e~mergent kiwi

resurrecting the resurrection

Went to see the movie Vantage Point and it helped me make sense of the resurrection. The movie is tagged 8 points of view: 1 truth. It's a soft form of postmodernity, affirming eyewitnesses as subjective, without losing history as truthful.

In a similar way, the Bible has 4 gospels. Each offers a uniquely different point of view - Mark is fear and trembling; Matthew is earthquakes and angels; Luke is burning hearts; John is a new start. Each is subjective. Each adds insight, without losing truth.

Vantage point (the movie) ends with an 8th scene, an extended narrative which provides the big picture. In the same way, Christian hope is a big picture, or in the words of N. T Wright:
the events of Easter Sunday are no less than "a full, recreated life in the presence and love of God, a totally renewed creation, an integrated new heavens and new earth, and a complete humanness … in worship and love for God, in love for one another as humans, in stewardship over God’s world."

In between the 4th and 8th perspective is the church. Each of us, in our homes, workplaces, city, living out the resurrection in our lives. Each of us subjective eyewitnesses, adding insight.

I wonder if the evangelical captivity to historical truth means that we jump to quickly from the 4th to the 8th perspective. I wonder if evangelicals are so concerned about the historical truth of the resurrection that they reduce the resurrection to an intellectual set of categories. Thus the entry to the 8th perspective is reduced to a set of beliefs that get you into heaven.

Yet the resurrection is so much more than an intellectual historical search. It is the affirmation of life, and life to the full. That is a truth to be lived, through your own unique point of view.

Full sermon manuscript is here.

what are Calvinists doing with Jesus?

Is the Incarnation of Jesus about God or about humanity?

I was reading some blogs last nite extolling Calvinism and how it encouraged a God-cented theology rather than a human-centred theology. Which sounds sweet. But as one of my Calvinist friends tells me (Don the Carson): damn all false antithesis to hell. So I began to wonder if God-centered theology and human-centred theology might actually be an antithesis.

I woke up this morning thinking about Jesus, who is the revelation of God. Yet this Jesus is both fully human and fully divine. If you make him out as God-centred, you run the risk of downplaying his fully humanity, for he is the new Adam. Equally, if you make him out as human-centred, you run the risk of downplaying his full divinity, for he is Lord.

So is it that in Jesus are integrated all the riches of the universe, including both a God-centred and a human-centred theology?

Just wondering. I really should go and have some breakfast.

creation and re:creation

What is the difference between creation and re:creation?

Is it that God starts with creation. Human sin meant that God could have decided to start again (creation again). But instead, through Jesus, God enters into re:creation. This is not a starting over, but a continuity between the old and the new.

got any room for an animal in your faith?

What part do animals play in your faith?

Following a communion moment last November at Opawa, when a dog was fed some of the host/bread, I have been pondering the place of animals and communion. This week I hope to finish, and submit, a 4,000 word article: "Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table": a contemporary reflection on the sacramentality of communion.

Today, I came across these quotes from Isaac of Nineveh, 7th century bishop:

"What is a merciful heart? It is a heart of fire for the whole of creation, for humanity, for the birds, for the animals, for demons and for all that exists."

"If a person of humility comes near dangerous wild animals, then the moment these catch sight of him, their ferocity is calmed; they come up to him and attach themselves to him as though he were their master, wagging their tails and licking his hands and feet. This is because they smell that fragrance that emanated from Adam when he named the animals in Paradise before the Fall: this fragrance was taken away from us at the Fall, but Christ gave it back to us at his coming."

How many Christians today share the same understanding of Christianity as Bishop Isaac? What is the place of animals in your faith and practices?

the gospel according to shrek

I don't often blog my sermons, because they are verbal pieces of work and contextual to a specific life situation. But the following groups of readers might be interested in today's sermon.

1. Shrek fans, who might appreciate some Christian reflection on the movie.
2. Readers interested in the relationship between gospel and culture, specifically how a Christian might engage with film.
3. The sermon was preached to 50 kids and 130 adults at our bi-monthly intergenerational (Take a Kid to faith) services, so those interested in all-age communication might be interested in the use of 2 video clips, the group activity and the response.
3. Those with an interest in theology, particularly how the gospel of Jesus can be named without drawing on substitutionary atonement metaphors. Thus the sermon outlines Irenaus theology of recapitulation and Julian of Norwich's use of Christ as an objective love. (Bearing in mind that I am trying to explain Jesus with a kid's eye view - which is, I think, the ultimate test of a theological idea anyhow.)

Update: if you want some visuals, just found a 3 min vblog by Iain McMahon, which includes some vid of me wearing a Princess Fiona wig! (Isn't there a verse in 1 Corinthians about becoming all things to all people!)

Start by showing Shrek 1 trailer

Once upon a time there lived an ogre (put on Shrek ogre ears)
A big, green and grumpy ogre,
With bad, stinky breath,
Who lived in a swamp,
and loved mud. And burps and farts. And ate rats.
Who's name was ……….. Shrek

An ogre who grew up believing
that being an ogre meant he had scare people,
chase people and when he caught people, to eat people.

And through the movie, we see an ogre who realises that there can be a difference between the ogre outside and the ogre inside.

That Shrek inside doesn't have to mean and nasty and gumpy ogre.
That Shrek inside doesn't have to eat people,
That Shrek inside doesn't have to live alone in the swamp.
That an ogre can love. And that an ogre can be loved.

Once upon a time there lived a noble stead, otherwise known as donkey. (put on set of donkey ears)
A fast talking donkey.
A donkey who mets Shrek
A donkey who goes along with Shrek as he sets out on his mission.
A donkey that Shrek can't get rid of.

And throughout the movie, donkey realises that there can be a difference between the donkey inside and the donkey outside.

That donkey can love. And that donkey can be loved.

Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess. (put on Princess Fiona wig)
Named Fiona. Who lives imprisoned in a castle.
Waiting to be rescued.

A Fiona who will turn into an ogre when the sun goes down.
A Fiona, who falls in love with Shrek,
A Fiona who decides that she’d rather be an ogre married to an ogre, than a beautiful princess.

And so we have the final scene (Play final scene from Shrek 1)

2 ogres living happily ever after, riding off into the sunset,

And so the movie Shrek refuses to give us your typical, Hollywood, once upon a time, beautiful princess, fairytale ending. Instead, the journey in Shrek is not about wishing you were as pretty as the girl beside you, or as speedy in soccer as your best friend, or as smart as the adult in front of you.

Shrek is about becoming glad of who you are and how you're made. And it's the discovery that when you accept who you are, only then are you truly free to love and be loved.

Now Shrek is a once upon a time fairystory. And none of us today live in fairystories. Sure, we have some beautiful princesses. But none of us today are ogres. And none of us are talking donkeys.

But we all live today in a society that looks at the outside. We all live in a society that wants to put labels on us.

Whenever we see an ad on TV, we are being offered a label: that in order to be happy, we need a certain pair of shoes, a certain car, a certain drink, a certain perfume.

So I want you to get into groups, ask each other, "What are the labels that society wants to hang on us today?"

I have some great big (A3 size) labels, with a picture of Shrek holding up 3 fingers with words – minds, bodies, spiritual relationship. I want you in groups to write the labels that society wants to hang on us today?

(Walk around groups. Collect a word from each group. Summarise and recap)

I want to finish by asking, what a Christian should think of Shrek?

I think a Christian should say about Shrek movie: YES, AND

YES: Shrek is right. Yes, when God made human beings, back in the first chapter of the Bible, God said "Let us make human beings in our image." So Shrek is right. It’s what God made on the inside, not the outside. That because God made us, we can be comfortable in our own skin. None of us need to put on the labels that other people give us.

My label at school used to be "four foot." Because I was so small. But inside, I'm not four foot. I'm Steve Taylor, made in God's image.

So Yes. Shrek is right. All of us are made special, inside, in God's image.

YES, AND
Because as Christians, we look honestly at ourselves and at people through history. If we're honest, we know that all alone, all by ourselves, none of us can ever achieve our full purpose, can ever be fully made in God's image.
Which is why Jesus is so important to Christians. Jesus does 2 things.

Firstly, Jesus becomes a benchmark, a standard by which we can tell what it means to be made in God's image.

Say I punch you really, really hard on the arm. And it hurts so much that you start crying. Or I say something really, really nasty about you. And it hurts and you start crying.

But I just shrug my shoulders and say, Be happy, I love you.

You say: Love isn't punching people or saying nasty things.

I say, "Well it is to me." And you and I are stuck. Both of us with a different idea of what love is.

Until we look to Jesus. And we find a benchmark, this standard: that's what it means to love God and how to treat people and give your life in sacrifice for others.

It's easy to say, oh, compared to other people, I'm a good person. Until we look at Jesus and find that benchmark of how to live.

Secondly, Jesus is a living example, of what it means to be made in God’s image.

It's like those toys you put in water. And over time they swell up and grow and grow into their true shape.

So when we look at Jesus we see a living example, a living model, the true shape of what it means to be made in God's image. We find this in Romans 8:29 "We see the original and intended shape of our lives in Jesus." And becoming a Christian is asking God to throw us in the water, to baptise us, so that in God's power we grow and grow into our true Jesus shape.

So becoming a Christian starts with each of us taking a good hard look at our labels. And saying. God, I don't want to live by other people's labels anymore. They mess me up. God, I want to turn the label over.

I want to say Yes to being made in God's image. I want to jump into God's water and, by the power of God’s Spirit, to grow into my true Jesus shape.

That's what becoming a Christian is all about.

And for those who are already Christians. If you're honest, you know that you always face the temptation of turning your label back over, of listening once again to the outward labels. And so you might need to recommit yourself again to the life-long journey of you growing into your true Jesus shape.

Conclusion
So Shrek isn’t just a kids movie. Shrek's got a message for all ages.
We live in a world of labels. But Shrek reminds us that if you want to see greatness, look on the inside.

The movie Shrek ends with the song, I'm a believer. The song was chosen because of the line "I thought love was only true in fairy tales."

But as Christians we can sing: "I thought love was only true in fairy tales; Then I saw his face, Jesus face, Now I'm a believer." Because in Jesus we can all grow into our original and true Jesus shape. So that's the gospel according to Shrek.

Response: Each group might like to bring up their label and place it under Jesus cross.

what it does it mean to be a Pentecostal?

Admit failure: that's according to Acts 1:16ff, where Peter starts his sermon by naming Judas as one of the apostles and a sharer in ministry. No triumphalism. No ignoring leadership failure. The church of Pentecost publicly admits failure.

Inclusive, including women, in ministry: that's according to Acts 1:14, where women and Mary the mother of Jesus are named. Their inclusion would have stood out to a 2nd century reader, as an indication that the church at Pentecost was a breaker of boundaries and a welcomer of all. According to Harvey Cox, Fire from heaven, the mark of the Spirit at Anzusa Street was not tongues, but the fact that many nations worshipped together. Again, an inclusive Spirit at work.

Bottom up leadership: that's according to Acts 1:21ff, where new leaders are chosen from the ranks of those persons whom the prayerful community chooses to lead.

Know many Pentecostal churches around today that sound like the early church of Acts?

what ascension day means for my faith

Today is Ascension Day, when the church remembers, and affirms, as it says in the Apostles Creed:

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord ...
He ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

Practically, today, I am glad that

God in Jesus is present through all time and space. The Jesus of the Gospels was bound in a Jewish body and timezone. After the resurrection we catch glimpses of a change of mode, for the Resurection body is a bit of a shape-shifter. Jesus can defy space by moving through walls and can defy time by moving quickly from place to place. The Ascension suggests this movement through time and space is now complete and that the Jesus we worship is now present at all times and in all space. He is both outside time, yet inside time. (This is speculative, but I wonder if this might be why many cultures narrate pre-Christian encounters with Jesus-type images and figures. Could it be that the resurrection body of Jesus appeared not just in Galilee and Judea, but also in pre-Christian New Zealand etc?)

A human body now live with God. Jesus, born as a baby, was God en-flesh, choosing to limit his divinity in order to endwell humanity. This gives dignity to our bodies, our armpits and our noses, our sweat glands and our bottoms. The Ascension of Jesus has no record of the human body of Jesus folding up like a sack of skin on the ground. Instead we have the nail scarred hands been taken to heaven. This means that human sweat glands and bottoms are seated with God, caught into a Trinity of love. God has embraced humanity. The celebration of human bodies is complete.

Faith without sight is now the normal way to follow Jesus. We are called to walk with no God in visible sight. We are called to believe in the guidance of God's Spirit, to humbly seek discernment, to trust our intuition and seek wisdom through the body of God. Faith without sight, flying blind in some sort of fog, is our normal Christianity.

God's people are the primary hermeneneutic of the Gospel. Into the gap left by the loss of Jesus, comes the infilling Spirit of God, who forms us as the new Body of God. All the gospels record Jesus commissioning his disciples (Matthew 28:18-20, Mark 16:15, Luke 24:48, John 20:22-23. Why the church has chosen to prioiritise Matthew 28 is a matter for another post). We are now the hands and feet of Jesus. God has no body on earth but ours.

The end of the Matrix movie captures this best. Neo soars into heaven, leaving the message that the freedom he has won now needs to be completed. The church as the body of God, has transcended time and culture and countries in a way that no one human could ever do. On Ascension Day I renew my commitment to embody Jesus.

Jesus the good woman

Luke 15:1-7 presents Jesus as like a good shepherd, searching for a lost sheep. Luke 15:8-10 presents Jesus as like a good woman, searching for a lost coin.

The church has been very happy to tell me about the first, Jesus as good shepherd. But why has the church been strangely silent about the second, Jesus as a good woman?

Strange, because a feature of Jesus is the way he includes both male and female. 27 times the writer of Luke matches a story about a man, with a story about a woman; starting with the angel appearing to Zechariah and Elizabeth in Luke 1; followed by Simeon and Anna blessing the baby Jesus in the temple in Luke 2; through to men and women being present at Jesus death and resurrection. 27 times.

As Kenneth Bailey, Finding the Lost, notes, Jesus is remarkable for the way he affirms both women and men as "full and equal participants in the kingdom of God." Surely this pairing has something to say about women in ministry.

can all deeds lead to eternal life

"Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

" 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'[a]; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"

This exchange between Jesus and a lawyer (Luke 10:25-27) should initially trouble those who believe in the exclusive claims of Jesus Christ. Consider that in this exchange, eternal life is defined as loving God and loving neighbour. It is a fusion of two Old Testament texts; Dueteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18. So on this basis surely a good Jew who follows the Old Testament gains eternal life. And perhaps a good Muslim, who follows God as Allah and enacts charity? And perhaps numbers of my friends, who tend to their own spirituality, often outside the established church, and live generously toward their neighbours. (And often more generously than many churchgoers.)

My ability to seek both a generous orthodoxy and a conviction of the uniqueness of Jesus has, in recent months, been greatly helped by the following quote from Julian of Norwich.

"the atonement is necessary because without it we would only have our own judgements to rely on, and we are notoriously bad at judging both ourselves and others. In the passion, Christ ... has shown us that we must trust God's judgements more than our own ... and this teaches us to love God graciously"

The quote reminds me that salvation in Christ includes an objective reality outside our own frames of reference. Jesus teaches us what love of God and neighbour is like. In the face of the uniqueness of Christ, I can only say "God in Jesus, please teach me to love and be loved." In this cry for help, I enter into the love of the Triune God. My actions become God-filled, an extension not of my own efforts, but of the love of Christ. In the Triune God, I love God and neighbour. I can affirm a generous orthodoxy empowered by the uniqueness of Christ.

doodling at Jesus birth OR Trinity, annunication, communion and eschatology

How would you express the annunciation of Jesus as a visual image?

Many of us like to doodle on paper as we listen. So how would you doodle the angel appearing to Mary and announcing the impregnation? Here is a marginal manuscript, a sort of doodle from the 9th century, from the Byzantine Khludov. It comes from After the After the Spirit. A Constructive Pneumatology from Resources outside the Modern West (a fascinating book by Eugene Rogers) and I used it on Sunday.

I then noted the Christian belief that the economic Trinity = immanent Trinity; that what God does = who God is. That God in Jesus acts the same before he was born as during his life, and as he will come again.

That God starts (God has a surprise for you. Luke 1:30); that Spirit works (the Holy Spirit will come upon you. Luke 1:35); that creation matters (You will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. Luke 1:31).

It led me to offer the following table; integrating the Trinity with Jesus birth, Jesus return and communion.

We concluded around the communion table. Often at communion we just look back, memory of a night 2000 years ago. Yet in communion we are entering into Jesus, the economic Trinity = immanent Trinity, that Jesus acts in the Bible is the same as who God is before the Bible.

Christmas can be a very busy time. We have presents to buy, food to prepare, a long list of social functions and breakups. And it's easy to get tired. When I do, when I get tired in December, I return to this doodle. The reminder that it is not my energy, for God starts, for the Spirit is working and that as creation matters and God wants to touch our human bodies with God power.

As we come to communion: you might like to think about: What is God starting in you? Where is the Spirit working?

consuming Christianity

Gospel in a post-Christian society is the next course I teach at Bible College of New Zealand; starting Wednesday 26 July, the course runs for 3hours over 14 weeks. Each year I adjust and tweak my courses and this year the emphasis will be on what the gospel might mean in our consumptive and consumeristic world.

I am using this book - A to Z of postmodern life - as a core text;
firstly, because as a sociologist the author allows us to explore postmodernity not only as a philosophical problem but as it occurs among people. Secondly, the author is non-Western and the book is a critical voice on the impact of postmodernity on global culture. And thirdly, because the book explores postmodern in everyday life: advertising to zapping, toys to shopping. And it is precisely in how we live and spend money that the gospel needs to engage us.

For those interested, a fuller bibliography is as follows:

Tom Beaudoin. Consuming faith: Integrating Who We Are with What We Buy, Sheed & Ward: US, 2004.

John Drane. McDonaldisation of the Church: Spirituality, Creativity, and the Future of the Church. London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 2000.

John Drane. Do Christians know how to be spiritual??: The Rise of New Spirituality and the Mission of the Church, London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 2005.

Gordon Lynch. After religion: 'Generation X' and the Search for Meaning. London: Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd, 2002.

Brian McLaren. A new kind of Christian, Jossey-Bass, 2001.

Brian McLaren. Generous Orthodoxy, Zondervan, 2004.

Brian McLaren. Secret Message of Jesus, 2006,

Richard Middleton and Brian J. Walsh. Truth is stranger than it used to be: Biblical Faith in a Postmodern Age. London: SPCK, 1995.

Vincent Miller. Consuming religion: Christian Faith And Practice in a Consumer Culture, Continuum, 2005.

Ziauddin Sardar. A to Z of postmodern life: Essays on Global Culture in the Noughties, Vision: London, 2002.

Ziauddin Sardar, Postmodernism and the other: The New Imperialism of Western Culture. London; Sterling, Victoria: Pluto Press, 1998.

Steve Taylor, out of bounds church?: Learning to Create a Community of Faith in a Culture of Change, Zondervan: US, 2004.

Andrew Walker, Telling the story: Gospel, Mission and Culture Gospel & Culture. London: SPCK, 1996.

newbigin and western missiology

From June 25-29 I am participating in a International Think Tank on Mission to Western Culture. This involves a multi-year think tank re-applying the work of Lesslie Newbigin to denominational, seminary and other church systems regarding missional engagement with western culture(s). In preparation I was asked to answer 2 questions.

Question 1: What are the primary contributions of Lesslie Newbigin to this conversation?

For me, the primary contribution is summed in the sentence; "[T]he only hermeneutic of the gospel, is a congregation of men and women who believe it and live by it." Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, 1989, 227.

This suggests the following:

a) A new window. The sentence assumes that the gospel task is unfinished. Mission needs to remain on the agenda of the West.

b) A new hermeneutic. The sentence foregrounds the church as the interpretive performer in the task of Western re-missionalisation. This opens a space for mission to be driven not by the essential pragmatism of declining numbers, nor the dehumanizing practices of church growth, but from a vision of the gospel as human, communal and Incarnational. It offers a hermeneutic in which the gospel can be embodied as the concrete hands and feet and ears of the Body of Christ.

c) A humble confidence. A congregational hermeneutic suggests a public, visible missionality. This theme appears throughout Newbigin's work, where he wrote tirelessly of the place of theology in the public arena. Newbigin ceaselessly called the church to the kingdoms that are economic and educational and artistic. His congregational hermeneutic refused to accept modernist binary opposites of private and public, of subjective experience and detached observation.

Instead, a congregational hermeneutic offers knowledge as occurring amid the participation of human lives in the becoming of God’s mission future. This both refuses a privatized faith and offers a public place to stand based not on the epistemelogy of the Enlightenment project, but upon the embodied gospel. Or in the words of Paul Fiddes;

The Christian strategy is not to imagine that we have a point of vantage above or beyond culture, from which to survey other stories. Is it rather … the persuasive power of our story that will judge other stories. And it is not just telling; we are to out-perform others by living by a better story.

(My response to Question 2: What would you identify as the primary themes/questions that need to be addressed regarding mission to western culture at this point in time? is here.)

spirit, church and mission

As part of our Spirit of life festival, I was doing a talk on the Spirit and church. It was a mixed group, young and old, who had gathered to love God with their minds. In other words, to think.

So I showed them Rublevs Icon. (Click here if you want to view image) I suggested that;
When we talk about the Spirit, we are talking about a flow of love.
When we talk about the Spirit and church, we must talk about a flow of love.

Then in groups they discussed the implications of this for our worship; our community; our mission. Here is what a group of our younger people read out.

Mission doesn't mean you have to go out into a secluded area. It is everywhere! But you need community to back you up and each person in that community is doing a mission of their own based on what and how the Holy Spirit manifests in them (i.e. to pray from someone "out there" is to participate in the mission flow.

what is truth?

"Learning truth is like learning a trade; apprentices grow in experience little by little." So says Basil the Great in his book, On the Holy Spirit, 16.

When truth is capitalised to Truth and used as a weapon, it seems in such contrast to this wise church leader who offers to his opponents a process of gradual learning, in the context of relational, experiential apprenticeship.

When truth is capitalised to Truth and used as a weapon, it seems in such contrast to Jesus. The fully human, fully divine who offers truth as embodied; "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life." This is the same person who has offered a starting point of "Come, follow me and I will make you fishers of people." So truth is set in the context of discipleship, and of a personal growing relationship with Jesus.

reality of resurrection

I've never noticed this before, but 1 Corinthians 15 is followed by 1 Corinthians 16. Brilliant observation aye!

A deep discussion about the resurrection body of Jesus (1 Corinthians 15), is followed by a church taking up an offering for the hungry in Jerusalem (1 Corinthians 16).

So is this what the resurrection body of Jesus looks like? A group of everyday people sharing their resources with the poor? So practical. So Incarnationally real. Show me your faith [in the resurrection] and I will show you deeds.

Easter Sunday is never tidy

Easter Sunday sermon. My third Easter and with a bit of trust built, time to take seriously the Resurrection.

If you're looking for a tidy faith, well wrapped and beautifully packaged, you've come to the wrong place.

If you want a faith all neat and beautiful, You won't find it in the Resurrection Garden...

In the Bible we find 4 gospel stories about the Resurrected Jesus. None of them are tidy.

The gospel of Mark starts with 3 women arriving into the Resurrection Garden. The gospel of Mark has one young man dressed in a white robe, sitting inside the empty tomb. And the three women are told that Jesus has risen. He's not in the Resurrection Garden. Instead he's gone ahead into Galilee. 200 kilometres away. There, in Galilee, you’ll find him. That's the gospel of Mark

In the gospel of Matthew starts not three women, but with two. In the gospel of Matthew the one young man becomes an angel, appearance like lightning and clothes as white as snow. And in Matthew they actually do find Jesus in Galilee. And in Galilee Jesus leaves them and ascends into heaven. That's the gospel of Matthew

In the gospel of Luke starts with at least three women. In Luke you've got two angels, not one. In Luke you've got mention of the first man, Peter, running to the empty tomb. In Luke there's no Galilee.

Instead in Luke all the Resurrection stories happen around Jerusalem.
Jesus meeting the two disciples on the way to Emmaus, a village 7 miles from Jerusalem,
Jesus meeting all the disciples late at night back in Jerusalem
Jesus leaving, ascending, not in Galilee, but in Bethany, another village just outside Jerusalem.
That's the gospel of Luke.

In the gospel of John starts with one woman. In John the one man, Peter, has become two men, Peter and the Beloved disciple. In John you've got two angels, In John you've got, for the first time, the appearance of Jesus in the Resurrection garden, appearing to that one woman. And then later in John, Jesus appears in Galilee.

4 Bible stories about the Resurrected Jesus. And if we're true to Scripture, none of them are neat and tidy.

Would you like your resurrection with
1 women or more,
with one angel or two,
with or without men
in Galilee or in Jerusalem

Which gets you thinking doesn't it? Why so untidy?

Most scholars estimate these 4 gospel stories are written 60 to 90 years after the death of Jesus.

Which gives Matthew and Mark and Luke and John, between 60 and 90 years to tidy things up, to offer us a nice, well wrapped, beautifully packaged, resurrection faith.

Which would also mean, that if you were making up a story,
if you've really got no body, then you’ve got 60 to 90 years to at least get your women and angels and men and places sorted out, all nice and smooth and tight.

Which could suggest, that a smooth story, all well-oiled and seamless, could actually be massaged and manufactured.

Do I believe the Bible? Totally.
Do I believe in the physical resurrection of Jesus? Absolutely.

Which leaves me, if honest, with an untidy set of gospel stories and an untidy sounding Resurrection.

What about the main characters, the first women and men into the Easter Garden.
What is there experience of the Resurrected Jesus? Do they find the Garden tidy or untidy?

The first woman start early. The fruit trees in spring blossom. Temperature probably a pleasant 12 degrees. Dew probably heavy, spiderwebs glistening in early morning sun, all normal for an Israeli spring.

The first women are carrying spices. Which means they’re looking for a dead man.

All cultures bury people. Good Jews like to honour a buried body by using fragrant spices.

The first women are carrying spices. And on a Sunday.
Again, they're good Jews.
Wanting to anoint a body but also wanting to respect Saturday, their Sabbath, their Holy Day.

And so as good Jews,
after Friday, the first day,
and Saturday, Sabbath, the second day,
now on the third day, Sunday,
they arrive, good Jews, carrying spices.

Before he died, Jesus had mentioned resurrection. Mark 9:9; Jesus [told his disciples] not to say a word about what they had seen, until the Son of Man had been raised from death.

And listen to the next verse; Verse 10. The disciples "wondered what he meant by the words "raised from death.""

Good Jews of Jesus day had no category for Resurrection. Good Jewish disciples would wonder what Jesus meant when he talks about being raised from the dead.

The first woman, good Jews, with spices, with no category for Resurrection, come looking for a dead man. Only to find an empty tomb.

Which leaves them, as it says in Mark 16:8, leaving the Resurrection Garden "trembling and bewildered."

No nice and tidy faith, for the first women.

Same with the first man into the Resurrection Garden. Peter, in Luke 24:12, enters the garden, finds the tomb, sees "the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened."

Peter. A good Jew. With no category for the Resurrection.

It struck me this week that the 4 gospel Resurrection stories are totally lacking in any Old Testament Jewish quotations. And that's in absolute contrast to the 4 gospel stories of Jesus crucifixion. They're packed full of Old Testament Jewish quotations.

Full of Old Testament Scripture: Empty of Old Testament Scripture.

Resurrection is totally new territory for a good Jew. And Peter leaves wondering to himself what had happened.

If you're looking for a tidy faith, well wrapped and beautifully packaged, you've come to the wrong place.

You won't find it in the 4 gospel Resurrection stories. You won't find in among the first women or the first man looking for Jesus in the Resurrection Garden. All you've got is wondering and bewilderment.

Which got me thinking. Was faith around Jesus ever neat and tidy?
Didn't Jesus always bewilder people?

On the Monday before Easter Jesus smashes up a temple. Left a religious place totally untidy.
On Tuesday he'd curses a fig tree. Leaves an untidy dead tree in a beautiful Israeli spring garden.
On the Wednesday Jesus let a woman waste perfume all over his feet. Made quite a scene in a public place.

All his life Jesus seems to do the unexpected.
All his life he seems to leave people bewildered and wondering.
All his life he kept turning categories totally on their head.

So an untidy Resurrection Garden filled with bewildered people whose life has been turned totally on their heads, makes sense when you think about the whole of Jesus life.

Which makes me wonder, when I meet people who reckon they've got Christianity all sorted, all nice and tidy, well wrapped and beautifully packaged,
makes we wonder if they’ve really met Jesus, this untidy disturber of people's lives.

This is my 13th Easter as a Pastor, and the 12th year I've preached Resurrection at Easter. I'm stuck in a moment. And can I be honest and say that every Easter, the Resurrection, feels less and less tidy.

That the more I study the Bible, the more I'm reminded that God is God.
And that by my human definitions, faith is untidy.

And can I also honestly say, that the more untidy my faith gets, the more real it seems.

That when I look at those first women and men,

I see ordinary people. Workers. Practical types. Seeking a real faith that worked in their real lives.

They wanted peace with God.
They wanted deliverance from their self-centredness, so they could live at peace with people and place.

They knew that nice, tidy, religious rules didn't work.
They knew that self-help couldn't save them.

They knew they needed a fresh life-force that could change them inside.

And in the Garden they found that the more untidy their faith, the more real it seemed. They found that new life wasn’t the same old as life re-created. New life has to be untidy. Else it's not new life.

The Resurrection is an untidy garden. Because new life wasn't the same old as life.

An untidy Garden, gives me peace when my faith has doubts and the ways of God leave me bewildered and wondering. New life isn't the same old life re-created. It's new life.

An untidy Garden gives me hope when I'm among people whose lives are unraveling and in great pain. You can't open a birthday present without pulling off the wrapping paper and making a mess. New life isn't the same as old life re-created. It's new life.

It gives me hope when I'm in a church that's changing and growing. You can't move house without packing and unpacking and making mess. New life isn't the same as old life re-created. It's new life.

An Easter Garden, gives me courage in the face of death. The Easter Garden is a triumph of life and love over death and pain. New life isn't the same as old life re-created. It's new life.

Pray: Loving God in an untidy garden, give us the courage to recognise your story in our untidy, unfinished, incomplete lives,
Give us the courage to offer your story in an untidy, unfinished, incomplete world, through Resurrection love. Amen.

more on DJing gospel and culture

Last week I blogged some images, built around the image of DJ, that I think provide a more helpful way to understand how the emerging church responds to culture. The usual stereotype offered by critics of the emerging church is the assumption that because we pay attention to a postmodern culture, we are therefore assimilating into this culture. Instead I think that when you examine emerging practices, you see complex pattern; moments of juxtaposition, subversion and amplification;

Anyhow, my post has attracted some good blog engagement. It's inspired some worship in Germany;

: the practices, a DJ showed people how to mix
: the actual mixing of poetic sounds
: with Matthew 5:21ff and Jesus imagined as a DJ, living out a mix of "God-beat and culture, helping people to listen to the God-beat inside their mixes"
: participants invited to nail a record onto a woodpanel as "a prayer that asked God to free us from our mix and make us able to listen to his beat."

It sounds a great DJ mix of practice, scripture, community and prayer.

And Bob Carlton has a fantastic post about morality and leadership as applied to the DJ. He explores whether a DJ exists for self-interest or generosity, in light of internet radio and proconsumer technologies. I would argue the latter and that is why I argue in my out of bounds church? book that a DJ can only exist in community and why the DJ image (postcard 8 of the book) needs to be read alongside the spiritual tourism image (postcard 5 in the book), in which the church community and it's DJ mix is urged to exist for the outsider. Bob has also got a QT file of God DJing. It's great (although I wonder if God ends up portrayed as remote and arbitrary (and male?)).

Further DJing resources:
: last weeks post is here.
: for a QT e-video of me being interviewed about DJing in relation to globalisation and culture, download here (11 MB)
: for more on DJing, including where I explore how this is happening in 1 Peter, and engage with the work of Miroslav Volf, read out of bounds church? book):
: also check out the outofbounds blog.

Last week I blogged some images, built around the image of DJ, that I think provide a more helpful way to understand how the emerging church responds to culture. The usual stereotype offered by critics of the emerging church is the assumption that because we pay attention to a postmodern culture, we are therefore assimilating into this culture. Instead I think that when you examine emerging practices, you see complex pattern; moments of juxtaposition, subversion and amplification;

Anyhow, my post has attracted some good blog engagement. It's inspired some worship in Germany;

: the practices, a DJ showed people how to mix
: the actual mixing of poetic sounds
: with Matthew 5:21ff and Jesus imagined as a DJ, living out a mix of "God-beat and culture, helping people to listen to the God-beat inside their mixes"
: participants invited to nail a record onto a woodpanel as "a prayer that asked God to free us from our mix and make us able to listen to his beat."
It sounds a great DJ mix of practice, scripture, community and prayer.

And Bob Carlton has a fantastic post about morality and leadership as applied to the DJ. He explores whether a DJ exists for self-interest or generosity, in light of internet radio and proconsumer technologies. I would argue the latter and that is why I argue in my out of bounds church? book that a DJ can only exist in community and why the DJ image (postcard 8 of the book) needs to be read alongside the spiritual tourism image (postcard 5 in the book), in which the church community and it's DJ mix is urged to exist for the outsider. Bob has also got a QT file of God DJing. It's great (although I wonder if God ends up portrayed as remote and arbitrary (and male?)).

Further DJing resources:
: last weeks post is here.
: for a QT e-video of me being interviewed about DJing in relation to globalisation and culture, download here (11 MB)
: for more on DJing, including where I explore how this is happening in 1 Peter, and engage with the work of Miroslav Volf, read out of bounds church? book):

Post repeated in my book blog.

congregational innovation and missional texts: a snip from an email I wrote today

great question: how might a 'missional reader' in a local church innovate the bringing into public discourse the real, lived narratives of the people in our local churches? For me there have been key biblical texts and "questions" around which great energy has been released at Opawa. They are texts that we have lingered with and keep returning to. Four that immediately spring to mind are;

1) Luke 1:39-45 - what is God growing and birthing - how do older bless younger - how to speak words of courage and hope?

2) Peter vs Paul - what would it look like to be intentional about evangelism to Peter's ie process and the invitation to community discernment around this process.

3) Change is best sourced in organic metaphors rather than narratives of decline.

4) The different responses of Peter, Mary, Thomas, John to the Risen Jesus and what does it mean for us to create spaces that acknowledge this diversity and allow this contextual freedom of expression; as a pre-cursor to our multi-congregational model as a concrete way of bringing about change in an established church context.

But these are unique to Opawa. So how transferable are these "texts"?

DJing gospel and culture

I was with a lecture class a few weeks ago, talking about gospel and culture. We tend to polarise into two camps; withdrawal from culture or assimilation into culture. This duality blights the emerging church. We get accused of assimilation; of buying into postmodernity. I think a much more subtle process is at work, and I offered the class the following three symbols (gift from Steve Collins).

Juxtapose: placing two contrasting things alongside each other. In doing so, we allow a new mix to emerge from the contradiction.

Subvert: using one thing to alter the meaning of another thing.

Amplify: two things that together enhance and compliment.

The emerging engagement with postmodernity is complex. At times we amplify the culture (e.g. we wonder if Web 2.0 amplifies what it means to be the body of Christ); at times we subvert the culture (e.g. we become passionate about creativity and imagination because we realise that creativity is sourced in God. In this realisation, we declare that creativity is not for Holywood pleasure, but it is to respect the image of God, as seen in the poor and marginalised); at times we juxtapose the culture (e.g. while respecting the full embodiment of humanity, we choose not to follow the increasing sexualisation of women in contemporary culture.) Reducing the emerging church to "assimilation" totally bypasses these realities.

Anyhow, students found the concept helpful. And I like the visuals, so I thought I would post it.

For a QT e-video of me being interviewed about this in relation to culture, download here (11 MB); for more on DJing, including where I explore how this is happening in 1 Peter, and engage with the work of Miroslav Volf, read out of bounds church? book); also check out the outofbounds blog.

writing for koder: theology and art as looking

I have completed my first writing project for these few days. I have just sent a 2,500 word piece to a German publishing company. Earlier this year, I was really delighted to be asked, in honour of an 80 year old German artists birthday, to write something for a book, on his work. I loved the boundary crossing such a request represented: English to German, young to wise, PhD theology of emerging church research to article on artist.

What did I write? Well I traced some links around an art piece (great view here). I noted the way that discipleship in John 1 is framed around the verb "to look." And how looking at Jesus unsettles, or displaces, our identity. I then explored American Beauty, and what we "see" as we accept it's invitation to look closer. I then made some link with art historians and philosophers like Lacan, Barthes and Freedberg, who argue that the gaze is in fact a dialogue, with the potential to encounter us, resurrect (to use the words of Barthes) us.

So I concluded that looking is in fact a life-changing act. So now go back to Koder's art and look closer, at that face in the cup .... and it looks back at you, asking where you are in relation to the table of Jesus and the bodies of Christ... looking as a life-changing act?

Anyhow, it should all be published (in German and English) in August. I wonder how I will sound in German?

New pope on the emergent radar?

Perhaps the new pope has already bleeped onto the emergent radar? Miroslav Volf wrote a great book on being church, called After our likeness. The book compares Orthodox theologian John Zizoulas, with Catholic theologian, and now new pope, Ratzinger, with a more “free church” ecclesiology.

It was a wonderful book for me as a Baptist to read, and to see one of my church planting forebears, John Smyth, compared theologically with Catholic and Orthodox ways of being church.

And so the links with the emerging church?
1. A free church ecclesiology is (at it’s best) a much more bottom-up, grassroots way of being church, in contrast to hierarchical traditions. That should offer much more room for experimentation and innovation, all held within a Trinitarian ecclesiology.
2. Miroslav Volf is the main speaker at the 2006 US Emergent Theological Conversation.