Jesus Talks

So this week we were asked to consider communication, the way we communicate and what we learn from the way Jesus communicates. I wasnt so keen on the idea at first because i find the more i think about how im communicating, the more awkward and weird i become. But i was really up for learning about the way Jesus communicates.


I have just started a little "Jesus project" in which I am studying him, the man. I'm not very good at bible studies to be honest but I'm doing it my own way, I'm reading all the gospels and have a big sheet of paper on which i scribble down all my ideas of Jesus, verses and things that stick out. It just dawned on me as I was reading the Irresistible Revolution that when i read the gospels i read what I want to and can manage to skim over the things i dont like or filter out under the over used cliche of cultural relevance. So I am on this Jesus journey (I guess we always are) with a focus on the way in which he communicates.


One thing that has stood out to me already is how expressive he was!!! I always have a "cool Jesus" in my brain, rarely phased, always knowing, always on top of the situation, very set feautres and piercing eyes. But when i read about his adventures, he's nowhere near!!! He is always crying, laughing, smiling, shouting..."And with a LOUD CRY he breathed his last", that doesnt tell of a man he is cool with it all...he cries out to God like any man might in such pain, he is crying, yelling on the cross. And again in the temple he runs around like a madman tipping things up, at other times he shouts at his best friends and then cries at deaths. He didnt save emotions for specific times when he "knew he should", the image i had of him was just all knowing so he would cry right on cue etc. He was actually sad! Very sad! Actually happy! As Philip Yancey in his "The Jesus I never knew" is reminding me, Jews are incredibly expressive people, more so than us today, far more infact. I say bring it on, a weeks wedding?! 120gallons of wine that Jesus made from water in recored breaking time because he wanted the party to carry on...the dancing, the joy. He was an expressive man!!! As Brits, especailly men, we act, or try to, so cool, so unphased, never wanting to make ourselves look silly...when Jesus thrived on it.


Secondly, he was very blunt. He didnt say things FOR a reaction which maybe we need to be careful about but he said things, knowing full well the reaction they would cause. I don't think we would have found him to be very "nice" sometimes. A passage that always astounds me is when his disciples are innocently admiring the temple and he turns round and makes a rather irritating comment, almost retorting that it isn't so impressive. He tells Satan to get behind him when one of his best friends says something that on Peters mind probably seemed supportive of him. Again, not nice, he calls the politicians of the day snakes, the preists frauds, the district ruler "that fox", he was very strongly opiniated. Again, today? He would be a heretic, a troublemaker, a hippy, a mouth that needs to be shut. As Christians we would probably be embarassed at his rantings and try to shut him up as a madman...oh wait...we have!

There's so much I'm learning about him. One of the most important things is that he is HIGHLY unpredictable, I know these days as Christians we are highly predictable, I know I am anyway. Jesus is NOT a formula I can follow, I can't say "in this situation he would do...", the truth is I don't KNOW. However, I am learning his message and his heart, the more my eyes are fixed on him, the more I learn to love him , the further degree to which I believe him, the more I act like him, I have made the decision to "hope against hope" that maybe I CAN change, the more I let go. The amazing ways of communication he developed was from a heart, always of love, never showmanship, which admittedly at the moment is the main source of my communication. The more my heart settles in to his love, the more i will communicate the way i was always supposed to. This is the amazing thing about our Lord, is that he has never asked to us to get it "right", to do the right things at the right times. He has asked us to admit we are sinners, know we are loved by him and then love. "Love and then do as you will".
Anyway, I've deviated slightly but studying any aspect of Jesus opens your world up to new things and he is digging deeper. I'm loving it!

The place of the mind gods and other thoughts

Recently i havebeen thinking alot. For good reasons but in a bad way. Since i have been here, i have been exposed to a new way of thinking, and its still working through with "the old way". I used to focus my walk twith God entirely on getting to know him more, but also, now i realise this MUST be followed with a love for others etc. Im still struggling abit to find the balance because i know that the more you look at Christ, the more you become like him and so the love for others should be born there...anyway, so with a new "way of thinking" if you like, i started to question the fundamentals of what i believe and why i believe them...and when i start i dont seem to stop.I will question how i even judge "truth", is it logical or intuitive? How do i even know I can trust either of them things etc...it gets to a point where its so deep i become absorbed in it and trapped...what i like to call the mind maze. The way out everytime should be to lay me questions with God, whethr i get an answer or not but i dont, i pursue knowledge to the point of utter confusion, the edge of depression and a focus solely on me. It births pride in its ugliest...I realise how much pride is left in me, how much is left in the church and i try to scramble out of that place...i am trapped AGAIN but in pride. Jesus' teachings are amazing because they are the simplest, most foundational notions that cause the most confusion. So i stay trapped here...until...i just let go. I dont have to "work" my way out, i let him do it, i can rejoice in him even when i am incomplete, unknowing, failing and proud. Instead of "fixing" me, which leads deeper nto the maze, i just let go and let God.I am on a quest that was revealed to me almost two years ago, that we are FREE. And we can probably all recite what we are free of, but it struck home...we are FREE!!!! Why don't i believe it?! Theres ALWAYS a "but", reasons why i shouldnt or couldnt possibly live in a state of joy or peace. When we do this,. we infect others lives and a Shane Claibourne styled life could be lived in business, a home, a neighbourhood, school, IF we dare to be loved so that we can love.My mind has been so me focused lately and still is, but i rejoice in the victory of Christ that he continues to work in me...

The Shack

Ive been reading the Shack and although everyones told me it was excelent, i've found it unimpressive so far. The last chapter though has had an impact, for those who've read it, im at the bit where Mack meets with God's wisdom. It infuriated me. I couldnt stand the arrogance of God (yes i know :o). It made me angry, or what could better be described as sulky. haha. I continued to read and pray and i came to a bit where Jesus starts talking to Mack.It really struck home. Jesus tells Mack "It's not your duty to try and change them, or even convince them. You are free to love without an agenda". It struck home because since i've been at Oasis I've heard alot about loving and serving our neighbour and at home, alot more about personal walk with jesus (of course both places have encouraged both, i just mean the emphasis' have been slighltly different). This just joined the two in an instant. Lately, ive found ive been getting heady about stuff likie Christian politics, brands of theology etc and the "right one". A conversation i had recently about oasis where someone stated "there just feels like so much time and i can't get it all in" and i thought about how busy Steve Chalke is etc. It's like Oasis have had this brilliant effect on me about what Christianity should look like, but i wondered where it stops. Anyway, im rambling abit, getting my thoughts together, what im getting at is this...what JEsus says to Mack in the shack says what oasis says about just loving people without going out to "convert" them. Which is right, but do we burn ourselves out trying to do all the possible good we can? how do we live like Christ? Later, Jesus goes on to say that those whoknow him are those who love with no agenda. Saying that living that life can be and IS sometimes just having time for people, just enjoying relationship. thats life as it should be. It's free, but sacrifce, being subject to his will (the bit that made me angry at God, my own pride that wants indepndence).BUT being dependent on him means we love in all things at all times and we dont go out and do our best for Jesus, we let Jesus love. It means as I go deeper in to him i love others more. Obvious i guess but has come as a bit of a revelation. Extra note was where Jesus says "I have no desire to make them Christian, but i do want to join them in their transformation into Sons and Daughters of God, into my brothers and sisters, into my beloved". Not universalism but just throws our labels out the window. Joy said to me "you only fear labels when you don't who you are" and that's true. When you are rest assured in his love (which this book talks alot about and God has been highlighting in my life, to jump in and believe it) and KNOW it, you can float into different associations and labels and be in it and not of it.Thats very rambly but just different things Gods highlighting in me.

Faith etc

So...faith. At church at home i knew something was missing, it was a great place, loving people, a real heart after God etc BUT i think i always found that there was a certain "reality" missing. I felt something wasnt quite in place as it should be. Coming to Oasis i think i found that reality, like the world wasnt some sort of weird place that we all got dumped at and then there was God out there somwhere, where we should be. It presented me with the idea, this world is very much home, just not as it should be. This is hard to explain, but it's like, EVERYthing is spiritual and real, not just the God stuff! This made loving your neighbour not just a cliche but an actual thing you do, not something you do as you wonder thorugh life but something you aim your life to do...life is Christianity, Christianity is life, there's no "grey" area. And that hasnt meant behind every sneeze there's a demon but that everything we experience reflects deeper spiritual leesons that are real, not weird and alien.

So loving your neighbour isnt a fuzzy "smile at old ladies" but go out of your way to REDEEM the world. Our mission is redemption, holistic (an oasis fave i know heh heh) not just converting everyone. Something that spoke to me was Rob Bell's Velvet Elvis, where it says that our faith is a trampoline which you invite others to join, not a brick wall which you try to defend (my faith has been a brick wall i think). So faith wise, i've had to let go of alot of my "safety nets" or baggage that isnt so scriptual as i might have guessed, which has been hard but also great. Repainting my Christianity. My reference of what God actually is, or where he is, has been questioned, but as i've asked God to reveal himself to me, he has and i have prayed not to swallow whole Oasis. I want to tustle with it, give it all to God so he can give the good bits back...i dont want to discard my theology and embrace an all knew one, but enjoy and learn from it (which i think i already am). There are good things in my previous church which i must hold on to and the same here, God isnt theology but theology is a reflection of God. Im baffling on but God has been teaching me loads and foundational stuff which is scary coz it means letting go of security blankets and changed alot of what ive felt and thought. Gods theology is a practice, the best idea of God and love is nothing to the smallest action done IN love. Christianity is not a theory, its like actions which paint a picture of God. I must live this, not like the idea of it.