Neighbors and Strangers

I'd like to say that I've never met a stranger. And many days, I can honestly say that this is the case. I walk by people just like me and whether or not I know their name, I can identify with their experience. I can see the looks on their faces and I know that I've honestly felt the same way they feel at some point in my own life. I see a look of happiness and I'm happy for them. I see sadness or worry and my heart goes out to them. I see people and I can tell they're lonely and my heart aches for them. I believe this the way we were meant to feel even though we live in a world that tells us otherwise. We live in a world that tells us that strangers are of little consequence to us unless they get in our way or we can get something from them. And I don't always feel this way, but sometimes I can look at a person and know how enormously valuable that person is; that there is an amazing story in that person just like my own life is an amazing story. They live with past hurts, present hopes, and future dreams. That there are people in their life, who I also don't know, who they love very much and who love them very much.

And, for just a second, I stop rushing about my day and I notice the people around me. The cardboard cutouts rushing by become actual people and I feel a strange sense of care for people that I couldn't know the first thing about. This is what I think Jesus meant when he told us who our "neighbor" should be. Why he told the stories he told. And why he personally did the things he did. Jesus never ever met a stranger. Not only because he's God and knows everyone (that a given :-) but because he simply never treated anybody like a stranger. What an amazing example to follow! In a world that makes such kindness seem impractical I hope we can be a counterculture of love to a world that needs to know that it is loved.

And the goods news just keeps rolling in...

Well I figure celebrities make all their official announcements on their webpage so maybe us normal folks can too! Five days after getting my PhD I interviewed for, got offered, and accepted a position with CapTech Ventures, Inc. I HAVE A JOB! JOB JOB JOB!!!

With each thing, it's getting harder and harder to deny God's hand in my life. If it were just one thing or another, maybe you could say I was just a really hard worker. If the timing wasn't so perfect, you might be able to say that I'm really lucky. But this true-life Forrest Gump story is getting a little too good for their not to be Someone guiding the story. I have only one hope in life, that my story would cause people to give God a second, third, or fourth look. I strive to be a man pointing up.

Dr. Jason S. Snook

Yes, it is official. I passed my final defense and I have my PhD in Computer Science. Getting my PhD is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life - then one month later I get married. I really don't how I feel right now except to say this is an amazing life God has blessed me with. Since I started following him, he's inspired me to pursue greater and greater visions of what I could become. In one month I'm going to get my PhD, get a job (hopefully), get married (definitely), and move to Richmond. Its going to be hard to top 2005!

The Open Hand and The Extended Hand (part 3 of 3)

First of all, sorry for the lack of posts lately. This pesky dissertation has proven to be a bigger drain of time that it deserves to be. The last two story are only loosely related to each other. As each of them says at the beginning, they have to do with the knowledge of the kingdom of God - the good and bad things that happen with the people entrusted with that knowledge.

The first story was about a man who was consumed with his acquisition of "food" to the detriment of all other concerns - even the sustination of the people he was called to lead/serve. The second story was of a couple with a desire to give/sell their food but were unable to prepare and serve it in a form that was apatizing or palatable. The first lacked the desire to give, the second the ability. Both of these stories are as much a commentary of things I'm guilty of as it is of other Christ followers that I've observed. Let me explain each a little more fully.

The first story about the prince really characterized to me the mature Christian with a genuine love for God and desire to know him more. This Christian is characterized by the open hand, an earnest desire to recieve from God the knowledge and insight he makes available to us. There's a danger in this as well though because, while our personal walks with God are of first importance, this Christ follower can become so preoccupied with their pursuit of more knowledge about God that they forget there's a whole world out there that doesn't even know him. We should be careful that while we feed ourselves on the riches of Christ's blessing that we don't forget there's a world starving to death for the same. The canabalism at the end of the story was an intended element because I see our world, for lack of the knowledge that we hold so dearly, eating each other live in the pursuit of an alternative.

The second story characterizes another danger the mature Christian can face. The couple in the story represents Christ followers with a genuine love for God and desire to share the knowledge of God with others. This Christian is characterized by the extended hand. Unlike the prince, the couple recognizes that love is meant to be shared. Characteristic of many people that are passionate about something, they desire to share that passion with others. Their committment is admirable and their sacrifice is real and genuine, but they mistake their passion for sharing God with the actual ability to do so. With as much planning that went into picking a site for the tavern and buying the best food, the couple took shortcuts when it came to learning to prepare the food in a way that would apatizing and palatable to others. Characteristic of the tavern owners in the story, many Christ followers are eager to share a Gospel they have taken little time to know and understand themselves. This does not speak to the new Christian who, by virtue of their newness to the faith, shares what they do know even as they learn more. Such a new Christian should not be discouraged from doing so and should not wait till they "know enough" to start sharing the Good News of Christ. This story has more to do with the so-called mature Christian that have followed Christ for a while but has difficulty seeing people respond when they share what they know about Christ.

The reason why "evangelism" has been largely impotent in America for several decades now is that Christians got too focused on the packaging to the exclusion of the message. For all the slogans and diagrams we teach, many Christians have a very shallow understanding of what the Gospel is and what it means in practice. I worry that Paul might be talking about us sometimes when he says, "They want to be teachers of the law, by they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm." (1 Tim. 1:7) We would do well to put down our books on evangelism and pick up the Bible for a while. In the same breath I'd say that we as a church must find new, fresh, and creative ways to communicate what we know of Christ. But, again, this can only spring from a deep personal understanding of the Gospel.

In short, as I understand it, the Christian walk is characterized by the open hand and the extended hand. A mature Christian must desire not only knowledge (Phil. 3:10) but also the ability to share it (Eph. 6:19-20).

I sincerely hope this thought came out half way understandable. I'm pretty darn fried right now from disseration defense prep. Please pray for me as a I gear up for that.

The Open Hand and The Extended Hand (part 2 of 3)

So that first part of this parable was a little long and the title confused some people too. But bear with me, I'm a rookie parable writer and this is only the second of *three* parts. If its any consulation, the title should make sense in part 3 (I hope). This second parable is actually a prequel to the first. So perhaps the knowledge of the Kingdom of God is like a woman and her husband who decided to sell all they had to open a tavern the center of the town that they lived in. Both of them had a passion for food and wanted nothing more than to share that passion with other people. Over the course of their life, they had been to many other taverns and eaten many different types of food. After frequenting the different taverns around town for quite a while they had decided they wanted to try to open their own. They went out into the town and scoped out prime locations for the tavern. They eventually found a store front for sale right in the town square. It was expensive and they'd have to sell their house to be able to buy it, but they were passionate about opening up this tavern. They were willing to make sacrifices to see their passion through. With the store front bought, they put together a very thoughtful business plan for the first couple years. They bought furniture and a sign for the front with the money they had left over. And, oh yea, who could forget about the food?! They went out to the market and stocked the shelves with all they would need. One of the last things they did was pick up a couple cookbooks and made a menu based of off them. Their of them had actually cooked much since they went out all the time to eat. But they had eaten enough food, been to enough tavern, and most importantly, they were passionate about opening up their tavern - how could they go wrong?!

The day finally came when it was time to open the tavern for business. It was a Monday, and the town square was bustling with workers in search of a lunchtime meal. So the woman opened up the doors and announced to the people in the square that they were open! One man that was walking by shrugged his shoulders and strolled in, sitting down at a table by the front window.

"Our first customer?!" The woman thought to herself as she walked up to his table. She greeted the man and took his order, hurrying back to her husband in the kitchen to relay the message to him. The man grabbed his trusty cookbook, found the recipe, looked at it for a while, and then began to busily put the meal together. After several minutes, the man slide the meal onto a plate and announced to his wife that it was ready. She grabbed the plate and proudly brought it over to their first customer.

"You are our first customer," she stated proudly as she set the plate down in front of him. She waited patiently as he took his first bite hoping for a favorable response. Instead, the man's face grimaced as he chewed on the food and gulped it down. "This is horrible! I've never tasted food this bland in my life," the man exclaimed. The woman was taken quite by surprise at his response. "That was a little rude, sir, don't you think," said the woman. "Hardly ma'am, in fact I think I was being polite," he stated rather matter-of-factly as he got up and walked out of the tavern.

The woman was discourage by the customer's response but she finally reasoned to herself that he was just being rude. Just then, another customer came through the door. With renewed hope, she strode over to the man and took his order. Unfortunately, the response was the same. Disgusted at the taste of the food, this man also left the tavern without paying. "What is going on," the woman thought to herself, "We have a great tavern and only the finest ingredients. It must be my husband, he's just a horrible cook!" Resolved in her mind that this was the case, she stormed into the kitchen, ripped the spatula from her husband's hand, and sent him out to take orders. Unfortunately, this didn't help any. The next woman that walked in the tavern left as soon as she tasted her food, same as the first two customers.

The day proceeded like this till it was finally closing time and they had only made a few very small sales. "This is horrible! At first I just thought the customers were being rude. Then I just thought that you were a horrible cook," the woman said to her husband, "but now I'm beginning to think that to food that we bought at the market must be bad!" The next day, the couple angrily returned all of the food they had bought and got new batches of everything. Sadly, this had no effect. Customers continued to leave their tavern unsatisfied until the customers didn't come at all. After just a month, the couple was forced to close the tavern. They were devastated by the failure of the tavern and continued to be at a lose for why the customers had been so dissatisfied. Let s/he who has ears hear this, my second story.

This is the end of the second parable. The next posting will be an interpretation of them. Until then, post your thoughts on the stories. What does the 'food' represent? What do you think these stories are trying to say? All of this, including the title, will hopefully make more sense after the next post.

The Open Hand and The Extended Hand (part 1 of 3)

I was feeling a little creative after my last story, so here is a series of two more parables and then an explanation. Feel free to post your thoughts as each part is posted.

To what could I liken the knowledge of the Kingdom of God? Perhaps it could be like a prince who loved food. He loved food in all its forms and flavors. He was a true connoisseur. Food from every part of the world, in all of its various array. Time between meals, when he was neither preparing, cooking, or eating, was an agony to him. Nothing else held his passion as food did.

One day the prince was walking through his enormous pantry reflecting on his love for food when he had an idea. He would make it his goal to collect all the food in the land for himself! After all the only thing better than food was more food!

And so it came to pass that the prince ordered all of his servants to go out into the land and collect for him all of the food that was there. His servants went off and began to bring back enormous amounts of food. Cart after cart rolled through the doors. The prince quickly filled his pantry till there was hardly any room to walk. After it was full, he ordered his servants to fill the basement, and when that was full to fill the spare bedrooms.

Slowly the train of food coming in through his doors began to wane till his servant proudly marched through the door with the last loaf of bread he could find. The prince was beaming with excitement. He took the last loaf from his servant and held it over his head. "With this last loaf you have brought me," he proclaimed, "I will start my feast in celebration of my goal being realized!" And so, for the next seven days the prince began to feast on the food he had amassed. Day and night he ate till he fell asleep on the table. Upon waking up he would order more food brought to him and he would begin to feast anew. At the end of seven days, the prince was euphoric. He reclined in his chair, his belly and pantry still stuffed full of food. "What more noble an accomplishment," he thought to himself, "than to be the sole proprietor and protector of all the food in the land!"

As he lay there, his stomach groaned under the strain of all the food. "Perhaps a walk would aid in my digestion," he theorized, "I will walk to the town and tell the people of my accomplishment so they can rejoice with me!" Fat and happy, the prince put on his cloak and waddled out his door and down the road. As he walked down the road toward the town the prince looked up at the clear blue sky and filled his lungs with the cool air. The sun was especially bright to his eyes since he hadn't been outside in over a week. It'd been even longer since he'd been in town.

Breathing deep, the prince's nose caught wind of something that was anything but fresh. As he walked, his eyes finally came upon what his nose had already discovered. Laying there was a man face down in the center of the road. The flies had already found him. The prince ran wide and away from the man horrified at the sight. "What has happened," the prince's voice trembled, "surely someone should have come upon that man days ago and taken him away." His grief deepened further down the road when he came upon three more bodies that had obviously been dead even longer.

"The people of the town had better have some explanation for this," he said trembling with anger. Little more than a trot was possible as he hurried down the road toward the town. The sun was rising and with it the temperature. The prince took off his cloak and cleared the hill that brought him in sight of the town.

The smell again preceded the sight, but as the prince entered the town he was horrified by the sight of dead bodies everywhere. "Is anybody there," the prince cried out in anguish, "answer me!" Silence answered back, indicating that nobody was - the entire town appeared dead.

He stumbled down the street that went through the center of the town covering his mouth and nose with his cloak. "What evil has brought such disaster to this town," he said turning the corner into the town square. The street opened up into the same scene as before with bodies lying everywhere. The only motion was from the fountain in the center.

He walked past a tavern right in front of the fountain and came upon a small campfire. Looking to see what they had had as their final meal, his stomach turned as he realized that their last meal had been one of their own. Losing his own breakfast, he coughed and wondered out loud, "Why with such great food this land contains would they have chosen to eat each other?!"

Let s/he who has ears hear my story.