Cascade Church Portland

Jesus:: Time to Leave

The nature of our closet relationships is that these are the people who can comfort or harm us the most. Nobody else has the proximity to impact us in this way. 
Think of the person who knows your deepest and darkest secrets. The kinds of things that you have only shared with a few people. 

I would imagine these faces come quickly to your mind. These aren't strangers or acquaintances. You have history and connection with these people that let you know they're somewhat safe and the kinds of people you can trust with this precious cargo. 

Many years ago I let a Kirby vacuum salesman inside my home. If you aren't familiar with Kirby vacuums, then allow me to do my best to introduce you to them. It's a very large, very involved and very expensive vacuum cleaner that is exclusively sold by door to door sales people. I love talking with people so I ended up letting the guy in and tell me all the wonders of Kirby vacuums. If you get far enough into this pitch they will offer to demonstrate how their vacuum works and I had a spot that I just couldn't get out of our carpet. 

While the vacuum did take out that stain, his shoes left several more, and much more difficult to remove stains in our carpet. I was officially done with our interaction after an hour and a half, but I still had to meet with his manager and repeatedly refuse many payment plans and special deals to get them to leave. My wife walked in at the tail end of this fiasco and will still rush to the door if a salesman is coming our way. 

This can be a bit like our closest relationships. We've let someone in, it's gone terribly and there's a mess everywhere. It can make us wary about letting anybody else into our lives. 

Take a listen to a story about some people who were getting close to Jesus and the moment they decided to end the relationship. I encourage any of you who have hurt or have been hurt by people closest to listen to this model of Jesus and grow closer to the God who knows abandonment. 

Jesus:: The World's Messiah

Can you imagine Captain America showing up in the United States and announcing his intention to go provide his superhero services to the people of Bangladesh? It would be a disorienting experience. That's supposed to be the person to serve and protect our country. His colors are red, white and blue. He's an American citizen!

That's exactly the kind of disorientation Jesus caused when he announced himself as messiah (Captain Israel) and was out teaching and healing folks in Capernum. 

This led to the people from his hometown rejecting him. Have you ever felt infringed upon by other expectations? Take a listen and experience Christ as the God who knows. 

Jesus:: What is Sacred?

Have you ever used a label maker? It's a powerful, powerful thing.  I have only played with one of these pieces of magic a couple of times and it is intoxicating. For the uninitiated, you type whatever you want into a mini computer and it spits out a shiny sticker with that word on it.  Want to clearly differentiate between your containers of flour and sugar? Easy.  Want to let the world know this plastic tote is filled with Christmas lights? Consider it done. Looking to mark your laptop with your name, address and phone number? So simple.  You suddenly feel the need to identify and label each and everything in your home or office. If you get carried away your life will look like the inside of a Richard Scarry word book.  Thinking about the tantalizing power of the label maker has caused me to reflect on how I do something similar with the labels of "sacred" and "secular". By sacred I mean all things to do specifically with God, faith, Christianity, etc. Secular is everything else in life, like our jobs, family, errands, play, etc.  What I've been wrestling with lately is how harmful these labels can be for living the kind of life that Jesus calls us into. If we believe that God created all things and Christ came to invite us to redeem all things, then what is secular anymore? This has been reorienting my daily life.  Mowing the lawn is sacred work. Putting my boys to bed is sacred work. Talking to my brother on the phone is a sacred conversation, and not just when we talk about God and the church.  I invite you to join the conversation about relabeling our daily rhythms as sacred and seeing that God is in the smallest of tasks and the greatest of challenges.

Jesus:: Dinner and Gossip

Have you ever had someone say, "We were just talking about you the other night" and you feel a little nervous? What train of thought lead them there? 

"Speaking of annoying people..."

"Yeah, you know who else can't dance..."

"I didn't know sushi could make me that sick, which reminds me..."

There's something tied to the thought of people talking about you when you're not around that can either be the most encouraging or discouraging thing possible. You know that these kinds of conversations can shape how people engage with you in the future, and yet you're powerless to inform them. 

This Sunday we look at a story where Jesus faced pressure to let other people's conversations and thoughts about him direct his actions. I'm excited to sit together and wrestle with this tension! I hope you'll come and join me. 

Science Mike McHargue@ Cascade

This week we have a special treat, Science Mike delivers his message on creation, evolution Van Gogh's Starry Night and the infallibility of the Bible.

Jesus:: Baptism

Are you familiar with the term "sacrilege"? It's the misuse or violation of something sacred, like the church or Christianity. It's a word that I grew up with and was fairly certain I was in danger of doing with most conversations about Jesus. 

There's an aura surrounding the story of Jesus. His miracles, teachings, death and resurrection all inspire a kind of reverence that demand us to tread lightly. I never felt comfortable asking many questions about the life and details of Jesus, because it could be sacrilege. I was never invited to think about what I would do if I were Jesus. It was always about placing yourself in the role of a disciple or pharisee or bystander. 

The life of Jesus existed behind glass to be preserved and revered. Thinking about how certain encounters impacted Jesus was a violation of our sacred savior. It could be sacrilege. 

In this series, "The Life and Journey of Jesus", we hope to remove the glass of preservation and engage fully in the story of Jesus. There will still be much of the story that seems very distant from our own experience, but to embrace the full balance of divinity and humanity found in Jesus is to embrace that he experienced the same emotions, doubts and temptations that we face. Ultimately this leads us into a relationship with the God who walked, talked, ate and breathed with us. Jesus didn't live a preserved and distant life, but an engaged life that invites us to be known fully by the God who knows us fully. 

A New Way Forward

Cara Meredith grew up in a white neighborhood, went to a white school and worshipped in a white church. This wasn't a positive or negative experience, it was just the reality of her situation. As she traveled off to school and started teaching she started having experiences with friends, students and people that had different backgrounds and experiences that started to open her eyes, heart and mind to a different story than she had grown up in. 

Years later Cara met the man who would ultimately become her husband. This man shared on one of their earliest dates that his father was civil rights icon James Meredith (the first African-American to attend the University of Mississippi in 1962). This continued a journey and path for Cara to see how she was invited to engage in issues of race and racial reconciliation. 

Listen to a story of redemption and reconciliation and how the gospel of Jesus Christ invites us all to be minister of reconciliation. This involves learning stories of people who look different than you and come from different backgrounds so that we can be bridge builders instead of unknowingly being wall builders. 

Easter Sunday::Back to Life

It's impossible to overstate what Easter is and all that it represents. 

This week there were more terrorist attacks, and these were focused in Belgium. 31 people are dead and 330 more were injured. It's another tragic chapter in a world were unsuspecting civilians are attacked as they go about their daily lives. It actually follows a pattern of worldwide violence (much of which goes unreported or underreported in the US)that has struck in places like Burkina Faso, Jakarta and Ankara. 

What is so unique about Christianity is the kind of response we have to this kind of suffering. Christianity enters the grave and weeps with the world's mourners. The bitter sting of death is a central aspect of our shared story, as we will observe on Good Friday. We can face death with dignity and grace because our story is that death is overcome. 

On Easter Sunday we come together to see that the grave is empty and powerless. Jesus stands on the other side of death and violence with life and peace. We are invited to take part in the resurrection so that we render the hatred, violence and death in our world powerless to overcome God's good creation. Come stand in front of the grave to see that the stone is rolled away. 

 

Palm Sunday

One of the most transformational moments in my understanding of scripture came when I stopped reading the stories from a, "Get a load of these knuckleheads" perspective. It's really easy to read about Adam and Eve in the garden as the idiots who blew the perfect scenario for all of humanity. The Israelites can be seen as the complaining, short-term memory impaired, unfaithful hoard. The disciples can become the doofs hopelessly not understanding the simplest stories of Jesus. 

Here's what life has taught me. I'm Adam and Eve. I'm the Israelites. I'm the Disciples. 

This week's message is all about Palm Sunday, which is when a crowd at Jerusalem worshiped and welcomed Jesus into the city as a King and Messiah. The head-slapping moment in the story comes when this same crowd calls for Jesus to be crucified. 

Preparing for this week I've been struck with how appropriate that dramatic change feels for my own relationship with Christ. Moments after seeing him as my Lord and Savior, there are ways I'd like to remove Jesus from my life altogether. I'm the crowd. 

I invite you to listen to what we can learn from the people yelling "Hosanna" to Jesus and how we can keep that refrain in the moments we'd rather yell "Crucify". 

Abraham::And Isaac

This is one of the most terrifying and well known stories in the Bible. 

We've been walking a path for weeks now that looks at Abraham's cycle of doubt and faith. It's been a remarkable roller coaster ride that's lasted YEARS. When the object of his greatest doubts is finally realized in the birth of a son at very advanced age, God has an interesting idea. By interesting I really mean completely horrifying. God calls Abraham to take his son to the top of a mountain and sacrifice him. 

If this story doesn't deeply trouble you, then I would encourage you to let the reality of the request really sink in. God has ultimately delivered on his long ago promise to deliverAbraham a son who will ultimately lead to a great nation that God will bless. God then asks Abraham to personally ensure that his son is killed and offered up to Him as a sacrifice. 

That's brutal! Can this God really be trusted? Are all the promises of blessing and favor from God all an elaborate setup that will lead to a greater suffering and agony?