06.20.07 thequest UPdate

thequest family,

This week someone was describing this regular email UPdate to a friend as a way to watch my garden and learn about farming and biology. We all laughed. Those are the things we have been learning about for sure. But what about the end of the life cycle.

My friend and mentor Neil Cole has bumped me along in my thinking about death. It is an organic thing too. Living things do die. Often we run away from talk about death. It's not comfortable. It's not safe.

I thought I would drop an excerpt of an article by Neil here to spur on your thinking too...

Jesus is not about safe. He is the one who said things like… “I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves.” “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” “He who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” “Let the dead bury the dead—you follow me.” These are not safe and wholesome words, they are words that shake us up and toss us out way past what is safe. I have come up with two acronyms to expose some of our delusion regarding these things. The first reveals our inadequate theology of SAFE. The other is how Jesus wants us to embrace a theology of DEATH.

Safe is…

S elf-preservation = our mission
A voidance of the world and risk = wisdom
F inancial security = responsible faith
E ducation = maturity


This is what a theology of death looks like…

D ie daily to who we are
E mpowerment of others (not self) is our life
A cceptance of risk is normative
T heology is not just knowledge, but practice
H old tight to Christ with an open hand for everything else.


Jesus said, “He who clings to his life shall lose it, but he who loses his life for my sake will find it.” We need to embrace a theology of death, our lives depend upon it!

Press on,
Mike

PS. The rest of this article "Embracing a Theology of Death" by Neil Cole is found here: http://www.cmaresources.org/articles/embracing_thedeath.asp


read the rest of this week's UPdate HERE