the kingdom mandate

I received this email from another ex-religious-professional, post-religious-follower-of-Jesus I know from Canada. I have been enjoying fellowshipping with him, and have been following with interest his return to a "pastorate" of a church granddaughtered by a church he planted. This off-the-cuff email is packed (even on the fly, David is a great writer). Enjoy! The best of all is God is with us! -Brian, Christmas 2010.

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"So here is the bare essence of my strategy that I am about these days.

Jesus will build his church. Thus, I am not going to attempt to fashion its structure around a worn out – out dated model that essentially is only maintaining a central building. The earth in relative terms is a village/hamlet of the King’s kingdom thus in my view the church is to be subversively infiltrating the village with Kingdom salt. Yet keep in mind that Christ’s body is only a facet of the Kingdom and as such its initatives must be subservient to the Kingdom’s business.

Originally the village was given to Humanity to rule with General Managerial Authority (Genesis 1 in the Message says – “Take Charge” and “Be responsible”). It was a unique managerial responsibility in that they had the right to give away the village, which they did via their disobedience. As such the village was usurped by the fraudulent Mayor. He took charge because we note in the third temptation he offers Jesus back the ownership. Post death, burial, resurrection, ascension and Pentecost the village’s deed is once again safe within the legal ownership of the Son who now sits at the right hand waiting until his Father makes all his enemies a footstool for Him (Heb 1:13). Better still no longer will our behavior affect its ownership.

The fraudulent mayor is actually defeated (e.g. D-Day which effectively was the end of the war even though the allied forces had to go to Berlin), but he is still squatting in his former village desecrating every thing he can place his influence on.

The follower’s job now is to regain their managerial leadership of the village by renovating the desecration that has occurred. The responsibility includes making disciples (repatriating kingdom citizens) who Jesus will form into his body. But the job also entails bringing the kingdom to bear on the desecration of the village by salting (purifying) the social, political, economic moral fabric within our spheres of influence. It includes setting right even as it pertains to the architecture of our communities that have been desecrated. Not by pointing and wagging our finger but by subversively entering the desecration as salt. Including making disciples, who post being formed, conformed and transformed into the image of Christ salt their spheres of influence.

So this is why you must deal with parasitic sins that so easily entangle. You can’t salt your sphere of the Village if you are dirty brine." --David Brandon, Aurora, Ontario, Canada

why hasn't Jesus returned yet?

I got asked last night what I thought about why the Lord has not returned, and if I thought it had something to do with the bride NOT preparing herself. I gave that some thought and wanted to read the few scriptures in the New Testament that use the word "bride" (very few) before I replied. Here are several things that I pondered, and then I summarize my very tentative answer below. I'd be interested in your take on the question.

1. We don't have a single instance of Jesus' teaching his disciples about the people of God as the Bride (and he never uses the word "bride" in the four gospels, or the rest of the NT including Revelation).

2. John the Baptist makes a DECLARATION ("this is true, ponder this!"), NOT an EXHORTATION ("become the bride!"): John 3:29 "The bride belongs to the bridegroom" (cf. Rev 21:9: "of the Lamb" = belonging to). It reminds me of 1 Cor 12: we ARE the Body of Christ and each one of us is a part of it. Declaration: it is a fact. It doesn't mention the purity of the bride here, just that the bride belongs to the bridegroom.

3. Revelation 19:7-9 (quoted below) APPEARS to answer your question in the affirmative, yet not quite.

(a) God brings the wedding: the wedding of the Lamb "has come" = divine passive construction="God has brought the wedding."

(b) Our part begins with "AND." "God has brought the wedding AND his bride has made herself ready." Why is that important? We are not to go beyond what is written (1 Corinthians 4:6). It does not say "because," but "and." The two happen at the same time.

(c) Verse 8 puts it in a divine passive construction again: "was given to her to wear." God clothes her in fine linen...

(d) ...AND this fine linen is our righteous acts (the parentheses () in the quote below are in the text itself, not my insertion). God's action AND our action. God's clothing and our obedience. Grace AND good works/obedience...

(e) We don't need to go there, right? What comes first, the chicken or the egg? The chicken: GRACE upon grace results in obedience (and, James corrective: if no obedience, there was no grace).

(f) All in the context of Jesus' teaching that not everyone who says "Lord, Lord" will inherit the kingdom, but only those who DO what He says (for whom He is truly Lord=if He's your Lord you can't not do what He is saying).

Revelation 19:7 "Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. 8 Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear." (Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints.) 9 Then the angel said to me, "Write: 'Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!'" And he added, "These are the true words of God."

4. It all ends with a divine passive construction: "I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband" (Revelation 21:2). Dressed by Whom? You don't need to ask: divine passive construction: dressed by God.

So, after pondering these passages afresh (is there one I overlooked? Please let me know), here is my answer: The Lord will come when He comes. He is the Lord. If He chooses to wait, it is His choice-not ours. If He arrives and we are not ready, He arrives nevertheless. Not everyone will be ready, and the consequences will be disastrous for them. Those who are ready have no boast--they have been made ready by Him, they have been washed and cleansed and salvaged by His gracious hand. If He has done that for them, you can observe it in their behavior: they obey Him.

Dear brothers and sisters, let us continue to do what He says, AND not go beyond what is written. Let us pray as we should, "Come quickly, Lord Jesus." Let us be found ready when He comes.

Who owns your church?

Today I gave up trying to think about our economy. It lies in tatters, lamely flopping in the breezes blowing through it. ("Our" is probably trans-national in meaning, as America's cold has become the world's flu).

So, I turn my thoughts to one other intractable, seemingly impossible problem that afflicts me: church as we know it. If Ghandi were living here, he would still say, "I would become a Christian if it weren't for you Christians." Jesus rightly cautioned, "If the salt loses its saltiness, it is not good for anything but to be thrown out..." I somehow believe--if I could really see all the connections--there is some relation between our anemic church, our comatose country and our eerie economy.

So, what is wrong with this Body? Materialism? Yes, that's obvious. Immorality? Yes, any blind man can see that. Hypocrisy? As obvious as a Hawaiian shirt among Mormon missionaries. Lacking compassion? A dearth of faith? Judgmental superiority? These things mock us by the legacy we leave as self-announced followers of Jesus.

But, I have been wondering lately if the answer isn't simpler than that. Here is the question: Why is the church as we know it so far removed from the church as God wants it? Here is the answer that keeps coming to me: it is a matter of ownership.

Who owns your church? Is it your denomination? Your congregation? Your board of leaders? Your pastor? Your house group? You? No one? I have been pondering this lately. The denominational churches are easy to spot. But, who owns "Grace Church: It's Amazing"? "Jesus Is Real Ministries"? "H2O"? When I pry a little, there is always some person, persons, organization or non-organization-organization that owns/controls/directs them. And, therein lies the problem. THEIR church can never be the church God intended because that one is exclusively owned by Jesus: "I will build MY church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it."

Here is what I am really looking for when I read a church website: "Jesus owns this church. He directs it by the Holy Spirit. It can be messy, and at times we really blow it like the early churches did. Sometimes all we can say is, Thank God for the mercy of Jesus, because we really screw things up. We can think of no good reason to join our church over any other--we have ALL the problems others do because we are made up of the same sinners they are. In fact, our church is below average. But Jesus--HE is amazing. Call on His name, and belong to Him. HE will never let you down. We are trying to get over our pet theologies and narrow moralities to become merciful, loving and just like Jesus, but we have a long way to go. While we stumble toward the light, we thank God for the Coming Savior from Heaven who will deliver us from this body of death."

But, I never read that. Usually, they explain why their particular emphasis is the best thing since sliced bread, and why I should hop on board the Love Boat First Church of What's Happening Now Best Preacher Ever Hippest Musicians Anywhere Funnest Kids Program--Really, We're Not Making This Up.

We put way too much emphasis on "church" and way too little emphasis on ownership. Jesus is Lord--that means He owns me--if He is really my Lord. There are no commands at all about building the organization of the church, but there are boatloads of commands that require compliance and obedience. Our job: teach and practice obedience to ALL He commands. His job: "I will build MY church."

Summary of my simplistic oversimplification: We spend way too much time on "building our church," and forget Who the real owner is. It is Jesus' church. Maybe we need to crash our websites, tear down our lighted sign boards, give up our catchy marketing slogans and come back under the Name that is above every name: Jesus' Church. Our slogan: Definitely not worthy, but grateful for the big break He cut us. We are worse than you think--and He is way more loving than you can imagine!