MEN (MANLY MEN)

I am honored to have a couple essays about experiences of manhood published at the online magazine catapult.  If you're interested in reading them, you can follow the link.  Having someone else think that my writing and/or what I have to say is good enough to be online somewhere other than my own blog is a very validating experience. 

Responsible Citizenship

So after ranting and raving for several posts, you may be wondering why I don't "love it or leave it." This passage from Jeremiah seems to me to contain the most Godly wisdom for any people of faith, wherever we find ourselves.

Jeremiah 29

⁴ This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: ⁵ "Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. ⁶ Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. ⁷ Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper."

Seek the peace - the word is "shalom" meaning health and wholeness more than the absence of conflict. One of our conflicts nationally involves different visions of what health and wholeness look like.  Be that as it may, seek the vision of a better world as you see it.  There is no mandate to rule Babylon, but be responsible in it and take some responsibility for it all the same.

Proud to be an American?

"Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you." Philippians 3:17

What is this example and pattern and what does it have to do with our national pride?

The Example

Philippians 2

⁵Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 
 ⁶Who, being in very nature God, 
      did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 
 ⁷but made himself nothing, 
      taking the very nature of a servant, 
      being made in human likeness. 
 ⁸And being found in appearance as a man, 
      he humbled himself 
      and became obedient to death— 
         even death on a cross! 

Christ is here put forward as the prime example.  If there is a pattern, we should see this example repeated in Paul's own attitude.

The Pattern

Philippians 3

"If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: ⁵circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; ⁶as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.  ⁷But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. ⁸What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ, ⁹and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith."

So the pattern is one of rejecting status that could reasonably result in pride, disregarding that status.  In Paul's case it is national, tribal, religious and legal status.

The Philippians would have had status as citizens of a prosperous Roman colony, Rome being the greatest empire to date.  They are being asked to follow the example of Christ in the pattern established by Paul.

If we were to follow this example and pattern, what would it look like?  What marks of pride and status would Christians in the U.S. today be asked to regard as rubbish in order to move more fully into our identity in Christ?