Nicolae: An Allegory

This weekend, we are looking at Colossians 2:6-15. It’s a rich passage full of vivid imagery. We will unpack it on Sunday but I wrote an allegory to process what I was reflecting on in the passage during my study. This is not typology or exact metaphor. Allegories leave room for artistic license so don’t read too much into the narrative (for this same reason, know that you won’t get all your L O S T questions answered but you’ve had fun taking apart the episodes piece by piece—it makes you think). On the other hand, play around with the story. Ask what kinds of parallels you see between this allegory/parable and the biblical narrative.

NICOLAE

Nicolae was raised parentless. His mom was young and frightened, naïve and fragile the night she dropped him off on the steps of the church. He was found, hungry, cold, emaciated, weak, and barely moving let alone crying when the priest hurried him to the hospital.

The hospital then became the orphanage; the orphanage brought him abusive parents. He was taken from their home for his protection and began rotating through a series of Foster homes. Nicolae wasn’t particularly “unlovable.” Quite the contrary.

However, as he grew in years it became more apparent there were implications and consequences of his abuse and neglect. There were challenges attaching to any caregiver of any kind.

Nicolae had come out of a horrific situation in Romania where the government, in this case the communist rule of Ceausescu, had ignored the orphanages for over a decade and even had the audacity to tell the people orphanages didn’t exist. It was one of the many lies they told to paint a picture that things were far better than they actually were.

In later years, Nicolae would curse his namesake and say it was a cruel joke he was named after a man who eventually met his end on a Christmas morning when he was ousted by a kangaroo court. Nicolae Ceausescu, along with his wife, was shot in the stomach for the crimes of genocide and amassing illegal wealth beyond measure. “He had death coming, I live with his curse” Nicolae would sometimes say.

Through a series of convoluted events no one can quite remember all the details to, Nicolae’s life had a turnaround that is the stuff of fairy tales. While reading a history novel alone one winter’s night, there was a knock on the door of Nicolae’s one bedroom apartment. At the door stood a man with a telegram.

“Telegrams are so out of fashion,” he thought (it was the early 1990’s and he had no idea how “out of fashion” they would soon be). “There must be a mistake,” he thought as he read the words, “Nicolae, I am your father.” The rest of the words didn’t matter. This claim that a man named Salvatore was somehow the man that brought him into the world made Nicolae confused, hopeful, angry, expectant, and sad all at once.

Nicolae sent a return telegram for the sake of expediency (and because he somehow thought it might be his “father’s” preferred method of communication). He was willing to meet. No matter how ridiculous the claim. After all, this man did seek him out and he seemed to know how to find him.

He had his eyes. His bold chin. And, though he wasn’t accustomed to taking close notice of people’s facial expressions, he believed Salvatore smiled in the same way as he. Their conversation went on for hours though it seemed like they had just pulled up a chair at the bar only moments before. “This man is my father. There is no doubt.”

Salvatore carefully explained the details of his relationship with Nicolae’s mother, their secret wedding, and his stand against the injustices of the government that earned him a reputation as an enemy of Romania, and the distinction of having a price on his head. He told him of his grandparents (his Romanian grandmother and Italian grandfather who had been a rebel in his own right).

Wanted, dead or alive when he was only 20, Salvatore fled Romania with the help of a couple of Roman Orthodox doctors who eventually started a seminary after the fall of communism in 1989. Salvatore stayed in various places over the 19 years of Nicolae’s life and the 3 months before he was born. He fled the year Ceausescu took office—it was 1974. It wasn’t abandonment; he fled in hope of being gone shortly and providing safe haven. It was then that Nicolae also learned of his mother’s kidney failure and premature death. She was sick when she dropped him off at the church that night. She died shortly thereafter. Nicolae became a statistic.

Nicolae was overwhelmed. He now had a story. A story much more intentional, meaningful, lovely story than he could have ever imagined. And, he had a name. An identity.

Two years passed. It wasn’t until shortly after Nicolae’s 21st birthday that he learned he had the same disease that claimed his mother’s life. His rare kidney disease was congenital and hereditary. The search for a donor did not last long. There was a perfect match.

Salvatore, Nicolae’s father was more than happy to give his kidney. What father wouldn’t give his life for his son if given the opportunity?

The surgery was a success.

For Nicolae.

Sadly, the transplant was successful, but Salvatore died of abdominal bleeding about 11 hours after his surgery. The man Nicolae barely knew had introduced him to a world he never knew and gave him life anew.

Nicolae was saddened and devastated. Yet, he would describe it in later years as poetic and even . . . prophetic. This was his lineage. Rebels. Fighters. And sacrificial love. This was now his mantle.

Nicolae was married in the spring of 1999. 1 year later, almost to the day, he held his new baby girl in his arms.

As he gazed into her eyes for the first time, he thought of Salvatore. He whispered to his baby girl and told her the things he wanted for her. Happiness? Sure, but happiness was fleeting and unreliable. Make good choices? Of course.

But, more than anything, he wanted her to know why she was here. Why she was made. Who made her life possible. It wasn’t just Nicolae who gave her life—there was a much bigger story to tell. She had a history. A lineage. A grand narrative. No one could take that away from her. Nicolae would make sure of it. Death gave way to life. She would need to know the story.

And he reached down and touched his scar.

Another Awesome Westwinds Faith Story

These stories never get old for me. Dan is a great guy that I have been getting to know over the last year--again another relationship growing through Twitter.

More Faith Stories

I was very encouraged by this video today. Thanks, Tanya!

Introducing Jesus Part Vier

Every Christ follower heard about Jesus from someone else.

Maybe from an individual. Maybe they heard the story of Jesus in a group. But somebody else told them the story.

Maybe it was a person like John the Baptist who pointed the way and said, “Look, the Lamb of God.”

Maybe it was a person like Andrew who started hanging around John the Baptist—looking, anticipating, and waiting for the Messiah to show up on the scene. He probably had these crazy stories about hanging out with other spiritual seekers and inquirers and one day he came face-to-face with Jesus and he just had to tell someone about it! “Here’s the guy that we’ve been looking for!”

Or, maybe they heard the story from an intellectual and that’s exactly what that individual needed—someone like Phillip, who was well versed in theology, who knew the history and was ready and willing to give someone an account of the indisputable facts. They were interested in religious things and he knew they would be interested just like Nathanael.

Maybe somebody’s introduction to Jesus was more like Jesus’ own approach when He said, “Come and hang with me.” Maybe it all started with a “come on, and hang out at my place.” Someone sought to understand them and “do life” with them.

When all of the disciples were called to Jesus, I am not sure that everybody at that point in the story completely “got it.” I am not sure that they started following Jesus and they completely understood what it meant at that point. Some may have. But some certainly had to grow in to Jesus. There was a good period of time for some between the following and the “I am willing to give my life for this guy.”

I am not saying that the best “evangelism” is the kind where we sit back and let people observe—without us ever engaging them. BUT I am leaving room for that being the very thing that some people will respond to.

I’m not saying that it’s not necessary for us to know the “gospel” message and to know how to explain it. But I am saying that some people will just not be too interested in a flip-chart presentation across the kitchen table and they will liken it to us selling them soap.

I’m not saying that it’s not necessary for us to be able to present the “gospel” in a concise manner. But I am saying that people smell a salesman a mile away.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t dig into our Bible and digest it and understand it and fall in love with it. But I am saying if that’s all we do with it and we just keep it to ourselves, we don’t ever share it with anybody else, that we may as well just digest and learn and memorize and understand the entire Harry Potter collection, because it won’t make an eternal difference.

I’m not saying there’s no room for persuasion or for challenges or for tough questions or encouraging people to get to a point of surrender. I am saying that we are not responsible for somebody making a decision.

All these approaches and ways people "come to Jesus" are valid. None are better than the other standing on their own merit. Some ARE better than others in relation to individuals.

We’re responsible to tell our story. And to listen to "their" story. That old saying that people don’t care how much we know until they know how much we care is true.

Food for thought.

Introducing Jesus Part Tres

Think of all the different stories you know about how people have “come to Jesus.”

People respond to Jesus in a variety of ways. There are hundreds of people reading this post that started following Jesus in a much different way than I did.

There are some who came to Jesus over a long period of time. They would be hard-pressed to sit down with us and tell us their “spiritual birth date” like the sweet old ladies I know from church who know EXACTLY when they became Christians.

Maybe you never grew up in the Church. There wasn’t an earthquake or a blinding light in your journey. The clouds didn’t part and the angels didn’t descend. You didn’t hear a voice from heaven. All you know is that at one time in your life you were opposed to God. Maybe you were antagonistic towards Him; you were shaking your fist at him. Now you find yourself totally, absolutely in love with Jesus. You don’t know how you got here. You just know that you’re here.

This is my dad’s story. He doesn’t walk around the property naked anymore (that I know of). I remember being at a church barbecue picnic with him one time and this lady came up to him saying, “Oh, I’ve heard so much about your story and how you came to Jesus. Tell me, what is the date?” My dad said, “Huh?” “Your spiritual birth date-- the day that you came to know Jesus. What is it?” My dad said, “Ah, I don’t know.” I thought this lady was going to have a coronary.

She laid hands on him right then. She put her hand on his forehead and said, “Oh, John, you’ve got to say these words with me.” Then she started reciting some words that she called The Sinner’s Prayer which, by the way, I’ve never found in the Bible. My dad had to repeat it word for word with her and she went away feeling so good that day. My dad walked away going, “What the heck was that?”

Now, she really is a sweet lady. She meant no harm. Actually, she was loving my dad the best way she knew how. But, on the other hand, if I could stop that kind of thing from ever happening again I would love to give it a shot.

Sometimes people like my dad look at other people and say, “Man, I wish I had your story. I wish that I didn’t grow up with all of the junk. I wish that I would have grown up in the Church like you. I wish I learned what you did as a child.

Then there’s another kind of person who came to God and to faith in Jesus through immersion and participation in Church culture and maybe even some religious rights…catechism and communion. They participated in sacraments and maybe they went to a Vacation Bible School.

Maybe they came from the Catholic Church or the Lutheran Church or the Baptist Church or the Methodist Church or the Presbyterian Church and the stories became part of their DNA. After a while, they found themselves in a spot going, “Wow, I would call myself a Christ follower now. I don’t know exactly how I got here but here I am.

These people sometimes look at people like my dad and think, “Man, I wish I had a story like yours, I mean my story is so boring. I grew up with a mom and dad, a dog, a cat, and a great American family. I never killed anyone; I never did drugs. I never stole anything and dang, my story’s just not compelling. Nobody’s going to listen to my story.” All the while my dad is thinking, “are you crazy?”

There’s a third type of person. This person came to Jesus in a revival kind of a way. One day, BAM!, Jesus showed up on the scene. Hallelujah. The heavens parted, the clouds rolled back, the angels descended, they heard a voice from Heaven, and they found themselves in a new spot. They were blind and now they see.

This is very legitimate, but sometimes this person doesn’t understand the other two, because they have a hard time being patient with the people who are not quick to make a decision to follow God . . . because . . . after all . . . that’s how it happened for them.

All of these people (and there are certainly more kinds of people) have one thing in common. They heard the story from someone else.

Introducing Jesus Part Deux

I really want to fall in love with Jesus. I really want others to fall in love with Jesus. Jesus is loving and lovable.

At an early age, I understood that my story, like the Bible says, is not a secret to be kept. My story is part of a much larger narrative— a meta-narrative—an over-arching story where I play a role. I am a character and you are a character and we are part of a bigger story where God is weaving and shaping and molding and scripting without a strike. And, our job is to tell our story. To hear other stories. To spread the stories.

But as far back as I can remember, from about the time that I was nine or ten years old, some things didn’t jive with me when it came to some “evangelism tactics” I heard of and witnessed. It wasn’t always about good storytelling or the stuff of life—it seemed more like a recipe to be followed. A one-size-fits-all plan. A cookie-cutter flip chart presentation.

I think that the word “evangelism” and maybe even the word “gospel” has garnered a bad reputation outside of the Church and it’s understandable, because not every example of evangelism has been as gentle and as loving and as relational as the example of my hero Charlotte that I told you about.

The words evangelism and gospel come from the same root word and really, it’s not a religious word. In context it certainly can be. When we talk about religion, then evangelism becomes, or gospel becomes, a religious word, but it’s really a word that just means good news. It simply means “good news” or “good headlines” or “good story”— something good to think about.

The thing is, when there’s good news, we want to hear it. We seek out good news, right? Everyone likes good news.

I wonder though if sometimes we’ve done a poor job of understanding the people that we’re in relationship with (or not as the case may be) and erroneously assume that the good news we are going to share with them is actually good news to them. Or, at least, our version of what the good news is.

So, in some cases, the church has approached people as projects—void of relationship—and invaded someone’s space with a story about Jesus. In some cases, I fear the approach, the non-relationship, the pat answers, the non-tact, and the sales job doesn’t get anyone closer to Jesus. In fact, this person’s “good news” may be when the evangelist shuts up and leaves them alone.

Good news is not simply heard or told. Good news is also seen. Good news sometimes comes unexpectedly. Sometimes good news is not realized until Act Three of the play and sometimes good news is picked up in Act One. Sometimes the good news is understood in one sitting with a person and sometimes the good news unfolds over a long period of time, sometimes an entire lifetime.

I fear sometimes in our attempt to define the gospel and to narrow the gospel— the good news— down to small booklet size we do people and God a disservice.

I wonder sometimes if our simplifying of the gospel is actually more about us then it is about people. Not that we have impure motives by any means just maybe a skewed perspective. It might be possible we have been guilty at times of stripping the transforming power of the “gospel” in an effort to make something concise and simple that was never meant to be that way.

When we get to the end of our diagram, or our chart, or our booklet, have we in fact shared the good news?

I think that sometimes we desire to simplify this good news in order to determine exactly at what "point" we have shared the gospel.

I think most of us agree the “gospel” is not about winning an argument or closing a deal but . . .

Introducing Jesus Part 1

Step back in time with me.

I want to talk about the “evangelizing” of a little boy.

I’m about nine years old. My family--my mom, my dad and my one brother (at the time) are all living in a camper. We’re living in a van down by the river, pretty much, almost literally—in a truck-bed camper that has been laid out on pipes so it doesn’t get dry rot. . We’re building a humble home. When the home is done, it will be about 700 square feet.

My dad is a struggling house painter and we are taking showers in a fifty-gallon drum that sits outside of the camper. You fill it up with water in the morning and it is warm enough by the evening to take a shower. My dad calls them “Vietnam showers.” It is our evening routine to do this. Another part of our evening routine is for my dad to disrobe, to get naked, and walk around the property smoking weed. So, pretty normal family for the most part. Ordinary. Ha.

But one day something out of the ordinary happens. This small Honda Civic drives down the driveway and parks down by our little campsite and out walks this woman. She’s probably in her late 40’s to mid-50s and she approaches my family. Not too many neighbors talked to us. My dad—as gentle as he is—is tattooed head to toe, drinks, rides a Harley, and well . . . there’s that naked thing.

But, this woman seems to see right through all of that. She asks my parents’ permission to take my brother and me to Sunday School.

That’s how my Jesus story begins.

The rest is an incredible story of love and of sacrifice and of risk and of time investment in two little boys. I can tell you story after story about my journey and my connection with this beautiful woman that I call Charlotte. I can tell you about the Bible she bought me (I am looking at it right now)--the first Bible I ever owned— and the stories that she told me. I often think about the time that we used to spend hanging out in her garden together and the cookies that she baked me and the shoulder she gave me to cry on. I remember kneeling with her by a swing and praying to God to tell Him I wanted in.

I am who I am today because somebody was a risk taker and a storyteller : : : because somebody took Jesus seriously.

That is the story of how I came to Jesus.

Not every story is like mine. If you are a Jesus follower, your story may be similar or way way way different.

Charlotte’s “evangelism” methods were very sweet and began with relationship.

Webster says “evangelism” is: “Zealous preaching and advocacy of the Gospel.” Every church I’ve ever been in has been part of this tradition— the evangelical tradition. Really, it’s something that I’m proud of; I’m not sorry for the name. If you called me an “evangelical”, I wouldn’t be disappointed with that label on some levels.

But, not all the way comfortable or excited either.

The discomfort that I’ve had with some “evangelism” tactics lie in how we determine just how people “come to faith in Jesus” and what role we play in their faith journey--how we go about telling them the story of Jesus and really what our role and responsibility is in making sure they “get it.”

These things are really heavy on my heart right now—especially as we plan an upcoming series on Atonement Theories/Theology.

More to come. In this and the next few posts I value your insight and banter. Please join the conversation.