Buddhist Koan describes Christ

Just so you know ahead of time, this post may be offensive if you're especially sensitive, but I promise, I don't mean to be blasphemous or sacrilegious- just to make an important point why we should appreciate what God has done for us and reflect on how and when we might become humble enough to follow His example for the sake of helping others.

A monk asked Ummon, "What is Buddha?" Ummon replied, "Kanshiketsu!"

Kanshiketsu, literally a "shit-stick," was used in old times instead of toilet paper. Shit-sticks become dirty to clean us. If this is not a Buddha, then what is? Out of gratitude to the stick, we call them Buddhas.

Jesus is our Buddha.

Trust me, I am not making fun of either Christianity or Buddhism. I am neither trying to disparage my Lord, nor abandoning Christianity for Buddhism. Hear me out on this, first read what Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:21,

"God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."

First of all, Jesus is not just a Buddha (a teacher who has achieved enlightenment, He is our redeemer, He died and rose again so that we can be able to have a relationship with the Living God. But think about 2 Cor 5:21 and compare it to Umman's Koan for a minute. In the basest terms, the Zen master is explaining that prophets of enlightenment carry away our filth and help us to become clean and pure. Jesus does this not merely with our thinking or the angst that impedes on our inner peace, He who never sinned, the only person to ever be pure and acceptable in God's sight, not only took on our filth, but became our filth. Then He took that kanshiketsu to the fire and incinerated it.

So perhaps, if He is willing to do that for us, if He is willing to be a shit-stick...

Maybe ONE; we should be willing to look at the humble things in this world with more honor. We should hold even the sick, weak, poor, alien, broken, and filthy people in this world with more respect. If not because He made them and loves them, then because He died for them too. Everyone is equal, and everyone has the potential for God to use them for His purposes.

And maybe TWO; we should be willing to be kanshiketsu for others. Shouldn't we offer His unconditional love, acceptance, and forgiveness, to everyone- no matter how different they are from us. No matter how difficult it is to have to put up with other peoples's crap. Shouldn't we be willing to serve others since Jesus serves us in the most fundamental, vulgar, difficult way?

This is what we are called to do as Christians. Although "ambassador" has a much nicer ring to it than "kanshiketsu." But that's the challenge, are we as Christians willing to do what Christ did? Are we willing to be shit-sticks for Christ?

2 Corinthians 5:14-20

Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God.

The OTHER John 3:16

Just about everybody is at least a little familiar with the "Gospel in a nutshell," the most famous verse in the Bible, John 3:16. It's message is the core of the whole Bible; God loves you, Jesus died for your sins so that you can live forever with that God who loves you. Maybe people take it for granted, maybe some reject it or don't "get it," and maybe some people don't know the actual verse, but they've seen "John 3:16" on some poster being held up by some religious nut on TV somewhere, right?

But how many of us read any further? Americans are lazy and hate to read. What a shame. Public education is a product of the Reformation. Reformers like Luther wanted people educated so that they could read their Bibles for themselves, make their own intelligent decisions about its meaning instead of just rubber stamping whatever hubris was shoveled out to them from the pulpit. The hope is that your faith would be your own and you'd develop a personal relationship with God. Just as the man who can read but refuses to is no better off than the one who can not read to begin with, we're just as vulnerable to mindless slavery if we leave our Bible on the shelf as those who can't read theirs.

Anyway, if you just read on another two verses, you learn what C.S. Lewis takes an entire novel to explain in his book "The Great Divorce," that God doesn't SEND non believers to Hell- we're all already in a state of spiritual death and isolation from God. If we reject His Son, we condemn ourselves to remain there for eternity. That's an amazing and humbling truth. Hell was prepared for Satan and his angels, not for humanity. Its definitely real and people go there, but not because God wants them to.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. ~John 3:16-18

Here's something else most people never bother to read or study- the OTHER John 3:16, 1 John 3:16. 1st, 2nd and 3rd John are letters or "epistles" written by the same author of the Gospel, the Apostle John, the youngest of Jesus' disciples. He probably wrote 1 John somewhere between 85-95 A.D. John wanted to warn new Christians about false spiritual teachers.

1 John is one of my favorite books of the Bible. John tells us to test the spirits and consider the motives of teachers so that we won't be led astray from the truth of Jesus' teaching. John reminds us that Jesus' new commandment is to love one another, and tells us that God is love. and that Jesus demonstrated His love for us by laying down His life for us. And of course, We love because He first loved us.

And my favorite verse, "There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear..." (4:18a). Too often our decisions and positions are motivated by fear. "Fear and Loathing" as Hunter S. Thompson used to call the primary human drives. Thomas Hobbes called it selfishness and shortsightedness in conflict and competition. Freud called it pleasure and pain, fight or flight. Ignorance leads to fear, fear leads to prejudice and anger, prejudice and anger lead to hate, hate leads to violence.

But if God is in us and we are in communion with God, following Him as humble disciples, studying His Word, seeking Him in prayer and confession, thanking and praising Him, we don't have room for fear. If we trust Him and let His love overflow in us and flow out of us to others- we won't be motivated by fear, but instead by compassion and the fruit of His Spirit, joy, peace, patience and kindness, etc. Love overflowing. Now that's the kind of "trickle-down" theory I'd like to see.

But let me finally get to my point about the "OTHER John 3:16."

I think that John 3:16-18 tells us about "Justification," (Jesus' saving work) and 1 John 3:16-18 tells us about "Sanctification," (Jesus' ministering work with and THROUGH us).

This verse is one of the plethora of reasons why I believe that Christians can be Democrats, even "liberal" Democrats- because political progressives believe in helping others and oppose hording wealth or power. You might even go so far as to say that 1 John 3:16-18 is downright "Socialist." In these verses John urges us to follow Jesus' example of love and sacrifice. of putting others before ourselves. This is a verse that Wall Street could stand to learn. Anyone angry about losing their off-shore tax shelters ought to consider this verse carefully.

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. ~1 John 3:16-18

Happy Pentecost

Just a few words about one of the three most important holidays in the Church year. I feel guilty for this being almost a passing thought. Pentecost truly should be as celebrated as Christmas and Easter. We Lutherans especially, it seems tend to overlook the third person of the Trinity. Many mainline Christians seem to think of Him as an it, something God fills you with, as opposed to an equal godhead with the Father and the Son. What a shame, so much that we leave to "Pentecostals" and "Charismatics" who we write off as somehow "fringe" Christians. How much we forfeit that might have been ours.

It seems to me that it's fitting that Pentecost falls on Memorial Day weekend this year, because in my mind, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit Acts 2:1-21 is analogous to democracy. Just as the Age of Enlightenment and the American revolution made every citizen an active participant in their government, replacing the previous practice of "Divine rite of kings," so the coming of the Holy Spirit brought (See also Joel Chapter 2) about meant that rather than God's Spirit descending upon any one individual prophet (say Elija), Priest (say Aaron) or king (like David)- He lives in each and every Christian believer, anointing all of us for Divine service, as...

• Prophets- speaking Gods' Word
• Priests- interceding on behalf of others with God (say in prayer for instance)
• and as Kings- leading by example, letting God's Kingdom come in and through us as His servants

Personally, I read Martin Luther's "Babylonian Captivity of the Church" to say that the "office of public ministry" is really no more than just another vocation wherein we are all the King-of-King's ministers, but I suppose I'd better be careful with that one because I'll no doubt irk some Missouri Synod clergy as toying with heresy- but hey, when Luther postulated that Jesus built His Kingdom on the foundation of Peter's confession, rather than on Peter- blowing away the Roman Catholic dogma of the Divine right of priestly succession, Rome considered Luther a heretic.

But I digress, the point is, Pentecost, the birthday of the Church ushered in a sort of democratization of a relationship with God. No longer did people have to go to some temple on some mountain and have a priest intercede for them, but instead each of us can approach the throne of God with confidence because first Jesus removed our sins and then, because we were justified, the Holy Spirit could come in and God could not only live among us, but could live in us.

Mind you, it's just an analogy. German philosophers like Hagel tried to come up with some hair brained theory of the Holy Spirit as something called the "Zeitgeist" where through out history certain nations or nationalities were possessed by God, first the Egyptians then the Jews, then He experimented with one man in Jesus, then the Germans (thus the Nazi brand of holy nationalism- yikes!) So needless to say, we should be careful when we claim to speak with the authority of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps that's why mainstream denominations like Lutherans cower away from the Spirit, and cling to hierarchies and quasi-political structures and "offices" and orders- because we fear the cult of personality that has led many a televangelist astray.

At any rate, whatever danger may come, I pray:
Come Holy Spirit,
Come
Live in Your Church members
So that we might go forth and proclaim Jesus' victory
as Your servant prophets,
Your servant priesthood of all believers,
and as sons and daughters of the one true King!
In the name of the Father, the Son, and You, the Holy Spirit, three-in-one
Amen