a beautiful mess

had an idea that may prove pretty sweet: short(er) journal pieces! the “featured” pieces usually take quite a bit more time to put together and can make for some lengthy reading – which is all well and good, but sometimes it’s just nice to drop by a site and get some food-for-thought. ergo, the short.

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lately. my mind has been inundated with “conversation” themes and illustrations and parables and what-to-the-not – probably because i have been taking some interviews and talking vocational ministry left and right.

the latest to come to mind: NOT HOW IT HAPPENED.

a conversation centered around the myths, or more common, the lies we’ve come back to believing, about certain experiences yeshua had here on earth. take for example the woman caught in adultery. we all know the story – which really isn’t true – you ask ten people about that story and you learn all kinds of things, haha! – but we think we know the story. and many of us do kind of know the gist of the story. but as time goes on, and as we meet various “kinds” of people, we begin to isolate and justify that story. soon, the story becomes fictitious and unreal.

though we know the story. we tend to live (and respond to people) as if this happened,

(paraphrase) so there was this woman. she was caught in the act of fornication and adultery. clearly, that’s wrong. who cares where the man is! she’s obviously a filthy, unholy, inglorious daughter of an adulteress herself. anyways, she’s laying in the dirt, accused by the religious and political symbols of the day – rightly so – and then jesus comes along. after he graciously sends them away, he leans down and whispers in her ear, “you lay condemned, brace yourself for the stoning.”

or as if this happened,

(paraphrase) when it came time for the last supper, yeshua, the most powerful man in the room, got up from the meal, deceived his followers and conquered the world by sword and force!

and on we could go. but this is not how it happened. yet we tend to live with stones in one hand and swords in the other: our local assemblies (ekklesia) seem to bind freedom and free religion.

may we return to the stories of yeshua with new eyes. may we examine ourselves. may we examine our local communities. may we have ears to hear. may we come to know the truth and be set free, so that we can live as yeshua lived, bringing glory to YHWH in all we do.

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