In Athens – Finding Truth in a World Where Anything Goes

In the wake of the disaster that was the VMAs the internet is abuzz with talk about Britney Spears and her “comeback” performance.  The range of emotion seems to have gone from shock and disgust to pity and back to disgust again.  The critisizm has come hard and fast and shows no signs of letting up anytime soon.  I wonder though whose really to blame?  Is it Britney for wearing that outfit and being unprepared?  Is it the record label whose trying to convince us that that song is worth our dollar?  Is it the MTV for putting her on stage when they more than likely knew what would happen?  Or is someone else to blame?  Maybe it’s us.  I think MTV gave us exactly what we wanted.  Something in our nature delights in seeing people train wreck their lives.  We have an insatiable appetite for celebrity that must constantly be satisfied by the next sexiest star.   We love to see people fall, especially if we think they are above us in some way.  What is it inside of us that wants this so badly?  We have a simultaneous desire to worship and to rebel.  Our hearts are inconsistent creatures, both giving and taking affection as it serves our needs.  This is how we treat God and it’s how we treat each other.  The Bible calls it sin.  So what are we to think about Britney?  I guess I can’ t answer that question for anyone but me, but personally I’d like to think of her as a person.  A person whose made mistakes and taken some missteps.  A person not really any different from myself (expect for the bikini.)  You see “God so loved the world,” (John 3:16) and that means Britney as profoundly as it means you and me.  So I hope that before my heart rises up in judgment it will break with remorse over our culture and the way that it uses people and then discards them like yesterday’s garbage.  I pray I’ll be moved to see people around me not as objects to be used but as people with dignity, value and worth and that includes Britney.  

Here’s a benediction I’m working on for our Sunday morning service in two weeks. We’ll be looking at John 3, so it’s a response to that passage. I’m sure I’ll change it up a bit before then but this is what I have so far. Enjoy! Oh, and if you know of a good place to find benedictions or prayers online or in a book let me know.

A Benediction Based on John 3

May you know deeply and truly this morning that God so loved the world and
let your heart rejoice that that means you, but not only you

May you walk in the freshness of the new birth, and in power of the Kingdom
May you be discontent with the value system of this world
A world that says you’re loved because of what you can do, who you know and how much money you make
You see, I want you to understand that God so loved the world,
and that means you, but not just you

May you love the light, and weep over the darkness
May you ears be quick to hear the wind of the movement of God
Even if you’re not sure where it’s coming from or where it’s going, just know that where he goes you want to go as well.
Did I mention that God so loved the world? Yes, that means you, but it means a lot of other people to.

So may you never be so heavenly minded that you’re no earthly good
But may you really get the heavenly things in such a way that you see earthly things like you’ve never seen them before.
Because yes God so loved the world, and that means you more profoundly than you’ll ever understand, but surely I don’t need to remind you that he doesn’t only love you?

So like Nicodemus may you wrestle with Jesus in the dead of the night
May his words cause you to question, ponder and change
May you struggle so that you can hear with your ears, understand with your mind, embrace with your heart and move with your feet.
Because you know God loves this dirty, broken, jacked up, beautiful world. And that means you, not just you, but oh yes, you.

I confess that sometimes I judge a book by its cover.  Mostly I judge it by its size.  Little books seem sissy to me.  This is ironic since I am not large in stature myself.  So, in an effort to get over by book sizism (like racism?), I want to start a discussion about little books with big impact.  I’ll start by listing two, oh and by the way, a “little book” is 150 pages or less.  First is A.W. Tozer’s What Ever Happened to Worship,  second, Francis Schaeffer’s Art and the Bible.  What about you?

It’s funny to me that people seem to be experiencing this weird tension between seeing the bible as narrative and seeing it as propositional. Let me use the Lord of the Rings Trilogy and the book of Romans to illustrate why this is unnecessary.

First a point on the side of narrative: What if I told you that there was a short person called a Hobbit who found an evil ring and in an act of self-sacrifice willingly embarked on what would be his certain death in order to destroy the ring in the fires of Mordor, and that his friend Sam Wise carried him on his back up the side of the mountain when he could no longer go on. Are you moved? Did I capture the essence of the story? These are the essential facts, correct?

Many narrative guys feel that the bible reduced to a list of propositional statements accomplishes just about as much. The Bible doesn’t come to us in a list of facts, but in songs, poems, letters, stories and gospels (to name a few). Now, on the other hand: What if I told you that in LOTR there was a elf named names Steve who found an evil flower and decided to destroy it by taking it to Mordor, only at the last minute decided to keep the flower for himself thus insuring the destruction of Middle Earth. Well, that’s one story, but it’s not Lord of the Rings. You see, the facts are all wrong, and the story is completely changed.

For those of you who would say, “Well, what about the book of Romans? That seems like a book of propositions to me.” Ok, well what was the context for Romans? Was it not the breakdown in Jewish and Gentile relations in the church? Almost 95% of people miss the entire point of that text, because they read it primarily as a book of propostitions, and view it through an American indivicualistic mindset. Case in point, how do you interpert Romans 12:1?* As a commendation to live holy lives? Look harder. 12:1 is a exhortation for Jews and Gentiles to present their two “bodies, or members” as one singular living sacrifice, and it is this unity that is the pleasing act of worship. The pattern of this world is disunity and discord, Jews hating Palestinians, Shiites hating Sunnis, Americans hating the French. Get it? The whole book is a story of the corporate church in Rome. Don’t miss the forest for the trees, nor the trees for the forrest. In making his case for unity, Paul does list several propositions. Why should they be unified? Because all are equally condemned before God. Because he is the only Judge and he shows no partiallity. Because salvation is his work. To deny these propositions is to cut out the heart of his argument. Likewise, to focus only on these propositions is to miss the entire point he is trying to make. Narrative and Proposition work best when viewed as being in a marriage relationship, let’s not force them to get a divorce.

* These are not my original ideas, they came to me through Dr. Tomlinson of Midwestern Baptist Seminary. If you doubt the interpretation of Romans 12:1 go back and read the book in context, not just 12:1. Why would the whole book be corporate and then shift to an individual exhortation? Why is the word for “bodies” plural, and the words, “sacrifice” “holy” and “pleasing” all singular? Romans 11:33-36 all about God’s judicial impartiality and independence, why is this so? Yes, the language in Greek is judicial. Who shouldn’t think more highly of themselves than they ought in 12:3? Why does he go straight into the talking of the body and it’s gifts if 12:1 is about individuals? I submit to you that making 12:1 about personal holiness and personal worship is a raping of the text and robs of us of the most profound argument against racism in the entire New Testament. Wow, that last sentence totally changed the carefree tone of the first half of my post. Oh, well. Quit raping the text ; )