Author: Craig

Eat More Garlic Bread

/ Craig / Leave a comment

Today in the preparation for our lunch with friends we ran out of time to prepare our own garlic bread so I sent one of the kids out to Buy Low on Fraser St.  In reading the directions for heating from the packaging I read this:

Origin of Garlic

Garlic has been a prized ingredient for thousands of years.  Ancient cultures valued garlic for many reasons including its ability to ward off vampires.

A study found that serving garlic bread at dinner enhanced the quality of family interactions.  Researchers at an American Psychosomatic Society meeting reported that when 50 test families were served garlic bread, they enjoyed 8% more positive interactions and 22% less negative ones.  That means garlic bread can help promote and maintain shared family experiences around the dinner table.

Source:  Smell and Taste ____ Research Foundation, 58th Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Psychosomatic Society, March 2000.

Everyone at our table agreed: more garlic bread at family meals would be good.  However, there must be adequate provisions of garlic bread!  We had tears and gnashing of teeth when some members of the family were confronted with a two-piece limit.

Try it yourself.  Improve your family life!  Eat more garlic bread–together–at dinners–sans the vampires.

 

Four Profiles of the Heart

/ Craig / Leave a comment

The Big Idea: The way you listen to God’s Word reveals the condition of your heart and creates a faith trajectory for your life.  Text: Luke 8:4-15

(Here is the outline from yesterday’s talk at the Origin worship gathering.)

The Parable is preceded by some dramatic scenes:

1.  John the Baptist questions if Jesus is “the one.”

2.  A woman crashes Simon the Pharisee’s party and hears the   announcement that her sins are forgiven; her faith has saved her.

3.  Jesus begins going through the cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God to large crowds with a contingent of committed men and women.

Two Important terms
Kingdom of God:   The age and reality of God’s rule and reign, initiated by Jesus, the Messiah and King, in order to deliver people from the kingdom of darkness through the forgiveness of their sins they may know God and participate in His redemptive work.

Heart:  For biblical authors the heart is more than the organ pumping blood; “it is the control center of our lives, the place where we take in all the data (whether through our brains, our emotions, our imaginations), sort it out and make decisions.  The problem says Jesus, is that not enough of those who hear the good news with their ears are allowing the good news to take over the control centre.  Something or–someone else–runs the control center.”  Darrel Johnson, The Glory of Preaching, p. 42

Four Heart Profiles Revealed by Gospel Proclamation

  1. Hard Heart.
  2. Shallow Heart.
  3. Cluttered Heart.
  4. Submissive Heart.

1.  The Hard Heart.  Vs. 12

“The ones along the path are those who have heard.  Then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved.”

God “gives” His word, the good news of the Kingdom, to bring salvation.  The devil “takes” so that the process of hearing, believing, and being saved is interrupted.

“But how are they to call on him in whom they have not believed?  And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?  And how are they to hear without someone preaching?  And how are they to preach unless they are sent?  As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news?’ But they have all obeyed the gospel.  For Isaiah says, ‘Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?’ So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”  Romans 10:14-17

This heart is hardened against God, His Word, His Kingdom, His life.  It is habitually unbelieving.  People with a hard heart do not “understand.”  That is they do not grasp, comprehend, or “stand under” the revealed word of God and take action accordingly.

Note Jesus’ interaction with His disciples regarding this parable.

a.  Jesus issues a call to all the crowd to “hear.”

b.  The disciples ask Jesus what the parable meant.  vs. 9

c.  He affirms God’s grace to them–the secrets of the Kingdom have been given to you.  vs. 10

d.  Jesus identifies the parables as part of God’s plan to reveal the condition heart condition of people: they hear, but do not “understand.”  vs. 10

2.  The Shallow Heart.  Vs. 13

“And the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy.  But these have no root; they believe for a while, and in time of testing fall away.”

These people are happy to receive Jesus and the good news of the Kingdom of God.  However, when adversity because of that word and this relationship comes they walk away.

They have the appearance of discipleship, but they have a hardness just below the surface.  They are shallow.  The Shallow Heart is unwilling to allow the Gospel to penetrate areas of significance in their lives and therefore have no root.

They are not willing to give extensive thought regarding the implications of the Gospel for their lives.  Their primary value remains happiness.  They are easily offended and therefore depart from their walk with Jesus and the fellowship of the church before “the time of testing” accomplishes what God desires in the formation of their heart.

3.  Cluttered Heart.  Vs. 14

“And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature.”

Like the shallow heart, these people hear the word and have the appearance of a great start with Jesus.  However, their lives are pre-occupied and cluttered with other affections.  Their lives are ruled by other matters.  Jesus identifies three controlling concerns:

1.  cares.

2.  riches.

3.  pleasures of life.

The Cluttered heart refuses to allow Jesus to reorient or reorder the priorities of their lives.  They may be around the fellowship and show promise of fruit in keeping with the kingdom however, they never become multipliers or reproducers; they never reach maturity.  They hang around, but never produce.

4.  Submissive Heart.  Vs. 15

“As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.”

The good soil represents those people who hear the word of God and are responsive.  In the final sense of this parable they are the one who have been graced to hear, believe, and be saved.

Jesus notes three aspects of their responsive.

1.  They hold it fast.

2.  They hold it fast in an honest and good heart.

3.  They bear fruit with patience.

 

This parable has both promise and warning for us as listeners to God’s Word.  The way you listen to God’s Word reveals the condition of your heart and creates a faith trajectory for your life.  As a listener there may be seasons or areas of my heart that are hard, shallow, cluttered or submissive.

For those engaged in the ministry of God’s Word through personal witness, proclamation, discipling, or teaching or preaching, this parable serves to instruct us and encourage us to persist in that ministry even though we do not immediately see crowds changed by the good news of Kingdom of God.  The “seed is good.”  Our task is to keep submitting and to keep sowing.

Media & Being “Proximate”

/ Craig / Leave a comment

If you turn your ear and eyes to media today it will be difficult to miss that this is the one year anniversary of the earthquake in Haiti.  I still find the images painful to watch and the ensuing devastation in the lives of people feels like a weight even though I am thousands of miles away.

I’m now 100 pages into Tony Blair’s biography, “A Journey, My Political Life.”  In his chapter, The Apprentice Leader” he reflects on the impact Steven Spielberg had on him through the movie Schindler’s List.  He writes,

“There was a scene in it I kept coming back to.  The commandant, played by Ralph Fiennes, is in his bedroom arguing and she is mocking him, just like any girlfriend might do.  While in the bathroom, he spies an inmate of the camp.  He take up his rifle and shoots him.  They carry on their argument.  It’s her I think of.  She didn’t shoot anyone; she was a bystander.

Except she wasn’t.  There were no bystanders in that situation.  You participate, like it or not.  You take sides by inaction as much as by action.  Why were the Nazis able to do these things?  Because of people like him?  No because of people like her.

She was in the next room.  She was proximate.  The responsibility seems therefore more proximate too.  But what of the situations we know about, but we are not proximate to?  What of the murder distant from us the injustice we cannot see, the pain we cannot witness but from which we nonetheless know is out there?  We know what is happening, proximate or not.  In that case, we are not bystanders either.  If we know and we fail to act, we are responsible.

A few months later, Rwanda erupted in genocide.  We knew.  We failed to act.  We were responsible.

Not very practical, is it, as a reaction?  The trouble is its’ how I fell.  Whether such reactions are wise in someone charged with a leading a country is another matter.”  A Journey, p. 63.

Fortunate for many people around the world, the global connections media and the internet have created for us make us proximate.  Unfortunate for us, I believe, is that we are being conditioned to violence, awfulness, tragedy in a way that makes us inactive though proximate.  Unfortunate is to retreat to self-righteousness as a form of reason for non-action.  Compassion for others moves us to participate in both relief and development.  What we do with others more proximate than us, i.e. in this instance with Haitians on the ground in Haiti is I believe an essential though difficult process.  Leaders whose hearts are moved will do it.

Looking to take share in the responsibility of “proximate” try these organizations out:

haitipartners.org

worldvision.ca

churcheshelpingchurches.org

baptistglobalresponse.com

The Origin of Love

/ Craig / Leave a comment

I have been reflecting on God ‘s love for us in Christ and am drawn steadily back to 1 John 4:10.  “This is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”  These reflections on the Gospel truly show us the good news of Jesus’ kingdom.  To be governed, constrained, compelled by this great love is much greater than the self-loathing so easily generated by our efforts at being loveable.

I was delighted today to read in James Bryan Smith’s book, Embracing the Love of God” how God had moved him from self-loathing and earnest promises to “do better” to rest in the love of God shown us in Christ.  Smith quotes Soren Kierkegard’s prayer:

You have loved us first, O God, alas!  We speak of it in terms of history as if You loved us first but a single time, rather than that without ceasing.  You have loved us first many times and everyday and our whole life through.  When we wake up in the morning and turn our soul toward You–You are there first–You have loved us first; if I rise at dawn and at that same second turn my soul toward You in prayer, You are there ahead of me, You have loved me first.  When I withdraw from the distractions of the day and turn my soul toward You, You are there first and thus forever.  And we speak ungratefully as if You have loved us first only once.

May this truth of Jesus become our on-going reality and experience.

 

JoyLeaks at Christmas

/ Craig / Leave a comment

Leaks seem to be hated recently.  And I agree.  When our kids were smaller I hated diaper leaks and now a leak in the roof will keep me awake at night for days.  However, as governments around the world respond to wikileaks I have been reflecting on the greatest leak ever.  In Luke 2:9-20 God leaked the secret of Jesus’ birth and broadcast it to shepherds working the night shift.  Up until that moment of revelation Jesus’ birth was Mary and Joseph’s private experience.  But God would not keep this joy to Himself.  This is how joy works.  It leaks into our lives and sometimes floods, but most often leaks.

I think there are plenty of reasons why joy is not our normative experience.  For one, we are incredibly suspicious of publicly joyful people.  Second, we are inhabited with joy killers who roam about like Rowling’s dementors ready to suck the happiness out of us: boredom, envy, and self-righteousness come to mind.  And third, life is tough as we live in a Narnia-like state of suspended winter:  “Always winter, never Christmas.”  We need joy to leak into our lives and our public experience.

I imagine it was another mundane night of watching sheep until Heaven leaked “good news great joy” all over those shepherds.  It was God’s happy dance.  Joy has roots in the details and the reality of Jesus’ birth.  Unto us a child is born!  Heaven shouts, “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.”

The shepherds show us how joy might leak more regularly into our lives.  They investigated Jesus and got close to Him.  So it is with us when we daily ascribe to Jesus the greatest worth and value in our lives, when we respond to the good news of the Gospel that God loves us, joy emerges.

I love the line in verse 20, “The Shepherds returned…”  They returned to their jobs, their lives, their responsibilities…but they were not the same.  They returned “glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.”  Sounds like joy.

Here is a joyleak to enjoy: