Cascade Church Portland

Word Made Flesh:: John 3

Way back when my wife and I were engaged I went to her grandmother's house for Thanksgiving. It was a great time of getting to know her extended family and over-eating, but the best moment was walking into the play room. It was a bunch of toys for the now fully grown grandkids and this Mork doll was part of the amazing collection. I didn't know they had even made Mork dolls, much less that one could still exist in the early 2000's. 

My fascination with the doll was noted and guess what showed up in my Christmas gift that year from Sally's grandmother that year?

If you haven't had the privilege of watching this amazing show that aired from 1978-1982, here's some of the things that really stuck. Robin Williams character Mork would sit on him head when asked to take a seat. He would great everyone by saying, "NaNu NaNu" with a very vulcan-like hand sign that turned into an awkward handshake. 

What was so great about the show is that it exposed through an alien culture and system how strange we all are. Every episode ended with a transmission from Mork to his home planet explaining some of our customs as extremely odd practices. By introducing a character who doesn't assume anything we do is normal, it shows us how strange the whole enterprise of being a human is. 

This week we're going to be looking at Jesus comment in John that we need to be "born again" or "born anew". What does it look like to orient your life in a way that takes nothing for granted? What if we take an alien's view of our lives and customs and normalize different values? How does Jesus invite us to make our experience of the world intentionally odd to see, speak and act in a way that brings mutually thriving to all?

Word Made Flesh:: John 2

A couple years ago I heard a short story on the radio that made me weep. 

If you don't have 4 spare minutes to listen to the audio in the link above, here's the gist. A father starts telling his daughter about Jesus and she becomes very interested. They read the Bible together most every night and she loves the part where it says, "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." One day as they are driving by a church they see a cross and she asks, "What's that?"

The father realizes that he never quite got to that part of he Jesus story. He tried to explain the fact that they killed Jesus because of his message, but that's a hard concept for anyone to fathom, much less a 4 year old. 

As time goes on the young girl has the day off from school because of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. She's interested in who this man was and why they are celebrating him with a holiday. The father explains who MLK was and what his work was to help people not judge others by the color of their skin. The daughter makes the connection that this man is a preacher for Jesus and his message sounds a lot like "do unto others." The father agrees and says that he never really thought of it that way before. 

At the end she asks, "Did they kill him too?"

We're tracking this message series in John all the way until Easter. The road we are walking with the life of Jesus will end with him suffering a political enemies death on a cross. We can try and explain it away by talking about the barbaric nature of the Romans and how they couldn't deal with any kind of disruption, but that's a version of Jesus life that is far too sanitized. 

Jesus was a radical. Jesus made people that were comfortable in their religious system very uncomfortable. To truly experience these stories as they were told, written and lived, we need to feel the discomfort too. Jesus is breaking social and religious norms on purpose to cause us to ask why they are there in the first place. Life has a way of creating these pillars in our heart and mind that were never meant to be load-bearing, and the disruption of Jesus calls that into question. While it can be confusing and at times violent, the space that is created afterwards is always better, clearer and more able to engage with the complexities of the world. 

So, let's get disrupted towards peace together. 

Word Made Flesh:: John 1

You may think that pastors are equally comfortable with all books in the Bible, but not so much. 

The Gospel of John makes me uncomfortable. I much prefer the overlap and safety of Matthew, Mark and Luke ad how they talk about the Jesus story. 

If you're not familiar, the book of Mark is likely the earliest written and its stories are almost entirely repeated in Matthew and Luke. There are subtle shifts in how they tell these stories, but the details are largely all the same in the 3 books. And then John comes in and blows the whole thing up. There are stories in John that aren't in the other 3 books. It tells the stories differently and the focus from the beginning is the divinity of Christ. 

When you read and teach out of Matthew, Mark and Luke the overlap helps you more quickly know where the story is going. You pick up patterns faster because the stories sounds familiar, even when you're in a different book. 

If I'm honest, I like the security that familiar stories offer. I feel more in control when I can anticipate the direction, even when the story itself is uncomfortable. Looking at a story that is largely known in unfamiliar ways throws off my equilibrium. I have to get used to being uncomfortable.

My hope throughout the entire message series on John is that we commit to celebrate the discomfort of it all. Jesus came and brought disruption for the sake of real and lasting peace. We need to have parts of our own lives disrupted so that real peace can ever take root. 

If you feel like you're pretty familiar with the story of Jesus, but are lacking peace in certain areas in your life, then maybe there's a disruption in the story of Jesus you haven't experienced before. I hope you'll join us starting this Sunday!

Donna Barber:: The New Year

Welcome to 2018! Donna Barber brings a message to welcome in the new year.

Advent:: Magi

Star gazers from the east came to a foriegn land to see a foriegn king promised through prophesy and then they went home. 

What were they seeking after? 

What did they think they'd find? 

These questions are vital not just to ask of their story, but also to ask about our own stories. 

Advent:: Shepherds

The concept of God can be overwhelming. 

Omnipotent.
Omniscient.
Omnipresent.

Above, beyond, eternal, creator, maker and judge. 
We call out to God to hear us, intervene on our behalf and save us. 

Only God is able to help us when all human methods have failed.
Only God hears us when everyone else has abandoned us.
Only God has the power to create and destroy the universe that surrounds us. 

This mix can be incredibly comforting and incredibly fear-inducing. The power that is held in God can empower the powerless, but it can also create feelings of fear and insignificance. 

This week we remember that in a humble stable this God of all power, presence and knowledge became like one of us. God became limited in the same ways that we are limited to make the vast love and power of God tangible. 

When we feel all alone we pray to a God who was abandoned by all of those who were closet to Him. 
When we feel powerless we pray to a God who experienced the powerlessness of being a child. 
When we ask God to use power on behalf of the marginalized we are praying to the God who did that very same thing as Jesus Christ. 

Because of Christmas God's power, presence and knowledge is personal. We are never alone and the difficult path to being fully human has been charted before us by Jesus Christ. 

Advent:: National Shame

I wonder if at the 2016 Summer Olympics the athletes from Finland ever said, "It's not how you start, it's how you Finnish."

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I'll start printing the shirts for the 2018 Winter Olympics. 

Unfortunately the Finnish didn't finish well. They won a single medal. The bronze medal in women's boxing, lightweight division.

It was their poorest showing at any olympics in their history, which includes participation from 1908 until now. I think it's safe to say that it won't go on the highlight reel for Finland. I imagine they'll focus heavily on Nokia and their indestructible brick phones from the early aughts. 

Now, in sporting competition it's easy to say that you didn't care that much about the games anyway. You can separate from the under-preforming and chalk it up to a bad year. But what happens when your national identity is tied to failure on the international stage? What if your country of origin is the butt of jokes around the world? What if people perpetuate horrific stereotypes about all the people from your country? 

I would imagine that it could deeply impact your psyche and invite you to disassociate from your country of origin. You could start to question your abilities and successes because it will always be couched within a national identity of failure or shame. 

If you are from an affluent Western country in the world today you may not identify with that feeling, but that's why we'll take a look this Sunday at the story of Jesus birth. This is the reality that Jesus was born into. The Jews were a conquered and globally insignificant people in the ancient world. They definitely had a defined culture, but defined cultures are usually only valued if they have international successes.

How is the birth of Jesus into a globally shamed nation instructive for our own stories? How can it help us disengage from our shameful or deeply proud national identities to see another identity Christ called "The Kingdom of God"?

Advent:: Family Shame

I have played on a Portland City basketball team. 

I am a graduate of George Fox Evangelical Seminary.

I am the husband and father of the Kroon family. 

I'm a pastor of Cascade Church Portland. 

What do these distinctions all have in common? They are groups that I have chosen to be part of. 

Most all of the groups that we associate ourselves with are groups of our choosing. Where we work, where we worship, where we recreate are all reflections of choice. 

One of the most fundamental groups that we are associated with is always outside of our choice. We don't get a choice in the families we were born into. It's easily the most influential group we will ever associate with and it is something that happens to us. 

A formational aspects of growing up that we will likely face in our journey into adulthood is feelings of shame or pride regarding our family.  What parts of our lives we are proud or ashamed of are often based off of messages we received from our family. We also think about our families through lenses of pride or shame based of our how we believe other people view our families. 

What's so interesting about families is that we can feel a sense of pride or shame about things we haven't personally done in a group of people that we never chose to be part of. So how does Jesus invite us to negotiate this completely unique situation? Do we accept only the good things about our family and reject the bad? Do we need to accept it all? What does Jesus mean when he asks, "Who is my mothers and who are my brothers?" in Matthew 12? 

Advent:: Personal Shame

Let's get crazy with the concept of reality!

How do you know that the things that have happened to you actually happened?
We rarely need to defend events in our lives that are common. I won't need to plead with you to believe me that I saw a car drive past me on the street. 

"No, I saw it with my own two eyes!! It was a car that was moving at 35-40 miles per hour!"
"I heard the engine as it drove past! You have to believe me."

Most people are going to move past that experience without many questions or doubts. But when you share something that happened to you that isn's as common you will immediately be met with a flood of questions. 

"What do you mean you SAW a UFO?"
"Your coffee was 1,000 degrees? How did the cup survive that heat?"
"So, when did this raccoon dunk a NBA regulation basketball on a 10 foot hoop?"

Now, a healthy skepticism is good when we encounter new information, but have you ever been on the receiving end of lots of skepticism about one of your experiences? It can put our reality into question and we start to doubt if we can trust ourselves. Very often this leads to a whole flood of shame. 

If I can't trust my own lived experience, then I can't trust myself. I must be wrong. I need other people to tell me what is real and what false. This kind of doubt feeds shame. 

Now imagine you are a young woman in a deeply religious town who has an unexplained pregnancy. Who is celebrating your baby bump? Who's believing your angelic visit or story? Do you even bother sharing it with people who will likely scoff and doubt you? Are you the one person who will usher in the God of the universe into the world or the town harlot who suffers from delusions of grandeur? 

These are the questions we'll be looking at this week when we continue seeing our shame in the lives of Mary and Joseph and their improbable reality this Christmas season.

Advent:: Starting with Shame

What do you think about when you hear the word "shame"? 

I bet some of you can immediately identify areas of your life where you feel shame. I bet you can quickly go to times in your life where you've been ashamed. 

Others of you aren't so sure. Shame can feel like a big, ambiguous word and you are fairly sure that it isn't something you deal with. 

Here's a test to see if shame might be showing up in your life. 

How do you respond when you are faced with something that you failed to do or did incorrectly? 

If you start by explaining circumstances that created the environment for your failure, if you avoid the situation all together or if you try and deflect to another topic you are probably dealing with shame. 

Shame is the belief that you are wrong. When your actions become so connected to who you are, you'll defend, deflect or blame to protect yourself when you screw up. 

When you instead experience guilt, you can separate the thing you did from who you are and are much more likely to take responsibility and make amends. Guilt is knowing that you did something wrong. 

Many times we have tried to confront a loved one with something they did wrong and they respond as if we called them wrong. This is the destructive power of shame in our midst and it derails us from living the lives God created us for and it sabotages many of our relationships.