Thursday, April 26, 2007

Middle East Cool Story #3

he was raised in the US by hippie parents of jewish lineage. they came to faith during the jesus movement of the 70's. his dad was trained to be a missionary jungle pilot, but the family decided to immigrate to israel instead when the boy was 17. as jews they were given israeli citizenship automatically upon arrival in the country. while still a young single man, the son studied orthodox judaism to learn more about his people's traditions. Years later, together with his own wife and children, he felt called to take on the traditions of the orthodox jews within his nation without compromising, in the least, his belief in jesus as the messiah. he doesn't obey the traditions in order to gain religious "brownie points" with God, but to fully share his life with the people he is seeking to reach with the messiah's love. today he is a member in good standing of his synagogue--well respected and called upon for service. all of his friends know about his faith in jesus, but he has not been cast out of his community--they are his "tribe".
beyond this, and even more astounding, he has for a number years been leading an international mission that reaches out to "tribal people" around the world with the good news of jesus. he doesn't teach them to follow the traditions of orthodox judaism as he does, but to worship and serve jesus in the context of their own unique tribal customs and cultures. next year will be the seventh biannual gathering of followers of jesus from these various tribes. this unusual mix of saints will be held in jerusalem. the government has given its approval for them to erect a temporary structure--a tribal "longhouse" right within the city limits. some will paddle their canoes onto the shores of israel. they will assemble a fleet of tribal canoes on the sea of galilee and erect a sweat lodge along of the jordan river. during these days they will dance, cook and share their food, worship God with their indigenous instruments and pray together. people from distant tribes who have come to faith in jesus will "return" to jerusalem where their lord gave his life, was risen back to life and where the holy spirit was poured out in fresh power upon the first disciples. maybe he'll fall on the city again.
it was challenging and instructive to sit with this brilliant young scholar and apprentice of jesus and to then think and speak of how we can properly "contextualize" the gospel of christ for our secularized multi-cultural cities in the west.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Cool Middle East Story #2

Our team met with one of the two top Shiite clerics in the world. We went to learn, to love and to pray in the name of Jesus—and to testify of our faith in Him. After weaving around the town, apparently so we could never find his place again even if our life depended upon it, we came to his home/headquarters and were met by armed guards who frisked us and whisked us through a metal detector. After that process was over, the whole atmosphere was actually quite friendly and peaceful!
This elderly and scholarly sheik (elder/leader) came into the room into which we had been ushered and greeted us. He began by telling us the essence of what he preaches to the followers of their branch of Islam. (It was later confirmed to us by people “in the know” that this is indeed what he preaches in the mosques.) He was very courteous and calmly philosophical about the hope they have for living noble God-respecting lives. They believe in promoting human rights, living in peace with their neighbors, holding to a high moral ethic, helping the needy and giving respect to people of all ethnic groups and faiths other than their own. He also spoke of how they don’t believe in “controlling” people, but in educating them to have self-control. After he ran down the list of their essential tenets of life and spirituality, it was our turn to speak.
I was sitting very close to him and was the first in our company to speak up. I told him that we wanted him to know that we truly grieve over how, from time to time, in history, professed Christians have used force and violence “in the name of Jesus” to allegedly further His cause. He responded by thanking me and then saying, “I apologize to you for the times that Muslims have also used violence “in the name of Islam”. It was a stunning moment for us as some stereotypes seemed to be crumbling through these simple and sincere confessions. (For some reason, I have always presumed that Muslims, in general, justified the use of violence in the spreading of their religion. Lord, help us to remember that no one deserves to be stereotyped.) There is a lot of historical and cultural “baggage” that has attached itself to the public images our respective faiths and we have to cut through more than genuine theological differences in order to touch hearts and exchange ideas and beliefs as fellow humans who are created in the image and likeness of our Creator.
When we asked him what he wanted us to communicate to our friends in the West, he replied, “Tell them that we are not terrorists (an allegation that has obviously wounded his heart deeply) and that they need to follow Jesus with all their hearts.” This seemed more than fair to me. By the way, he was the first leader in the world who openly and publicly condemned (apparently within minutes) the attack on America by Islamic extremists on 9/11.
After 1700 years of the influence of “Christendom” in the world, it’s going to take more than religious rhetoric and theological debate to touch the hearts of the peoples of the Holy Land. Who knows what Jesus might yet do in the Middle East if believers are willing and enabled to incarnate His presence and move by His Spirit as we reach out to show the love of the Father in practical ways? People don’t “care to know” what we stand for until they “know we care” about them as fellow humans under God. The Great Commission can only be fulfilled by the spirit of the Great Commandment being incarnated within and “excarnated” through the lives of genuine followers of Jesus the Christ.

Back from the Middle East and Cool Story #1

my first trip to the middle east. wow--i feel a bit overwhelmed. we went from one amazing person and place to the next. everyone there wants to talk about politics. if you lived there, you'd understand why, so i extend grace to them all. we went to learn, love and pray and our great team of jesus-followers did all three quite well in my view.
one story to begin with:
we were invited to visit the home of a cabinet member of the Palistinian Territories--a fine and gracious man--very experienced and highly educated. after giving us briefing on his work and the challenge of it all, he asked his wife to share a spiritual encounter that she had experienced, now some 12 or so years ago. their youngest son had been born premature and his life and health were in the balance. one night she had a vivid dream of Jesus coming out of his tomb arrayed in white, approaching her, laying his hand on her shoulder and telling her that everything would be alright. it was--her son lived and was sitting in the room with us as we were visiting. she also said to us with a twinkle in her eye, "Mohammad never visited me in a dream!"
three of our team members, we later discovered, received from the Holy Spirit the very same word for her regarding her "gift of dreams" during that interchange. we each shared this word with her privately and personally without knowing that anyone else had shared something with her. we did notice that she had been moved to tears by something. to further the impact of it all, it turned out that her name in Arabic means "dreamer".
seeds of the gospel were sown throughout our wonderful trip. more to come!

Saturday, April 7, 2007

Tuesday, April 3, 2007

Seeking First the Kingdom of God vs. My Little World

I don't know how many times that I have read the Scripture from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, "Seek first the kingdom of God and everything will be added to you."--more than I can count. After a 7 day personal retreat a year and a half ago, this was the one thing that the Holy Spirit seemed to say to me one more time. Have you ever had the experience of suddenly getting a completely new angle on a passage? This happened to me the other day in a time of prayer and relationship building with some wonderful pastors, believing businesspeople and various kinds of church leaders in Kansas City. (There are some really great things that God is presently doing through a unity and prayer movment in our region that has been simmering for a long time.)
I have often thought about and attempted to live out the principle modeled to us by Jesus in his earthly ministry. He didn't take his own initiatives, but relied on the Father and the Spirit to guide him into the work of service that were prepared beforehand for him to walk into. However, I never before applied these words of Jesus above into the mix of this way of life. When I have been challenged to "seek first the kingdom" I have always applied it, and exclusively so, to my personal consecration and a lifestyle of "seeking" God with prayer, study, worship, fasting, etc. I have limited it to devotional disciplines.
But the other day...I suddenly saw it applying to "seeking out" what God is doing, quite apart from me, in the world and community around me. It came almost like this, "Michael, are you 'seeking' to discover, perceive , discern and cooperate with 'My kingdom' activity that is breaking out all about you and the people of your city in both dramatic and subtle ways?" I realized immediately that this search would quickly take me beyond the self-imposed boundaries of my little world and my limited capacities out into the wide-open spaces of my Father's world so that I could "see and enter the kingdom of God" (Jn 3) in new ways. Even if I never get to personally participate in some aspects of this great work of God that are assigned to others, still, I can at least bless and honor what God is doing. (And I guess, in this way, I actually can personally participate in whatever work of God that I am allowed to perceive!)
As we are called to "seek first" the kingdom of God and His righteousness (or justice), maybe a big part of it is simply to be willing to make it our priority look around us with the eyes of our enlightened hearts and "find" the activity of the Trinity. And...when we discover it, to also find a way to "bless" what we see God doing. Maybe applying these words of Jesus from this angle will position us, along with a healthy personal devotional life, to have "all the other necessary things" added to us. I wonder how many things I have missed out on already because of limiting my "seeking the kingdom" to my little world? Oh well, no time to waste on such regrets, let me get on with a broader approach.