Category Archives: evangelism

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Greatness is Within

The power to be
The power to give
The power to see

Suddenly I see
This is what I wanna be

“Suddenly I See” by KT Tunstall

In 1916  Russian Greek Orthodox priest Father Grigori Rasputin was a feared and hated man.  He was thought to be many things: a mystic, a psychic, a hypnotist, a faith healer who could work miracles, a crazed man, a lecherous and dangerous person, a demon, and a political threat.  His closeness to the Royal Tsar (as the faith healer supposedly keeping the Romanov’s son Alexi from dying of hemophilia) and his wild ways drew scorn and blame when Russia plunged into war, poverty and famine.  In fact, when a prostitute who claimed he gave her syphilis stabbed him two years earlier in 1914 she screamed, “I have killed the anti-christ!” and no one argued.  Except – she didn’t kill him.  He miraculously lived through the stab wound that actually severed his intestine, which furthered the idea there was something unnaturally powerful about him.

That spiritual, physical, mystical power myth wouldn’t end with his death, but grew larger when the details of his eventual murder came to light.  On the night he was killed by a group of Russian noblemen – they reported the following dramatic tale:

At the palace of  Prince Felix Yusupov Rasputin was taken to the basement for a talk with the prince. He was fed cakes and wine laced with cyanide. After what seemed like a very long time of pointless chatting, Prince Yusupov went upstairs and told his friends that the poison was not working.  He went back downstairs and shot Rasputin in the back.  Elated, the Prince ran back upstairs claiming he had “killed the devil” but when they went down to see him – he was very much alive and tried to strangle the prince. The group of friends shot him 3 more times.  While figuring out what to do with his body, he lunged at them – proving once again to be living. They took a chair and wooden implements in the basement a beat him badly.  With Rasputin seemingly finally dead they tied up his body, wrapped him in a carpet and threw him off a bridge into the freezing Neva River.  To their horror –  a still alive Rasputin got out of the bonds, and the carpet.  Eventually he drowned in the turbulent water of the river.

There were, of course, questions about this amazing story – however the written autopsy of Rasputin, which was an open record until the Stalin era, recorded that the body “contained poison, 4 bullet wounds, bruises from a bad beating, evidence of being restrained, and water in the lungs from drowning.”   Talk about having 9 lives!

The world's creepiest Superman

Rasputin clearly had some kind of personal strength most people didn’t understand. It wasn’t the powerful people around him that gave him power, it was something within him.  I’ve always wondered – with that kind of constitution and passion – if he had just stayed a local priest and not gotten involved with fame, politics and royalty – what an amazing ministry he might have had.  Truly, having “something within” is not helpful unless you are within something good.

The boxing equipment I use comes from Everlast and is emblazoned with their slogan:  Greatness is Within.

One of the bags I use for cardio punching practice is a heavy rubber bag covered in nylon with nothing put air inside so I have to chuckle when I see that logo even though I understand they are trying to inspire me into the thinking the “greatness” is within me, not a bag of air.   I have quite a love/hate relationship with exercise so this is how I prefer to think of greatness within:

Why do they even bother with that cookie part?

But no matter how you see internal greatness – the strength of a mystic, the power to strengthen your body, or appreciating the joy of a simple dessert there is still the truth that what is inside you matters most depending on what you are inside.

In American culture we value individualism and that value doesn’t just play through our politics, families, parenting or consumer habits – it plays out through our interpretation of theology as well.  We tend to spend a lot of time focusing on God with us or God in us.   What is the first thing churches invite you to do? Invite Jesus INTO YOUR HEART.  It’s clear from our earliest faith memories of songs we sing, that aged fading picture on a sunday school room wall of Jesus knocking on the door with no handle, the way we are taught about salvation and the ways we are taught to teach others about Christ that our focus is recognizing the greatness of God within us.

And we miss the point.  Relationship with God is not simply about having the spirit of Christ within you. It’s about YOU being within God.  Let me say that again, in case you were distracted by the cookie picture (I know I am…).   Faith life is not simply about God being in you.  It’s about you being within God.

What does it mean to be in God?  It means to recognize ourselves as part of a whole being and joined inherently with the creation, goodness, compassion, grace, abundance, giving, healing and freedom that is the very nature of that being.  We are not always  graceful people but we are people who live in grace and do well when we remember it.

Psalm 100 is thought to be a Psalm of praise – but it is also a good reminder of how we should understand ourselves not through the lens of individualism, but through the fountain of beloved belonging.

 Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth.
Worship the LORD with gladness;
come before him with joyful songs.
Know that the LORD is God.
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.
For the LORD is good and his love endures forever;
his faithfulness continues through all generations.

Psalm 100

We are God’s people, sheep in God’s pasture. We are within God.

How does that help us to know that?  It gives us a chance to truly reflect and re-prioritize our life and the message of God we carry to a world that needs to hear it.  When we seek to be the people God made us to be, we can find comfort and inspiration understanding that we don’t have to reach to something inside us and find God – but God is around us and we have that love of God in abundance.  When we need to be forgiving we are surrounded by forgiveness. When we need to be compassionate in circumstances we don’t like or with people we are challenged to care for – we don’t have to dredge it up from inside – its around us – we need to take it in, learn it and live it.  When we are unsure or feeling unwise, we can pray and admit we don’t know what to do – then remember we are in a pasture of wisdom with a shepherd who wants to walk with us as we forge ahead together.

It also says something about the way we view “evangelism” – and maybe why it’s not really working.  Churches in our mainline modern day don’t really seem to do much gospel teaching and good messaging as much as we focus on discipleship development (always worthwhile). We don’t bring people in as much as we “people swap”.  When was the last time someone came into your church and said, “I didn’t know who God was” or “I have never been a Christian but now my eyes are opened.” and you knew it was the first time they really got the gospel?   More likely the last 2 or 20 or 200 people came in saying, “I used to go to “X Christian Church” but I like your youth program, or your preacher speaks to me, or I want to be part of your mission.”    There’s nothing wrong with people moving about faith places finding a field in which they can both feed and be a feeder.  But there’s not much evangelistic about it either.

People who haven’t seen or heard of God’s love aren’t really ready for a message that they need to bring Jesus into them. Many of them feel (or have been told) that Jesus or God or the whole christian family wants nothing to do with them.  But the message that they are within God’s pasture – already there – not waiting to change or needing to take 3 membership classes and a bible quiz –  is something they have been waiting to believe their whole lives.  And once they realize we are God’s created people – the changes God desires, the wisdom they require and the beauty of community will all come into being.

In sharing the gospel:

It’s not our job to bring people into church.

It’s not our job to bring people into our view of “right”.

It’s not our job to bring people into agreement with us and what we believe.

It is our call, and our great joy, to show people they are already brought in – created and loved by God, and that from within God they will forge the relationship with God that can heal, change, encourage, and grow in them.  Then the community of the church, the discipleship and development  and the empowerment to share their witness can begin.

Greatness is Within.

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How Does It Look On You?

Lectionary Reading: Luke 19:1-10

The movie Chocolat features a story about a free-spirit single mom who opens a chocolate shop during Lent in a provincial French village. Because Lent is seen by the Catholic church as a time of self denial, the opening of a shop selling rich, delicious and healing chocolate seems pagan and terrible to the people who openly demonstrate against the shop (although they manage to privately purchase and eat the chocolate). Through this whole struggle, a young priest is working on his first self-written sermon. After the intolerance of the church folks reaches critical mass and a terrible fire results, the townspeople are divided between self-righteous justification for their meanness and guilt over the tragedy when the young priest finally delivers his sermon. Here is what he says:

“…we can’t go ’round measuring our Christianity by what we don’t do, by what we deny ourselves, what we resist and who we exclude… we’ve got to measure our faith by what we embrace, what we create, and who we include.”

What a perfect message of Christ – for those people and for us.

Measuring Christianity is an interesting notion. Some people have a Christianity measured by their love of Christ and their continuing efforts to walk in his Way. For others the measure isn’t something that beautiful or eternal. Others measure it by how good they are (or look), how much they donate to or attend church, how other people think of them, or how successful they have become. If you measure cloth with the wrong tool, your clothes won’t fit and they look bad on you. If you measure your faith by the world’s view, it looks bad on you too. In fact, to the rest of the world it looks bone ugly.

In his new book “Unchristian”, researcher David Kinnamon looks at attitudes of 16 to 29 year-olds (churched and unchurched) and finds the age group to be “skeptical and frustrated with Christianity”. Only 16% of that age group said they had a “favorable view of Christianity”. The age group’s most common comment was, “Christianity no longer looks like Jesus. Its “unchristian”. When asked to describe Christians with 5 adjectives the top five were:

Judgmental
Ignorant
Hypocritical
Homophobic
Political

Wow. That’s certainly a tragic vision of the Christian Way, and sad news for that generation. But in today’s very familiar lectionary story we find some great news. It’s a story that helps us use the right tools – and measure our Christianity in a way that befits Christ, and show’s God’s beauty to the world.

A Christianity Measured by Vision

People who have grown up in church have heard that song over and over. “Zacchaeus was a wee little man; a wee little man was he. He climbed up in a sycamore tree, for Jesus he wanted to see…”

Have you ever wondered why the Bible pauses to tell us that detail? Who cares if he is short? Why do we have to know he climbed sycamore tree? The purpose of this tidbit is to give us a sense of where Zacchaeus is in his faith walk. He’s a tax collector (a person the Jew’s consider a traitor because he works for Rome, and probably cheats people in the process), so we assume he is not at the beginning of Christ’s way. BUT, look again. He WANTS to see Jesus – so much so that he climbs a huge tree (sycamore-fig trees can grow to be 20 meters tall) just to see him. Salvation comes to Zacchaeus’ house because he is looking for Jesus.

Christians should still look for Jesus. Are you looking for him? Not just in prayer and at church or when you are sitting in the doctor’s office waiting for test results, but are you looking for him when it’s not easy? When you are too short (short on patience, short on time, short on grace) to see him, are you willing to go out of your way to look for him? When you have that person in your office or kid in your classroom that you’d just like to strangle – can you see Jesus sitting by him or her – holding hands, talking, healing? When someone disappoints or hurts you badly, are you willing to see him walking down the street, knowing forgiveness of that person is what he wants from you? Don’t measure your walk by how many times you think you show Jesus, measure it by how many times you climb to see him.

A Christianity Measured by Transformation

The people all scoff and snicker when Jesus goes to Zacchaeus’ house (and let’s be honest – we would too – we are all a little short on mercy sometimes). But the act of being with Jesus changes Zacchaeus in a way nothing else could. Suddenly the man whose only claim to fame was his ill-gotten wealth gives half of it away, and offers refunds that will take the other half. One visit from Jesus and the little guy goes from being Bill Gates to being Bob Poor-house overnight (plus, he has to get a new job). And it doesn’t seem to bother him! Zacchaeus’ encounter with the Holy Christ transforms him into a man who values God’s opinion and lives Christ’s way.

Transformation isn’t just what happens when we meet Jesus. Its not the case that we encounter Christ, get changed and just live the rest of our lives as the aging new creation we’ve grown comfortable being. Transformation is an on-going life journey in a relationship with Jesus. It involves communion every day with God (churchy folks call that prayer or meditation), reviewing our ideas and actions, learning new things and correcting old habits. To the Christian, transformation is transportation – a way of getting closer to the person God made you to be.

A Christianity Measured by Intention

Notice everything Zacchaeus says is a “gonna”. He’s gonna pay the folks he cheated 4 times what he owes – he’s not getting out his wallet at the table – but he intends to make it right. I hope he did. Sadly, this like many encounters ends without telling us what happened next. Did Zacchaeus really give away his money? Did he pay back 4 times what he owed?

What do you think Zacchaeus did when he found out Jesus was crucified? He lived in Jericho – not Jerusalem – but he would have heard the news about that radical rabbi who got hung on a cross. So what does he do when he gets the news? Does he feel like a fool and say, “Dang, I gave away my wealth to follow that guy – now I’m broke and he’s dead! Call my Centurion boss; I want my old job back!”? Does he mourn the too young death of the rabbi who changed him from a money-grubbing sinner to a man who followed God’s justice and hope? I hope for Zacchaeus that he kept on the Way he intended and heard to good news that Jesus rose again.

Our Christianity means we need to keep our intentions before us. We need to keep following the path of peace, justice, love and transformation God set us on through Christ no matter what the future holds. If we give up on faith; if we give up on each other; if we give up on ourselves or give up on God because we meet some resistance – we have left our intentions in the dust and need to climb that tree and start over again. Christianity is measured by the walk we make in the rain, as well as the sunshine of God’s love.

So, look in the mirror of God’s eyes and show your walk of faith to God. Ask God as honestly as you ask your best friend when you’re shopping, “How does this look?” If God’s answer isn’t one you want to hear, then accept God’s forgiveness and start your walk anew. Sooner than later you’ll look around and see brothers and sisters – churched and unchurched – willing to share the journey of Christ with you step by step and day by day. Be open to them. Then, the Bible says, in the end God will say, “Well done my good and faithful servant” or translated into our modern words, “looking good!”