Monday's Meditation: The Color of his Eyes

At the close of William Sampson’s wonderful book, Meeting Jesus, he asks, “What was the color of Jesus’ eyes?”

The literal-minded person will immediately answer, “The Bible doesn’t tell us. We cannot know. At best we can only presume that because Jesus was born to Jewish parents blah, blah, blah.”

Sampson’s answer is more compelling: “No color is mentioned. But they were not colorless, like Little Orphan Annie. They were human eyes. And that they were human and could be looked into like any human eyes can make a big difference in getting to know Jesus.”

It’s like the stuff of a romantic comedy when the unappreciated girl traps the smooth-operating guy with a question as they talk on the phone: “Oh, you think I’m great? Really? What color are my eyes?” Long silence: the smooth operator is busted. He doesn’t really know her, he simply likes the idea of wooing and winning yet another conquest.

Can you imagine looking into the face of Jesus? Have you brought your imagination into the service of following him? In my experience too many Christians are taught to avoid subjective experiences with God.

Sometimes unbelievers grasp the power of imagination and Spirit more freely than cautious believers. In his play Joan of Arc, George Bernard Shaw--an infamous critic of Christianity--depicts a scene where Joan is questioned by church authorities for the heresy of hearing God’s voice. Her critics tell her the voice comes from her imagination, and Joan replies simply, “Of course. That is how the messages of God come to us.”

Joan would still be considered a heretic today, burned at the modern stake of the blogosphere. True, the Bible is our anchor. In the happy phrase of the King James translation it is our “more sure word of prophecy,” yet that implies there are other means of hearing his voice. I believe we were meant to engage the scripture in all the particulars--even the ones not mentioned, right down to the color of his eyes. It does not matter that we get the answer “right.” It matters that we enter into the real world of the scripture. As William Sampson says, “We do not know the particulars of his life, but we know it was filled with particulars . . . Jesus lived out his life as we do--from one concrete setting to another, one choice to another.”

To imagine Jesus in this way is to position ourselves to live from one concrete choice to another with a chance of making the choices Jesus would have us make. For this week’s meditation, can you imagine the color of his eyes? Why not spend some time alone with him and gaze upon his face?

What Makes God's Word Living and Active?

In Monday’s meditation I suggested it’s not enough to read the scripture with our mind, because we are body, soul, and spirit. Hearing God requires all of our being. What makes God’s word “living and active?” I’d like to suggest it’s something more than our intellect.

We’ve explored what it means to bring our imagination to bear in narrative portions of scripture, but what about those didactic letters of Paul and his friends? This is where so many theologians like to live: defining words, developing systematic theology, and generally being the smartest guys in the class. May I speak plainly, and perhaps heretically? I have a basic distrust of systematic theology. I don’t like either word at all. Put them together, I find myself in full rebellion. Count me in the camp with Thomas a Kempis: "I would rather feel contrition than know how to define it."

I want to read the scripture with my heart: engage the Word body, soul, and spirit. I want to love the Lord with all my heart, soul, mind and strength without allowing my intellect to dominate the other three. I joyfully put myself in the camp of emotionalism because the Creator of the universe is never impressed by our intellect, but he is moved by our heart and our faith.

Here is a passage from Paul’s letter to the Colossians:

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. ~ Colossians 3: 12-14

I’d like to suggest five ways to engage this passage imaginatively, and, should I say it? Creatively.

1). There’s a ghost in the book. In fact, the Ghost wrote the book. The first step in imaginative reading is to ask for the Holy Spirit’s help. It’s no mere formality: Paul, Peter or James may have written the New Testament epistles but behind the human agency is the loving heart of God. John, the disciple Jesus loved, wrote these amazing words to his followers: As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. (1 John 2: 27) Amazingly, John was dealing with the issue of false teachers in the church, and his solution was remarkably subjective! The same Spirit that hovered over the waters of creation is available to hover over us as we come to God’s word. Does this mean we are infallible interpreters of the word? No. But it does mean we have a loving guide.

2). Feel the love: this passage in Colossians opens with the description, “God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved.” You may not need to go beyond these seven words. If we are dearly loved, shouldn’t we feel it? One of my friends engaged in this exercise: he sat alone in his office and expressed his love to the Father, then waited for the Father to answer. He quietly spoke the words, “God, I love you” and sat in silence, attending to the Lord. A moment later he felt a subtle physical sensation of God’s presence--a still, small voice or the subtle movement of a draft upon his skin. Too mystical? Too subjective? Perhaps we’ve been trained to avoid the experience of his presence: if the text directs us to the love of God, why wouldn’t he respond lovingly?

3). Clothe yourselves: why not extend the metaphor? He presents us with the image of someone preparing to move from private to public. No one leaves home naked! He invites us to extend the metaphor and see ourselves preparing for the day. How do you get dressed in the morning? What decisions do you make? No one puts on every article of clothing they own, but rather they select the clothing appropriate to the day’s tasks. Infants and toddlers must be clothed by others, Paul calls us to the mature response of clothing ourselves. It takes imagination to extend the metaphor into a practical vision for the day. There, in my prayer closet, I ask in advance: Where do I need to show compassion for the day? What kind of compassion will I need? Compassionate tears or compassionate sweat? How should I dress my heart? How can I prepare to meet the needs of others?

4). Imagine what the text does not say. I know: this is dangerous: every Bible scholar tells us not to make “the argument from silence.” Except I am not coming to the scripture to argue: I’m coming to hear the heart of God. Paul provides a representative list of what we need for life together; compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. But not necessarily intelligence, wit, or smarts. By imagining what is not on the list I understand that character trumps intelligence. That God desires mercy, not education. The Holy Spirit might even remind me that knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.

5). Finally, I’m invited to consider the mysteries of incarnation. As one friend commented on Monday’s Meditation, “I'd say the life in these passages is all from the same source: Jesus. Who is the Word; Who is Love; Who is Life. I think I'll remember this every time I'm thinking, What will I wear? I am putting on Christ.” I love this observation because it started me thinking about what it means to put on Christ each day. I started me wondering how Christ put on his humanity, and whether we can put on divinity in return. In short, it started me thinking of how I can be like him.

Some will think I am against using reason and intellect with the scripture. But I’m truly not. I only want to ensure that what comes into my mind will also travel 12 inches to my heart. How about you?

Four Hopeful Imaginations: How to read the scripture with your heart

The hillside is bathed in golden light as pilgrims walk up the dusty hill. They gather and sit as the Teacher begins to speak. The camera pulls back slowly from the Teacher, revealing a vast multitude of listeners, fixed upon every word of the Sermon on the Mount. Still the camera pulls back. The crowd is very large. There, at the very back of the crowd, at the edge of the desert hillside, one family strains to hear the blessed words.

“Eh? What’d he say?”

“I think it was ‘Blessed are the cheesemakers?’”

“Aha, what's so special about the cheesemakers?“

“Well, obviously it's not meant to be taken literally; it refers to any manufacturers of dairy products.”

Did you ever think about the people in the very back of the crowd, trying to listen to the Sermon on the Mount? John Cleese, Terry Gilliam and four of their friends did, and their imagination grew into this famous scene from The Life of Brian. Such frivolity provides an example of listening to the word of God with our imaginations as well as our intellect. Monday’s Meditation suggested “Godly hope springs from a Biblically informed imagination,” and while some would dispute whether Monty Python qualifies as a Biblically informed imagination, Cleese and the boys will act as our spiritual formation guides today.

I’d like to suggest four ways to engage the inspired text with our imagination.

Imagine the setting: Jesus worked and taught in a real world. He walked real hillsides and felt the heat of the day on his body. The Son of God sweat. He thirsted. One way to hear the word of God anew is to put yourself into the setting. You needn’t be a Biblical archeologist to do so: the important thing is to take the words off the page and wrap yourself in the setting. Monty Python imagined what it must’ve been like for those who found themselves on the edge of the crowd. Their imagination inspired laughter. What could yours inspire?

Join the party: You don’t need an engraved invitation. Come in, sit down, and put yourself in the setting. It does no disrespect to the Biblical narrative to add one more person to the scene. You could be the thirteenth disciple. Or the woman with five husbands. Or the rich young ruler. Dallas Willard observed that one of the first steps in hearing God in the scripture is the ability to recognize that the people of the Bible were real people, no different from you or me. Even the narrative sections of the scripture are addressed to us personally. The trick is to re-create the setting, then accept the invitation to the party.

Stay yourself, be real: Jesus isn’t speaking to other people, he’s speaking to you. Each person who heard the actual words of Jesus was a real person with a real life. This one was fisherman, who thought and responded like a working man. That one was a wife and a mother, who thought and acted in ways very different from a fisherman. If the words of Jesus are truly the word of God, they should speak to us where we are: man, woman, rich, poor, depressed, confident, gay, straight, black, white, Asian, Latin, rested, fatigued, desperate or self-sufficient. Some people engage in conversation while others ponder words in their heart. How would you have reacted if you were actually there, listening to him speak? A stained-glass answer will not do, only a real answer prepares our heart for the word.

Respond to the word. Perhaps you’ve never noticed it, but everyone in the Biblical narrative responded to the word of God. The rich young ruler went away unhappy; the woman at the well returned to town and told everyone how her life had changed. The implicit message of the Biblical narratives is simply you cannot walk away from the word of God unchanged. Yet modern readers of the Bible close the book and walk away unaffected. It’s the difference between an intellectual exercise and experiencing his words. It’s the difference between reading and living the word.

Hope comes from an imaginative engagement with the word of God. If we place ourselves in the text, be begin to imagine ourselves as real people, engaging with a real Lord. After all, we’re real, aren’t we? He’s risen and real, isn’t he? An imaginative encounter with the text produces hope because we imagine ourselves differently as a result of meeting Jesus. It’s just another way of saying, “the inbreaking of your word brings light.”

Monday's Meditation: The Distance Between Me and God (Part Two)

This weekend I was arrested by a tiny word. It caused me to put down the book and worship with a fresh heart. My cup of wonder, amazement and gratitude was dripping from the rim again. I was reading along at the beginning of John’s gospel and a two-letter word rocked my world. Perhaps it will mean nothing to you, but for me the lightning flashed, the thunder followed when I read the word, “he.”

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.  In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

The Word, the Life, the Light is also “Him.” Alive and personal.

It’s risky to share your personal response to scripture. Huh? Others say. Yeah, so, what’s the big deal?

Like so many passages in the Bible, I am tempted to think I already know the truth: until the truth breaks into the room and becomes alive. What was only in my head came and sat by my side. The ink on the page is a mere cipher, a code devised by the cunning of men. The true word was spoken and the universe began to spin. There was no air to carry the sound. There were no ears to hear the command. There was simply the Word. And the Word was a Person. Personal. Real. Relational. Alive.

The big deal, for me, is the amazing metamorphosis from Word to Person. Too often what passes for faith lives only in my head--the paltry collection of thoughts from (honestly) a bear of very little brain. Yet the Word became flesh, and lived among us in part, I suspect, to reinforce that brains have very little to do with life, but people--a Person--”he” is the source of life.

Monday’s Meditation for me (and my prayer for you) is that whatever passage of scripture you choose, the Truth will come and sit by your side. Grace to you, and peace.

Monday's Meditation: Discovering the Scripture at Christmastime

One of the challenges of reading the Christmas story each year is our familiarity with the text. Each year we turn to Luke and Matthew for the birth narratives, and each year we can be lulled to sleep by the familiarity of words. Yet the Christmas narratives are still scripture,  divinely inspired to reveal God’s heart and mind.

Christmas brings the opportunity for followers of Jesus to go deeply into these two passages again and again. They are spoken each year in Christmas pageants and sermons over and over. What if the Holy Spirit--aware we would come to these chapters dozens of times in our lives--filled these verse with revelation of God’s goodness, his providence, and his ways?

Allow me to share with you two insights new to me this year, even after reading these words for forty years.

The community of worship: Luke tells us that after a single angel announced glad tidings of great joy, the host of heaven appeared, singing, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.” I believe part of the message is that heaven is comprised of a community of worship: whatever God does, it is accompanied by communal worship. Praise and adoration go hand in hand with the work of God, and we would do well to remember that in our daily efforts on earth, because we, too, are a part of this community of worship.

The resources of heaven: that night on a Bethlehem hillside, a multitude of the heavenly host was employed to lead a handful of shepherds to the feet of Jesus. One angel would’ve been enough! But in this act I believe God demonstrates that the resources of heaven are always available to lead people to Christ. Have we called upon the resources of heaven, or do we rely on own own?

For this week’s meditation I’d like to suggest we come to the Christmas narratives as God’s inspired word, which describe not only the events of His birth, but also contain revelation for us to order our world today.

Sharing Our Doubts

“Tonight we’re going to do something a little different,” I told my small-group Bible study. “Let’s talk about the passages in the scripture we find difficult to believe.”

Should I tell them?

I should have had a video camera. Some people immediately began searching their memories for which passage might fit into that category. Others were clearly surprised--their faces revealed their thoughts, “Really? We can talk about that?” But one person sitting in the back was clearly offended.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. “I believe everything in the Bible.”

This woman was my friend--I had no desire to win an argument with her. Yet I was certain her response came more from a desire to be correct than to be honest. I knew a little bit of her history and upbringing: she was from a very conservative part of the country and had been a life-long member of a very conservative Christian denomination. In short, I knew she was giving me the only answer she thought was allowed to such a question.

“Great!” I lied. “Perhaps you can help the rest of us with whatever issues we’re willing to reveal tonight.”

One by one the rest of the gang turned to pages in both the Old and New Testaments and read out passages that gave them pause. For some it was no big deal--like discussing why there are a ten hot dogs in a package but hot dog buns come eight to a bag. Others found freedom in expressing for the first time that some verses just didn’t seem to make sense to them. Some were surprised to learn that I had a list of five verses I fond difficult to believe. After all, I was the Bible study leader--isn’t that guy supposed to be the answer man? And still, in the back of the room, my faithful friend watched and listened like a child spying on grown-ups long after she should be asleep.

Our discussion was wide-ranging that night. It was delightful to experience the kind of tender honesty where people discovered that their faith would not be questioned even as they expressed uncertainty, doubt or sometimes simple ignorance. “You, too?” laughed someone. “I thought I was the only one!”  That night we discovered that a community of believers can be one of the safest places to express doubt.

And this was precisely the problem for our one hold-out. She had grown up in a community where orthodoxy trumped everything--even honesty. The kind of community so common in some quarters of Evangelicalism, where conformity of opinion somehow equals the same thing as the Truth.

One of the great shortcomings of Evangelicalism in the last 75 years is the foolish, mistaken idea that doctrinal conformity is somehow the same thing as relationship, love, commitment, and family. Orthodoxy, as embraced by the Western Enlightenment mindset, engages only the mind and never touches the heart. When questions and doubt are pushed out the door, honesty and relationship go with them.

Of course orthodoxy is important. The word means correct teaching, and I’ve never met anyone in favor of incorrect teaching. The problem comes when my version of correct teaching becomes the required ticket for all the other aspects of Christian community. Community thrives in the presence of the Holy Spirit, who is remarkably tolerant of our foolish notions of theology. He welcomes the poor in spirit, not the rich in knowledge. He is patient with the ignorant and gently leads us along, knowing that orthodoxy discovered is better than orthodoxy imposed.

Consider the stunning admission in Matthew 28:17--just one verse before the Jesus utters the Great Commission. “When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some were doubtful.” Did you know that was in the book? Can you imagine the scene: the resurrected Jesus (back from death, scars visible and real as your Mom), is standing right in from of his closest followers, and some were doubtful. If Jesus was ever going to thin the herd, that would have been the moment. Instead, Jesus gives them all the same assurance, the same task, and the same promise.

We are all invited to follow him. Apparently understanding is over-rated and relationship is under-rated. I suspect he will clear up the questions when I’m able to handle the truth. In the mean time, he invites us to participate in something none of us fully understand.

EDITOR’S NOTE: In other quarters of Christianity it’s become trendy to glory in our doubts. That’s not much better. You’re invited back next week (Thursday) when we look at the flip side of the equation.

Meeting the Author

Would it be possible for someone to spend his entire life studying the scripture and yet fail to recognize the Author if they came face to face? Though it may seem difficult to believe, that’s precisely the story we find in John’s gospel, chapter five.

It’s too easy to criticize Pharisees like those in John 5. “How could they have failed to recognize Jesus?” we might ask. “Surely we would not have missed God’s anointed when he came.” Yet we should be careful because these Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes, and lawyers possessed a commitment and dedication to the scripture that was likely far greater anything we practice in our day.

I would like to suggest this answer: it is easier to relate to a book than a living person. Books are manageable. Books can be memorized and mastered, books can be analyzed and interpreted, and books can be used to support conclusions we have have already decided upon. In our pursuit of Jesus, we need to think seriously about the role of the Bible. If our aim is to take his yoke of discipleship and to learn from him, what role does the Bible play in becoming a follower of Jesus?

Among the closing words of the Old Testament are these: "See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come," says the LORD Almighty. (Malachi 3: 1) God Himself came to earth in the person of Jesus. He came to the center of religious devotion and announced that the Kingdom revealed in the Old Testament scriptures was breaking in unexpectedly. The very guardians of religious orthodoxy could not recognize him. How could this be?

Perhaps the religious people of Jesus’ day were engaged in a kind of idolatry. Not in pagan practices or rituals but in a kind of idolatry which elevated the inspired word of God over God himself. The Bible is a precious gift from God. He breathed it into the minds and hearts of the men who wrote it. I believe that God Himself watched over process of collecting and canonizing these documents. I believe that God has protected the Bible through many dark ages so that every generation would be able to benefit from his gift. I love the book he has given us, but I do not confuse the book with the Author. Sadly, in many Evangelical circles the Holy Trinity has morphed from “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” to “Father, Son and Holy Bible.”

Our Bible is inspired, literally God-breathed, and “useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.” The Bible is capable of correcting us when subjectivism and emotionalism threaten to lead us into error. Yet our misuse of the Bible can cause us to “get the lyrics right but get the music all wrong,” in the helpful phrase of Leonard Sweet. Todd Hunter, a leader in the Vineyard Movement says plainly that “the Bible is the menu, not the meal.” I believe he means that the Bible should help bring us to the Bread of Life, Jesus, and encourage us in a living relationship with a Lord who is still alive, still speaking, and still doing.

The same Holy Spirit who inspired the scriptures in the first century is still moving and working all over the world. Jesus pointed his followers to the ministry of the Holy Spirit when he said, “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” (John 14: 26) For each follower of Jesus there is a tension between learning about Jesus and having a relationship with him through the Holy Spirit.


So how should we come to the Bible? I'd like to suggest three "nevers:"

• First, never come to the Bible alone. Always invite the same Spirit who inspired the Book to inspire your encounter. The Holy Spirit is the one who "will teach all things." He will use the Bible as part of His tutorial.
• Second, never settle for head-knowledge apart from personal experience. True, our first ideas about following Jesus may come from reading the Bible, but I believe we should ask the Holy Spirit to move us from the book to real-life experience. What starts as head-knowledge must find its way into our experience.
• Finally, never come to the Bible without a commitment to obey his voice. James, the brother of Jesus, tells us that if we build a lifestyle of merely hearing God's word without doing it, we will become deceived. God doesn't speak "FYI," he speaks "FYO," For Your Obedience. 

The Bible is a gift--a gift we should treasure and respect. Let's use that gift to grow closer to the Giver.