Covenant Community

I've continued to read and finish Millennium Matrix over the past few weeks. I've still got to get to answering the questions I posted on a couple of weeks ago. The delay in those answers...just the birth of my second daughter...Mia Kate was born on February 16th at 12:10p and weighed in at 8lbs 7oz with 19" in length. She looks a lot like big sister...

So in thinking about community I ran across some ideas in Matrix...the idea of covenant. It's a lot deeper commitment than most other relationships. It implies a level of dependence most are by nature uncomfortable with. We really value independence and self reliance in America and Christianity, as expressed in the Bible not the burbs, is very much antithetical to those ideas. Being a Christ follower is all about being dependant and reliant. We rely on Jesus to pay for our sins, we rely on the Holy Spirit to guide our steps, we rely on God to be true to His word, and we should rely on one another to walk with us on this journey. This is what I have been preaching about the last few weeks, the interweaving of our lives as a part of the Body of Christ. A friend of mine asked me "Is such-and-such church like that?" I asked him why that thought entered his mind and he told me "I always had this sense that I never really belonged, I was always outide the group." What breaks these barriers? How do we build covenant communities?

Matrix seems to suggest transparency is a large part of this building process. It is not the only element discussed, but it is one I want to champion for a moment. Transparency in relationships is crucial because it levels the playing field. Everyone is themselves and is able to be met at the point where they are- just the way Christ first meets us. When we are transparent we are able to "spur one another on toward good works" because we know where one another need to grow. We are able to "pray for one another that we might be healed" because we know where we need to be made whole.

As a pastor, I want everyone at my church to experience commuinty. I want everyone to feel they can be transparent. I want our church to be a place where reality is more important than personality. I want to see a church that is a covenant community.

Abs

Love Me Love My Luggage

UKnow Series pt 3-
Last of the series. What is our respose to the pasts of others?

Romans 15:1-13, Eph 4:1-6, 2 Cor 5:16-19

Love Me Love My Luggage

“Accept one another…”

In a world of division this is a tough command. A definition of tolerance that has overtaken our world has made churches and Christ followers very leery with using this term. This is the intent of the passage in Romans 14 and 15. The church at Rome is a real mixed bag. There are diaspora Jews and pagan Gentiles trying to co-exist in the same place. The customs, acceptable practices, and lifestyles were as varied as we face today. You had Jews who had lived in accordance to the laws of God given through Moses and Roman Gentiles who had given themselves to every god they could create. You had Jews who had betrayed their countrymen and their heritage by serving the roman government and others of no religion whatsoever. All these people were trying to be the church in a place hostile to the Gospel. In the midst of all of this comes the Gospel. A Gospel open to everyone that asks not for the following of rules but for the following of a Messiah. It has no idols to bow to, no cleansing rituals, and no barriers to direct communion with Diety. Needless to say, there was some confusion.

So let’s get back to tolerance for a minute. I’m not talking about “tolerance” as in everything is equal and if it’s okay for me then it’s okay. I’m talking about acceptance. I’m talking about meeting people where they are in life and accepting where they have been. See the problem we suffer from today is not so much a diversity of creed and religion as it is a diversity of background. And many people who are hurting feel very hesitant to be open about their pasts and their own struggles because we as the church have such a hard time dealing with sin in our own pasts. We have this trouble because we are still caught in an old mindset. We are still competing to see who is the best. Yet it is clear in scripture that there is no competition. We are all failures. We all fall short. Just because you fell short by lying and I fell short by lusting does not mean that you win God’s favor more than me. Nor does it mean that you have any right to place yourself in a position of superiority over me in church, in Christ, or in life. Yet we fall into this trap, mostly subconsciously, when we turn our backs on people who do not meet our standards of holiness. We have failed to remember how we came to Christ in the first place.

“…just as Christ accepted you,…”

So how does Jesus accept us? Let’s take a look at some of the people Jesus met and accepted.

Levi and Zacchaeus the tax collectors- men who were traitors to their people and thieves to boot

Woman at the well and woman caught in adultery- people in the midst of sexual sin

The Centurion- a person of authority who was part of a corrupt political system
Demon possessed men and children- people who were afflicted and in bondage to the forces of darkness

The man being executed with Him- a thief whose crimes were so heinous that he is being killed by the state

Peter- who denies even knowing Jesus in His moment of greatest need

Do you see? Jesus accepted anyone willing to put their faith in Him and at that moment before they had done anything other than express willingness. This is where we struggle and it’s why we have a hard time being honest about sin. We fear, and often rightly so, that our sins will ruin us at church the way they would ruin us in our workplaces, our social settings, or our families. This is what the Enemy uses to keep us in prison. We don’t open up about our sin struggles because the church acts just like the world. We judge, we mock, we reject and then we try to cover it up in God language to make justify our actions. There is a difference between holding someone accountable and putting someone on spiritual probation. When believers are honest about their struggles and failures it is our calling to meet them where they are and to partner with the Holy Spirit to help them to overcome sin. This is why so few people experience the freedom from sin, guilt, and heartache that Christ came to offer because there can be no healing until the wound is cleansed and the past put to death.

As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.

This is what Paul is calling for in Ephesians 4. We can accept one another and our past failures if we can fulfill the call of verse 2. Humility, gentleness, patience, and forbearance are the marks of a church that values unity. These are things we must embrace as a church as we seek to reach the people we know, love and work with and as we seek to come to know one another better as a community.

Now this raises the inevitable question, but what about sin? What do we say about sin? Well first we say that those who are in Christ are no longer slaves to sin. We have been separated from our pasts as we talked about last week. Therefore, we no longer spend time comparing resumes of righteousness and iniquity trying to prove whose more committed to God. That’s the way the world works, but not us. Look at 2 Cor. 5 in the NLT:

16 So we have stopped evaluating others by what the world thinks about them. Once I mistakenly thought of Christ that way, as though he were merely a human being. How differently I think about him now! 17 What this means is that those who become Christians become new persons. They are not the same anymore, for the old life is gone. A new life has begun!

Second, we say that those who struggle with sin have a safe place to confess and be prayed over and held accountable without fear of being trashed either publicly or privately. (James 5:16)

Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

“…in order to bring praise to God.”

A better translation of praise is glory. What does it mean to bring glory to God? It means to raise His reputation, to make others’ opinions about Him grow, or to cause people to view Him in a better light. Stop a moment and think about the people in your world. How do they view God? What opinion do they have of Him? How would your treatment of other believers influence that one way or another? Are you in a “holiness competition?” Do you secretly or obviously discriminate against other believers because of what you know about them? Are you preventing openness, effective prayer, and healing from happening because of your judgment?

The church should be the one place in the world where it is safe to be real. The support and acceptance of the Body is illustrated over and over again in the New Testament. It’s not an attitude of do whatever you want and it’s okay, but an attitude of whatever you have done does not keep you from the grace of God and therefore does not keep us from being a part of the same community.

This morning I want to ask you, Do your relationships with other believers move men and women to praise God? If someone saw how you related to the believers around you would they want to be a part of the God’s kingdom? Do your words about others build up or tear down? Do you spread the pasts of others in order to enhance your own standing? Who do you desire to glorify, God or yourself?

Cleaning Out My Closet- UKnown pt2

Here is last Sunday's talk. What's in your closet?

1 Cor 6:9-11
9Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders 10nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
Cleaning Out My Closet

The Sins of the Past

This letter from Paul to the people of Corinth is very personal. Paul loved the Corinthians very much even though he knew what they had been like. He had lived there for 18 months, far longer than he stayed in most cities. He knew well the excesses of Corinth. The city of Corinth was as hedonistic and pagan as any city in our world today. The Temple of Aphrodite housed over 1000 sacred prostitutes. It was the capital of Rome in Greece. Money was plentiful. The city was home to over 300,000 people as well as 450,000 slaves at the time Paul wrote to the church. As you imagine, a city of a thousand vices produced a city with thousands of people with pasts. You’ll notice in the first two verses of our passage this morning that many of the sins listed were of a sexual nature. In fact, much of what Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians concerns sexual sin because it was such a problem in Corinth.

I imagine the people of the church in Corinth ducked their heads as this letter was read aloud in the gathering of believers. Yes, that’s right, this letter was read out loud. Just so you know, this letter called out a situation of incest in the church, called the people of the church infants, and exposed factions in the church based on who certain people allied themselves to apart from Christ. This was not a happy letter. The reminder of the past had to be painful.

This morning I am sure as we read these first two verses many of you are inwardly cringing remembering things you have done in the past. Things you wish had never happened. Things you wish you could undo. Some of you looked in the mirror this morning and thought to yourself, “I should just stay home. One day I am going to say too much or hear too much and what I have done is going to come spilling out.” The past keeps you in fear and guilt keeps you from committing yourself to the one person who can set you free from the past.

See Paul reminds the Corinthians of the past so that they can also remember their current condition. Paul did not go to Corinth, talk about Jesus, and leave before anyone believed. In fact, he left behind a group of people who had been redeemed, set free, transformed by Jesus. This was not a change of philosophy or of action, this was a supernatural occurrence that literally moved people from a life of death into a life of life.

New Beginning

2 Corinthians 5:16-19
16So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 18All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.

In fact, in his next letter to the Corinthians Paul expands on this subject. He talks about being a new creation. Now we’ll be looking at this passage next week as well as we talk about how we relate to one another as believers’ with pasts, but for this week we’ll look at that one verse that says we are a new creation. You may ask how does that happen?

Well Paul spells that out in the last verse of our passage this morning. 11And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified (separated), you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
First he says we are washed. Now when I think about washing I think about taking a shower after a hard day working in the yard. Now my yard may not look like I work in it very much, cause I don’t, so when I do it’s an all day, disgusting job. I wind up covered with dirt, dog, and debris. I do not look like much when I’m done. Now we don’t look like much covered with our pasts either. We have scars, and debris, and junk hanging all over us. This is part of entering into a relationship with Jesus. He cleans us from our pasts. He literally puts the past to death. It no longer counts in His eyes. Now you may say, “Well it matters to other people.” And that may be true, but in the eyes of God it’s like starting over. And the good news is, starting over with God provides the strength, the love, the endurance to start over with other people. So part of being a new creation is getting clean, being washed with God’s shower.

Now not only does God clean you up, but He separates you from that old life. That is what the word sanctify means, to be separated from the profane. Now the word profane is not a word we like to think about in our day and time, but it is a good word to describe a lot of our pasts. We have given ourselves over to a lot of things that were less than good or holy. God’s best, other people’s best was not on our minds. In fact the definition of profane, contempt, irreverence, vulgar, coarse, degrading is a good description of a lot of our activity- sometimes out of ignorance but sometimes out of intent. God separates us from our past. He drives a void between us and our sin that no one can cross. The past literally has no hold on our future. God has seen it, dealt with it, and dismissed it.

Finally, Paul says we have been justified. Now this bothers a lot of people, because we live in a world where we have a criminal justice system where you “do the crime you do the time.” That is not the way God works. He operates in grace and mercy. So God, as Christ becomes a part of your life, declares you righteous. What does it mean to be righteous? It means you are right with God. It means you are clean. It means you are free. Last week we talked about a person who is either a slave to sin or a slave to God. Well, these people Paul is writing to know about this first hand. They used to be slaves of sin in the city of sin, but now they are free.

What Now?

This information is all well and good for the Corinthians, because they had been cleansed from their pasts. What about you? What’s in your past? Do you crack the door open to past years and cringe? Do you hide, lie, and justify to get through life? Let me remind you, this letter was written to a group of people, but the truth is universal. God is still mending lives. You can still be cleansed, you can still have your past broken off from your life, and you can still be called a righteous friend of God. You do not have to be bound to the past. In fact, Jesus death and resurrection was for you and your past.

A few weeks ago Carl talked about inviting people to a relationship with Jesus. I know people who go to church talk about this a lot without giving a lot of explanation. It seems strange to talk about having a relationship with someone you can’t see and who you learn from in some crazy ways. So I want to take a few moments in closing this morning to try to explain what it means to begin a relationship with Jesus and how this changes a person’s life. First, it means you ask God to count Jesus’ death for you. It’s a leap of faith to go from believing you are responsible for fixing your past to allowing God to deal with it in His way. The Bible tells us that is why Christ died, so that we would not have to be held responsible for our pasts. All our punishment, judgment, wrath was put on Him so that we would not have to face it. (Romans 5- particularly vs 6-9)
6 When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. 7 Now, no one is likely to die for a good person, though someone might be willing to die for a person who is especially good. 8 But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. 9 And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s judgment. (NLT)

Second, it means choosing to follow Christ. This is not paying Him lip or hip service- not saying you go to church or giving money to a church. This is a lifestyle change. It means you allow God to guide your life through the Bible, learning to make decisions based upon God’s wisdom and principle rather than using the standards of everyone else to make judgments, through living in community with other Christ followers, and through listening for and heeding the voice of God in your life.

What story are we telling?

Maybe I should call this post what story do we want to tell. I think every church tells a story. Most tell the Gospel story in one way or another. But what does the Bible say a church should be a story of? I think it's a wedding story. When I think about the church and look at Revelation I see a story about a wedding- people being joined together in a covenant with God the Father who gives His Son for the bride. How do we tell this story?

First, I think we focus on the sacrifice of the Son. Jesus gave up so much to come and get us. He left the glory, the worship, the perfection of heaven to be wrapped in weak flesh and to be reviled by man. Everything we do should point to this. I was really on board with the seeker movement years ago. I was for less religious icons in the building, fewer mystical experiences, and somehow I think that I was wrong. I think those images and features put into words what happened 2000 years ago at a location called Place of the Skull.

Second, I think we focus on unconditional love- agape if you will. God's love for us in my mind reminds me of that old couple in the interview parts of When Harry Met Sally. The couple who've been married forever and seem to understand one another's weaknesses and strengths to a depth I cannot imagine. This is just the begining of how God knows us, but it is an intimacy we can strive for as parts of the bride.

Finally, I think the wedding picture gives us a story of unity. Paul talks about us all working together. We read in the NT about being united with Christ. We hear the phrase "what God has put together let no man put asunder" at a wedding. We are God's when we enter into a covenant with His Son.

So the church story is a wedding. What does the picture album look like right now? How can we become a wedding story that invites others into the relationship?

Thoughts for another day.
On His Journey,
Abs

Who R U?- UKNOWN Series Part 1

Who R U?

First off- a Creation of God-
The Bible begins with the story of creation. There are a lot of debates about why. In some ways, I think Scripture begins with creation so that we can know that we are not accidents. There is a strain of thought in our world that attributes everything to chance and circumstance. Let me ask you a question this morning. How would it feel to simply be an accident of biology? Some of us may be here as the surprise kid, the last in a line of births. You may have once been told “You were an accident.” The unplanned kid. The fly in the ointment. Human beings are not the flies in the cosmic ointment. We were created by God.
In fact, the Bible calls us “the crown of creation.” (Psalm 8)
A king wrote that he was knit together by God in his mother’s womb. (Psalm 139) You were no mistake or chance occurrence. You were made by God.

You are also fallen- a person who misses the mark v 1-8

As Paul begins to write in Ch 8 we see that all is not right in creation. Humans are not perfect. They are capable of some pretty awful things. In both small and large cases, humans do not act as God acts. We are like a funhouse mirror. We are a distorted reflection of God. We are capable of great things, but we cheapen our greatness, our crown, our creator with our actions. We are guilty of violating God’s standards, rules, laws. These violations, failures are what the Bible calls sin. Now the word for sin is hamartano and it literally means to miss the mark or to stray from the path.

5 Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.
Paul says a person is controlled by one of 2 natures or mindsets- either the mindset of the Spirit or the mindset of sin. We know we are controlled by this nature when live for our own self pleasure no matter what the consequences to others, when we think that our own righteousness and goodness is good enough for God, and when we are hostile to God’s truth as He reveals it to us.
8 Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.
The worst part of this entire state is the last statement in verse 8. We cannot please God. What an awful position. I know many of us are thinking that we can live our lives in such a way to make up for the past and secure the future. But Paul writes that this is impossible. That’s a huge obstacle to overcome. We cannot undo our time of serving our sinful nature as we realize what we have done is wrong.
Thankfully you are also redeemable. V9-27

Now when the Bible talks about redemption it is not talking about a coupon or a rain check. It’s another kind of redeemed. It’s the prisoner locked in a tower who is in desperate need of rescue. Redemption is the act of God’s Son replacing you in the midst of your imprisonment. Jesus takes the punishment for the sins of your past.

Look at the picture that Paul paints of redemption. First we are under a different kind of control. We seek to serve a new master and follow a new way.
V9- You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.

Second, we become awakened to a new life. We realize there is more to life than survival. V10-11- But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.

Third we have a new parentage. We can call God our Father. We are not an accident. We know the history of our lives begins and ends with God. V12-16- 12 Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation—but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. 13 For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, 14 because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 15 For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.
Fourth, we have a place to go to have a hearing (17), to get relief(19), and to be healed and cleansed (20-21). V17-27- 17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. 18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19 The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? 25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. 26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.
Finally more than anything we realize we are loved. V28-39 (NLT)

28 And we know that God causes everything to work together* for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. 29 For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn, with many brothers and sisters. 30 And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And he gave them right standing with himself, and he promised them his glory.[1]
31 What can we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? 32 Since God did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t God, who gave us Christ, also give us everything else?
33 Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? Will God? No! He is the one who has given us right standing with himself. 34 Who then will condemn us? Will Christ Jesus? No, for he is the one who died for us and was raised to life for us and is sitting at the place of highest honor next to God, pleading for us.
35 Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or are hungry or cold or in danger or threatened with death? 36 (Even the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”*) 37 No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.
38 And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can’t, and life can’t. The angels can’t, and the demons can’t. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, and even the powers of hell can’t keep God’s love away. 39 Whether we are high above the sky or in the deepest ocean, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
[2]

g Or adoption
*
Romans 8:28
Some manuscripts read And we know that everything works together.
[1]Holy Bible : New Living Translation. 1997 . Tyndale House: Wheaton, Ill.
*
Romans 8:36
Ps 44:22.
[2]Holy Bible : New Living Translation. 1997 . Tyndale House: Wheaton, Ill.

Why I am a Bono fan

Read this and you will begin to understand- Abs-

The National Prayer Breakfast is normally a time for reaffirming spiritual truths and testifying to the power of faith in people's individual lives, but not so much a moment for prophetic and controversial social utterances. There have been exceptions - when Sen. Mark Hatfield spoke courageously about the moral "shame" of the Vietnam War in the presence of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger (I know a lot about that prayer breakfast speech because I helped write it when I was a seminarian in Chicago); when Mother Theresa spoke about the sacredness of life and raised the issue of abortion with the Clintons on hand; and yesterday, when Bono spoke like a modern-day prophet about extreme global poverty and pandemic disease and called upon the American government, with George Bush and Congressional leaders present, to do much more.
The speech, published below, was the most explicit about religion and the role of faith that I had ever heard Bono deliver, and his insistence on the biblical requirements of justice and not just charity was reiterated over and over again. In a small session with religious editors afterward, Bono spoke about how the churches had led on the issue of debt cancellation with the Jubilee 2000 campaign, on HIV/AIDS, and now on global poverty reduction. "You're the bigger crowd," he said, "much more than my stadium audiences." He said the church will just hear "fanfare" from musicians.
But Bono is offering far more than fanfare, as his talk below demonstrates. To the religious editors he stressed how the justice issue is "really it," and said that the churches had to figure out how to make that clear to people and that "movement is the way" we will finally succeed. Bono said he believed that something is moving now and we have to create the momentum to accomplish our goals. On the way to the car afterward, we spoke together about how really crucial that movement building is, how nothing else will suffice to make the changes in our world that are so vitally and morally necessary, and how the strategy in the religious community is so key. We also talked about the Isaiah 58 passage he had quoted in his speech - that when we respond to the poor as the prophet instructs, "God will cover your back." This is one speech you will want to read and pass on to your friends.
- Jim Wallis
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RELIGION AND POLITICS
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Bono's best sermon yet: Remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast

[RUSH TRANSCRIPT: CHECK AGAINST DELIVERED REMARKS]
If you're wondering what I'm doing here, at a prayer breakfast, well, so am I. I'm certainly not here as a man of the cloth, unless that cloth is leather. It's certainly not because I'm a rock star. Which leaves one possible explanation: I'm here because I've got a messianic complex.
Yes, it's true. And for anyone who knows me, it's hardly a revelation.
Well, I'm the first to admit that there's something unnatural...something unseemly...about rock stars mounting the pulpit and preaching at presidents, and then disappearing to their villas in the south of France. Talk about a fish out of water. It was weird enough when Jesse Helms showed up at a U2 concert...but this is really weird, isn't it?
You know, one of the things I love about this country is its separation of church and state. Although I have to say: in inviting me here, both church and state have been separated from something else completely: their mind.
Mr. President, are you sure about this?
It's very humbling and I will try to keep my homily brief. But be warned - I'm Irish.
I'd like to talk about the laws of man, here in this city where those laws are written. And I'd like to talk about higher laws. It would be great to assume that the one serves the other; that the laws of man serve these higher laws...but of course, they don't always. And I presume that, in a sense, is why you're here.
I presume the reason for this gathering is that all of us here - Muslims, Jews, Christians - all are searching our souls for how to better serve our family, our community, our nation, our God.
I know I am. Searching, I mean. And that, I suppose, is what led me here, too.
Yes, it's odd, having a rock star here - but maybe it's odder for me than for you. You see, I avoided religious people most of my life. Maybe it had something to do with having a father who was Protestant and a mother who was Catholic in a country where the line between the two was, quite literally, a battle line. Where the line between church and state was...well, a little blurry, and hard to see.
I remember how my mother would bring us to chapel on Sundays... and my father used to wait outside. One of the things that I picked up from my father and my mother was the sense that religion often gets in the way of God.
For me, at least, it got in the way. Seeing what religious people, in the name of God, did to my native land...and in this country, seeing God's second-hand car salesmen on the cable TV channels, offering indulgences for cash...in fact, all over the world, seeing the self-righteousness roll down like a mighty stream from certain corners of the religious establishment...
I must confess, I changed the channel. I wanted my MTV.
Even though I was a believer.
Perhaps because I was a believer.
I was cynical...not about God, but about God's politics. (There you are, Jim.)
Then, in 1997, a couple of eccentric, septuagenarian British Christians went and ruined my shtick - my reproachfulness. They did it by describing the millennium, the year 2000, as a Jubilee year, as an opportunity to cancel the chronic debts of the world's poorest people. They had the audacity to renew the Lord's call - and were joined by Pope John Paul II, who, from an Irish half-Catholic's point of view, may have had a more direct line to the Almighty.
'Jubilee' - why 'Jubilee'?
What was this year of Jubilee, this year of our Lord's favor?
I'd always read the scriptures, even the obscure stuff. There it was in Leviticus (25:35)...
'If your brother becomes poor,' the scriptures say, 'and cannot maintain himself...you shall maintain him.... You shall not lend him your money at interest, not give him your food for profit.'
It is such an important idea, Jubilee, that Jesus begins his ministry with this. Jesus is a young man, he's met with the rabbis, impressed everyone, people are talking. The elders say, he's a clever guy, this Jesus, but he hasn't done much...yet. He hasn't spoken in public before...
When he does, is first words are from Isaiah: 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,' he says, 'because He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.' And Jesus proclaims the year of the Lord's favour, the year of Jubilee (Luke 4:18).
What he was really talking about was an era of grace - and we're still in it.
So fast-forward 2,000 years. That same thought, grace, was made incarnate - in a movement of all kinds of people. It wasn't a bless-me club... it wasn't a holy huddle. These religious guys were willing to get out in the streets, get their boots dirty, wave the placards, follow their convictions with actions...making it really hard for people like me to keep their distance. It was amazing. I almost started to like these church people.
But then my cynicism got another helping hand.
It was what Colin Powell, a five-star general, called the greatest W.M.D. of them all: a tiny little virus called AIDS. And the religious community, in large part, missed it. The ones that didn't miss it could only see it as divine retribution for bad behaviour. Even on children...even [though the] fastest growing group of HIV infections were married, faithful women.
Aha, there they go again! I thought to myself judgmentalism is back!
But in truth, I was wrong again. The church was slow but the church got busy on this the leprosy of our age.
Love was on the move.
Mercy was on the move.
God was on the move.
Moving people of all kinds to work with others they had never met, never would have cared to meet...conservative church groups hanging out with spokesmen for the gay community, all singing off the same hymn sheet on AIDS...soccer moms and quarterbacks...hip-hop stars and country stars. This is what happens when God gets on the move: crazy stuff happens!
Popes were seen wearing sunglasses!
Jesse Helms was seen with a ghetto blaster!
Crazy stuff. Evidence of the spirit.
It was breathtaking. Literally. It stopped the world in its tracks.
When churches started demonstrating on debt, governments listened - and acted. When churches starting organising, petitioning, and even - that most unholy of acts today, God forbid, lobbying...on AIDS and global health, governments listened - and acted.
I'm here today in all humility to say: you changed minds; you changed policy; you changed the world.
Look, whatever thoughts you have about God, who He is or if He exists, most will agree that if there is a God, He has a special place for the poor. In fact, the poor are where God lives.
Check Judaism. Check Islam. Check pretty much anyone.
I mean, God may well be with us in our mansions on the hill. I hope so. He may well be with us as in all manner of controversial stuff. Maybe, maybe not. But the one thing we can all agree, all faiths and ideologies, is that God is with the vulnerable and poor.
God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house. God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives. God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war. God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them. "If you remove the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness, and if you give yourself to the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then your light will rise in darkness and your gloom with become like midday and the Lord will continually guide you and satisfy your desire in scorched places."
It's not a coincidence that in the scriptures, poverty is mentioned more than 2,100 times. It's not an accident. That's a lot of air time, 2,100 mentions. (You know, the only time Christ is judgmental is on the subject of the poor.) 'As you have done it unto the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me' (Matthew 25:40). As I say, good news to the poor.
Here's some good news for the president. After 9/11 we were told America would have no time for the world's poor. America would be taken up with its own problems of safety. And it's true these are dangerous times, but America has not drawn the blinds and double-locked the doors.
In fact, you have doubled aid to Africa. You have tripled funding for global health. Mr. President, your emergency plan for AIDS relief and support for the Global Fund - you and Congress - have put 700,000 people onto life-saving anti-retroviral drugs and provided 8 million bed nets to protect children from malaria.
Outstanding human achievements. Counterintuitive. Historic. Be very, very proud.
But here's the bad news. From charity to justice, the good news is yet to come. There is much more to do. There's a gigantic chasm between the scale of the emergency and the scale of the response.
And finally, it's not about charity after all, is it? It's about justice.
Let me repeat that: It's not about charity, it's about justice.
And that's too bad.
Because you're good at charity. Americans, like the Irish, are good at it. We like to give, and we give a lot, even those who can't afford it.
But justice is a higher standard. Africa makes a fool of our idea of justice; it makes a farce of our idea of equality. It mocks our pieties, it doubts our concern, it questions our commitment.
Sixty-five hundred Africans are still dying every day of a preventable, treatable disease, for lack of drugs we can buy at any drug store. This is not about charity, this is about justice and equality.
Because there's no way we can look at what's happening in Africa and, if we're honest, conclude that deep down, we really accept that Africans are equal to us. Anywhere else in the world, we wouldn't accept it. Look at what happened in South East Asia with the tsunami. 150,000 lives lost to that misnomer of all misnomers, "mother nature." In Africa, 150,000 lives are lost every month. A tsunami every month. And it's a completely avoidable catastrophe.
It's annoying but justice and equality are mates. Aren't they? Justice always wants to hang out with equality. And equality is a real pain.
You know, think of those Jewish sheep-herders going to meet the Pharaoh, mud on their shoes, and the Pharaoh says, "Equal?" A preposterous idea: rich and poor are equal? And they say, "Yeah, 'equal,' that's what it says here in this book. We're all made in the image of God."
And eventually the Pharaoh says, "OK, I can accept that. I can accept the Jews - but not the blacks."
"Not the women. Not the gays. Not the Irish. No way, man."
So on we go with our journey of equality.
On we go in the pursuit of justice.
We hear that call in the ONE Campaign, a growing movement of more than 2 million Americans...Left and Right together... united in the belief that where you live should no longer determine whether you live.
We hear that call even more powerfully today, as we mourn the loss of Coretta Scott King - mother of a movement for equality, one that changed the world but is only just getting started. These issues are as alive as they ever were; they just change shape and cross the seas.
Preventing the poorest of the poor from selling their products while we sing the virtues of the free market...that's a justice issue. Holding children to ransom for the debts of their grandparents...that's a justice issue. Withholding life-saving medicines out of deference to the Office of Patents...that's a justice issue.
And while the law is what we say it is, God is not silent on the subject.
That's why I say there's the law of the land…. And then there is a higher standard. There's the law of the land, and we can hire experts to write them so they benefit us, so the laws say it's OK to protect our agriculture but it's not OK for African farmers to do the same, to earn a living?
As the laws of man are written, that's what they say.
God will not accept that.
Mine won't, at least. Will yours?
[ pause]
I close this morning on...very...thin...ice.
This is a dangerous idea I've put on the table: my God vs. your God, their God vs. our God...vs. no God. It is very easy, in these times, to see religion as a force for division rather than unity.
And this is a town - Washington - that knows something of division.
But the reason I am here, and the reason I keep coming back to Washington, is because this is a town that is proving it can come together on behalf of what the scriptures call the least of these.
This is not a Republican idea. It is not a Democratic idea. It is not even, with all due respect, an American idea. Nor it is unique to any one faith.
'Do to others as you would have them do to you' (Luke 6:30). Jesus says that.
'Righteousness is this: that one should...give away wealth out of love for him to the near of kin and the orphans and the needy and the wayfarer and the beggars and for the emancipation of the captives.' The Koran says that (2.177).
Thus sayeth the Lord: 'Bring the homeless poor into the house, when you see the naked, cover him, then your light will break out like the dawn and your recovery will speedily spring fourth, then your Lord will be your rear guard.' The Jewish scripture says that. Isaiah 58 again.
That is a powerful incentive: 'The Lord will watch your back.' Sounds like a good deal to me, right now.
A number of years ago, I met a wise man who changed my life. In countless ways, large and small, I was always seeking the Lord's blessing. I was saying, you know, I have a new song, look after it…. I have a family, please look after them…. I have this crazy idea...
And this wise man said: stop.
He said, stop asking God to bless what you're doing.
Get involved in what God is doing - because it's already blessed.
Well, God, as I said, is with the poor. That, I believe, is what God is doing.
And that is what he's calling us to do.
I was amazed when I first got to this country and I learned how much some churchgoers tithe. Up to 10% of the family budget. Well, how does that compare with the federal budget, the budget for the entire American family? How much of that goes to the poorest people in the world? Less than 1%.
Mr. President, Congress, people of faith, people of America:
I want to suggest to you today that you see the flow of effective foreign assistance as tithing.... Which, to be truly meaningful, will mean an additional 1% of the federal budget tithed to the poor.
What is 1%?
1% is not merely a number on a balance sheet.
1% is the girl in Africa who gets to go to school, thanks to you. 1% is the AIDS patient who gets her medicine, thanks to you. 1% is the African entrepreneur who can start a small family business thanks to you. 1% is not redecorating presidential palaces or money flowing down a rat hole. This 1% is digging waterholes to provide clean water.
1% is a new partnership with Africa, not paternalism toward Africa, where increased assistance flows toward improved governance and initiatives with proven track records and away from boondoggles and white elephants of every description.
America gives less than 1% now. We're asking for an extra 1% to change the world. to transform millions of lives - but not just that and I say this to the military men now - to transform the way that they see us.
1% is national security, enlightened economic self-interest, and a better, safer world rolled into one. Sounds to me that in this town of deals and compromises, 1% is the best bargain around.
These goals - clean water for all; school for every child; medicine for the afflicted, an end to extreme and senseless poverty - these are not just any goals; they are the Millennium Development goals, which this country supports. And they are more than that. They are the Beatitudes for a globalised world.
Now, I'm very lucky. I don't have to sit on any budget committees. And I certainly don't have to sit where you do, Mr. President. I don't have to make the tough choices.
But I can tell you this:
To give 1% more is right. It's smart. And it's blessed.
There is a continent - Africa - being consumed by flames.
I truly believe that when the history books are written, our age will be remembered for three things: the war on terror, the digital revolution, and what we did - or did not to - to put the fire out in Africa.
History, like God, is watching what we do.
Thank you. Thank you, America, and God bless you all.

The brotherhood 

So I was reading yesterday...

at Chili's. That's right Chilis. I needed to get out of the office for a while to stir up the creative juices. There's nothing like being around people to get me thinking. So the book I'm reading is "Millennium Matrix." It's a book that examines the expression of faith and belief as influenced by the culture of the day. Interesting read. But anyhow, it got me thinking about my church and how we express our faith. Here's the question that's rattling around in my head. "What is our community narrative?" In other words, what story are we telling? What identity are we forming? What are we promising the people around us by our presence?

I'm not sure of the answer to all of those questions. In fact, many might disagree. But I know what I want it to be. Over the next few days I'm going to answer those questions. Feel free to offer your own thoughts and opinions.

Abs