The Inevitable vs. The Choice

Context is really inevitable isn’t it? You can choose your context to be sure. Regardless of where you are in life you are simply in a context. This is a fact of life you cannot escape. This seems obvious and overly simplistic. Yet it is key to understanding where and how to move and interact with the world.

Some contexts you get to choose, others are chosen for you. A baby is born into a particular context. I was born in the United States of America. Dallas, Texas to be more specific. Even more so, I was born to Clint and Belinda Bunch, an upper-middle-class, white, well-educated, republican, Christian, Church of Christ family. This is not the context I choose. I was simply born into it. There is nothing I can do to change the fact that I was born into the Bunch family.

My friend Tony was born into a very different context. Tony was born in the South Bronx. He’s not sure who his dad is, and to be honest, his mom isn’t sure either. He imagines he looks like his dad, because he looks nothing like his mom. He was born to a lower class, single-mother, atheist family that was just trying to make ends meet and help her son survive in a dangerous school system. Tony didn’t choose his context. He was simply born into it. There is nothing he can do to change the fact that he was born into the Williams family. What a strange world we live in. Some people are just lucky I guess…

Yet there was One who had the opportunity to choose His context. And it should be obvious which one He would choose right? Clearly He should choose the Bunch family. If you get to choose one, go with the Bunches. Am I right? Yet the One I am discussing, didn’t just get to choose to be a Bunch or a Williams. He had the opportunity to choose any context He wanted. Not bad huh?

Being that this One happened to choose the 1st Century AD to be born, you would think He would choose to be Caesar right? I mean, if you’re going to choose you might as well go big.

For some odd reason, He didn’t choose Caesar. He didn’t choose any royal family at all. In fact, He went the way of an illegitimate child of teenage girl who couldn’t afford one night in a motel. Why would He choose such a life? I mean, I’m no genius. But the answer is really clear that you’ve got to go with Caesar on this one!
One must wonder what Jesus of Nazareth was thinking when He choose Mary. He must have had something special in mind. Surely He had to have had a trick up His sleeve. The truth of the matter is, Jesus chose to intentionally place himself in the specific context of an unwed teenage girl so that he could best show his love to the world. It is out of the lowest class on earth that Jesus chooses to enter the world, because it is a sign of a new Kingdom coming. A Kingdom where everything is backwards and Jesus is King. The first are last and the last are first. Mourning is turned into dancing! Weakness is strength! The blind can see and the lame dance the streets all to the glory of the Most High King!

This is Good News for the poor! But what about me? I was born into the Bunch family. It was a context I didn’t choose, but if everything is backwards in this new Kingdom then that means I’m last.

Yet maybe all contexts aren’t chosen for you. After all I am an adult now. I choose where to go to college. I choose who to marry. I choose what job to take. Now, maybe a lot of these decisions were effected by the context that I did not choose, but that doesn’t mean I can’t still choose a new context, a new Kingdom.

In this new Kingdom all of the citizens are madly in love with their King. They radically abandon the ways of the world in order to pursue relationship with Him. They put all of their effort into becoming like Him in every way. As a follower of Jesus, intentionally placing oneself in a specific context that will best allow them to show their love for others is often over looked. We weren’t able to choose from birth, but as adults we are able to choose our context.

So the question becomes, will you choose to be first, or last?

How to renew the Church?

“The renewal of the church will come from a new type of monasticism, which has only in common with the old an uncompromising allegiance to the Sermon on the Mount. It is high time men and women banded together to do this." -Dietrich Bonhoeffer

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone 4

Action/Waiting Room Ethics

Two weeks ago my little sister got very sick so I took her there around 9:30PM. She is better, no worries…

Most of the time we were waiting was fairly inactive. There were several things I noticed as I looked around. I noticed a few husbands taking care of sick wives. A mother with her grown daughter. A grown daughter with her aging mother. A few families, one of the members was sick and the rest showed up. No one seemed to be by themselves. Until one man walked in alone.

He was a rough looking Hispanic man in his late 20s. About 5′8” 200 pounds, he looked like he used to be an athlete, but obviously wasn’t anymore. He seemed to have been hardened by the neighborhood that he may have grown up in. Wearing baggy jeans and a dirty tanktop to show off his many tatoos. His head was shaved clean and he had a swollen and bleeding eye. I assumed this was why he came in…

He started pacing back and forth in the room. He must have been trying to keep his cool by the look of anger on his face. A few minutes went by and another lone woman walked in and made a B-line to the phone that sat on a side table. She quickly picked up the phone, sat down and began to dial a number, making sure to keep her head low. The Hispanic man noticed her presence quickly and his anger was brought to rage at her sight. He started yelling profanities at her and telling her to leave quickly. The security guard behind the glass moved over to the window quickly to observe, but she seemed frightened herself.

The woman wouldn’t say a word, and didn’t budge, trying to make her phone call. The man grew louder and angrier. He started to yell for the security guard to remove her. It was at this time that he had his back to me and I could see the real reason he came to the ER. He had a golf ball sized gash in the back of his head, covered in blood.

The security guard appeared to be in shock. She didn’t know what to do so she just watched in silence, as did everyone else in the room. When he saw that the security guard wasn’t going to meet his demands he took matters into his own hands. He grabbed her by the hair and raised her up out of his seat. He then began to shake her head and tell her “get the f*$# out of here!”

When I saw that the security guard was not able to do her job I stood up in her defense. My blood was boiling, similar to the way it is now as I recall this event. I stood up, looked him in the eye and said, “You let go of her!”

He quickly moved all of his anger from the woman to me. He started yelling profanities at me, asking if I wanted to “take this outside.” I could think of no words to say that would be helpful. So I simply stood my ground and looked him in the eyes. I had already succeeded at my task anyways. The woman was not being harmed anymore. As he continued his threats 2 security guards came around the corner and escorted him outside.

Afterward several strangers asked me to recall the story from my perspective. So I preceded to tell the story over the next few hours to my new friends in the ER.

Its situations like this that call one to question things like, when is it wrong to be meek? When is being a peacemaker better? Or is it ever? What would I have done if the man had attacked me? Or if he hit the woman? Would I have moved in physically then? Was Jesus a pacifist? Or would he have stepped in physically to defend this helpless woman if things escalated?

Life is tough.

What is the Emerging Church?

The Emerging Church is a fairly hot topic in many evangelical circles these days. This topic brings more childish banter out of the religious far right than any almost any other I can think of. I must also be fair to say that, those on the religious far left have used this expression of church as a sort of covering for an "anything goes theology."

Both are equally unhealthy. The Emerging Church is tough to define. Even the more prominent leaders of this emerging movement have a tough time defining it. I am by no means an authority on the subject. But it is a movement that I have been paying close attention to for the last 4-5 years. I have also been participating in a few expressions of church that most would define as “emerging” in the last year. Using both personal experiences and research I will attempt to briefly define the "Emerging Church" at the end of this post.

Let me tell you about a few of my experiences first...

I lead a monastic community in Edward’s Hall made up of 10 freshman and sophomore’s that have committed to a monastic rule that we developed together. This rule includes: daily time in silence/solitude, reading the sermon on the mount 3 times a week, fasting weekly, daily time in conversational prayer, weekly meeting with monk brothers, a soul friendship (church of 2 or 3), and bi-weekly coaching.

I am also part of a simple church that started in August. We meet together in each others home. Eat a meal together with the Lord’s supper. Each person has an opportunity to share their hearts with one another and say anything else they would like to share with the community. We then have a time of listening together and then we usually spend some time encouraging and building one another up. It has been amazing to become part of a community that not only shares several hours once a week with each other, but is deeply invested in one another’s lives on a daily basis.

Given my experience in these forms of “emerging church” and many readings of other’s experiences I would like to give my best shot at a definition. Here it goes...

“The Emerging Church movement is a conversation centered around reforming Christ’s Bride by blending ancient traditions with Post-modern cultural expressions in order to become a community that represents the Gospel of Jesus, and the life of a particular local.”

What do you think of this definition? Or maybe a better question would be, what do you think of the idea of this kind of church?

The Conversation Continues

I’m having a difficult time keeping up with this blog after all. Largely in part to my newest hobby. You can check that out at Bunchphotography.blogspot.com I am really having a blast capturing the beauty of the creator on camera.

However, I do have a renewed plan for keeping up with this blog, as I feel it is vital that we speak to the issues I am beginning to address here... AND several of you have encouraged me to do so. I’m glad that you feel these topics are important. I do too, and I want to continue to help articulate what I know many of you are experiencing and feeling in the church today. Stay tuned… and please keep the conversation going through the comment section.