So... The Remake's On It's Way

Okay - I pulled out my notes from the week I spent at Pittsburgh Project (well, the notes that I could FIND...ARGH!!) and I'll be putting in a couple of pretty long posts here and now...

So, I'm reading these books at the Project: Brian McLaren's The Secret Message of Jesus and Christian Scharen's One Step Closer: Why U2 Matters to Those Seeking God and there's a whole new idea of the Kingdom of Heaven forming in my brain - but I don't have it all down yet...some, but not all (and I might never) but I'm wrestling with it...

It's not easy when your whole understanding of how things really are shifts... I mean I always BELIEVED what Steve Taylor (et.al.) was saying in Chagall Guerera:

Escher's World

Chagall Guerva

Through the passing strange I fell
to the wide-eyed opposite
my agenda was hidden well
now I don't know where I left it

I woke up in Escher's World today
my mother said it was ok
Up's down, down is out, out is in
stairways circle back to where you've been
time falls, water crawls, are you listenin'?


Did you ever chase your tail
through a maze of exit doors?
I have seen the light my braille
I have blazed the road before us

We're walking in Escher's World again
rise up you nimble-minded men
Birds roar, lions soar, sheep are cruel
snails pace, papers chase, midgets rule
stuffed shirts, status hurts, we ain't foolin'


Let the sequels have their day
the remake's on its way

We're living in Escher's world it seems
we're wide awake within our dreams
Socks hop, lemons drop, butter flies
tough wimps, sadoshrimps, mojos rise
pips squeak, widows peek, are you surprised?
Birds roar, lions soar, sheep are cruel
snails pace, papers chase, midgets rule
stuffed shirts, Ethel Mertz, we ain't foolin'
Socks hop, lemons drop, butter flies
tough wimps, sadoshrimps, mojos rise
pips squeak, widows peek, are you surprised?
Up's down, down is out, out is in
time falls, water crawls, are you listenin'?
stairways circle back to where you've been
stairways circle back to where you've been
stairways circle back to where you've been

Yeah, I've always SAID we live in a kind of Escher's World - wrong is right, up is down. Truth is said to be a lie... Etc. etc. That whole in the world but not of it thing. But now I don't think that that's even what Taylor was getting at...

Let the sequels have their day...the remake's on its way...

THAT'S SO ARMAGEDDON - that's SO (as David Dark asserts - another book on the burner, by the way) Everyday Apocalypse...

The remake's on its way...

Thy Kingdom Come...

The Kingdom of Heaven.

What the heck IS it? Well, I don't know entirely - but Jesus talked an awful lot about it...

"Repent, for the kingdom is at hand."

"Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven..."

I don't care how you bend "poor in spirit" - that's a pretty revolutionary statement. Who are the poor in spirit and how can I be one of them? I know what it is to be poor in faith, I know what it is to be poor in money, I know what it is to be poor in health and poor in ability. Poor in spirit?

So - where the poor in spirit are, there is the kingdom of heaven? Where are they?

I think they're all around us. I think the poor in spirit are:

The guy I know who hangs out in bars to look down on the "losers" there and feel better about himself.

The really, really self-righteous guy I know that looks down on any "non-orthodox" (heh, meaning HIS) theology and feels better about himself.

The girl I know whose Myspace page I just read: she came from a Christian home but she's about to be a sophomore in college and she has been experimenting with drugs, with bisexual relationships, she drinks (a lot, according to her page)...

Me? When I read that Myspace page and felt a little better about myself because this girl and her family were a thorn in my side at one point in my ministry...and then I felt like a pile of dog dirt for feeling somehow superior and smug in the first place...

The woman I know who reads her Bible every day, spends hours a week praying, is always in the church doing, giving, caring...

The gay people I know who still face humiliation and shame...from church people...

The couple who (literally) just called me for marriage counselling...

The alcoholic single mom...the anorexic girl...the couple who can't make ends meet - and who have everything going against them (mental disorders, addicitons, and societal stygma - at least...) but who love Jesus and each other...

Here's where my worldview is changing. It's getting so much easier to see the face of Jesus in the broken people I meet - mostly because I see the face of Jesus in the broken man who stares back at me from the mirror every morning...

But - the kingdom of heaven is about "the remake's on its way..."

I don't know if Jesus is going to really ride a white horse after disasters, etc. Oh, I BELIEVE that what Revelation shows will come to pass - I BELIEVE that it's not exactly literal, though...

But I KNOW that Jesus says the Kingdom of Heaven is coming...and yet it is already among us...

SO - what that seems to mean is that, while Revelation tells us there will be a new heaven and and a new earth, the KINGDOM OF HEAVEN is something that we participate in...daily...

Gotta go - post more of this later