Chaplaincy Ordination Calling & Theology

Wits End Church Converge Northwest October 2011

Jeff Baker

Table of Contents
5 First Things ................................................................................................................................................ 2 Faith Journey ............................................................................................................................................. 4 Background ........................................................................................................................................... 4 Returning to Church .............................................................................................................................. 6 First Hearing of Call ............................................................................................................................... 6 10 Wits End and Beyond ........................................................................................................................... 7 Why Do I Want to Be An Army Chaplain? ............................................................................................. 8 Converge Distinctives.............................................................................................................................. 11 Ministry Philosophy ................................................................................................................................ 14 Giftings ................................................................................................................................................ 15 15 Situation and Personal Prophetic Calling ............................................................................................ 16 The Places Where I Spiritually Die ...................................................................................................... 17 Book of Books ......................................................................................................................................... 21 On Natural Theology ........................................................................................................................... 23 Responding to the Trinity........................................................................................................................ 25 20 The Essence of Christianity ..................................................................................................................... 28 Ministry of the Holy Spirit ....................................................................................................................... 29 Messengers of God ................................................................................................................................. 30 Evil? ......................................................................................................................................................... 32 On Original Sin ........................................................................................................................................ 34 25 Opt-in or Opt-out of Christian Salvation? ............................................................................................... 35 Sacraments.............................................................................................................................................. 37 Intimate Church ...................................................................................................................................... 38 Mission in the Kingdom of God............................................................................................................... 41 Living in Gods Kingdom .......................................................................................................................... 42 30

First Things
The story of my calling is tangled with my understanding of theology that changes how I remember and narrate the events. That understanding of theology, the places where there are
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choices to be made or not made theologically while remaining within the bounds of shared Christian orthodoxy, of course, comes out of the story that Im living. To simplify, I need to start with some of my more basic assumptions about who God is in the midst of the greater mystery of God presented to us in scripture and who I am to God. I am made by God. I am living in the world God intended me to be in. God has some expectation that in realizing my

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relationship with Him could be more, I would do something about that. My first assumption is that God in making humanity knows that creation: humanity. God does not make junk but has instead made an image of divinity in these male and female creatures called very good. I start with the imago dei, the theological concept of humanity bearing the image of God. The condition of sin and the depravity of humanity is a distant second

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to human dignity. The essential inborn divine image and our justification of righteousness through our association with Christ are Gods actions in our lives and our response of sanctification is our parallel action with the Holy Spirit in bringing forth a more complete realization of our individual and collective holiness. These images of God, within all humanity, are the people whom God sees first and whom God asks us to see in each other and in our selves.

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We are people meant to be connected to their creator. My next assumption is that we are living in the world we are meant to live in. We are meant to live in this world that is brought into relationship with God through the redemptive work of the death of God on a cross. We are meant to live in a world that, until Christ comes again, is in expectation of the fulfillment of a Kingdom that is already here, if only we had the
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faith to live into the reality of Gods Kingdom. The Church, while set apart, is very much a part of this world and intended for engagement within its context. The endemic problem of this world is that humanity is not connected to the creator. I wonder that this situation might be a result of Gods intention. It is in this conundrum of being created for connection in a disconnected world that there is the greatest opportunity for our

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interaction with God. Through this interaction with the Holy Spirit, the ongoing representation of Christs redemptive incarnation, we are able to form a stronger connection to God than previously existed in the Garden or before the Flood. This is our calling and Gods expectation of us: to become more connected to God and in turn self-connected and more interconnected to each other.

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My story is the interplay and development within myself of these three assumptions with regard to God. God knows we are made for connection, yet live disconnected and so are encouraged to respond to Gods reconnecting reciprocally. I have been blessed with knowing and also still having to continually relearn that I am an intentionally created image bearing adopted child of God. I am challenged by the temptations and desperation of a culture that denies our

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Lord as they cry out for the salvation only made possible by His redemption. Lastly, in my own crawling to the feet of our Lord, I am lifted up and sent forth to come alongside the Holy Spirit to help form deeper connections.

Faith Journey
75 In Luke 15, Jesus relates a parable of a rich man who had two sons. Much of evangelical Christianity focuses upon the grace of the father toward the repentant prodigal son. There is also a strong undercurrent of identification with the older unhappily obedient son for those who have grown up in the church. My personal dance with God is an amalgamation and a denial of both the repentant licentious wastrel and that self-righteous cowardly curmudgeon. My hope is that while at times falling into these 80 traps, I am moving toward a better third option of receiving my inheritance from our ever gracious adoptive Father and Lord.

Background
I grew up with a rich inheritance of the church and of Gods love. My parents earliest stories of me include their shared intentions and anticipations for my birth and my life, as their son and as Gods 85 son. I grew up embraced by the church through my mother and grandmother and cannot remember not knowing that Jesus loved me or that my family and my church community loved me. As a tween-ager facing an uncertain and hostile world, my father reinforced this in his stumbling way with a series of tapes to remind before I went sleep every night that God told me to love me because God does not make junk. With a life richly blessed in many ways, the awareness and certainty of Gods love and that of my family 90 has been my greatest inheritance. I grew up attending Bremerton (First) United Methodist, going to church camps, youth retreats and dances. I have gone back to preach there a number of times and most often worship there with my family for Christmas, Easter and Mother's day. As a youth representative on the church's administrative board I once ended a protracted congregational meeting discussing carpeting the sanctuary and buying 95 new chairs by quoting scripture about making a beautiful dwelling place for the Lord. This argument toward extravagance rather than frugal pragmatism irked my extended family of friendly curmudgeons, well integrated into the practical financial details of the church. Eventually they forgave me for this completely only after my aunt and then my sister were married in a more decorous space than the 4

previous linoleum tile portrayed. I will always have connections to Bremerton United Methodist and 100 continue to enjoy leading their worship on occasion, most recently the Sunday of my parents fortieth anniversary. Eventually, I lost interest in the business of church and debates about carpeting. My prodigal phase wasnt about prostitutes and spending all my inheritance, but rather not getting up in the morning to attend church. I pursued space to live life on my own, without God, parents or churches. I really wanted 105 to not have to get up early in the morning on yet one more day. To a large extent, it wasn't just my church but the idea of church and of church in culture in which I lost interest. Singing in the morning and listening to speeches no longer seemed to be relevant to attaining my culturally accreted goals of selfsufficiency and marriage. Looking back, I can say that the church that bored me growing up was the institutional Church still serving in Emperor Constantines model of supporting the culture and 110 maintaining peace for the established authorities. Really this was more the idea of church rather than the particular instance of Bremerton United Methodist which was and is progressive in a number of ways including slowly making space for modernity in its liturgy. Unlike the prodigal son, I never lost touch with my father completely nor did I ever wake up in a pig sty. With much patience and careful wooing, God shepherded me through a time of struggle and 115 grace. Throughout college, I would attend church at home with my family when I was back for the weekend. I was involved in Intervarsity fellowship and attended a bible study and at times had Christian roommates. My first year of working after college, I lived with a newly converted Christian and was blessed by having a wise and Godly Christ follower as a mentor. In my second year of working, my work mentor was a fallen Levite, who had undergone extensive rabbinic study. I could never escape being in 120 conversation with God and about God and God's pursuit of me. At the same time, I got to experience enough tastes of the celebration of life to let me return to the church without the older brothers lament of never having been rewarded. This 10 year process brought me back to engaging the faith of childhood with the purpose and considered appreciation of an adult. 5

Returning to Church
125 My regular return to God's church begins with my younger sister working as a summer camp counselor at Lake Retreat Camp. One of her campers had just started attending a brand new Bellevue church plant, New Song Church. This junior high camper described her church as fun. My sister visited with her boyfriend (now husband) and they came back and told me that church was indeed fun. I honestly thought my sister was feverish; I actually checked the temperature of her forehead. However, I 130 was willing to try the experiment. I went. I brought my girlfriend. My sister became the children's ministry director and I became a regular Sunday school volunteer. It may not have been a party with a fatted calf, but my return was celebrated.

First Hearing of Call

New Song was my welcoming father, a community that asked me to serve communion after my 135 girlfriend broke up with me and questioned my faith. That reconnection has shaped the adult I am choosing to be. This is the cathartic point at which I began most clearly to find the third option aside from the prodigal and the bitter brothers. New Song went beyond asking me to help to complete the work of a church but redeemed my shame and uncertainty by presenting me in the community as having been made Holy by God. My first response to this was being baptized in a river on Pentecost Sunday 1998 as 140 an outward sign of my ministerial engagement. After engaging in many ministries at New Song and experiencing the delights rather than the burdens of service, I began my seminary process. There I entered into spiritual direction, encountered listening prayer, discovered a love for preaching, completed my studies and explored many options for understanding God's calling in my life. Through spiritual direction and seminary and the uncertainty of discerning my call, I have 145 broadened my ecumenical horizons. My first six years under spiritual direction was from a Roman Catholic woman. In my own practice, I have provided spiritual direction to Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist, Mennonite, Catholic and Lutheran worshippers. I regularly fellowshipped with Quest, a Christian & Missionary Alliance house church and have many connections within Emergent Village. 6

Through work, I became connected to St Marys Estonian Orthodox Church, her pastor and bishop. 150 Through following a random prompting of God and a fortuitous seminary connection, a wonderful orthodox woman is planning to marry me. I spent three years pursuing ordination with Disciples of Christ, and retain some amazing pastoral connections there. Increasing the uncertainty of my calling at that time was a number of setbacks in my pursuit of Gods will. Subsequent to the demise of my ordination process with Disciples, both New Song and Quest 155 ceased to exist as churches and I spent much of a year mostly involuntarily set adrift from any particular church, a return to bitterness and prodigality. At that time in my life, my connection to God was

predominantly influenced by the uncertainty that I experienced in following the path of ministry for Him. I mourned the loss of structured communities and the diminishment of close friendships. Even with louder speaking champions, I had to wonder if the blockers to my
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traditional ordination path might be right. I wanted to know where I would be living and working and worshipping the next year. My spiritual director guided me in visualizing where God was leading my desire. I envisioned a beautiful picture including marriage and a child and speaking to a congregation about the wonders of God. My own desire for control wanted to know what immediate steps to take bring about this God granted vision. God, of course, remains

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more interested in my trust than my doing stuff on my own and so reconnected me to a great example of trusting God.

Wits End and Beyond

A second return to the father was coming to Wits End after having reconnected with Rob Gillgrist, a seminary classmate and the founding pastor of Wits End, while helping a friend from Quest 170 move. In the midst of this turmoil, Rob provided an amazing personal example of trusting in

Gods calling no matter how strange it seemed. We met together for close two years, encouraging each other in our official ordination process, although not always productively. My
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process at that time was being increasingly directed toward the Army and his was toward being the pastor of self-sustaining church grown past church plant. Then, just about as Robs process
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was coming to fruition and we were becoming more serious about getting past our mutual stumbling block of a systematic theology statement, Rob heard another call from God and returned to Minnesota. Following his example, and listening as best I could to Gods calling, I answered a call to serve in an interim capacity at Wits End and to apply to be a pastor. It was an exciting yet disheartening process as my community affirmed Gods direction in having me

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commit my heart to applying to be a pastor and then not call me to be a pastor. In retrospect, this has cemented the calling of chaplaincy and increased my willingness to trust God and my church community. I dont know yet what will come next; thats in Gods hands. God, I hope, has the grace to leave some of this planning up to me and may have a few less painful growth detours. I know

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some of the range of options and seek God with whomever God and I encounter. This trust in God is my growing awareness of my ability and my completeness of joy when called into service to his people as a servant leader in spiritual direction and retelling the story of the Gospel.

Why Do I Want to Be An Army Chaplain?

I trust Gods urging me in the direction of US Army Reserve (USAR) chaplaincy. The first 190 witness to this is Gods ongoing chance presentations to me of the idea of USAR chaplaincy as my ministry. As I became aware of the internal call and started talking about this to others, I have received external validation. Looking at my life and the shape of USAR Chaplaincy, I see an increasing integration of my capabilities, circumstances and calling. Throughout my life, I have experienced God having claimed me and continually pursuing me 195 even when Im distant from Him. God presents people and situations in my life to draw me ever closer.

Growing up, this was my mother and grandmother bringing me to church. As an adult, these people have been roommates, co-workers, family, church-members, and friends. Whenever I have been resistant to an idea from God, there has been a continuing recurrence of that idea. This has been the case with chaplaincy. Growing up in Bremerton, I was surrounded by the Navy, and had previously considered 200 service both before and after college. The son of a veteran, from a family of veterans, I have been open to the idea of military service. A fellow students husband was a retired Army chaplain in the denomination in which I grew up. There was an unexpected encounter with an Army chaplain recruiter at seminary. Then months later, I was seated next to a Navy chaplain at annual conference. Wits End had another person entering Army chaplaincy. All of these encounters congealed for me during a visit to my sister 205 and brother-in-law, Major Jamison Nielsen, D.O., both in conversation with them and through spending much of my visit with them on military bases. Since then I have offered up my fleeces to God and He has responded with confirmation that I was proceeding in the right direction. With a growing awareness of this possibility for my ministry life, I started talking about the idea of becoming a chaplain with people from a variety of perspectives. Many discussions with spiritual 210 friends who have great discernment, as well as with secular friends, have helped me conclude that this is an intriguing and very viable direction for my life. These conversations have been marked by intrigue, excitement, and a considered awareness of something fitting together. My friends have also expressed warnings and concerns; we are a nation at war and my advisors offered mixed feelings about that war. God, however, calls His soldiers into places that are unsafe and to minister to people in crisis and in 215 trenches. With that understanding, these warnings and concerns reinforce both my calling toward chaplaincy and my understanding of the present need. Completing seminary in 2005, I didnt yet know how I was to partner with God in the ministry for which I had been training. Partly, I barely understood how I was shaped, let alone the shape of the puzzle in which I fit. I am coming to understand that the way God has grown me fits well with the 220 vocation of USAR chaplain. Places that have been the most comfortable ministry fits for me include 9

pulpit supply, spiritual direction, summer camp and weekend retreats. All of this has been integrated into the rest of my life and a non-clerical civilian career. I find my niche as the clerical misfit embedded in secular society. The pattern of service of reserve army chaplain matches very closely the pattern of service that has been working for me for the past few years. Chaplaincy provides a structure and 225 discipline to this integration of clerical and lay callings beyond the fragmentation of my civilian clerical experiences. Further confirmation for me was an active Army chaplains description of reserve chaplains as Hawkeye Pierces1 USAR chaplaincy seems a good fit for those more committed to the care of the soldiers of the Army and their families than to the culture of the Army. The Armys commitment to address the travesty of domestic violence finds a match for me in applying the training I took in seminary 230 in that area. The flexibility of my civilian career and the regard with which my employers see military service provides a final level of assurance that I am in a unique position to accept this ministerial calling. In summary, I affirm that to the best of my discernment and the discernment of those around me, God has been uniquely shaping my heart, my relationships and my circumstances to respond to the needs of the soldiers and families of the USAR.

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Alan Aldas misfit character in the Korean war sitcom, movie and novel M.A.S.H.

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Converge Distinctives
The first time I attended New Song Church in Bellevue was because my sister had told me that it was fun. Despite my suspicion that her brain was addled from too much time in the sun at summer camp, I went and discovered that she was right. Fun is a simple short hand
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passed from a 10 year old to my sister to me for the first difference I noticed between church as I had known it and the churches I have experienced in Converge Worldwide. The Converge name represents a culmination of progress of how a group of independent people and churches had come together and associated for a common purpose in Christ without crowding each other too often but with accountability as well. While changing our name from Baptist General

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Conference speaks of a diminished identification with the sacrament of baptism, the mission of baptizing is still very much a part of the association. As growing churches and churches growing churches, Converge contains mixing pots of different ideas and approaches to understanding God together and of being church together. There are many aspects of my first impression of a church that suggests to me it is fun. It is

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welcoming and often informal. Welcoming goes beyond having greeters at the door to having people eager to have new and more friendships with people that are often but not entirely like themselves. Informality means less constraint by the traditions of the past and more willingness to accommodate the changing styles of surrounding culture. For example, Im fairly certain New Song was the first church I had attended with a praise band. Wits End is not constrained by the

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new trend of only having praise music, and alternates with hymns, spirituals, Taize and something I havent yet thought of for next week. I believe that it is this idea of fun that nurtured and ignites the fire in me that responds to the Holy Spirit.

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The word Converge speaks strongly of connection. Connection is about inclusion and relationships. Open communion as a theological distinctive is very important to an
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understanding of God grounded first and always in love and generosity. Our acknowledgement of the openness of the Lords Table expresses awareness that we (whichever group is forming that we) are not the arbiters of a limit on the abundance of Gods gifts. The operation of church groups within churches within associations is not unique in an organizational world but is emblematic of the need for relationship with each other in our mutual growing toward

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relationship with God. We cannot know Christ without knowing and loving our neighbors, especially our fellow Christ-following neighbors and through them it is most often that we see and feel Jesus. They hug us back. In changing our denominational name from Baptist, I believe that we understand and identify more with the ongoing making of disciples than with the events of physical water

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immersion in the Trinitarian name. To borrow words from other Christian traditions we are finding a more lasting purpose in sanctification and theosis2 than in the continual pursuit of the conversion of the non-believer. We continue to honor and celebrate, as I did one Pentecost Sunday in the Sammamish slough, individuals choosing to identify themselves and (re)dedicate their lives to living with Christ. However, the bulk of our energy is not in making this decision

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which we do not see as specifically salvific, but is learning to live informed by Gods decision to save us as much as our eventual awareness of Gods decision. God has made us in his image and much of our work together is in polishing our reflections to become transformed in our individual and corporate selves to become more like Him. In becoming more like Christ, we become more relational. Just as God is both one and
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Theosis is divine transformation, the process of becoming more like God but not actually becoming a god.

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three, we are connected together through God, the Holy Spirit, and through love, which He is. Lastly, in response to God, we play. We experience God anew and fresh and have mutual delight in each other. The fun of play often comes from having established boundaries and truth in rules and also in having a grace that allows us to go beyond them. Converge Worldwide is a place where I can come together with my fellow children of God to play and grow and love.

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Ministry Philosophy
The first pastoral call in the Christian church is recorded in the last chapter of Johns Gospel. Jesus asks Peter if he loves him and demands that he feed the sheep. In this I see a call toward love and listening discernment. Peters everyman example shows three essential
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characteristics. The pastor is a broken and redeemed human being, loves God deeply and expresses this love in love of people. Having experienced the need for the grace, a pastor finds Jesus new way and in this transformation and reciprocating love for the Father becomes a conduit for Gods grace toward others. Peter was very much part of the metaphorical sheep that Jesus told him to love. The

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authentically broken and redeemed pastor is part of the flock. The pastor is the leader not in the sense of a sheepdog, but in the sense of the bellwether sheep. Without an external prompting presence such as our Lord, the shepherd, sheep will mill about aimlessly. Some sheep are marginally less sheepish than others and will lead the flock in new directions in such a way as to be as much pushed by the will of the followers as leading a tight clump. This is the bellwether3,

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the pastor who leads a congregation to fresh pastures when they have eaten as much as they can from the first field and then eats with the rest of the community. Having been loved by God and my family and my church communities, I know what it means to be known and loved well. Not just from God's relentless pursuit of me in my life and patience with me, but much more from the awareness that Jesus is very "cool", from my

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increasing awe of God's wondrous powerful glory, I am growing more eager to know and be known and to love the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. From my own experiences of being seen with God's eyes for all of the beauty endowed in me by my creator and all the parts of me
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Eugene Petersen describes the bellwether as the slightly cowardly sheep leading the other sheep just barely in front of the herd.

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for which I bear shame, I have learned to see people and love them as they are perhaps especially when they may not be fully able to love themselves. A key characteristic of those that God is
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pointing me towards is their need to learn to love themselves and to see their own essential lovability that is plain to see with Gods granted vision.

Giftings
Key to being able to help others love themselves and know Gods love for them, is my own awareness of love. While, there are times in my story when I have distanced myself from God, I testify 315 with conviction that there has never been a time when I didnt know that I was loved by God. This has been one of the greatest gifts that have shaped my life. Two other gifts that I rely on the most heavily in my ministry are my curiosity and my presence. I am genuinely interested in other people and desire to know them and know God (the ultimate other) more. Scholastically, this intrigue has been expressed in life-long reading and learning so that I bring a breadth and depth of knowledge to being a resident 320 theologian. Examining scripture, this curiosity allows me to see the text freshly and present it uniquely to a congregation that also was very familiar with it before. The complement to curiosity in my desire for relationship is my willingness to bring my authentic presence vulnerably before the text, a public gathering of worshippers, and face to face alone with God. Inquisitive inquiry of the other is matched 325 with willingness for self-exposure and readiness to respond to anothers intrigue. Long ago, my sister once quipped that I have the spiritual gift of dictatorship. Im easily able to recognize that some choices are arbitrary and in those instances let someone else pick or be able to make the choice and move on. My primary leadership style is to subversively empower others to leadership and confidently live into the beauty that only God imagines for them. From a decade of consulting, Im adept 330 at active listening to help people discern the answers that they already knew. Increasingly, I am also learning that the best leader is not the person charging ahead but the bellwether gathering a flock together.

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Translating my sisters mocking observation into terms more familiar to the apostle Paul, these qualities manifest as teacher, counselor, and prophet. Some of the clearest knowledge I have from God is a specific set of reminders that my life has uniquely prepared to offer my communities.

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Situation and Personal Prophetic Calling

Every culture and age hears Christs redemptive message differently. Every church is in a unique situation, a specific and peculiar context. My own history has uniquely shaped and gifted me to address a particular people and culture in which I am situating. Our heritage from the Protestant Reformation and the first recordings of the New Testament in written Greek instead of spoken Aramaic teaches us that a

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church must be relevant to its context; it must speak the same language as its audience. A church (like its congregants) must know who it is, where it is centered on God, who it is speaking to in the greater community, and how those communities listen. Our culture is full of people who don't love themselves or see themselves worthy of love. Their families may not have cared for them well as children. Smart and non-athletic people may not have been

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well respected in elementary and high school. Whatever the sinful causes, we live in a time, and really there has never not been a time, when people need to know that Jesus loves them. Not because Jesus is a sap who loves everyone indiscriminately, but because God knows who we are, made us to be in his image and chose us for his love. We don't have to earn this or prove our worthiness. God just loves us. Accepting that and re-accepting that is something that we all need to experience more.

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In addition to the constant human need for love and re-hearing the proclamation of Gods eternal grace, one of the primary avenues I see for reaching our culture is through reclamation of rest. Debatably our culture may enjoy more time for leisure than in the past. (The perceived increased need for dualincome families is one argument against this idea). However, we as both a secular and sacred culture

have largely forgotten rest and our bodies and souls cry out for this. As a pastor in this culture, I see 355 myself as comforting the weary and helping them to assert their need for Sabbath. This includes

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influencing other pastors who are often wearier then their congregants to live and work restfully rather than exhaustedly. Lastly, I believe our culture is ripe to re-conceive beauty. The movie American Beauty highlights the modern drift into banality and extols beauty calling to us. There is a basic fundamental level of our 360 being that is unfulfilled by propriety, facts and symmetry. Mechanical precision does not make a life lived well. We were created for more and we need more. Our inspiration and conviction are both informed by our vision of the beauteous glory of God. Hans Urs Von Balthasar observes that there was no more beautiful action than the crucifixion of Christ. To see this, though, we must first must remember our desire for beauty, and then we may approach its epitome. 365 The synthesis of grace, rest and beauty with the mission-centered directives of our personal and relational God is an understanding of the other as person and not objects. Grace is Gods proclamation that we have value as persons created and redeemed by God. Our individual reclamation of rest is a personal demand that we not be treated merely as objects or resources, and also a gift that we extend to others; the commitment to honor their own boundaries and needs for rest as well. The ideal of beauty 370 invites us into the mystery of God and compels to confront our God given desires rather than the cheap imitations that we have placed as idols to satiate our thirsts. Prettiness sullied, exploited and devoid of relationship loses its allure. Only within personal relationship can the tragic be seen for its true splendor and reflection of Gods magnificence.

The Places Where I Spiritually Die

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My life is at times more a slow death than it is a reminder of life. There are points where, like the many military entanglements my country has been embroiled in over the last decade, I have vigorously asserted my life and won spectacular battles against the slow creeping deaths that assail me. I trust then in my creator but am plagued by doubts when, after these victories,
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the attrition of many smaller battles establishes fear triumphant. I have watched myself as I have
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ministered to others. Seeing the dichotomy increase between the message that I pass on to others and the hopelessness of my own despair confronts me with my own hypocrisy. I have examined the costs as I have engaged in relationship within my communities and networks. The costs are folly and the risks are high. My price has been small wounds that leave scars that do not make
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me stronger but accumulate each one slowly seeping as my essence is drained. Much of ministry, like much work in our world, is a ceaseless cycle of tedium and drudgery that sacrifices our creativity. As a spiritual director, I frequently speak to people in metaphor and imagery. I delight in the plays of words together to bring about uncovering and revealing for someone to see their own

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soul. I work especially well with peoples response to the lyrics of songs and Psalms. I do not, however, appreciate poetry that tries to read me or that someone else claims to have meaning possibly for me. David Whytes lovely poem, What I Must Tell Myself, fits into this category. It might be nice enough but it is neither transcendent nor immanent to me, and it leaves behind few epiphanies. I realize, writing this, that at times the people whom I offer spiritual direction

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are humoring me. They work within my established context, understanding the meaning that I have for them, but needing something else to be heard from God. This was certainly the case as I addressed a group of my friends in a church a few weeks ago. Even when people speak to me afterward of connection, my own inadequacy and lack of preparation frequently accuses me. My own preaching may be one of my sharpest critics. I do not always feel the restfulness that

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assures people that God has prepared as a gift to them. I am scantly comforted knowing that if I had not been making intentional decisions pursuing Sabbath, I might be even more tired or have collapsed.

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My best barometer of my internal rest is my own body. Whyte states, I must reclaim the prison of my body. My own flesh is not a benevolent jailor. It gives direct physical evidence of
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when I am mistreating myself relationally and spiritually. For the past five or six years, this evidence has manifested in acute nausea. This is partially related to a respiratory system plagued by seasonal allergies and specific extreme allergens. The allergies produce a post-nasal drip that leaves me mildly nauseated much of the time. Stress, overwork, an excess of responsibilities (work, school, ministry, a house, and some recreation) and a lack of sleep exacerbate this

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condition. Exposure to specific allergens is very likely to elevate this as well. The worst of these are cat dander (some worse than others) and cigarette smoke. Still this past month, eager to connect with people and meet them in relationship, I went to places where these irritants were abundant. I told myself that it would not be that bad or I acceded to other peoples demands. I came home and offered my prayers and sacrifices to the toilet God.

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The toilet God is secure and stable, has ripped our guts out and has thrown them away. Whytes poem speaks frequently of being alone, abandoned and in the darkness. Few things bring me to these images as quickly as the administrative trivia and politics that pervade the places that we work. In pursuit of clearer communication, we place layers of obfuscation and complex processes around simple ideas. The effort required to minimize the chance of

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misinterpretation to protect ourselves from allegations of impropriety is overwhelming. I was brought up with a ministry for touch. One pastor once told the congregation that I give good hugs. I once gave great back rubs spontaneously and undemandingly, until once I was misinterpreted and threatened with potentially dire legal action by a bystander acting only on hearsay. Practice of my ministry even in my innocence, I know to be my undoing, either to have

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ministries forcefully stripped from me or to voluntarily offer them up in whole to keep any pieces of them. The fundamentals of my ministries, teaching, preaching and spiritual direction are conversation and presence. The only way, that I can teach others how to show up and live, is for me to show up and live. I do not always like who comes out, but my effectiveness requires that I

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am increasingly aware and intentional about many aspects of my life in which I have been content to remain haphazard. My awareness forces me either to confront my shadow or to hide it. My own eagerness for relationship is my worst enemy in ministry. Self-sacrifice kills me, as smiling I hide my pain for fear that people will reject me because of it or will hold their own convenience more important. My own choices in this matter are multiplied by the organizational

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structures in which I work and minister. At times spin and the control of potentially status altering information has been used as an exact science guaranteeing security for the holder at the expense of everyone elses creative and spiritual souls. My choice is that I embrace and expose my shadow knowing the consequences. A wise author once penned this aphorism: Of course the game is rigged, but you cant win if you dont

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play.4 My choice is to play even when I think that the toilet God is winning. I have read that there has already been the last battle and that the darkness lost. Therefore, I wear my scars uncovered more every day and pray for their exposure to speed healing.

Robert Heinlein in Time Enough for Love.

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Book of Books
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There are many useful systems through which humanity understands how God is known and how the Bible is a fundamental component of our wisdom. The simplest is the distinction that the Bible is a special form of Gods revelation to us and everything else is more general. This model reminds us to test all other glimpses of God against Gods own presentation through scripture; an exaggeration of this doctrine of Sola Scriptura5 would be the conception that all that

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we need to know God is the Bible. Two other systems, however, show that there is a much greater collaboration between our understandings from scripture and from other sources. The first of these is Karl Barths trifold understanding of the Logos: incarnate, scripture and proclamation. The second is the Wesleyan Quadrilateral6 of scripture, reason, tradition and experience. The following is melding and synthesis of this understanding of the Word of God

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and the uses of additional sources of revelation. John 1 states, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This word, Logos, is the incarnate Christ and the direct revelation of Gods own self in the world. This direct experience of God is the most fundamental basis of Christian faith. However, the incarnation having occurred two millennia ago, we know of the Word made

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flesh through two sources: the special source of Scripture and the more general source of tradition and extra-biblical texts that enable us to contextualize scripture so that we might understand its message from God better than we could otherwise. Our direct experience of God is not limited to Christ. God spoke face to face with many of our ancestors and prophets, from Adam and Eve onward through the centuries. Likewise the Holy Spirit continues to speak in our

Literally by the scripture alone a doctrine used a basis of the Reformation combatting the abuse of traditions of the church that were contradictory to scripture. 6 This term describes the methodology through which John Wesley observed that people think theologically.

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own hearts and answer our prayers and as we meet our God, our trust in him deepens in ways for which scripture alone might seem inadequate. Even for Gentiles, Paul tells us and the Romans that our very fabric of being, our conscience tells us of God even without Torah, the law7. Moses exhorts us in the Shema8 that we are to be people of memory and teaching. We are to record our interaction with the Lord our God and teach our children. This forms the basis

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for what Paul reminds Timothy from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.9 Scripture, as Barths second Logos, is the Word one step removed from God. It is not

475

God, but is the best representation of God that we can all share and forms the fundamental and authoritative basis for all Christ followers in remembering the Way of Jesus. Barths third Logos is proclamation. We are most often told of God by our parents, friends, or missionaries, before we read and can access the scriptures directly. We access God and learn of God from each other. This includes sermons and testimony and all of tradition. The

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collaborative reason of many together affirms and corrects our individual study of scripture and prayer. Until the printing press made scripture generally accessible, this was the primary and perhaps only way of learning about our Lord in preparation for meeting the Spirit more directly and personally. It remains the ongoing work of reason to reinterpret and reimagine the scriptural representation of God for the greater understanding of God.

7 8

Romans 2:14-15 Literally Hear! The central Jewish prayer found in Deuteronomy 6:4-9. 9 2 Timothy 3:15-17

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The Bible remains our common center between the most accessible proclamations of God and our very personal direct experiences of God. We interpret it through the context of our tradition and prior teachings, through application of our own reason and understanding of the world. Our knowledge of God is allied to our trust in God. It is our trust that reaffirms the truth that God expresses in scripture and our trust compels our reason to persevere in understanding

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the complexity of scripture as it is constrained by language to describe the Word that is preexistent of all words.

On Natural Theology
The natural world of creation is one of many sources of our awareness of God. Indeed
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the majority of our theology could be extrapolated from this awareness through application of our rational faculties. A great many scholars of the Enlightenment were very concerned with doing this. However, as the infamous example of Thomas Jeffersons highly edited bible shows there are essential categories present in Christianity that are not available to natural theology. The greatest deficiency in natural theology is the presence of a savior for whom all things are

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possible. A second lack is the positive formulation of the great commandment: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength.10 These are only available through the special revelation as transmitted to us through the scriptures. Much of Christian conduct can be independently derived through philosophical observation of the natural world. Pragmatically, Love your neighbor as yourself.11 is merely a

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highly idealized form of the Enlightened self-interest of social contract as is all of the Decalogue12 dealing with human interaction. John Locke extends this understanding of moral
10 11

Deuteronomy 6:5 Mark 12:31 12 Ten Commandments Exodus 20:2-17 especially 12-17.

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conduct toward infinity and so posits the idea of God. In more contemporary philosophy, two very common justice schemes in the scripture (eye for eye and turn the other cheek) are mirrored by observation as the two most successful game theory strategies (tit for tat and tit for two tats)
510

when modeled by computers over long periods of simulated interaction. Natural theology looks beyond humanity toward general attributes of the world. The intricacy of creation testifies many things about its creator. Heidegger points out the relationship of unconcealed-ness and revealing between an artisan and the art.13 This assertion builds on Thomas Aquinas description of God placing his signature upon creation, and our being able to

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discern qualities of the creator based upon the qualities of the creatures, albeit to a lesser extent especially in the case of perfection. This very lack of perfection in turn demonstrates the very important theological concept of sin and the flawed aspect of creation that is not in itself divine. John Calvin describes the sensus divinatus14 as the natural inborn sense that all humanity has of God. This sense however may only point out humanitys general religious awareness of

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something greater or the need of humanity for redemption without the next, most critical step of delivering unto humanity a redeemer. Calvin rightly points out that Christianity turns upon the person of Jesus Christ, who is only known through his personal appearance, which is only known through the revelation of scripture. Thus, special revelation does more than extend and clarify that which reason and rationality can formulate about God; it establishes a relationship between

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those in need of salvation and their savior. Another attribute missing from the conclusions of natural theology is the positive formulation of the greatest commandment. Without even a transfer of direct contact with God, we can only know the problems of worshipping false gods; we cannot know what it is to worship

13 14

Poetry, Language, Thought (Sense of Divinity), an assumption that the presence of God is universally perceived by all humans

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the creator of the universe. This is the Deist paradox; they knew that the universe was created
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but were distanced from the blind watchmaker and had no context for worship. They were left with an unsatisfactory unknown. This becomes the essence of Karl Barths entire objection to natural theology; there is no connection with God apart from the relationship that the Holy Spirit grants by grace and apart from that link, any musings on the part of sinful humanity are superfluous.

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Our environment speaks to us deeply and profoundly of God. We are able to perceive the divine attributes of perfection and magnificence and respond to them with awe and gratitude. This response however, apart from the scriptural revelation of the names of Yahweh, Jesus of Nazareth, Christ, and Paraclete15 is undirected and incomplete. It is through the transferred stories of people who were present before their Lord that we are able to know and be known. It

540

is only the blood of the Lamb that delivers humanity the redemption for which we so desperately
long.

Responding to the Trinity

The mystery of the Trinity adds complexity to the simplicity and singularity of the Lord,
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our God. Likewise, my response to this complication as an individual and our response as the people of God is also complex and multi-faceted.16 My relationship to the Father is that of adopted child to parent; the relationship to Jesus is that of lover and with the Holy Spirit we are co-parents developing something new. These most intimate relational metaphors for our interaction with God must be distinct.17 The co-mingling of these relationships in human terms

15 16

Companion who walks beside the Holy Spirit. In context of my calling toward individuals and their families this metaphorical understanding is very relationally based. 17 Secondary, less intimate relationships such as shepherd or King and roles such as creator, redeemer, or sustainer can be shared amongst the persona of God, however.

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is impossible and yet it exists within our relationship to God. This response extends beyond us toward the Church. It is not enough to know God as His adopted child or even His estranged child that eventually returns home. This may be the primary avenue to which we first attend to God either as the Father or as Jesus, but we cannot remain children if we are to fulfill His purposes for us.

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Eventually, we must put aside childish ways, although we will still always be His rescued children. We cannot fulfill our purpose for which we were created while waiting on our Fathers lap or standing as shy virgins in our white dresses. Eventually, our relationship progresses as we come to know Him and be known as adults. Only through knowing and consummating our relationship with Jesus will the church be able to participate with God in a reproductive process

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of redemption and renewal. With Jesus, our lover, off to war, we are left to raise His offspring with the aid of the Spirit who comes along side us. As Mary raised her child, Jesus, with the aid of the Spirit of His Father, so we will raise our children of Jesus Christ with the aid of His Spirit, which is the same Spirit that comes from the Father. It is in the company of the Spirit that Mary held the infant Christ in her arms,

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dependent upon her grace and mercy. In like assembly, we hold our spiritual children as pastors, counselors, and spiritual guides. Language for the growth and decline of churches and ministries is strongly reproductive in metaphor. Small groups are birthed from pregnant groups. Daughter churches are planted by their mothers. Increasingly irrelevant churches are described as sterile or barren. The precursory

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language required for reproduction is mostly absent in the contemporary church and its occurrences in scripture are often skipped over or explained away. Theologizing and the planning of church structures as corporations are poor substitutes for the intimate knowledge and

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encounter with the immanent Emmanuel. There may even be a connection between churches that lose touch with the vibrancy of human relationships with churches that are unwilling to
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embrace God and be filled with his life. God understands the reasons behind our limited language and subsequent single-threaded connection and provides a solution. Our limited acceptance of the possibilities of seemingly exclusive relationships requires the separation of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for us to complete our tripartite bond with the one God. The scandalous image of Ezekiel 16 where our adoptive

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Father and the Bridegroom are the same person is too much for us to bear18 and so in consideration of this there is a separation of person within God and the sending of the Son. With a subtle change in how God is revealed to us the reprehensibility of a forced marriage to our stepfather becomes a bended knee proposal by our adopted fathers only heir. We are able to embrace the Son and bear fruit from His inspiration from a level of intimacy that the people of

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God were horrified with regard to the Father. Thus, the reconciliation foretold in the conclusion of Ezekiel 16 (seemingly as incongruous as Padmes attraction to Anakin immediately after he reveals himself as a psychopath with the blood of children still on his hands)19 is achieved. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit plurality of the one God entails a threefold relationship as response. Without fully coming as the Church to be the lover and not just the child on the lap

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or the virgin bride, we will continue as a Church to be a barren grey-haired widow or happy playful child growing but unable to transform society around it. Embracing the entire Trinity however, we are connected to God not by a single relationship but by a braided weave of relationship that is not so easily broken. For much of the Church, the first step in rebuilding this

18

A psychopathological analysis of role of God in this metaphor might suggest both child abuse and spousal abuse as partial explanations for the behavior of the Jerusalem voiceless heroine and victim. While being too much for us, God does not preclude this relationship in His law. 19 Star Wars Episode II, Attack of the Clones

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rope is to turn to Jesus as our beloved and demonstrate that I am my beloveds and He is
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mine.20

The Essence of Christianity

Christianity and its associated theology is predicated on the understanding that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ, the deus-homo, the both/and God-Man. There are examples of very
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similar Abrahamic faiths without this epiphany, the first is Judaism the ancestor, and the next is Islam, descended from Ishmael, the bastard stepchild, unwanted and thrown out. The good news is not that Jesus upped the ante on the law by asking us to follow its spirit more than its letter but that the law, a chasm of separation between God and humanity, was fulfilled. Islam and Judaism predominantly hear only the need for better living and eliminating the personal barriers to

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becoming more like God. Deism and Buddhism approach this as well. These are good things, they support a better way of being with each other and cause God less grief; they are not the main thing. The main thing is that God became man. God calls us to be present in relationship with each other and to love God and our neighbor. First, though, Jesus shows us how. He came to

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our house often on our schedules and did not mind if the house was clean or messy. He did not just meet with some of us for brief but memorable moments; He stayed overnight for more than thirty years. When He finally had to go, He stayed in his Spirit, so that we would not have to be alone waiting for the cold and the darkness. Without Christ, there would never have been God with us, at best, there would only be bodhisattvas21, an enlightened few who glimpsing the

20 21

Song of Songs 6:3 From the Buddhist idea of a person who has attained an awareness of the transcendent, and having been irrevocably altered by that awareness, whose life afterward becomes a model for others to emulate.

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absurdity and glory of God choose to remain rather than join the transcendent. But He did, God showed up. Beyond the incarnation of God with us, Jesus accepted our punishment. He humbly submitted himself to a world and a coalition of the religious and secular governors unwillingly to cede their authority. He accepted their injustice and felt the extreme depths of human

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forsakenness at Calvary, dying on a cross. Two days later, the tomb in which our Lord was buried was empty. Jesus, resurrected, returned for a brief stay amongst the disciples before ascending to Heaven, until He returns in Glory. Jesus, in becoming human, accepting our murder, and defeating death, ultimately and completely erased the separation between humanity and God, which we continue to anticipate until we see Him again.

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Ministry of the Holy Spirit

When Jesus ascended to His Father, He did not leave us alone, but sent the Spirit. The Spirit works within humanity to continue to bring forth the imbued image of God. In turn, humans embrace the power of the Holy Spirit in two primary ways. The first is the energy and power of being brought into the dance of the love of the Trinity. The second interaction is the

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discernment of what to do with that love. How can we partner with God in the flourishing of the Kingdom reality that Jesus has promised? How does that assist us in forming our connections to God? The continual work of the Spirit is transformative in the souls of Gods peoples. God Spirit works with the clay bearing the image of God-Creator to create the condition wherein it is

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possible for the soul to accept culpability and forgiveness in the death of God-Son. Beyond creating this condition (also known as prevenient grace) the Spirit works collaboratively with each human in continuing to ever closer align with God. Inwardly, this is the place of the
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individual soul wrestling with the Lord. Each of us alone with our conscience faces the immanence of God in the Spirit that indwells us.
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This manifests outwardly, in the form of spiritual gifts and capacities made available to believers to work toward the purposes of God. Among these gifts are greater access to knowing the will of God or the options available for our freedom within the scope of the will of God through discernment, prophecy and prayer. Together with the Spirit, we continually strive to create better connections and greater love in the world.

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Messengers of God
In addition to Gods revelation through the trifold Word, God uses agents to interact with humanity. These agents manifest varying degrees of the supernatural nature of God and are opposed at times by agents working against the purposes of God. Three primary categories of these beings as testified in scripture and witnessed throughout history are angels, prophets, and

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saints. Each of these groups will be examined separately below. Scripture also warns us that each of these categories of agents has their opposites: entities that oppose Gods will despite their appearances. Angels are supernatural messengers of some sort. They figured prominently in gospel accounts as being able to fly, and radiating light. Largely they served to bear messages from

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God to humans such as Abraham, Daniel, Elizabeth or the shepherds that attended Jesus birth. In the Old Testament it is an angel of death that delivers the final plague to the Egyptians. There are hosts and armies of these figures and the Adversary came from amongst their ranks. Before the flood these beings had offspring with humans in defiance of Gods will called Nephilim.22

22

Genesis 6:4

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Humans given messages directly from God to be relayed to the rest of us are prophets.
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They fulfill a similar function of message relating as angels but are entirely mortal. Most of the human authors of scripture fall into this category. However, potentially outnumbering the true prophets are false prophets: people who claim divine insight that are either delusional or mendacious. Prophets must always be tested against scripture and each other before we give them credence. As with the gift of tongues, the interpretation of prophecy requires a communal

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effort with the aid of the Holy Spirit. For the past millennia, a common and recurring false prophecy would be an assertion of the specific time and manner of the return of Christ. About this event Jesus was in fact more than clear is stating that we would not know.23 God also uses humans to perform miracles and to serve as examples for us in coming to greater understanding of our common goal in becoming increasingly Christ like. These people,

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further along the road of sanctification have been acknowledged as saints throughout most of shared Christian history. It is very appropriate to learn from the successes and failures of their lives which were highly dedicated to the mission of God and subservient to the will of God even unto death. This is a state, however, to which we may all aspire, just as all believers are priests, all followers of Christ are saints regardless of the length of time on their journey of

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sanctification. A false worker of miracles will claim to be able to command God to perform miracles or have the ability on their own rather than serving merely as an instrument for Gods manifest will. The continuing appearance of miracles, prophecy and even visions of angels testifies to the work and regard of God for our world. These are not events that we should always

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skeptically dismiss nor should we embrace every tale knowing that many are likely to be false.
23

Matthew 24:36-42

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However, in community and with the aid of the Holy Spirit our understanding and respectful study (veneration) of these events can assist our process toward becoming one with God. As with any person, place, or thing other than God it would idolatrous and contrary to the lives and natures of any of the true examples of these messengers for us to worship them.

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Evil?
Part of humanitys creation in the image of God is being able to distinguish between good and evil. The Lord God said, Look, the human beings have become like us, knowing both good and evil.24 As a consequence of our completion in being made in the image of God, we live in our world rather than with God in a paradise. Often as a result of our foolishness, we

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further separate ourselves from God to our frequent detriment. Defiant of God or consequences, we turn from light to darkness and in this we perpetrate evil. The wisdom scriptures (Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes) explain these problems. The gospel is that there is a solution. Our world, in general, is such that our choices are between good and evil matter. The scholar in Ecclesiastes points out that the storm and tragedy can befall everyone regardless of

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actions or choices. This world prone to natural disaster where toil is required for sustenance requires us to ask for help from God and each other. In impelling us toward each other and toward God, calamity is tragic and horrible, but also furthers Gods purposes. The testimony of Job is that despite our specific circumstances, we have no reason to question Gods general plan for the world. Gods plan is good as God is good.

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Our duty to God, established in the earliest covenants with Adam25 and Noah26 is to care for our world and each other. Our choices in how we fulfill this obligation change the world and

24 25

Genesis 3:24 Genesis 1:28, 2:15

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our interactions with it. The scholars of Proverbs recount how our choices in wisdom or folly that brings further or closer God have natural consequences. Eventually, sin, missing the mark of obedience to God, hurts us and others. The effects of sin break down relationships, increase
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the likelihood of calamity, and reduce our preparedness for tragedy. Sometimes, however, the absurd nature of a broken world that should generally compel us toward connectedness, instead shields us from the consequences of our actions. Separation from God, insidiously feels triumphant, independent and powerful. Misperceiving reality, in our pride we come to crave the advantages of darkness. People loved darkness instead of light

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because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.27 Delusional, we dont just ignore our covenants with God but willfully violate them. We degenerate and become addicted to the darkness and worship turns from God to idolatry. We hide from God and objectify each other in a downward spiral of evil.

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The solution to the problems resulting from this downward spiral of evil actions wholly deficient in love is redemption. Genesis ends with Joseph relating to his brothers, Even though you planned evil against me, God planned good to come out of it.28 From the beginning with

our creation in Gods full image and the resulting shape of the fallen world to our foolishness and capacity for pride and delusion, the elimination of evil and reconciliation with God is part of
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Gods plan. This redemption and forgiveness begins and ends with Jesus. God did not send his

26 27

Genesis 9:1-7 John 3:19-20 28 Genesis 50:20

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Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.29 Ultimately, evil is not only defeated but no longer even exists. God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.30

On Original Sin
The doctrine of original sin states that all of humanity is born collectively culpable for the
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sin of their own selves and of the race; we are all separated from God. Observation would testify to the accuracy of this idea. However, there are problems with this as a blanket statement, not the least of which is the consequence in child rearing of the need to beat the devil out of children. The largest philosophical inconsistency with this is that there was born a human child without sin: Jesus of Nazareth, the Anointed Christ. It is true that he paid the compensatory penalty for

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the sin of the race but it cannot be said that he ever separated from God and turned to the worship of any false idolatry, despite temptation. Augustine gets around the inapplicability of original sin Jesus by the circumstances of his virgin birth. (This brings in the further problematic issues linking sex always to sin.) The problem with saying that Jesus was a special human, Augustine undermines the fully humanity

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of Jesus. (We may forgive him for not being aware of theological trends that continued beyond his lifetime.) Any doctrine that applies to all humanity must include Christ. Jesus was also fully divine. The person of Christ cannot both be God and intrinsically separated from God. Pelagius steps near a resolution to this problem. Humanity, including Jesus who being fully human must embody any attributes intrinsic to human nature, is born with and

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contains the potential capacity to not sin or be lured by temptation into sin. Pelagius stepped over the line when he ascribed the possibility of this happening through free will from the existence of the capacity. He does this by asking, Why God would demand what he knew was
29 30

John 3:16 1 John 1:5

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impossible? The answer is that all humanity has the innate capacity to call upon God with whom all things are possible.31
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Augustine, in refuting Pelagius, rightly observed this is impossible apart from the gratis gratia32, and so over-emphasized the impossibility. Of course, it is only through the free-will grace of God that we are in relationship with God. We can only enter into relationship with a sovereign God that also desires that relationship. Without Gods desire, our own will does not matter. Thankfully, however, God promises that we will never be forsaken.33 Beyond this,

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Christ, uniquely being God, realizes the impossible capacity of humanity to resist the lures of temptation to turn away from God into sin. Jesus, faced with temptation calls upon God and resists. God, in the atoning work of Christ and the ongoing transformative power of the Spirit is actively remediating this endemic problem of our separation from God. This central problem is

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itself redeemed as part of the means by which we are drawn to God. Meant for connection, the absence of connections produces an ache of longing that nudges humanity to accept the extended hands of God reaching out to us.

Opt-in or Opt-out of Christian Salvation?

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In internet marketing there are two primary models of subscribing people to information. With either model, the registrant can alter the selection to elect to receive free gifts of information or not. The only difference is the default setting. If the user does not alter the decision box electing to send them information, will their inbox be inundated with garbage or

31 32

Luke 18:27 Freely given grace. 33 Deuteronomy 31:6-8, Joshua 1:5

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not? With the opt-in model the user must consciously elect to receive advertisements; this is
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generally seen as less intrusive. With the opt-out model, the user must decide not to get stuff; this model generally shows more ads that are more likely to be ignored. Christs death and resurrection are sufficient events for all to be reconciled to their creator, and made righteous by means of Jesus righteousness. Scriptures, however, indicate some form of winnowing process, wherein some may not be converted or justified. This exposes

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the existence of an option accessible to humanity. The traditional evangelical position (when the option is accepted) has been opt-in and so the emphasis for salvation has been placed on the stated conversion of the believer. However, there are examples in scripture where the option was relationship with God alone apart from Christ or even the awareness of prophecies of the Messiah such as: Abraham, Hagar, Ruth, and Moses. For he that is not against us is for us.34

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Supports opt-out or default salvation. This is often the tacit assumption for children who have not yet had the opportunity to understand fully their rejection or acceptance of God. He who is not with me is against me.35 This statement argues that salvation requires the choice toward Jesus. Respect for the ambiguity of scripture from different perspectives compels us not to choose one option to teach as correct and the other as heresy. Likewise, we are compelled not to

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pick between contradictory interpretations of scripture pointing to election vs. free will or universalism vs. particularism. Instead, we are able to teach both and they are no more perplexing than the God who is both three and one, human and divine. This increases the mystery and transcendence of God, because Gods complexity and ambiguity defies complete understanding and simple description.

34 35

Mark 9:40 Luke 11:23

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Letting the complexity of salvation rest as a mystery fully dependent upon Gods action emphasizes the continuing reconciliation of sanctification rather than the singular events of a believers conversion or Christs pre-justification of humanity. Teaching the gospel not of an afterlife salvation alone but of a continuing and deepening embrace of God is much richer. There are immediate benefits of a present relationship with the God who gave the only child of

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Her womb that each one of us might be saved that far exceed the fire insurance model that may sometimes arise from concentrating on humanitys options surrounding salvation.

Sacraments
A primary function of the universal Christian church is to maintain our identity with Christ. As such the church practices two specific sacraments that are distinctive to Christianity.
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The church also has a sacred place in performing other rituals of human community such as weddings, ordination and funerals that are done distinctly Christianly but are not distinctly Christian. These two sacred rituals, commanded to us by Christ, called both sacraments and ordinances, reminding us of their sacred nature and our duty, are communion and baptism. Christs last meal with his disciples was a celebration of the annual Jewish Passover

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meal. During this meal, Jesus gave the church the first of its distinctive rituals. He took some bread and gave thanks to God for it. Then he broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples, saying, This is my body, which is given for you. Do this to remember me. After supper he took another cup of wine and said, This cup is the new covenant between God and his peoplean agreement confirmed with my blood, which is poured

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out as a sacrifice for you.36

36

Luke 22:19-20

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Given to us during an evening of identification and memory, Holy Communion unites us in the shared identity of Christ followers. It is not just a symbol of our existing unification; it is a miraculous way in which we genuinely grow closer to God and to each other through participation in the process. As we worship the God of the entire universe, we should continue to
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offer the hands of fellowship to all people, especially those that are not just like us. Baptism as a practice of repentance and cleansing came to us through Jesus cousin John who was borrowing on an established tradition. Jesus exhorts us to use this as part of the disciple identification process especially as we turn away from our rejection of God and turn toward Christ. The earliest historical examples of this practice are of grown adults being

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immersed in a river. Three very important rituals of human community are welcoming our infants into the community and committing our community to raise them to know God, acknowledging our children becoming adults and welcoming new Christians into fellowship. It is not heretical to include either baptism or communion in any of these.

Intimate Church
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The Church derives its purpose from two sources. The first is the gospel of its founder and only high priest, Jesus Christ. The second is the ongoing legacy as the people of God from nations of Judah through the nation of Israel from the families of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The purposes from these two sources are congruent. Christian churches have proclaimed, taught,
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and worshipped the Lord, their God. These communities and the individuals inside them have also cared for each other. Continuing in the tradition of these models, the Church collaborates with God in the salvation and sanctification of the world by remembering the actions of God in together and caring for our community.

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The gospel of Christ is that he came to save the world not just individuals singled out
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by some idea of election or specific chosen communities. His salvation and care reached out to all those that he encountered in his travels: Jews, Samaritans, Greeks, Romans, pig-eaters, tax collectors, unclean lepers, whores, and priests. His primary means of communication were modeling and then preaching. He slept in the boat, prayed, fed people, healed, and then gave the explanations when the disciples, almost invariably, did not understand.

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As his wife, especially in the sense of wife expressed in Proverbs 31, the Church is to be his industrious and innovative support in the continuation of this enterprise: the redemption of the world. We are first to be a model, a light upon a stand, and then to proclaim for those whose glimmers of faith are seeking understanding. We are to demonstrate (at least potentially) life freed from sin, anxiety, apathy, and fear. When the 72 were sent out in pairs, their first sermon

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was that they trusted in God and brought nothing with them; the second is that they blessed every house they entered. They modeled faith and the embracing concern for whomever they encountered. We still sing they will know that we are Christians by our love. Love is the summary of the law. Love, however, is not taught with words but by experiences. God showing up as

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Jesus teaches love more profoundly than all the words that Christ spoke. The disciples give up their lives, occupations, families, and possessions to follow Jesus but they are never reported as being hungry, sick, or lacking in shelter; God took care of them. The reconciliation of the world begins with taking care of the immediate family, the internals of each local church, and then extends into our greater community of sister churches and the widow, orphan and aliens37

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without a church. Thus, the church, beyond its ability to teach, most effectively exemplifies the concern that Christ had for the world through its loving actions.
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Exodus 22:22, Deuteronomy 10:18, 14:28, 16:11-14, 24:19-20, Isaiah 1:17

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Unfortunately, as care for the widow, orphan and alien has been learned by the greater community for which the Church has been an example for 2000 years, the Church is being seen as increasingly less relevant. The government often does much more to feed, shelter and educate
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than the church does. The Church still has plenty of room to model better and more personal care than the government or greater society may provide as well provision for the many people further beyond immediate localities that greater society is less inclined to assist. The Churchs response to having its lesson heard is not to silence the message but the raise the hope higher. Christ repeated the laws and told us to go beyond the letter to the principle. In the midst

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of the greatest Jewish ceremony of remembrance, Passover, He called us to another memorial of a greater sacrifice. From the roots of the history of the nations of Judah and Israel, righteousness was defined by the care for the widow, orphan and alien by the community. Jesus in his ministry and the Holy Spirit in its own prophetic announcements to the apostles of the early Church broadened the scope of that ministry to the world.

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Two thousand years ago, God came to be in a greater intimacy with us. He called us his family, married us as a community, and adopted us as individuals. He raised the stakes, showed us the possibility for more and then exhorted us emulate Him. The early Church, in a transitional age similar to our own, provided a second intentional family for its participants. It began a campaign of risky societal care that took millennia to spread outside its borders. This campaign

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challenged the way the world functioned with the way that it might function. I thank God that I live in the world today instead of one hundred or one thousand years ago, in large part because of social improvements that the Church has been instrumental in establishing. I am even more hopeful about getting to live in the world of fifty years from now as the Church reaches toward Heaven to touch new possibilities for the world as community modeled after God relationships.

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Mission in the Kingdom of God

As Jesus is spending his last days with his disciples after his return from death, He gives them the great commission, Go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.38 In doing this we help to further the existing and future reality of the Kingdom of God on earth. Looking through descriptions of

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Gods Kingdom plans, there are three roles in which all humanity interacts in the Kingdom of God. There is the human king who does not supplant the sovereign nature that belongs only to God. There is the universal priestly role of minister and pastor. There is a truth telling and discerning prophetic role. The role of a human king is not as much a leader as a vassal subservient to our Lord

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God. Much as Jesus did not return as had been expected, overthrowing the Roman occupation, the vassal king does not fight our battles for us. This is not a type of king over the people as the Hebrews demanded from Samuel and about whom God warned Moses in Exodus. In Deuteronomy 17, Moses spelled out how people could have a king in Gods way, not a replacement for God but someone following after God. This king is a person who copies and

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reads scripture in order to demonstrate for everyone awe, gratitude and respectful obedience to God. The vassal king is perhaps best thought of as the first to remember and not forget the instructions and decrees of the Lord. Immediately after using Moses (one example of a king very much subservient to God) to usher the Hebrews into Gods rescue of them from Egypt, God asserts his vision for them saying,

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You will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.39 The nation of priests and the gathering of disciples are the same fulfillment of Gods vision. This is one of the sounding
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Matthew 28:19 Exodus 19:6

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points of the reformation in the ministry of all believers. A disciple is a person that listens to God and trains other disciples. We all remember and recount the story of who we are as a community of God. We are all responsible for living and loving in submission to the great commandment
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loving God with everything, loving others and loving ourselves as God loves us. The world knows that we are Christians by our love. As a community of pastors to each other it is primarily through our actions of care and not our words that bring others into our community. The last role is that of prophet, a person who sees and reports the truth of the Lord. This is similar to the role of king. The Deuteronomy 17 king is like a pre-prophet, reminding people

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of the law and mercy of God as they are living within it. God does not ask them to say easy things but hard things. God sends them with warnings and reminders and not just comforts. The priests get to do comfort and intercession. Prophets help us walk into the light that reveals truth. They reflect Gods spotlight on hidden beauty and also burn away infections and stain. All of the roles for humanity in the Kingdom of God are grounded in remembering and

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living as people of the Kingdom of God. We are to recount our story of scripture and the law and teach it to each other, our children and all peoples. We are to build each other up in care and understanding to better love God, others and ourselves. When we do forget, we call each other and a world that suppresses this knowledge to remember our identity and theirs as the children of God.

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Living in Gods Kingdom

After Jesus' baptism, Mark recounts him saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel.40 As Christians, we share in the

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Mark 1:15

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monotheistic heritage with Judaism and Islam. There is only one God, one Lord, and thus only
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one Kingdom. The conclusion of the civil war in heaven or on earth was never in doubt. On one side there is God and on the other side (or sides since the forces that oppose God are fractious), there is only whatever exists on the sufferance and forbearance of God. The manifestation of God in the world was not and will not be as we expect or wish, but will and do occur on Gods terms alone. Our responsibility is to act in accordance with the gospel.

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The announcement of the Kingdom of God is not original news, even at the time of Christ. (Christ is distinctive in that being God, He could assert that the Kingdom was manifest in His presence.) The primary story of the Hebrew Scripture is couched in covenantal language. The book of Deuteronomy is framed as contract between a suzerain and his vassals for their conduct in the suzerains domain. The earliest of Gods covenants are with representatives of

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not just the Hebrews but with representatives of all humanity, Adam/Eve and Noah. These covenants are still in force and are fully applicable whereas portions of the specific covenants with the Jews are not. The ruler that made the universal covenants remains firmly in his seat of authority and we are all still his subjects, despite our tendencies toward rebellion. The evidence of the world, however, frequently argues against this. Separation from

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God, tragedy and death are very much present and seem at times inescapable. The promised reality of the resurrection with better bodies seems remote as we bury the rotting corpses of the people we have loved especially when the die too early and too young. We then have cried out to God, Why? Our raised voices stifle the whispers of God right beside us all the time. We scream to heaven that everything was too messed up and so the reality of Gods kingdom could

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not be and perhaps plead with a faint hope, Please God, restore it. God full of compassion at

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our pain and angry at our disbelief whispers back, Do not forget that I am your deliverer and your Lord. Have faith and hope; for I, your King and Lord, love you as I love all my subjects. Perhaps one of the greatest cries of despair to God was uttered not in biblical times but by people still living. The cry of the survivors of the Holocaust is the same as that of the prophets.
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The answers that they received from God for the world are no more surprising than the answers Christ proclaimed to the people suffering in and around Jerusalem under Greek and Roman occupation. I am here. Do not forget your duties of stewardship toward each other and all of creation. Do not wait for everything to be made easy for you by my intervention as you collaborate in your own destruction. The survivors have turned with the answers toward a

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firmer resolve that genocide will never again happen in this world and towards greater stewardship of the Kingdom under their care in partnership with others who hear Gods voice. They have remembered both that there was great evil and that, eventually, there was deliverance. Evil was thrown down again. Of course, as always they have also shouted loudly enough to miss the telltale signs of God. Fortunately, God is eternally patient and never ceases to whisper for

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those with ears to hear. Instead of responding to Gods reminders of our duties under his covenants, we place our hopes in God making everything better (again with justice toward almost everyone but ourselves) through direct interaction. Ironically this very hope is borne out of our greater belief in the maxim that Robert Heinlein called TANSTAAFL (There aint no such thing as a free

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lunch) than our supposed and claimed belief in the efficacy of grace. Our cry for God to make better is our own pronouncement that we do not think most of the world that God created and entrusted to our care is redeemable. We place emphasis on the second coming, in complete defiance of a greater understanding that Christ was with us before the first Messianic event and

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He has truly never left us. Similarly, the Roman-occupied Jews placed their hope in their version
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of the coming of the Messiah, but He showed up very differently than they had anticipated. In both situations, the emphasis on an unrealized future and the extensive speculation over an event, which we have been assured, will be unexpected and completely alien to anticipations, covers up the shame of abject failure in faith and stewardship. The Kingdom of God is and has always been not just a hope but also the reality of the

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world. The question that we must ask of ourselves in light of this reality is: In light of the present reality of Gods Kingdom, how might my life more fully manifest Christ and the Holy Spirit to my neighbors? Perhaps then, a few more people, starting with ourselves, will not only recognize but also live knowing that they are enfolded in the presence and Kingdom of God, in the reality of the Gospel promise fulfilled.

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