Cell Phones, McDonalds and the Bread of Life

April 21, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I’ve been meditating on the Bread of Life verses from John 6, specifically verse 35: “Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

As Jesus continues this first “I AM” statement, you can’t help but to picture the relational importance of the common meal. The Bread of Life is a call to relationship, not food. Jesus is reconstituting the Passover meal around himself. His is the bread that sustained the Jews while the angel passed over. He is the manna that was sent from heaven to sustain the people of God and he is the Bread of life that sustains the world in God’s grace.

In Arizona, where it gets to be two hundred degrees in the Summer…that’s a little overstatement, but what’s the difference?…I remember, we used to take our kids to McDonalds because they had the boss play place. When we started to go there, our children were 2 and…well, unborn.

At the time, my wife and I had just got our first personal cell phones. They were nokia flip phones and we didn’t know how to text. I swear, it took two years to figure our predictive text. Hence, our phones just rang, and since we were some of the only people who called each other, they didn’t ring when we were at such fine eateries. At the time, the Happy Meal was center of the common meal. We’d sit together and then watch our kid(s) scream around the kids’ area.

We were there from 2000-2010, the ten years where cell phones went from flip to hip, from push apart to really smart. I watched the evolution take place at McDonalds. It was more noticeable there. In the ten year transition, I watched parents with silly Nokias engage their children (unless called) and then that began to change. As phones changed, a wall got built between mother and child, father and familiy. By the time we left in 2010, it was common to see kids running around crazy like and parents caught in the “me coma” of the hypnotic iPhone screen.

Let’s try something…next time you take your kids anywhere, leave the phone at home. If you’re going to go to McDonalds, engage an opportunity to break bread (-like substances) and build relationships. Fellas, it’s much sexier when you talk to your woman than ignore her…totally free and effective advice.

We are supposed to be “Lovin It!” but without foursquare, would we know we were there?

The people who surrounded Jesus in John 6 wanted more fast food, they wanted their stomachs filled more than their hearts. Their eyes were filled with the desire for more and they missed Jesus who was more than enough.

Don’t miss the Bread of Life. You will never hunger again.

Filed Under: contemporary hermeneutic, discipleship, john, preaching, sermon media

“It’s Not Supposed To Be Like This”

March 18, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Looking at John 5:1-18, the central question today is, why does Jesus heal the man knowing that it is Sabbath and he will bring on the persecution of the Jewish leaders?

For one, it is commonplace in John’s Gospel for Jesus to “stick it to the man.” There’s more, though.

When Jesus arrives in Jerusalem there is a Jewish Festival in progress. Commentators seem to conclude that there were four it might have been: Passover, Pentecost, Rosh Hoshanna, or Tabernacles. While opinions differ, they are in total agreement that of those four…it was one of them.

One of the things a statement like this makes is while we don’t know what time of year it was, there were lots of people there. People going to get right with God, to make straight their paths, to exist in the thick of their identity as the whole people of God.

I believe that John paints pictures for us to not only follow the story, but see the story he’s telling in the light of the whole story that God is telling. When Jews entered Jerusalem, they went…to the Temple. That was the center of God’s activity in Israel. God was active where the Temple was. That was his neighborhood, his house, his…box. But wait! Where do we find God in this story? Walking on the out skirts. A good distance from the priests and preachers, God is moving among the lame and blind, the sick and paralyzed.

Coincidence? I think not.

John points out that the location of the five Porticos is near the Sheep Gate. It’s a small detail. When the exiles returned from the Persian captivity of King Artaxerxes back to Jerusalem, they began to rebuild the great wall around the city. The first thing they set to repair was the Sheep Gate. Why this gate? For one, this was the the northern most point of access to the Temple. But more importantly, it was the gate through which the sheep which were to be sacrificed for sin were led to the Temple.

Do you remember the first description of Jesus in John’s Gospel?

John the Baptizer saw him and cried out, “Look! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

The lamb had entered the gate, and soon the sins of the world would be taken away by his sacrifice.

It was there that Jesus found what he was looking for, a man who was infirm, sick. No longer whole. A man in whom God’s shalom did not reside. He had been sick for thirty eight years. He was lying down. John records that Jesus noticed he had already been there a long time. How could he tell? Imagine the life of a man who can’t move, who is sick hopeless and who’s body still functions normally in some ways. Not only was this man dealing with infirmity, but the abject humiliation of living in his own mess.

But it’s into this mess that Jesus walks into. He seeks it out.

If you think your life, your problems, your choices, your actions are to messy for Jesus; if you think you can keep him away then this Scripture is Gospel because the Good News is nothing can keep us from the relentless pursuit of Jesus’ love.

Jesus asks the man if he wants to be made well. The Greek tells us there’s a bit more going on than a doctor fixing a patient. What Jesus asks is, “would you like to be restored to whole?” “Would you like to be made complete?” “Would you like Shalom? God’s intention for all life and creation.”

Cornelius Plantinga writes, “In the Bible, shalom means universal flourishing, wholeness, and delight — a rich state of affairs in which natural needs are satisfied and natural gifts fruitfully employed, a state of affairs that inspires joyful wonder as its Creator and Savior opens doors and welcomes the creatures in whom he delights.
Shalom, in other words, is the way things ought to be.”

But the world isn’t “the way things ought to be.” God’s shalom has been interrupted by the wages of sin, which Plantinga describes as, “Sin is disruption of created harmony and then resistance to divine restoration of that harmony. Above all, sin disrupts and resists the vital human relation to God, and it does all this disrupting and resisting in a number of intertwined ways.”

Jesus’ mission is to restore Shalom.

Since the rest of the chapter deals with Jesus healing someone on the Sabbath, breaking the law and causing the man to break the law by carrying his mat, many commentators and preachers have asked the question, “WHY?” Why did Jesus not just wait a day and fly below the radar? Why did he have to heal this man today. Thirty eight years…couldn’t he wait one more day?

John Calvin wrote, Why not? “We ought to proclaim the glory of God and celebrate His works, so far as His glory requires that they should be made known.”

I believe that Jesus walks up to this man, sees that there is no shalom, no wholeness in his life and responds the way he does because it’s not supposed to be like this. Men are not supposed to lie in their own filth and nearly starve to death every day, seeing the water of healing in front of them but always just out of reach.

It’s not supposed to be like this!

Jesus knows that the Father isn’t afraid we’ll break the Sabbath, he’s concerned we won’t keep it. We work and work our fingers to the bone to the point that we’re so tired and exhausted, consumed by our own ideas of conflated self-importance, that we lose our ability to distinguish God from idol, the real thing for the imitation. We will worship the next thing that offers us rest, comfort and distraction.

Sabbath protects the shalom of time.

It’s important to remember that worship occurs in time.

Which brings me to the last point in this post.

There are several reason that a Jew in the temple compound would have to be immersed in the pool, specifically a pool that is (metaphorically described as) a “living spring”, see the attribution to angels in v.4, a later addition to the passage generally omitted from credible witnesses. One is to purify the body after unusual emissions. Another is a step in the process of recovering from various skin diseases. Another is before Yom Kippur, as this was generally a priest like Aaron. The man who complains that there is no one to put him in the water, may be complaining that he is unable to worship God, unable to complete the purification process. Process is in the way of worship.

The restoration of worship is the restoration of Shalom.

So, why does Jesus heal the man knowing that it is Sabbath and he will bring on the persecution of the Jewish leaders?

Because he knows how it’s supposed to be.

Filed Under: discipleship, GlenPresChurch, gospels, john, preaching, sermon media

Finding and Being Found

January 26, 2012 By Leave a Comment

In the passage, John 1:35-51, which I’m preparing to preach on Sunday, the greek word eurisko is used five times. The word means “I find.”

In v.41, Jesus finds Andrew.
Also in v.41, Andrew reports to Simon that he has found the Messiah.
In v. 43, Jesus finds Philip.
In v. 45, Philip finds Nathaniel.
Also in v. 45, Philip reports that they have found “him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote.”

This implies that there was a profound amount of seeking. Johns disciples were seeking the Messiah, the fulfillment of the law and the prophets, but the Messiah — the Light — was also seeking them. It reminds me of the last line of Psalm 23, “Surely goodness and mercy shall pursue me all the days of my life.”

Eurisko implies a deep sense of seeking.

When we seek in darkness, it’s hard to tell what we are looking for,
but when we seek in the light, we find and are found.

Filed Under: contemporary hermeneutic, john, NTGreek, preaching

Jesus, Mr. Rogers and the Role of Neighbor

January 21, 2012 By Leave a Comment

“And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a Father’s only son.” Jn 1:14

John, the evangelist, provides his reader with a deep sense of incarnational theology: Christ’s selfless abiding among his people. This was a radical worldview shifting idea, and still is. To this point, the deities sat removed from humanity, annoyed with humanity and only became god incarnate to meddle or get someone pregnant.

This God on earth idea changed the way God’s relationship with humanity was represented from that point in history forward. God among us. God with us – Immanuel. God not meddling, not coercing, not abandoning.

The Greek verb, skeinao, literally means “pitched a tabernacle tent.” The holy place got built next door. Eugene Peterson interpreted this passage, “The Word became flesh and moved into the neighborhood.”

A less subtle understanding is that God became our neighbor.
Even less so, we became his.
This reminds me of Fred Rogers, changing his shoes, switching his sweater, looking into the camera asking, “Won’t you be my neighbor?” That was a request, a question. The power in the relationship was yours.

This should transform the way we understand Jesus – as he said to an expert in the law: “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets [Mt 22:37-40].”

How are these two commandments alike? They both share Jesus as their center.

Jesus is the Lord that we love heart, soul and mind. He is also, our neighbor. Remember, he moved in next door? Recently I listened to a podcast and heard Peter Rollins describe MT 22 passage like this: “[sic] I’ve always thought about these two commandments like they were twins walking down the street. You can’t tell them apart. They are different, but we can’t tell the difference.”

In the opening of John’s Gospel, the author locates Jesus not only in historical context, but also next door to you. The question of how to treat our neighbor is a dominant gospel theme. How we treat our neighbor (which the Greek renders ‘not you, but the other one’) has 50% share in the way our faith is lived. Remember the parable of the Good Samaritan? That story was told in response the question, “Who is my neighbor?” One could look at the entire ministry of Jesus as a ministry to neighbor.

When a new family moves into your neighborhood, how do you respond? Do you receive them? Ignore them? Wait for them to come to you? Remember that verse in Hebrews? “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it [13:2].”

  • Does this change how we view our neighbors?
  • Does love of neighbor (as though they were Jesus) make you feel uncomfortable?
  • Why?


    • Filed Under: contemporary hermeneutic, john, new testament, NTGreek

    darkness used to live here

    January 15, 2012 By 1 Comment

    The Gospel of John, 1:5, “…and darkness did not overcome it.”

    John does not implicitly say that light has overcome darkness. We can be sure, and find a divine sort of comfort and peace in the fact, that it has already overcome darkness, in a future sense.

    John is addressing the reality that in all of our lives, in all that we experience and can see, it often feels like darkness is darkness is on the march towards victory. As if twilight is soon to be fully eclipsed by the night. Here, as always, feeling

    But God has even set the moon and stars in their courses; who made the great lights, for his steadfast love endures forever, who made the sun to rule over the day, for his steadfast love endures forever, the moon and stars to rule over the night, for his steadfast love endures forever [Ps 136:7-9].”

    We have seen the Light of God’s glory in Jesus and that Light, that brilliant and dazzling glory, will not only put the electric company out of business and render the sun impotent, but that Light will take its rightful place as our one true source:

    And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of the Lord is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb [Rev 21:23].”

    Filed Under: contemporary hermeneutic, john Tagged With: , , ,

    Incarnation and…menstruation

    December 22, 2011 By Leave a Comment

    In John’s birth narrative, we read in verse 14, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only [Son], who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” The greek verb that gets translated as made his dwelling among is skay-na-oh, which has a more euphemistic translation of “pitched a tent.”

    The point is, Jesus (God) came to earth and made his dwelling alongside us. He dwelt among us. We call this action the Incarnation. Jesus took on our flesh, to become like us.

    From India, there is a story that is so incarnational it’s unbelievable how far Arunachalam Muruganantham went to embody the suffering of the other and find a solution at the risk of losing everything.

    When Arunachalam Muruganantham hit a wall in his research on creating a sanitary napkin for poor women, he decided to do what most men typically wouldn’t dream of. He wore one himself–for a whole week. Fashioning his own menstruating uterus by filling a bladder with goat’s blood, Muruganantham went about his life while wearing women’s underwear, occasionally squeezing the contraption to test out his latest iteration. It resulted in endless derision and almost destroyed his family. But no one is laughing at him anymore, as the sanitary napkin-making machine he went on to create is transforming the lives of rural women across India.

    Yes, you read that correctly!

    Why did he do this? Women in India use a whole variety of things that most women would shudder to think of because “buying sanitary napkins meant no milk for the family.”

  • The women in his life left him.
  • He was “called a psycho, a pervert, and [was] accused of dabbling in black magic.”

    • And after wading through a MAJOR cultural taboo (probably not fearlessly, but definitely courageously) he succeeded…and his wife has returned to him. Whew!

    Read the rest of this strange and wonderful article here

    Filed Under: christmas, gospels, john Tagged With: , ,