Where should we be willing to go?

I was having a short discussion with someone this morning when I was warned that a group of people were not real Christians, but claimed to be; the assertion was that they were "wicked."

Fair enough. I don't have enough observation under my belt to determine if that's true or not, but the statement made me think about where it was proper for us, as Christians, to go.

After all, one imagines good Christians to be unwilling to ride with Hell's Angels; good Christians don't listen to rock and roll, good Christians do this, good Christians don't do that.

I find this view of Christian life to be limited and ineffective. It's not as simple as "Christians act like..."

The Role of Forward Momentum

This morning, I caught myself thinking that if you traced the motion of a leaf on the wind, you'd end up with something approximating the face of God.

More rationally, you'd end up with a bunch of squiggly lines, but then again, who are we to say that's not a valid representation of the Most High?

It's not a traditional representation, after all, of anything that relates to God. We think of God in the abstract. Most Jews don't think of God as a concrete image at all, because of the injunction against graven images, so even the squiggly line might be out of bounds, if it's considered an image of the Holy One.

But tradition is a huge thing in today's Christianity, more than it should be.

There's a huge movement in the church today to "revert," to do what the original Christian church did; meeting in houses, fellowshipping in small groups. Less formal services, more direct communication among believers; it's a model that you follow when your church has no money and no space.

Now that churches do have money and space, it's not as necessary; we also have a professional leadership (seminaries train pastors, and we see "lay pastors" as different than, well, "actual pastors.") Pastors no longer always know everyone in their congregation; the congregations are too large for "successful churches." Productions are elaborate; services are more like performances.

This is our forward momentum now, this is our tradition.

I'm thankful for my church

My family and I attended church services on Christmas Eve, at 5:00 p.m., the first of three services our church put together. The next service was at 9:00 p.m., and the last service was Sunday morning, on Christmas day.

The services were fairly normal services for the church, although they did have some special features - a family played some instrumental Christmas music, and we had interpretive dance (rhythmic gymnastics, with ribbons, which is one of my favorite gymnastics sports for some reason. I really don't know why. I like watching the ribbons hang in midair while the gymnast is off doing something different.)

The thing that struck me about the services, beyond the unusual aspect of the special features, was how normal it was. It was Christmas-themed, of course, and centered on Luke 2, but it was a normal service, with an invitation (a very unobtrusive one, like always), the standard format of the service, everything.

If you'd visited on Christmas Eve, and then showed up again in February, you'd see the same services. (Well, content would differ, of course...)

My church - at which I'm blessed to be - is very focused on the Christian mission, to be witnesses for Christ to all, without an overbearing approach.

Everything we do is Jesus-focused.

Lost in Translation?

Last week, our Sunday School teacher had a couple of really interesting points while talking about Philippians 4:4. This is the one that reads something like this:

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.

Our teacher, who works at a HVAC company, was pointing out the difference between a thermometer and a thermostat.

A thermometer is something that measures temperature; a thermostat is something that controls temperature, assuming your AC is working properly, of course.

So how does that apply to Philippians 4:4? Well, the command ("rejoice!") is a thermostat-type command, not a measurement.

It means that we are not to find joy, passively, but to see joy in our being in God's will.

It means that our circumstances are able to control our happiness, but not our joy. Our happiness comes and goes; that's normal. I could have been happy if my team had won on Thursday; I can be unhappy that it lost. That said, whether I'm happy in my external circumstances or not does not affect my joy.

Alcohol

In another conversation with one of my kids - the typical way for me to think of things to write - alcohol came up somehow.

I'm trying to remember the course of conversation that led to that, but I don't. When I'm taking them to school, I tend to just riff on about any subject that we happen to come across, and sometimes I actually say stuff that's worth hearing.

So the subject of that particular conversation was, like I said, alcohol, and naturally I was putting it in context of the Christian life.

The short form is that I don't think alcohol is a bad thing (although too much is), and the church has a tendency to say any alcohol is a bad thing. The Bible doesn't quite back the church up on that.

Making Modern Music

Yesterday, my son and I were looking for some appropriate Hanukkah music (as, of course, Hanukkah is upon us.) We listened to Adam Sandler's Hanukkah song, as well as digging up the Maccabeats' "Miracle" on Youtube, which was really pretty neat. (He liked Sandler's song best, of course.)

However, the Maccabeats' song makes a reference to Matisyahu. I don't know where Matisyahu is in the Maccabeats' video, but I've listened to a few songs of his, and decided to show my son some as well.

"One Day" came up first on Youtube's search.

I think I nearly cried through it, which can happen with some songs (Rush' "Closer to the Heart" is one, for example)... but not many.

It focused my attention on the other stuff my son listens to - Drake, Ke$ha, Li'l Wayne. I don't mind his music (much) - I don't appreciate it, but he's got his own path to find.

But what stood out to me was what Matisyahu does with similar beats and approaches, against what the... for lack of a better word, typical popular artist does.

Where two are gathered in My name...

I was thinking about a phrase my pastor tossed out about the nature of prayer, and it's been sticking with me ever since.

Matthew 18:20, where Jesus says "where two or three are gathered in My name, I am with them," was the starting point - it's often used to define a church, or congregation, focusing on the gathering of believers.

But that always sounds odd to me.

You know how people say "two is company's, three's a crowd," well...

Pirkei Avot, a collection of ethical maxims from the rabbis, in chapter 3 v. 7 (which I had to look  up), says otherwise, and - more importantly - backs it up with verses that apply for Christians, too: