The Drum

Grace to Give Away

I read last week that Luther stated in his Disputation at Heidelberg that, “Grace is given to heal the spiritually sick, not to decorate spiritual heroes.” 

I love that because sometime we think of grace as a toy we get to play with or control. Grace is truly for us, but not for us to just keep but to giveaway or pass on to others.  It seems there are many that think  God gives grace for their own self-aggrandizement or advancement. 

Wrong…

Barth on Mission

Man, I love this quote:

"The congregation, the so-called homeland church, the community of heathen Christians should recognize themselves and actively engage themselves as what they essentially are: a missionary community!  They are not a mission association or society, not a group that formed itself with the firm intention to do mission, but a human community called to the act of mission." Karl Barth, Die Theologie und die Mission, 118.

Christmas for Free

Here is the link to Karli (my daughter) and Caroline Fowler's free Christmas album.  It is super good and, well, free!

http://www.karlifairbanks.com/christmasdownload.html

Merry Christmas!

r

A Christmas Prayer

Sometimes we find your love in the warmth of relationship.  In the embrace of a friend or in the believing words of a parent or in the intimacy of a life companion.  Sometimes that love even come as mystifying forgiveness from someone we have injured.

We find your love in the traditions of the Incarnation…family gatherings, the trees, the gifting, and the warm drinks…the Jesus story.

Sometimes we find your love in the words and the accounts of your people.  We hear of the heroes and the heroines both current and past who give without restraint, who provide for the stranger and the other…who even die for the Gospel story.

And finally we find your love in the sacrifice.  We find you as the defeated and triumphant one who was marred for us to live.  You gave that we might be whole.  You sacrificed so we could be touched and healed of our self-life.  You died in innocence so we might be seen as innocent.

We find your love in the warmth, the traditions and in the one holy sacrifice.

We will continue to be aware and full of Your love that cannot be measured or controlled.  We continue as ones who hope to look and act like the grand lover, Jesus

It is in His name we pray, Amen!

Sinners in the Hands

Here is a email question (and my response) from a young seminarian friend of mine:

"A question that keeps coming up in discussion with people at school is...Did the Father pour out His wrath on Jesus when He was on the cross? If so, was His wrath emotional anger on the Son? Or was His wrath the penalty for sin (death) on the Son? Big question..I don't know what is most faithful to scriptures teaching? It seems like a "pic ture of God" idea. I really apprecia te your feedback."

A will add a couple things to the grappling.

What does the term wrath mean?  Does it mean anger (like we normally connote it) or does it mean punishment for an offense (another legit definition)?  The reformed position probably connects it to anger.  You know...Sinners in the hands of a pissed off God.  I would lean more toward the judicial meaning, which I see as more in line with the revelation of God in Jesus (our best and most accurate picture).  Secondly, we must remember that God is not some unfeeling source, but has been in eternal relationship in the trinity.  If the plan was for eternity for Jesus to absorb the bunt of our sin, it seems a bit inconceivable that the Father is doing this in emotional anger (I wouldn't even do that and I am a sinner), but more likely through tears of grief.  Father, son...  If my son were to do the most remarkable sacrificial act of love for all eternity, it would certainly not stir my anger toward him.  Quite the contrary, it would crush my heart that this even had to happen.  Those are just some thoughts.

Remember Jesus is God incarnate and the Gospel is always about love.  Don't let the people mess with your head too bad!  ;)

Peace to you my young brother!

Rob

The Holy Spirit Revisted

George Whitefield wrote in a letter: “Follow after, but do not run before the blessed Spirit; if you do, although you may benefit others, and God may overrule everything for your own good, yet you will certainly destroy the peace of your own soul.”

When I read the above quote I was struck by how much activity in the church is simply human effort.  Activism is one of the ethics of the new church (a good thing), but often times it is rampant rather than led.  Singer songwriter, Joan Beaz summarized this ethos with the statement, "Action is the antidote to despair."  Doing something, anything, is mostly good.  It can, however, be activity at all cost.  I am as guilty of this as anyone, being wired so tight.  In the church it could almost be perceived as secular pursuit with a Jesus bumper sticker. 

There is a much needed renewed focus on the Lordship of Christ, but honestly, there is little about the dynamic of the Holy Spirit.  I think this really needs to be revisited.  We are not monists.  The work, power and certain leading of the Holy Spirit is critical for a true God movement to "emerge."

On this Thanksgiving

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought,
and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.

- Gilbert Keith Chesterton, English writer (1874-1936)

Hospitality as Resistance

 One person has stated that hospitality is resistance.  In a world that caters to the rich, uber gifted and best looking, true Biblical hospitality is a prophetic voice.  When the larger empire disregards and dishonors certain persons, small acts of respect and welcome are powerful gestures of a greater Kingdom!  The apostle Paul commanded the Christian as part of what it means to “offer our bodies a living sacrifice…” to “…practice hospitality.”  This is not an option.  That really is what is amazingly attractive about Jesus for me.  He was not a respecter of persons.  I find myself in this dual processing battle daily on how to mete out my “precious” time, but Jesus seemed to sashay through the daily with an ease and acceptance of the moment…that each person he met held the same value and importance as the next and he stopped and ate.  He broke bread and drank (Luke 5:30) with people who probably could or would never repay him.  Counter-culturalism at its finest.

Luke 14:12-14 (The Message) - Then he turned to the host. "The next time you put on a dinner, don't just invite your friends and family and rich neighbors, the kind of people who will return the favor. Invite some people who never get invited out, the misfits from the wrong side of the tracks. You'll be—and experience—a blessing. They won't be able to return the favor, but the favor will be returned—oh, how it will be returned!—at the resurrection of God's people."

Discovering Ourselves in the Other

Henri Nouwen once said, “…we will never believe that we have anything to give unless there is someone who is able to receive.  Indeed, we discover our gifts in the eyes of the receiver.”  That quote captures me because we try so hard to figure out who we are in a vacuum.  The surest way to discover who we are and what God has created us to do is to serve the other.  Mission means that we must go beyond the talk and the rhetoric and actually look another person in the eyes.

Sept 13 - On this day in the story of my Tribe

1962 - Swiss Reformed theologian Karl Barth wrote in a letter: 'God, according to 2 Cor. 5:19, reconciled the world to himself, not himself to the world.'