My apology to the Church

A friend of mine named Joel, a more mature brother in the Lord (a nice way of saying older and more experienced than me) recently confronted me on my Facebook wall (search stephen.james.johnson@gmail.com) regarding my attitude towards the Church at large.  He stated that my Facebook and blog posts have become more and more critical of the Church and that despite its flaws, I ought to be respectful to the bride of Christ.  (For those of you unfamiliar with religious jargon, "bride of Christ" is the illustration the Bible uses to express the intimacy that Jesus has with His people.)  And he's right.

My comments have been increasingly more critical lately, not because I think poorly of the Church but because I am incredibly frustrated with so much of my family (the church).  Sometimes when I read about Christians in the media or think about the stances we take publicly, I feel embarrassed.  I feel like I am at family dinner and my crazy uncle says something really outlandish or rude and my new girlfriend is right next to me for her first family dinner (illustration only, that didn't happen).  I now have to convince her that he doesn't speak for my family, that his statement does not accurately reflect the core values of my family or who I am as a man.  Now imagine in that illustration, my imaginary girlfriend (as oppose to Lauren) breaks up with me and then tells all of our friends that I am nuts just like my pretend uncle (as oppose to my not-so-crazy uncles Ralph and Mike).  I run to her and my friends and say that I am not like my uncle, my family isn't crazy or rude and that it stresses me out so much that I want to change my last name.  This imaginary situation captures my feelings about the church.

In this imaginary story, let's pretend that my brother comes to me and says, "Stephen, I know your frustrations, but denying your whole family because of one crazy uncle is equally as dangerous as acting like your uncle.  Use this as an opportunity to promote change, not just trash talk your family."  In that portion of my imaginary story, my brother in Jesus is my friend Joel who lovingly confronted me on my Facebook wall.  It did not take much time and reflection for me to recognize that he was right.

I would like to apologize for being overly critical, for failing to add a dose of love to my truth and for forgetting that the Church is precious to Jesus.  I do not want be to hypocrite or a liar, so I will admit that I will probably mess this up in the future.  Furthermore, it has been spoken to me prophetically through so many believers (and through my own prayer life) that Jesus is pushing me to serve Him in a way that openly confronts problems in the Church.  I am not apologizing for answering His call, but apologizing for failing to add love and encouragement to the message.  I think of the prophet Jeremiah, who though he prophesied judgment and wrath, wept openly for God's people and shared love and compassion with them.  It is my prayer that the Lord sensitizes my heart and helps me love others.  It really is God's kindness that leads us to repentance, not necessarily His admonition.

I prayed for humility and God gave me a dose.  True story.

Is Jesus a Republican or Democrat?

http://biblewalk.wordpress.com/2011/07/21/faith-and-politics/

I am not very politically active.  I refrain from participating in politics not because I do not have political opinions but because once a declaration of political affiliation is made publicly it becomes much easier to dismiss the person's suggestions and thoughts.  If I were to tell a person that I am a Democrat and advocate loving the poor, I would most likely be dismissed as a hippie liberal.  If I were to tell a person that I am a Republican and believe that abortion is unethical and immoral, I would then be a woman bashing ultra conservative.  I cannot share my faith with a person if I also share my politics because my politics would stand as a veil to the Person of my faith - Jesus.  I want to be political about my faith (meaning I want to share my faith diplomatically) but I also believe that my faith has some radical political implications.  How can I participate in the political sphere and remain faithful to Jesus while not being dismissed as the "Religious Right?" How can I share about revolutionizing the inner city through selfless acts of service or caring for God's creation by recycling while not being perceived as "Tree Hugging Socialist?"

The more I learn about Jesus, the more I conclude that He cannot be boxed.  Jesus was not a Republican and He was not a Democrat, He was not a liberal nor was He a conservative.  I know this probably outrages some readers who believe that the verse "God made us in His own image" means that our political affiliations came from Him too.  We forget that when God made us in His own image, He did not create a bunch of mini-God the Fathers who physically resemble God and believe all the things that He believe.  The fall (of man) had more complications and ramifications than we will ever be able to understand on this side of eternity.  God created us in His own image to have a heart to love, a mind to perceive, a passion to create (both art and life), a desire for righteousness and equity.  He gave us the ability to laugh and cry, to judge right from wrong in accordance with His Spirit and His Word and to walk in the power of His Holy Spirit.

The problem with the Religious Right and the Liberal Left is that they create God in their own image.  Sit down with Pat Robertson and Rob Bell and find two very different understandings of Jesus.  The whole world is in this process of creating God in its own image.  Jesus did not create the Republican party nor did He initiate the feminist movement.  Yet Republicans and Democrats will both claim that God is on their side.  Glenn Beck tells us that God is on the side of the Republicans and Sean Hannity's daily radio show implies (and sometimes outright states) that only conservative's are "Great Americans."  I read through the NY Times and the Washington Post online and I start to think that Christians are nuts and narrow-minded too (joking).

I believe in most of our elections Jesus places His own Name on the ballot and prays that the rest of the world will too.  Abortion and homosexual marriage are not the top two things on His agenda.  At least, I do not think they are.  I think the most important thing He talked about was to love the Lord with all of our hearts, minds and souls and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.  I don't think either political party does a real good job at following those teachings.  Sure, the "moral issues" are important.  I think they are incredibly important.  I wish that conservatives fought poverty as much as they fought homosexual marriage and liberals were as open minded to Jesus as they are to every other worldly philosophy.  I think that sin is awful and that it should not be tolerated. I think that homosexual marriage is a sin and is not designed by God.  I also think that ignoring the needs of the poor and homeless are equally as evil.  I think abortion is murder and is typically a "Cntrl + Z" (that means "undo" for those who are not computer geeks) for poor decisions and fleshly behavior.  I also think that protesting abortion with picket signs outside of clinics does not win souls to Christ and accomplishes more harm than good.  I think we should spend our money responsibly on social programs with the understanding that poverty is not just a bank account problem, it is a mentality and it is contagious and generational that can be healed through prayer, education and love.

Where do I fit in?  Who do I vote for?  Jesus isn't on the ballot and no one in the political spectrum seems to speak for Him (or about Him without exploiting Him).  The voices of "love" I hear love anything and everything except for Jesus and the voices of "justice" I hear divorce love and mercy from their justice.  Voting for Christians seems to always become choosing the lesser of two evils and we cannot even agree as a Church exactly who is the lesser of the evils.  And the media profits from our dissension and division.  They'll pit Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell against Stephen Hawking and Richard Dawkins any day just to make the religious look crazy and the liberal look like God haters.  How can Christians responsibly participate in politics and actively care for their country without being lost in the chaos?

I'm young.  I'm learning.  I don't have a lot of answers.  I have a lot more questions than I do solutions.  One of the many things that I have learned from Jesus is that our actions will speak much more loudly than our words.  If Jesus spoke about love, mercy, grace and forgiveness but never actually died on the Cross, He would have been just another great politician.  It's the whole cross and resurrection thing that makes everything that Jesus said legitimate.  How can I pick up my cross and serve others so I can see resurrection in the lives of my family, church and greater community?

Well, that will be my brainstorm for a while.  I'll do my best not to form another political party called the "Jesus Party" because I will surely mess that up and that would be really bad.  That would be a True Story no one would want to read about...

Jesus had "urges" too...

blogs.fit.edu

"But he said to them, 'I have food to eat that you know nothing about...My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.'" John 7:32, 34 New International Version


I think of hunger pangs and stomach grumblings.  I do not know the true pain of actual hunger because I have rarely been in a place where food was not readily available.  Nevertheless, I know that when time passes without eating I can become irritable, quick to frustration and insensitive.  I am not much fun to be around during those times.  Like the popular Snickers commercials, so many of us are discontent until we have met our physical urges with physical sustenance.

While I do not think that Jesus meant that obedience to the Father necessarily made His stomach grumblings vanish, I do believe that Jesus was making a very strong point to His disciples about what fuels His lifestyle.   Jesus' nourishment did not come from the physical world.  Though He was fully human, Jesus' concern was not that His physical body was fed but that His Spirit was in total submission to the will of the Father.

When we are hungry, we often look forward to eating and oftentimes "eating well," which typically indicates consuming delicious foods in abundance.  Dare I go to a restaurant with a grumbling stomach and I will end up ordering an appetizer, an entree and even a dessert.  I look forward to meeting my urge.  I cannot wait to sit down and eat a delicious meal.  I can imagine the disciples saying the same thing.  "We should eat, we've been doing a lot of work.  Four more months and then it's harvest time.  Man, food is really plentiful and delicious then."  Our Savior is not ignorant of this human tendency to look forward to our fleshly satisfaction because He was human too.  He goes on to say to His disciples, "Do you not say, 'Four more months and then the harvest?  I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields!  They are ripe for harvest!" (John 7:35).


I believe Jesus' question (and His immediate answer) is twofold.  The first is physical.  I do not think that Jesus means that we cannot enjoy a good meal or that we cannot look forward to responsibly (without gluttony and excess) meeting our need for food.  Yet not in even in food are we to find more pleasure than we do in obedience to God.  The second applies spiritual meaning to a physical example.  There is no justification in delaying our obedience because the fields are "ripe unto harvest" - the world is ready to hear about Jesus and His call to repentance and submission to His Lordship.

We cannot postpone our obedience to Jesus because we have an urge that has not yet been met.  Jesus makes His point clearly after His disciples urge Him to eat.  I can imagine the scene, the disciples telling Jesus that He has been working too much and that He should eat something or He'll pass out or something like that.  And Jesus is quick to say, "Listen, I know you're concerned but I have an entirely different type of nourishment that keeps me going.  I receive so much more satisfaction from obeying my Dad, from listening to Him and following the promptings of His Spirit.  All of you are so concerned about yourselves.  You think that once you have a desire met, an urge, then things will be okay.  Sometimes it's trivial like we'll share about Me once we've had a meal.  Other times it's more significant, like we'll wait until debts are paid or marriages are arranged or education has been accomplished.  Don't you see though?  Those things don't matter - cannot matter - more than obedience.  The work has been done, the stage has been set, you don't even really have to do anything crazy; all you have to do is obey Me and the One who sent Me and you'll experience satisfaction that blows away any peace you can get from putting yourself first."

Jesus' teaching scares me.  He says that His food is obedience.  I need food to be obedient.  Do you see the difference?  I am so far from where I want to be from living out this teaching.  If I have to choose between meeting my urges (even the most natural and acceptable ones like hunger) and obedience to Jesus, He tells me to choose Him.  Christ followers will find more joy in following Jesus than anything else in the entire world.  Following Jesus is not on the top of the priorities list because following Jesus is not something that can be managed or prioritized.  Following Jesus and obeying Him is the foundation of the list and from where all of our pleasure is derived.

I am learning a lot about Jesus and one of the things I see is that He is obsessed with obedience.  Obedience is more important to Him than passion and excitement.  He even says in another part of the Gospel that if we love Him, we obey Him.  I don't think we talk about that enough in church or at Bible studies.  I think we try to present our version of the seeker friendly Jesus who is a liberal hipster who drinks lattes and talks about radical love.  All this obedience talk seems orthodox and is probably a turn off to "free spirits" and so on.  I think it's important to be honest about Jesus.  He wants us to obey Him.  And He wants obedience to be more important to us than our own physical hunger.

Talk about paradigm shift.  Crazy, right?  I'm not there yet.  Truthfully, I don't think there is a "there."  I think this is a journey, a process, of sanctification (becoming more saintly or Jesus-like).   My prayer is that I will be less focused on me and more focused on Jesus.  Taking my thoughts away from me and placing them on Jesus will help me with not being so self absorbed.  Maybe I can end up like those dogs in the above picture who listen to their master and fight their own natural urges.  That's a true story I want to tell one day.

Macaroni pictures for Jesus

artsmarts4kids.blogspot.com 

I bought a desk.  My friend Matt came over and helped me put the desk together.  The desk has sat in my room for a couple of months now and I've used it once.  I store papers on it.  My intention was to use the desk as a writing space, a place to do my devotionals, write my blogs, read the Scriptures and write essays on topics that the Lord places on my heart.  Now it stores bills and unfinished projects.  Most of my time at home is spent sleeping (or trying to sleep).  My time awake is spent at work.


Working overnights has its advantages as well as its disadvantages.  I have lots of time to read and study.  I study dispatch procedures and emergency response protocols, read fiction novels that help pass time and develop my vocabulary, read the Scriptures (less than I read fiction books sadly) to learn more about Jesus as well as "Christian inspiration" books (more than I read the Scriptures...still sadly).  I have time to reflect upon my life and to look forward, sometimes with faith and other times with fear, to my future.  I watch television (a lot).  There is the show called "Amish: Out of Order" about ex-Amish who are struggling to adjust to "English" life.  I enjoy the show because I find it does not dishonor God while still being able to capture genuine spiritual struggle.  When that's not on, I watch re-runs of "Cops" and "Wild Justice" and learn that in all reality, every episode is the same.


Sometimes, when I get really bored, I wonder what it would be like to do a television show called "Dispatch: Overnights in East Haven."  I would be like, "This is how I make my coffee" and then "This is where I pee" or "This is how I walk around and stretch at 5:00 a.m. to remain awake for the last three hours of my shift."  There would be occasional moments when the drama would increase though.  Like yesterday, I dispatched out a truck vs. city bus car accident that required more than ten ambulances and filled the emergency rooms of nearby hospitals.  Solo dispatching emergency responders while fielding several frantic 911 calls at the same time requires a skill set I am still developing.  My heart, the physical organ not my emotions, is learning how to handle sudden adrenaline rushes followed by quick crashes.


While I sit here, in between frantic and other times mundane 911 calls (Me: "911, what's the address of your emergency?" Caller: "Yeah, what's the number to the New Haven Register?"), my mind dwells on my desk.  The desk seems to symbolize the inadequacy I feel because I do not spend the time with Jesus like I know I ought, that I do not write as often I want to, that I do not have my papers filed and my tasks in order.  I like the desk, but I hate that I think about it so much.


The problem with my thought process in all of this is that I think when God sees me, He sees my desk.  I honestly think that Jesus would love me more if I used the desk for its intended use.  I think that Jesus loves me more if I blog and do devotionals and read my Bible.  I think that Jesus' grace and mercy for me is contingent upon my behavior.  I say that I believe in grace and mercy, but my actions indicate that I believe in a "works based" system of theology.  Somewhere in my journey with God, I stopped focusing on Him and started focusing on me: my works, my actions, my thoughts.


While I think personal holiness is important, that our spiritual maturity is marked by the "spiritual fruit" (our Christlike-ness), I think anything that places focus off of Jesus and on me is not a good thing.  It is a demonic lie that we can earn God's love or that God loves some people less or other people more.  God is not like earthly parents, whose favor can be won by their children by doing more chores or saying nice things.  God loves infinitely from the beginning; growing in Jesus is learning how to respond to His love in humility and worship.


I used to make my mom macaroni pictures as a kid.  When I wasn't eating macaroni, I was using it for art.  My mom was so gracious about macaroni pictures.  She would be so thankful for the picture, so glad that I took the time to do something kind for her.  She didn't love me more because of my  macaroni pictures.  I could never have made her a macaroni picture and she would have loved me just the same. I made her those silly pictures because I was expressing my love for her.  I was responding to her love for me, because she loved me first.  I am starting to think that Jesus might be the same way.  All my works, all my efforts, are macaroni pictures to Him. He loves me even if I don't do them, but He knows that they are responses to His love.  I just want to love Him back.  I don't think that my mother ever wanted me to beat myself up for not making enough macaroni pictures.  I don't think God wants me to beat myself up either.


I think we should all make macaroni pictures for Jesus.  We should serve Him, love Him, honor Him and worship Him.  I just don't think we should make pictures to earn His love, but to respond to it.  True story.