind of robust authenticity that made Jesus so fascinating. And I had always been utterly fascinated by Jesus. What I knew was that the Jesus I believed in warranted a better Christianity than what I was familiar with. I was in Cana and the wine had run out. I needed Jesus to perform a miracle.” –Brian Zahnd</p>

<p>Original blessing is more original than original sin. Jesus is the new Adam who leads humanity back to original blessing. The community of the baptized belong to the new humanity to which God says, "You are my beloved sons and daughters, with you I am well pleased."</p>

<p>"Magi from the east came to Jerusalem saying, 'Where is he...?" -Matthew 2:2<br><br>Two thousand years ago magi from Persia came to Jerusalem seeking the one born King of the Jews and asking, "Where is he?" What about modern magi? What about 21st century seekers? What about those who in some way believe Jesus is important, but don't quite know where to find him. If asked by modern magi, "Where is he? Where is Jesus?" -- what should we say? Here are five responses:<br>1) At the right hand of God.<br>2) Among the suffering.<br>3) Among the baptized gathered in his name.<br>4) With you. Always.<br>5) In the bread and wine of communion .</p>

<p>One of the most unique things about the religion of the ancient Hebrews was the prohibition against making images of the Divine. The two things all ancient religions had in common were sacrifice and images. Israel shared sacrificial rites similar with other religions, but they prohibited the creation of sacred images. Israel had a correct instinct that to make an image of God is to misrepresent God. Israel was taught by God that they didn’t know enough about God to make an image of God. So Israel had a Torah, but no icons -- no representative images revealing what God is like. But then something wonderful happened! The most wonderful thing of all happened! The Word, Wisdom, Logos, Logic of God became flesh…a baby…a human being! Who is Jesus? The perfect icon of God. The exact imprint of God’s nature. With the coming of Christ we have a new way of knowing God!</p>

<p>Losing Jesus. Finding Jesus. Rethinking Jesus. This is how we make spiritual progress. This is the only way we make spiritual progress! We think we’ve got Jesus figured out. We think we know the crowd where Jesus can be found. We think we know where we can always locate Jesus. Then one day…he’s not there! And we have to go searching for him. “Seek and you shall find.” But when we find Jesus after losing him, he’s…different. That’s when the rethinking (repenting) starts. It’s the only way we make spiritual progress.</p>

<p>Jesus came into the world at the intersection of beauty and pain. Christ was born on the fault line of our most intractable conflict. O little town of Bethlehem… A city today where the beauty of Orthodox icons and olive wood Nativity sets collides head on with the brutality of teargas canisters and rubber bullets. Hope and horror in the House of Bread.</p>

<p>As Christians we will either be a people of joy and peace or else will belong to the crowd of fear and rage that is so vocal in our day. In an age of fear and rage we are called to be a people marked by joy and peace. One of the scandalous things about the early Christians to the Roman mind was their apparently absurd joy. Despite the fact that the early Christians were often persecuted, they were characterized by an unmistakable joy—not a glib and superficial happiness, but a deep and abiding joy.</p>

<p>Advent is the season where we prepare for the birth of Christ. We don’t just prepare to celebrate the birth of Christ (decorate, shop, bake, etc), but we actually prepare for Christ to born into our lives in a new way. Thus Advent is the season where we do work to keep Christ in Christians.</p>

<p>We are presently in a time of great darkness. The darkness of hate, bigotry, violence, and vengeance threatens to sweep over the world. But in this darkness a light shines -- the light of Jesus. Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, prophesied about Messiah, saying that he would, "give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death to guide us to the path of peace."</p>

<p>When I was in Bethlehem the week before Advent I was given two beautiful icons. I was also given two other "souvenirs"—a spent tear gas canister and a used rubber bullet. Jesus was born in Bethlehem—at the intersection of beauty and pain, on the fault line of our most intractable conflicts. This is where salvation comes into the world. O little town of Bethlehem—where the beauty of Orthodox icons and olive wood carvings collides with the brutality of tear gas and rubber bullets. This is the birthplace of Jesus. To speak only of the icons is too sentimental. To speak only of the tear gas is too cynical. When we read of Bethlehem in the Bible we find both the adoration of the magi and the slaughter of the innocents. Hope and horror, beauty and brutality. The Incarnation is the matrix of salvation, and thus we commemorate it in the beauty of art. But Jesus was not born into the beatific scene of a Nativity icon—Jesus was born into a war torn world where paranoid despots dispatch death squads and where tear gas and rubber bullets litter the streets. Or to say it another way, "The Light shines in the darkness, but the darkness did not overcome it" (John 1:5).</p>

<p>The season of Advent is about anticipation, preparation, and longing. Anticipation because something has been promised by God. Preparation because we must prepare the way to participate in the promise. Longing because what has been promised matters—the salvation of the world. During Advent we practice the Christian virtue of patience as we learn to wait on God.<br><br>Jeremiah 33:14–16 is one of the great Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament. It was given by Jeremiah 400 years after David and 600 years before Christ. The prophecy says that a king will come from the line of David who will be the righteousness (covenant faithfulness) of God. This anointed king is how God keeps the promises he has made to Israel. The distinguishing characteristic of this king is that he will establish justice. In other words, Messiah will bring salvation by setting the world right.</p>

<p>As followers of Jesus we are called not to avenge ourselves, but to "leave it to the wrath of God," because vengeance belongs to God; God will repay. We know God's vengeance is not an eye-for-an-eye justice, so what can it mean? The wrath of God, often connected to God's vengeance, is a metaphor pointing us to God's judgment. What we call the "wrath of God" is what evil looks like in the light of the love of Christ. God will repay those who have done evil, but God's judgment is tempered with mercy.</p>

<p>The Christian mind is the mind of Christ where we are enabled by the Spirit to think as people in Christ. The danger of not developing a Christian mind is the potential to be cut off from the life of God. We have the mind of Christ and we have the ability to work with the Spirit in cultivating a Christian mind that is humble, renewed, active, and maturing.</p>

<p>Since Cain Killed Abel the human family has been longing for justice. <br><br>Following in Israel's legacy of longing, Isaiah paints a picture of the plans and purposes of God to save. He reminds the people of God to tarry. In the midst of suffering, when the light of the future seems to flicker and fade Isaiah beckons the people of God to keep waiting. For there is one coming that will set all things right. He is not coming to condemn the world, but to save it.</p>

<p>Hope has been the theme of the people of God since the beginning. <br><br>Hope is essential to carry on. In those times that everything seems lost we hold to hope. We hope that what has been lost can be found, what has been broken can be mended, and what has been destroyed can be rebuilt. Does what we hope in matter? And what happens if our hope becomes misguided? Will God's faithfulness to save, heal, and redeem still reach us in our misguided hope?</p>

<p>There are monsters in this world, but the God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is not one of them. Yes, there are monsters. We have an imagination for monsters because we know of their existence. Venomous and vicious beasts were a daily peril for our earliest ancestors. Volcanoes and tsunamis can swallow whole cities. Hurricanes and tornados roar from the heavens, leaving hell in their wake. Epidemics of disease are lethal predators taking their pitiless toll. Worst of all, there are monstrosities of men — conquerors and warlords, tyrants and despots — galloping across history like ringwraiths bringing conquest, war, famine, and death. We can imagine monsters because we have met them. But the living God is not one of them. Not the God who Jesus called Abba.</p>

<p>In forty years of following Jesus these are my four most significant discoveries:<br>1. Jesus Is the Light of the World<br>2. The Christian Life is a Journey<br>3. The Kingdom of God is Everything<br>4. God Is Like Jesus</p>

<p>Paul writes to the deeply flawed church at Corinth and calls them saints—which is theologically correct, but also, if you know about those Corinthian Christians, a bit hilarious. We are called saints in Christ. Which is a lovely thing to call sinners trying to follow Jesus. We are saints—holy ones. But we’re also sinners…and we live in that tension. Those of us following Jesus are pilgrims trying to make progress toward sainthood. As Robert Louis Stevenson said, “Saints are sinners who kept going.” We are sinner-saints pressing on to live up to our high calling in Christ Jesus.</p>

<p>In Mark chapter ten we find two stories back to back that exemplify how we should and should not pray. In the first story James and John approach Jesus saying, "We want you to do for us whatever we ask." This self-agenda based prayer is met with rebuff from Jesus. In the second story the blind beggar Bartimaues simply prayers, "Lord, have mercy on me." Jesus responds to this humble, open-ended plea for mercy with, "What do you want me to do for you?" It wasn't the two disciples who knew how to pray, but the blind beggar.</p>

<p>If there’s a secret to making progress as a Christian pilgrim, it’s this: When following Jesus gets hard and discouraging and confusing—and it will!—just don’t quit, but keep on pressing on.</p>

<p>The modern adage goes, "I'm not religious, but I'm spiritual." But what does that mean and where does it come from? The modern contempt for religion doesn't come from Jesus and the Apostles, it comes from the likes of Voltaire and Nietzsche. Jesus was religious. Throughout his life Jesus engaged in religious practices. Religion is essential to spiritual formation. If we hope to be formed as Christian people we can't leave it up to vague notions of abstract spirituality, instead we need the practices and disciplines that belong to the received wisdom of the Christian religion.</p>

<p>The Christian life is a journey, a pilgrimage. It's not a static state of being, but a call to follow Jesus. The point of the journey is not so much where we're going, but what we're becoming. Jesus didn't say, "Follow me and I will take you..." Jesus said, "Follow me and I will make you..."</p>

<p>In the fifth century BC Ezra led Jerusalem in a revival of fidelity to the Torah by exhorting those who had married Samaritan women to divorce them and send them away along with their children. But what happens if we invite Jesus into the story? Things change. Jesus never used the word grace, but his whole life was an embodiment of grace. Jesus embodied the grace of God by always making room at the table for the excluded other.</p>

<p>Zechariah is the prophet of the comeback. Israel had been on a long losing streak. A divided kingdom, a civil war, corrupt kings and priests, Israel conquered by Assyria, Judah conquered by Babylon, and worst of all, the Temple of God destroyed. It's under these bleak conditions that Zechariah dares to prophesy of a comeback for Israel. Not only will the Temple be rebuilt, but Israel's true king will come to Jerusalem. This king won't ride the warhorse; he'll enter Jerusalem on the peace donkey. But Zechariah also prophesies that the Peaceable King will be the Pierced King.</p>

<p>God's people were living in exile in Babylon. The world around them had grown dark. No light. No temple. No Sabbath. No God. No hope. Into this dark cloud of despair comes a word from elsewhere from Isaiah of the Exile. He brings a word of comfort, a word of encouragement -- the God of Israel was coming to rescue and save.<br><br>Isaiah poetic word of prophecy was filled with seven themes:<br>1. God is creator. (Is. 40:28-31)<br>2. Israel is God’s servant. (Is. 43:10-11)<br>3. Idolatry is stupid. (Is. 44:9, 14-19) <br>4. Israel has sinned and thus suffered. (Is. 48:3-5) <br>5. God is compassionate. (Is. 49:13-18)<br>6. God’s messenger is coming. (Is. 52:7-8, 13-15; 53:1-9)<br>7. New creation awaits. (Is. 65:17-25)<br><br>In this we see the gospel in miniature.</p>

<p>We live in a secular age with this consensus, the way things are is the way things will be. In this secular age, there is little room for dreaming. Dreams are seen as the practice of children, but what if we could learn to dream again? What new possibilities might open up before us as we embrace this sacred practice of the imagination. From the dreams of Isaiah to the visions of John the Revelator, we are invited to join in the long history of sacred dreaming.</p>

<p>The story of Jeremiah is a tragedy -- a tragedy that foreshadows the tragedy and suffering of Christ. Jeremiah, like Jesus, lived and preached in a tragic time as Jerusalem hurdled toward destruction. Like Jesus, Jeremiah protested the Temple, was arrested, and publicly scourged. Jeremiah described himself as a lamb led to the slaughter. But Jeremiah also prophesied of a better day built upon a New Covenant. In the life of Jeremiah we see the tragic elements of the gospel story, but we also find echoes of hope, because in Christ no story is left as a tragedy.</p>

<p>Tucked away in the middle of the often bleak and sometimes scathing Minor Prophets we find a comedy: The book of Jonah. This reluctant prophet turns out to be the most successful evangelist in the Old Testament. But how it happened is funny. When God calls Jonah to travel five hundred miles East and preach to Israel’s despised enemies the Ninevites, Jonah buys a ticket on a ship sailing two thousand miles West! In his flight from God, Jonah accidentally converts a ship full of heathen sailors, is swallowed by a whale, and is finally spit out on the shores of Nineveh. After Jonah’s bleak doomsday sermon everyone in the great city of Nineveh repents. Even the animals repent and don garments of mourning. Imagine cats and dogs, cows and pigs wearing burlap to show sorrow for their sin. Yes, this is a comedy. What we find in the dramatic comedy of Jonah is an Old Testament theology of mercy — a theology that will eventually find full expression in the life and teaching of Jesus.</p>

<p>Isaiah of Jerusalem gave us three of the most important Messianic songs of salvation -- The Immanuel Song, The Prince of Peace Song, The Lion and Lamb Song. These songs all find their fulfillment in Jesus of Nazareth as he brings God's presence, God's peace, and God's kingdom.</p>

<p>The parables of Jesus are not nice and conventional stories with a moral lesson. Neither are they stories designed to simply get us to pray a “sinner’s prayer.” Anyone who thinks this is what Jesus’ parables are about has clearly not read them! There is nothing nice or easy, clear or conventional about Jesus’ parables. If anything, Jesus’ parables are crazy, confusing, and most of all disorienting. But why? Jesus’ parables are designed to disorient us from our conventional assumptions so we can be coaxed into the alternative and un-imagined universe that is the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven is nothing less than an alternative way (God’s way!) to arrange the world.</p>

<p>The Prophets are not predictors or political activists; they are poets. These poet/prophets assume the role of pulling back the curtain in society to reveal how things really are and what God is really like. Hosea does just that with a bold prophetic performance. He reveals the truth about Israel's unfaithfulness while also revealing the truth about God's faithfulness. Are we willing to face our own brokenness, pain, and sin? Because in doing so, we will discover a God who is ready and willing to heal, comfort, and forgive.</p>

<p>The fear of global terrorism creates anxiety, no doubt, the question is what do we do with our anxiety? There is the response of anger, hate, and the compulsion to stand up and fight on one hand and the response to suppress how we feel, disengage, and live comfortably numb on the other.<br><br>Jesus shows us a better way.<br><br>Jesus does not call us to stand up and fight for what is right. He does not call us to hide and pretend like injustice and fear are not real. Jesus invites us to live peaceably in a world of terror. Paul gives us at least 20 things we can do to live peaceably in his instructions to the church in Rome in Romans 12. As we live peaceably we can have hope for peace in our world.</p>

<p>What are the Hebrew prophets up to? What’s their agenda? The prophets call us to integrity—to wholeness of being. Religious people tend to build walls to separate the sacred and secular, but the prophets will not tolerate this bifurcation of being. The prophets use their poems like battering rams to break down the walls we build to separate the sacred from the secular. The poet-prophets thunder, "There is no secular! It’s all sacred!"<br><br>The Hebrew prophets simply will not tolerate the separation of worship and justice. Worship is how we relate to God and justice is how we relate to our neighbor. False religion says as long as we believe right and worship right, we can get away with treating our neighbor wrong, that our sins will be hidden by our worship. But the prophets vehemently disagree with this! All of them. This is a consistent theme throughout the Hebrew prophets.</p>