Tag Archives: Paradigm

Chapter-a-Day

Spiritual Toddlers in an Adult World

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In this way you are to set the Levites apart from the other Israelites, and the Levites will be mine.
Numbers 8:14 (NIV)

In the tradition I was raised, the Reverend of our church was treated as a special class of spiritual person. He dressed different. He wore robes on Sunday. He was the only one allowed to serve Communion. His pulpit was the highest point in the Sanctuary so that he was elevated above us. Everything in the pomp and pageantry of the “high church” tradition wordlessly affirmed that he was spiritually upper-class compared to us every day working class sinners in the pews.

The entire paradigm of the “Priestly class system” is rooted in the Great Story. It’s what today’s chapter is all about. God establishes that if the holy Creator of the universe is going to be present in their midst in His traveling tent temple then they are going to have to understand that God ’s holiness is so overwhelmingly pure and powerful that it’s fatal to a normal, sinful human being. Therefore, everything God has arranged in this system of sacrifices, offerings, cleansing, and purification is established to both protect God’s people and to teach them. Aaron’s sons were the priests, and the only ones allowed inside God’s tent Temple. Even then, inside the tent was a thick curtain. Behind that curtain was the “Most Holy Place.” That’s where the Ark of God’s presence was. Only the high priest could enter the Most Holy Place behind the curtain, and even then it was a special ceremony held once a year for a special systemic purpose. The tribe of Levites were helpers to the priests and caretakers of the tent temple, but they couldn’t offer sacrifices or enter the tent. They were like a hedge of protection between the fatally pure power of God’s holy presence and the people.

The priests and the Levites were a spiritually special class in that system.

I have been constantly repeating that these events and God’s newly established relationship with humanity through the Hebrew people is the toddler stages of human development. In natural circumstances, humans don’t remain toddlers forever. We grow. We mature. Our relationship with our parents also matures and changes.

Fast forward thousands of years. God sends Jesus, His one and only Son, to become the once-and-for-all sacrifice. At the moment of Jesus’ sacrificial death, the curtain in the Temple was split from top-to-bottom. The same curtain that divided God’s presence from the people.

As Bob Dylan put it, “The times they are a changin’.”

Before, God’s presence was behind the curtain and there were priests to go into God’s presence on humanity’s behalf. Now, God tore down the curtain, poured out His Spirit to be present in the heart of every believer. Priests no longer necessary. Every believer, one with God and God’s Spirit dwelling within them, is now made holy.

“And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” Hebrews 10:10 (NIV)

Peter goes on to explain that together, all believers make up a “royal priesthood.” Writing to all believers scattered abroad by early persecution, he writes:

“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” 1 Peter 2:9 (NIV)

Every believer is a Most Holy Place, God’s Spirit dwelling within. The Kingdom of God going out wherever I go. I take it with me. My job, no matter how menial, is now a ministry as “whatever I do, I do all to the glory of God.”

At least, that’s what it says in the Great Story after Jesus’ death and resurrection, and after Pentecost. But, I’ve observed that we human beings don’t much like change. Plus, there’s still an enemy, the Prince of this World, who is motivated to keep believers from realizing the power of God’s presence in their lives and their Kingdom responsibilities. Thus, I’ve observed that we like the old toddler traditions like the tradition in which I was raised. Even both Peter and Paul recognized that believers were slow to grow into this understanding. Both of them used the metaphor of believers being like toddlers sucking on their bottles when they should be adults eating solid food at the table.

Please don’t read what I’m not writing. I appreciate and embrace all of the spiritual metaphors that exist in high church traditions. I don’t think they’re wrong. But metaphors are layered with meaning. The metaphors of the high church tradition in which I was raised communicated spiritual lessons that were part of the old spiritual paradigm of the Levites, not the new spiritual paradigm of the priesthood of all believers. I had to spiritually mature to discern the difference.

Granted, it’s simple and easy to believer there’s a special person, a special class of spiritual persons, who provide a protective hedge between God and us every day working sinners. They take care of being holy for us. They handle the holy God stuff while I just sit in the pew with no expectations other than showing up and asking forgiveness for my sinful self. It may not be intended that way, but in practice I’ve consistently observed that it’s the way things play out in the mind of most church members. And, perhaps that’s the crux of the issue. If I’m simply a church member and I’m not a believer, then there is still, spiritually, a big thick curtain between me and God.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

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Chapter-a-Day

Humanity’s Spiritual Graduation

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On the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Where do you want us to make preparations for you to eat the Passover?”
Matthew 26:17 (NIV)

On our kitchen island downstairs is a stack of graduation announcements and corresponding cards that are waiting for me. It is the annual celebration of young people’s rite of passage known as commencement. It’s a celebration of academic completion, but it is more than that. Whether going on for more school or going off into the world to start working, it typically marks a departure from home and the beginning of a young person’s independent life journey.

Immediately before starting this chapter-a-day trek through Matthew’s version of Jesus’ story in March, we had just completed a journey through the ancient Hebrew priestly manual of Leviticus. Several times in that series I made reference to God’s leading the Hebrews out of slavery in Egypt and starting something new. It was a new way of living together in community with God, who placed Himself in a tent at the center of the Hebrew camp. Leviticus gave instructions for a series of festivals, none bigger than Passover, an annual celebration of God miraculously and graciously delivering the Hebrews from their slavery in Egypt. An event that had just happened when Leviticus was given through Moses.

It is no coincidence that the events of Jesus crucifixion and resurrection occur during the festival of Passover. It is no coincidence that Jesus establishes the sacrament of Communion during the annual Passover meal know as the Seder.

The two events connect.

Many times in the journey through Leviticus I mentioned that God was relating to humanity in the toddler stages of development. Just as God was doing something new with the establishment of Passover in the book of Leviticus, God is starting something new during this Passover celebration. Humanity has developed since Leviticus. A whole bunch of life has happened from wilderness wanderings to conquest, a period of judges, the establishment of an earthly kingdom for God’s twelve tribes that ended in divorce and civil war. Then there was a period of strife and exile followed by a period of return and restoration. It’s been a tumultuous childhood.

I think of Jesus’ death and resurrection much like graduation in our culture. For humanity, it was a rite of passage out of spiritual childhood and into spiritual adulthood. The black-and-white rules a parent lays down with a toddler don’t work with a high school senior. We have graduated from very explicit rules about not having sex animals or family members to Jesus’ teaching spiritual principles like making God’s kingdom your priority knowing that God will take care of your daily needs. The old lessons remain, the principles that lie within them are still relevant, but now the emerging adult must willfully choose to apply those principles for themselves in spiritually mature ways as they navigate life in the world on their own.

Jesus will leave His children 40 days after the resurrection. He will ascend to heaven and they will begin life on earth without His physical presence, though His spiritual presence will be readily available through Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, God is doing something new. It is a rite of passage. This Passover meal is a spiritual commencement. The bread, wine, and sacrificial lamb of the Passover Seder are transformed into the body and blood of the Lamb of God who will take away the sins of the world. Death will be defeated once and for all. Jesus Himself says it is a “new covenant.”

Everything is connected.

In the quiet this morning, I’m thinking about those young people whose graduation cards sit down in the kitchen. Oh, the places they’ll go in life.

I’m also thinking about a message I’m giving on Sunday in which I’m going to contrast “life-giving freedom” Jesus prescribes for His disciples and the “human legalism.” It is not uncommon for we humans to cling to toddler-like systems. Children never spiritually (and sometimes physically) leave. Elders continue to rule with black-and-white fundamentals and control the system through shame and fear. But that was never Jesus’ paradigm. He launched His disciples despite the fact that in today’s chapter it would seem they weren’t really ready for the task.

I don’t want to be a spiritual toddler my entire life. I want to be a healthy and productive spiritual grown up.

[cue: Pomp and Circumstance]

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!
Chapter-a-Day

Amidst the Conflict

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Amidst the Conflict (CaD Matt 12) – Wayfarer

“Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.”
Matthew 12:32 (NIV)

My heart is heavy and sad this morning. I have recently found myself in the midst of many conflicts. I don’t like conflict. I confess that I don’t do it particularly well. I happen to be married to an Enneagram Type 8 for whom conflict is a form of intimacy. I, as an Enneagram Type 4, find that conflict triggers my deep sense of shame. It means we’ve had to learn some creative dance moves when it comes to conflict.

The conflict I’ve been experiencing lately is not with Wendy, however. It’s not really even with me. It’s within a human system of which I’m a part. Members of that system are drowning in negativity toward others. When I have to be around it I’m left feeling like my soul is soiled. It’s like I crave a spiritual and emotional shower. Even if I take one, I’m left with an acute sense of sadness as I’m drying off.

Perhaps it’s a bit of synchronicity that today’s chapter is focused on the conflict between Jesus and his most caustic critics. Ironically, it was the institutional religious establishment who led the opposition to Jesus. The Pharisees, in particular, were a powerful political constituency in the leadership of the Hebrew religious system of that day. Matthew offers a trinity (there’s that number three again from Matthew the Quirk) of episodes highlighting the conflict. Matthew focuses on the religious leaders motives:

“But the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus.”

“But when the Pharisees heard [that Jesus healed a demon possessed man], they said, “It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this fellow drives out demons.”

“Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, ‘Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.'”

What Matthew makes obvious is that there was zero openness to Jesus’ teaching. They viewed Jesus as a threat. He was a wrench in the human religious system they controlled; A system that was the source of their personal power. Everything they did was motivated by a self-centered desire to maintain personal control of the system that fed their ego, social status, and religious self-righteousness. Theirs was a system of exclusivity and strict adherence to social, cultural, and traditional norms. Jesus was an outsider. He didn’t fit any of the norms, and He possessed both power and authority that threatened them. Whenever a fundamentalist system built on exclusivity encounters such as threat, it will always circle the wagons and declare the threat evil.

What struck me this morning as I read these three episodes is the contrast between Jesus’ actions and teachings and the reactions of his enemies. His disciples, hungry, simply and casually slid their hands over heads of grain as they walked through the field in order to have a snack. A man with a hand shriveled and disfigured is miraculously healed. A demon-possessed man is freed from the evil that had captured and kidnapped his body and soul.

These are all good things.

Jesus’ enemies declares them all evil.

In the midst of Jesus’ response, He famously mentions that there is one sin that is unforgivable, and that is to “speak against” the Holy Spirit. What does that mean? It means exactly what His opponents are doing. To look at something good and call it evil. To oppose what God is doing with selfish motives. To exclude those whom God loves and in whom God is working for personal gain and self-satisfaction.

Which brings me back to my sadness. The personal attacks. The whispered, salacious accusations. The threats used as systemic leverage. I’m reminded this morning that Jesus’ death and resurrection did not change evil. For now, evil remains and perpetuates the same systemic paradigms that Jesus faced in today’s chapter. What Jesus’ death and resurrection did change is me. As a disciple of Jesus, I am called to navigate, be present, and participate in broken human systems and the evil I find within them in order to bring the power and presence of God’s love and shalom as I best as I am able.

I confess that most of the time I don’t want to do so.

Did I mention that I hate conflict?

In the quiet this morning, God’s Spirit whispers to my spirit: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” I guess that means following Him into unhealthy human systems in which evil wreaks havoc and perpetuates conflict.

The words of an old hymn rise from the memory banks in reply as I contemplate Holy Week next week, and as I think about Good Friday in seven days:

King of my life, I crown thee now.
Thine shall the glory be.
Lest I forget thy thorn-crowned brow
Lead me to Calvary.
Lest I forget Gethsemane.
Lest I forget Thine agony.
Lest I forget thy love for me,
Lead me to Calvary.

Speaking of Holy Week, I’m going to take next week off. I’ll be back after Resurrection Day. Cheers!

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!
Chapter-a-Day

No Exemptions

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No Exemptions (CaD Lev 17) – Wayfarer

“Say to them: ‘Any Israelite or any foreigner residing among them who offers a burnt offering or sacrifice and does not bring it to the entrance to the tent of meeting to sacrifice it to the Lord must be cut off from the people of Israel.
Leviticus 17:19 (NIV)

A lot has changed in the last 40 years. I among the last of those who will remember growing up in a world without personal computers and smart phones. I have so many great memories of spending entire summers outside with friends, neighborhood kids playing games, and just making up stuff to do. I rode my bike everywhere, including places I wasn’t necessarily supposed to be, just to explore my world. Then there were entire days at the swimming pool. The only screen my family had was a giant console television in the living room. There were a total of four channels to choose from for most of my childhood. I was excited when it rose to five somewhere along the line.

The dawn of the Technology Age changed life drastically. As with all such revolutionary changes in history, the progress comes with fallout. Jonathan Haidt and his team at AfterBabel have been on the forefront of studying and calling out the negative effects that smartphones and screens have had on our children. AI has prompted legislation regarding the creation and publication of fake nude or pornographic photos/videos of individuals which can instantly destroy a person’s life and reputation once they are publicly available on the internet. Technology has also afforded governments the ability to electronically freeze a person out of their bank account with a click and without a court order. When the prophet Dylan sang The Times They are a Changin’ I’m not sure he had any idea how prophetic his lyrics would be beyond his own generation and within his own lifetime.

I have also seen the massive changes in institutional churches. The Technology Age and the cultural shifts in its wake have seen the fracturing and implosion of all the mainline denominations who held sway over lives, churches, colleges, and communities for centuries. Here in rural America, countless country churches have closed their doors. My own local congregation, once a mainline denominational stalwart, has found itself an independent gathering of believers from an incredibly diverse spectrum of denominational backgrounds and traditions. This is forcing our gathering to reconsider everything that many comfortably believed and traditionally experienced in their weekly worship their entire lives. Everything I’ve just described may sound doom and gloom, but I actually see the hand of God in it. The entire Great Story is about a cycle of life, death, and new life. Old things pass away, and new things come. Something is being spiritually born again on a corporate community level, and I’ve been watching it happen in real time. That excites me.

Everything we’ve been reading in our chapter-a-day journey through Leviticus is as equally revolutionary for the Hebrew people as the Technology Age has been for the entire world. For centuries the Hebrew tribes had been doing pretty much whatever they wanted to do, however they wanted to do it. There was no set sacrificial or religious system other than traditions that had been passed down, and that might have looked different from one family to another. Now, the God of their fathers is in their midst. He showed up, made Himself known, delivered them from slavery, and He is always present in His traveling tent temple at the center of their camp. Leviticus is His guide for life and sacrifice.

In today’s chapter, God prohibits old ways of sacrifice. In some cases, Hebrews were making sacrifices to God on their own, in their own way, however they’d chosen to do it. In other cases, people made sacrifices to other gods who they’d learned about in Egypt or other cultures.

That was then. This is now. The Times They are a Changin’. God has told His people how He wants offerings and sacrifices done in His presence at His tent. He is creating a unified people who will be His representatives to the nations of the world. All sacrifices and offerings come to Him, and Him alone at the entrance to His tent. No exemptions.

In the quiet this morning, I see echoes of the same revolutionary recreation that Jesus prompted in His teaching, death, and resurrection. He radically changed the paradigm. The temple that replaced the tent was destroyed. He sent His Spirit to indwell every individual who believes and receives, making our very own bodies His temple. No longer do we go to a central location to be with God, we take God with us wherever we go. In addition, Jesus distilled all of God’s commands that we’re reading about in to two essential regulations. I am to love God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, and I am to love others as I love myself. In the same spirit as today’s chapter, there are no exemptions. I am not exempt from loving others. I can’t go along with most of it and then have this little hatred, prejudice, or animosity on the side. Loving God means forgiving others as God has forgiven me. There are no exemptions because Jesus claimed no exemptions when His love compelled Him to willingly suffer and die for every human being.

In my spiritual journey I have had to embrace the truth that whenever I hate another person or refuse to forgive another person, I diminish and profane what Jesus did on the cross. What He did on the cross He did for me and the person I hate, judge, and condemn. My hatred, judgement, and condemnation is essentially me, in my pride, making myself god and pronouncing judgment instead of surrendering myself to Him.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!
Chapter-a-Day

Popes & High Priests

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Popes & High Priests (CaD Lk 20) – Wayfarer

One day as Jesus was teaching the people in the temple courts and proclaiming the good news, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, together with the elders, came up to him. “Tell us by what authority you are doing these things,” they said. “Who gave you this authority?”
Luke 20:1-2 (NIV)

I’ve been fascinated of late reading about the intrigue at the Vatican. The Pope recently defrocked one of the powerful Vatican Cardinals of the Roman Catholic church and accused him of embezzlement. He also met with an American Cardinal and stripped him of his apartment and privileges. Just weeks ago, the Pope fired the entire leadership team of the church’s worldwide charity arm because of a toxic work environment. Sounds like the Pope has his hands full.

I’m not Roman Catholic, but as an amateur historian, I’ve always been fascinated with it. Think about it. The Roman Church is a nation. In fact, it is technically still an empire. The 177 million acres of land it owns around the globe is second only to the British Empire. The Vatican Bank has over 8 billion dollars in assets.

Today’s chapter got me thinking about the Roman Church. Herod’s Temple in Jerusalem was not unlike the Vatican for Roman Catholics. The Hebrew religious system was vast, politically powerful, and rich. Millions visited the temple each year from all over the known world to offer sacrifices and offerings. The temple had its own currency which drove the need for the money changers Jesus famously drove out. The sacrificial system was big business. And, just like the Pope and Cardinals, the temple system had a High Priest and Sanhedrin.

Throughout Jesus’ ministry, He has operated outside of this system. Other than making a few dutiful pilgrimages to Jerusalem in His three years of ministry, His operations were far north of Jerusalem in the region of Galilee. Jesus has no earthly authority. He has no standing. He doesn’t hold a title, sit on any committees, or wear a funny hat. And while His ministry certainly gained popularity for performing miracles no one had ever seen, He was also popular for not being what the corporate religious system of His day had become.

There are three main characters at this point in the story of Jesus’ final week. There’s Jesus, the leadership of the Hebrew political and religious system, and the crowds. Twice in today’s chapter, Luke states that the power brokers of the temple and Hebrew religious system were afraid of the crowds. Their public approval ratings weren’t high, and Jesus’ constant criticism of them was a threat to them. If Jesus incited a riot it would unleash the wrath of Rome to quell the mob and keep the peace. That would cramp both their political power and their flow of revenue. When religion becomes big business, it becomes just another kingdom of this world with all the corruption and intrigue that comes with it. Just ask the Pope.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself attracted to the way Jesus’ model of living, teaching, and loving stands in such stark contrast to the corporate religious system that killed Him to protect itself. It was small, personal, and reflected the very things He taught. That’s what attracts me just as it attracted the crowds of everyday people who followed him. As a disciple of Jesus, I have this increasing desire to mold my own faith, life, and ministry in the same model. I want to carry out His mission in small and personal ways. The further I have progressed in my spiritual journey, the more comfortable I’ve become working outside of corporate religious systems.

I enter today with a heart’s desire to love the people I will interact with today well, and a heart full of gratitude that I’m not the Pope.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Kingdom and Empire

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Kingdom and Empire (CaD Jer 50) – Wayfarer

For I will stir up and bring against Babylon
    an alliance of great nations from the land of the north.
They will take up their positions against her,
    and from the north she will be captured.
Their arrows will be like skilled warriors
    who do not return empty-handed.
Jeremiah 50:9 (NIV)

Human history is, at a glance, the story of one conquest after another. Families became tribes. Tribes became nations. Nations became empires. Empires rise and fall. That, in a nutshell, is the Great Story from Genesis through the fall of Jerusalem that Jeremiah predicted. It starts with Abraham having a family. The family grows into the twelve tribes. God delivers them from slavery in Egypt and makes them into a nation. Under King David and Solomon they became a regional empire. As with most empires, a combination of internal implosion and external enemies lead to decline and defeat at the hands of the next emerging empire.

We are nearing the end of the voluminous compilation of Jeremiah’s prophetic messages. For 49 chapters the prophet has been proclaiming the defeat and exile of his own people at the hands of what he referred to early on as a “nation from the north” and later revealed to be the emerging Babylonian empire. Now, at the very end of his prophetic works, Jeremiah turns the tables 180 degrees.

In today’s chapter it is Babylon who receives God’s prophetic word of doom. This time it is the Babylonians who will fall to an alliance of nations from the north (i.e. the Medes and Persians). And, while Jeremiah proclaims this event from afar, the prophet Daniel is present in Babylon for the event as God presents the Babylonian regent with the literal handwriting on the wall (see Daniel 5) as Babylon falls to the invaders and a new empire takes over.

I found myself mulling this over in the quiet this morning.

Amidst the prophecy against Babylon, God reminds His people in exile of the promise He’s been making to them all along. A remnant will return to Jerusalem. Jerusalem will be rebuilt. The temple will be rebuilt. Out of her a messiah will emerge as Jeremiah prophesied back in chapter 23.

What a contrast Jesus was to the human history of empire building. He came, not as earthly monarch, but as the King of Heaven. “My kingdom is not of this world,” He told Pilate. The paradigm He gave His followers was antithetical to human empire building. His paradigm was for a radical love to change the heart of an individual. The individual then spreads that radical love to change the hearts of others in their spheres of influence. The love spreads exponentially and begins to change communities, tribes, and nations from the inside out. The Jesus Movement of the first century rocked the Roman Empire with this paradigm.

Then, in what I consider to have been a brilliant chess move by the evil one, whom Jesus referred to as the Prince of this World, he gave control of the Empire itself to the Jesus Movement. Slowly, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and humans turned the Movement into another human empire, just like we always seem to do throughout history.

I also thought this morning about the prophetic end of the Great Story that was laid out for John in his Revelations. It ends with the Prince of this World and all the nations of the world, the human empires, lined up against the King of Heaven.

And, I think that’s a macrocosm of the spiritual journey as a follower of Jesus. Jesus asks me, as an individual, to turn away from the human way of doing things, the rat-race of wealth and earthly success, the dynamics of power and personal empire building. Jesus wants me to live with radical love, extravagant generosity, and a servant-hearted kindness to others, even my enemies who want to roll over me with their own power-plays and personal empires.

In the end, Jeremiah reminds me that what goes around comes around. Empires rise, they fall, and other empires emerge on this earth.

Or, as U2 put it:

Kingdoms rise, and kingdoms fall,
but You go on,
and on,
and on,
and on…

Personally, I want to be part of a Kingdom that’s not of this world.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

God in (and Out of) a Box

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God In (and Out of) a Box (CaD 1 Sam 5) – Wayfarer

…the following morning when [the Philistines] rose, there was [their god] Dagon, fallen on his face on the ground before the ark of the Lord! His head and hands had been broken off and were lying on the threshold; only his body remained. That is why to this day neither the priests of Dagon nor any others who enter Dagon’s temple at Ashdod step on the threshold.
1 Samuel 5:4-5 (NIV)

For many years, I’ve had an idea for a book about the things the contemporary church continues to get wrong. If I ever do write this book, one of the chapters would be about church buildings themselves. From an early age, I was taught to treat a church building as a sacred space. The church building was and sometimes is, referred to as God’s house or the house of God.

In yesterday’s post/podcast I spoke of treating God like a good luck charm. I like to think of our perception of church buildings as God’s House as the notion of “God in a box.”

The problem with believing the church building is “God’s house” is, of course, that Jesus was very clear that He was changing the paradigm. In His conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus addressed her question about the “right” place to worship God by saying, “…believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem...a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.“

Jesus doubled down on this when He and the disciples were leaving the Temple in Jerusalem. His disciples commented on the magnificent Temple and Jesus replied that it was all going to be reduced to rubble, and it was just 40 years later.

Jesus’ taught that the “church” was not bricks and mortar but flesh and blood. When the Jesus Movement was changing the known world in the first two centuries, it had no churches or temples, no basilicas or cathedrals. The “church” was millions of followers who met, almost clandestinely, in people’s homes. It was only when the church became the Holy Roman Empire that the institution decided that God needed opulent cathedrals. The motivation wasn’t divine. It’s what human institutions do to centralize power and control masses of people. Jesus’ successful paradigm was that of Spirit-filled people loving, serving, and sharing in every home, neighborhood, and business. God was released from a box and carried by flesh-and-blood “temples” everywhere in the world. Jesus was wherever His followers happened to be. In Jesus’ paradigm “sacred space” was now the coffee shop, the office, the home, the pub, the park; It was wherever a believer, filled with Spirit and Truth was physically present in the moment. This is what Jesus meant when He said, “Wherever two or three of you are together, I’m there, too.”

The Holy Roman Empire put God back in a box. Then they made sure that only an institutionally educated and approved class of elites were qualified to be God’s representatives. Way too many people still believe that God is confined in the building on the corner and that only educated men in robes represent Him.

Today’s chapter is also about “God in a box.” The Ark of the Covenant was literally a box that represented God’s presence among the Hebrew people. The Hebrews reduced the notion of God’s holy presence to a good luck charm that would secure victory. They were defeated and the box was taken by the Philistines who put the Ark in the sacred space of their patron god, Dagon, underneath Dagon’s statue. Mesopotamian peoples routinely saw battles as not just contests between peoples, but contests between deities. The Hebrews’ God was now subject to Dagon.

But, God will never be contained inside a box of human design. The statue of Dagon fell, its head and hands breaking off. This was significant because heads, hands, and limbs were often cut-off and brought home by victorious armies as proof of victory and as a way of tallying up the body count. It was an omen the Philistines would have instantly understood. There was also a plague of tumors that broke out among the Philistines, which is ironically the outcome God warned His own people about in Deuteronomy 28, should they stray from His ways.

In the quiet this morning, I’m reminded that if I truly believe what Jesus taught, then my home office where I’m writing/recording these words is sacred space because God’s Spirit indwells me. I take Him with me everywhere I go today. God’s temple isn’t a building, it’s my body, and that should change my perspective on everything in my daily life.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

A Die-Hard Tradition

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A Die-Hard Tradition (CaD Heb 4) – Wayfarer

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
Hebrews 4:14-16 (NIV)

Priest (prēst) n. : Someone who is authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and God.

I’m wading into some deeper weeds today, but it’s something that has been important for me to understand in my spiritual journey, and it’s understanding the concept of a priest. A priest is a human mediator, go-between, or intermediary between another human being and God. A human goes to a priest to receive sacraments, confess sins, and be absolved of sin. The priest is a spiritual gatekeeper between the average joe member and almighty God. “Priests” have been a traditional part of religion forever. Growing up, the only “priests” I knew about were Roman Catholic.

The first time I remember stepping into a Roman Catholic church I was about 24 years old. I was there for the funeral of a young person who had taken his own life. In the years of my childhood, there were still small remnants of centuries-old antagonism between Catholics and Protestants. I remember that most towns had separate graveyards for Catholics and Protestants. I remember lectures from fundamentalist professors damning all Catholics to hell, which I found to be silly.

I was actually fascinated by the Catholic funeral that day and the rituals I witnessed for the first time. I was moved by the imagery. My study of the history, traditions, and theology of the Roman Catholic church has led me to a wide range of emotions from great appreciation to rage to honor and to sorrow. To be honest, I can say the same of Protestant denominations, as well. Human institutions are all human systems and are therefore given to the tragic failings of human beings and our nature. My observation has been that Roman Catholics make priests an official part of their system, while Protestants say they don’t have priests before treating their pastors as if they are exactly that.

For the Hebrew people who were first-century followers of Jesus, the priestly paradigm was a cornerstone of their religion for over a thousand years. The system God set up through Moses had a high priest who was the only human who could enter the “most holy place” of God’s presence in the temple. Only descendants of Aaron (Moses’ right-hand man) could be priests. It was an exclusive class of individuals who stood between the average human and God.

In today’s chapter, the author of the letter to early Jewish followers of Jesus is starting to address a huge paradigm shift in this priestly tradition. It’s going to continue to come up in upcoming chapters, and it has tremendous spiritual implications, so it’s important for a 21st reader to understand. Four times so far, the author has referred to Jesus as “high priest” and what the author is saying in today’s chapter is that Jesus was God come to earth, who was tempted but didn’t sin. Any believer can go directly to Jesus in our time of need, He understands our human struggles and will extend mercy (He won’t hold our sin against us) and grace (favor we don’t deserve).

In the quiet this morning, I find this simple truth so powerful. No more human mediators are required. Any believer can seek Jesus directly, access Jesus directly, confess our sins directly, and receive forgiveness, mercy, and grace directly. Why? Because my body is God’s temple and God’s Spirit lives in me. Because this is true of every believer, Peter says that every one of Jesus’ followers belongs to a “royal priesthood” (In Jewish history the monarchy and priesthood were separated, but Jesus unites the two as both king & priest). Paul wrote to Timothy: “For there is one God and one mediator between God and humanity, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people.”

So, according to the author of Hebrews, according to Peter, and according to Paul, no other human priest is required as a go-between a human being and Christ Jesus Himself. Yet, some institutions and denominations continue the practice based on tradition.

I’ve observed along my life journey that human traditions die hard.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Version 2.0

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Version 2.0 (CaD Heb 3) – Wayfarer

“Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house,” bearing witness to what would be spoken by God in the future. But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house. And we are his house…
Hebrews 3:5-6 (NIV)

When I was trained as an actor in college, I was taught that I won’t really portray my character well unless I truly understand that character. This includes learning everything about my character’s life and background. When I played Daddy Warbucks in Annie, I did a lot of study into New York at the time of the play complete with maps and photos to locate and picture what it looked like. I looked up every person, place, and thing referenced in the script. I even made choices about Daddy Warbucks’ own life story, things that weren’t known or referenced, in order to better understand his life, his character, and how he relates to other characters and events on stage. I looked up what kind of Limo he would have had, what life was like for a business and social elite in the stock market crash and during the Great Depression.

Okay, stick with me here.

In my experience, the book of Hebrews, also known as The Letter to the Hebrews, is one of the least read and studied in what we call the New Testament. And, I understand why. The author (who wrote Hebrews has been hotly contested since the Reformation). is writing to a very specific audience (Jewish/Hebrew followers of Jesus) at a very specific point in time (the first century as the Jesus movement was rapidly growing), with a very specific purpose (to explain how/why Jesus changes everything for the Hebrew people).

Because of this, a casual 21st-century reader fails to understand much of the letter, how crucial it was to those reading it, and how important it is in fully understanding how Jesus fit into the larger Great Story.

Sometimes I apply my actor’s training in character study to my reading of texts like Hebrews. I learn about what life was like for a Hebrew believer in the first century. What I discovered is that, when I read the text wearing those sandals, Jesus has radically transformed everything I was raised to believe.

I was taught that the Temple in Jerusalem is the center of my religion and worship. Jesus is telling me I, my body, is the Temple.

I was taught that there are certain foods that are clean, and other foods that are unclean. Jesus is telling me that all foods are now clean.

I was taught to make regular, ritual sacrifices at the Temple so my sins would be forgiven. Jesus is telling me that the entire sacrificial system is now on the scrap-heap of history and that Jesus was the once-and-for-all sacrifice that forgives my sins and makes me holy.

I was taught that the Hebrew people were God’s chosen people and everyone else should be ignored and shunned because they’ll make me unclean in God’s eyes. And, if I’m honest, I’ve been taught to be smug about this. Jesus is telling me that I’m to love, accept, and be in relationship with all people regardless of their nationality, race, gender, social standing, or religious background. I’m to love those I’ve been forever taught to hate.

All of a sudden, I begin to understand why Hebrews was such an essentially needed text for these Jewish believers. The author is helping me bridge the radical paradigm gap. He is helping me understand how to wrap my head and spirit around what seems like such extreme changes to what I have lived, breathed, learned, known, and practiced my entire life.

For this first-century Hebrew transformed into Jesus’ follower, Moses has been forever held up as the key figure in the history of my faith. Through Moses, the Law was given (all the rules that dictated my life). Through Moses, the sacrificial system, the tent/temple-centered worship, and the arrangement of priests as God’s go-betweens were instituted.

In today’s chapter, the author of Hebrews is explaining that Jesus, who is the author and creator of Moses and the old system, is a higher authority of Moses. Jesus isn’t denying Moses, the Law, and the system that has been in place for over a thousand years. Jesus, the original programmer and author of the code, is finally introducing a massive upgrade to Version 2.0. Most of us know how it feels when our familiar old, foundational, software gets upgraded and suddenly everything is different. That’s what the audience of Hebrews was feeling. That, on steroids.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself thinking about the changes I have experienced as a follower of Jesus in my 40+ year journey. The pomp, main-line, high-church ritual, and corporate worship of my childhood upbringing feel ancient to me now. At times, it is the source of sentimental nostalgia. At times, I can see in retrospect the spiritual metaphors which were completely lost on me while I was religiously entrenched in it. Yet, Jesus was always about growing, expanding, and transforming. My faith is continually updated as I journey forward and add new layers of both information and experience. I don’t even know what version I’m now! This is the way.

And, that I think that was one of the things I most loved about Daddy Warbucks as I stood in his wing-tips on stage. It was the transformation he makes each performance from his first entrance to his final bow. That’s how I’ve experienced my spiritual journey as a follower of Jesus. When I make this life’s final bow, I will be a completely different version of the person who entered the journey.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

The Presence

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The Presence (CaD Matt 28) – Wayfarer

“And surely I am with you always”
Matthew 28:20 (NIV)

This past weekend our local gathering of Jesus’ followers had what we call Original Works Night (OWN). The auditorium is set up in a coffee house atmosphere and a gallery is set up inside. Throughout the evening people perform their original songs and poems. The gallery is full of paintings, photography, and artwork in various mediums. We even had three musicians who improvised an instrumental piece to end the evening and it was awesome. I’m always blown away by the talent and creativity represented.

It was at an OWN a few years back that a group of children had done a creative project. On blank 3×5 cards, they had written various affirmations and decorated the card. It was set up in a display and attendees could exchange affirmations. You write one yourself, place it in the display, and you got to take an affirmation one of the children made. The affirmation I pulled out was quite simple: “God is with you.” It hangs on my dresser where I see it each morning when I prepare for bed each night.

“God is with you.”

Today’s chapter is the end of Matthew’s biography of Jesus. He leaves us with the resurrected Jesus telling His followers to go to all nations and share His story, making disciples everywhere they go. He then ends with “surely I am with you always.”

Matthew’s account begins with Jesus being the prophesied “Immanuel” which means “God with us.” It ends with “I will be with you always.” As a believer, I believe (and have experienced) there is Oneness between me and God through His indwelling Spirit. Perhaps the most radical paradigm shift Jesus unleashed was that the “temple” was no longer bricks-and-mortar but flesh-and-blood. No longer do I go to a building thinking that I meet God there, pay Him a visit, and hope that He shows up. I am the temple and God is with me always.

This is a basic spiritual truth of being a follower of Jesus and being a believer. It’s one that I observe differentiating those who have, by faith, experienced the transformation of Christ’s indwelling Spirit and those who are simply religious church-goers.

The church building is not God’s house. I am.

Why would I pray for God’s presence? He’s with me always.

About 25 years ago I was going through a stretch of my earthly journey in which I was willfully choosing to make life choices and behave in ways that were completely antithetical to being a Jesus follower. Even then, I was fully aware of God’s presence amidst all of the foolish, rebellious things I was doing. My relationship with God continued and I had regular conversations with God filled with anger and selfishness. That’s the thing I’ve discovered about surrendering my life to Christ and inviting Him in 40 years ago. Even when I choose to “walk away” He goes with me.

“God is with you.”

In the quiet this morning, I am grateful to be in a much better place on life’s road. I’m grateful to be made in the image of the Creator and for the ways that we can express inexpressible truths and experiences through art and creativity, even as children. I’m thankful for one child’s simple artistic affirmation of such an unfathomable spiritual reality.

“God is with you.”

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.