Writings From the Grass-root::Thoughts on God, Life, and Culture

Hi everyone. Over the weekend I have been working on a new blog. It is still going to be very similar to this one, it bears the same name “Writings from the Grass-root”. Click HERE to be re-directed to the new site and bookmark it too. Share this information with your friends. See you there. (keep in mind its a new blog and it is still a work in progress but I am getting the hang of it quickly).

I have a question for you.

When was the last time you left your cell phone at home?

I had not realized how much a part of my life my cellphone had become. I never left the house without it. Yesterday morning I discovered that my cell phone was not charged. My cell phone charger was broken. I went to the wireless provider and they said that I needed a new phone, but that I wouldn’t receive my replacement phone for two days. That meant two days without my cellphone. However, I did manage to convince the workers at the phone store to allow me to charge my battery on another one of their phones. Which meant that I was without my cellphone for several hours, both yesterday and today. I cannot tell you how amazing it felt to not have a phone. At first it felt weird, almost a feeling of nakedness. But after the first several minutes it was a freeing experience…maybe it was because no one could get a hold of me (because I am that important). This whole day made me wonder,

“What did we do when cell phones didn’t exist?” Do you even remember what that was like? Maybe it was called the stone age.

This whole experience gave birth to the idea, “Say NO to cellphone Day” where we would all leave our cellphones at home and try to experience life without them. What if there was one day a week when the phone was off all day, and our whole job was to just enjoy life with those closest to us. There might even be a name for that day.

Hey everyone!  I have been moving apartments, trying to organize things for Lent and a million other things.  So I will be posting soon.

It seems to me that too often Sabbath has been viewed as a distinguishing mark for Seventh-day Adventist’s from other Christians. When we view Sabbath like this it says more about our set of religious beliefs and less about what Sabbath can be like. We rob the Sabbath of all that makes it sacred, holy and beautiful-a day that transcends all reality and yet is embraced in time. I have been trying to making sense of Sabbath in a way that is meaningful for the last several years and I have come to the conclusion that the miracle of Sabbath is that Sabbath brings Shalom, Restoration and reconciliation(among other things). So for now let’s let the phrases “You must keep the Sabbath holy” or “You must not break the Sabbath” subside and think about Sabbath in the following words that I read in the book Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell.

“Sabbath is taking a day a week to remind myself that I did not make the world and that it will continue to exist without my efforts.

Sabbath is a day when my work is done, even if it isn’t.

Sabbath is a day when my job is to enjoy. Period.

Sabbath is a day when I am fully available to myself and those I love most.

Sabbath is a day when I remember that when God made the world, he saw that it was good.

Sabbath is a day when I produce nothing.

Sabbath is a day when I remind myself that I am not a machine.

Sabbath is a day when at the end I say, “I didn’t do anything today,” and I don’t add, “And I feel so guilty.”

Sabbath is a day when my phone is turned off, I don’t check my email, and you can’t get a hold of me. (Velvet Elvis 117-118)”

For Advent this year our Advent Series was entitled “Hope Rising”, because we believe that in the darkest of times whether it be historical, spiritual, emotional, or mental - Hope Rises with the belief that with the Advent of Jesus he brought hope with Him. Hope of a new way to live that leads to the best possible life. This is the final sermon of our series that wraps up the series and introduces our new series for 2008. Click on the link to listen it might take a few seconds please be patient We’ve Only Just Begun

I just started reading Brian McLaren’s newest book, Everything Must Change and I am loving it. For the past several months this blog has acted as more of a message board than anything that even resembles an actual attempt at a conversation. So in an attempt to write with more substance I am going to start writing about what I come across in Everything Must Change.

I thought the format for this discussion might have three sections: (1) Excerpt from book, (2) Dialogue, mostly with myself, (3) Questions. My hopes are that we can dialogue together.

EXCERPT (the following excerpt was spoken by Claude a peace activist from Burundi, to a group of other peace hungry citizens from around the region of East Africa, Rwanda is one of those places)

“Eventually I realized something. I had never heard a sermon that addressed these realities(i.e. death, hatred, distrust, poverty, suffering, corruption, injustice). Did God only care about our souls going to heaven after we died? Were our hungry bellies unimportant to God? Was God unconcerned about our crying sons and frightened daughters, our mothers hiding under beds, our fathers crouching by windows, unable to sleep because of gunfire? Or did God send Jesus to teach us how to avoid genocide by learning to love each other, how to overcome tribalism and poverty by following his path, how to deal with injustice and corruption, how to make a better life here on earth-here in East Africa.” (19)

DIALOGUE. When I read this I was using the stationary bike at a local gym, and I had to stop just so that I could process this. What I have observed of the Christianity of the Western World is that it has become nothing short of a self serving life philosophy. We look for churches that fill our needs, and when that church no longer meets our needs we move on to the next one (and sometimes as pastor’s because we have at times been fooled into thinking that numbers are important we keep trying to fill those needs and in doing so perpetuate the never ending cycle of self-serving Christianity). The thing is that if that is the case, that we are always looking for a church that meets our needs, or rather “feeds us spiritually” we will not have any time to look beyond ourselves, unless we are forced to. I think that it is only when we look beyond ourselves that Christianity becomes real and authentic. When I read the above section, and tried to put myself in that situation hearing the crys of children and the sight of mothers hiding it was terrifing to me. It wasn’t so much that the visual of this happening was terrifing, but rather that this was and is happening in the world, while I have for the past several years enjoyed my white chocolate lattes, supersized meals, entertainment on the silver screen just to be distracted from the hustle and bustle of our everyday.

I have a sneaking suspicion that if we were the ones experiencing the above mentioned, our first responses would be to pray. We read the narratives of scripture, like Daniel in the lions den, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and we read ourselves into those narratives because we believe that God cares. For them their prayers is a sign of hope and faith, but for us in the western world their prayers have become our permission to wash our hands of any responsibility to help. Because after all if they have prayed then God will handle it. The words, “What can I do about something happening half way around the world” become our non spoken motto. Our Christianity must be anything but that. I write about his because I see what is happening and I cannot help but feel helpless. What can I do, a pastor of two small parishes in the desert? What can we do? Seriously I could use some answers!

QUESTIONS. If our Christianity doesn’t have an effect on the society around us, does it even matter? What is a Christianity that doesn’t affect society, really about? What is our personal hope for heaven at some point in the future, if people are experiencing hell every single day all around the world?

I read Samir Selmanovic’s essay “The Sweet Problem of Inclusiveness: Finding Our God in the Other” from An Emergent Manifesto of Hope edited by Doug Pagitt and Tony Jones.

If you haven’t read this book, I highly recommend it. It is not for the (religious) light at heart. What I mean is that if you have been a part of organized religion this book offers brave new insights into life in the Kingdom of God. These essay’s provide glimpses of hope of how life could be, how life is for missional communities all around the country.

In this essay Samir thinks aloud,

“The Chominas and the Marks(to really understand these references you need to read the essay) aroud us leave us wondering whether Christ can be more than Christianity. Or even other than Christianity(Pg. 192).”

Samir marks a distinction between those that “take the name of Christ” and those that accept Christ on a deeper level that lead them to be “Christlike”. The difference is a significant one. One with important ramifications.

“Can it be that the teachings of the gospel are embedded and can be found in reality itself rather than being exclusively isolated in sacred texts and our interpretations of these texts(Pg. 192)?”

The substance of what it means to live Christ rather than merely accept the name of Christ. The substance of a life that lives Christ is exhibited in their interactions with others, what they do for them, and live with them. Life together.

Which leads me to this. This past week a girl by the name of Samatha Brown passed away. She had just graduated from high school. I didn’t know her personally but some of the youth from my church in Brawley were friends with her. I received a text message telling me that Friday (yesterday) a big group of her friends and classmates put together a car wash to help raise money for funeral expenses and related costs. There are pictures below of this car wash. I showed up to get my car washed and support the fund. I stayed for a couple of hours helping with the washing of cars. I stood their looking around and thought, “Christlike” as I saw what these teenagers did. A car wash doesn’t seem like much. But to me it spoke volumes of the goodness in humanity. The Kingdom of God hard at work. The temperature that Friday was about 110 and humid. In the two hours I was there I was drenched in sweat. These teenagers were there from 9 Am to 7 Pm.

The words that come to mind are amen, amen, amen.