I had a strange dream last night. Very dramatic. I am in a place that, after awaking, I would describe as Hell. It is dark, scary, and filled with torment, like a nightmarish cavernous cave. It is a place where there is perpetual war. People constantly hating, fighting and murdering. There is no safety. There is blood on the stones. I see a person standing on a high rock, raising his hands in triumph, only to be shot down and beaten, leaving the high rock empty for the next person to ascend it and claim victory. What chaos. What mayhem! What ambition! What defeat!
Then, suddenly, there is a pronouncement made. I’m not sure if I see who’s making it. But I hear the words, “The truth or untruth is in the statement, not the person!” The cause of all this hatred, war and bloodshed, all this animosity and disunity, is that we afflict the people we disagree with. We disrespect, punish, abuse and murder (metaphorically and really) the people we differ with. Can we challenge and debate the ideas without disrespecting the person declaring them? I am committed to open dialogue and debate. I am committed to this in my church community because if I want a diversity of people, I need to be able to invite and tolerate a diversity of ideas and statements. Plus I must humbly hold loosely the position I find myself in. Otherwise we are in a state of perpetual war. Indeed, this is where we are and always will be until we realize that there is something more important than any statement ever made, and that is love.
Contributions to nakedpastor are greatly appreciated.
David Hayward is a pastor artistically stripping to the essential.
David,
This post brought to mind again the text of a hymn we sang last night at church entitled “I Then Shall Live” (particularly the second stanza)
I then shall live.
As one whose been forgiven.
I’ll walk with joy to know my debts are paid.
I know my name is clear before my father.
I am his child and I am not afraid.
So greatly pardoned I’ll forgive my brother
The Law of love I gladly will obey
I then shall live
as one whose learned compassion.
I’ve been so loved
That I’ll risk loving too.
I know how fear builds walls instead of bridges
I’ll dare to see another’s point of view
And when relationships demand commitment
Then I’ll be there to care and follow through.
Your kingdom come around and through and in me
your power and glory,let them shine through me
Your hallowed name,oh may i bear with honor
And may your living kingdom come in me
THE BREAD OF LIFE! oh May I share with honor
And may you feed a hungry world through me
Take care and thanks for sharing…
Charles Roberts
Self sacrificing love is a statement that’s hard to argue with, isn’t it?
Just did a couple of blog posts on my own about this topic…
When all is stripped away, the greatest commandments continue to be to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves…
David,
So as to have an open dialogue and debate with you {just you}, I ask you:
What does this love you speak of look like???
What do YOU do with me when my concept of Godly love is different than yours, though we base it on the same Word?
Is your statement: “Indeed, this is where we are and always will be until we realize that there is something more important than any statement ever made, and that is love,” ————–more true than what Paul said in 1Tim.4:16::Watch your life and DOCTRINE [caps mine] closely…because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.
fishon
Doctrine without love is a clanging cymbal. Clanging cymbalism is popular these days.
I don’t agree with you…so WATCH OUT!!!
So, what about love without doctrine?
fishon
As a parent,I may contemplate and discuss birth,early childhood development,adolescence,the teen yrs,etc.,but when I say,”I love my children”,I’m not loving a doctrine of my children…it’s beyond concepts …. more of a quality than a quantity
…are the mystics are telling us something of the same…???
Truth from on high without tears, without love is cold and doesn’t work. Truth without love are often the conservatives, the fixers, the scripture quoters. Tears and love without truth not only doesn’t work, it is disingenuous and illogical. This is why we need someone of infinite highness(truth) and infinite lowness(love/tears). This is who we have in Jesus. What a Savior!
May we be more like Jesus ..holding back neither truth nor love.
Grace and Peace,
Jeff
What a powerful dream with a powerful message…..
The day we truly all Love each other is the day when we see each as one. While we all hold to a view that we are different(Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Christian, Buddhist…….), so shall we Hate. We all bleed red.
“I have come not to bring peace, but a sword.”
That’s a quote from the Creator and Sustainor of the universe.
He doesn’t give a rat’s derriere about peace if His Word is diminished in the process. He cares about truth, And He is the truth.
He said if you proclaim the truth and are rejected, then leave them with an insult (slap your shoes together knocking the dirt off them), and then split.
Getting along at the expense of ‘Jesus only’, is a hollow, worthless peace.
But the truth, the truth, the truth is Love. The doctrine is Love. Love will not be rejected, because it always goes a mile further than we can imagine. Jesus even harrowed Hell – what does that mean? Surely that whatever we can imagine, however bad it may seem, is redeemable – and redeemed.
Apocalyptic visions like these, surely they are a challenge to us. To pick up on an earlier cartoon, if we don’t walk voluntarily into the Cloud of Unknowing God will trip us into it.
And just to say, I have been there. And found Jesus there, because I have found Love there. I prayed to go there, but whilst I was there it felt like I’d do anything to leave. It hurt. But God honoured the prayer.
So I reckon, Dave, if you’ve prayed to enter the Cloud, God will honour it. Perhaps this dream is a vision of what you will find there. Your challenge might be to find the love in the people who fight there. I have no doubt that you will find it.
If you suspect what i’ve written is baloney, and don’t trust a word of it, don’t worry, because I’ll trust it for you. Though I suspect you know in your heart of hearts that it’s true.
I don’t believe there can be love without doctrine, in the sense that love always emanates from God, he invented it and fully owns it, so whenever we express it, it comes with him attached whether we think it does or not.
The love God showed us was in action, in the daily life Jesus lived, and the death he died. It wasn’t a discussion or a thought. Therefore that shows me that loving people as an actual act is more important in communicating God to the word that debates about doctrine or theology.
Love always trumps everything else!
“I don’t believe there can be love without doctrine”(Kim)
“Love always trumps everything else”(Kim)
Doctrine is what you think God to be, Love is, well, Love. I dont need Jesus or any other Deity to know what love is. Maybe you do. I think I will agree with your last statement, including our ideas on what/who God is.
Steve Martin,
Great comment. I’ve been thinking about that the last couple of days after getting sucked into one of the debates on this blog recently. Part of me wishes I hadn’t – because I don’t like the “lack of peace” from doing it, so I appreciate how you articulated what I’ve been pondering in my little brain…..
Amen, Steve Martin.
fishon
Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God… even if they don’t know it.
“Love is, well, Love. I dont need Jesus or any other Deity to know what love is.” (TitforTat)
Not trying to spark an argument. But just curious. “Love is love” doesn’t tell us anything. Could you explain more what you see love as and where you get your “definition” of love from?
If not, that is cool too … like I said, just curious
“Love is action, not a feeling”
Thats why I know there are many times im not very loving, and with that said wasnt there something Biblical like “we will know them by their fruits”. Just because people call themselves “Christian” doesnt mean they know what Love is.
Hi David,
I just want you to know that your blog is my favorite. If I could move to Rothesay, NB, Canada I would. Hell, when I retire I just might. I agree with you on almost 100% of what you post about and I think we are a lot alike. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…I would so love to be a part of your church.
Would you consider moving to The Valley of the Sun (Phoenix Arizona) to plant a church? I’m halfway serious, because I know that you are where God wants you to be. So God, will You put a little bug in David’s ear and nudge him to the Phoenix area?
Peace!
Keith
Thanks Jodi, Fishon !
‘Jesus only’ isn’t too popular these days…even in the Church!
Youz got a problem wit dat? Take it up wit da Man upstairs!