Into the deepest depths of hell, in fact. Not just the surface level, but down into the white hot flames, the most painful, excruciating places.

Where the suffering is intense. Where people come to curse the Lord with as much fervor that could otherwise be mistaken for worship.

Where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Where death is reality. Where darkness rules.

Church: one of the few entities on earth that has a core message potentially worth living and dying for. Light of the world. Salt of the earth. Unconditional love.  That is when it doesn’t get bogged down with selfishness, superiority, or cynicism.

We should be convinced that life is not about acquisition – that living generously is a better way to live. Giving food to the hungry or resourcing the poor is not an obligation or a chore or a bullet point on a job description. Our intended trajectory away from greed and self-centeredness is counter-cultural and inspiring.

Rob Bell, in Velvet Elvis, says that one of the worst things to have happened to the Christian faith is the movement towards heaven and hell being some distant places – separated from our day to day experience.  It leads to us wanting to escape this planet that must be void of God, in this scenario.  Our trajectory becomes about saving our souls from eventual damnations and more about ME spending forever in bliss and satisfaction.

Instead, heaven and hell are present realities.  Eternity started on day one. Hell is right here right now.  It’s the mother who can’t feed her children.  It’s the pain of loss.  It’s disease.  It’s ridicule and bullying and genocide.

You want to get to heaven…. bring it.

Jesus didn’t leave some mystical land to come to our neutral ground to persuade people to be good so they can ride the salvation express to heaven.  He came, himself, and brought heaven with him – by healing and feeding, by turning people’s hearts in a different direction, and by turning water into wine.

I want the church to go to hell, too.  I want people to see the comparison – to consider the alternative.

I want people to understand that heaven isn’t about walking streets of gold and wearing sparkling white robes.

Heaven is about the tears and pain and the bruises that come before restoration.  It’s about hard-core, unabashed love that doesn’t ask questions or require any thing besides your being.  It’s about getting rid of the darkness by shining in s spark of light – not about pointing out how dark hell is.

Heaven is what moves in when hell is pushed out.

But you can’t push hell out of the picture from the sidelines.  You can’t feed hungry people if you don’t go where the hungry people are.  You can’t build relationships by sitting on your couch.

What a hellish perspective then to celebrate “some glad morning” when we all will “fly away.”  For those who think that trying to live like Jesus is the best way to live, it seems counter intuitive that God would have his people fleeing the scene.  Who’s left to advocate for those with no voice?  To feed those with no food?  To visit those with no friends?  To give hope to those who have nothing to look forward to?

So, I’m done with the halo envy.

I’m done with looking forward to my mansion and streets of gold and diamond harp.

If there’s no more hope or love or happiness today than there was yesterday then we’re all missing something.  If we’re living as if this place is doomed, then we’ve screwed up big time.  If you’re not concerned about replacing hell here and now with heaven here and now, then we are diluting the redemptive message that Jesus was supposed to be all about.

Jesus example, if we believe it, says that being concerned that someone’s stomach isn’t full is at least as important as the state of their soul.  It shows that aiming towards emotional maturity is at least as important as aiming towards spiritual maturity.  He tries to convince us tax collectors, and prostitutes aren’t the wrong crowd.

Jesus didn’t seem to think that going to hell was such a bad idea.

In fact, it was probably the most important thing He ever did.

Back before evangelicals, and reformation, at crusades, and popes, there was the book of Acts.  These guys knew what “church” was all about.  They invented it.  They ate together.  They hung out. They sang.  They talked about God as if it was OK not to know every little detail.

And, best of all, they lowered the bar.

They lowered the bar so we could all walk across together.  At some point they realized that their expectations were too high.  People were interested in getting involved but couldn’t live up to the standard that had been set.  These people knew that there was something altogether different about this Jesus guy they had heard about and wanted to try to live like him because they thought it was a better way to do life.

Of course, now that he had been crucified and was long gone from the scene, the people left over were those who had encountered him, or encountered people who encountered him.  This first group of insiders, then, were Jews.  There were thousands of years of history and tradition and ritual that came along with that – there were time-honored traditions that became as much a part of their faith and practice as God himself.  You may remember that part of what God wanted the Israelites to do was for the males to undergo a little surgical procedure as a sign.

I know, I know.  That’s a whole other story.

It’s not even like these people were “converting” to Christianity.  They were inventing it.  With all of their baggage and history and tradition, they were figuring out with other people who encountered Jesus (again, all raised within the Jewish tradition).  They understood that Jesus was a Jew.  They understood that he was a Rabbi and so he acted in certain ways, and reasoned in certain ways, and did things that religious Jewish men did.  He ate kosher.  He studied the Torah.  Everything they had seen Jesus do had been in the context of Jewish life.

So what about when people who weren’t Jewish, who had no idea what it meant to be Jewish, who loved red meat, came and wanted to know more about this Jesus guy?

The people who were already in had a couple of choices.  The first was to simply say, “Sorry, you don’t qualify.  You’re not a Jew, Jesus was a Jew, unless you’re willing to become intimately familiar with Jewish law, practice, ritual, and nuance, you’re out.”

But that’s not what they did.

Instead they sat down, and they tried to figure out that if Jesus story was in fact for everyone then what they had was a situation where a lot of the rituals and nuances that grew out of living life as a Jewish individual may not apply to non Jews…. you may know them as Gentiles.  What they came up with was this:

“…we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God.”

It goes on to say that they didn’t want to burden the Gentiles with any rigid requirements.

They “lowered the bar” so that more people could learn to figure out Jesus without having to worry about how many grains of wheat could be picked on the Sabbath, what songs to sing at what time of day, or how they were going to pay for that surgical procedure with no health insurance.

Now, contrast that with today.

We’ve got churches who figure that they’ve got it all figure out.  You can’t be a member here unless you wear this, or pay this, or believe this.  Another tragic turn from our roots of inclusiveness, tolerance, love, acceptance.  We add condition upon condition, barring access to Jesus like we’re the oafish doorman outside the trendy nightclub.  We had a good thing going there for a while, but then we let our power get in the way.  At some point, we switched from the desire to have more people come live this life to the desire to have them meet our expectations.  Nevermind that half of these “doctrines” are at least irrelevant to how I live my life, and perhaps even as far as counter productive to what Jesus wanted to do.

It makes me angry that people who honestly just want to see Jesus to figure out if he’s the real deal, if what he said in his day was worth living for, have to go through the bureaucratic mumbo jumbo that we’ve added to the process.  He doesn’t care what you look like or what you do.  He doesn’t want you to figure it out first, and then come talk to His people.  Half of what we say is heresy anyway.

I say “Lower the bar, Church.”  We’ll all be more like Jesus.

I see the young girl huddled on the brothel floor
I see the man with a passion come in kicking down the door

This lyric is from a Sara Groves song – When the Saints.  Every time I hear it, it blows my heart to smithereens, and without fail, I’ll get something in my eye.  Without fail.

The song itself, if you’ve not heard it is pretty unassuming – essentially, Sara says she wants to walk in with the Saints, mentions a few Bible characters for comparison and off she goes singing again.

Then this happens:

I see the long quiet walk along the Underground Railroad
I see the slave awakening to the value of her soul

I see the young missionary and the angry spear
I see his family returning with no trace of fear

I see the long hard shadows of Calcutta nights
I see the sister standing by the dying man’s side

I see the young girl huddled on the brothel floor
I see the man with a passion come in kicking down the door

I see the man of sorrows and his long troubled road
I see the world on his shoulders and my easy load

In all seriousness, that one lyric does it for me.  I’m sure there are lots of reasons why but, for whatever reason, I really connect with the spirit of this thought.  I think about being a guy and about all of the baggage that comes along with that – teenage years of hormone-induced lust and the residual hormone-hangover that most of us experience throughout our twenties.  I think of pornography and how what can start as an innocent curiosity and what gets regarded too often as a rite of passage is, in fact, a mind-bogglingly large profit sector with complex revenue streams and profit sharing.  It is big business that, like all big businesses, are about making money.

It makes me wonder what portion of mouse-clicks support things like sexual trafficking. There has to be some fringe sites and systems that take advantage of men’s addictions. It makes me wonder how many of these girls get into the porn industry because they feel like they have no other options. It makes me wonder how many abductions result in forced sexual slavery – I know the numbers are staggering.

And then I think about us men having our lusts transformed into compassion, motivating us to turn off the computer and figuratively or literally busting down doors with an appetite for restoration, an appetite for rescue.

To me, this is incredibly moving imagery that speaks to me more strongly than I could even attempt to write about here. I’ve written before on this blog about how restoration speaks deeply to my soul and this may be, for me, the ultimate display of restoration.

Here’s the song on Lala.com so you can listen for yourself: http://lala.com/zZu8I

I’ve been religious at various points in my life in the truest sense of the word, but never that religious. In small-town Newfoundland, Lent was always perceived as a Catholic tradition and as a good protestant boy, I protested it by simply ignoring it.  It’s never been something that I’ve understood well if at all from either an historical or a practical perspective.

There have been Easter seasons that I’ve attempted to do this, though none so striking that I actual remember which of my vices I denied myself of.  I seem to recall giving up soda or pop or Coke (my attempt to be geographically sensitive here) though never having been a connoisseur  of these sugary tonics this denial came ripe with built-in success.  I understand that this can be a struggle for some people, who are as hopelessly addicted to the stuff as I am to the java.  Surely at some point during my pious college years there were other things: fast-food is coming to mind but has only slightly less built-in success than soda (and then, only because of my then college-student status).

And here I am again happily adrift through another lenten season with no plan of organized self-denial.  It’s not that I don’t see the value.  The value is incredible.  Self-denial is a discipline practiced by maybe 0.00000343% of the world’s population (that number MAY be inaccuate – i.e. a complete fabrication).  Lent has the potential to be an amazing expression of incredible faith and trust.

It also has the potential to be self-aggrandizing, ego-buildling wish-wash.

Let’s be honest with one another: most of the people that we know that practice Lent do it not for any religious observance or because of their desire to fast alongside Jesus in the desert for 40 days in preparation for ministry.  No, instead it’s to see if we can actually survive the withdrawal of caffeine or the dangerously low levels of blood sugar that we’re bound to experience.  And the self-aggrandizing bit: that’s about proving to yourself and others that you, against all odds,  can actually drive PAST Starbucks on the way to and maybe from work.  It’s building up the ego.  It’s blatant self-promotion in the face of subtle self-denial.

Perhaps our lives should be about self-denial every day.  Perhaps there is enough to go around if we’re reasonable and generous.  Just maybe we can help somebody get back on their feet and we can possibly be satisfied with a 32″ LCD instead of a 42″.

I realize this may not be your thing.

Given that Lent ought to be about preparing for something new – reminiscent of Jesus’ preparing for three years of ministry – perhaps we can revisit this season with that spirit.  Jesus didn’t go to the desert to avoid drive-thrus and biggie sized fries.  He prepared to present the greatest “message” of all time to a people that were beaten down by oppressors.

It’s an incredibly different environment from what WE live in.

How will you take the next few days (it doesn’t need to be 40 – you won’t lose credit) to prepare yourself for a new part of life?  Maybe it’s time to think about what the next step is.  Maybe the old is done.

I’ve got a low-grade aversion to people – people in small doses are fine but in general they find ways to annoy or irritate me. If Lent is about denial, then why not deny ourselves the easy way out – take the long hard road through the desert instead of substituting iced tea (or sweet tea) for soda.

I want to face my fears and my aversions instead whim-ping out.  I want to deny myself the option of using the self check out at the grocery store and instead place myself squarely in the vulnerable position of having a conversation with an unknown human.  I want to deny myself the opportunity to stay silent and speak up and ACT up when people are being treated with injustice.  I want to deny myself the opportunity to passively-aggressively share my views and engage in actual dialogue.

Lent this year is much different.  It’s not denying myself of something.  It’s denying myself of self.

I can’t say that I’ve been wrestling with prayer – that would be an overstatement.  Rather, prayer has always been perplexing to me and continues to be one of my biggest issues and questions.  Lately, as others around me have been wrestling with prayer, I’ve been processing through some of the same questions and concerns.

The dominating understanding of prayer in terms of pop-culture seems to be asking for something from God – maybe asking for a healing or a miracle or a raise or a new car or for a particular candidate to not become the next president of the United States.

For Jesus-followers, the Bible says that:

I tell you, you can pray for anything, and if you believe that you’ve received it, it will be yours.

or

Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

Mark 11:25 (NLT and NIV respectively)

Now, while I can tell you stories about praying for a million dollars and a big house and a fast car and how I have none of those things, I’d rather complicate the matter by talking about friends who have prayed long and hard for physical healings and deliverance from sicknesses.  They pray with all the faith in the world.  And nothing changes.  Their loved ones continue downhill.

Religion usually gives one of two very easy answers for this: 1) you didn’t pray hard, long, faithfully enough or 2) it wasn’t in the will of God.

These aren’t good enough for me.  This says that God rewards the people who are faithful, the people who’ve got it all figured out and the rest of us who are still struggling – well, it sucks to be us.  This says that once you reach a certain point, only then will God hear your prayers.

And this from a God who “causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and and the unrighteous?”

It’s not a good enough answer for me.

My reset here has been to starting thinking about prayer as more than just making an ask.  It’s talking.  It’s a conversation: a two-way flow of words, thoughts, wishes, intentions, feelings, concerns, questions, and  answers. I’ve understood this for a long time but it’s felt very one-sided.  Almost as if I trusted God was listening but never really heard much from Him. This is more experiential than anything else.  I don’t know where this “casual” approach to prayer came from or is referenced in the bible.  Then again, I don’t know how it become so holier-than-thou and elitist either.

I’ve WANTED to hear a voice.  I rarely ever have.

I used to think I had to do something special to get God to listen to me.  I know that’s not true either.  He listens to all of us. He probably gets annoyed at all the bickering and back-biting and ill-will wishes via the prayer line, but I really do believe he listens.

So, my biggest questions now revolve around the answers.

I don’t expect that I’ll hear an audible voice much.  I’m not ruling it out and I’m not convinced that I HAVEN’T on one or two occasions heard something “real” but I’m not counting on hearing words.

This whole prayer business raises lists of other questions, not the least of which are major, major challenges like “the will of God,” or WOG.  The WOG is thrown around so haphazardly and inserts itself as a matter of convenience, ignorance, or indifference.

Why didn’t I get into that school?  Not in the WOG.

Why is the sky blue?  Well son, it’s the WOG.

How will we know the right thing to do?  The WOG will work itself out.

Perhaps this is the next thing to talk about.

There are some core issues surrounding prayer that I still don’t know if I can answer.  Example: How does God decide “who” to listen to?  Bruce Almighty shows us the chaos that follows a blanket yes to all.

I think the central premise of prayer is off.  Prayer can be a very selfish endeavor.  God bless ME.  God forgive ME.  God heal MY friend.  And it’s hard to approach without this selfishness.  We’re interested in self-preservation.

Perhaps it’s fear.  Do we come to God more afraid of hell and suffering than with love and awe?  Is it the “he holds our fate in the palm of his hand” mentality?  We only have limited face-time with the big man upstairs so we should make all our big asks now.

And at the end of the day, I don’t have an answer.  Maybe putting all the big asks on the table is the right thing to do.  I have a hard time processing prayer and I’m sure I will for a long, long time.  I don’t need to understand the mechanics of it, but it sure would be nice for me to have some rationale behind it.

Paul says to pray without ceasing.  That to me does, in fact, make sense.  I do feel pretty online at most times during the day, and in those moments when I encounter something notable, I’ve got no problem being thankful or making an ask for it.

And perhaps I’ve not asked with the right faith, believing that I’ve received something.  Or perhaps I’ve already received everything and don’t know what to do with it all.