The week has been pretty good, and tomorrow I work and then have the weekend off (my first full weekend off since starting at the Bux in late March). On Saturday morning I am going to visit Sarah at work, and at 12:30 I'm going to be witnessing the marriage of my old college friends Nate and Kirby. After the reception I may hang around in Cincinnati for a bit, but I'll definitely be back in town Saturday night. Tomorrow evening I may be going to see a play in Wilmington, but I know for sure I'm going to be watching Steven Spielberg's "Munich" with Dylan. It's a fantastic movie, and he's never seen it. I tried to grow a beard but stopped because it looked absolutely hideous. I shaved it off yesterday morning and feel much better. Dinner tonight was a spring roll and salad from Dorothy Lane Market, as well as pickings from their fantastic olive bar:
A few weeks ago I promised a quote from the end of N.T. Wright's "The Challenge of Jesus." This quote is primarily about the Christian vocation, or the Christian mission, or the Christian purpose, or whatever the hell you want to call it. I wrote it down in my journal and am too lazy to look up the precise page references:Our task, as image-bearing, God-loving, Christ-shaped, Spirit-filled Christians, following Christ and shaping our world, is to announce redemption to the world that has discovered its fallenness, to announce healing to the world that has discovered its brokenness, to proclaim love and trust to the world that knows only fear and suspicion... We are to live and tell the story of the prodigal and the older brother; to announce God's glad, exuberant, richly healing welcome for sinners, and at the same time God's sorrowful but immovable opposition to those who persist in arrogance, oppression and greed. Following Christ in the power of the Spirit means bringing to our world the shape of the gospel: forgiveness, the best new anyone can ever her, for all who yearn for it; and judgment for all who insist on dehumanizing themselves and others by their continuing pride, injustice, and greed...
The foundation of the cross has been laid--the principalities and powers keeping humanity in exile have been defeated, and the exile has ended--and our task is to proclaim this in word and deed, in story and symbols, to live it out as redeemed humanity, advocates and agents of God's healing, breathing hope and healing and rescue and renewal and judgment into the present age. We are to announce that exile is over and act boldly in God's world in the power of the Spirit...
Our task is to find the symbolic ways of doing things differently, planting flags in hostile territory, setting up signposts that say there is a different way to be human. And when people are puzzled at what you are doing, find ways--fresh and innovative ways--of telling the story of the return of the human race from its exile, and use those stories as your explanation. We are to boldly and courageously declare that the powers have been defeated, that the kingdom has come in Jesus the Jewish Messiah, that the new way of being human has been unveiled, that Jesus is Lord and Caesar--in whatever forms he may take--is not. This involves declaring that those who persist in dehumanizing and destructive ways are calling down destruction upon them and their world. As Jesus lamented of Jerusalem, "If only you would have known the way of peace!"
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