small group study of Francis Chan, Crazy Love (week 1)

Title, Crazy Love. I wonder if the emphasis is on Crazy -it defies human reasoning that God should focus on individual lives and know all the hairs on one's head; a veritable carpet of souls occupying his spaces and generations. Or maybe the emphasis is on Love -that we mortals during our allotted days need to be crazy with our LOVE and rise above the routines and expectations of Society as we advance God's will on earth as it is in heaven.

Majesty and vast universe of creation. We may begin with a notion that God adheres to sanctuaries and altar areas. Then we may one day go to the opposite position and look for God in the infinite cosmos. And finally we may hold these contrasting positions in our minds simultaneously: God is past and present and future all at once. God is at the tip of my nose, eyeball to eyeball with all around me but also God is so vast: and that is OK, even though it boggles my mind and escapes my puny logic. 

“Like dew in the morning” our lives are brief. In the time we have in our hands many opportunities and obstacles present themselves for response or for actions to initiate. We view the merit of a given action in terms of credit or blame that comes to us, to others, or for the glory of God. In other words we are results oriented, rather than concerned primarily about the process and the relationships that are formed and exercised along the way. And yet, perhaps in the mind of God what matters most is not the result, as such, but instead the consequences of an undertaking in terms of our hearts (toward a heart of agape love and toward growing relationships and responsiveness to God; and to one’s neighbors, including strangers, foreigners and those in need). So next time a project attracts large sums of money, time and talent, perhaps the result --however worthy-- is only secondary in importance to the changes in the hearts of those connected in some way (as planner, maker, functionary, or recipient of the project results and services).

Chapter 1 video [prayer; God's face]: freshly worship, freshly pray so that it is constituted from scratch, always fresh, not foreclosed or mere habit.

Chapter 1 video: Much like "live" vs. "canned," studio polished music - the engagement and relationship with God and One's Neighbor is in the doing, not the printed or memorized text. Just as choirs aspire to "sing it like you mean it" (not just produce tuneful notes as a group),  so, too: pray it like you mean it (not just say the formula).

Chapter 1 video: visualizing your approach of GOD's presence in all sorts of facet of Creation - a bug, a bird, a raindrop, a person both interior and exterior, defined and infinite.

sit in church vs actively worship; Big Hearted; taming one' god?

Worship service on Sunday morning: the sense that pew sitters come as spectators, ready to view and be interested in what is served up to them. But this is mistaken, the quality of what comes out depends on those who put something in. In this perhaps a church potluck meal is a better visual image to hold when attending the public worship: each brings something to share and the combined total is impressive indeed! In other words "going to see the worship" actually is going to see oneself and one's peers, not any sort of high falutin, other-worldly performer who promises to wow you.

The two laws and the heart of the matter- Be Big Hearted

The many teachings, examples, and string of events told in the OT and NT all connect to the two commandments: Love God and Love your neighbor as yourself. And these in turn come from the ultimate matter, which is connection (relationship) with God and his/her creation. In practice this very often has not to do with one's thinking part, but one's feeling part: one's intention and emotional responses, thus one's heart: what is in one's heart also will be evident in what one expresses by word and by deed. By this reasoning, the practice/rehearsal of Christianity (a process rather than a final destination) is "heart work." The goal is to become "big hearted" enough to care for other's hearts; not just one's own felt needs.

God in the wild vs Tame God

The measure of one's grasp of God is whether that imagined god is manageable and finite, reliable and predictable on the one hand, or altogether likely to surprise and upturn one's tidy and tame world of routines and relationships. And yet the OT and NT show us the nature of God and how we should develop in our relationship with God and his/her creation. Those instructions and teachings do not change or feel unexpected; the Word as codified as a single bound volume with chapters, verses and more recently, too, subheadings in *not* changeable. Although life experience and changing circumstances of society and the world may affect what is visible and salient in one's own eyes: no matter how many times the hymn is sung, the psalm is chanted or the liturgy is read, still we may be surprised when a long buried inflection or suddenly literal or ironic meaning springs from the page to challenge us or reveal new meanings to our hearts. No, what is liable to surprise us is not the Word and the instructions of how we related to our God. Instead the infinite God will surprise us in our world and individual lives; that part will carry unexpected turns and twists that we then must respond to.

interior or exterior God? roots of Priestdom? all you can eat holiness?

Topics arising in the course of Monday morning men's Bible study 6/3/2013.

interior or exterior God?
Leo Tolstoy's title, "The Kingdom of God is Within You," makes the case that the Lord's Prayer refers to "...Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as in heaven" and the true meaning lies in one's building a kingdom in one's own heart; a heart of gratitude, glorifying (but also vigilance) and service. Where then is the split between expending one life on the visible world and on the interior world; knowing there is a link between what is in one's heart and the deeds one does.

roots of Priestdom?
Surely the 1st and 2nd Temples on the Temple Mount had keepers of the Holy of Holies (the inner sanctum) and their job was to intercede on behalf of ordinary believers. And the tribe of Levi had the job of caring for the Arc and sacrifices in the wandering days. There is a path that goes from Temple Judaism to synagogue Judaism and from Rabbi Jesus' "house churches" (ecclesia; primitive Christianity) to the administrative machinery of the Roman Empire under Constantine I. But exactly at what point did the flat "organizational tree" go to Religious Specialists who would intercede for ordinary persons?

"all you can eat" holiness?
For a mortal mind how much holiness can a person take at one time? Thinking of an analogy of "unlimited talk time" (cell phone service plan), or "unlimited bandwidth" (Internet plan), how does one's outlook change when there is no scarcity. Perhaps it is like the full-time resident of a tourist destination who feels content with the *potential* to visit all the events and cultural assets of the fair city, but in practice only does so when entertaining out of town guests. Maybe explaining or describing or articulating one's relgious path and interior life also depends on an interlocutor who is "not from around here;" someone whose knowledge/familiarity can't be taken for granted and must be spoken about step by step. Just so of one's appetite for holiness: there is only so much one's senses can fill up on, and when it surrounds you there is less rarity and less urgency to seek for it.