Reading The Entry into Jerusalem Icon

Today the Church celibates the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. This day inaugurates Holy Week. The last week of Jesus' life before his crucifixion on Friday. For centuries the church has cried out on this day "Come let us Run With Him." Let us ask ourselves today how we can enter in the Journey toward the cross as the Aroma of Christ to the World. As you look at this icon reflect on where God is calling you this week.

God grant that with the angels and the children we may be faithful, and sing with them to the conquerer of death: Hosanna in the highest.

amen

For those of you who like Slam Poetry: "I’m sorry I’m a Christian"

For those of you who like Slam Poetry (with the full knowledge that some of you don't) I thought you might like this. It's by a young slam poet, Chris Tse.

Much of his message is needed, but I think it brings up a lot of stuff that needs to be worked through a great deal more. He's apologizing, but in such a way that I feel he is mostly attacking the Church without engaging in the areas he's attacking.

This isn't wrong, in fact it's needed. I commend Chris for a thoughtful critique, and appreciate how well crafted his delivery is.

BUT... What we as Christian's can not do is say "Amen brother," and leave it at that.

I'd like to hear MORE on what we can do rather then the litany of where we've screwed up. Whining against the Church seems to have become a mantra that is continually recited, at least in my circles. (This same tendency is what has kept me from formally associating myself with the "Emerging Church" movement over the last 7 years or so. )

The message of repentance is needed, but without being accompanied by transformation, all we become are clashing symbols or members of the bigotous crowd we condemn.

Check it out:

note: There is a little profanity I think was a poor decision on Chris' part. It seems awkward, and isolates a good portion of the Church from really listening... Profanity is generally a cheap trick. I've used it enough myself to know it rarely accomplishes the end you're looking for.

Annunciation

The Word was made man and he lived among us - John 1:14

In 9 months we will celebrate Christmas. Because of this the church in the west and the east recognizes today as the feast of Annunciation. This is the day we remember the day God first initiated his saving work of incarnation by becoming flesh in the womb of the virgin Mary. For me this festival has a great amount of significance this year. Many of us within Churches that came out of the reformation have lost how important the annunciation is. God offered his plan to one woman in a poor and oppressed region. I can sense all of creation holding it's breath as the angel awaits Mary's response to God's offer to clothe himself in flesh through her...

and she simply responds,

“I am the handmaid of the Lord; be it to me according to your word.”

and nothing is ever then same again...

Look at the icon above. The red banner show us that there is now a physical bridge between heaven and earth which is being nurtured and cared for by the body of a simple woman. It is not a tabernacle of Gold, but of flesh.

We too as Christians have been called to be physical bridges between heaven and earth. Empowered by the holy spirit we too are tabernacles of God in this world.

today let us pray with the church throughout the world:

May we become more like Jesus Christ

Want to get an NLT?

A couple of my friends here at North Park helped create a new translation of the Bible quite a number of years ago called The New living Translation. If you don't have one you should really pick it up. It's a great bible in many ways....

The Publishers of the NLT are giving one away everyday right now through their contest Breakthrough to Clarity so getting your hands on an NLT is easier then ever. PLUS Entering the contest is actually fun. I did it myself a few days ago. It involves writting about the Bible, which as you all know I love to do!!

Check it out.

My Top Ten Reasons for praying the Divine Office

The Christian life is unique among the Abrahamic faiths in the amount of freedom it's adherents have in the practice of spiritual disciplines. Christians often pray, fast, give alms, make pilgrimages, and make professions of their faith, however within most Christian traditions how that is done by the average lay person is often left to the person themselves to decide. What emerges out of this are a myriad of tools and options all designed to help Christians focus on God with every part of their lives, and I believe this is a great thing! However with the great diversity of options can breed a consumerist mindset on spirituality.

Prayer can become a product to satisfy us and we can try out one product after another trying to satisfy us, and make us more spiritual. Having thousands of options means it's very easy to never settle on one, or to settle into a lifestyle that holds them all so loosely that when dry spells, dark nights, and times in the wilderness come all the practices can so easily fall away. It is because of that tendency in myself that I have committed to I pray the Divine Office at least two times a day.

I incorporate other practices in my life as well, but having one that I stick too no matter what has helped me continue in the rest in different times and seasons. I believe every Christian should have at least one daily practice they are committed to. Not all of them have to be the same as mine, but find something you can really hold on to and stick with it.

For me the Divine Office works well for a number of reasons, and I'd like to use the rest of this article in an attempt to elucidate them:

1. It offers bookends to my day. I pray morning and evening prayer. Since I've started this practice my whole life seems to stick together better. Each part of my day is held up by prayer life books on a shelf are kept from falling like bookends.
   
2. It educates my consciousness. There are certain elements to the daily liturgy that become deeply rooted in how I think about the world. In the same way a song can get stuck in your head the antiphons, doxologies, and requests seem to always by on the tip of my tongue and at the forefront of my heart.
   
3. The Roman Breviary fits my family. My wife is Catholic, I am not. This makes our prayer together is a continual give and take. By reading the Roman Breviary when my wife chooses to join me she feels at home. It's a spiritual practice we can both easily share without stepping on one another's toes.
   
4. It joins me with Christians throughout time and around the world. Christians have been praying the Psalms since the Church consisted of 12 guys following a Rabbi around Galilee. I know every morning I am joining with countless others who are praying the same prayers at the same time, as well as becoming familiar with the oldest prayer book in the Church, the Holy Bible.
   
5. It keeps me in the cycle of the church year. Every year the church begins a remarkable journey living the story of God's redeeming work in the world. This is seen through the various church seasons which focus us ultimately on the Resurrection of Jesus on Pascha. The prayers and songs continually place me in the setting of the year I am in, I love that.
   
6. It keeps me in the cycle of the week. The feast of the Resurrection is celebrated every week on Sunday in the church. By praying the hours I have found a much deeper appreciation for the Lord's Day.
   
7. It Keeps me connected to the Saints that have Gone Before. The Divine Office offers special prayers and stories of saints throughout the year. By praying the offices I am always aware and connected to the lives, and feasts of the Saints.
   
8. It Equips me with God's Word. By following the regimen of the Divine Office I get to know the scriptures better. I often find the words of the Psalms and Canticles some to me while in prayer with others, or in times of distress. They offer me a great deal of life, and have equipped me in many ways to comfort those around me.
   
9. It draws me together with other believers in my own community. It's amazing to me how many people I have found that love to pray the Divine Office with me. It's a great format for prayer together and is adaptable to many different settings. If you want to get started find a group in your area that's already doing it. There probably is one!
   
10. It opens my heart more to God. I have seem my life changed by this prayer, by asking Jesus into my life regularly I have seen him begin some major renovations within me. This practice has helped me love God more and more, and opened my eyes to so much of what God is at work doing around me. I don't know what I'd do without it!

If you are interested in praying the Offices here are a few resources:
I use the print volume "Christian Prayer"
You can also read them Online at Universalis or DivineOffice.org

Book Review: Ancient Future Evangelism by Robert E. Webber

After moving away from a fundamentalist background to the Episcopal Church Robert E. Webber spent many years of his life helping evangelicals become more deeply rooted in the historical faith they are a part of. He is known to many today through his "Ancient Future" series of book, which have helped provide a context of historical Christian worship and formation for the evangelicals of today. I recently read his book Ancient Future Evangelism (Baker Books, 2003). In it he posits that conversion is a process over time that results in spiritual maturity, and has historically been done in a fourfold process which is modified to complement eras and cultures but always includes evangelism, discipleship, spiritual formation, and vocation.

Ancient Future Evangelism reflects a good deal of personal reflection, and scholarship that I both admire and appreciate. Webber is able to present the Gospel story as well as the story of the church in a concise and easily accessible way that is inspiring to the reader and prophetic to the church. This does come at the cost of an oversimplification of the discipleship paradigms of the past, and a tendency to romanticize the early church while demonizing the conversion of Constantine. By fitting all christian history into 20 pages of so he does make some fairly broad generalizations.

This book's real brilliance is not in it's role as a historical review but in the tools that are given to translate historical Christian discipleship into an understanding of the process of Christian formation that is both contemporary and culturally relevant. In it we are given a compelling narrative of the role of the Church in fostering disciples with a mature spiritual life, and some basic tools to help develop rituals and practices to engage in the formative process with intentionality (make sure you check out the appendixes they include some great stuff!) While reading I found my mind wandering to applications of the text very naturally. This book inspires creativity in discipleship by casting a trajectory within conversion.

No matter what capacity you might be serving in ministry, and no matter how well your church is doing, I recommend you read this book. If nothing else I guarantee you it will inspire hope in you, and hope is one of the cardinal virtues we could all use more of.

Summery of the Book: You can clearly see his main idea develop over the 9 chapters that make up the book. The first chapter first establishes a need for this process, and then explores the historical trends and how disciples have been made throughout history.Chapter 2 gives a close look to the early church and the how it implemented the process. With this Webber begins to establish the tools to translate formation to our own communities. Chapter 3 dives right into our western post-modern context and he begins to flesh out what stage one, evangelism, looks like. Chapter four proceeds to stage two, discipleship. In this Webber strongly emphases having a lifestyle of worship, which is lived in response to the activity of God. Chapter five focuses on the spiritual formation stage. Webber predicates that this is done through teaching around the practices, rituals, and prayers of the church. Chapter 6 discuses the final stage, vocation. For Webber the center of vocation is the call of God. The church is called, but we too are called within the church, to be servants in our communities. When we take communion we should remember that God abides in us and we in him. He is our food in our journey of service. Chapter 7 begins the second part of the book in which is offered as an examination of the convictions that underlie this process of conversion. This chapter focuses on culture. Our culture is strikingly similar to the culture that the early church encountered. How we interact and transform it is filled with a great deal of tension. Christians must stand against some aspects of culture, but still be able to identify with it. Chapter 8 tells the story of God's mission in the world. It looks at how the early church understood the Gospel and calls the church today to plant the story in our own settings. Chapter 9 is a call for the church to live under the rule of Jesus and not in service of the political authorities of the world. The life of the church tells a story about it's mission,and it's king. He encourages christian communities to actively engage in the story of God's activity in the world today.

Listen to The Dark Night of the soul by Saint John of the cros in it's entirety

You may have read my post on The Dark Night of the Soul a few days ago. I ran across an audio version of the book posted on youtube. If you have 7 or so hours to spare I recommend listening to it. I put it on in the background the other day and listened to the whole thing. It definitely made me think of certain things more hearing it read aloud and not just reading it. Let me know what you think!



http://www.youtube.com/user/chaneltanita#grid/user/098AE55D71B440B4

Theology and the Cross - A witness from a communist prison

Today's post is from From Richard Wurmbrand’s With God in Solitary Confinement via Father Stephen. Wurmbrand was a Lutheran pastor who was imprisoned for his faith in communist Romania. Here he met orthodox pastors and other people of faith. In his reflections on this he tells us this story.

“I once tried to explain ‘systematic theology’ to a Russian pastor of the Underground Church, who had never seen a whole New Testament. Systematically, I began to explain to him the teaching about the Godhead, about its unity in three Persons, the teaching about original sin, about the Fall, about salvation, about the Church, about the sacraments, about the Bible as infallible revelation.

“He listened attentively. When I had finished, he asked me a most surprising question: ‘Have those who thought out these theological systems and wrote them down in such perfect order ever carried a cross?’ He went on. ‘A man cannot think systematically even when he has a bad toothache. How can a man who is carrying a cross think systematically? But a Christian has to be more than the bearer of a heavy cross; he shares Christ’s crucifixion. The pains of Christ are his, and the pains of all creation. There is no grief and no suffering in the whole world which should not grieve him also. If a man is crucified with Christ, how can he think systematically? Can there be that kind of thought on a cross?


“’Jesus Himself thought unsystematically on the cross. He began with forgiveness; He spoke of a paradise in which even a robber had a place; then he despaired that perhaps there might be no place in paradise even for Him, the Son of God. He felt Himself forsaken. His thirst was so unbearable that He asked for water. Then He surrendered His spirit into His Father’s hand. But there followed no serenity, only a loud cry. Thank you for what you have been trying to teach me. I have the impression that you were only repeating, without much conviction, what others have taught you.’

Using "Dark night of the Soul" as a guide to Lent

Lent is a season that the christian church has historically used as a time to examine itself, to intentionally undergo fasts, and to take time to seek greater union with God. There are few guides that I have found more wise and valuable in understanding these values of Lent then Saint John of the Cross. His work is profoundly powerful and also sheds a great deal of light on the profitability of those times that we today often describe as dry, or "wilderness experiences". St. John of the Cross' wisdom on this is most clearly seen in his classic work The Dark Night of the Soul.

Much of what St. John of the Cross has to say resonates strongly with me. I do not feel as if, at this point in my life, God has allowed me to undergo a purgation of the soul as deep and dark as what John expounds upon in much of the work, however as when I read though the book I confess I am deeply convicted of my own fallenness and need of sanctification on the deepest levels.

The journey of life is filled with hardships, and sometimes when we look around at the brokenness of the world, and the fallen people who make up the church we lose our hope in what God is doing. If anyone knew this struggle it was John of the Cross. He was raised in a family that had been disinherited, and lived in poverty after his father died. His efforts to bring reform to his monastic order got him tortured and imprisoned by his fellow monks. Yet John was able to see the work of God in the midst of darkness both outwardly and inwardly. His words still contain many messages I think we can all learn from.

Week 1) God is the master and guide.

Week 2) The focus of our lives should be more on loving God then doctrinal certainty.

Week 3) God is bigger then our ideas of him.

Week 4) Do not get caught in seeking God only in the ways you have known him in the past.

Week 5) Stay connected to the people of faith who have come before you.

Week 6) No matter how you feel, God has not thrown you away.

Conclusion

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1) God is the master and guide. Our relationship with God is just as vulnerable to our own sinfulness as any other relationship. The first part of The Dark Night of the Soul makes this clear as St. John evaluates how each of the seven deadly sins can be seen even within our own spiritual life and practices. If we are relying on our own spiritual disciplines to bring us closer to God we are forgetting who is ultimately responsible for the work.

St. John of the Cross describes near the end of the book the ways in which God clothes us and prepares us himself for union with him. It is not our natural intelligence, our memories, or our will that can unite us with God, for according to John, these are only temporal and are to be overcome by the virtues that God provides: faith, hope, and love respectively.

2) The focus of our lives should be more on loving God then doctrinal certainty. There are indeed great works of theology both within the scope of the Canon of scripture, and within the riches of christian tradition. It is easy to get caught up in a quest to understand God in all the right ways. John of the Cross offers a valuable reminder that these things in themselves do not give us a love for God, or a union with him. Love of God should be our aim. Our love for god is rooted deeper then our will or intellect it is planted in our soul. It is good to know, and desire God, but our chief aim must be to love God.

3) God is bigger then our ideas of him. There is much more of God then either you or I can know. God transcends every method of categorisation. It comes with the territory of being (and allow me to categorize for a moment) an all powerful spirit outside of space and time. We have to be wary of letting our ideas of God become walls that block us from from drawing near to him. How we feel about God can keep us away from him. John of the Cross uses a vocabulary to describe God which is not dialectical but more pictorial.

The things of God are beyond words but we can explain them, to a degree, with natural things. John of the Cross describes the wood burning as a metaphor for the difficulty our soul must go through to achieve the light of God. He also meditates upon the way light is better seen in when reflecting off dusty air then when the air is clean, this operates a similitude to show us how much darker our soul seems when seen in the light of God. In this way John reflects on many things.

His preferential tendency to quote the prophets and the books of poetry over the Torah or the epistles is certainly marked. This seems to demonstrate John follows in Evagrius Ponticus' view of theology. Namely, "The theologian is the one who prays truly, and on who prays truly is a theologian." In this way we see the value of being led into a knowledge of God by God himself, for his is the only testimony that speaks from a true perspicacity.

4) Do not get caught in seeking God only in the ways you have known him in the past. There are times in our faith where things seem dry and perhaps even lifeless. The natural tendency of many is to go back to what has worked before, simply because it is what has worked before. Saint john of the Cross likens this to a man who leaves a building only to enter it again. He compares us to children who are weaned from the breast so that we might partake in solid food. This process is indeed dark and painful to the child, and so it it is with us. John of the Cross recommends we allow God to transform our spiritual practices as he transforms our state with him.

Instead of viewing times of comfort in our prayer life as a sign that we have pleased God through what we have done, John recommends we look at them a time to see all that God has done to work his own light in our hearts just as a refiner or blacksmith removes a metal from the scorching flames to survey the work of his hands. Comfort is not a sign of accomplishment any more then difficulty is a sign of failure. Let both the sweetness and the hardship of the christian life assure you that God is carrying out his good work in your life.

5) Stay connected to the people of faith who have come before you. As our spiritual life grows difficult it is important to converse with those who have gone before through troubles and tribulations. The most cursory glance and the scriptures will show that being called by God is not always a really nice thing for the one who is called. St. John of the cross guides us through the lives and prayers of many people of God who have suffered in their journey to follow God. We see the cries of David, Jeremiah, Job, and many others. It is these lives and prayers I find solace and an assurance that if a hero of faith can cry out "the pains of hell surrounded me." (Psalm 18:5) I can find assurance of God's sanctifying work in my life in the midst of despair.

6) No matter how you feel, God has not thrown you away. The strongest current we can recognize in The Dark night of the Soul is that suffering is one of the ways that God draws us to himself. He desires to make us holy, and humble. Even if that means that for times in our life we are not happy. The humility God seeks to work in us is not achieved by the building up of good things, but in seeing that in our own strength our lives are immersed in evils. It is because our sin is so deep that God allows us to go through the "grave and piteous griefs" and the feelings that God has forsaken us.

The struggles we often associate with a lost of our spiritual unity with God are often times the means that God helps us grow into a greater union with him. According to John, our sensuality is purified by aridity, our faculties made holy through an emptiness of perceptions, and our spirit is cleansed in darkness. It is important to remember through it all that God loves you deeply and is working in you though all these things.

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As we continue through this season of Lent my prayer is that I might have the wisdom to see the work of God not just in joys of my walk with him, but also in the death we are baptized into. The season of Lent itself exsists in great part because followers of Jesus recognized the need for a renunciation of themselves to grow closer to God. It may not be a time of gratification, but I do feel it is a great season for cultivation, and one in which I am glad to have John of the Cross as a consort.