GlocalNet

I just returned from a trip to the Holy Land with several young pastors who want to engage and connect with the people there.  It was a phenomenal trip.  I’m so excited about the emerging young pastors – I honestly believe they are going to be the greatest group yet in the US to get the world and what it looks like.  My generation left old models of doing worship and gathering – my prayer is that this younger generation will leave old paradigms of global engagement and what global faith looks like.  I’m very optimistic.  They see through the prism differently.  They met with Muslims, Jews, Christians, Palestinians, business leaders, government leaders, artists, and loved falafel, humus, and all of it! 

One of the highlights of my trip was going to “Schechem” or “Nablus” as it’s now known.  It’s where in Genesis 33:10-20 Jacob goes after his encounter with Laban and then Esau and he builds an altar there called “El-Eolhe_Israel” or the God of Israel.  It’s also the traditional site of where Joseph was buried, where his bones were brought out of Egypt when the Israelites came.  There is a well that is there called “Jacob’s well” that has been the undisputed site of one of Jacob’s wells for, at the least, the past 23 centuries.  You know what happened there as well – Jesus was passing through (John 4) – maybe he wanted to see the site – and he encounters the woman at the well right there.  So, this spot, filled with so much history was powerful.  Earlier in the week I’d been in Hebron and saw the tombs of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob, Leah, and the Muslim tradition (can’t tell you why they are different) of where Joseph was buried there.  So, sitting at this well, praying with the pastors, reflecting on centuries and millennia of history – being connected through a geographic location and a physical element of the past was powerful for me. 

I loved the Greek Orthodox priest I met.  There is a new chapel built over the old one, and he painted all of the frescoes throughout the new chapel.  He laid on his back six months on scaffolding to paint the dome.  He’s a small, little, old man.  I bought a small painting he did of the woman at the well and brought it back. 

I have all this stuff in my study so that when I’m writing I never forget the audience I’m writing books and sermons to and what matters to me.  I have Olive sculptures of Jesus washing Peter’s feet, in a boat casting the net with the disciples, Jesus standing at the door knocking waiting for someone to open it, a Palestinian hand reaching up with a pen in it,  a painting of Jesus looking over Jerusalem praying for it, a painting of the Australian coast, three globes, a figurine of John Wesley, the tower of Hanoi, a carved cross overlaid on Vietnam, a whale’s tooth with a ship carved on it, spent cartridges from Afghanistan, pictures of my parents, kids, wife, and Callahan, a small piece of concrete from a destroyed home in Banda Ache, Indonesia, models of the Alamo and US capitol, painting of Jerusalem, a page off the Guttenberg Press, a model of a BMW motorcycle GS 1200 (which if my wife goes first she has given me permission to go straight from her funeral to the BMW store to buy one!), pens from different parts of the world . . . . Combined it isn’t worth that much but it speaks volumes as to what matters. 

Much of it points to who Jesus is and what he wants to be in our life.  As I read the story of Jacob – his name meaning cheat – he lived up to his name!  Why didn’t he just give Esau a bowl of Wolf brand chili instead of making him give him his birthright – didn’t he have any love in his heart towards his brother?  Lest we let him off too easy he outright stole Esau’s blessing.  His manipulation gets him in trouble with his Father-in-law Laban with whom he’s met his match.  So he’s running, and, guess who is in front of him, but Esau – no wonder he has a Bethel experience and wouldn’t let the angel go – judgment is on the way!  BUT God forgives him, delivers him, and RESTORES him beyond anything he had ever known.  Fast forward a few hundred years – Jesus is talking to a woman – not just any woman, a prostitute in this region which was known as Samaria – he goes to the heart of worship because the Samaritans said it was to be on the mountain there (a hill really) it isn’t a building, but a person. She comes to faith in Christ and the next thing you know she’s bringing all of Schechem to him.  Fast forward 2,000 years, many of us have accepted him, and there I am at this spot, a sinner in need of forgiveness just like all of those other people. 

Grace means God doing something for us we can’t earn, deserve, or do for ourselves.  We all ask and pray for forgiveness and mercy.  But as a follower of Jesus it isn’t left up to speculation about whether he will or won’t or how good I have to be or where is the line I cross that doesn’t let me into heaven or have peace on earth – but instead what he did on the cross.  IF you can’t know that you know God, then how can there be any peace?  You worry, fear, and hope you’ve been good enough – but how can you know that you know God?  You can’t . . . . .

UNLESS – first, you believe what he said about himself, that he came and was born and incarnated among humanity because he wanted to identify with his creation (the picture that looks like a heart where 3 men are standing is where Jesus was born -  couldn’t get in but knew a back way, it was locked but we took this picture through the keyhole!).  Second, you acknowledge that he took your sin on the cross as payment for what you did that was wrong.  (the altar here is where tradition says the cross was planted in the rock).  What parent, when seeing their child suffer some horrible fate, wouldn’t in a heart beat trade places?  That’s exactly what he did for us – our sin, not his – isolated us from God, heaven, and hope – he did the thing every parent wants to do – took our place.  His love could not be disputed.  In the end, I want to know God, understand what I can of him – but the greatest thing is that he loves me – NOTHING ELSE CAN COMPARE.  Third, we have to believe that he rose from the dead, that he was more than a man, more than a prophet, more than a rabbi – he was God.  This is the beauty of the Trinity, one essence three persons.  God was one – the Trinity allowed the human part of him to die so my sins could be atoned for by the lamb of God, while the divine never died, and the eternal now comes and lives within me daily as the Holy Spirit to live the life of Christ and proclaim the Kingdom of God to reconciliation of people and all things.  This is why I should love all people and refuse no people – for me to do so is a denial of what Jesus died for and contradicts what he did on the cross, and what he has told us to do. 

So, my Vietnamese communist friends and family, you matter to him.  My Jewish cousins – he loves you – people who say you crucified him don’t understand what he said of himself.  He went to the cross because my sins put him there – all of our sins.  My Muslim cousins – yes he was a prophet – but I believe so much more than that.  My atheist friends – you’re going to have faith in something, even believing there is not a God requires faith!  Why not put your faith in something birthed out of love, not nothingness.  My American “religious” tribes – he is more than a denomination, a network, a tribe, a church, a philosophy or strategy – he is God – are you more obsessed with him than you are your ministry, tribe, or anything else.  My Texans – we live life so full – in all of our adventure, we must not forget the greatest adventure of all is in following Jesus. 

I was told the story of a Jewish man who went to a Bible Study and the regular teacher wasn’t there so a guest teacher came and not realizing the man was not a Christian he asked him to pray, no one knew what to do – but the man quickly began to pray,  “God, help all the Jews to be more like Jesus and to understand him more, help all the Muslims to be more like Jesus and understand him more, and help all the Christians to be more like Jesus and understand him more.”  That is my prayer for all of us.  I can’t imagine heaven without some of you that I’ve come to know and love in all those tribes not there with me.  Know this – I’ve already lifted you up in prayer, by name, in my study since early this morning. . . I am you’re servant.