You're Married!

 Little Bro,

One of the big challenges of being married is remembering to just be a good human being. The first thing God did for Adam and the woman, after he brought them together, he blessed them and then he said (Genesis 1:28a), "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it..." 

Be Fruitful: God told them to be fruitful. It's a metaphor that God uses often in comparing, in Scripture, people and trees. An apple tree makes apples, watermelon vine produces vines, a defensive football player makes tackles, a singer sings songs, a carpenter makes wooden walls, floors, joists, a lover does loving things, a fighter produces punches and kicks; you are created and called to create certain things: do that produce what you are made to produce.

Multiply: Make more of you. Mentor other footballers, weightlifters, singers, piano players, igbo speakers, golf players. Have kids. Whether through coaching or mentoring, or being a manager, or a parent, or an entrepreneur, train, model, disciple, make more fruitful people.

Fill the earth: All of humankind is meant to fill the earth. To do the opposite was part of the rebellion at Babel. Each person can only take care of a patch of earth. Find your patch of earth, where you will both nurture and guard what's there. (Everything God gives you, he wants to bring it to fruition.) Your patch is metaphysical in that it's your career, your online presence, your friendships, your experiences. Your patch of earth is also physical, your apartment, your yard, your place of work, your physical body. Treat your patch of earth as if God will come back and ask, "What did you do with the front yard (and everything else) I gave you?" Also, taking possession of your patch of earth assumes you have taken the time to be aware of what's in it. You accept for the oil, gold, fresh water, rare-turtles or whatever is underneath your patch of earth. Whatever physical or metaphysical patch of earth God gives, stay curious about it, there is always more than meets the eye in his gifts.

Subdue the earth: This covers the engineering part of the arts and sciences. Make the earth do what you want it to do. Tame it, make it work for you. You are meant to do this. Make the house protect you, make the furnace keep you warm, make the car move, make the sewage pipes do their thing. Make the sutures hold skin and muscle together. Make the keys sound out chords, and make the chords into music. Make the hair create the illusion of waves, make the air into words, the words into a speech, and the speech into rallying point for African American graduates at some university. This is the very mechanism through which you become fruitful: Subdue the earth.

You are doing all of these things already. You already are a good human being. Keep doing these four things, just be a good human being. If you can manage these four things it will make for being a healthy husband for your wife. Never let anyone reduce marriage to just a honey-do list. Never let anyone lie to you and say your wife is the only person who can judge how good you are at this. Marriage is something you do before God and in obedience to him, you'll answer to Him and He will judge. (Thankfully, he is the kindest, helpful, ever patient, loving, self-sacrificing Judge. Don't forget, He is relentless in his calls for us to love one another without condition or record of wrongs.) I hope you do every anniversary, birthday, and tough day as a husband with the idea that you will tell God, on the last day, when asked, "Did you show a faithful picture of my love for the church?" You will be able to say, honestly, 

"I was not perfect, but I did my best.

Jesus helped me and covered the rest."

Stories from After Redemption.

Story 1

 I was so mad. It was Friday night, which meant I was washing my wife's feet, like I always do. She did not tell me about the cut on her foot. So I had to put the water away, find the nu-skin, apply it, wait for it dry and then get back washing her feet, from the top, all. over. again. I was heated. "I need to know these things!" I almost shouted. "I keep telling God to hear my prayers, because I am taking care of you like I promised. All the while, I look like a fool. My wife is cut, and bleeding and I am doing nothing." I took a deep breath and calmed a little that night. I know I was starting to get down into the toes when I said, "I have kids to pray for, friends to cover, parents to lift up. They matter so much to me. If you have a bump, bruise, scratch, sting, tell me. I need to know. I might not always make you happy, but at least let my fulfill my words to Him."

She was so mad.

Story 2

I am driving 60 mph to night. It is just over the speed limit and faster than I normally do. I need to get there soon. I stay just over the speed limit the entire way, 60 in a 55, 37 in a 35, and 28 in a 25, before I slow down to 16 in a 15 to get to his house. He is my discipler and he considers it a sin to another human being to be late. I don't mind that. Whenever I am late, he always forgives me. I don't mind that either. But when I am late, he forgives me, gives me a hug, with his hand cupping my ear. He does not cup it hard, or slap his hand against it, I just hate it when people touch my ear. I love him dearly, he has seen me through my darkest depression, my most addicted months, and the weeks where my faith has been hanging like a thread. 

Still, there will be no ear cupping tonight.

Story 3

My back hurts. My father decided to pray for me one more time, before I was got in the car. College is only 3 hours away. We have visited there so many times for so many other reasons. It was part of the reason I chose to go there, I home away from home. I had just finished packing up the car. My back was fine ten minutes. I knelt down in our small kitchen, and my dad placed his hand on my shoulder. My grand father's hand joined his. He was still tall and proud, late fifties with more white then gray. He was there to see me off, you know, follow in the tradition. My great-grandfather hand joined his. He was in his 70's. He had to reach round his walker to get to me. He had taken a bullet to his leg way back in Obama's Iraq. He was almost always doubling over with laughter at his horrible dad jokes. I admit they weren't always that bad. My back was still good. I was beginning to feel the weight of so many generations. Collectively, their hands felt like I was carrying a couch without using my hands. I was beginning to roll my shoulders forward when my great-great-grandfathers trembling hand finally reached me. It felt like he put all his weight on me. He was an 80's baby, who talked about things nobody knew. He talked to himself often, and often said suprising phrases in mid-conversation. Unless he was talking with God. In those moments, he spoke in pure poetry, metres, foots, stanzas and all. Thankfully, my Dad had already to started to pray, and in terms of word-count, I quietly caught up to him. "Dear Lord may he hurry up!" I said over and over again.

"Lord, my back hurts!"

Jesus, the true Amadioha.

Amadioha means "man of the people." A man of the people is a man who is in and for the people. He is not just a warrior, he is also an epidemiologist whose weapon against the spread of disease and destruction is the collective rightness of his people. The man who is not right, brings upon himself death, disease, loss, confusion, disorder. Such a man, who has wronged the powers that be, not only harms himself, he also harms everyone who is connected to him. So a man of the people must cut off men and women whose ways are not right for the sake of everyone else they are connected to. The judgement of the spirits is rarely considered a suggestion, guideline or at all changeable. Once the one who is wrong is cut away, then everyone who remains is safe. Before Christ came that was the true description of a village, those who remained.
Amadioha and his representative could not cut away sin. They could not fulfill the judgment due, they could make offerings. They could not change the judgements made against a man or a woman. Jesus did. Jesus died on the cross making full payment for all of creation. He cut away sin from himself completely and permanently. He offers his permanent solution to everyone person who would be free from the punishment due sin and sinners. Especially to everyone who wants to escape the consequence due to how people who are connected to them will suffer, Jesus offers freedom, hope, healing, in the sacrifice of his eternal life on the cross for all the sin in creation. In himself, he cut away sin as the beginning of cutting away sin from the entire world. Every moment he cuts away a little more, bringing everyone who is willing from death to life a little more each day. No other god even claims to do that. He truly is the man of the people, be one of his people starting today.

Offering Discipleship

In my experience, discipleship does not begin when you offer to teach. Discipleship begins wen you rescue someone from a situation that they could not save themselves from but needed saving. The person rescued feels relief, excitement, happiness over you. They also have a little bit of awe, you have power, ability, grace that they don’t. So they want to know what you know, get strong like you are, stay rescued like you stay. When you offer to teach someone they might take you up and gain knowledge from you. When you offer to save someone you are offering your power to change their situation.

For repetition’s sake, let us look at the baptism of John. John, the cousin of Jesus came baptizing. In 27 AD, John came offering a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins (Luke 3:3). For a people who were struggling with sin and used to God cursing and killing them for their failures. John came offering a sort of salvation and Jewish people of the first century came, accepting his offer. They respected him as a prophet. Men and women of Judea believed that God was offering a simple way of getting right with him. They asked “What then shall we do?” (3:10). He answered them (3:14). The salvation the offered was so real people wanted to know if he was the Christ (3:15). John offered to act and then completed actions that caused people to know that their sins were forgiven by God. He taught them to stay right with God (3:11-19). John had disciples two of them are mentioned in John 1:35, another in Acts 18:25 and twelve more in Acts 19:3. These were men and women who had been baptized by John, became right with God, and believed what John taught to stay right with God.

In my experience, I have been discipled by the men and women who acted first. These men and women offered me a salvation and then followed through with their offer when took up them at their word. These men and women offered me salvation, to bring me closer to God, to align my actions with God and they followed through. My life was changed in a way that did not correspond with my faith or actions. Through their ministry I was surprised, overwhelmed, and blown away by the presence and work of God in my life. I, then, was happy to follow their teachings to stay close to the Jesus that I have come to know and love. Dennis Dorran, Carlos Price, Reverend Anthony Williams, Reverend Fay Acker, Elder Grace Owwuwanne, are some of the few.

You, Christian, want to start discipling? Great. Go. Do. Remember what you are offering, you are offering to bring someone closer to God by your actions. Can you do that? Will your bible study, conversation, worship leading, bible study leadinger, praying, change situation of the person, in bringing them closer to God, that you are offering it to? Can you confidently assert that you have the power to do so? I do not mean elixir’s and steps that work only if the person uses their own power to make the steps or elixir work. I mean will your action change the person’s situation whether they truly believe or not? If you can change someone’s situation, you have someone with the motivation to follow what you teach. If you cannot, do not be surprised if a person does not follow you. That’s the just the way it works.

If no body...

If no body listened. I would still speak. I would still speak because of the One who is still speaking. If not body read, I would still write. I would write because the words I read changed me into a writer. If no one sang along, I would still sing, because I heard the song that convinced me that, "Yes, Jesus loves me." That is enough reason to fill my lungs and explode unto good, clean air the perfume of my notes. If no one came forward, I would still preach. The greater Preacher is still preaching. Who knows, I might still come forward again. If no one said, "aha!", I would still teach. The great teacher is still teaching. If no one accepted the rumors I spread about the death and failure of sin and death through the deeply conniving work of my Lord, I would still whisper against and backbite sin itself. After all, I found the rumors to be true and sin is no longer cool. However, it is true that "Yes, Jesus loves me." That is all the reason I need.

Giving: Short theology for a friend.

Hosea 2:8-9
"And did she know that it was I who gave her the grain, the wine, and the oil, and how lavished on her silver and gold, which they used Baal? Therefore I will take back my grain inits time, and wine in its season, and I will take away my wool and my flax which were to cover her nakedness."

Takor,

First, I confess my deep curiosity of what it means to be a Christian when it comes to money. I have almost visceral reactions to friends and family quantifying their actions by money, and I think less of myself when I do it. Also, with recent looks at Christ and work by Amy Sherman and others, I am curious seeing how God has been relating to our concept of money. I confess that I ended up on this subject, because I struggle with tithing, I needed a word on it I guess.

On to it.

In those two verses, God is in the midst of promising to punish Judah for its sins. Here God is especially angry at their physical worship of other gods because those gods require things, that God gave his beloved people, as payment for their services. It as if they story of the gift of the Maji ends the wife using her hair brushes to buy and sleep with a male prostitute on Christmas day while her (watchless) husband watches in sorrow and pain.
Takor every time you hear a pastor quote "Will a man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, 'How have we robbed you? In your tithes and contributions." Micah 3:8, you are hearing the middle of the love story. This story of God redeeming his sickly and dying creation is the story in the midst of which tithes and offering occur. The story always begins with God approaching us in walking through the garden, in a burning bush, in a cloud of smoke in the temple, in the person of Christ, and in the coming Christ. The story always ends in the presence of God.

As you watch the tithes and offering, know that you will never know the whole of what a person gives to God. God requires in return for His love and gifts is steadfast love & knowledge of God (Hosea 6:6), to do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:8). This is what God requires of us.

Tithes and offering fall under a subset of God's desire for justice. This subset is specifically the justice of taking care of those whose labor is to preach the gospel. In Matthew 10:10, Jesus says "for the laborer deserves his food." In context he speaks of those, in 10:7, who go proclaiming, "the kingdom of heaven is at hand." They are to be fed according to their doing that labor. They have a right to that.

Paul sums up that particular cry for justice in 1 Corinthians 9. If one should not muzzle an ox as it works on grain, so one should not make a pastor go hungry who has broken open God's word for God's people. Make no mistake, the offering plate is for the pastor's pocket. If he has labored to proclaim the good news, we as Christians are to feed him accordingly, it is his/her right to receive that.

God requires broken and contrite hearts (Psalm 51:17), steadfast love and knowledge of God (Hosea 6), and to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God. (Micah 3). All of those things will never quite make into accountants ledger. A subset of that justice is to care for those who labor to proclaim that the kingdom of God is at hand. We are indebted to his or her needs.

It gives me a little more comfort to know why I might dance to the offering plate on any given Sunday. It gives me great comfort to know what God requires of me. I hope it encourages as you might be called to be a steward over dismal numbers at times. Those numbers were never meant to be a mark of our faith or our faithfulness. They can be proof that we are willing to do justice to the vulnerable in our community.

Amara Chima

Valentine's Day

To love someone is to believe in the goodness of God, even you don't know him. That faith is less a head-knowledge thought and more an act of bodily throwing yourself from a cliff, feeling almost certain that everything will be alright.

Sometimes it is.

On many a Valentine's Day, I find myself unwilling to believe in God. I assent to the truth of him, but the faith that makes a lane to a cliff-lip, I just don't have.

Something I wish for.

Just the same.