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Post by michelle on Feb 8, 2007 20:51:44 GMT -8
12/05:
The faith of the disciples is astounding to me after all of the warnings they receive from Jesus. They are told about the difficulties they will encounter, some of which are very extreme, but they still went out and did as Jesus told them. The crosses that they had to bear are so much more difficult than the ones I have to bear (I doubt I will ever have to worry about being killed for me beliefs) and while they weren't perfect in their walk, they made a choice to follow Jesus knowing how difficult things were going to be. I find that so encouraging.
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Post by Josh on Feb 9, 2007 17:15:43 GMT -8
12/05:
Here are some of the verses from this chapter that stand out to me:
"There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known."
Scary... convicting, and yet, of course if there's a God and there is a judgment, this must be true, and rightly so.
“Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. 33 But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.
Just one of the verses that makes me uncomfortable with a strict "once saved, always saved" stance. I realize that this one could be easily explained away by those is said camp, but I am struck by the fact that it doesn't say "whoever acknowledges me, I will acknowledge", but instead adds the important phrase "before men" as a seeming requirement for salvation. I feel I'm not being clear here. Well, let's just say that statments like these in the gospels that are difficult to fit into a neatly organized 'systematic theology' are enough for me to realize that taking Christ at his word is probably more important than trying to make sense out of everything he said. We shouldn't try to avoid the force of this verse, we should instead "confess him before men"!
“Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; 38 and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
Yet another one, even more striking and difficult.
And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward.”
And what are the implications of this? Many, I suppose, but just think of what this verse says about the value God places on his children.
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Post by michelle on May 9, 2007 20:14:25 GMT -8
Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matthew 10:37
In keeping with the theme of this chapter, this verse seems to demonstrate just how much is required of us to be followers of Christ. This seems like an unfathomable request that God would ask, that we love Him more than our children. I'm curious to hear thoughts from parents about what this verse evokes from you.
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Post by Josh on May 10, 2007 16:08:43 GMT -8
You know, when I visited Winding-Road, Marcus was teaching on this... In fact, I think he was challenging his crew with some thoughts from Stanley Haeurwas on this subject.... Marcus? (This is a stalling tactic on my part :
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Post by Josh on May 12, 2007 18:05:44 GMT -8
Well, here goes...
When I read this verse I have the scary, challenging thought come to my mind that Christ is asking, "If this person (father, mother, son, daughter, wife, husband, friend) were taken away from you, would you still follow me?"
And I cannot answer that question definitely-- especially in regard to my children.
Of course, he means more than that, though. He means not just if, but will you, right now, serve me first and hold all those things loosely?
That's a challenge, one that sometimes I take and other times I shy away from, just as his disciples did.
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Post by Josh on May 17, 2007 19:49:12 GMT -8
"Yes you who must leave everything that you cannot control. It begins with your family, but soon it comes around to your soul. "
Leonard Cohen
These words from his song "Sisters of Mercy" came to mind in relation to this passage.
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Post by marcus on May 19, 2007 20:16:34 GMT -8
Hauerwas has a way of emphasizing those fleeting passages in scripture - the ones that catch our eye for a frightening moment, before we quickly leave them behind to protect our sense of security. Family is where we find our deepest sense of security; Jesus was a threat to families; we therefore ignore a great deal of Jesus' teachings on the subject.
I grew up listening to James Dobson, whose platform (before he was the Religious Right's spokesman) was to protect and promote the "sanctity of the family unit." If family breaks down, he argued, then society breaks down. Dobson remembered the good ol' times of his youth with a rosy fondness, and has forever tried to get back to the days of Wally and the Beaver. He had a huge influence on me, and I grew up believing that the way to save America (and the way to save the church, which was almost the same thing) was to strengthen the core of the family unit.
And society feels the same way. Even those who challenge the traditional definitions of family agree to the old adage that, "When push comes to shove, family always has your back. They are always there for you. That's what family is." And consider how the term is employed by other institutions that want to give a strong sense of identity and security – schools, churches, military, businesses – their close-knit camaraderie is usually characterized by the same two-and-a-half words: "We're family."
Family, quite naturally, is placed upon an untouchable pedestal. Hauerwas doesn't approve, and feels that Jesus wouldn't, either. In light of Jesus' words in Matthew 10, or the infamous "let the dead bury their own dead" quote to a poor guy who'd just lost his father (which is the scariest - and most ignored - characterization of Christ in Scripture, by far), or considering the clear ethic that weaves through Jesus' teaching, Hauerwas can't see how Christianity and our current understanding of family can co-exist. Here's some of his basic points, in no particular order, as best I understand them:
1) Christians are called to love everyone as themselves. Therefore, everyone in the world is on a pedestal: Bin Laden is right beside your mother, and Donald Rumsfeld is as important as your daughter. Yikes.
2) Jesus had a very counter-intuitive ethic that he explicitly and repeatedly taught. How many times did he say, "What benefit is that? Do not even the tax collectors/Gentiles/pagans do the same?" when referring to basic, intuitive values? So what if you give out of your excess...even pagans do that. So what if you can show kindness to those who are kind to you...even Gentiles do the same. So of course we show love to people who love us back. But that makes us human, not Christians. Anyone can love a cute, smiling baby that came from their womb and looks just like them. But it takes a Christian to show the same kind of love to a drunken, stinky stranger that came from a cardboard box downtown and looks just like my Uncle Kim.
3) It is easier to give unconditional love to someone when your motivation is to receive unconditional love in return. We provide a sense of love and security to our family members (and closest friends) because, deep down, we desperately want that love and security to be reciprocated back to us. Christians, however, are called to show love even when no earthly reward is offered.
4) Why is it we have children, anyway? What are our motivations? Most people haven't thought it through, and if they do, they answer something to the extent of "I've always wanted children...and I think I'll raise a couple of Godly people who will be a blessing to the world." But of course Christianity relies on baptism, not procreation, to add to its fold. And even more disturbing is the underlying (and very, very true) reason we have children: they give us hope. We look at a smiling baby and see hope for the future; we look at an elderly widow in a nursing home and see pain, loneliness, and our own mortality. Even worse, if we truly feel called to set aside a large portion of our time and energy and ministry to raise a child, why is it that we have children of our own? There are tens of thousands of abandoned, impoverished, diseased, and abused children that are crying out for Jesus' love. This should be absolutely unacceptable to Christians. We are called to be Christ to the world, and to have compassion toward those who need it most. Matthew's gospel reaches its apex with the most beautiful and frighteneing metaphor ever spoken in chapter 25, and yet we ignore "the least of these" as if that passage doesn't exist. Even when we choose to adopt, we usually select a healthy, cute infant that we can scoop up, call our own, and be a hero to. But somehow the AIDS children go on to live a short life of Foster Care and government shelters, far away from our comfy Western World. I'm like that - I want to adopt - but yeah, I want a cute, healthy Chinese girl, not a sickly kid from Africa or Eastern Europe. Sad, too, because (as an American) I'm wealthy and have access to the best healthcare the world has ever known.
5) The church is supposed to form our sense of belonging, our sense of community, and freely shape our lives...it truly takes a village to raise a child. Sadly, it's easier for us to go to "church" a couple times a week and then retreat to our isolated nests, far from the dynamic communal model exemplified by the early church. Think about it: we really hold nothing in common. Can you imagine what would happen if a family was struggling to pay its bills, and another member of the church volunteered to write a huge check to get them out of debt? It would be unheard of, totally radical, unless the generous person was also filthy rich. But what if Josh was in $100,000 worth of swamping debt, and Michelle took her $100,000 life savings out to pay it off? That would be UNREAL. But that's what church can be: selfless, loving, and completely humble and meek. Unfortunately, that kind of gesture is only "acceptable" if a father pays off his son's debt, or a grandparent helps out a relative. For some reason, family is allowed to take the place of the church (and Christian love), and going against that grain is just too uncomfortable.
The best way to understand this, I think, is to try and imagine a world where each of us views the world as if everyone in it were our family. We would never allow our parents or children to die alone in a nursing home – so why do we let that be the fate of our neighbors? If our sibling needed a kidney, who of us would hesitate to give one of our own? Why is it any different with our neighbor?
Hauerwas wants to see us become disciples of Christ. Too often we’re just admirers of Christ. That’s why our infatuation with family is such a destructive habit…it allows us to ignore Christ’s teaching, ignore our obligations, and ignore the world. If only we were to treat the world like we treat our family. If only I were to treat the world like I treat family…but I’m just not willing to take up that cross.
Here’s to praying that will change very, very soon.
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Post by Josh on May 20, 2007 19:32:40 GMT -8
This is a great exposition of this passage, Marcus. Instead of explaining it away or watering it down, you (with Haeurwas behind you) point out an amazing amount of the practical "rub" of this passage.
There's a lot that could be said, but what you said about "family" resonates with what I've been reading about the early Church. We forget how radical Church was-- replacing biological family ties with a whole new community based on discipleship. The offense of the New Testament Church with it's breaking down of the old lines- rich, poor, male, female, Jew, Gentile, slave, citizen, barbarian, in exchange for a radical, singular new line- disciples of Christ was absolutely shocking-- and would be today if lived more consistantly.
As a humorous side note, have you seen those Churches that have titles like "Family Worship Center" etc? I always let out a sarcastic guffaw when I see a sign like that, because I immediately think, "Well, at least their being honest!" (Worshipping the FAMILY). It's like "four bedroom house, 2.5 kids, and a three car garage" are the new golden calf!
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Post by michelle on May 20, 2007 19:55:06 GMT -8
Wow, Marcus. Those are some really powerful and inspiring words. I've read your post 3 or 4 times and I'm still letting it sink in.
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Post by Josh on May 24, 2007 21:30:14 GMT -8
Here are some other passages that bolster some of Marcus/ Haeurwas' points (one from the same chapter, one from Mark):
[glow=red,2,300] Matthew 10: 34"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35For I have come to turn " 'a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her motherinlaw— 36a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.'[e]
Mark 3: 31Then Jesus' mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. 32A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, "Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you." 33"Who are my mother and my brothers?" he asked.
34Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! 35Whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother."[/glow] I really think that too much focus on nuclear family allegiances (which, of course, are very important for society) does tend to distract us from the fact that Christ calls us to a radical new definition of family. As long as we think of our "Families" at home as a higher status than our Church "families", we're not getting it. Church is the Family with a capital F. I realize that that statement runs so counter to our culture that it's hard to hear. In fact, I have a hard time writing it myself, except that Jesus seems pretty clear on it, and if we are disciples of Jesus we must not shy away from his 'hard teachings'.
A bone to pick, though. What exactly do you think is disturbing about looking to kids for hope?
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Post by marcus on May 25, 2007 12:24:42 GMT -8
Our hope lies in the Lord, and the hope of furthering the Kingdom through baptism. Too often we feel hopelessly lonely, so we look to a child to remove our sense of loneliness. Children almost become an impulse purchase, a commodity, like the young couple who goes out and buys a shiny new SUV, only to realize how much it will cost in the long run and how quickly the exciting feeling fades. Hauerwas believes that, in most cases, children will make a parent feel lonelier in the end (a feeling he admits to experiencing). I'd wager a fair amount that Erin and I make our parents feel lonely more often than fulfilled...that's the nature of the parent-child relationship from puberty to the time the children start their own family, all the way until - you guessed it - grandchildren come along.
When I wrote that comment above, I followed it up with Hauerwas' observation that we don't find the same sense of hope when we look into the eyes of an elderly person in a nursing home. Why not? Well, an elderly person is closer to death, isn't nearly as adorable, and isn't something we can take pride in at family gatherings - nor does adopting an elderly person get our in-laws to stop making their "When are you gonna have a baby?" comments. :-)
So I guess my point isn't, "we should never find hope in children," but rather that we should find hope in every person, knowing that everyone is a child of God. It's comparable to the mistake I made a few months back when I first presented this to the church, when I concluded that we need to stop elevating the family on a pedestal. Instead, I learned that it is best to frame the argument by concluding that everyone we meet should be elevated to the pedestal we previously reserved for those closest to us.
So yeah, it's probably good to see hope in a child's eyes. But no more hope than we should see in anyone else's eyes. Sadly, that isn't the case. People volunteer to work with children at ten times the rate than working with seniors, the terminally ill, or the poor. Youth groups, Pregnancy Resource Centers, and children's hospitals are very well funded; women's shelters, rehab centers, and disabled communities just can't compete for dollars. Campaigns that feature "starving children" will always fare better than those (which now almost cease to exist) featuring "starving elderly." This phenomenon is especially prevalent in the West, where we tend to celebrate youth, as opposed to some Eastern cultures that celebrate age and wisdom. The Western Church has taken its cues from Western society.
But for Christians, that just aint how we roll. We show love to the unloved, find hope in the hopeless, and value the valueless.
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Post by marcus on May 25, 2007 12:32:20 GMT -8
And yes, I put a smiley face in the above post. You'd better take a picture, 'cause it's a one time deal.
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Post by Josh on May 25, 2007 21:48:44 GMT -8
Oh the ironies... the ad above this thread tonight reads "Are you the world's best mom?.... Take our parenting styles quiz..."
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