Seeing Differently - Tim Mackie (The Bible Project)

good good to have you guys here welcome to the pulse it's a treat to be here I've loved every year that I've gotten to either attend or speak or be a part of pulse just great so fun have this room of people together and talk about things that matter to us in a way that don't necessarily matter to everyone in our church communities or in our communities at large and so it's just great it's a little subculture here and we get to just encourage each other so what I'd like to do today we're going to talk about prophecy and poetry and the art of perception and what I'd like to do I'll show you a picture of a guy named Edgar Muller Edgar Muller is he's a German a street artist and he doesn't do graffiti like he actually paints streets and so what do you actually like gets permits appeals to the city gets a permit and this kind of thing and how many have heard of Edgar Muller before or seen his work oh oh quite a number of it yeah there we go so this guy's so incredible he has kind of pioneered this unique form of large-scale urban art in cities all around Europe and how he starts the process you get to permit and it goes to a large place like here like a boardwalk or like a city square and he gets a little scene that in the next slide here up in the upper left he gets a little he has a little three like a fisheye glass thing that he sets up and he uses that to map out the perimeter of the space and so like in the upper right he starts setting out these long long lines of tape to get the dimensions of what he's doing and then he essentially what he's doing is he's creating if you stand in one spot he's creating what will become a 3d visual experience right there in that large public but you have to stand in that spot where the glass is standing right there and so the next slide is this takes him like all the parts of the day and so he begins he has lots of people that he works with and so on and then he of course does the final the final work so this is called this one's just called the crevasse the crevasse and so that the end result of this board the whole boardwalk looks like looks like this it's not unbelievable is unbelievable now let's interesting you can go you have a whole website everything it's interesting to look at you can go look at pictures they're taken like from the side and then immediately the illusion is over and you say oh yeah this just looks like a sidewalk with funny patterns of blue paint but it used the moment you stand in that one spot where that where that eyeglass was boom you are about to fall into into the crevasse I'll show you a couple more just because their mind their minds blowing so this is I think also long a boardwalk I can't really tell but it looks like you're going to die in two seconds right okay it's like hovering is so about the fall and this next one's my personal favorite look at that look at that this is unbelievable right you're going to you are going to die his this flood right and it's like the heat I don't know how he accomplished he accomplished that but there you go Edgar Edgar he's an eccentric guy and you can look a frame around YouTube and see interviews and stuff like that and I was just kind of reading about him as super interesting and I came across a couple lines that he said during one of my interviews and he was asking like what's part of the core inspiration for doing this kind of thing in these large public spaces there's not many people on the planet who are doing this kind of thing and what he said he said in my paintings I'm trying to question our perception of daily life by changing the appearance of public spaces by playing with positives and negatives ie that feeling of I'm about to die so playing positives and negatives it forces people to think twice about every thing they see and again if you read other interviews with him his his core fascination is with human perception how we perceive the spaces that we dwell and live and work and walk in every single day so it was a boardwalk now it's like a death-defying treacherous pass that you have to get through right and the space hasn't changed what's your perception of the space has changed because of the paint that he's laid down on the ground he's in his whole thing is about perception and so he's convinced that if we were simply able to become awake to reality the simple realities of our everyday spaces the people the things that are there he says is another other interviews you know it's it's very improbable that any of us should be here right now existing I mean you know it's very improbable of it like any of this is here and that we're sitting here having an arts conference human beings conscious you know what I mean it's very improbable that any of us should be here it should actually blow our minds every day that our eyes wake up you know and we're ready but no we're bored with life and we want to go you know we want to go up you know whatever reality TV or something like that and so and so his whole thing is trying to trying to shake people awake by playing with these extreme positive negative images that like whoa and to force you awake like this was the boardwalk I normally like to now - as I walk to work about to work every day but now it's this new amazing space and so that's this is whole deal it's helping people see what they do not currently see and the reason that people don't currently see it isn't because it's not there he's just convinced that were blind to these amazing realities so he paints these huge apocalyptic scenes of the streets to wake people up to how crazy life is and how strange the world the world actually is and as I've reflected on this and just kind of followed his heart over the last couple years I it struck me that what his core motivation is right there it's actually very similar I think to the artistic impulse in general which is namely to to create some kind of creative work whatever form it is written visual creating a moment like Nancy beech said beauty beauty stories or moments and people encounter those those forms of art and essentially it's like what Edgar Muller is trying to do is it alters your perception here's a story about a way I've never thought the process life or a new fresh angle it's a moment that exposes something inside of me it's beauty that overwhelms me and all of a sudden my vision my perception is changed I look at my own life in a brand brand-new wide I have a new angle to see my my work or my co-workers and my family circumstances and so on that's part of what creative artistic work does it's aimed at altering our our perception that's what that's what Edgar Muller does that's what art does and it seems to me that that's part of what we we all do a huge part of us here are a part of crafting moments in our gatherings as followers of Jesus to wear whether it's encountering beauty stories or moments like Saint like a Nancy beech said where people encounter encounter the presence of Christ in a way that alters their perception of themselves of the relationships and so so many of you you function on a team of some kind creating that kind of space some of you are career artists that are here some of you are you wishing you could be career artists and like you're doing a thing that will like keep you paying the bills in the meantime until you can do this turn your hobby into your job whatever we're all over the map here but this is a roomful of creatives and our goal or our aim is essentially to do what Edgar Muller is doing to help people discover something and of course if this conference had nothing to do with Jesus I don't know what would be helping people discover like Michael was saying right because the pit goes pretty deep inside each each one of us but but if we're trying to help people uncover the presence and the reality of Christ that's right in front of them that they don't yet have eyes to see or that they need to see in a fresh way again it seems to me we have a lot to learn from people like Edgar Muller trying to shake shake people away and so if that's you then you and Edgar Muller stand in a long line an honorable tradition in Jewish and Christian history of people who were trying to help others see what they don't currently see and to alter their perception of themselves and and of the of the world and that long tradition in Israel was with a group of people called the Binet Nevi'im the sons of the profits and here's an interesting fact that will be great for you to pull out at parties very soon all right so is that profits I said I say the word profit and I think most of us Westerners we tend to think of prediction are you guys with me here prediction of future events is what I think the English word prophecy mostly refers to for most of us that that's not the core value or definition or expression of prophecy in the Bible sometimes prophecy may involve prediction but always to serve a much greater purpose and that purpose is illuminated by actually what prophets used to be called before they recalled prophets in ancient Israel there's that there's a story this is the part that will be useful at parties little random fact so there's a little story in the book of 1st Samuel about this guy named Saul maybe you've heard of him and he he was wandering on the wilderness looking for his dad's lost donkeys any story that begins with your dad's lost donkeys it's going to be interesting thanks know you dad's lost donkeys please got a couple people and he's cruising around the wilderness looking for his dad's lost donkeys he had no clue where they are and so he sees his village here and he hears that there's a there's a prophet in the village and he's like well maybe this guy can help me find my dad's lost donkeys and so he goes to them and then the story pauses and the narrator the storyteller just pauses the story and just speaks to you directly the reader and this is what the storyteller still has is so interesting he says now dear reader formerly in Israel if someone went to go inquire of God they would say come let us go to the the seer because what we call prophets here today back in the old days of Israel they called them Sears Sears they were not always called prophets called seers this is their oldest name in Israelite tradition seers so prophets by name are people who see differently than others see that's why you go to them you want to know what your friends see ask them you know you don't know what your culture sees let go watch reality TV something right now right so you want you want to get the most unique perspective plot you want to get a divine perception on your culture or your life you go to the seer the seer sees differently than others see say that 10 times fast the seer they see differently they perceive differently than others that's their role and specifically as we're going to see with one of Israel's most prominent seers or prophet Isaiah son of Amos it was an encounter with a living God that gave him that altered perception these are figures through one way or another they had been marked and undergone some kind of powerful we would even call it mystical experience with the being in the presence and the reality of God and it fundamentally altered their perception and they became marked as people you go to that person if you want to get God's perspective you to prophecy God's perspective on human events and in human history that's prophecy and so these figures played a hugely important role in the story of Israel and a set and here's what's even more interesting you go to a seer if you want to get an alternate vision of reality an altered perception and when these figures in Israel when they spoke and then when they wrote and composed books what's the medium of speech that the seers and prophets of Israel's you open your Bibles and what kind of speech is one-third of your Bible what did they write in oh okay all right good we're learning something today right good so this poetry code you know this I mean you open to any of the books of the fifteen prophets in your Bible except the Book of Jonah and poem in Chapter two but I was almost entirely poetry when these figures had this altered perception of reality and then tried to put that into words the most fitting medium possible in their view was poetry prophetic poetry so it seems to me is that that we as a group of people and who we are and what we're doing here have some things to learn from the prophetic poetry that's that's in the Bible not just the content and message but how these seers went about doing what they did because their goal is much the same as Edgar Edgar reelers go as much the same as our calling to help people see what they do not currently see to help shape their their perception Robert alter he is one of the most prominent Jewish scholars on Hebrew poetry he wrote the book on Hebrew poetry and he puts it this way this is really fascinating he says the prophetic poetry of the Bible is not just a set of techniques for saying impressively what could be said otherwise I say it could have just said you all are sinners and screwed up right but instead he says you were Oh sons of Israel you know so as the whole line at the beginning of like you know children know where their parents live and you like a donkey knows where its master lives my people dumber than an ass you know thank ignited look literally literally right so I mean is that that's the first line that's a way to win friends and influence people you know like right right out of the gate and he's not just being pretty about it he's not just saying impressively what he could have said otherwise no the poetic form is vital to the calling of a prophetic poet poetry is the key that form of speech he says it's not just a way of saying impressively what could have been set otherwise rather it's a particular way of seeing and imagining the world is the prophetic or poetic imagination it's an altered form of seeing I don't know how many of you read poetry widely if you read the Bible at any length or third of its poetry you guys and so you may not know that you're reading poetry or be attuned to that fact or pay attention to its significance but it's sitting right there in your lap every Sunday right right a third of its dense Hebrew poetry put in English but it's poetry there it is there it is it's about altered forms of perception and these prophets they were eccentric figures because of this altered vision I said I think of them they were like obi-wan my imaginative universe has been shaped by Star Wars so I don't know yours has been and so by the way there are over 100 b1 deserts of Tatooine these were odd eccentric figures all right many of them lived out to the desert John the Baptist I summon caves bizarre they're odd they're odd because they saw differently they people look out and say things are fine peace and security right the contemporaries of Jeremiah says and he says no death pestilence plague injustice you know he thought it made him strange strange some of you all are strange and you're those people in your church community right and so when you come up to the leaders or whatever like oh this guy again yeah so some of you are those are those people right because you see differently you see differently than others around you see and that that can be an isolating experience and it can also create like a strange Messiah Complex too and be really unhealthy and you got to watch for that okay but there's also a sense in which those kinds of figures have always been vitally important in the history of God's people it's people like the prophetic voices and who are most most typically artists in the history of the church who called God's people to remember a vision of the world and of ourselves and God that the church is lost it's a vitally important role and it's often played by artists so often it's played by you see when we gather God's people together it's about altering the perception reminding them of what's really going on and so what I'd like to do is kind of with this focus on on prophetic poetry and how it alters our vision I want to focus in just on one one poem if you look in your folder that you got for the day there's kind of a handout there's a outline for the day on the I think it's like the second or third page of that is a little prophetic poem from Isaiah chapter 30 you guys listening do you find it okay so this is like Bible study hour so we're gonna we're going to look at a poem in the Book of Isaiah that you may or may not have ever even noticed before but Isaiah son of Amos was one of the most brilliant I think one of the most brilliant literary geniuses that ancient Israel ever saw and Jeremiah is a great poet Ezekiel is a straight-up weird guy I could read his book right so Hosea was an amazing poet Isaiah Isaiah and this unbelievable brilliant brilliant poetic prophetic mind and so what's a so we're going to we're going to read the poem and then I think draw to pay attention to two features of it that I think could be very useful they've been useful to me as a voice in my own church community and I hope they're useful to you as we look at these two features the poem and think about how they could kind of stimulate some fresh ideas or fresh work for for you all so Isaiah Isaiah Benham I'm a Yahoo venimos his Hebrew name Isaiah the son of a mess and he lived during the reigns of two of two kings Israel primarily one of them was the worst one of them was one of the best kings Israel ever saw one of the names a has he was a chump bad guy another one was a guy named Hezekiah he was a mostly good guy but he had some pretty serious failures and essentially what happened is during the reigns of these two kings the Israel of Judas is fighting for its life on it on a stage of Empire players it's just a petty little Kingdom I don't know why scholars call it this is my favorite name they call it they call Israel during this period a rump kingdom like this like all this know the body's been all cut off and it's just the rump that's left I'm not sure so a little rump state right and so they're they're minor players but both a has and Hezekiah made huge efforts to get into bed with to the greatest empires of the day Egypt and Assyria and so they're importing horses they're importing chariots you know they're they're getting military protection they're getting training from these great empires of the day and of course in that day religion and politics are not artificially separated as they are in our cultures strangely and so it was part of getting into bed in alliances with these other kingdoms would have been adopting their gods and there's actually a story in the book of kings about a has going to Assyria and saying that's a really cool alter to your god can we get one of those for the Otway temple in jerusalem would love that and you straight up set up an alternate altar to another God right next to Yahweh's altar in the temple in Jerusalem people loved it this is progress this is this is a way to get the esteem the nations around us this is how this is security this is defense this is our future that's what people saw not what Isaiah saw you didn't see anything like that at all he saw differently and he wrote a poem about you wrote many poems about it and here's one of them chapter 30 he says for these are rebellious people deceitful children children unwilling to listen to the Lord's instruction we shed Micah read this so they say they say to the seers see no more visions they say to the prophets give us no more visions of what is right tell us pleasant things prophesy illusioned leave this way get off this path stop confronting us with this Holy One of Israel therefore this is what the Holy One of Israel says because you have rejected this message and relied on oppression and are leaning on deceit this sin will become for you like a high wall cracked and bulging that collapses suddenly in an instant it will break into pieces like pottery shattered so mercilessly that among its pieces not a fragment will be so I'm getting into Micah born a salah' here now a fragment will be found for taking coals from a hearth or scooping water from a cistern this is what sovereign yahweh the Holy One of Israel says in repentance and rest is your salvation in quietness and Trust is your strength but you would have none of it you said no no will flee on horses oh yes you will flee you said we'll ride on Swift horses oh yes your pursuers will be swift a thousand will flee at the threat of one and that the threat of five you will all flee away until you are left like a Flagstaff on a mountaintop and like a banner on a hill as I have been a famous you have my number say a son of amos you have my number call me if you want more of this okay so what whoa whoa I mean just the intensity the intensity this is not a way to make friends and it might be a way to influence people it's not a way to make friends Isiah was a was an isolated figure in the in the city of Jerusalem and there are two features of this poem that have been destructive for me I've over the years I've been teaching courses on Hebrew poetry an Old Testament poetry at Western Seminary in Portland and I just did a third of your Bibles it's just like a foreign world when you learn to discover the beauty of this this poetry there's two features I want us to pay attention to and if you're looking down you can you can see it there and you can mark it up or do do whatever you want to we'll kind of have it up here on the screens the first feature and maybe I just asked it in this question and just think about the power of this poem that he wrote this altered perception of what of what everyone saw and it's a feature I would call this a amalgamation look at the raw materials what what's he getting at here he thinks Israel has compromised its covenant faithfulness to Yahweh completely unfaithful and is going the path of injustice and apostasy and sin that's what's what he's doing right so he could have said that in just two sentences but instead he he writes this poem with gravity and it's loaded with all of these metaphors it did you see if they're just flying off the page here did you catch the metaphors all right so what are what are the raw materials of these images these poetic images and metaphors in the poem he's talking about a cracked castle wall but then he starts talking about pottery and then he starts talking about fireplaces but then he starts talking about watering holes and then he's you know he's talking about horses and soldiers and hills and flagpoles what do all of these things have in common with each other so nothing nothing right seriously what do I look or everything right or everything so what what this what a poem like this gets us into is it's the mind of what the raw materials are for for prophetic poetry that tries to alter how how people see what are the materials that he's working with they are all of these are images drawn from daily life around Jerusalem 2700 years ago so they are a castle wall the castle wall the he walked by who knows him at that decade he walked by it and he saw the fissures and the cracks the slow bulge right and he reflected on the fact when little Isaiah junior dropped his favorite piece of pottery on the floor and he's thinking about that one battle that he saw and seeing the flight the band of the war banner raised on the distant hill by the lone soldier who made it up right he's thinking about the Stallions he's Egyptian stallions that he's seen race through Jerusalem he's just know the raw materials is just his life you can just see from this poem he just straight up taking notes on his life he pays attention he pays attention to the things that he sees and he sees something that most of us don't see we'd would just video like castle wall and horses you know and like yeah my son dropped my pot or something like that but me nobody says no no you see something else so I did right earlier in the Book of Isaiah in chapter 6 Isaiah had this very powerful experience in the temple we saw this vision of Yahweh's present and he heard a little line of poetry that has echoed in Jewish and Christian worship throughout the centuries right and what is that little poetic line Isaiah chapter 6 what this the fiery angelic beings what are they screaming in Yahweh's presence they're screaming holy holy holy is Yahweh Almighty what else the whole earth is full of his glory the whole earth so so Isaiah has this very profound experience that holy cow like Here I am in the temple I thought this was the hot spot of God's presence but actually the weightiness of the always presence floods the whole of creation and so you can imagine Isaiah walking away from that experience all of a sudden perceiving his life in a new way that all of a sudden the castle wall and the Egyptian stallion and Isiah jr. breaking the pot these are actually all have an inner unity now his life has cohesion it's the mind of the prophetic poet and this term amalgamation is the complex multi syllable word that help me think of a new one I don't know but I got it from TS Eliot you guys know TS Eliot he's one of the most amazing poets of the 20th century and he's actually where I got this idea from he says it this way he says when a poet's mind is perfectly equipped for his work it's constantly amalgamating disparate experiences the ordinary man's experience is chaotic irregular and and fragmentary he falls in love he reads Spinoza and these experiences have nothing to do with each other or with the noise of the typewriter or the smell of cooking but in the mind of the poet these are always forming new holes you see this here Isaiah's mind was attuned to the details of his life looking for how they illustrate lives in in Yahweh's universe and all of a sudden even the most simple things that he normally would have walked by just like people walk down the sidewalk of this bay front and his waterfront that Edgar Muller shakes up the perceptions what Isaiah is doing all of a sudden that crack in the castle wall has a deep truth to communicate about the brokenness of the human heart and that flagpole on a hill it becomes this powerful resonating image about the isolation of being at the end of a long road of compromising stupid decisions that cut you off from other people and from God powerful power is amalgamation and I don't have no idea how Isaiah did this other than that he just had a little moleskin you know notebook and he's like the castle wall it's a little bigger today mmm you know and then a wee Saturday morning with tea and he's just like what did I see this week you know and how can I stick it to him when I go preach on the corner on Monday you know you know I mean what this there you go there you go that's actually very practical isn't it you can just the raw material of his of his poetry of this altered sense of vision is taking these normal seemingly mundane experience as charged by this coherent unified vision of his life everything is charged with meaning and that becomes a source of creative inspiration for him and it has to be the ideas the book the poetry in the Book of Isaiah every every page is like this the metaphors and images they're all from daily life just spilling off of the page and so this has just been a helpful lesson and encouragement for me you know there are some times where so for me as a as a purveyor of the verbal arts namely sermons or for you whatever whatever form of creative expression it is you know when you get that block and you're thinking like um like where's the new idea how do you do this five hours and the page is still blank you know dang it and so where does but Isaiah's just he's looking out his window at the castle wall and looking at the pot that Isaiah junior just broke and there you go yes so this is very practical do do you have a pattern or a rhythm of some kind for paying attention to the seemingly mundane experiences of your lives could it be that the prophetic poetry that issues out of your own creative expression or the team that you work on is actually sitting right around you in the room it just happened to you yesterday if you're paying attention if you're paying attention to your lives it's like to do another Frederick beaker quote listen to your life it will tell you what you're looking to hear just listen listen to it this is the principle of a mouth of nation as a visual illustration of this how many of you remember that movie A Beautiful Mind Russell Crowe you remember this movie oh so I was I was thinking I don't want to ever be able to replay the moment of when you find out that he's spoiler alert right that he is actually crazy and schizophrenic right and that the people that you have been coming to know and love as characters in the story aren't actually real holy cow this is breathtaking moment and so what what's happening essentially as a math teacher and he is he's he's convinced that he is like the secret cryptographer that the government has hired to crack the code of what's happening in the world stage and so he has this room he has the secret room where is putting together all of these disparate pieces of information and newspaper clippings and stuff there you have remember the scene the room so he pictures of the room again and all of these pieces of paper tied together by strings need like this thing goes with that thing goes if this thing goes with that thing so here we go there you go now that's look intimidating and that will definitely like make your co-workers think you're crazy so don't do this to your office right but but this is the idea keeping track and paying attention do you have a rhythm for keeping keeping track of the things that are happening in your life could it be that your life is the raw material of your next project or your next work there's the principle of amalgamation the feature of isaiah's poetry there's another feature and it's what does he do with all of these images now that he's put them together so look at the poem again and let's go back to the the third I think it's or the second screen of the Isaiah quote it's the castle wall okay good good so this is a look what he's done with his image it's a castle wall you and I would walk why a castle wall and all of a sudden this image becomes a way for him not just to illustrate a truth that everybody already knows the castle wall actually becomes a way of getting into the psychology of sin and self-deception so just think as he's perceiving this this bulge in the castle wall it's something or you know we were living our lives we think we're doing fine just one little compromise this is one little bad decision all right and so no one's going to see it hidden there but repeat it again repeated again give it time those decisions become habits and all of a sudden this becomes a habit it's harder to hide your spouse notice you temper you're giving in to it these things you're hiding whatever whatever it is and all of a sudden it becomes harder harder to hide the fissures begin to run deep it's really hard to make any good decisions in that area anymore and that's but a slow build slowly its years years that you K characters being shaped and distorted by these bad decisions until one day and you're done did you're done your life's in pieces on the floor and so all of a sudden is metaphor how I say I couldn't have said it otherwise he couldn't have just said sin ruins your life I would have fallen asleep all but uses these images and so what's with this principle is is principle of poetry Thomas long talks about it but it's the principles we go forward a few more what's called disruption Thomas long puts it puts it this way poetry works to disrupt the customary ways in which we use language poetry stretches the ordinary uses of words and places them into unfamiliar relationships with each other thereby cutting fresh paths across the group well-worn grooves of of everyday language sin and a crumbling castle wall never would've put that together but the moment he combines and amalgamates these images whoa whoa he's he's you know he's got you by the neck because we're all going like guilty guilty that's me right there right and and then the isolating nature of sin the long-term effects of sin on our lives like a lone flagpole he just is disrupting image but actually at the core of this poem is I think the most disrupting image of all its verse 15 which again if we can get to I think the third screen back up here it's probably the verse that you've seen cross stitched on your grandma's wall before right the very this is a top one here huh where is Israel's salvation and strength its repentance is rest its quietness this disrupting this is this is poetic disruption what no no we need to build our army we need to pay tribute to Assyria we to get their stallions and get their tanks and chariots insan and no stop stop pray pray go to sleep rest that's your strength whoa he shocks you with this image is disruption just rip poetic disruption that's why that's why Micah's spoken word is so powerful he's speaking to experiences we all know and then you disrupts you with this turn of phrase this precisely chosen word and it just it shocks you awake it's prophetic prophetic poetry a third of your Bible has this power do you know this power have you experienced it in the pages of the scriptures what what could we learn about our own tasks as creatives by by taking from prophetic poetry there's that there's a group to kind of illustrate in visual art this this this point here there's a group of artists in in Portland last year the city the city of Portland it's a wonderful place very quirky and strange it also has a very very dark underbelly there there are more strip clubs and porn video shops per resident than any city in the United States and and it's directly connected to the sex trade in Portland which is directly connected to the prolific problem of teen homelessness on the streets of Portland and so the city started giving away they wanted to do like an awareness-raising campaign and so their is so rad they remember a whole collective of Christian artists in Portland got together from a number of different churches there were some from door vote and they did a poster campaign actually and so they developed a whole series of posters and the city paid for these posters that we put up all throughout the city by a grant that they applied for so rad and so some of these posters that they embody this principle of disruption taking common images and putting them together in a way that shocks and makes you pay attention a teddy bear should never be set next to xxx spelled in lipstick that should never happen right so the American Apparel legs right they were so familiar with our being inundated right through advertising and all of a sudden you're disrupted and to say that those legs are connected to a human being made in God's image is it not for sale the disruption disruption is taking what's familiar combining it in ways to shock you into attention your sin is like a castle wall it'll leave you like a lone flag top on a hill if you go down that path and so how are you going to arm up and and change your life by repenting by resting is shocking it's a disruption this is the power of power prophetic poetry hi guys doing this interesting amalgamation in disruption there's a there's one line of poetry in the Book of Isaiah that I think contains the ultimate combination of these features of amalgamation and and disruption and at the line of poetry that is at the heart of our confession as followers of Jesus it's found in Isaiah chapter 53 and he wrote this line he says he's the the servant Messiah he was pierced for our transgressions he was crushed for our iniquities the punishment that brought us along a sewer there in Hebrew Shalom well-being and wholeness we get Shalom the servant gets punishment and by his wounds we are healed how can the wounds of someone else bring healing to me exactly exactly in the universe that most of us live in that kind of thing doesn't really happen but maybe we're living in the wrong imaginative universe maybe the universe that we're actually living in is the world where we are all crumbling castle walls where we are all isolated on a hilltop as a result of our de stupid decisions that it's like illustrate we can't we can't escape and if all we're here to do is commiserate about being at the bottom of that Ted I'd rather be at the skate park you'd rather be golfing or whatever else you know I mean like that's all we're here to do no we're we're here to proclaim that we live in a different kind of universe where things like this are true that's a prophetic claim isn't it that's saying we live in a u we live in a kind of world that most of our contemporaries know world is blind to but if we could just wake up we would see that in in one crucifixion among the thousands that the Romans did outside the walls of Jerusalem thousands of crucified Jews this was a common daily experience outside the walls of Jerusalem but the early Christians said this one this one crucifixion there was something taking place that nobody had eyes to see and so the New Testament authors proclaimed with the prophetic voice that there was some the reconciliation of heaven and earth was happening in this crucifixion and in fact this death brings life but to experience this life you have to die too that's poetic you know and that's it's not poetic and trying to be clever and obscure that's actually what has to happen because our sin breeds that and for us to have any kind of lives we have to join we have to join Jesus on the cross this is the cross is the ultimate symbol of prophetic poetry it's the ultimate everyday symbol from 2,000 years ago that became put into a whole new combined into a whole new context that now disrupts the listener and says you and I deserve to be up there but in fact this he took it for us so that we can have Shalom the Son of God loved me and gave himself for me is the ultimate act of prophetic prophetic poetry and that's what we gather around every single week amen and then it seems to me is this this act this symbol is something that can be the source of endless inspiration for us as teams as individuals in our work in the church and in the world in the world at large what this means to you I have no idea I have no idea all right but I trust that the spirit can use can use what's inside of you and your unique story and your unique life experiences to draw together the me the medium the raw materials of your life into an expression of prophetic poetry to the people that you that you influence and may this whole day be aimed at equipping you and encouraging you towards that towards that end let me close the word of Prayer Jesus we we confessed our lap because perception we confess our lack of ability to see the profound beauty the reality of your presence and your goodness displayed in the world and in our own lives well we confess even our own lack of ability to see the sin and the brokenness that's in our own lives in our neighborhoods and our churches where we are people who are dependent on you to hear a word from you that gives life and that exposes and says what is true about us and so Jesus would you would you just renew our hearts renew our perception give us new eyes to see our own lives would you would you make us prophets who disrupt in a way that steers people towards you and brings life we pray in your name Jesus amen amen you

Channel: Tim Mackie Archives

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Length: 43min 52sec (2632 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 14 2017