Heaven on Earth

Please click the following link for a fantastic explanation of Heaven by scholar NT Wright. Much respect for NT, he is a true "OG".

http://youtube.com/watch?v=AA0NLb0pXGI

Rev.

Christ in the Wilderness

Welcome to my world... a picture is worth a thousand words.

"Christ in the Wilderness" by Ivan Kramskoi

Short Comings?

Recently I discovered a really, really, REALLY great band (who will remain nameless) and started to listen to their tunes on YouTube almost non-stop this week. Today, I came across some footage of the band at a show that really bummed me out. The lead singer, a self-professed Christian, was being taunted by someone in the audience. The singer started in on the guy with some seriously colorful language then the guitarist vulgarly taunted him. Then they brought the guy on stage and offered him the choice to either be punched in the face or leave...

Now I admit, that is sort of funny, but certainly not Godly.

The more I think about it, the more it bugs me. Partly because the singer is known as ”that Christian guy I such-and-such band...” but moreover because I suppose that I naively assumed that people still treat one another with dignity and respect. To turn the other cheek. To not let the jerks get the best of them. Now, someone might say, “Well, lets talk about your short comings!?” Indeed, and that is the other thing that is bugging me. I will be the first to tell you that (at least at times) I easily rank up with Samson, Peter, and Judas (in no particular order).

As Derek Webb once spun:

My life looks good I do confess, you can ask anyone
just don’t ask my real good friends
because they will lie to you
or worse, they’ll tell the truth

This is not to say that I am deliberate and flagrant hypocrite. Simply to note my own imperfections. I have always been clear with my friends, and my church that I have failed many times in my walk with God and will fail many more. As it is written:

For a righteous man falls seven times, and rises again,
But the wicked stumble in time of calamity.
Prov 24:16 (NASB)

A wise man once pointed out to me that the righteous man is not one who does not fall, but one who continues to rise again in God's strength (a sort of moral resurrection). I have had a rough few days. Truth be told, I did not entirely realize how rough they had been until today. So, to my wife and anyone else who has endured the brunt of my inadequacies, please know that I am sorry.

So what does all this have to do with that band? I don't know. I guess that I am ashamed that I would appreciate/support a band that were a bunch of jerks (the same reason my hands will shake if I punch the chad for Mr. McCain, you know, he seems like a real jerk sometimes...) . Maybe these are ways that God continually opens my eyes to the lostness of this world, that is, by my own sin and the sins of others. Perhaps at bottom the issue is that I should be as shocked/disappointed at my own sin. Funny how our sins are always more respectable and less severe than the sins of others (although I don't feel like I struggle there as much as I used to).

A friend has pointed out how readily we might preach against “despicable sins” (and there ARE degreesi) while leaving ours “respectable sins” untouched. Then, there are those (Augustine?) who use the pulpit or the Sunday School to lapse into some sort of physco-epiphinal catharsis. But ultimately, we should revel in the grace of God. That He chose to rescue us. To redeem and save us. To wash us up. God knows that I need it.

So, I guess it is a good thing that I had that disappointing moment, my own and seeing the singer blow it. Maybe, just maybe, it will help me keep my act together. In the meantime, I will stare into the mirror of the Word and hope that I can bear what I see a little more each day. God, help me to be as patient with myself as You are. Amen.

Obama: Sermon on Mount Justifies Same-Sex Unions

Terence P. Jeffrey
Editor in Chief
(CNSNews.com) - Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) told a crowd at Hocking College in Nelsonville, Ohio, Sunday that he believes the Sermon on the Mount justifies his support for legal recognition of same-sex unions. He also told the crowd that his position in favor of legalized abortion does not make him "less Christian."

"I don't think it [a same-sex union] should be called marriage, but I think that it is a legal right that they should have that is recognized by the state," said Obama. "If people find that controversial then I would just refer them to the Sermon on the Mount, which I think is, in my mind, for my faith, more central than an obscure passage in Romans." ((Hear audio from WTAP-TV)) St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans condemns homosexual acts as unnatural and sinful.

Obama's mention of the Sermon on the Mount in justifying legal recognition of same-sex unions may have been a reference to the Golden Rule: "Do to others what you would have them do to you." Or it may have been a reference to another famous line: "Do not judge, or you too will be judged."

The Sermon, recorded in the Gospel of Matthew, includes the Lord's Prayer, the Beatitudes, an endorsement of scriptural moral commandments ("anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven"), and condemnations of murder, divorce and adultery. It also includes a warning: "Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves."

The passage from St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, which Obama dismissed as "obscure," discusses people who knew God but turned against him.

"They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator--who is forever praised," wrote St. Paul. "Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion."

On the topic of abortion, Obama said his support for keeping it legal does not trespass on his Christian faith.

"I think that the bottom line is that in the end, I think women, in consultation with their pastors, and their doctors, and their family, are in a better position to make these decisions than some bureaucrat in Washington. That's my view," Obama said about abortion. "Again, I respect people who may disagree, but I certainly don't think it makes me less Christian. Okay." (Hear audio from WTAP-TV)

Obama opened his town-hall-type meeting at the college with a short speech and then provided lengthy answers to a handful of questions. One questioner, Leon Forte, a Protestant clergyman, asked Obama about evangelical Christians who were concerned about his position on issues that conservatives consider "litmus tests."

"Your campaign sets a quandary for most evangelical Christians because I believe that they believe in the social agenda that you have, but they have a problem in what the conservatives have laid out as the moral litmus tests as to who is worthy and who is not," said Forte. "So, I will ask you to speak to those two questions."(See transcript)

Obama volunteered that he believed Forte was talking about abortion and homosexual marriage, and then he gave answers on both issues that were not as explicit as positions he has staked out on these issues in other venues. Last Thursday, for example, as reported by Cybercast News Service, Obama published on his Web site an "open letter concerning LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) equality in America."

In that letter, Obama said he favored same-sex unions that were equal to marriage--including adoption rights--and that he was open to states codifying same-sex marriages.

"As your President, I will use the bully pulpit to urge states to treat same-sex couples with full equality in their family and adoption laws," Obama said in the letter. "I personally believe that civil unions represent the best way to secure that equal treatment. But I also believe that the federal government should not stand in the way of states that want to decide on their own how best to pursue equality for gay and lesbian couples--whether that means a domestic partnership, a civil union, or a civil marriage."

In Ohio on Sunday, before mentioning the Sermon on the Mount, Obama insisted he was against "gay marriage" and did not mention his support for allowing same-sex couples to adopt children and have the same "family" status as heterosexual couples.

"I will tell you that I don't believe in gay marriage, but I do think that people who are gay and lesbian should be treated with dignity and respect and that the state should not discriminate against them," said Obama on Sunday. "So, I believe in civil unions that allow a same-sex couple to visit each other in a hospital or transfer property to each other. I don't think it should be called marriage, but I think that it is a legal right that they should have that is recognized by the state. If people find that controversial then I would just refer them to the Sermon on the Mount, which I think is, in my mind, for my faith, more central than an obscure passage in Romans. That's my view."

Obama also has been more aggressive in framing his pro-abortion position previously than he was on Sunday. When he was in the Illinois Senate, for example, he repeatedly opposed a bill that would have defined as a "person" a baby who had survived an induced-labor abortion and was born alive.

In a 2001 Illinois Senate floor speech about that bill, he argued that to call a baby who survived an abortion a "person" would give it equal protection rights under the 14th Amendment and would give credibility to the argument that the same child inside its mother's womb was also a "person" and thus could not be aborted.

When the Illinois Senate bill was amended to make it identical to a federal law that included language to protect Roe v. Wade--and that the U.S. Senate voted unanimously to pass--Obama still opposed the bill, voting it down in the Illinois Senate committee he chaired.

Yet, in Ohio on Sunday, Obama depicted abortion as a tragedy to be avoided, while being kept legal.

"On the issue of abortion, that is always a tragic and painful issue," he said. "I think it is always tragic, and we should prevent it as much as possible .... But I think that the bottom line is that in the end, I think women, in consultation with their pastors, and their doctors, and their family, are in a better position to make these decisions than some bureaucrat in Washington. That's my view. Again, I respect people who may disagree, but I certainly don't think it makes me less Christian. Okay."

Before discussing his views on same-sex unions and abortion, Obama told the crowd he was a "devout Christian."

"In terms of my faith, there has been so much confusion that has been deliberately perpetrated through emails and so forth, so here are the simple facts," he said. "I am a Christian. I am a devout Christian. I have been a member of the same church for 20 years, pray to Jesus every night, and try to go to church as much as I can when they are not working me. Used to go quite often.

"These days, we haven't been at the home church--I haven't been home on Sunday--for several months now. So, my faith is important to me. It is not something that I try to push on other people. But it is something that helps to guide my life and my values."

HOME

Home safe at 11:15 last night (16 hr drive). Mom is okay, we'll know how okay in two weeks.
Rev.

Update:

My mother had her operation yesterday, and she came through just fine. They removed a stoppage about the length of a drinking straw and apparently they caught it just in time. She caught the flu while in the hospital so she is in ICU. This limits the amount of time we can visit how much contact we have. This is very difficult for mom because she is a highly affectionate person. Hopefully she will be able to return home Monday. It is unlikely that Darryl and I will stay that long. I am hoping to hit the road Friday or Saturday depending on how things are going. There is a huge storm coming over the next few days that will cover the majority of I-70 and this might slow us down, so I am thinking about getting a head start.

Hope all is well where you are. See you soon.

JP

Mom in Hospital in MI

My mother is in the hospital in MI and the outcome is quite uncertain. She has a 80-90% blockage in one of her corrated (SP?) arteries in her neck. We should know sometime today how her doctors intend to proceed. Please pray for me and my friend Darryl as we drive to Monroe (just South of Detroit MI). I hope to be back sometime early in the week.

Thank you to my supportive friends and church family for their encouragement and support.

JP