Word of Life Church Podcast

The parables of Jesus are not nice and conventional stories with a moral lesson. Neither are they stories designed to simply get us to pray a “sinner’s prayer.” Anyone who thinks this is what Jesus’ parables are about has clearly not read them! There is nothing nice or easy, clear or conventional about Jesus’ parables. If anything, Jesus’ parables are crazy, confusing, and most of all disorienting. But why? Jesus’ parables are designed to disorient us from our conventional assumptions so we can be coaxed into the alternative and un-imagined universe that is the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven is nothing less than an alternative way (God’s way!) to arrange the world.

The Prophets are not predictors or political activists; they are poets. These poet/prophets assume the role of pulling back the curtain in society to reveal how things really are and what God is really like. Hosea does just that with a bold prophetic performance. He reveals the truth about Israel's unfaithfulness while also revealing the truth about God's faithfulness. Are we willing to face our own brokenness, pain, and sin? Because in doing so, we will discover a God who is ready and willing to heal, comfort, and forgive.

The fear of global terrorism creates anxiety, no doubt, the question is what do we do with our anxiety? There is the response of anger, hate, and the compulsion to stand up and fight on one hand and the response to suppress how we feel, disengage, and live comfortably numb on the other.Jesus shows us a better way.Jesus does not call us to stand up and fight for what is right. He does not call us to hide and pretend like injustice and fear are not real. Jesus invites us to live peaceably in a world of terror. Paul gives us at least 20 things we can do to live peaceably in his instructions to the church in Rome in Romans 12. As we live peaceably we can have hope for peace in our world.

What are the Hebrew prophets up to? What’s their agenda? The prophets call us to integrity—to wholeness of being. Religious people tend to build walls to separate the sacred and secular, but the prophets will not tolerate this bifurcation of being. The prophets use their poems like battering rams to break down the walls we build to separate the sacred from the secular. The poet-prophets thunder, "There is no secular! It’s all sacred!"The Hebrew prophets simply will not tolerate the separation of worship and justice. Worship is how we relate to God and justice is how we relate to our neighbor. False religion says as long as we believe right and worship right, we can get away with treating our neighbor wrong, that our sins will be hidden by our worship. But the prophets vehemently disagree with this! All of them. This is a consistent theme throughout the Hebrew prophets.

The bonus track in Finding God on Your iPod 2015 is "Song for Someone" by U2.And I’m a long, long way from your Hill of CalvaryAnd I’m a long way from where I was and where I need to beIf there is a light you can’t always seeAnd there is a world we can’t always beIf there is a dark that we shouldn’t doubtAnd there is a light, don’t let it go outAnd this is a song, a song for someone-U2Check out the music video above.If there is a secret to the Christian life, it's this: Just don’t give up, don't quit, don’t stop. Press on. We all stumble. We all fall. We don’t have to be perfect, we just have to press on. Perfectionism is the enemy of true progress. When imperfect people seriously aspire to perfection the results are disastrous. People who find themselves in a culture where perfection is expected are forced to pretend. To live in a world of pretense is to live outside of reality. And there’s another word for living outside or reality—insanity! When we try to be perfect we find it impossible to be good. The pretense of perfection leads people to be legalistic, judgmental, proud, duplicitous, depressed and generally screwed up from the cognitive dissonance of an expectation that is cruelly contradicted by reality. “Perfect” people cannot be good. This why perfectionist groups always implode in spectacular scandal! If because of an expectation of perfection and a fear of rejection we can’t bring our sin into the light of confession and forgiveness, it grows in the dark until it becomes an uncontrollable monster! But the good news is, we don’t have to be perfect! The only perfection Jesus calls us to is perfection of mercy.

Song nine in Finding God on Your iPod 2015 is "War in the Mind" by Lauryn Hill. "The prophet knew that religion could distort what the Lord demanded of man, that priests themselves had committed perjury by bearing false witness, condoning violence, tolerating hatred, calling for ceremonies instead of bursting forth with wrath and indignation at cruelty, deceit, idolatry, and violence." –Abraham Joshua Heschel"God needs prophets in order to make himself known, and all prophets are necessarily artistic. What a prophet has to say can never be said in prose." –Hans Urs von Balthsar

Song eight in Finding God on Your iPod 2015 is "Sing All Our Cares Away" by Damien Dempsey.The power of song must never be underestimated. Don’t ever say, "but it’s just a song." Half the Bible is “just a song!” We’ve diminished the power of song because we’ve succumbed to empiricism. Song is not reason. Song is resistance—resistance to the totalizing of the facts. We sing to push back the “facts” and create room for hope to rise. And when hope rises, we rise with it. That’s when it becomes a Song of Ascent. The Hebrews have known this. The Irish have known this. African Americans have know this. And the church has always known this…unless we have forgotten it. The church is to be the community that sings the Jesus songs of faith, hope, and love.

Song seven in Finding God on Your iPod 2015 is "The Thief and The Friend" by Jason Upton."Many men are braveAnd many men are strongBut few men have I ever seenWho’ll fight for who’s rightAnd then fight for who’s wrongFight for the friend and the thief But I’ve heard of youYou’ve got so many namesBut you call yourself Son of ManI’ve heard your song on the streets where I liveHeard it over and over againLight a candle tonight let it shine, let it shineLet it shine for the goodness and glory of GodLet it shine on the wrongLet it shine on the rightAnd shine especially bright for the losersI have given them hope and a future"- Jason Upton

The sixth song in Finding God on your iPod 2015 is "Brother" by The Brilliance. The supreme Christian confession—Jesus is Lord—is a political statement. Those who confess Jesus is Lord are to seek to embody the politics of Jesus. What are the politics of Jesus? Not the politics of competition and conquest, but the politics of love. Love for God…love for neighbor…even love for enemy. Because when we look into the face our enemy…we see our brother.

The fifth song in Finding God on Your iPod 2015 is "Us for Them" by Gungor. It’s easy to see we live in a world arranged around ‘Us vs. Them’—it's our organizing principle. But this arrangement produces hostility, hatred, and untold injustice and suffering. We may think that as long as “our side” wins it’s okay…but it’s not okay! It’s the way of death. If the world is to be saved and healed, it must be rescued from ‘Us vs. Them’—because the way of Cain always ends with Auschwitz, Hiroshima, and all manner of mass suffering.So Jesus comes as the Savior of the world. Not to save us from God, but to save us from…us! Because the deep truth is this: There is no them, there is only us. In Christ the chosen people is the human race and the holy land is the whole earth.