It's Simple... DON'T JUDGE !!!

Have you ever noticed, when we judge others too quickly or much worse,
when we label people, we freeze people and we stop moving towards them
? Instead of remaining complex subjects, judging objectifies people
into caricatures and cardboard cut outs. And when disciples of Jesus
stop moving towards people – the Kingdom of God is diminished.

It's interesting… the Scriptures say all kinds of things about
judging. In one place Jesus says, "Don't judge and you yourself will
not be judged. Don't condemn people and you in turn will not be
condemned. Give generously and, 'a good measure, pressed down, shaken
together & running over…' will be given to you in return. Forgive
others and you will be forgiven.

It's like as though judgement & labelling people are so engrained in
everything we do, that the only possible way to undo it is to do it's
opposite.

Jesus goes further. He says if someone hates you, love them - if they
curse you – bless them. If someone abuses you, pray for them. If
anyone hits you on one side of your face, offer them the other side as
well. The list goes on & on until the picture that is formed is one of
overwhelming openness & generosity & movement towards people.

Jesus says, 'If you love only those who love you, how is that
different – even evil men love those who love them'. Jesus says that
in his Kingdom, the thing that defines his disciples is not how they
respond to those who love them but how they respond to those who don't
love them – to those who even despise them.

You know, I used to think that when Jesus said 'Love your enemies' he
was speaking in exaggerated language about extravagantly loving your
neighbour. Yet now I think Jesus is just saying, "Don't judge, don't
label, give & forgive generously – love your enemies !" It's that
straightforward !

That we use our judgement to make decisions for living is natural
however when disciples of Jesus judge and label others, they freeze
people, they stop moving towards people and the Kingdom of God is
diminished.

Actions Speaking Louder Than Words...

It's interesting… the Psalmist says, 'the heavens are declaring the
glory of God. Day after day pours forth speech & night after night
declares knowledge of God's glory… yet there is no speech nor are
there any words'. How can the heavens declare God's glory without
words ? I always used to think the obvious answer to this question was
the grandeur & complexity of the universe gave silent witness to the
glory of God.

However, the Bible says something quite different. In Exodus, we are
given a wonderful picture of Moses in intimate conversation with God.
Moses says, 'Show me you glory' and God agrees. However, God doesn't
take Moses to some high place where he can shown all the wonders of
the universe. Instead we are told God passes before Moses and
proclaims, 'The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to
anger and abounding in love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love
for a thousand generations, forgiving wrong doing & selfishness, yet
by no means clearing the guilty… to the third and fourth generation'.
It's all there. God's crowning glory isn't his creation. God's glory
is his goodness, it his activity on behalf of justice and
righteousness and mercy. The heavens are quietly declaring the glory
of God because actions speak louder words.

The Scriptures go further. They say that fearing God, knowing God is
an action, it is movement. Knowing God is described as walking in all
his ways. It's being stirred to action by the things that matter the
most to God. The prophet Amos says, 'What does the Lord require of you
but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your
God.'

I like what Abraham Heschel says. He says that people aren't just
created in the likeness of God, people are created to act in the
likeness of God. When our actions line up with what matters most to
God – he calls that communion. Walking humbly in his ways.

Our actions on behalf of justice, righteous and mercy are the moments
touched by God's glory.

Outwards & downwards !

Baraka...

I remember some of the conversations I used to have with colleagues when I lived overseas. Sometimes they would speak long & passionately about their desire for seeing the Gospel spread like wildfire among Muslim peoples. These were people with Big vision who were focused on engaging in activities that would release church planting movements. Often the image that would be evoked in my mind was of the good news being some kind of unstoppable tsunami. I am uncomfortable with that image.

 

Rick Love* says he doesn't like the term 'mission' because too often it misrepresents the peaceable way of Jesus. He suggests that rather than conquering the world for Jesus, the presence of the gospel among a community of people is one of blessing and transformation. He says the pattern of God's intention for people is imprinted in God's first conversation with Abraham, "Leave your country, your people & your father's household & go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation & I will bless you; I will make your name great and you will be a blessing. I will bless those you bless you and whoever curses you I will curse; and all people's on earth will be blessed through you " (Gen 12:1-3). In the New Testament the Apostle Paul makes the direct connection between Abraham, blessing & the gospel, "The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: "All nations will be blessed through you" (Gal 3:8).

 

The presence of the gospel among people is like a little yeast in the dough. It is subversive & revolutionary bringing fundamental change but its arrival is often subtle & below the radar… mostly birthed in weakness. It is also like a radiating tiger balm bringing healing and reconciliation, justice and generosity ...deeply satisfying and purposeful living.

 

The presence of the gospel is creative and industrious movement among communities of people responding to the blessing of the kingdom of God.

 

Rick Love says, "So no more talk of conquering… those who follow Jesus are commissioned to bless".

 

Outwards & Downwards,

 

Glenn

 

*Rick Love is the International Director for Frontiers, a missional movement focused on blessing Muslims.

'Baraka' is the Arabic word for blessing.

The Edge that Belongs in the Middle II...

Communion is the sacrament that takes us to the deep heart of the
gospel. Communion says that when you engage in the simple concrete
actions of eating bread & drinking from a cup you reached an edge, a
boundary. You have entered the threshold of a sacred space - a place
of holy paradox.

The beauty of the torn edge. It is that boundary place that is formed
between living and suffering. Communion takes us to that place, to the
Cross on a hill on the edge of Jerusalem, where Jesus was broken for
you & for me.

It is the torn edge where brokenness & spilled blood becomes the balm
of healing, where Jesus' unspeakable pain & abandonment enables
wholeness & intimacy, where God gloried through the death of Jesus
brings light and transformation to peoples' profound selfishness,
where death & resurrection becomes the pathway to birthing something
new.

Communion is the safe place where we can allow ourselves to be
pierced, to be penetrated, to be held and to be humbled, to bow our
heads and find we are accepted in the presence of Almighty God.
Communion the edge that belongs in the middle.

The Edge that Belongs in the Middle...

The other day I was walking along the beach. It was one of those warm
afternoons that beckon people from their workplaces & homes - out onto
the sand.

There is something profoundly soothing about the repeated action of
waves breaking onto the sand. There is that momentary stillness where
the water reaches its edge before it is pulled back into the sea.
Always, that edge is shifting - never quite the same. There is
tremendous energy in waves breaking onto the shore & constant change -
where one moment your step can be etched precisely into the beach and
the next moment erased by a sudden gush of water.

I find exquisite unpredictability about this edge place where waves
meet sand. I was walking along with my two sons when the retreating
water revealed it's treasure - a rather large crab. I thought it was
dead so I picked it up to show my boys. All of a sudden the crab was
trying to scramble from my grasp. It scared the 'fregeebas' out of me,
while the boys roared laughing in delight.

Why is it that so many people are energised by this kind of place ?
Why is it that when I look in the Real Estate window the most
expensive houses are always those closest to the beach ?

I wonder if people are drawn to the beach on warm winter days because
there is freshness and newness in such a place, because people can
re-center and recreate themselves away from the busyness of the
everyday. Mostly edges form borders & boundaries - marking out where
one thing finishes & another begins. However, for people who inhabit &
dwell in close proximity to these places, they can become the heart -
the edge that belongs in the middle.

Word Smithy...

A Rabbi had a guest staying with him who heard him speak one Sabbath. Said the guest to Rabbi Baruch, “Rabbi, you speak so beautifully.” Said the Rabbi in reply, “I should rather be mute than to speak beautifully !”

I am one who would speak beautifully. I want to be one who ‘in the afterglow of a religious insight’ is a wordsmith inspired to pen words of profound wisdom. My problem is too often my words of passionate, precise intensity are not always matched by action.
 
Movement in response to spiritual insight is not beautiful words - lilting as they are longing, playful or subtle. Abraham Heschel says our response to the afterglow of spiritual insight is to “see a way to gather up our scattered lives to unite what lies in strife… a way that is good for all men as it is for me.” The litmus test of moments touched by the finger of God is the concrete expression of actions accessible to everyman.
 
If words accompany meaningful action, shouldn’t they be spoken clearly & plainly, out of the long silence that accompanies profound humility ?
 
Authenticity, humility, transparency - a life lived consciously; sometimes well and focused, sometimes scattered. Life is too short to speak beautiful words only. I want to speak out of my experience of concrete action – conscious, focused, deliberate action for which I am profoundly accountable. Imagine simple accessible words of true power connected directly to my very movement. I tremble at the thought of speaking such words.
 
I want to experience the dilemma of Jeremiah, ‘For the word of the Lord has become for me a reproach & a derision all day long. If I say, “I will not mention him or speak any more in his name” then within me there is something like a burning fire shut in my bones. I am weary with holding it in and I cannot’.
 
Life is too short to speak beautiful words… only.