All posts by Rod White

That “other” person is someone I love!

Doing Theology, , , ,

I have traveled in the same circles with Ron Sider since I was in my twenties – actually ran into him on my son’s street a few weeks ago. I was profoundly influenced by Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger. I am a fan.

I say all that so my small criticism of what he recently said in Christianity Today is not taken as a slam. His article: Tragedy, Tradition, and Opportunity in the Homosexuality Debate: We need a better approach to the traditional biblical ethic on sexuality in the November 18 CT was passed around by some of my acquaintances and friends in the BIC, which made me wonder what it was all about. So I read it.

A progressive evangelical “gay” policy

Here’s the gist: 1) He wants evangelicals to admit their track record on relating to: “gays” is tragic. 2) He makes a more-generous-than-usual argument about Biblical tradition that ends with the conclusion that everyone who is not in a lifelong heterosexual marriage should be celibate. 3) He ends with seeing the present argument as an opportunity: a) to do what it takes to nurture marriage, b) to listen to “gay people” c) To be nice: “Surely, we can ask the Holy Spirit to show us how to teach and nurture biblical sexual practice without ignoring, marginalizing, and driving away from Christ those who struggle with biblical norms.”

His thoughts seem revolutionary to some people. For instance, someone wrote in to voice their struggle with Ron’s assumption that gay people could be saved (!). Ron knows CT’s audience, so I appreciate his boldness. I saw that the moderator of our denomination and a bishop posted the article on Facebook. So he got some affirmation. One commenter said that he appreciated how a person of authority stated something that he had thought for a long time.

I’m only cousins with Evangelicals

This is the one thing I offered on FB: “I don’t think I have ever been part of the ‘we’ Ron is talking about. I’ve certainly been listening to so-called gay people for my whole adult life. Just to be clear ‘gay’ people have been ‘us’ while ‘we’ have been dithering about ‘them.’”

Someone wrote in response to my thoughts: “clear?”

I guess my problem is not clear. So here I am writing about it.

For one thing, I have never been an evangelical. I officially left that fold (to the extent I was in it) when I became consciously part of the Brethren in Christ (that’s now another whole story, of course). I am fond of evangelicals, and I have ridden on their bus at times. I just wanted to miss all the excess Ron calls tragic. I am still getting tagged with the tragedy, but I tried to miss it. So when Ron says “we” need a better approach, I want to note that I did not adopt the former bad approach along with millions of other Christians.

For another thing, so-called “gay” people have been part of my life and part of the church for as long as I have been a part. The tone of the article sounds like “they” just got discovered and people should stop being reluctant to accept their existence! My views have developed along with the whole movement in the last 30 years, but my friendships with LGBTQ people have always been just that: friendships. They have been part of my “we.” When I think of the people Ron is talking about I think of faces, not some mysterious “other.” Christians belong to a transnational, transhistorical, transcultural body in the Spirit; only people who renounce Jesus could be considered truly “other,” I think – and we are called to love even them! So-called “gay” and so-called “straight” are called to the same allegiance and the same application of it.

We have tried to stay out of polarizing debates about sexuality during the life of Circle of Hope. But even we got blamed for the “tragic” behavior of evangelicals in the local gossip column! We ended up making our statement and trying to repair the divisions the “us” vs. “them” competition for the dominant, legalized thinking of the day caused in our community. I think we were pretty successful. But I suppose I am still sensitive about getting dragged into some loveless debate about some “thing,” when the “thing” happens to be someone I love.

Despise the shame: Disintegrate the disintegrator

A life in the Spirit, Psychological growth, , , , ,

حرام عليك (Haraam 3aleik) Shame on you!

That is the extent of the Egyptian Arabic Jonny has taught me and I still can’t pronounce it. (Shame on me!) According to him, it is an important phrase to know if you want to know about Egyptians and maybe the whole Middle East. He often calls them a shame culture. For people schooled in western philosophy and theology, the sociologists need to remind us that we are from a guilt culture.

The generalizations of sociologists are hard to defend but they can be instructive to think about. Want to know more about how they label you? Here’s a full treatment of the building blocks of godless societies: fear, shame and guilt. It will help you get your mind around the ideas: link.

What runs a shame culture

If you don’t want the full treatment, here’s the idea of what runs a shame culture:

Basically, shame is an act against the accepted system of values.  You feel shame when you are going against what others think you should be going with. It is especially activated when an outsider finds out that you have committed a shameful act. One author puts it this way: “He who has done a shameful deed must conceal it, for revealing one disgrace is to commit another disgrace.” There is an Arab proverb that says, “A concealed shame is two thirds forgiven.”

My dad loved Spade Cooley and lived in a lot of shame.

A 20th Century Syrian scholar, Kazem Daghestani, tells of an Arab husband who caught his wife in bed with another man. He drew a gun and pointed it at the couple while addressing the man. “I could kill you with one shot but I will let you go if you swear to keep secret the relationship you have had with my wife. If you ever talk about it I will kill you.” The man took that oath and left. The husband divorced his wife without divulging the cause. He was not concerned about the loss of his wife or her punishment but about his reputation. Public shaming and not the nature of the deed itself or the individual’s feelings had determined his action. That’s an old example from mid-twentieth century, but it is still applicable — and it tells the story of a lot of what happens in the Middle East. People are carrying secret shame.

Your secret shame

You are probably carrying secret shame too, Egyptian or not. When you got up today, your “shame attendant” probably started doing its internal job. Maybe you looked in the mirror and said, “Yuck.” You got ready for a shower and it said, “Too fat. Too thin. Too hairy. Too out-of-shape. Too unattractive to make love to.” The background music of our secret shame is playing all day and we never let anyone else hear it because that would feel even more shameful. So we end up dragged around by it all day; trying to feel better in spite of it all day. Right now as I write this, my left foot still hurts because I went down to the basement to turn on my laundry in the dryer (Forgot it last night, stupid) and I hit my foot on my toolbox. (Did not take it clear down to the workbench, lazy.) When I yelled in surprise and pain, my first thoughts were, “Why did you leave that there (you dummy!)?” And I also immediately thought that I did not want to tell Gwen I had hit my foot because she disapproves of me leaving my stuff lying around. My shame attendant was in full swing.

At my conference this weekend Curt Thompson  called shame the “vector” that evil uses to dis-integrate the universe. He is an MD so I think he meant: Shame is like “an organism, typically a biting insect or tick, that transmits a disease or parasite from one animal or plant to another.” Shame transmits anti-love and dis-connection. It transmits the dis-ease resident in a shame-activated person to another victim. It is a spiritual self-destruction virus. But he might mean this:

Regardless, shame is a dis-integrator. It separates us from our true selves and definitely keeps us from transparently loving of others. Our shame attendant monitors our every move so we present a self that conforms to whatever we think will make us look good enough to survive the constant threat we perceive. Gwen cares more about my toe than about her sense of proper tidiness. But my shame attendant needs that to be proved before it allows me to receive her love. I am still tempted to think I will be ashamed if I show up as myself. In other contexts, when my true self poked his head up from his bunker, the shame attendant was spot on and someone did shout “Shame on you!” in some way, trying to get me back into line with what is killing everyone. Some sociologist chimed in and said, “From a shame culture, eh?” I’ve been bitten by the tic so many times that I am tempted to give up altogether.

Jesus wore the shame

As a matter of fact, Curt Thompson said that the whole temptation of Jesus story is written for the salvation of people who live in a shame culture and for each of us (all of us) who have a shame attendant. We see that the ultimate shame attendant, the devil, accuses the Son of God and tries to get Him to give in to conforming to a God-free, love-free, truth-free world. “Prove it!” Satan keeps saying to Jesus. “You don’t know that your needs will be satisfied, because you aren’t worth saving. You don’t know that you are honored as the Son, it needs verification. You have no power in this world that the world does not give you, prove your allegiance.”

This daily, relentless fact of shame’s dis-integrating power is why Dr. Thompson was so thankful to point out that the life of Jesus and facts of the cross so completely disintegrate the dis-integrator:

Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. (Hebrews 12:1-3) 

In the King James Version it says Jesus “despised” the shame. He looked at it as the disintegrator it is. Even more, he fought it to the finish and publicly wore it by hanging on a cross. People shouted “Shame on you!” while he was dying there. But bringing the shame of the world into the light crippled its power. Rising from the dead provided hope for all of  us making our way through this world into our own resurrection.

We are a circle of hope because of the great promise of God in Jesus:

Hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us (Romans 5:5).

Despise the shame that creates that “despicable you” your shame attendant is relentlessly trying to make the true you. In Christ, we are the children of God and the whole universe is waiting to see what we will become.

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Christians are often in the forefront — note healthcare

The Mission, , , ,

It was quite a night last night at the BW PMs! I am still in wonder about all the stories I heard and experiences I had. We are alive in the Spirit. We are making a difference. People are seeking healing — and many are finding it, sometimes in surprising ways!

The church has always been full of surprises, hasn’t it? Historian Gary Ferngren writes that in 251 A.D., when Christians were still a small minority, the church in Rome took care of 1,500 widows, orphans, the sick and the dying. A century later, the church in Antioch supported twice as many. Out of this support network Christians created the world’s first hospitals.

macha
John Spurrier teaching at Macha

Christians have often been in the forefront of improving the world. Just talk about this one thing: how we have contributed to health care, and we sound pretty amazing.  For instance, the Brethren in Christ Church began a hospital in the rural, far-reaches of Zambia in 1957 at Macha, a village 50 miles from the nearest town, Choma. Dr. Philip Thuma has served there for years. Under his leadership the hospital grew into an innovative and effective malaria research center. Now it is a 208-bed inpatient facility with an affiliated nursing school. The research on malaria has world-wide partners.

Jesus intimated that he was a doctor and certainly demonstrated His desire to heal. I feel that urge, too. Last night when we sang this song, the tears trailed down my cheeks.

All who are thirsty
all who are weak
come to the fountain
dip your heart in the stream of life
let the pain and the sorrow
be washed away,
in the wave of his mercy
as deep cries out to deep.

All over the room people were dipping into the waves of mercy and being fed and freed. One person went home and wrote back to me about being seven days sober! A couple reported how a great sorrow was lifted. A man told me how God is sustaining him through the hardest thing he has ever faced. A student was present because they were curious about how our community is so healing. We give in to the urge to heal all the time.

We make a difference, as Christians always have. We not only work to heal people physically, we work to heal people spiritually: broken bodies and broken hearts.

insurance under ACAOne of the great issues confronting the new Congress is going to be whether the modest addition to healthcare in the U.S., Obamacare, will be dismantled. One has to wonder what the debate is about when the U.S. already has the most expensive healthcare in the world and yet ranks last in this year’s ranking of outcomes. The invisible hand has us in its grip. I am grateful for all my friends and family who have received some benefits from the law. But they are still being gouged by insurance companies and defrauded by the corporations who own the supposedly free enterprise system and the government that legislates it.

In that environment, we make a difference every day. I am so grateful for the advances medical science has made in healthcare — last night, a friend told the story of how her mother’s emergency care saved her life! But I also heard a friend talking about how wanton prescription of antidepressants for anything that resembles depression is actually thwarting human development! I am not waiting for the wisdom of this world, no matter how technically amazing, to reflect the wisdom of God.

The difference we keep making is when deep calls to deep. Beyond our capacity to heal ourselves, inside or out, we find the place where Jesus makes us whole. In that work we are at the forefront. In so many ways we can make a difference – in every area we spend our day!

Related:

Stand against the hand: share and pray

I know you don’t care Ayn, but she died from no healthcare

We are saved, not merely safe

A life in the Spirit, , , ,

Last night we had some interesting talkback in both PMs about my example of “hosting” our subway station at Broad and Ellsworth. I told what I thought was a humorous story that showed how hard it was for me to practice my convictions — I greeted a young woman in the station and then watched her remove herself to the far reaches of the platform. This struck a nerve in a few women. The nerve seemed reminiscent, to me, of a recent viral video of a woman walking silently through New York City for ten hours and enduring over 100 comments from men as she silently made her way.

Some women were quick to defend their need to protect themselves from the constant barrage of harassment they experience. Men chimed in too, and defended their need to stay anonymous so they were not constantly preyed upon by people trying to get some money off them. Other women noted that they felt free to talk to whoever they chose in public and did not experience the same level of fear. Some men added that they felt responsible to be present on the street so forces aligned with evil did not have free reign. It was a stimulating evening.

It is a grace to feel safe

I was moved back to Romans 12 as I thought about it:

For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. Romans 12:3

The same grace is not given to everyone — in specific ways, at least. Some people will always feel safer than others based on the way they relate to God and based on the way they related to their parents in their earliest years when they were forming how they see the world. We are quite different in the grace we are given, yet each of us has value according to the grace we have been given. The fact that we are different yet valued is another reason to not judge what we hear from people too quickly. It is also a good reason for not making principles out of the way we experience the world, but to keep soberly judging ourselves according to our faith.

When it comes to how we navigate the threatening streets of Philadelphia (or even the threatening experiences of being in a church meeting!) some of us will feel safer than others — but I think Jesus is calling all of us to feel saved. Some of us will be less likely to take risks; some of the risks certain people take will not even seem like risks to others — but we are all called to be brave because we are saved even when we are not safe.

The grace to feel saved

At the 7PM I used Mother Teresa as an example of one of the swall artaints we should note on All Saints Day who exemplified radical hospitality. Mother Teresa was famous for saying, “We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.” I think she often felt uncared for and in danger herself. But she took great risks, along with her sisters and other other helpers, to exercise the faith she was given.

Does this mean everyone should host the subway station? Yes. But according to the grace they have been given. The woman in the video experiencing harassment in New York, was being filmed by a companion who walked with her all day — good idea. Expecting perfect freedom to be alone in this fallen dark world is unrealistic, whether you are a woman or a man. No one can do anything of God without Jesus by his or her side and apart from their brothers and sisters. Our safety is in being saved.

Should all Jesus followers have the wherewithal to act with confidence in every threatening situation? Yes. But according to the grace they have been given and within the community they have been given. The society is trying to keep individuals safe by legislating boundaries and organizing speech; it relies on laws not grace. Paul suggests that relying on law alone is a defeat of grace. Rather than protecting one’s rights and demanding safety, it would speak more of trust to be wronged (1 Cor. 6:7)! Laws are relevant, but they are not God. Our safety is in being saved.

I wish you a day filled with confidence born of faith, not mere safety born of whatever justice the world might give you or whatever freedom from others your own cleverness might win you. I wish you “sober judgment” that recognizes the grace of God at work in you and that gives you the joy of being saved, even when you are not completely safe.

What Americans are like: Project Runway demonstrates the list

Film/TV, The Mission, , , , ,

I discovered the other nightproject runway 05 at the Love Feast that I might lose a couple of friends if I betrayed who won Project Runway last Thursday. Life is now DVR’d so there is no shared sense of real time — I forget these things. I am forbidden to disturb the perfect isolation of someone’s relationship with the screen. So now that I am down a few lines and have issued the spoiler alert, it was Sean from New Zealand, not Amanda from Nashville, Kini from Hawaii or Char from Detroit.

The manual for my mission field

I don’t watch the show because I root for a winner. I never know why someone wins anyway (although I do think it should have been Amanda this time). I watch the show for it’s message. It is such a perfect piece of capitalist propaganda it is a priceless manual for my mission field.

heidi klum of project runwayI was talking about the show the other day and yet another person gave me that “I’m-trying-not-to-get-into-this-with-you” look. But they could not resist. “Why do you watch that show? Isn’t it about fashion design?” The unspoken question was, “Pastor, you are into fashion design? Aren’t all those fashion people the definition of godless?” I told them, “I watch it to learn things.” Yes, Heidi Klum is still beautiful and I am fond of Tim Gunn; and it is amazing that these artists can make practical art out of anything in no time at all — those are also good reasons to watch. But mostly, I am listening for what people are being taught, and Project Runway sums up America in 90 minutes each episode — 45 of which I actually view. (Thank you inventers of the DVR; I can skip most of the relational drama the film editors concoct).

The Wellstone International Academy in Minneapolis did the internet-world a service when they offered everyone the summary sheet they give their international students about U.S. Americans. They collected Concepts that Shape the American Way of Life, a “compendium of ideas developed by anthropologists and sociologists over the past 40 years.” As it turns out, the kids could have gotten the same thing by watching Project Runway for forty minutes. The show is a redundant indoctrination of all things Americans consider important. Here are seven of the concepts that we missionaries need to know about if are to have any hope of helping people learn to let Jesus shape their way of life.

Tell it like it is

1) U.S. Americans tend to be candid and outspoken in communication with others, and they seldom shy away from disclosing facts about themselves.  Thus, they make reality TV. They prefer “direct” questions and respond with “straight” answers. Thus, Heidi tells the designers each week that, “In fashion one day you’re in, the next you’re out.”  Thus, Tim Gunn is beloved for being gently assertive as he tells someone their design may need to be trashed. The dapper Mr. Gunn is also the one who delivers the news each week that the loser needs to pack up their stuff in the workroom and get out — pretty candid.

Don’t shy away from challenge

2) U.S. Americans assume that any challenge can be met, any goal achieved, if one works hard enough.  The motto of the Navy’s Construction Battalions (the Seabees) during WWII was:  “The difficult we do immediately;  the impossible takes a little longer.” Thus Project Runway gives the designers $100 at Mood and one day to make Heidi a gown to wear to a gala. And they do it! They will perform the impossible for the chance at $100K. “Make a look from things found in a movie theater or on a movie set? Sure! I can do that in a few hours; I’m in America.” We are all supposed to have a dream and fulfill it by sticking with it. Almost all the losers tell the camera on their way out that they are going to keep believing in their dream.

Don’t expect togetherness

3) U.S. Americans believe in individualism. They stress being separate. Thus, the designers always hate the dreaded group challenge. Americans stress personal responsibility and stress that each person must take their own initiative, so designers are always talking about “finding their voice” and Nina Garcia always says, “I can’t see you in that dress.” The show sets up the redundant formula to highlight these things again and again. We always see people hating group challenges (admit it, Amanda) and we always hear about people finding their voice. The judges reward them for individuality.

Expect greed

4) U.S. Americans measure their well-being in terms of the number of tangible things at their command which enable them to enjoy uninterrupted comfort and convenience. Thus, the Project Runway contestants are put up in posh NYC hotels, they make elegant clothes, they get a cool car if they win. Plus, the winners get the promise of a bit of money and fame to start their own brand so they can drive cool cars to posh hotels like Heidi. We are taught to desire these things. We know the people who have made it and who rule the airwaves (possibly rules our lives!) have these things.

Make it work

tim gunn of project runway5) U.S. Americans are deeply practical.  They want things, procedures, and people to meet the requirements of actual use in daily life.  The dreaded Project Runway critique is, “It looks like a costume.” Because someone, somewhere must be imagined wearing this thing to Wawa or the Emmys. Thus, Tim Gunn comes by when you’re halfway done, looks concerned and says, “Make it work.” You can get that saying on a T-shirt.   Other people groups around the world give more weight to tradition, theology, morality, or theoretical consistency. None of that matters to Americans if what they’re doing wins or sells. The contestants will modulate their “voice” to get into the pages of Marie Claire.

Get busy

6) The self-esteem of individual U.S. Americans is largely tied  to their ability to “get ahead” in terms of the recognition of their peers as well as material affluence and social mobility.  There is a deeply held belief in the U.S. that  anyone — through hard work, talent, and persistence — can rise well above the station in life into which he or she is born. Thus the creators of Project Runway comb the world for rags-to-riches possibilities and replay the drama so we will keep believing that piece of relative nonsense. Heidi Klum comes out in some fabulous (if often tasteless) dress — she’s made it! Tim Gunn somehow made a name for himself. That’s the story, again and again. Sean Kelly moves to Brooklyn from the land of the Hobbits and six months later wins Project Runway. Get busy.

Hurry

7) U.S. Americans tend to feel that time is relentlessly rushing past them. They attempt to “save time” by moving at a rapid pace, taking shortcuts, and improving their efficiency.  They become anxious if forced to waste time. The whole premise of Project Runway is about this anxiety. Only the swift survive. This season Kini remade much of the collection he brought to New York Fashion Week because the judges trashed it; we were impressed that he could sew like lightning.

I like the skillful people of Project Runway. It’s a fun, pretty-much-predictable-by-this-time show. But it is also so instructive! I need to keep my eyes and ears open. Because I am tempted every day to sink into the delusion that Americans live in reality. Reality shows remind me of just how crazy this place can be, and just how much we all need a Savior. That’s Who I am bringing into the mix, after all.

Stand against the invisible hand: share and pray

Doing Theology, , ,

When capitalism organizes your money, it undermines community. Worse, when capitalism channels your desire it warps prayer. The main things our church may be lacking the most right now are money and prayer. There is a good, macro reason for that lack which we might not even notice: we are in the grip of the invisible hand.

Let me say right off the top, in case you don’t read too much further:

1) We cannot sustain community without sharing money. Practically, we have made commitments as a group that require money, of course. But more profoundly, if you opt out of contributing to the whole you diminish it, even mock it, name it unworthy. You put a hole in our mutuality. Give ten dollars or a tithe, but stay in the game with us. We could lose the game.

2) We cannot keep praying if we let the Jesus-free economy deform our desire. Practically, if the consumption-driven economy drives you, you have another god. If you have stopped praying because, in reality,  your “needs” are met by your place in the economy and your desires are driven by the market, you look like a foreigner in the Kingdom of God. Pray one minute or make praying your vocation, but connect with the Spirit. You could die. And the church could die with you.

What is capitalism again?

socialists trying to thwart the invisible handCapitalism was identified in the 1700’s by the likes of Adam Smith and others as an economic reality in which the “market” is not something that is extra to your life, it is in the center of your life. For centuries, markets were places where you could go trade for something you could not produce yourself. Now markets are the only means you can obtain anything. We always hear about the “free” market, which means the market, as an abstraction, aspires to be free from external constraints and obstacles. By this time, not only is the market central to everything, but everything is also subject to the rules of the market. The market is free, but we cannot be free from the market.

There are many schools of economics. The one that has been steering us since Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, followed up by Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, advocates the complete marketization of life. It is all for overcoming obstacles and inefficiencies brought on by the so-called “welfare state” and increasing the integration of the globe into one market. This school is, in a sense, “anti-government” since governments interfere with the invisible hand. But its proponents are usually for small, lean governments that have strong militaries to face threats to the market.

Did you miss this debate? While you were growing up, the invisible hand of capitalism firmly took over your territory. It is global and it has armies. For instance, during the recent downturn, the 1% we talk about took advantage of their opening to gain world domination; now a huge percentage of global wealth is in their hands. The triumph of the invisible hand — a reality most of us don’t even recognize — might be why we don’t share like we could and why we might even be discouraged in our prayer. Yet the church needs sharing and praying more than ever if it is not going to be ground down even more by this powerful force.

We cannot sustain community without sharing money.

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).

In God’s economy, sharing is motivated by the desire to create community because that is elemental to God’s desire. The work of the cross joins us to Christ as his body. Former motivations from the world system that drove us are healed. We are freed from self-absorption, obsession with our own interests, and fear of scarcity — our desire is turned outward in humble vulnerability and generous service to and with others. Jesus demonstrated that love as God shared life with us, even to the point of death. That’s the basis of the new economy in Christ — unless it is not.

invisible hand dialogue between pawns and kingsA good half of us have a terrible time sharing because we are still consuming church like a product and are still too afraid of our own present or prospective poverty to share. Lack of sharing kills the church. It is not so much that the church needs a lot of money to survive. We can survive as the church at all sorts of levels. What is important is this: when we don’t share, we do not subvert the anti-sharing of capitalism and we worship the invisible hand by default. We become individual marketers in competition for scarce resources; we become individualized products selling ourselves daily. We become mere pawns in the 1%’s market pretending that our freedom to buy a new gadget or buy the monetized thoughts of the internet is actual choice.

We cannot keep praying if we let the Jesus-free economy deform our desire.

You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God (James 4:2).

All economies are based on desire. Capitalism has mastered the art of making everything about desire, what we want and don’t have. Long ago, James rightly prophesied that such misplaced desire would cause nothing but conflict. The recent, ongoing U.S. wars have proven James right in a large way. They are all about our desire for revenge, desire to be protected and our desire for oil and our “way of life,” aren’t they? Did anyone ask God about that? “Asking God” does not mean getting God to give us what we can’t get in the economy. It means being part of a new economy based on God’s generosity, being in full communion with the one true God and putting the invisible hand in its place.

danceMany of us have a secret. We stopped praying long ago because we believe the bible of capitalism when it says that education and hard work will get us what we desire. We don’t have time to pray because we are at work or at school. Our schedule barely leaves time for our families, much less some alternative economy. We are content to have a privatized faith, a leisure time faith that we visit a couple of times a month at the Sunday meeting. Our desire is deformed. It is so conformed to the way the world is post-Reagan that we believe it when people say it has always been this way, only now it is better.

I get a sinking feeling some days that we are going to lose the battle. As alternative as our church is, as radical as some of us are, as amazing as our thinking and acting really are, the forces sometimes seem stronger. The post-9/11 generation is so scared. The institutions are so much bigger than they were before the attack and before years of warfare, homeland security and recession. Are we still a circle of hope? — or is that just a brand name, now? If we don’t share and we don’t pray, if we don’t do what the church really needs right now, what are we?

God rescues me when I am sinking in such thinking, just like he pulled Peter from the sea that time. Paul also said in Romans 5: Hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. And James also said in James 4: God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Whether we share and pray or not, God’s grace is greater. That grace has made us and will keep drawing us toward home.

Paean to partners

Building community, , , , , , , , ,

Someone sabotaged our computer. We discovered what they did right before we wanted to do a few things for the meeting last night. Three of us were huddled in front of it lamenting, offering ineffectual suggestions and generally having some mutual anxiety — and that just before we were to lead an evening centered on “not worrying!”

Now that everything worked out fine-if-not-perfectly, I look back fondly on the scene – back on how our strange little partnership in the gospel was revealed in that moment. We were anxious about something only Jesus could get us together to be anxious about. Each of us had travelled a long distance geographically and culturally to become important in a new kingdom and tribe. I like it when I notice that blessing.

I’ve been thinking a lot about being partners lately and feeling thankful. I think my feeling is a lot like what Paul felt about the Philippians when he started a letter to them with: “I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now” (Philippians 1:4). From the first day of Circle of Hope until now, I have had such amazing partners, beginning with my wife and family and then one person after another who Jesus drew together to form our incendiary community of faith: partners in building community, making disciples, showing compassion, doing business, inventing administration, weathering crises, sharing money and standing together in problems a lot worse than a sabotaged computer! What a blessing!

I have been especially thankful for the partnership of my fellow pastors along the way. Gerry Davis, Joe Snell, Mike Major, Tim Bathurst, and Bryan Robinson added their gifts and moved on.  Then there are the seven who serve as Pastor right now who rose up from among us and have given their love and service for years. You might not know that the average tenure of a pastor in the United States is about four years. Most of our pastors get started in the ranks as cell leaders. By the time they become a pastor in one of our congregations, they’ve probably already served for four years! A secret to our survival and remarkable success in building the body of Christ in a relatively-hostile territory is our long-lived pastor partnership.

ben rachelBen White and Rachel Sensenig are good examples of emerging pastors. They both have experimental roles in the church that we wanted pastors to fill. Ben is the Development Pastor attached to Broad and Washington. He has been inventing ways to connect with new people groups and develop the congregation’s capacity to grow. In the process, he is developing himself! Rachel is the Administrative Pastor who works for the whole church: our network of congregations, cells and teams. Her role has grown dramatically as we have figured out how to be who we are. She has helped us figure that out, often doing things administratively and learning new sides of leadership that don’t fit naturally with her gifts in the process. They are important, much-loved partners.

I am on a team of four pastors who lead the four congregations. I think next year we will be even more of a team as we lean into being one church in four or more locations rather than four congregations networked as a church. Our partnership is crucial to the health of our community. It is not so much that everyone needs to be led around a lot, but the gravity of our love and unity, as well as our diversity in age, experience and background is a great engine for what we hope the whole church will be.

jonny kristinLast week Jonny Rashid of Broad and Dauphin was lobbying to get an Egyptian flag on the rack that displays the countries where our covenant members were born. He thinks citizenship should count as well as birthplace. He has opinions. He has energy. He has a young family and a young congregation. He is forthright, dogged and faithful: a great partner.

nate jenNate Hulfish of Marlton and Crescent reluctantly stayed home from the intentional retreat last weekend because he was also recovering from his wife’s epic wisdom teeth extraction. I also think he kind of wanted to be at the Collingswood Book Fair because he has been meeting as many people as possible – even acting contrary to his introversion to do so! He is an articulate teacher, a determined learner, malleable and ambitious: a great partner.

joshu and banjoJoshua Grace of Frankford and Norris is one-of-a-kind. He has grown up in Circle of Hope and channels our way of life in an always-on-the-edge kind of way. He is an interesting mix of being hidden away with off-the-grid musicians and being popular with famous people across the country. He’s a force. He has passions. He is loyal, imaginative and longsuffering: a great partner.

gwen 12-25-07Gwen White is the most random pastor. We finally named her a “teaching pastor” and gave her a token sum to honor what she had been giving for free for years. This past weekend she showed her stuff well when she led our retreat. I am not sure she even had to prepare too much to be that helpful.  She is self-giving, insightful, a determined builder and wonderfully rebellious against what should not be messing up her “dear one,” Jesus.

A paean is a song of praise or triumph. It implies, to me, enthusiastic Greeks dancing around in a celebration and then settling down as one of their great orators offers a poem that sums up what everyone is excited about so we could remember it twenty-five hundred years later. Nobody on this list cares much about getting summed up for history – they’re hardly done yet, for one thing! But they are such great partners, (as you probably are if you got to the end of this), they deserve a paean.

Second Act – The video

The Mission

We’re warming up to enter the future. Lot’s of important dialogue ahead!

Ambition in hard times with Teilo

The Mission, ,

teilos headWhen we went to Llandaff Cathedral, outside Cardiff, Wales, the lonely docent said we should go find a special cupboard with Teilo’s head in it. We found one in a musty, dark corner way in the back, behind the altar.

When we opened the creaky old door we got a peek at a dusty skull. As it turns out, the famous skull was in another cupboard, as you see, made into a holy water font. I don’t know who’s skull we were disrupting. But we were still excited to make the connection.

Feb 9 is St. Teilo’s Day. Church planting types should mark that one their calendar. We need all the encouragement we can get. The great church planter’s skull was preserved in the church because he lived an admirable life. He died sometime after 560, which was not an easy time to live. He had helped establish the church in Wales.

Good things in tough times

Is that thing about his skull just creepy or can it be encouraging? I want to encourage the many people I have been talking to who think their time to live is pretty challenging, too — God does good things in tough times. I want to encourage people who need to get their head into the game of church planting — they are memorable. I want to encourage people who think the church just stuffs the memory of good things in closets and goes about their mediocre work as usual — not so! Did you witness the Compassion Teams celebrating their work last Friday?! Did you know about the decarceration team forming? Were you at the PMs last night? Did you listen to Gwen? No one is just a memory around here.

We’ve had a lot of dialogue about revival and reformation lately. We’re ambitious to do what God has given is to do in our difficult era. As a result of our dialogue, some patterns that people have established in relationship and mission are getting disrupted; people are feeling challenged, and things are changing for the better (already!) — and more is on the way. Some people feel excited; some people don’t feel so good. For the people who have always given it their all, serving new ambition feels like an overload – “I give my gifts and resources already. I can’t do more.” And there is always some person who shouts, “Don’t open that cupboard!”

I have been saying to a few of the stalwarts, “The problem is not that you don’t do things; the problem is that you just do your things. You might not be a church planter, but you need to concern yourself about whether the church gets planted. You might not have time to care for the children but your love has to be great enough to care about whether they are cared for. And if you do lead the worship, or care for kids, or lead a cell or do the limited thing you can do, you need to fill it with enough love, and let it be filled with God’s Spirit, so that what you do makes an impact beyond the borders of your smallness.” I don’t always convince people. but I try.

Ambitious Teilo

llandaff_teiloOne famous story about Teilo is all about God showing up in what we consider small things. (Teilo is actually pretty famous — in Wales, at least).One day his Christian settlement was attacked and robbed of all their stores of fuel. In the cold Wales winter that meant they had to immediately go to the woods and cut down more trees or freeze to death. Their work was made easier when a great stag came to help them by delivering the wood with his antlers. Teilo is often pictured riding a stag. Life gets hard. Irritating things must be done. God shows up.

It will be great when you and creation are in such harmony that you can ride stags. Maybe that won’t happen. That’s no big deal. Until then you can be in harmony with God’s own Spirit and he will help you in your difficulties and build his church as a result. The challenges of this day can be met. Even the small things you can do will probably end up magnified, if you allow them to be in the hands of Jesus. Let’s keep our heads in the game — it is bigger than our incapability.

The mustard seed — faith you have, not faith you don’t

Doing Theology, ,

Here’s another Bible problem for you. What’s with faith-as-small-as-a-mustard-seed moving mountains?

We sing:

Si tuvieras fe como grano de mostaza
Eso lo dice el Senor
Tu le dirias a la montana
Muevete, muevete 
Esa montana se movera, se movera, se movera

Shouldn’t that little song come with a little warning label? Shouldn’t it say something like: “We don’t really think this is true!” Or “No mountains were injured in the performance of this song!”?

Why does Jesus say,

“I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you” (Matt. 17:20)

if He doesn’t really mean it?

That’s a good question. It is an especially good question if you were taught all your life that the Bible was feeding you the kind of “truth” that the philosophy of our day considers Truth. I’m talking about some observable occurrence you can test and see repeated when you try it again, something material that you can measure — that kind of true. Apply that philosophy to the Bible and the “formula” Jesus posits says, “Faith moves mountains.” If that “Biblical principle” is true, then a logical conclusion follows: if your faith doesn’t result in miracle, either you don’t have enough faith or faith is not what it claims to be. Even more, this conclusion would be reasonable: if you have faith, then you tell the mountain to move, and the mountain doesn’t move, then the Bible is not true. Sometimes that reasoning is called working with “literal” truth — if the words say it, that’s what it is, as if words just describe verifiable data, as if they just report scientific findings, as if we are talking about those kinds of words. Many Christians treat the Bible like it is a scientific text and call that conservative, when it is really the most worldly thing they could be doing.

Almost anyone can observe what passes for literal truth — and most of them are having an argument in their heads about whether the last person knew what they were talking about. Jesus speaks a deeper truth than the surface truth almost anyone can observe. He is revealing eternity to us. Do you really  think the Lord was announcing his findings about what the world’s smallest seed is? Do you really think he was suggesting that mountains should be moved around? I don’t. But in a world full of “literal” truth, people get tripped up by anything immaterial to their materiality.

Matthew 17 is very confusing for literalists! I feel their pain. Just look at what happens there! First, Jesus is up on the Mount of Transfiguration revealing to his inner circle that there is just a thin veil between His Father’s dimension and our own — but that the dimensions are very different. Then he announces his impending resurrection. Then the group comes down the mountain and Jesus completes an exorcism that his other disciples could not accomplish — and why can’t they do it? They don’t have enough faith. It is a wild chapter for people who can only know what they test in their personal labs.

Maybe we should live in Matthew 17 until we understand it and stop basing our ideas of faith on things we already understand. Maybe we should stay there until we can do what is described and stop basing our doubts on what we can’t yet do. Maybe we should stop being discouraged with Jesus because he can’t just leave faith as “being nice,” or as “applying moral principles” or as “acting out a stripped-down methodology that passes for being forgiven of our sins instead of having a life of active trust” (I digress…with hope in my heart).

Many people come away from what Jesus says about not having enough faith looking for a formula for getting enough faith. But I think the whole point of his statement is not about what we lack, it is about what we don’t lack. He is ultimately being very positive — realistic about us, but full of hope. Yes, Jesus is as frustrated as we are that we have less spiritual capability than we ought to have. But even if we rely on Him just a little — mustard seed little, his work of death and resurrection will enliven even the little faith we have and do things that were previously unimaginable. Have the faith you have, not the faith you don’t.

When I sing, “Muevete!” I am expressing my hope in Jesus, not taking on the ultimate challenge to prove Jesus worthy of worship by my miraculous excavating — as if, “If the mountain moves, then Jesus can be my Savior until we reach the next mountain!”

 

Obviously, Jesus is not rearranging the planet for his convenience, either. So he must not mean for us to look for faith that is mustard-seed size somewhere in our inner being and prove his validity as a Savior and our value as followers by moving Mt. Everest to Beijing. Some people give up on the Bible because such things aren’t happening like they think the Bible literally says they should. They grumble, “The Book just plain contradicts itself! Mountains should move if he literally said it!” But I wish they’d soak in it long enough to see what’s really happening.

When there is a surface meaning that isn’t working for us, we do need to argue it out until we can receive its deeper content. Ignoring or reducing things we can’t understand keeps us infantile. However, being content to endlessly argue keeps us adolescent. Jesus is revealing something deeper than we can reduce to a factoid or argue as a principle. We need to move with the risen Lord to experience something more adult, something like what his inner circle experienced on the Mt. of Transfiguration. Rather than focusing on how mountains are not literally moved, or on “how much faith is enough to cast out a demon,” I think we should rejoice in what the-little-faith-we-have has done in us and through us that would have been unimaginable without it.

For instance,

  • that we should believe any parts of Matthew 17 as true must be an act of God-with-us
  • that we want to ponder and even argue about who Jesus is and what he did surely could only be the Spirit of God drawing us
  • that we know we are forgiven and destined for an eternity of connection with our Creator is a big change
  • that we care whether we have enough faith to make a difference is a conviction only a Spirit-changed heart would have
  • that people continue to be comforted, saved from self-destruction, and energized to foment justice and hope by their faith in Jesus is just what Jesus was predicting, wouldn’t you say?

Still not satisfied short of Everest taking a step towards China? I am not sure you are respecting the faith that causes your discontent, but who knows what that seed might cause next?