Monthly Archives

June 2020

BUILT FOR FREEDOM

Human Kind

 

The words “free,” “freedom,” “freely,” and “liberty” ring out 31 times in the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The same themes course through the archive of Early American documents, the teachings of every great philosopher and religious leader, and biblical texts from Genesis to Revelation. Freedom is so basic to human experience we assume it’s as natural as breathing. The quest to find and protect freedom is so primal it’s imprinted in our DNA. When threatened with its loss, either we fight for it or we take flight to escape its loss.

If you ask a lot of people what it means to be human, they’ll say, “We’re all sinners… we all make mistakes…” You seldom hear, “We’re made to be free.” So many of us have been conditioned to believe sinfulness is our native state that, given a choice between self-destructive behavior and living freely, we naturally choose what enslaves and corrupts us.

Early Christians recognized how easily freedom can be sacrificed or stolen. They understood slave mentality, because they lived in a slaveholding culture and many were actual slaves. Yet the Good News of Jesus upended the idea that enslavement of any kind—even to sin—is a natural state. Indeed, Early Christians believed Jesus restored our freedom and relieved us of sin’s burdens. In Galatians 5:13 we read, “You were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only don’t let this freedom be an opportunity to indulge your selfish impulses, but serve each other through love.”

Love not only asks us to set aside our selfish ways; it also demands we honor one another’s freedom and dignity. We are built for freedom and if we believe that, then we’re also made to be kind and forgiving and tolerant. So freedom isn’t reckless. Nor is it selfish. It releases us from a mentality that regards all humans as naturally sinful and unworthy. We are all made in the divine image; we are imperfect beings being made perfect. Any notion of inherent ungodliness is foreign to our faith and perpetuating such an idea generates self-fulfilling prophecy. If we tell people (especially young ones) they’re inherently bad they will behave badly. And they’ll question everyone around them. And they’ll feel guilty and worthless. And… and… and…

But what if we remind people they’re free? What if we focus on empowering folks to thrive in freedom to be free? What if we quit being thought and behavior police and instead become bright avatars of truth. “You were called to freedom,” scripture says. What if we not only answered that call? What if we amplified it in our witness to others?

Freedom sits at the center of this week’s Origins study and its focus on humanity. It also figures prominently in this coming Sunday’s Pride service, “In the Name of Love.” Access the study on Thursday evening, 7:30pm CDT at: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85212231523?pwd=MC85VzJBVHF2MWYvVXRZcVFLdzJEdz09

Meeting ID: 852 1223 1523; Password: 072524.

Our Pride service premieres on YoutTube on Sunday, June 28, at 5p CDT. Find it on our YouTube page by clicking below.

We need your help!

As we think about the future of Gather, please let us know what gifts you bring and would like to share with the community. There are many roles that have to come together to make Gather happen every week. This includes setup, technical support, worship, managing handouts and information, coordinating drinks, and teardown. We need your help. Please let us know what type of service you’d be interested in!

Watch God Work,
Tim & Shea

As we prepare to become a vibrant worshipping community, we invite you to enjoy a Spotify playlist that captures the kind of worship we hope to embrace. Give it a spin while you’re driving. Make it your workout jam. Add it to your devotional time. Most of all, feel yourself becoming part of a sacred village of believers who love their God and one another!
Check out the Gather Worship Playlist here.

INHERENT GOODNESS

Come and See

 

Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law and the Prophets: Jesus, Joseph’s son, from Nazareth.” Nathanael responded, “Can anything from Nazareth be good?” Philip said, “Come and see.” – John 1:45-46

 

This famous scene plays out at the start of John’s Gospel, where the writer drops a not-so-subtle hint that things aren’t going to be easy for Jesus. The God who does all things well appears to have made a colossal mistake in terms of time, place, and social location. Jesus is born poor, raised on the wrong side of the tracks in a community not known for producing anything remarkable, among country people with no reputation for intellectual rigor or political influence. Think of the deadest dead-end town you’ve ever visited and you’ll get a sense of how Nazareth was regarded. It makes sense that Nathanael can’t imagine anyone from there doing anything good.

But that’s not the whole of what he’s saying. The “good” Nathanael asks about is inherent goodness. This quality isn’t a result of breeding or race or class or education. Our buddy Nate, good ol’ boy if ever there was one, is saying Jesus can’t possibly be good because, based entirely on where he’s from, there can be no goodness in him!

This is what inequality and prejudice look like. They start with presumed deficiencies that give those who subscribe to such thinking the upper hand. “Can anything from Nazareth be good?” Mighty fine question from Nate, who hails from Bethsaida, a prosperous lakeside village. Mighty fine question about a stranger who comes from hardscrabble farm country where folks live in constant fear of Roman policing. Mighty fine way Nate has of drawing conclusions about someone he’s never met based on details he doesn’t understand.

Most of us would have accused Nate of the kind of ignorant arrogance that plants seeds of racism and other naïve phobias without concern about who gets hurt. How dare someone write off another person based on cultural stereotype or racial profile! Philip may have felt the same kind of indignance. But all he says is, “Come and see.” Jesus doesn’t need Philip’s defense. Philip doesn’t need to prove a point. Nathanael simply needs to meet Jesus and when he does, Philip’s point will be made.

During these times of racial unrest and bright hope, we recognize how many Nathanaels live around us. It’s hard to imagine one white 21st-century American even thinking, “Can anything from communities of color be good?” But many do… all the time. When we encounter people who are mired in their own smug superiority, we might want to argue with them, when we might do better inviting them to alter their view.

“Come and see,” Philip said. Come and see.

Join our weekly Bible study as we continue our “Origins” series examining the life, ministry, and meaning of Jesus of Nazareth. We meet each Thursday at 7:30p CDT via Zoom.

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85212231523?pwd=MC85VzJBVHF2MWYvVXRZcVFLdzJEdz09 

Meeting ID: 852 1223 1523

Password: 072524

Or you can call in at 1-312-626-6799, using the same Meeting ID and Password.

We need your help!

As we think about the future of Gather, please let us know what gifts you bring and would like to share with the community. There are many roles that have to come together to make Gather happen every week. This includes setup, technical support, worship, managing handouts and information, coordinating drinks, and teardown. We need your help. Please let us know what type of service you’d be interested in!

Watch God Work,
Tim & Shea

As we prepare to become a vibrant worshipping community, we invite you to enjoy a Spotify playlist that captures the kind of worship we hope to embrace. Give it a spin while you’re driving. Make it your workout jam. Add it to your devotional time. Most of all, feel yourself becoming part of a sacred village of believers who love their God and one another!
Check out the Gather Worship Playlist here.

KEEPERS

Killing God

In the Hebrew scriptures, it doesn’t take long for the beautiful story of Creation to go sideways. After God breathes life into the clay and animates humanity, the newly formed creatures—notable for their resemblance to their Maker—make some major mistakes. The possibility of judging good and evil is too tempting to resist and succumbing to the temptation opens Adam and Eve’s eyes too wide. They become ashamed of their nakedness and their broken trust with God ends with a dual curse of hard labor. Adam must toil until he sweats to feed his family. Eve must endure the painful ordeal of childbirth. They’re no longer fit for Eden. Fade out.

It’s what happens in the next generation that merits our attention today. Two sons become embroiled in sibling rivalry. One of them—Cain—is so unhinged by deep fears of inadequacy he murders his brother, Abel. Homicide is the first sin one human commits against another and it’s terrifying, not only for its moral bankruptcy and violence. This notion of killing is abhorrent because it completely flies in the face of everything we understand about God and us.

If God is the Source of life and if we are, by divine intention, made in the image of our Creator, then the murder of a living, breathing, conscious and moving human being amounts to killing God. If our purpose is to do the work and will of God, then removing a human being from this plane before his/her/their work is done defies the very purpose of Creation. If, as we like to say, we are God’s hands and feet, God’s temple, and so on, one person’s knee on another person’s neck is not only criminal. It’s sacrilegious. It amounts to one human depriving another human of God’s greatest gift: breath.

I can’t breathe! George Floyd cried out until the presence of God left his body. Eric Garner cried the same thing. So did Javier Ambler while being arrested in a fatal 2019 police encounter. I can’t breathe! Something in us begs to breathe because when breath is gone God goes with it. Murdering a human made in in the divine image, animated and sustained with divine breath, essentially kills God. And reckoning that one image of God is somehow superior to another—that the life inside a pink-skinned shell matters more than life contained in a black-, brown-, or red- or yellow-skinned body—isn’t just sacrilege. It’s heresy.

When God confronted Cain about Abel’s disappearance, Cain got arrogant. This is common among people who try to erase God’s image by stealing the breath of God’s creatures. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Cain asked. Yes, Cain, you are. Yes, we all are keepers of those around us. We are called upon to protect them, suffer with them, keep them breathing. “Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground,” God told Cain. Abel. George Floyd. Breonna Taylor. Ahmaud Arbery. Javier Ambler. Michael Brown. Eric Garner. Philando Castile. Laquan McDonald. Sandra Bland. Trayvon Martin. And on and on and on. This God-killing must stop.

Join us this week as our “Origins” study series continues with a closer look at God and what knowledge of God demands of us. We meet via Zoom at:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85212231523?pwd=MC85VzJBVHF2MWYvVXRZcVFLdzJEdz09 

Meeting ID: 852 1223 1523

Password: 072524

Or you can call in at 1-312-626-6799, using the same Meeting ID and Password.

We need your help!

As we think about the future of Gather, please let us know what gifts you bring and would like to share with the community. There are many roles that have to come together to make Gather happen every week. This includes setup, technical support, worship, managing handouts and information, coordinating drinks, and teardown. We need your help. Please let us know what type of service you’d be interested in!

Watch God Work,
Tim & Shea

As we prepare to become a vibrant worshipping community, we invite you to enjoy a Spotify playlist that captures the kind of worship we hope to embrace. Give it a spin while you’re driving. Make it your workout jam. Add it to your devotional time. Most of all, feel yourself becoming part of a sacred village of believers who love their God and one another!
Check out the Gather Worship Playlist here.

NOT A PROP

Nor an Idol

While imprisoned for his role in a conspiracy to assassinate Hitler, the theologian and activist Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “The great masquerade of evil has played havoc with all our ethical concepts. For evil to appear disguised as light, charity, historical necessity or social justice is quite bewildering to anyone brought up on our traditional ethical concepts, while for the Christian who bases his life on the Bible, it merely confirms the fundamental wickedness of evil.”

The turmoil of 2020 America validates Bonhoeffer’s conclusion. The trick behind Christian nationalism’s unusual success comes with its ability to mask evil in a cloak of religion. Seizing control of the hearts and minds of many sincerely faithful, mostly conservative believers, the current Administration has made a mockery of every sacred institution and belief our nation once valued. As each assault on reason grows more egregious, it’s easy to become cynical about faith and Christian expression.

Cynicism is a ready-made companion to what Bonhoeffer called “cheap grace,” or “grace we bestow on ourselves.” In other words, cheap grace focuses entirely on my wellbeing, my salvation, and my gratification. Bonhoeffer saw cheap grace everywhere in Third Reich Germany—not only in the Nazi Party, but in the fallen state of the Christian community. When Hitler perverted the teachings of Jesus to advance a false doctrine of racial and moral “purity,” the vast majority of German Christians said nothing. And despite warnings from all sides, they followed their Führer straight into the abyss.

When we see the American Head of State stage a photo shoot in front of a church (after gassing and firing on nearby protesters), holding a Bible aloft like a box of Tide, we should be alarmed, whatever our politics may be.

The Bible is not a prop. Neither is it an idol—a material god whose power is revealed in incantations we recite to make things happen. The Bible is a timeless source of wisdom that calls us to accountability for every aspect of our lives, including how we use our power as citizens to defend the defenseless, care for the needy, and welcome the stranger. What we’re seeing is blatant exploitation of religious ignorance among millions of people with no idea where the Bible came from, what its writers intended, or why the accountability it calls us to begins with interpretive responsibility.

Too many Americans consume their Christianity like a box of Tide. They use it to feel clean and like how easily it washes away their guilt. But neither our faith nor our texts are consumer goods. They are our sacred inheritance and I for one don’t appreciate watching anyone commoditizing them for political gain.

Starting this week we return to our roots in a study series we call “Origins”. And we begin with a look at the Bible. Where do our sacred texts come from? What compelled its authors to record their stories and ideas? Why should we be mindful of scripture’s history as a means of clarifying how we understand what it’s saying to us today? Join us this Thursday at 7:30pm CDT:

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85212231523?pwd=MC85VzJBVHF2MWYvVXRZcVFLdzJEdz09

Meeting ID: 852 1223 1523
Password: 072524

Or you can call in at 1-312-626-6799, using the same Meeting ID and Password.

We need your help!

As we think about the future of Gather, please let us know what gifts you bring and would like to share with the community. There are many roles that have to come together to make Gather happen every week. This includes setup, technical support, worship, managing handouts and information, coordinating drinks, and teardown. We need your help. Please let us know what type of service you’d be interested in!

Watch God Work,
Tim & Shea

As we prepare to become a vibrant worshipping community, we invite you to enjoy a Spotify playlist that captures the kind of worship we hope to embrace. Give it a spin while you’re driving. Make it your workout jam. Add it to your devotional time. Most of all, feel yourself becoming part of a sacred village of believers who love their God and one another!
Check out the Gather Worship Playlist here.