Living Story Grace

It’s time to get back to Dorothy Sayers’ Christian Exam — today an excerpt from an article by Philip Yancey (do read the whole article) that helps us with the implications of the atonement.  Stay tuned for a guest blog from Pastor Scotty Smith of Christ Community Church, Franklin, TN, on this widely and wildly misunderstood theory.

“Google the words atonement and emergent church together, and your computer screen will soon heat up a few degrees. A lively (and not always civilized) debate has broken out among those who defend classical theories of the Atonement and those who see them as some variation of the caricature Dorothy Sayers drew 60 years ago:

God wanted to damn everybody, but his vindictive sadism was sated by the crucifixion of his own Son, who was quite innocent, and, therefore, a particularly attractive victim. He now only damns people who don’t follow Christ or who have never heard of him.

….

The Cross is the central image of Christianity, and gives us vivid proof that, in novelist Flannery O’Connor’s words, the world “has, for all its horror, been found by God to be worth dying for.” Yet theologians must somehow explain how Jesus’ death differs in essence from the death of any great leader. What made it necessary, and exactly how did it affect our relationship with God?”

Yancey goes on to discuss the beauty of the Cross and what it means for our relationship with God.  It really is worth the time to read it.

To ponder:  What have you been taught about “atonement,” “propitiation,” “expiation”?  What have you been taught about the “wrath of God”?  Pray that the Holy Spirit might work to open your heart to understand the majesty of the Cross in new ways.

Funny the way life works — focusing on the Holy Spirit and yesterday the Spirit spoke to me.  Here’s a story about how the Holy Spirit works in real life.

I just got off the phone with my coach. Let me take a brief aside to say a few honest words about coaching. I used to think that coaching was either for sissies or sillies – people who couldn’t figure out how to live their life or do their work on their own or people who wanted to “self-actualize,” which in my case, would be very silly, because my self is already way too actualized!:)

Then Bill came along right around the time I was suffering from major burnout in my work.  To keep this from being a long aside, I’ll just say two more things:  1 – I’m not sure most coaches are like Bill and 2 – I’ll say more about that in another blog.  Savvy businessman, sharp assessor of life and people, and most of all, passionate lover of Jesus, Bill has become an important business, ministry, and life ally. I’ll tell you another time how he entered into that fizzling phase and helped me discover new life and hope in my labor.

In our conversation today, the Spirit used my coach to bring me some powerful words I needed to hear.  We were discussing one of my least savored topics, one he relishes, what he likes to call “fair wages for your hard labor.”  Early in our work, he asked me a really tough question, “What is your financial philosophy?”  My response,  “Christians in ministry work for free, and Christian women in ministry work for less-than-free,” did not thrill his soul.  He has his work cut out for him when it comes to teaching me about business and ministry.

To help me see how I should communicate the life-changing AND monetary value of my labors, Coach Bill was role-playing.  He delivered an eloquent and rousing speech about how men need to get behind these events for women with their money because it will change their lives and it will help them for goodness’ sakes and it might just change the world and so on and so on.  It sounded better when he said it!  I’m pretty sure when he’s not busy coaching me he works as a Baptist preacher!  I mean, I was SOLD!

But I was also a little ticked. “Yeah, but I can’t say that!  You can say that because you’re a man but I can’t say that because I’m a woman.  It wouldn’t go over very well.”

He didn’t flinch.  He didn’t skip a beat.  Even though we were on the phone, I could almost picture him doing this: ever so slightly and slowly, he moved his tall frame in front of the exit door I was running for.  And he offered one more brief exhortation:

“No, Elizabeth.  I don’t want you to say that.  But I do want you to ask for what is right in a righteous, sweet way!  I want you to let that passion flow outward instead of driving it inward, which is what I suspect you do.”

And that’s when the Spirit spoke.  Those three words, “driving it inward” stopped me in my speedy little tracks.  My coach is sharp, but he would be the first to agree that the Holy Spirit is what works to change us.  And the Spirit used these three words to call me to turn back.

I have a bad habit of hiding my passion, especially when I’m a little scared.  I work hard to squelch the glory God has put in me.  Today, I was trying to flee through the excuse that I’m a woman and I can’t talk passionately about the monetary value of the work I do.  And the Spirit said, “Oh yes, you can!  Because your work comes from the Creator and Author of your value! Come out of hiding, and let His glory shine from your being!”

My coach spoke, the Spirit translated and transformed.  It is good to be gospelled!

To ponder:  The Holy Spirit speaks through the Word of God, but the Holy Spirit also speaks through the voice of other people.  What people do you have in your life who will speak the gospel to you?

P.S. I hope to get Bill to do some guest posts on work and the gospel, so stay tuned!

Today, a few more words about the power of the Holy Spirit.  These from Eugene Peterson, in Conversations:  The Message Bible with Its Translator:

Everyone around was in awe — all those wonders and signs done through the apostles!  And all the believers lived in a wonderful harmony, holding everything in common.  They sold whatever they owned and pooled their resources so that each person’s need was met.

They followed a daily discipline of worship in the Temple follwed by meals at home, every meal a celebration, exuberant and joyful, as they praised God.  People in general liked what they saw.  Every day their number grew as God added those who were saved. Acts 2:43-47

“If there’s one thing that comes through overwhelmingly in reading the book of Acts, it’s that the Holy Spirit is blowing a fresh, creative wind over these men and women.  The church is something that’s breathed on from above.  It came into being as the Holy Spirit descended upon praying men and women.  It was sustained as that same Holy Spirit dwelt in these people and gave them new life.  The church as we see it in Acts is always something that happens as the Holy Spirit descends.  It’s never an institution with a history you can look back at and measure and talk about.  It became an institution, of course, and it was necessary and proper that it should, but it started out as something that happened, and that experience of happening, of divine occurrence, is the one thing that’s most evident in the book of Acts, and most essential for our own definition and awareness as a church.”

Taken somewhere near the year of my birth...

Yesterday a number of you celebrated various days:  Reformation Day, Halloween, All Hallow’s Eve, also known as All Saints Eve, which of course leads up to a day set aside on the church calendar to celebrate…

MY BIRTHDAY! My children grew up learning the history, not of Halloween, but of All Saints’ Day.  In the mixed history I taught them, they learned several things.  First, All Saints Day was set apart to celebrate the birth of the greatest saint that ever lived — their sainted mother!  Second, on the day before All Saints’ Day, you had the opportunity to dress up in a really creative homemade costume made out of sweatpants, duct tape, and various attachments (branches for a tree from Hurricane Ivan, foam board shaped into a wolf’s head, cotton stuck on the outside to make a sheep).  In this clothing, you attended various fall festivals, where you hunted the ultimate catch — Reese’s.  So much the better if they were Reese’s PUMPKINS, because the great saint to whom you would deliver these goods especially liked Reese’s pumpkins.  All other candy, except perhaps some years, Snickers, you were allowed to keep for yourself.  My children always enjoyed this holiday, but they were a bit confused about what it had to do with nailing letters to the church door.  (Things get a little fuzzy when you’re focusing on the Reese’s!)

Maybe some of you are thinking it’s in bad form to write a blog celebrating your own birthday, or proclaiming one’s self the center of such an important day as All Saints’ Day.  Many years ago, I would have agreed.  But now, I have come to love my birthday, not only as a day to binge on Reese’s pumpkins, but to celebrate.  I celebrate three main themes on my birthday:

1) my history — some years I am awed that I survived the past year; always I am amazed by God’s grace.

2) my friendships — as people send their well-wishes, I marvel at the intersection of history that has brought the lives of these precious people into my story, and I am overwhelmed by God’s kindness.

3)  God’s celebration — God throws a party — for me, for you, for all of His children who have returned — every single day, not just on All Saints Day, not just on our birthdays!  Wouldn’t it be rude not to celebrate with Him?

For my birthday this year I get to do something really special.  My husband and kids and I will wander down the road apiece to visit a precious church, Safe Harbor, which has become just that in my life, a place that symbolizes rest.  Together we will celebrate communion — we will eat of the fare offered by our Father in heaven, in remembrance of the great mercy He has shown us.  And then we will dine with the pastor, his wife, and their two beautiful daughters.  The oldest, who turns 11 today, has agreed to share her birthday with me.  Communion and community.  It doesn’t have to be your birthday to enjoy these great celebrations God has given us.