Poverty of Spirit by Johannes Metz: Book Review

Johannes Metz’s Poverty of Spirit, published in 1968, develops a rich portrait of the contingent human condition as most fully revealed in Jesus. In striking contrast to some contemporary theological anthropologies that seem founded primarily on human sinfulness, Metz roots his approach in incarnation. This Christocentrism constitutes the greatest strength of Metz’s presentation. According to Metz, in Christ we see the fullest expression of human existence. As the prototype human, Jesus manifests equally the heights and depths of human nature: “Christ, the sinless one, experienced the poverty of human existence more deeply and more excruciatingly than any other person could” (13). Metz finds in the temptation scene a witness to the fidelity of Christ to the limitations of human existence. In refusing Satan’s offer of inhuman “strength, security and spiritual abundance” Jesus refuses to grasp for equality with God (11). This willing submission to weakness, vulnerability and spiritual hunger is prescriptive.

Don't Admire Jesus

This is, in my opinion, one of the best sermons I have heard John Ortberg give in the three years I've been attending and serving Menlo Park Presbyterian Church.  You can read it below or watch it here.  It's a question that so many church-goers need to have thrust upon them: Are you just and admirer of Jesus, or do you want to follow Jesus?  Is Jesus your Lord, or just your homeboy?

Did any of you see Michael Phelps swim in the Olympics? Isn't he unbelievable? He has won 8 gold medals, all kinds of world records. It is remarkable how popular one man can become. I talked to somebody a couple of weeks ago who works with Facebook, and he was telling me Facebook added, they are estimating, about 5 million people to their ranks over the Olympics because Michael Phelps talked about being on Facebook, because so many people admire him. How many of you here would be willing to raise your hand and say, “I admire Michael Phelps.”? Just about all of us.

Thoughts on the Search for the Historical Jesus

A friend of mine is wrestling with her seminary class on the New Testament, and asked for my thoughts on the Search for the Historical Jesus.  Here's what I said (in the midst of a threaded discussion on peace)...

The Search for the Historical Jesus seems like a good idea, but in practice it was loaded with biases that ruled out the discovery of the Real Jesus as one that could do miracles and did expect people to identify him as God. I found my NT seminary classes challenging too, but found great insight in the whole experience of approaching Scripture not as a book dropped out of heaven (from non-biased observers of historical happenings) but as faithful records of the experiences of God's people with God as they interpreted them. (I think that's pretty close to how Dallas Willard described the OT).

The gospels aren't the same as our modern genre of historical biography and thier intent isn't passing on the facts of Jesus' life but instead through them to illuminate the meaning of his life and the nature of his person. Certain events are undeniably historical, but chronology and exact quotations just aren't what the authors were concerned about...and it turns out these aren't what disciples need to be concerned about.

To tie this all into peace - there's a certain peace discovering that our faith doesn't rest on the book and any single interpretation of it, but on the God to whom the book and its characters testify. The book faithfully ushers us into his presence, it does this without error without being 'inerrant' in the technical fashion invented by modern minds foreign to ancient sensibilities. Since our faith doesn't rest on the book (but flows through it to God) we need not be anxious about 'historical criticism' or any other scholarly approach. Our God, and our experience of God is unassailable. It is this reality that gives the Bible it's authority, not the Bible's authority that makes God real.

Searching for Jesus (on Google)

Despite the outcry of many that the world is running from God, Google tells another story.

Every month 1 million people search for "Jesus" on Google. One of them works in your grocery store. One of them is your neighbor. One of them in your co-worker. One of them is in your family. Maybe you could save them the trouble, and see if they have any questions about Jesus that you could answer.

A respected friend of mine told me he is 10 years into an experiment. Every time someone makes a reference in conversation to religion, or spirituality or philosophy, he is committed to following up with a question. Maybe, "Tell me more about what you believe" or "What has your life experience been around that?" or "What do you think about the Christian claim that ____?" He said despite his fears - he has not been fired, or scared off any friends. To the contrary, grateful friends have made for meaningful conversations, and a few decisions to follow Jesus.

I challenge you to take on the Follow-Up Challenge. Don't miss the opportunity. Trust me, you'll give better perspective than they'll find from a Google search.

Jesus' Last Meal, Part 5

The promise of the fourth and final Passover cup was this: I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God...  Exodus 6:7

For Israel, this promise led to them becoming a nation, having a special intimate covenant relationship with God. God called them his “treasured possession, his holy nation,” even calls them his firstborn son, and they cherished this promise, because it meant that they were loved. Of course, they weren’t the only people God loved, so when Jesus said he was going to pay the cost, he said it was about making a new covenant. He said, what I’m doing, it’s going to change the relationship between God and people forever. Everyone is going to have the chance to be called God’s son or daughter.

Paul has a beautiful line in Romans 8 where he says through the Spirit we are now the adopted children of God, and that through the Spirit we cry “Abba, Father.” Because this new covenant, we get to call almighty God, ‘daddy.’

Recently I spoke with a man who has two grown daughters that have refused to talk with him for 3 years. And this is a strong kinda gruff guy, who tells me before he came to Christ he used to kind of enjoy firing people, which he did a fair amount of. But this barrier in his relationship with his daughters breaks his heart. He sends them gifts and cards, but neither of them respond, and it wouldn’t be enough if they did, cause for each of them, he just wants to hug her and tell her that he loves her and have her call him “daddy.”

His daughters live out of the area, and he was telling me that he’s finally planning to do something more drastic. Next week he’s gonna go show up in the neighborhood of one of them, and he’ll go to the other daughter the following week and he said he’s going to drive a couple blocks from her house and call her and say “You’re my daughter and I love you, I want to have a relationship with you. I’m down the street, can I see you, can we talk?” And if she says “no”, he’s gonna tell her, “I’m staying at a hotel tonight so if you change your mind, I’m here, just give me a call, or just tell me where to meet you, cause I’ve come all this way because I love you and I want to have a relationship with you.” He told me that this is going to be really difficult, and that he knows he might be rejected, but that he loves them too much not to try. I’m sure he’d appreciate your prayers.

What if someone wanted that badly to have a relationship with you? That they’d risk rejection cause they just wanted to be close to you, to call you their beloved daughter or precious son? What if you could call someone like that ‘daddy’? At the core what we really wonder is if all those promises God made to a bunch of slaves thousands of years ago, to remove their heavy yoke, to free them from slavery, to redeem them, to make them his own, we wonder if all these promises are for us too, we wonder if maybe there’s freedom for us, too.

Well, the good news that we celebrate in the New Passover meal, the meal we call Communion, is something Paul says best... no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. (2 Cor. 1:19)

All God’s ancient promises are for you and they are fulfilled in Christ Jesus our Lord. And God says to us: I relieve you of your burden – now you can live with peace and joy. I free you from your slavery to sin – now you are free you to live well. I have redeemed you through my death – now you know what you’re worth. I claim you as my beloved child -- now you can call me ‘Abba.’ So as John comes up to lead us in communion let me encourage you, as you receive the bread and the cup, to receive and embrace these promises. Because in Jesus Christ, our Great Passover, these promises are for you.

Jesus' Last Meal, Part 4 (Maundy Thursday)

Jesus' last meal was a Passover Seder. Passover's were always eaten with four cups of wine in memory of the four fulfilled promises of salvation God gave Israel in slavery.

The promise of the third cup: I will redeem you with an outstretched arm… Exodus 6:6

Over the last several months, I’ve been becoming more and more aware of the reality that there are today 27 million people in SLAVERY, many of these are teen age girls who are tricked or kidnapped and thrown into dark wet, cockroach-infested rooms, starved and drugged and beaten and raped until there wills are broken and they finally agree to have sex with their first customer. And then they spend years servicing up to 10 or more men in a day. And it’s just so horrific it breaks my heart and makes me angry.

But, what just puts me over the edge is that when someone finally comes to rescue them, to take them out, to free them, often times they won’t go. They’ll deny that they are slaves. They’ll say they want to be there. Why? Because they are afraid and ashamed. They’re convinced that that they’re nothing more than bodies, so much so that they simply don’t believe they deserve freedom.

The truth is, it is not enough to take their chains off it’s not enough to free them, slaves have got to be redeemed! The Hebrew word for redeem is Gah-al and it means either someone pays a ransom price, or someone takes care of their helpless relative. Either way, redemption is about a major personal cost that says to a person, “you’re worth something.” That is what former slaves need.

So when God’s people are in slavery, he doesn’t just say “I’m going to free you,” he also tells them “I’m going to redeem you with an outstretched arm…I’m going to go out of my way, I’m going stretch out my arm and extend myself and pour out myself for you.” And this is what Jesus was saying when he took the third cup, called the cup of redemption, and told his disciples: "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you." Luke 22

I just think about what must have been going through Jesus’ mind that night, as he sat eating this meal with his closest friends, knowing that his whole life has been leading up to these moments, knowing what was going to happen, that he was about to die a gruesome and shameful death. Staring that reality in the face and feeling the weight of that fear. And I imagine him, looking down into the red wine in his cup and thinking about the blood poured out the night of the first Passover, the blood of the firstborn sons and spotless lambs, just gazing into it, and knowing: what happened to them is going to happen to me. And then looking around the room at these dear, dear friends thinking “It’s worth it because, when what happened to the lamb happens to me, then what happened to the Israelite slaves is going to happen to those that I love, and they’ll be truly free, more free than the can imagine. And he says it’s worth the cost. It’s worth my death to redeem you. So he looked his friends in the eyes and he told them “this is my blood, and it is poured out for you and for you, and for you."

What if someone looked you in the eye and said, do you know what you’re worth? You’re worth everything to me. I’ll pour out my life for you. I’d die for you. It’s so cliché, but what if they did? What if you mattered that much? What if that’s what God meant when he promised: “I will redeem you with an outstretched arm”?

That was the promise of the third cup.

In the final post in this series, we look at the fourth cup.

Jesus' Last Meal, Part 3 (Maundy Thursday)

Jesus' last meal was a Passover Seder. Passovers were always eaten with four cups of wine in memory of the four fulfilled promises of salvation God gave Israel while they were in slavery.

The promise of the Second Cup was: I will free you from being slaves...Exodus 6:6

After this cup Jesus... ...took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.

What Jesus is saying here truly shocking, he saying: “From now on, the exodus, as great as it was, isn’t all the Passover is about, this salvation meal is even more about me. So eat the Passover in my memory, because I am the main event of salvation now. I am the new exodus. I’m the end of your slavery.”

Of course, Jesus had talked about ending slavery before, when he said: Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin [but] if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. (John 8:34-36)

Several years ago, I was spending a lot of time with a high school guy named Sam. Now Sam was this kinda troublemaking kid who wore tight jeans, played the drums, smoked pot and worst of all...talked during sermons. I had a soft spot for Sam, but whenever I tried to turn conversation to God he’d just go quiet -- until one day we were riding in my car to go get Slurpees I had him read Romans 7 this really wordy section where Paul says basically “I don’t get it, I can’t seem to do what I want to do, instead I end up doing the very thing I hate.” And when Sam finished reading we were both silent for a second and then he said something I’ll never forget, he said: “That’s the first thing I’ve ever read in the Bible that makes sense to me.” He got it. He knew what that was like. And I’m sure you get it too. Cause we’ve all experienced what Paul was talking about.

Does anyone remember that anti-drug commercial in the 80s that has kids voices saying “I want to be track star or a nurse when I grow up” and pictures of drug addicts with a voice over saying “No one ever says, “I want to be a junkee when I grow up.”?


The sad truth is we’re all like that, we never wanted to become stingy, we never wanted to become an angry person, we never wanted to become stubborn or stuck in our ways, we never intended to be adulterers. We wanted to be good people, but somehow we just end up doing things that we know are wrong, things we despise.

And we wonder… What if life didn’t have to be like that? What if we weren’t slaves to our lesser selves? What if we could actually live like we wish we would? Be the kind of people we admire. Could that be what God was talking about when he promised: “I will free you from being slaves”?

That was the promise of the second cup.

In the next post we'll look at the third cup.

Christ, Our Passover

What if God's promises to a bunch of slaves 1000's of years ago have a second horizon for us? Listen to Our Passover, a sermon I preached for Maundy Thursday.

Jesus' Last Meal, Part 2 (Maundy Thursday)

I did some research into the ritual cups of wine in a Passover meal, and it turns out that as long as anyone can remember, the Passover has been celebrated around four cups of wine. At four times during the meal they would (and do) toast with a cup of wine, and with each cup they remembered one of God’s promises to them in slavery. And as I read these promises, I began to wonder if they weren’t just for the Israelites, but maybe there’s a second horizon on these promises, and maybe they were for us too.

I want to invite you to wonder with me as we walk through the promises of the Passover.

The promise of the first cup: I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians...(Exodus 6:6)

For four hundred years, the descendants of Israel had been forced to work long hours of physical labor, sweating under the heat of the Egyptian sun, afraid of their master’s whips, weeping with despair for the future of their children, praying to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob for deliverance, and one day, God answered...and rescued them with plagues of boils and lice and locust and darkness and as the grand finale, he opened up the Sea and they walked through on dry land.

But in Jesus’ day, that redemption seemed so long ago, almost like a fairy tale, because at that time they were under another yoke: all they had to do was look out in the streets and see their people forced to carry the gear of Roman soldiers to know they were under the yoke of Rome. They looked to God to overthrow Rome and frankly that is what they thought Jesus’ was going to do, so on Palm Sunday they greeted him shouting “Hosanna!” Which means “Save us now.”

But Jesus didn’t come to free them from the Roman yoke, he came saying… "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Mt. 11:28-29

In Jesus’ day, people were carrying heavy burdens, but it wasn’t the Romans packs - even if Rome went away, the burden wouldn’t. Because the burden they were carrying is the same burden that people carry today.

At a Men’s Retreat a while back, I met a bunch of guys who were out of work and stressed and anxious and you could almost see the burden they were carrying and I’m sure it’d be me too if I was in their situation. But I met another guy there who was also out of work, but somehow you wouldn’t know it, he genuinely seemed at peace, smiling and whistling and trusting God. And it made me wonder...

What if my circumstances aren’t the yoke I’m feeling? What if I'd feel it even if my circumstances changed? What if our responsibilities, as important and pressing as they are, could actually sit lightly on our shoulders? And over that first cup we wonder: Was this what God meant when he promised “I will bring you out from under the heavy yoke?”

That’s the promise of the first cup.

In the next post, the second cup.

Jesus' Last Meal: A Maundy Thursday Reflection

The Last Supper by Jacopo Bassano, 1542

You’ve heard it called by many names:
The Last Supper.
Communion.
The Lord’s Table.
Eucharist.
The Holy Mass.

But it's a meal that Jesus would have simply called "the Passover."

My first experience with the Passover was during my junior year in college, I had decided to fast for a couple of days before Easter as a way of mourning the sadness of Jesus’ death. So I fasted Good Friday and I fasted Saturday morning and afternoon and then my roommate invited me to a Passover Seder. When I stared at him blankly he graciously reminded me that the Passover was the meal that Jews ate every year to remember their last night in slavery, the night of the 10th plague, when all the first born sons of Egypt died, but the Lord passed over the houses with the blood of a lamb on their doorposts and I thought, “This is great, I can break my fast early, and avoid feeling guilty because its a religious meal!”

So there I was on Saturday night standing around a table, because the Passover was originally celebrated standing, and I haven’t eaten in 48 hours and I’m just dying for a good hamburger or some lasagna but what I saw on the table was all kinds of funny looking and funny smelling foods.

The host filled all of our glasses with wine and we passed around several foods that were symbolic of our slavery. We dipped parsley in salt water to remind us of our sorrow and tears. We scooped enough horseradish onto unleavened bread that it brought tears to our eyes, like the tears our forefathers cried in Egypt, we ate this kind of apple sauce with raisins that was reminiscent of the mortar with which we built.

And I’ll be honest by this point, my inner biblical history nerd had emerged and I was really getting into it.

And then the host said it was time for the second cup, I'm thinking, “Second cup? I’ve hardly touched my first cup, shoot, I must have been so caught up in the moment that I have fallen behind!” so I did something that seemed reasonable at the time, but now I can only attribute to having not eaten anything for 48 hours: I grabbed my cup and pounded the whole thing. Before I even put the glass down I knew I had experienced a significant lapse of judgment. As I struggled to keep my balance and not spill anything, I was saying to myself, “I don’t think this is the Holy Spirit I’m feeling.”

Well, I made it through the night and despite the mishap, honestly, the whole experience made me curious about the significance of these ritual cups of wine.

In the next post, I'll tell you about the first one, and then another each post to follow.
You can watch the video of this sermon here.