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November 7, 2008 //
What Job would that be you ask? The job of determining how much money a life is worth!
KAANDAHAR, Afghanistan — A U.S. coalition airstrike and clashes with the Taliban militants in southern Afghanistan earlier this week killed 37 civilians and 26 insurgents, according to an Afghan government report released Friday.
The report said that another 27 civilians were wounded in the strike. It added that the government has already paid $2,000 to families of each victim, and $100 to those who were wounded _ a standard practice in these cases.
The majority of the civilians killed were woman and children, the report said.
Read the rest of the article here
Blessed are the PEACEMAKERS, for they will be called CHILDREN OF GOD - Jesus
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November 6, 2008 //
My friend JR wrote this beautiful prayer of confession that moves me ever time I read it.
Forgive Us, O Lord: A Prayer for American Politics
Forgive us O Lord, for being divisive rather than working to build unity.
Forgive us O Lord, for striving to be right more than striving to be kind.
Forgive us O Lord, when we desire to be understood more than to understand.
Forgive us O Lord, for placing our hope in a person, a system, a government - rather than in you alone.
Forgive us O Lord, for complaining about politics rather than thanking you for our freedom.
Forgive us O Lord, when we use our mouths - and our email forwards - to tear down “the other.”
Forgive us O Lord, for spending more time and energy thinking about the Empire than the kingdom.
keep readin the rest here
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November 5, 2008 //
John Perkins in his book With Justice for All says,
The poor are now beginning to realize that the greed and luxury of others is causing their suffering. Desperate millions, with nothing left to lose, are resorting to violence. They are becoming wise to the rich who are trying to manipulate them into fighting their economic wars for them. They will no longer believe the rhetoric of fear that labels every effort of the poor to help themselves as “communist” or “socialist.”
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October 29, 2008 //
Guest Blogger- Matt Sadler (http://themarinara.blogspot.com)
James 1:2-4
“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perserverance. Perserverance must finish it’s work so that you may be mature, and complete, not lacking anything.”
From National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1K8-kNuDgoA)
Clark Griswald is opening what he thinks will be the bonus check that keeps his family afloat. Instead he opens the envelope with a shocked look on his face and says, “I just got a One Year membership to JELLY OF THE MONTH CLUB.” Everyone around him is in disappointment, except Cousin Eddie who replies “Clark, it’s the gift that keeps on giving the whole year.”
As I read through this chapter, I keep thinking about how people react to the gospel or the Eucharist in similar ways. On one hand, they want a message that says- Say a prayer, believe in Jesus and go to church, and your life will be made so much better. Where this chapter tells the story of the Eucharist in a way that says- Jesus lived, Jesus died, Jesus lives in his church, the church must go out and die, so that Jesus may live in others. One message is simple and clean and familiar. The other message is scary and messy and asks everything from us.
I really liked how the authors chose to use the term Eucharist “the Good Gift” instead of the term Gospel “the Good News.” In reality the terms cannot be mutually exclusive. They are bound together. Yet, in this context, the Eucharist was perfect. It provided us with an opportunity to rediscover something with a term we probably don’t focus as much. For some, the gospel has been packaged by many different people in many different ways. As a result, the term often has many different meanings associated with it. Outside of the Episcopal church, the term Eucharist isn’t used very often. So it is fresh, and we can establish new meaning.
it’s not the gospel we hear is not right, it just often cuts the story short. And what tends to happen is that people begin to make assumptions and fill in the blanks. The message gets polished and it becomes a sales pitch. Sooner or later it just becomes a simple transaction. “Follow Jesus and the you will have the best life.” And then when pain and suffering and reality settle in, we feel like we were cheated.
But when the message goes forth and tells the whole story. You see something new. It is more difficult and it is going to require much more of us. It feels real. It seems to encompass things that were left out of the previous message. It provides spaces for pain and suffering and reality. It gives us encouragement and strength during those periods. It makes James 1:2-4 come alive. It becomes the gift that keeps on giving all life long.
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October 28, 2008 //
Part 3 - The Mark of the Beast
The first two sections laid out the indictment of this American Empire. This leads to the final section of chapter 5. Here the authors illustrates how to “resist, rebel, protest,” while in the belly of the beast. Using the book of Revelation and its first century meaning the authors offer a way to navigate life in the empire. Here are some of the things that the mark of the beast symbolized. Which leads us to the question of how do we engage in this American Empire? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
The mark was a symbol of your participation in the military-economic complex of the Roman Empire.
The mark represented an all-encompassing system aligned against people doing the right thing.
The mark spoke to all the ways humans misuse power to accumulate and stockpile while others suffer and starve.
The mark was anti-kingdom.
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October 27, 2008 //
Part 2 - Soccer Moms on Prozac
The second third of chapter 5 asks the question, If God has blessed America (which He has), then why are we so sad?
The number of Americans taking antidepressants has tripled in the past decade.
Despite the mass amount of stuff we have accumulated, we are discovering that it doesn’t make us happy. The authors remind us that there is another side to this coin of accumulation. Not all feel sad, but instead there grows a deep sense of entitlement within us. Moses addressed this exact issue:
otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt.
So by accumulating “stuff”, we end up forgetting “the Lord your God?”
Moses can see the days of abundance and blessing coming. Someday they will not only have enough, they will have more than enough. And he knows that this blessing is going to bring with it tremendous temptation to forget the God who provided it. How does a person forget God? The answer we’ve seen again and again in the Scriptures is that you forget God when you forget the people God cares about. Over and over God speaks of the widow, the orphan, and the refugee. This is how you remember God: you bless those who need it the most in the same way that God blessed you when you needed it the most.
The authors illustrated the ways in which we forget God by the way we consume oil, the way in which we amass the largest military and in the ways we have become numb to our past. We acquired much of our land from the Native Americans through genocide and gained much of our wealth on the backs of slave labor.
Empires accumulate. Accumulation gives birth to entitlement, entitlement demands preservation, preservation has consequences, consequences are a burden.
And that burden takes faith to carry.
In empire, you believe in that which you preserve, you preserve that which you are entitled to, and you are entitled to that which you have accumulated.
This is the religion, the animating spirit, of empire.
Has the religion of this age been baptized into the empire? What do you think?
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October 26, 2008 //
The full title to the fifth chapter is, Swollen-Bellied Black Babies, Soccer Moms on Prozac, and the Mark of the Beast. After the first four chapters have carefully laid out some of the major themes from the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament narrative, we now come to the how the authors have allowed that narrative to shape the way they see the world today. Because of the amount of things to cover in this chapter, I will break it up into three separate posts.
Part 1 - Swollen-Bellied Black Babies
The first third of this chapter begins with a story of a misguided bomb that dropped on the innocent people of Iraq. Women and children were killed and injured, all were civilians.
How do we make sense of such a horrible atrocity?
Some will claim that is just what comes with modern warfare. Others will remind us about why it was so important to remove Saddam, the one who slaughtered the innocent people of his own country.
While others remind us of the good that our nation has done.
They would remind us of all of the people who have come to the United States for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and have actually found them.
They would speak of advancements in technology, the arts, medicine, humanitarian aid. They would point out that it’s hard to find a corner of the world where there aren’t Americans doing some sort of good.
They would point to the many who have sacrificed their lives so that we could enjoy the freedom and prosperity that we do. And they would be right. These things should be pointed out and celebrated and honored.
However, using the story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus, we are reminded that we have a tendency like the disciples to misunderstand the days events. Could we misinterpret what is happening in our day? Despite of all the good, could we in he USA have become an empire? “What we see in the Bible is that empires naturally accumulate wealth and resources.”
What do you think? Are we an empire? Take this little quiz (these are not the same statistics as in the book, but you’ll find them similar) and then let us know what you think?
Now, when many people get a glimpse of how the world really is, whether it’s through travel or study or reading statistics like the ones just cited, it can quickly lead to guilt. We have so much, while others have so little.
Guilt is not helpful.
Honesty is helpful. Awareness is helpful, Knowledge is helpful.
Guilt isn’t
Human history has never witnessed the abundence that we consider normal. America is the weathiest nation in the history of humanity. We have more resources than any group of people anywhere at any time has ever had. Ever.
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October 21, 2008 //
Guest Blogger: Beth Brendle
In this chapter the authors describe the very early days after Jesus has been executed and resurrected. Jesus meets with his followers and gives them instructions on the Mount of Olives : they are to be his witnesses where they are (Jerusalem), but then they will start to take the message of the new Exodus to Judea, Samaria, and ultimately to the ends of the earth.
After Jesus’s ascension, at the celebration of Pentecost, these early Christians start to live out Jesus’s directions. It becomes clear that this new life is for everyone, not just Jews, and the message cannot be contained in Jerusalem; it starts to spread outward.
The early Christians have to adjust their thinking in several ways. Many of them are devout, strict Jews, and it’s hard at first for them to include Gentiles in the new community of believers without making them observe Jewish customs. Some of the believers are still trying to grasp the kind of kingdom that they’re part of now…it’s brand new, and it works in a new way. It’s characterized by giving, sharing, including, self-sacrificing.
The “genital-free African” referenced in the chapter title is representative of the new community of Jesus. This man was an Ethiopian eunuch, who by Jewish custom would have been excluded from worship because of his nationality and his injury. On his way out of Jerusalem, he meets Philip, one of Jesus’s disciples. Philip shares the gospel with this man and baptizes him, and then the eunuch goes on his way. His journey back to Africa represents the spread of the message of Jesus to the “ends of the earth”. His conversion symbolizes the inclusiveness of the message for all peoples. His vehicle, a chariot, and his occupation, treasurer for the queen of Ethiopia, point to the shift away from empire and oppression, and the use of the wealth of nations for healing and sharing rather than domination.
Here are some questions I am mulling over as I think about this chapter. I’d love to know what the rest of you are thinking about these or any other questions.
1. At first, Jesus’s disciples don’t get what kind of movement they are now a part of. “They want to take back their nation for Jesus. They want to return to the regime of their founding fathers. They want a renewed empire with their ideology on the throne.” Obviously, Bell and Golden are deliberately describing the attitudes of many Christians in this country today. What would a Christian community living the new Exodus in our time and culture look like?
2. Do you agree or disagree with this quote: “Acts is a story of movement, motion, progress. It’s people being caught up in something that simply must expand, and stretch, and go. Because no one city, no one religion, no one perspective, no one worldview can contain it.” Many Christians would say that this statement is too inclusive. What do you think?
3. Should Christians today go back to living the way the New Testament Christians lived…with all things in common, selling off possessions to provide for those in need, basically living communally? The authors suggest that “the gospel … is an economic reality.” Do you agree? What does this mean for Christians today?
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October 21, 2008 //
Sunday night Ben Campbell from the Richmond Hill came and spoke to our community about Richmond. He talked about everything from our cities past to our current struggles. Some of his thoughts from the night can be found on my wife’s blog: Mosaic.
I love what the Richmond Hill is doing. I highly recommend just stopping by and checking it out if you are near the Church Hill area. Here is the history of the Hill and their Rule of life together.
The Rule of Richmond Hill
Conversion of Life “Conversatio”: Living one’s life as if it were a conversation with God, in a commitment to personal spiritual disciplines.
Obedience: Living one’s life in response to God’s will, in a commitment to the mission of the community.
Community: Living one’s life as life together, in a commitment to shared mission and a common life.
Simplicity: Living one’s life without excess, in a commitment to a modest use of resources that resists greed and consumerism.
Humility: Living one’s life in perspective, in a commitment to assess and honor one’s own gifts and those of others.
Hospitality: Living one’s life in service of others, in a commitment to welcome guests in love and a spirit of prayer.
Prayer: Practicing a spiritual discipline that includes daily prayer for metropolitan Richmond in concert with the Richmond Hill Community.
Racial reconciliation: Examining oneself, paying attention to the particular wounds of race in metropolitan Richmond, and to the setting right of racial wrongs.
Healing: Committing one’s own life to inner healing and to the healing of the larger community of metropolitan Richmond
Ecumenism: Honoring all expressions of Christian faith, respecting in Jesus’ name all persons of other religions and faiths
Christian social transformation: Praying and working for the coming of the Kingdom of God in metropolitan Richmond.
Stability “Stabilitas”: Pledging to pray and work for the permanent transformation of the metropolitan city.
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October 19, 2008 //
Guest Blogger: David Wolf
In this chapter Rob and Don discuss that when the Israelites began to return home from Babylon, Jerusalem just wasn’t the same. Then the Romans conquered them and they were back in exile. Their hope was for a new “Son of David”, one who, as we read in chapter two, would lead the people in a new exodus.
In the midst of the stories of how great their nation had been, Israel is in the shadow of an oppressing Roman empire. They are “looking forward to the day, the day of hope, the day when another son of David would come and lead them in a new exodus.” And he did.
“Of all the ways the writers of the Gospels could choose to begin the story of Jesus’ going public, they all quote Isaiah 40:3: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight paths for him.’” Rob and Don write about this new leader for a new exodus, and how the people cry out to the “Son of David”, asking if he hears their cries or if he is like Solomon. We then read that this Son of David hears their cries, and is about transferring his power to the powerless, healing the sick, blind, and lame. In this chapter, a picture emerges of the new leader that the prophets spoke about in an artistic manner. A servant leader, who speaks of new creation, and a new kingdom with a new Jerusalem. Rob and Don point out that this son of David is leading an exodus for everyone and everything “for all time.”
As we continue to read, Rob and Don discuss how this new leader followed the prophets’ predictions “down to the last word”. In doing so his death became very confusing to many people who had been following him, just like the two on the road to Emmaus. The two walking to Emmaus had lost hope in this son of David after his crucifixion. Rob and Don point out that Jesus demonstrated how violence is cyclical and “the only way to break that cycle is for someone to absorb it”. Jesus was a new Adam who would resolve the penalty for a new exodus, by resisting ever “using power in the form of violence against another human being.” They remind the readers that everything is in some sort of Egypt with bondage decay and slavery, but there is hope walking with us.
What and how would Jesus, or better His followers, demonstrate this today in our world, in our culture, in our neighborhoods?
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