Faceless Love

This one is going to rabbit trail a bit...I'm stuck on this thought of a faceless love. What is tripping me up is the thought that once you've put a face to love it is no longer love but just a form of affection. I say I love my wife, but is it true love or is it that we wear rings that say that we love each othere and we also said it in front of a bunch of friends? That being said, do I truly love her? I know everything about her, but now I have a face on that love! Where is the mystery? Of course I love Cynthia, but is it simply an earthly love? If there were no identity to this love, would this love be even more? I wonder this about my love for Christ also.

When I think about Jesus, I have a face on him. He is attractive, white, and quite honestly a bit effeminate. I picture the jesus in the picture at your grandma's house. I wonder if by putting this face on him if my love is skewed in any way? There is no mystery. With this face put on Jesus, now I have a saviour that I can understand. It's the thought of iconification in which once we have a face on someone or something, we make them into whatever we imagine them to be.

This makes me sad because I wonder if since Ive been living with this icon of jesus in my head, have I ever truly loved "Jesus"? I've had plenty of girlfriends of whom I told that I love, but today I never talk to or about any of them - they are only a memory. If I stopped following the Jesus I know today, would I still love him ten years from now? Would I miss him, or would he be like my girlfriends and become one of those we don't speak of?

Maybe Jesus and I need to go to marriage counselling and reconnect so that the mystery will come back. Maybe it is simply that I need to find the mystic Jesus that nobody really "knows", much like the Orthodox church. I don't want to become one of those guys who simply worships christ because it is cool, but instead is worshipping because God is with us. I wonder if Jesus' humanity is what is killing the church because now that there is a face on him, we can control him. "if our god is for us, than who can be against us"? Now Jesus works for us instead of us working for him.

thoughts?

A Couple of Emergent Thoughts...

Lately I've been having a discussion with people regarding the "emergent" church. It's a funny concept really. Ive been reading Peter Rollins "How (not) to Speak of God" (which I think would be fun to discuss in the hot tub soon), and I've been enjoying it because he makes it clear that the emergent church is not a church or denomination - which some people try to make "emergent" churches into - but instead is a dialogue. Dialogue is the buzzword for the emergent crowd, which I think is overused but we it's hard to find another word, that describes what is going on in the movement rather than what they are all about.

He speaks on faith versus theology and I must admit that my eyes were opened at this thought. Faith is the experience of God, while theology is the reflection on the experience. This opened my eyes, because so many times I find my self reflecting on God rather than experiencing Him. Rollins went on to discuss the thought of our reflections becoming an idol that we have built.

"The arguement is made that naming God is never really naming God but only naming our understanding of God. To take our ideas of the divine and hold them as thy correspond to the reality of God is thus to construct a conceptual idol built from the materials of our mind."

This was on page 2 of the book. This is why we need to bring this book to the Hot Tub. I feel like there will be a lot of discussion forming from this book.

Peace,
ron

PS - New post at the Hot Tub

Valentine's Day

Here's what Valentines day is based on. It may not be just a hallmark holiday!

"In the third century, the Roman Empire was ruled by Emperor Claudius II Gothicus. He was nicknamed Claudius the Cruel because of his harsh leadership and his tendency for getting into wars and abusing his people. In fact, he was getting into so many wars during the third century that he was having a difficult time recruiting enough soldiers.

Claudius believed that recruitment for the army was down because Roman men did not want to leave their loves or families behind, so he canceled all marriages and engagements in Rome. Thousands of couples saw their hopes of matrimony dashed by the single act of a tyrant. And no one seemed interested in standing up to the emperor.

But a simple Christian priest named Valentine did come forward and stood up for love. He began to secretly marry soldiers before they went off to war, despite the emperor’s orders. In 269 AD Emperor Claudius found out about the secret ceremonies. He had Valentine thrown into prison and deemed that he would be put to death.

As Valentine was awaiting execution, he fell in love with a blind girl, who happened to be the jailers daughter. On the eve of his execution, with no writing instruments available, Valentine is said to have written her a sonnet in ink that he squeezed from violets. Legend has it that his words made the blind woman see again. It was a brief romance because the next day Valentine was clubbed to death by Roman executioners.

St. Valentine gave his life so that young couples could be bonded together in holy matrimony. They may have killed the man, but not his spirit. Even centuries after his death, the story of Valentine’s self-sacrificing commitment to love was legendary in Rome. Eventually he was granted Sainthood and the Catholic Church decided to create a feast in his honor. They picked February 14 as the day of celebration because of the ancient belief that birds (particularly lovebirds, but also owls and doves) began to mate on that very day."

Don't forget to get a card for your lady friend. Hope you Valentines Day is filled with Sweet Love Making and Chocolate.

Peace,
ron

I Go To an Ugly Church

This past weekend I was leading the singing part of our church and I looked out at the congregation and realized what an ugly bunch of people I lead. We have people who have marital problems, drinking problems, learning problems, sexual problems, people who have and/or are very open about their psychiatric problems, and people who are either "semi-homeless" or actually homeless who come to our church. We have the socially awkward, the socially inept, socially abandoned, and the socially weak. We have people who have lost their children to the state, have lost their spouses to disease, lost their lives to infidelity, "almost" had chidren out of wedlock or actually had their child out of wedlock - all come to our church. We have hippies, bankers, annoying people, liars, free loaders, slanderers, and gossips. We also have the poor, the marginal, the middle class, and the poorest by our standards. Now you are probably saying "Welcome to ministry Ron, We have these people in my church also", but the beauty of this weekend is that I realized that I know them by name.

I know all of these people who by the standards we have been given are considered ugly. Then there is me. I am the ugliest because I see these things. But now I've realized that these things that are ugly about them are the most beautiful part. It is the thought of them coming to Roosevelt Community Church to find someone who loves them and knowing that this person is Jesus. Some come to church because they feel that this is what good people do, but others come because jesus has begun healing them of their ugliness.

As I led the congregation in singing, I began thinking that this is what heaven is probably going to look like. Sorry, but I truly believe that the Kingdom of Heaven is not going to be a pretty place. We like to imagine that it will be, but I really believe that it is going to be one giant ugly place. Jesus spoke about this when he told the story about the King who threw a party. None of the pretty people showed up and when he sent his servants to remind the pretties, the servants were either told that the pretty people were too busy or the servant was killed. This is when the King told them to invite any who will come. I believe that the hopeless will make it into the Kingdom before the hopeful - better yet, the ugly will make it before the beautiful simply because the beautiful see the ugliness and decide that that is not for them. We are all drawn toward the attractive - it's true. We like the attractive things about culture - music, fashion, film, literature - but recently I've been gravitating toward the ugly. I've been leaning toward the broken before the fixed. I've seen the attractive and it is very inviting, but the ugly seems to be more real to me.

My church is ugly. As a worship leader, I point them in the direction of the One who sees them and makes them beautiful. I love it.

Artistically Cruel

“For anyone to love a man, he must be hidden, for as soon as his face is shown, love is gone.” - Dostoevsky

I finished the Grand Inquisitor the other day and came away with the thought of "artistically cruel". Dostoevsky used this term to describe the ways that the Turks were torturing people, but I can see it used by Christians.

Christians are called to love God and love others even if they don't like them. The funny thing is that we are so quick to "help" other Christians when they stumble. It is artistically cruel because our accountability is a wonderful act but it is done with the wrong intentions. We love to call others out on their sins, which is a needed thing, but we love to call them out on their actions that are very public and wrong. What about the sin of not hanging out with their family enough? What about the sin of over loading thier schedule? We seem to only focus on the juicy stuff - the really good sins. Artistically cruel.

I love the truth inside Dostoevsky's quote above. Love must be a faceless love in order to truly be love. What if our faith is not "true" love, because we have put a face on teh God who loved us first? What if the Jesus of our agenda is not faceless anymore, so therefore we just love ourselves. Artistically Cruel. We take this love, this perfect and powerful love, and we lose it because we can picture the one who gives it to us. What if this is our "personal Jesus"?

thoughts?

PS- Our Friend Rob has joined the blogging world over at ADD Theology. I can't wait to see what he has to say. Check him out on my newly alphabetized blog list. God doesn't play favorites, so neither will I...until someone donates money toward my guitar fund.

Two Amazing Movies That I Saw

This past weekend, I watched two movies that I loved: Little Miss Sunshine and Favela Rising.

It seems cliche to say that I liked Little Miss Sunshine, because everybody who watches The Office (american version) loves it simply because Steve Carrell is in it. The reason I liked the movie is that it shows a broken family. It's the realism of this movie that captivated me. There is a father who is laying unbelievable amounts of pressure on his family to be "winners", a mother who is ready to quit the family, a grandpa who is a heroin addict, the wife's brother who is a gay professor who attempted suicide because of his lover leaving him for his nemesis, a son who hates so much that he decides to not talk to him, and a daughter who is not "beauty pageant" material, but is accepted into the Little Miss Sunshine pageant. I would say, if I had to compare the movie, that Little Miss Sunshine was like National Lampoons Vacation only darker and hits closer to home with dysfunction and what is happening to some of today's families (though not the exact same problems).

Favela Rising is a documentary showing a ghetto in Brazil. Here is a story of a favela (ghetto) run by drug lords and dirty cops, and a guy who's brother was murdered by the cops decides to do something positive instead of sinking deeper into the world of the drug lords. He starts a music group which sings about what is going on in his neighborhood. They begin gaining the respect of the neighbors because of their positive impact and message, and even gain respect of the drug lords. They begin the Afro Reggae movement and even begin teaching kids how to play the drums. This is what was so impactful about this movie for me. I began wondering what I have to offer the kids in my neighborhood. What could keep some of them focused and away from the drug scene? This movie really challenged me to think "what am I doing to make a positive ding in the Roosevelt Neighborhood". This is a dangerously inspirational movie. If you've got Netflix, flick it now.

Hot Tub Theology - the blog!

We've seen Jesus Camp, now let's discuss...

book mark it on your sites.

peace,
ron