Keeping the Faith; Never losing Hope; Always Loving

I didn’t bring my outline of scripture today to read for my daily devotion so I dived into a book I’m reading from Anglican theologian, N.T. Wright. In the section I read this morning Wright named an issue that I’ve sensed for such a long time in the church but haven’t been able to name it. It is nice to know that this struggle is not new but one from ages past that humanity has dealt with in beliefs of God’s nature and relation to the world.

Wright points out that there are three ancient ways to think of God’s presence and interaction in the world and one of those is this thought that God’s dwelling (heaven) is completely separate from the human world. That God created the world and then left it and now sits in some “pie in the sky” place watching things play out with a hands off attitude. The short version: “God’s dwelling and ours are totally different.” This was the belief that led to Gnostic belief which claimed that all matter was bad and that connecting with God meant to discard everything in this world and to attain into the “spiritual” world and dwelling. Those that became more enlightened with their thinking of “spiritual” things will be moving into this realm to connect with God but all matter was not of this God in the sky and should be discarded.

This notion has resurfaced in the church of the western world today with the view of this God in the sky that looks down on a messed up world and that our ultimate goal is to leave this messed up world to go and dwell with God in the “pie in the sky.” In this notion, Wright suggests that there is no wonder no one really wants to go to church…..why would we want to go to church and worship this distant remote God that has little to do with our lives today but hopefully someday we get to come to His “pie in the sky” with a statement of belief. The result is that we see Jesus as this one that God sent to this world to teach us how to escape this messed up world and to go and live in God’s pie in the sky place and that the cross is some “cruel fate to satisfy some obscure and rather arbitrary requirement” according to Wright.

I find myself this morning completely frustrated with the way the modern evangelical western church (which I claim to be an evangelical but understand the word somewhat differently then perhaps popular “evangelical” language) has reduced the Christian faith and the work of Jesus on the cross/resurrection as some way out of this world when we die and a ticket to go to God’s dwelling in the sky (which we call heaven) for what we call “eternal life.”

Are you kidding me? Is this what Jesus intended and the Kingdom that Jesus spoke of? What about the Lord’s prayer and this plea of “thy Kingdom come; thy will be done; on Earth as in heaven.” If we are using Jesus to escape this world when we die to go to “heaven” then how can this “thy” will being done on earth as in heaven. Why would Jesus come to a world that He claims to dearly love if the only reason was to get people out of it when they die to take them somewhere else? There’s this thought and suggestion that being a Christian means that when I die I will no longer be in this dreadful world but be with God in “heaven” as if heaven is a space confined to time and space like our world. I just don’t think this is what Jesus intended; I don’t think this is why God invaded this world He created that we screwed up with the same word with which He created the world in the first place. I don’t think God sent Jesus for escape but that God sent Jesus for rescue as Wright suggest. God sends Jesus to rescue the world and ourselves from us; the cross opens the door for resurrection which is God’s resounding trumpet of rescue from death and sin’s domination of our world. The resurrection is God righting what we have wronged and giving birth to a world that is ruled by grace, mercy, love, hope, justice, and peace. For those that receive this gift (by admitting we are the problem and asking for forgiveness and new life) of grace through the resurrection a new birth occurs in which we become truly human because we are finally restored into a relationship with God and this relationship is one that transcends and overlaps our current world into God’s dwelling (Heaven). We begin to experience eternity now through this restored relationship with God and become instruments of this restoration in the world that God’s will might be done on earth as in heaven. Hence, through this restored relationship our world gets glimpses of heaven and we realize that perhaps heaven is not just a place but is also a way of life, a restored relationship that can only come through the forgiveness that takes place with the resurrection of Jesus Christ which gives birth to a restored relationship with the living God. The result is that Church becomes a place and an instrument of experiencing a God that has not set up in the sky and watched this broken world but a God that has entered into this world through Jesus Christ not to offer a “fire escape” plan but to rescue this world and our lives from living separated from God and offering us a life that is joined with God that begins now and lasts forever.

I’m sure there are many holes in this entry and probably places where my theology needs some evaluation and more attention to its implications. I’m only trying to journey in a life of faithfulness to a God that did not call me to escape but a God that rescued me and invited me to join in the plan of rescue for the rest of the world. Please correct me with grace in those places of error and offer a voice in the conversation.

I love you with the love of the Lord.

Click here for Crossroads Church!

~ by pullins10 on July 22, 2008.

Posted in Faith