On Being Countercultural

In which two responses to a similar call are considered and a challenge extended.

Have you ever had an idea swimming around in your head and it just doesn't seem leave?  That where I've been this last week.  So I thought I put it all down here on this blog.

According to my past labels I have talked about my small group before.  However, I don't think that I have mentioned that we are currently studying Genesis¹.  We are currently studying Genesis².  There now that that is out of the way we can move forward.  Last week we looked at Genesis chapter 12 in it is God's original call to Abram, who would become Abraham.

"The Lord had said to Abram, 'Leave your county, your people and you father's household and go to the land I will show you³.'"

I think there are a couple of interesting things going on in this one verse.  First, it should be noted that in Abram's time, in what is now Iraq, family was everything.  Many people were nomadic traders (including, it is believed, Abram's) and you stuck with your family as a sign of strength.  The wealth and power of a tribe was dependent on its size, so one way to bolster this power was to have kids and to have them stay with you.  When the patriarch of the family died one of the sons, usually the eldest, took control and the tribe continued on.  Secondly, when traveling you stayed on the same trade route that you always stayed on making the same loops through the same areas year after year.  This is partly because you got to know the people that you would trade with, but more importantly this took place in the desert.  Knowledge of the land, where to find food, water and shelter, was integral to your very survival.

Knowing this adds a certain amount of gravity to the call "leave your country, your people, and your father's household."  The Lord was telling Abram to leave everything he knew.  To leave the safe places he was familiar with, the power and safety found in the family, the material wealth of the tribe.  In essence Abram was asked to leave his life behind, to turn away from everything he knew.  God was asking him to be countercultural (see how I brought that around).

Things only get crazier in the second half of the verse.  God doesn't tell Abram where he is to go, he simply says to "go to the land I will show you."  "Follow me" he says, with no map, no compass, not even GPS.  And Abram goes.  Pretty wild stuff, but in return God promises to make Abram into a great nation (which is a pretty bold claim when your wife can't have kids) and to bless him.  Not only that but Abram's name will be a blessing and through him all people of the earth will be blessed.

Keep all of this in mind as we jump ahead a few thousand years and see a similar situation with very different results.

In Matthew chapter 19 Jesus is teaching people, blessing small kids, basically doing his thing.  When a young man comes up to him and asks him what good things he must do to gain eternal life.  Jesus tells him to follow the commandments.  The man asks which ones and Jesus says, "'Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother,' and 'love your neighbor as yourself⁴.'"  "Done-skies," says the man, "what else you got⁵."

So Jesus tells him that he needs to sell all of his stuff, give the money to the poor, so that he will have treasure in heaven, and then he needs to come follow Jesus.  The next sentence is very interesting.  Most translations, the NIV included, say "When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth⁶."  However, in his commentary on the book of Matthew, Dale Bruner says that a more accurate translation is, "But when the young man heard this teaching, he went away heartsick, because he had many things⁷" (my emphasis).

Let's come back to the translations in a moment.  The first thing that is important is how similar this is to God's call to Abram.  While things start off a little different, with the young man essentially seeking Jesus's blessing (eternal life), the two stories dovetail quickly.  God tells Abram that he must leave everything behind and follow where God leads without telling him where that is.  By doing so his name, which is a blessing, will live on forever by blessing all the people of the earth.  Jesus tells the young man that he needs to leave behind everything and follow where Jesus leads without telling him where that is.  By doing so he will have eternal life.  Unfortunately for the young man he is unable to make the sacrifice that he is called to make.  Which brings us back to the different translations.

So often this passage is read as a rich man talking to Jesus, the heading of the section is even "The Rich Young Man" (but don't get me started on the headings in general, they drive me nuts).  When we read it like that it is easy for us to shake our heads and think, those silly rich people, making idols of their vast wealth, how sad for them.  We distance ourselves from the young man, thinking, that isn't me, I'm not rich. And you know what; I don't consider myself to be rich.  So for a long time I didn't connect with this guy.  I do however have lots of stuff.  And I'm guessing that you do as well.

We live in a consumer driven society, we are taught that it is good to buy, or more importantly, to own things.  We think that the more we own the more control we have over our lives, and the things in it.  But more often than not owning a bunch of crap doesn't give us control, it controls us.  Still, though, we buy books and movies and clothes when we don't really need them, or could borrow them⁸.  We overextend ourselves financially so that we can have the newest, most updated gadgets.  And companies are more than happy to supply us with all of this nonsense (I'm looking in your direction Steve Jobs).

By reading this passage as a story about a young man with many things it seems to speak directly to the consumer culture of America.  Because in this culture whether you are rich, poor, or somewhere in the middle you most likely have many things.  Jesus challenges us, get ride of all the crap in your life and just follow him.  Live a life that is in radical opposition to the culture of the day.  Follow him, and we will be blessed, and will be a blessing to those around us.


So that's my challenge for you this week.  Take stock of your life.  What is it filled with?  Maybe it's time for us to consume less and follow Jesus more, because you know what, that dude had some pretty awesome ideas on how to live life.  Will it be easy?  No.  But living a life that is countercultural rarely is.
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¹ That would be the Biblical book Genesis not the British rock band Genesis.
² Do you remember the song I Can't Dance, I totally had that album.
³ Genesis 12:1 NIV
⁴ Matthew 19:18-19 NIV
⁵ That may be a paraphrase.
⁶ Matthew 19:22 NIV
⁷ Matthew A Commentary, Book 2 The Churchbook, by Dale Bruner, page 286.
⁸ For some great thoughts on this very topic check out my friend Sarah's blog, she hit on the topic not once, but twice.

On Paul's Prayer

In which a warning is given, serious issues are discussed, and maybe some heresy.

Content warning:  This week I step back from the cavalcade of absurdity that is the norm for this blog.  Some of you may be disheartened to hear that, for others you may be thinking that it is about time.  For those of you in the first category don't fear, I will try and think of something extra ridiculous for next week¹.

I'm not really big on New Years resolutions.  I really couldn't give you a good reason.  In thinking about it the only thing that came to mind was that it reminds me a lot like Lent.  For a lot of people they seem to make these resolutions because it's the thing to do, and often they can barely make it a week.  With Lent people tend to give things up, not because it is supposed to signify there giving something to God but because it's just what you do.  Now I just read what I typed and it sounds very judgmental, which is not really what I was going for.  I think that, if even for a week, people try and eat healthier, or give up swearing, that it is a good thing.  But for me personally, I didn't want to have a resolution, or give something up for Lent unless I felt called to do so.

Long story short, this year I still didn't make any resolutions but I did make some goals for myself.  Which may be splitting hairs over the difference between the two but I'm okay with it.  My first goal was to exercise consistently.  It is something that I have tried to do in the past and failed at repeatedly, so I decided to kick things up a notch and threw down cash money on a gym membership at the Sportsplex.  So far I have been successful, now I just have to keep at it.

My second goal is to spend time everyday in prayer and reading the Bible.  It might not seem this way based solely on my writing here but my faith is the most important thing to me.  It plays a part in everything I do.  How I interact with people, where I live, what I do with my time.  It defines who I am as a person.  I am a different person when I am spending time with the Lord.  I don't think that it is a coincidence that my consistency at the gym is synchronous with my consistency in the Word.

Paul is probably my second favorite guy in the new testament²; he really brings it in his letters to various churches.  And despite what the Catholic Church may tell you when it comes to defining early Christianity he is probably the most influential person whose middle initial isn't "H."  I took a class on Paul when I was in college, which is really when I began to appreciate his writing more, and I wish that I remembered more of what I learned in it.  But no worries because I have something even better to share with you about Paul.

Please note:  I apologize in advance for any offense that the following paragraphs cause you.

One of the last things I did while I was on staff with Young Life was to attend Winter Institute, a two week intensive training session.  We spent 8+ hours a day in lectures discussing such topics as, child development, developing theology, cross-cultural interactions, and a variety of other topics that have since dissolved from my brain.  While I was at the training I was rooming with Josh, a staff guy from Ft. Wayne, and two staff guys from Texas.  One night when we were all hanging out, and feeling especially smart (or maybe stupid because we'd been in class so long), we started talking about all of the messages that Paul preaches in his letters.  After a while we were able do boil everything Paul says to the churches into one simple, easy to remember phrase.  It certainly didn't cover everything Paul wrote, but it was the best we could come up with.  The more that I thought about it the more I liked it.  Here is was we decided.

"Paul says, 'Don't be a dick.'"

Now again I apologize for the language, and if this is the last you read of my blog I understand, thanks for coming around.  But time and time again Paul was urging Christians to not get caught up on petty issues.  To love the Lord, to love Jesus, and to love each other.  So I think it works well.

What does all this have to do with my goal of being in the word, or of the title of the post for that matter?  Let me tell you.  The first Pauline letter that I read this year was Ephesians.  No other letter that Paul writes has this message to put aside petty differences more than his letter to the church at Ephesus.  The first day of reading I came across a prayer that Paul wrote out for the church and thought to myself that it was pretty neat.  So I underlined it so that I would remember it.  Two days later I was reading chapter 3 and there was another prayer that Paul wrote that seemed to dovetail with the first very well.  I decided to see what they would look like back to back so I did some copy and paste magic and found that they flowed together perfectly.  I first changed the personal pronouns around so that it would be a first person prayer.  Then I realized that it would just as well as a corporate prayer.  That's when it became this:

I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give us the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that we may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of our hearts may be enlightened in order that we may know the hope to which he has called us, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for we who believe.  For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen us with power through his Spirit in our inner being, so that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith. And I pray that we, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that we may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.   Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen³.

I have really been digging this prayer.  I think it is perfect for the community I live in, for the small group I am a part of, for the church I attend, and for the Church universal.  I try and pray it every morning before I leave the house.  And I hope that as the year progresses it becomes less of something I say and more of something that is always on my heart.

Blessings!  And remember, Paul says, "Don't be a dick."
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¹ Maybe double footnotes?
² Psst...number one would be Jesus.
³ Ephesians 1:17-19 & 3:14-21

On Telephone-Pictionary

In which a game is introduced, misunderstandings arise, and Nazis stop by to say hello.


Have you ever been in a room of 8-12 people and wondered aloud, "What is an activity that we can all do and, more importantly, enjoy?"  I know when my friends and I find ourselves in this position an old standby is the wonderful game known as "Telephone-Pictionary."  This is an incredibly simple game that requires only pens, quarter sheets of paper, and your imagination¹.  Here is a quick introduction to the game.  For this demonstration imagine that there are 8 individuals playing.  Each person has in front of them 8 quarter sheets of paper and a pen.  Everyone writes a phrase of their choosing on the top sheet (often movie lines or song lyrics), once done you pass the entire stack of paper to your right.  The next person reads your phrase and must draw a pictorial representation of the phrase on the next sheet.  The stack is then passed again to the right and the next person must write a phrase based on what they think the drawing is this pattern of writing and drawing continues until the stack returns to the originator of the phrase.  Then everyone shares with the group the journey their phrase took.

A couple of additional notes.  Firstly, there are no winners or losers, so the game has a low level of pressure.  However, if you suck at drawing prepare to be mocked.  The purpose of the game is not for your phrase to make it all the way around, it is funnier when thing go awry.  Oh, and did I mention that the rounds are timed²?  Because they are, so draw quickly.

So this all may seem complicated to read about.  But no worries, I've got your back with an example from this very weekend.  Please note: all names have been changed to protect the innocent and terrible artists.

This is the phrase that starts off the game for this stack of papers, it was written by "Jack."  Once Jack writes this phrase he passes to the right to "Liz."  Liz then draws...

Not too bad Liz, we've got someone leaving and the other person is crying because of it.  Liz then passes the stack to "Jenna" who looks at the drawing and writes...

Alright, I can see where Jenna is got this, she then passes the words to "Tracy" and Tracy draws...

So we've now got Tracy's drawing of the Von Trapp family singing and waving goodbye, the stack is passed and "Topher" writes...

Whooooops³, looks like Topher kind got kind of confused, looks like that Nazi flag threw him a bit.  Well nothing to do but press on and see what "Cerie" drew...

Nicely done Cerie, those are some nice looking Nazis you've drawn there.  What does "Kenneth" have to say about all of this?

Yes, that does look like a shrinking Nazi, what wonderful art can "Frank" come up with based on this phrase?

Nicely done Frank.  And there you have it, from "Can't stand losing you" to "Shrinking Nazis" in eight easy steps.  So next time you find yourself sitting around thinking what you should do with yourself give Telephone-Pictionary a try, you won't regret it.

Well, you might regret it, especially if Jecca is playing...she is a little "wang obsessed."

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¹Imagination not included.
²The times are completely arbitrary.
³