Erin Go Bragh tobacco
Knob Creek 9 Year bourbon
Happy Father’s Day!
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Finished up the final track and published a little EP today.
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When the glory of God has left the Temple
One time, I was visiting a mainstream, large, influential American Evangelical church for a mid-week special service.
They had invited a denominational leader to come and speak.
He said in his talk–which I will not dignify by calling it a sermon–that he believed in capital punishment.
With a gleam in his eye and a delighted smile, he said if it was up to him, he would “line them up and fry ’em three-at-a-time!”This was met with laughter, applause, and even cheers.
Then a worship song.
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I knew then that the church and its leadership in America are so sick, and so twisted in on ourselves, that we have lost sight of the heart of Jesus.
The gods we worship are preference and privilege, comfort, cliques, and convenience, along with the evil spirits of nationalism and military might.
Much of the church as we see it is a shell of a thing, an empty form, having long rejected the lordship of Christ and actively quenched the Spirit.
It’s easy to see:
where tears of compassion have been replaced with condescension and anger,
where tender-hearted pleading has been supplanted by top-down dictates,
where kind, patient conversation has been subverted by orders to speak only what is allowed by a select few,
where the word “justice” is met with suspicion,
where the the poor know they will be blamed for their plight,
where the segregation of language and culture are maintained,
where the appeal to fear is made so much more than the declaration of hope,
and ESPECIALLY where’s there’s little interest in speaking about Jesus, learning about Jesus, and walking with Jesus in every day life,
and ESPECIALLY where the radical, non-violent, forgiving way of the Cross is dismissed as “not practical” and “unrealistic,”
…the glory of God has left the Temple.
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But I believe our God pours fresh water into dry riverbeds.
There is a Rock that quenches the thirst of those in the wilderness.
There is a holy habitation that will not be demolished, before which the gates of hell must dissolve.
Photo by Derek Thomson on Unsplash
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Happy Monday of Easter Week, friends! I’m giving Royal Yacht a try and so far I like it!
A prayer for today from my Anglican tradition–in hopes it will be a blessing:
Grant, we pray, Almighty God, that we who celebrate with reverence the Paschal feast may be made worthy to attain to everlasting joys; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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Early morning, an Easter poem
Alleluia!
The Resurrection of God-come-to-as-us-one-of-us–
Jesus!–
can only be
the Declaration:
no one else has to die–
not
one–
to right the world,
humanity is healed,
true Light will always
scatter the darkness,the Proclamation:
self-preservation is wholly unnecessary because the Holy One
never saw corruption,
entrusting instead of defending,the Announcement:
there is no King but Christ,
making many nations one
multi-lingual people of Redemption, answering to no State
but Love,
in Word, Spirit, Divinity,the Hope:
humanity destined
for divination,
Creation-cosmos, restored at last!Angels sing with
Sons of Adam
and Daughters of Eve,–as we weep from relief,
falling into the eternal rest
of mercy and grace–Jesus Christ, our Lord and our God!
To know you and
to be known
by you
is to find you
All in All,forever and without end.
Alleluia!
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In my experience, it seems the default position of many Christians towards their siblings in Christ is one of distrust.
Often, there are good reasons for this.
Other times, it’s really about a lack of faith in the power and provision of God in Christ–by the Spirit–to see us through relational risk and disagreement.
Either way, God calls his people toward a kind of Spirit-powered love that results in well-founded mutual confidence over and against underlying, anxious suspicion.
It is not so much about simply trusting people more per se, but rather a deeper entrusting of ourselves and our Christian family to Christ, so that confidence is built on the demonstrated desire for one another to have–above all–greater communion with Christ, in the non-violent, non-coercive, truthful-yet-graceful way of Christ.
Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash
