July 4th – In Defense of Micah.

This is the message that Ken Wytsma (lead pastor at Antioch) delivered on the Fourth of July here in Bend, OR.  It is well worth the time it will take you to watch it.  Fifty minutes of your time, that’s what you’re in for.  Ken helps explain the nature of human rights, human responsibility, and freedom.  I hope that it helps to paint a clearer picture of the heart of Antioch and the people here.  Watch, and think about it.

Follow this link:
http://www.vimeo.com/13111212

I hope this message breaks your heart.  I mean that in the best way.  I feel that it is only when we are first broken that we can truly be made whole.  Ken reads the poem that Micah wrote at the end of this message, I felt my heart get caught in my throat, and my face grew hot and tears welled up in my eyes.  I wish I had let them flow.

Thy Kingdom Come.

Paradox is a ministry to college students and young adults in Bend, Oregon as an offshoot of Antioch Church.  We meet at The Kilns – a bookstore/cafe focused on social justice issues and Christian worldview formation.

Here’s what’s up with Paradox.

par·a·dox [par-uh-doks] - noun.
1.  a statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth.

Those of us who have been “churched” throughout our lives have seen the tendency of American Christianity to polarize ideas and beliefs about what it means to follow Christ, placing in opposition to one another concepts that are not meant to conflict, though they appear to do so.  For example: God’s sovereignty vs. man’s free will; law vs. grace; God’s transcendence vs. God’s immanence; God’s immanent return vs. our expectation, etc.  The truth, however, can be misconstrued when we hold so tightly to human understanding that we swing like pendulums to one extreme or the other, possibly demonizing the opposite camp in the process.  It is important to understand that God works through paradox: ideas and doctrines that may seem to oppose one another may, in fact, only point out that we must hold these ideas in tension, accepting that we cannot always categorize and understand everything.  Biblical paradox is his instrument for humbling our haughty minds.  It is scary to think about something that is greater than our understanding – those things we simply cannot condense into a neat and tidy package to wrap our heads around.  Some things refuse to be boxed in.

God refuses to be boxed in.

And so to those who have grown up in the church, Paradox aims to teach and provide an environment in which we may wrestle through difficult ideas, embracing the fact that we will not know everything while still seeking to understand as much as is possible.

Bend is hardly a “churched” town, known for its plurality and counter-conservative ideas.  And so Paradox is largely a place for these people to come and learn about Jesus apart from their “churchy” expectations.  At Paradox, we acknowledge that the world – society and mankind and all of creation – is not presently as it was created to be.  The created order has been ravaged and raped by sin and fallen nature, and not just man – nature suffers too.  Jesus Christ declares himself to be Lord over all.  Colossians 1 says of Jesus:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.  For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.  He is before all things, and in him  all things hold together.  And he is the head of the body, the church: he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.  For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile himself to all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

The common misconception is that Christ died to reconcile himself to us.  Period.  The end.  But if we only affirmed that, we would be missing an enormously beautiful part of his mission: to reconcile and redeem all things. If this is true, then it demands a radical worldview change.  It means God has everything to do with everything.  Everything we once might have considered to be meaningless or irrelevant has a purpose and relevance that we never could have imagined.  Is it too much of a stretch to ask what God has to do with the coffee in your mug, or the bricks in the walls your home, or the shirt on your back?  What does God have to do with it?

If God really does want to reconcile all things to himself, then nothing is irrelevant.  He has everything to do with everything.  He has everything to do with that Starbucks Americano you’re buying.  Because frankly, some coffee is bought and traded using slave labor and unjust wages.  And Jesus isn’t about slave labor.  And he isn’t about underhanded dealing.  He isn’t about neglecting human rights, because he values people enough to come and to die for them.  He isn’t about destroying our world with over-industrialization, because he values nature enough to inspire Paul, the writer of Colossians, to communicate Jesus’ care for all things.

All parts of culture, in every culture, in some way is a reflection of the values of God, whether those values are slightly or severely distorted.  It is the joy and responsibility of the believer to be agents of redemption in this world; I believe in the priesthood of every believer (1 Peter 2:9).  Priests, in the Old Testament, were the ambassadors between God and the people of God.  Now we are priests, through our great High Priest, Jesus, and we are ambassadors between God and the rest of the world – all of the world, whether man or nature, spiritual or material things, in heaven or on earth.  The people of Bend care tremendously about social justice issues and fair trade and human rights.  Our love for Christ and our love for his lordship over everything compels us to seek out the redemption of all things in his name, including social justice and fair trade and human rights.  Bend is a town full of people who – in ways the church has failed to do – love many things that God loves, except for the wrong reasons.  There is a Christ-centered way of thinking about and participating in social justice, in fair trade, and in human rights.

Paradox exists to expose Jesus’ heart at the core of each of these things.  Because his heart is there, ours should be, too.

Call it a stretch.  Call it environmentalism or social justice or “crazy wacko liberal agenda.”  Call it whatever you like, but maybe Jesus’ reign reaches farther than we give him credit for.  Maybe it’s nothing short of holistic redemption.  There is a way to hold these values in tension with the values of Christ; there is a Christ-centered way to think about and do everything.  It is the church – in Bend or elsewhere – who must bear the image of Christ and exemplify what that looks like.  It should look like the kingdom of God here on earth.

Paradox should look like the kingdom of God here on earth.

Jesus, thy kingdom come.  And may we seek out opportunities to be a part of your work here.  We want to value you, and all the things you value – in that order.  Come and renew our minds, conform us to your image, transform us into Christ-like priests and culture-redeeming agents here in Bend and anywhere we identify ourselves with your Son’s name and mission.  We love you.  Amen.

Paradox / The Kilns

The Kilns - promoting The Justice Conference in February

The Kilns is a bookstore and coffeeshop, and is where we hold Paradox on Friday nights.

It is actually in a garage - there's a garage door you can walk through to get into the bookstore.

The Justice Conference.

The Justice Conference is a 2-Day conference on February 11+12, 2011 in Bend, Oregon sponsored by Kilns College and World Relief NEXT

Here’s a main event I’ll be helping to put together alongside Antioch Church, the Kilns College, and World Relief NEXT this summer.  If you’re on Facebook, search “the justice conference” in the search bar and “Like” it.

The conference is going to be amazing, focusing on justice/injustice issues around the world through a worldview lens that shows Jesus to be the Redeemer of all things, the Rescuer of the oppressed, the Healer of the broken.  Over and over throughout Scripture we see that God loves and values us, specifically those who are disadvantaged – “the orphan and the widow”.  It is our privilege and responsibility to value the people and things that God values, and to love them intensely.  In the same way, it is our joy to rise up in arms against the high and oppressive hands – those thieves of human dignity – and make ourselves increasingly aware of our ability to be a part of the radical things that God is doing across the globe.

Consider marking off FEB. 11 & 12, 2011 on your calendars to go to this conference. More info to come about the partners of The Justice Conference here in Bend – The Kilns College and World Relief NEXT.