Matt Litton

In a Self-Righteous Religious Culture, Brennan Manning Reminded Us ‘All Is Grace’ (from the Huffington Post)

Matt Litton — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 18:18:26 +0000

The news of Brennan Manning’s death last Friday left me reminiscing about the first time I heard him speak 20 years ago in a college chapel. He bounced around the stage with a shock of white hair, the most God-awful Scotch-plaid sport coat ever blended in a mill, all paired with polyester green pants that didn’t even come close to matching. I recalled his illustration of an old preacher who delivered a defining moment in his journey by telling him, “Be who you IS, because if you ain’t who you IS, then you IS who you ain’t.”

Manning appeared to be a guy who was OK with being who he was.

I have never forgotten his call to honesty and transparency in the powerful moments of that sermon. Manning’s message assaulted the foundations of my young religious worldview. I was schooled in a world of piousness and religiosity that often left me working to appear, to talk and to act a certain way in an effort to feel “accepted” by God. He spoke to the many of us who were taught that a relationship with God was something we earned. His message was the dynamite that cracked the religious veneer of works-based faith that had separated us from the truth of the Gospel message. His thesis was clear, simple and explosive: “God loves you unconditionally, as you are and not as you should be, because nobody is as they should be.”

Read the full article at the Huffington Post HERE.

Nomadic Book Club Tour is coming to Your Neighborhood: Spring/Summer ‘13

Matt Litton — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 17:22:37 +0000

I wrote in Holy Nomad that you can (and probably should) be nomadic from the very same zip code; in the spirit of that idea, I am hoping to join your book club, reading group, small group, or church study for a discussion of Holy Nomad: The Rugged Road to Joy via Skype over the next few months. I am really looking forward to the chance to connect and share our exploration of what “real life/life to the fullest” can mean in our lives, on our streets, across our neighborhoods and communities.

I will meet with groups of 8 or more members who have purchased and are reading Holy Nomad for two 30-minute book discussions via Skype. The first discussion will be a kick off of your group’s study; the second discussion will be more of a Q & A after your group has completed reading the book.

Just a few conditions:

I would ask that your group purchase at least 8 copies of Holy Nomad (either the e-book or the real deal).

Second, you need an active Skype account and should be able to make arrangements for us to connect.

E-mail me @ nomadicbooktour@yahoo.com for more details and to determine the times and dates for us to hang out and discuss the book!

“Pruning for Lent” (from Busted Halo)

Matt Litton — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 13:13:43 +0000

I set out not long ago in a search of the way of traveling what Jesus calls “real life” or “life to the fullest.” This nomadic expedition toward a life of joy (which I describe in my book Holy Nomad) led me to my own backyard, where I stumbled onto the divine teaching of an apple tree. As Lent approaches, here in the belly of a lifeless, ashen, Midwestern February, I wish for the world to blossom. The start of the Lenten season is always marked by my anticipation of the world’s slow emergence from hibernation, when the russets of winter lawns yield to lush green blankets of grass, the naked trees sprout their first buds of growth, folks wear brighter smiles and move at a quicker pace.

The apple tree in my backyard blooms stunningly each spring around Easter. I recall the first year in our home, I was rather proud of the bounty of edible apples it produced. The following year, the tree sprouted hundreds of new limbs; but when it finally began to bear fruit, we were left with only a handful of decent apples. I did some research and discovered that our tree desperately needed to be pruned. After my own failed attempt at the task, I decided to have an expert come to the house and show me how to properly care for the tree.

Read the full essay at @ Busted Halo by clicking here.

“A Call for the Christian Imagination” from Relevant Magazine

Matt Litton — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 00:53:42 +0000

It doesn’t take long as a Christian to realize there’s a wide and ugly gap between the bare-walled reality we feel captive to and the joy Jesus offers. But I have realized the tension of this dilemma is something Jesus acknowledged in His Sermon on the Mount—and in it, we find we already possess one of the most useful tools in this journey toward real and lasting joy.

Jesus makes a series of declarations in His mission statement called the Beatitudes that sound impossible and unattainable. Each proclamation has one foot firmly planted in a colorless, hopeless reality and the other firmly established in a vibrant “fairy tale” world.

“Blessed are the meek,” Jesus says, “for they will inherit the earth.”

“Blessed are those who mourn”—a statement grounded in the certainty of the moment, and I always imagine there is a long pause in between these words before He delivers the punch line—“for they will be comforted.” Are you sure? When? How?

Read the full article published by Relevant Magazine here.

The Story of Christmas Reminds Us to Believe in Each Other (from the Huffington Post)

Matt Litton — Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:09:39 +0000

We rarely spend enough time focusing on the completely human element of scandal surrounding the birth of Jesus. According to the moral teachings of the day, not only did Joseph have every right to break off his engagement with his mysteriously pregnant future wife, but by all accounts, Mary could’ve been stoned in the village square for infidelity. The religious folks of the day would’ve correctly cited that stoning her was “justified” by law. That’s some dogmatic and unforgiving doctrine.

Mary and Joseph lived in a religious culture that called for harsh treatment of unwed women who became pregnant. People were no more inclined to accept her explanation that “God did it,” than we would be today. It was an outlandish explanation. God simply does not do this sort of thing, right? The very idea offends our sense of morality, not to mention our scientific and theological sensibilities… just as much as it did in that day and age. Imagine how it might go over tomorrow if you had to explain to your own parents and neighbors that you were pregnant (or your fiancé was pregnant), but that your child was “God’s only son.”

On top of Mary’s outrageous claim, I always think about the gossip and the couple had to endure – talk about disgraceful!

continue reading @ the Huffington Post here…

We are Lazarus (from the Catalyst Blog)

Matt Litton — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 18:00:36 +0000

I am captivated by the story of Jesus teaching in the countryside when he receives word that one of his closest friends, Lazarus, has fallen very ill. I’m not sure I’ll ever understand why, but He doesn’t seem compelled to rush home to help. A couple of lines later, He tells the twelve guys in his inner circle matter-of-factly that Lazarus has “fallen asleep.” This is such a peculiar interpretation of Lazarus’s condition because by the time Jesus finally arrives on the scene, Lazarus has been dead four days. The Gospel tells us that Lazarus was already wrapped up and buried: “laid to rest in a simple cave in the hillside with a slab of stone laid against it.”

Read my full post here at the Catalyst blog.

Where was God last Friday? (Reflecting on the tragedy in Newtown) from Huffington Post

Matt Litton — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 18:45:41 +0000

I stood in the hallway watching students file from school last Friday and shared the shock and horror brought on by the breaking news from Connecticut with my teaching colleagues. As a father, my heart was broken over and over this weekend as each new little face, each family, every new angle of the story unfolded.

I was left with some pretty unmanageable questions watching the President speak at the prayer vigil on Sunday. While some were wrestling with questions about the necessity of gun-control, mental health measures, or maybe even rethinking our culture’s candy-bin distribution of psychotropic drugs… I was fixated on another issue. While the President lamented at the frequency of these horrible tragedies, I found myself struck with a rather cumbersome question directed a little higher than the Oval office.

I would like to ask God: “Where were you in that the room full of children last Friday morning?”

Read the full article @ Huffington Post here.

Wandering Through Advent

Matt Litton — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 17:57:28 +0000

Although we rarely slow down to consider it, most of the time we live as voyagers moving about solely for the sake of discovering the next temporary provision. Our lives will certainly look a lot like that over the next few weeks as the Christmas shopping frenzy commences. We will scurry about, our fingers freshly stained with Black Friday advertisements, participating in the mad rush for that perfect gift.

I was on my own Yuletide expedition when I happened upon a nativity scene at the local “Stuff Mart” the other day and noticed the bearded travelers sitting before a baby with gifts in hand. The figurines left me meditating about these nomads of the Bible. They’ve been called astronomers, priests, and even kings. Some two thousand years ago the pilgrimage of these three wise men was well underway at this point in the calendar year.

Finding joy

I picked up one of the sojourners and began to laugh. The figure reminded me of a picture I look to now and then when I think of nomads. It is a photo of a couple of 20th-century dudes with unusually biblical-looking beards who may pass for “wise men” on occasion (especially when they are sitting in close proximity to me). These two set off in the late 90s on their own nomadic journey, traversing American highways in an old Volkswagen van. They traveled about, working odd jobs, camping in exotic places, and collecting amazing stories as they went. My friends (one now an organic farmer and the other a college professor) hoped that their travels might be a life-changing, fulfilling experience. After all, their lives were now literally “a journey.”

Read the full article here: http://bustedhalo.com/features/wandering-through-advent

A Tale of Two Fridays

Matt Litton — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 16:08:23 +0000

I walked through a local store just days after Halloween and heard “Joy to the World” floating softly from the speakers. The lyrics about hope and preparing our hearts melted like snowflakes on warm October sidewalks, amid the heated rush toward sale signs and busy employees wearing Santa hats. I paused before the beauty of that Advent song juxtaposed against the chaos of holiday shopping, and it struck me that there is now only one formidable religious Friday in our culture.

I recently wrote a book about my search for joy. It was a narrative adventure that began with the stark realization that my life and the lives of the people I know seemed curiously void of transcendental moments. One of the many truths that I stumbled over on my journey was how profoundly many of us are burdened by our obsession to consume: the newest car, the latest technology or the brightest flat-screen television. Our spiritual lives are joyless. We can no longer differentiate between wants and needs, because we have unseated our trust in a nomadic God and replaced him with a new American “deity.”

The nauseating political commercials of early fall have given way to a tsunami of advertisements celebrating our most potent and intentional religious practice in America. Our Novembers now bring us a Friday carnival of greed, debt, and self-serving emptiness so dark and ominous that its shadow darkens the Story of God’s arrival among us and His sacrificial movement toward the Friday that would be the most sacred day of the Christian calendar. Advent, which marks the beginning of our journey toward the observance of Good Friday, has been obscured by the shopping “holiday” of Black Friday. Our most fanatical religion is one powered not by self-sacrifice, loving our neighbors, and accepting responsibility, but by the blaring noise and bright lights of advertising’s empty promises. The sheer dominance of Black Friday on our culture has crowned Consumerism as the most prominent faith in America and there are plenty of casualties to prove it…

(Read the full Huffington Post article HERE)

Holy Nomad featured in the Patheos.com Book Club

Matt Litton — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 14:22:13 +0000

I wanted to take a moment to pass along a couple of thoughtful reviews of Holy Nomad: The Rugged Road to Joy from the talented bloggers over at Patheos.com:

From “The Cultivare Blog” by Kyle Roberts:

“I suppose this book falls in same genre as The Ragamuffin Gospel (Brennan Manning) and The Sacred Romance (Brent Curtis and John Elderidge)–sort of a combination of memoir, inspirational writing, and biblical/theological reflection. As an academic, I’ve grown used to reading lengthy tomes, with long, winding sentences, gnostic-like “discourse” understandable only to the initiated, and plenty of fifty-dollar words. While I wouldn’t want my theology any other way (sort of), this book was a nice change. The chapters are remarkably short (I found myself several times thinking, “already?”). The prose is lively, quick and engaging. I didn’t find many fifty-dollar words. But I did find my heart stirred on more than one occasion.”

Read more of this review: http://goo.gl/qkTV1

From “Take & Read” by Elizabeth Nordquist:

“I recommend this book highly for those who seek to know what the Jesus story is all about and for those whose vision and journey have become jaded and dim in the process of trying to do the right thing. This book is a gift.”

Full review: http://goo.gl/ims7k

From “Take & Read” by David Swartz

“Matt Litton didn’t intend this but Holy Nomad: The Rugged Road to Joy resembles a deep dish pizza with everything on it. Even after you pick off what you don’t like, what’s left is still pretty good. By that, I mean that the book speaks to spiritual toddlers as well as to the marathoners among us…”

Full review: http://goo.gl/N4Dhg