so last night was our bible study that we have every other wednesday... we are going through the book of revelation in an attempt to try to understand what this book has to say... you see, i (well all of us in the group, really) was raised to think this is a book about the end of the world... some squirrely vision that some guy has that has turned into best-selling books (gag) and a ploy to get people to 'get right or get left' as the t-shirt says...
as i have been re-evaluating my own theology and concepts of god this last year, i realized that revelation was probably not what i thought it to be... not a step-by-step-literal-things-to-come type thing...
okay, that was just a set-up... this week, we watched a video of rob bell connecting the roman caesar, domitian, with the book of revelation and unveiling many similarities between john's vision and what was going on in the roman empire at that time... the video resolved with the challenge to not bow to any domitian, even if we loose our lives... the conversation quickly went to one person saying that if they were asked to renounce god or die, they'd die... at that point, i felt loss... here's why...
it is way easier to say something like that... it is way more difficult to say that i will lose my life now in an attempt to follow jesus... and so we must explore what living like that means, you know?... we must see that there are other tyrants asking us to bow to them... the biggest tyrant?... the one that tells me that i am my own god, here for my own good, here to get all i can, here to rule, here to make right by my opinions, here to get my own rights, here to cast judgement...
okay, so jesus walks the earth... some think he was god, some think he was the highest form of god's expression of love towards humanity, some think he was a prophet... either way, he walked here and was amazing... he walked amongst the roman empire... he walked our western world... and what did he say?... i can only do what i see the father doing (forfeiting his will), i am here not to judge, but to bring goodness and love, i am here to lay down my life (forfeiting his most basic of rights... to live), i am here to give all i can, to value others, to heal the world (tikkun olam), to live the shemah...
so, it seems clear to me that there is a real death that we as christ's followers must be ready to go through... a very real death to our system of approach to life... and in loosing that life, we live... that's how it works right?...
so, this next month begins an experiment in this way...
holly and i have names for the next 4 weeks... rest/sabbath, listening/inspiration, learning/understanding, evaluation/reconnection... im not gonna go into all this, but on that last week, i suspect we will layout the good and beautiful things in our life up against the self-seeking, convenient things in our lives... then, begin (by god's grace) the pruning process...
time to wake up my friend... time to live...
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