“Where is Heaven?”

From the message preached at Rock Presbyterian Church in San Diego 5/19/13. The audio can be found here: RPC Sermon Archive

Some people will argue that heaven and the kingdom of God are two different places. But this is to misunderstand what is meant by the terms heaven and the kingdom of God (or, as it is in Matthew, the kingdom of Heaven). Some people think of heaven as the faraway place where God's throne is, and the kingdom of God is what was initiated by Jesus by his life death and resurrection and will be fulfilled at his second coming. Heaven is out there somewhere, and the kingdom of God is here, but here in the future.

But doesn't that deny that God is Immanuel? God is not just Immanuel -- God with us -- in the historical Jesus who walked the earth. God was Immanuel in the Garden of Eden. And God was Immanuel in the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle and the Temple. God has always wanted to live with us and be our intimate friend. Why would he have placed himself out in outer space somewhere, or in the future?

So when we pray "may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven," isn't that the same thing as praying, "make your kingdom and my reality one and the same"? Isn't that the same as praying, "I want you to rule in me as you do in heaven. I want to be in heaven. I want you to make heaven real for me now"? Jesus didn't say "the kingdom of heaven is coming" he said it's here. HERE.

To answer to the questions "Where is heaven?" and "Where is the kingdom of God?" are the same. It is, where God rules; where God's character is manifest. It is where God's character is real. And that is where Jesus is. If we are living the life of Christ, if Christ is living his life through us, we are already in heaven.

Do you feel like you're not in the kingdom of God? Does it feel like heaven is far away? Do you think that the circumstances of your life and the circumstances of the world are such that God couldn't possibly be in the midst of it? You might be right, but it's not because of circumstances or God but because you don't understand either heaven or the kingdom of God.

When we are baptized into Christ, we are baptized into his death, and we rise to new life in the body. The life of Christ is the life of joy. It doesn't have anything to do with outside circumstances. Peter and James rejoiced when they were beaten for proclaiming the gospel. Paul and Silas sang songs when they were beaten and thrown into prison in Philippi for preaching the Good News. Paul wrote to the Philippians from Prison in Rome, "I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content." (Php. 4:11 ESV).

Do you think that we can be God's light on earth, do you think our message is "Good News," if we join with unbelievers in lamenting the sad state of the world? Do you think if you go around complaining and frowning and looking like we were baptized in lemon juice anyone will be interested in the kingdom of God?

When Jesus tells us to pray, "may your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven," he's not telling us to sit around hoping for some brighter future. He's telling is to make the future brighter -- by living the life of love we were baptized into as his disciples, by proclaiming the excellencies of him who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light. WE are his body. Our work is His work. And his work is ours.

This Sunday @ RPC, “Where is Heaven?” (Mt. 6:9-10)

When Jesus tells us to pray “your kingdom come your will be done” he’s not telling to sit around waiting for a brighter future he’s telling us to make the future brighter.

“Our Father”

A community God we can address as father. The sermon from last Sunday at RPC is here.

I can have my own private culture…

As I was driving to work this morning with my son we were listening to Pandora radio and my son asked me if I had noticed the trend toward a revival of jazz. I admitted I hadn't because I am not at all in touch with popular culture any more. I don't listen to commercial radio and I turned off cable so I don't watch commercial TV anymore -- not even sports. Then it occurred to me that the trend toward individually tailored entertainment made possible by the Internet might actually be accelerating the atomization of society.

Benedict Anderson in his study of the origins of nationalism titled Imagined Communities attributes the emergence of nationalism to the rise of print capitalism in the 18th century. Anderson is a doctrinaire Marxist and I think attributing everything to the rise of capitalism is a mistake. But he was right about one thing and that is that mass exposure of a geographically separated population to the same information contributes to the homogenization of society. If everyone is accessing the same information an imagined bond is created that allows people, say, in San Diego, to feel an affinity with people in New York and elsewhere who they are never likely to meet.

For example, I believe it is entirely likely that the translation of the Bible into the vernacular was a huge contributor to the rise of the nation-state because it standardized language over large geographical areas. Where people before spoke and understood only the dialect of their local area (and maybe some Latin), with the publication of the one book everyone *read* (because, after all, it was the Protestants who wanted the Bible translated) suddenly everyone in the country was reading "French" or "English" or "German," and soon that was reflected in the spoken language. (Did you notice that people from Atlanta no longer speak with a twang?) The common language tends to engender a sense of common identity, hence the possibility of feeling a kinship through the "nation," even though the nation is actually an intellectual construction not at all rooted in historical reality.

This process accelerated with the mass media culture of the twentieth century. When I grew up in the sixties, there were three channels on the television, everyone listened to the same 10 artists or so on the same few radio stations which reflected two genres: pop and country. In the late sixties the so-called "underground" rock stations added a third alternative for us hippies, and then later the "soul" stations added even more diversity.

But in the last twenty years the Internet has made it possible to access incredibly diverse repositories of culture, to the point that now it is possible to tailor a radio station to your own personal tastes, to watch only the TV shows you are interested in watching, to essentially avoid any connection to the common culture at all. It has become possible for me to create my own cultural shell. I can have my own private culture.

Isn't that wild? How can we encourage a sense of community in the Church when each of the congregants listens only to their own iPod?

Love Covers a Multitude of Sins

As the celebration of Mother's Day approached and I saw many people on social media acknowledging and celebrating their mothers my thoughts turned to my own mother and my childhood and youth.

I don’t have very may pictures of my mom any more  She died in an alcohol related car accident in 1982. One of the few pictures I do have is of her sitting at the kitchen table smoking a cigarette with curlers in her hair. Probably not the most flattering picture.

For some reason the picture and the whole celebration this year brings a lot of sadness. I know I grieved when my mom died like I grieved for no one else. I know I loved my mom and I know she loved me. But she was a slave to the disease of alcoholism. And she was the victim of an abusive marriage. When I remember her I can’t help remembering all of the chaos and dysfunction of growing up in a household where alcoholism, spousal abuse, and probably child abuse as well, were the norm.

I emerged scarred from the wounds of childhood. I have spent my entire adult life trying to overcome those wounds. Probably some of them are so deep I will never overcome them.

But at the same time I must acknowledge that all of those experiences shape who I am today. If I am compassionate, tolerant, sensitive to the pain of others, it is because of this. Jesus suffered all of the pains of being human so that he could rescue humans. I do believe it is possible that we, his followers, must also suffer much so that we can minister to those who suffer.

And even though these memories fill me with sadness, they do not make me love my mother less. I pray that she has finally found peace in the arms of our loving savior.

“Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.” (1 Peter 4:7-8, ESV)

This Sunday@RPC, “Our Father,” (Mt. 5:9-15)

“You Can’t Have a Personal Jesus,” (Mt. 6:9)

Now we're going to look at a deeply significant thing about Jesus telling us to address God as "Our Father" in our prayers. We just looked at what an amazing privilege it is to be able to consider the creator of the universe our intimate father. But now let's look at the way Jesus says to address him.

Notice that Jesus doesn't tell us to pray My Father. When I was a new Christian and I started to learn to spend time with God every day in prayer, it occurred to me that I ought to pray this prayer. After all, Jesus does tell us to pray it. But I thought I would change the words around a little bit. Because I was trying to cultivate a personal relationship with God. You've heard that right? I want Jesus as my personal savior. I want an intimate Jesus.

There are several popular songs about a personal Jesus by artists ranging from Johnny Cash to Depeche Mode. There's a song from the 70s by a country artist named Tom T. Hall that declares:

Me and Jesus got our own thing going.

Me and Jesus got it all worked out.

Me and Jesus got our own thing going.

We don't need anybody to tell us what it's all about.

I think the gist of the song is that we don't need religion and the Church to be "spiritual." I thought of that song as I was participating in a class on Christian community at the seminary and I did a Youtube search and I was amazed to find that this song was actually performed as worship in a number of churches! That is amazing because it is completely antithetical to the Biblical idea of church. It goes against everything that Jesus and the apostles taught about our relationship with God and each other. And it goes against everything we know from the Bible about the relationship of the people of God with God himself as revealed in the Old Testament.

So anyway there I was trying to cultivate this relationship with a personal God. And I decided to say "My Father, who art in heaven." Well, since then I've stopped trying to say the prayer in King James Version-ese. But the point is that I thought I needed to rewrite the prayer so that it could be just between me and God.

I don't know if you've ever experienced this but sometimes when I'm in meditation and prayer I get really clear messages from God. At first that wasn't true but as time passes I have more and more come to be able to hear God speaking to me in my prayers. And I'm pretty sure that this was one of the first times that God really made it loud and clear to me that I was making a big mistake. God did not want me to lift up my voice to him on my own behalf only. God does not want to hear my own selfish prayers for myself. God told me that day in no uncertain terms that he does not want me to rewrite the prayer from "us" to "me"; from "Our Father" to "My Father." Jesus told us to pray the way he said it for a reason.

And that reason is because we are not individually saved. I wouldn't be surprised if you guys were getting just sick of hearing me repeat this verse from Paul's letter to the Galatians, but he writes, "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me." (Gal. 2:20 ESV). I can only think of myself as a disciple, as a follower of Jesus, as a Christian, in terms of having the life of Christ. The life in me is the life of Christ. And Christ is not some faraway theological abstraction. Christ is the Church.

Not what we probably traditionally think of as the church. Not as the building or the doctrines or even necessarily the congregation. Christ is not Rock Presbyterian Church or the Korean American Presbyterian Church. Christ is not a congregation or a denomination or contained in any human structure of church government or doctrine. Christ is the union of all believers everywhere throughout time. And Christ is visibly present on the earth right now. Christ is physically present wherever we see self-sacrificing love leading to the building of God's kingdom of righteousness, justice, and love.

Paul uses the metaphor of the body throughout his writings. In Romans chapter 12 and in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 he tells the local congregation that they are each members of the body. As body parts are members. It’s not like being a member of a social club or a political party, but like the hand is a member of the body; or the foot is a member, or the eyes, nose… everything; all members of the body. The member can't live apart from the body, and the body isn't whole without all of its members. If you cut off your hand, it will die, and the body will be maimed. Each one of you is that that important to the body of Christ on earth. No one is superfluous. No one is useless or unimportant. Each one of us has our part to play.

And Paul writes to the Ephesians about the roles of the different members of the body:

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature and the fullness of Christ. (Eph. 4:11-13 ESV)

What is Paul saying here? That we ALL TOGETHER will grow up into the image of Christ. Not that we each individually will do that, but that we all together will do that. All of us together are intended to be one.

In John's gospel chapter 17 Jesus is praying for his disciples before his crucifixion. Notice that he’s not just praying for those gathered together with him in the upper room but for all who will come after and that includes us. And this is what he prays: “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they may also be in us." (John 17:20-21 ESV).

“That they may all be one.” All of us together are one. We cannot be in relationship with God by ourselves. There is no spiritual life apart from Christ, and Christ is literally the fellowship of all of the believers.

We cannot be in relationship with God by ourselves. There is no life apart from Christ. And Christ is literally the fellowship of all believers.

Public opinion and personal feelings are a poor moral compass.

Public opinion and personal feelings are a poor moral compass. The pages of history are littered with atrocities committed by people who were convinced by public opinion or their own sense of justice that they were doing the will of God. The only sure guide to moral action is scripture because it is God’s unchanging revelation of his will. God’s word has always been counter-cultural and unpopular. But it is timeless and unchanging, as God is, and if you understand it correctly, it leads you to self-sacrificing love for everyone you encounter.

Hocus Pocus (Mt. 6:5-8)

When we are truly able to acknowledge our emptiness without God we are in right relationship with God. Then we will live out the life that God calls us to, and our prayers will be heard by God.

Pagans believe in magic rituals and secret spells and potions and sacrifices and reading chicken entrails to influence nature or gods or spirits or whatever in their favor. But what I think is amazing is that many Christians approach prayer and really their whole lives in this same way.

It's the idea that if I'm good God will reward me. We substitute Santa Claus for the living God. We think that if we say the right prayers or if we say them in the right way God will give us what we want. That we can bargain with God. “If you get me out of this one, I'll be good, and give to the poor or whatever. We're like pagans making sacrifices to false gods, but instead of offering slaughtered animals or burnt offerings, we offer our devotion, or our promises, or our supposedly "good" behavior in the hope that God will grant us our wishes.

And why shouldn't we? Your probably all know that Jesus tells us to pray for whatever we want. In John Jesus tells his disciples "Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it." (John 14:13-14 ESV). So we think that we should be able to pray for anything: new cars, material good, good luck. And of course when we pray for our wishes and we don't get them we just conclude that prayer doesn't work.

So if we pray at all we put little faith in it. It becomes at best a pious religious ritual "In Jesus' name we pray" ho-hum. Hocus pocus. Gesundheit!

I think one of the best proofs that we've got this whole prayer thing wrong is that we know that Jesus prayed. If we think prayer is just saying the right words in the right order with the right level of devotion in the hope of getting what we really want, why would Jesus have ever needed to pray? Jesus is God. He didn't lack anything. If he wanted wine: "hocus pocus!" And there's the best wine ever. What did Jesus ever need to pray about?

And yet scripture tells us he spent a lot of time in prayer. The subject of prayer is enormous and we're not going to cover the whole issue in the next few lines. But I think I can make some important observations that will get is pointed in the right direction.

We can begin to get an idea of what God is looking for in our prayers if we look at the Old Testament. In Psalm 51 the psalmist, who is in this case King David, cries out to God in repentance of his sin with Bathsheba. It is in my mind one of the most beautiful expressions of repentance in all of scripture. One of the things David observes is, "For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." (Ps. 51:16-17 ESV).

What is David saying here? I think, essentially, he is saying that we have nothing to give., and that our recognition of our poverty and emptiness opens us up to God's saving grace. "A broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart." I have nothing to give you Lord, I am entirely at your mercy. And you know this really tracks because sin is our rebellion against God, our putting ourselves in equality with God or even ahead of God. As if we had anything, apart from God. When we are truly able to acknowledge our emptiness without God we are in right relationship with God. Then we will live out the life that God calls us to, and our prayers will be heard by God.

Well what about the part I mentioned that Jesus says he will give us whatever we ask for? That's what he said right? Well, not exactly. He says, whatever you ask in my name. What does that mean?

Did you ever notice how often we end our prayers by saying "In Jesus name we pray" or something like that? Why do you think we do that? And of course the answer is that Jesus told us that if we ask anything in his name that he would give it. We’ve all tried praying for things in his name and unfortunately it doesn't seem to work, so it becomes just another empty ritual.

But before we can know what Jesus means when he says "If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it." we have to know what he means by "in my name." When we think of a name, we think of it as little more than a label. My name Keith Cox distinguishes me from most other people (obviously, with so many people in the world there are others with the name Keith Cox), but it doesn't really tell you anything about me. It's just a label.

But in the Bible names meant something. Someone's name indicated a lot about that person. That's why in the Old Testament people kept changing their names. Abram changed his name to Abraham to reflect God's promise to make him the father of a great nation. Jacob changed his name to Israel to signify that he inherited the promise of Abraham through his father Isaac (Gen. 32:9). And in the New Testament Jesus changes Simon’s name to Peter because he is the “rock” upon which Jesus plans to build his church.

The name of a person in the Bible was more than a label - it represented his whole being, his whole character. So when we hear Jesus say, ask in my name, what he is saying, ask in my whole character, my whole being; ask in the way I would ask; ask for the things I want. And how can we even know what those things are if we are not living the Christ-filled life? The life that we learned about in the so-called Beatitudes: the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers? Can you really imagine Jesus praying to his Father for a new car? Or a better job? Or for his baseball team to win?

When Jesus prayed for his disciples (us) he didn't pray that we would be happy or healthy or wealthy or well fed or any of the other things that we think of as good, he prayed that we would be kept from the evil one and sanctified in the truth. (John 17:17). He prayed that we would come into the same relationship with the Father that he had. When we pray "in his name" that means that we are praying alongside Jesus for the things he desires. It really means that our prayer is Jesus' prayer.

Well what about when we pray for things that are not selfish? Every week I pray for health and healing for this church and for others, and world peace, and an end to hunger and violence and hate and injustice, and I always end my prayer by saying "in Jesus' name" or something like that but all of those things keep happening. Doesn't that mean that God isn't answering our prayers?

No, it does not mean that God is not answering our prayers. Let's think about this episode from Jesus' life:

And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” [and later] ” Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.” [and again] he went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words again. (Mt. 26:39-44 ESV).

I'm sure you all recognize this as Jesus' agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, before his crucifixion, Jesus was praying that the cup would pass. He was praying that he would not have to undergo the agony he was about to experience. He must have been praying in Jesus' name, he was Jesus! And yet we know that he did suffer the agony of the cross. Did God not hear him? Did God refuse to answer his prayer?

But notice how Jesus prays. He says, "if it be possible," "not as I will, but as you will," "your will be done." It seems that even Jesus, who was fully human, had doubts about the Father's will. But he was confident that no matter how he felt or what he wanted, that the Father was trustworthy; that if he had to suffer it was because the Father's will was greater than his own desire. So he obeyed the Father's will, even though he might not have been able to see the end.

And of course we know the end. Jesus suffered trial, crucifixion, and death. But it was not the Father's will that he would remain dead, but instead he rose again to everlasting glory. And because of that we can be baptized into his death so that we can be baptized into his life. We can suffer the agony of his crucifixion, so that we can share in his everlasting glory. Jesus didn't get what he prayed for but instead he accomplished the Father's will. If Jesus had gotten what he prayed for in the Garden we would all still be lost.

This is excerpted from the sermon delivered May 5, 2013 at Rock Presbyterian Church English Ministry. The full audio can be found here: RPC Sermon Archive.

Our goal here is kingdom politics.

It must be possible to imagine a Christian community that rejects the wrong-headed alignment of the church with conservative politics without aligning with opposite sentiments. Our goal here is kingdom politics.

The Church as Irrelevant Social Club

I think the current model of the church is unsustainable, just like the current model for the family is unsustainable. I think that if churches try to hold fast to the North American industrial-era (“Modern”) model they will experience more and more the warning of MLK that they will be (already have been?) reduced to irrelevant social clubs. King talked about restoring the prophetic vision of the church in terms of the need for the church to stand for social justice, which it must, but it needs also to recapture the sense of community that made those first-century churches so attractive and led to such explosive growth in the beginning.

When I refer to sense of community here, I refer to what we would understand as the “sentimentalized” family. It’s not just a room full of individuals gathering to be mildly entertained once a week. It is a real flesh and blood body just like Paul describes in 1 Cor. 12, a real living organism in which each member plays a vital role of caring for all of the other members and as a whole, with Christ at the head, continuing Christ’s work of restoration.

The place where I see the greatest movement in this direction is in the so-called “emergent” churches. Unfortunately, I have seen many of the advocates of this more community-oriented approach to Christian community align themselves with social and political positions that I believe cannot be sustained biblically (like so-called “gay” marriage, for example). It must be possible to imagine a Christian community that rejects the wrong-headed alignment of the church with conservative politics without aligning with opposite sentiments. Our goal here is kingdom politics.

I really enjoyed reading Clapp’s take on the whole issue of family. I think that honestly facing the historical, social, and cultural reality of what we think of as the “traditional” family does make possible a re-evaluation of the whole community. In the larger picture, Clapp confirms in one aspect what I see as the failure of the “Modern” meta-narrative. It is only when we recognize that it is dead, and should be dead, that we can imagine a better meta-narrative, one that we do not have to construct, but that Jesus has already constructed for us.

From a review of Clapp, Rodney. Families at the Crossroads: Beyond Traditional & Modern Options. Downers Grove, Ill., USA.: IVP Books, 1993.