All posts by Rod White

The end of the world 2013 — and why you matter.

Film/TV, The Mission, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Next Sunday night I will once again enjoy a guilty pleasure as I indulge in my tivo’d copy of the 86th Academy Awards show. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is 94% white, 77% male, 14% under the age of 50, with a median age of 62, which explains why only one of the movies I am about to talk about received a nomination (Star Trek for best visual effects). But in honor of of our society’s inventive and stimulating visual literature, I want to point out how the movies in 2013 had a very interesting theme that Christians have a lot to say about: the end.

The end of the world as we know it

I suppose that Christians should take some of the blame for how moviemakers were a bit obsessed about the end of the world last year. We Jesus followers have a great capacity to receive the goodness of each moment, but we also have an eye on the end of time when Jesus completes the graces of this age and returns to inaugurate the age to come. As we will see in a minute, Paul teaches us to assess each action for how it will endure the fire that is coming to test it! Over the years, the church has contributed in good ways and bad to how our culture views the end of the world. But if the moviemakers are channeling the zeitgeist well (and that is what makes them money!), then the general population must be very interested in the end — and afraid! The following six end-of-the-world, post-life-as-we-know-it movies grossed $739 million domestically and $1.75 billion worldwide in just 2013 – and there were more of their ilk.

So, what does this interest in the end mean? As any movie fan (or sci-fi aficionado) knows, this isn’t new. After the dawn of the atomic age, end-of-the-world B-movies proliferated like mushroom clouds across American drive-in screens. As Cold War paranoia grew, higher-profile films like Dr. Strangelove and Fail Safe charted the same bleak territory, continuing on into the 80s with a slew of it-could-happen-here dramas like Red Dawn (remade in 2012 with Thor in the lead) and Miracle Mile.

That said, though, there’s even more of it now. More than 20 years after the official end of the Cold War, film makers seem focused on the mess we have made of things or the mess we are about to be made by things. We’re a dozen years after 9/11 and sort of emerging from a ten-year war and a lingering economic crisis. Hollywood seems to think that cinematic destruction — as well as the accompanying hope, heroism and homegrown humanity — will act as a kind of balm for the beleaguered public.

Who are the real doombusters?

actors

In 2013 the doombusters had some regular themes.

  • They have a melancholy for bygone days, especially in Oblivion and Elysium: in an age of increased technology, the simpler pleasures of 20th-century life are already haunting us.
  • They are frightened about unknown predators that might pop up at any time: the crew of Star Trek is battling an unleashed evil from the darkness; in The World’s End and Oblivion they meet aliens; in World War Z it is Zombies; in Elysium it is the one-percent and their machines; in This is the End it is God.
  • They think we have the weaponry to fight the battle: Pine, Pitt, Damon and Cruise are quite serious about it all, teaching us that one person can make all the difference against the powers that oppress us; Franco and Pegg periodically wink at the camera and pretend their mockery of the subject will solve the problem.

Jesus followers who live as the body of Christ have so much to offer in the end of the world atmosphere created by the filmmakers! There is always the danger that a saved person will forget that they mean something. Now is not the time to do that. Sometimes we see our freedom from fear as a freedom from reverence; so we just live in our moment with our great community and neglect our larger importance. The Bible writers are always quick to point out that we dare not do that. If anything, our freedom from fear of condemnation for what we do makes us even more responsible for what we do. Our freedom demonstrates that the Spirit of God dwells in us and that we have what people need as their end draws near. The rest of creation is locked in time, but Jesus has opened us up to eternity, now. We live in the beginning of the End. Jesus is the dawn of the Day. Read 1 Corinthians 3:10-20.

What Paul teaches us from his wonderful awareness of his undeserved importance is very relevant in a year when people all look like the actors above, facing the crazy, scary, end of the world things that are happening to them. He makes sure we remember that Jesus is a sure foundation whether times seem shaky or the whole world is afraid. We should build on that foundation with the best stuff we’ve got. Because the world and its film makers are right about one thing: the end of the world as we know it is near. One way or another, our time will end and the life we lived and the things we built that were fit for eternity will be rewarded. In such a time, we people of God, who are the home of the Holy Spirit, need to take ourselves seriously. The standards of our age have some powerful, cinematic ways of teaching us their crafty futility. But we must not be deceived by them. If they think we are fools and James Franco makes fun of us, that just proves even more that we are truly on to something.

How an organism becomes a mere organization

Building community, Leadership, , , ,

One of the crises of being a thirtysomething (or a precocious twentysomething) is answering this important question when it comes up: “Now that I can do something, do I have the courage to do it with integrity and conviction? Will I keep faith or will I shrink back when the challenges hit me?”

Circle of Hope is not only full of thirtysomethings (as well as many precocious twentysomethings), we, as a network, probably resemble a maturing person who has managed to accumulate some wisdom and capacity (such as our PM skills, many cell leading experts, compassion team ingenuity, money, buildings, structures and strategies, and well-developed relationships and marriages). We are definitely hearing the challenge from scripture:

“Do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised….We do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved. (Hebrews 10:35-9)

Stifled by our own organization?

Many churches begin as lively organisms with great ideas and spirit. They are kind of like energetic, inspired twentysomethings. Once they survive for a few years and gain their confidence, they have the challenge the writer talks about. They need to persevere. Can you keep being the wild, receptive organism that made you great, or will you become a mere organization? A thirtysomething church like Circle of Hope could definitely “shrink back” from its wild inspired, organic beginnings and become a mere organization like all the rest in the world and, essentially, be destroyed — or at least see its genius be neutered.

How do fertile organisms get neutered into organizations that just keep doing the same kind of things the world has always done? No one would likely choose to have that happen! Maybe it is like the proverbial frog in the kettle. Supposedly, a frog will not jump out of a pot of water that is slowly being heated up until it is so hot they are cooked! Likewise an organism like us could slowly acclimate to organizational habits that stifle what made it great to begin with. How’s the water?

Here are five ways our organism might become a mere organization:

1. People fit the ministry into their time schedule

An organism can become a mere organization if people tame it to fit into their personal schedule. If people could reduce their faith down to a meeting, they would probably do it – not on purpose, of course, but just to be practical. It is easier to do one’s faith than to be faithful. No one consciously chooses this, it just happens as soon as you can put the Sunday meeting into your calendar.

The disciplines of our time schedule are crucial to having faith. But they are designed change our false self into our true one. When the schedule becomes the essence of our new self, an organized schedule can become more of a jail than a liberating tool. If adopting a schedule of meetings did not make you a person who helps liberate others who come to your meetings, you must have missed the point of the meetings. If the meetings did not make you a 24/7 Christian who uses meetings to grow and help others grow, there is a problem. If you have managed to fit the church as an “extra” into your already hectic life, then there is really a problem.

2. Leaders argue about who is in charge of what

An organism can become a mere organization if the leaders spend more time worrying about their power than they do working together for the common good.

Organizations specialize in setting boundaries and defining structures; this is crucial. You need a structure to finish a project; you need a map to get from here to there. Disorganized organisms die, or are eaten by more organized organisms. Figuring out how be an organized organism can be hard. Most people just give into “organization” and end up like a spiritualized version of the government or a corporation. Unhealthy or uninspired leaders can spend a lot of time figuring out their territories and wondering about who violated their protocols rather than imagining how to do the project together or how to get the church from here to there as we follow Jesus.

3. The structures can’t adapt quickly enough.

An organism can become a mere organization if the structures become sacred rather than tools in the hands of an inspired community. If they can’t change and grow, they shrink back to the level for which they were effective.

As the Apostle Paul keeps saying in his letters, a main problem with humans is that they love law and despise the grace that sets them free. Rather than live by the law of love, they make rules to save themselves from having to do that. Once a useful rule is in place in a church, it takes courage to change it. Changes require dialogue and healthy dialogue requires love – and a commitment to having healthy conflict. What if we needed to change how we do things in order to do what God gave us to do now? Could we do it? Or would we just tell each other to try harder at what no longer works?

Infographic du jour
4. Love becomes sacred, not strategic

An organism can become a mere organization if people don’t have the freedom to cause trouble. In our era people often throw a “trump card” in a conversation: “You are offending me.” Love means you are supposed to have the sense to never offend someone by violating their opinion or sensibility.

Autonomy and personal freedom are the greatest goods in the world right now. Christians are nice enough to go with that. So some of the most loving organizations stopped doing anything Jesus wants to do a long time ago — but they never have a fight! At least they are not fighting to become world-changing disciples. If they are fighting it is because they are offended!  God’s love is creative and purposeful, not self-protective and easily provoked.

5. We get hamstrung by approaches from the world that don’t know Jesus but which can run an organization.

An organism can become a mere organization if it imports techniques from the world without putting them through “faith check.” Many techniques work for getting something done, but not all techniques work for nurturing the body of Christ.

We need to be trained for life in the Spirit and that means we can’t import everything we learned from the world in which Jesus found us. Some techniques from the world will conform us to themselves more than become a tool for transformation in our hands. Even our yearly mapping process, based, as it is, on a common “business plan” and subject as it can be to “investigative inquiry,” needs to be watched.

Don’t shrink

The only way to avoid these pitfalls, it seems to me, is to not “shrink” but persevere in faith, hope and love. Being inspired by the Spirit is a whole-life work. Perhaps being a twentysomething lends itself to the wildness necessary to be a Jesus-follower. Being a thirtysomething, or more, is naturally dangerous to faith. The organism called the church has the same kind of maturation challenges. Do you think we will succeed in tackling them?

Exile or Pioneer — we don’t really know what you are going to do with this blog post

A life in the Spirit, , , , , , , , , ,

I really have no idea what is going to happen — most of the time, I like it that way. I don’t really know if Circle of Hope can sustain itself, since it runs on conviction and covenant. I don’t know whether the stock market will dive and take us with it, whether aggrieved people will unite and upend the social order, whether my friends will move away, or whether my pipes will freeze in the endless winter. Most of the time, all that uncertainty seems like a good excuse to have faith. It is a great grace that living by faith is more fulfilling than knowing whether I should have bought salt for the ice before it was all sold out.

The curse of certainty

mr. batesBut people have a lot of guilt and anxiety about not knowing. They are ashamed they made what look like mistakes and they did not know what was going to happen before it happened. Mr. Bates may do something terrible because of his guilt and shame about not knowing what was happening to Mrs. Bates!

The other day I was at a baby shower and people were quite satisfied that they did not have to buy yellow baby clothes because they knew the baby’s gender already — I am sure science developed in utero photography to ease the anxiety about how to decorate the nursery!  Maybe you laugh, but people are still angry that the government did not predict and prevent 9/11!  Many people defend the government’s right to collect our phone records because they think every measure must be taken so “nothing like that ever happens to anyone ever again!” — we even see our personal experiences as contributions to anxiety relief, guilt reduction and the hope of controlling the future. Don’t we insist that the future must be “better” than the past? And aren’t we taught that good people band together to make sure it will be?

what ifLast night a JIF peanut butter commercial tagged on to the coverage of Olympics was teaching children to imagine their perfect future.  The scripture lesson was:

What if I skated so fast the world stopped for a minute?
What if I had a sled and all my friends got in it?
What if I took a shot and scored the winning goal?
What if I cut through the winter air and didn’t feel the cold?
What if I could fly and soar like I had wings?
What if I stood up on the winners stand and heard my country sing?
Nourish every dream with the fresh roasted peanut taste of JIF.

I heard that and laughed out loud! What if I spend every waking moment becoming an elite athlete? Wouldn’t the moment of my achievement last me my whole life through? Wouldn’t I be happy and justify my existence? Wouldn’t my parents be alleviated of all the shame I normally bring them? Wouldn’t I have made all the right choices and achieved a mistake-free performance? Ugh. Our dreams of our splendid future, based on the fullness our personal splendor is not the same as having faith, JIF commercials notwithstanding.

Crazy audacity

I became a Christian for many reasons, but a main one was certainly because I was surrounded by people who had the breathtaking audacity to think they were smart enough to organize, even legislate my future. As they were organizing according to how they saw the past, I experienced the grace of looking over their shoulders and seeing God in my future through Jesus, the presence of the future.

I received the blessing (or curse, depending on how you look at it) of being a history student and watching people in the past repeatedly learning from their mistakes and repeatedly thinking that their brilliant conclusions meant they had a lock on the future. The people who killed Jesus were sure they were doing it for the benefit of future generations!

That arrogance is alive and well among the least of us — even among the odd people who lead Circle of Hope. We want to have a successful cell and end up reproducing what was, what was successful and familiar, not what is next. We stay on the treadmill of history applying the same crazy audacity, always thinking we will be the generation that gets it right.

Alternative, basic Bible teaching

We are strangers and aliens in the world. Jesus is the pioneer.

Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul. 1 Peter 2:11

“Foreigners and exiles” is also translated: strangers and pilgrims, aliens and exiles, wayfarers and foreigners,  strangers and sojourners

Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith  Hebrews 12:2

“Pioneer and Perfecter” is also translated: founder and perfecter, author and finisher, source and perfecter, source and goal, leader and completer.

Jesus is at home in every culture and every era, yet a product of none of them. His grace makes us better and we contribute goodness to the world that makes it better, but we don’t base our security on whether we did that so right that wrong won’t turn around and bite us ever again. Our audacity is knowing that we matter very much, whether we prove it by getting everything right and having our retirement feel secure or not.

Know all you can, predict all you can, but trust all you must. Study to succeed, master the ways of everything, but rely on Jesus. Learn from the past, strive to be excellent, but understand that Jesus is going ahead of you and only God knows your future. Make your greatest achievement be mastering your exile.

Our great grace includes the promise that the hope of the faithful will not be disappointed. In that hope we have a lot of room to be joyful failures, to be people who can see the wonder in the rubble, to be pioneers who never tire of seeing the sun come up over the next horizon on the journey.

Jesus — and five basic assumptions that inform dialogue on sexuality

Doing Theology, Psychological growth, , , , ,

The other day a distant acquaintance accused our church of not talking about sex enough  (in the neighborhood gossip column, at least). It was right after we enjoyed an open forum about our theology of sexuality attended by over 100 people! It never ceases to surprise me that the more one does something, the more excuse it gives a few people to criticize you for not doing it!

If anything, Circle of Hope has been a good place to work through the trauma of our over-sexualized society. As our forum uncovered, a lot of people have had painful sexual experiences, and not just because the powers that be limit their sexual expression (since they don’t really do that anymore). Sex is painful because they are confused. And it is painful because they get run over by the wave of immorality that is surging through the culture. (Maybe using the word immorality even made you uneasy, since who could say what that is?). It is painful because sex has become an incessant demand and a constant source of scientific study. And it is painful because a lot of people can’t figure out what Jesus says about it.

He wept over it
Enrique Simonet, 1892

Listening to people lately has helped me collect a few of the assumptions I often share when people want some spiritual direction about what to do with what they feel and how they are acting. When you only have your own impulses and a lot of societal pressure to work with, things can get confusing – and painful. So here are five things about Jesus that I think should inform how we have a dialogue about sexual behavior (among other things, of course). These five things will not solve everyone’s problems, and I’m not speaking from a place that has been processed by the leaders of the church, but I hope to name some basic things that guide life in Jesus and that apply to how we continue the dialogue about sexuality.

1) Jesus was not organized by sex.

We tend to be. I am often loathe to say it when I am listening to someone struggling with how they are going to have sex, but it has to be part of the process: I don’t think Jesus cares that much whether we have sex at all. He obviously thinks there are more important things in life. Paul’s logic leans toward seeing sex as a distraction to joy; it certainly is not the source of all joy. Some people take that fact to be a prescription. I just see it as a reality that should inform my reality.

2) Jesus did not exercise his rights, much the contrary.

We are tempted to think gaining and asserting our rights is a solution for most things. In this era, feeling justified about where one falls on the spectrum of sexual orientation, or justified about indentifying as, for instance, queer or pansexual is something of a crisis for a lot of people. But human rights are not a basis for salvation. God did not exercise God’s rights, quite pointedly, when submitting to being a human and then a slave to humans. Paul boasts of giving up his rights so he can have the experience of being free from them and having a larger purpose. Rights are important within oppressive contexts, which are most contexts. But having freedom in Christ is more important than having it granted by the powers that don’t follow Jesus.

3) Jesus’ resurrection proved that he was, surprisingly, on the right side of history.

We are tempted to suspect that Jesus might be old-fashioned. But being on the right side of human history is not a Christian concern. If there is anything we have always been on, it’s the wrong side of history – at least a view of history based on humankind’s capacity to get it all right in the end. We’re participants with everyone else, but our view is based on God’s capacity to bring it all to right in the end. Jesus showed up the foolishness of human understanding concerning how one’s personal history works out by rising from the dead. Paul clearly teaches that we are already living in the first days of our eternity. Our participation in history will not define us, but God’s participation in it already has. The world may be evolving in a certain direction without God, but we are moving in another with Jesus.

4) Jesus is an outcast; he is not just kind to outcasts.

We tend to think love is being nice to people others are not nice to, since that is certainly part of it. But people who see the world from a position of power often feel that their best love is shown by their kindness to outcasts. They want to include people in the empire where everyone has a bit of the police and rescue squad embedded in their character. Their empire will save the world (like the U.S. did in Iraq). Having that outlook makes it difficult to follow Jesus — because Jesus is not just kind to outcasts, he actually is one. We are enjoined by Paul and the writer of Hebrews to embrace being the “scum of the earth” so we can embrace our dependence on God, not rely on our own power or the power the godless domination system deigns to give us. This condition does not mean we are not kind to outcasts but it does change what we think kindness is: more solidarity than inclusion.

5) Jesus offered an open, positive approach and got killed.

We tend to save ourselves with avoidance. Even so, I think we, and many other believers, have overcome that and have been practicing an open, positive approach to the dialogue on sexuality (and sexual morality). That openness may not be noticed or even welcomed by someone bent on making us look bad. But take heart, a quick scan of the gospels will show Jesus offering the bread of life and people accusing him of being demon possessed and of trying to overthrow the government. Paul and John appear to feel they are getting treated the same way. If you are doing the best you can to not let truth kill or love lie, it still may not be enough to satisfy some people. I think we should suffer not being enough, not write unsatisfied people off, and keep serving. Our imperfection is no surprise. If we have trouble dealing with each other that seems normal — it can’t be easy for Jesus to deal with me, either. Besides, none of us knows everything we think we know, so someone’s dissatisfaction with us may have something to teach us.

Summing up big thoughts in little paragraphs is never enough. Each of the five things above probably deserves the question, “But what about…?” I am just going for underlying assumptions, not trying to figure out all their applications. But we need starting points for making decisions. In all the dialogue about sexuality and morality, there are a lot of “”But what abouts…?” to work though. I pray that we continue to be a safe place in Christ to explore them.

More dialogue:

The both/and of our ongoing dialogue of love

Dialogue, Rights and Why It Is Hard to Build a Safe Place (1999)

The difference between acceptance and agreement

New birth through conflict

I still want to talk

The both/and of our ongoing dialogue of love

Building community, Leadership, , ,

Someone is always sinning; someone is always doing something you did not like; someone is always failing. How do we respond to that?

Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted.  Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.  If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves.  Each one should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else,  for each one should carry their own load (Galatians 6:1-5).

We use this section of Galatians so often, it has become the “both/and” proverb. It answers the questions that come up whenever there is a dialogue about something that is wrong in the body: Do we have to put up with every bad thing someone is doing until they get better, or do we need to put a stop to their nonsense before everyone gets hurt? Do we accept people where they are at, or do we demand that they live up to the gospel? The answer is “both/and.”

Can one be too empathetic?

baby in basketSome people are so empathetic that they defend the sinner even before they have repented! They understand the person’s problems so well and care about them so much that they are offended if anyone points out what they did wrong. Even more, sensitive people know that everyone is afraid of being criticized, so they don’t want more trouble being thrown on already-overburdened people who are just trying to have a life, for once. The “sinner” might just quit doing anything if they are asked to improve right after they just got brave enough to appear in public. So even if someone tries to “restore that person gently” the empathetic are afraid they could be mortally wounded in the process.

For instance, some people have been talking about the Audio Arts Team’s latest gift to the church. It is a brave thing to put out a piece of art that can’t be edited any more. But they did it and a lot of people love it. But like everything and everyone else, there are some “sins” lurking in that CD. If someone has a reaction to it that seems critical, someone else may automatically feel wounded and jump to the defense of the victimized artists. Rather than doing that, you’d think we would just instinctively “carry each other’s burdens,” since we’re all flawed — and if we caused trouble by being creative, bold and artful, then we’d really need help! Instead, some people try to solve the problem by insisting that there are no problems! — and they imply that people who love people don’t make people feel bad by saying they have a problem.

Can one be too careful?

man and bearOn the other hand, some people think that empathy has gone too far and everyone needs to carry their own load and bear responsibility for what they say and do. They assume people are more likely to take advantage of loose situations rather than repent or even listen to reason. So they are not expecting good will to rise up if people are left alone.  As a result, they are often rather offended by the latest dumb thing someone did that went unquestioned or even got defended. They become very reactive because they can’t get their shell hard enough to repel the sin that keeps getting poured on them. If they say something about it, they are instantly seen as a mean person. So they walk around feeling unaccepted. No one seems to be held liable for carrying their own load, so the responsible people feel even more burdened!

For instance, the pastors and other speakers and the PM Design Teams are often the recipients of this group’s scrutiny, since they have a tendency to do something wrong every week. Compared to what should happen, something is always not happening. If one is intelligent, the problem with what gets done wrong (or not at all) just gets worse. It seems like every flaw could have been prevented and nothing ever gets better! One would think we would all “carry our own load,” especially if we accepted a role that is very influential in the church.  Instead, leaders, especially, make people have a fight with us about what we are doing or neglecting. Who wants to do that?

Polarized dialogue is an oxymoron

In the postmodern atmosphere these poles are often dividing up a dialogue. There is usually a group at one extreme that wants us all to bear one another’s burdens. If there is insensitivity, that is the main sin — Love means you never have to say you are sorry. Then there is another whole group at the other extreme that wants each person to bear their own load. If there is irresponsibility, that is the main sin — Love means everyone has to say they are sorry. In the adversarial way our culture has designed everything to work, those two positions could be vying to make policy until Jesus returns. It could be the survival of the loudest; MSNBC vs. Fox forever.

We keep thinking that Paul assumes an obvious both/and in the matter of loving sinners like Jesus loves each of us. In the course of a few lines he wrote: “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ…for each one should carry their own load.” We all bear one another’s burdens and each of us carries our own load at the same time.

  • In the name of sensitivity, one would not erase someone’s sin — because they are carrying that burden and need to be restored!
  • At the same time, in the name of responsibility one would not be insensitive and make it harder to repent — because we are in this together.

If someone is restored, we are all healthier. For restoration to proceed, both elements: carrying another’s burden and carrying one’s own load, need to be in every dialogue of love. Both elements need to be expressed by a heart filled with the law of love. The body of Christ is not supposed to work like a therapy room or a courtroom; we are the place where Jesus lives. There must be acceptance and judgment at the same time, but mostly there must be the Holy Spirit restoring humanity.

Wonder. We manifest the Spirit.

Building community, , , , , ,

The first thing that happened to me yesterday in my experience of the body of Christ was sitting around a table with a devoted team having a phone interview with a great guy who wants to be in Shalom House. It was a wonder.

We made a connection around one of our favorite parts of the Bible: Acts 2. His faith got me going! Look at just a couple of lines of the famous account of Pentecost and we’ll get started.

Dali Pentecost wonder
Dali Pentecost

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place….All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

A new community

Christians, in general, put so much emphasis on personal experiences of God that we often miss the fact that the Holy Spirit’s basic work is to form a new community, an alternative culture, a new creation, God’s family business. We are all together and God makes something new happen; that’s how it works.

After the crucifixion and resurrection, the remaining followers of Jesus, the ones who had not scattered never to return, the ones who were not too afraid of the Roman and Jewish opponents to stick with it, were all together waiting for what Jesus had promised. They were praying and hoping for something new. Even though their own families thought they were nuts, they banded together in expectation and faith. The Holy Spirit came upon all of them, as a group, and they all demonstrated the fire.

That’s the blueprint for our church. I know some people are not fired up and are not demonstrating, but that’s all we’ve got. I know some people perpetually live in the house and don’t pay rent, some keep consuming bits of religion instead of owning the store, but they don’t wreck the heart of us. We’re all together, we are filled with the Spirit, our tongues and lives are loosened to demonstrate Jesus or we’re a joke. And we are no joke.

How the Spirit forms the body of Christ

In First Corinthians (well, maybe THAT’S the favorite part of the Bible) the Apostle Paul gives some pretty exhaustive teaching about how the Holy Spirit forms the body of Christ. It all starts with people who are not among the wise in the ways of the world revealing the Spirit’s power, not like slick marketers, but like clay vessels carrying glory. The leaven of the Spirit makes us a particular kind of dough; we are culture where

  • people are sacred not sex objects
  • relationships are spiritually discerned, not just adjudicated by laws
  • real freedom is worked out even while the free are compassionate towards those who can’t handle the radicality
  • people gain strength to discipline themselves for completing the Lord’s mission
  • everyone’s individual gifts are honored as part of the new community, an organism that lives out truth and love
  • we are the resurrected body of Jesus

The Holy Spirit keeps creating a spectacle of grace. I think sometimes when we do our public ceremonies, like sharing in communion or lighting the fifty candles on Pentecost Sunday, we often avert our eyes and let people have a private moment as they eat and drink or light their candle. It is very intimate, and it almost seems embarrassing to have it out there in public. Some people won’t even do it because it makes them afraid to be so noticed. But we should not avert our eyes. We should watch people and pray for them and be one with them as they are doing their acts that symbolize their oneness with us as the body of Christ. We often keep a lot of space to protect people’s autonomy, but I think we should touch each other like we have all been touched by the one Holy Spirit. We are living beyond ourselves. Just like Paul writes to the Corinthian church:

 

No one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit. There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.  Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.

The common good

The Spirit of God fills each of us, but it is for the common good. The Spirit works in each of us, but God is doing His work in the world. One of the best demonstrations of the Spirit we can make to the world is by sticking together: we exist, we share, we love, we are self-consciously the body, we don’t go to Circle we are a Circle of Hope in Jesus Christ. From that base we conduct the family business; the world is like our family farm and we are all important to the harvest.

Our kind of service means that we did not withdraw into a small group and preserve our holiness. We put out a sign on major streets and let people know we’re open for business. We made major financial commitments to buildings, staff, stores, and mission teams. We created maps, plans, disciplines and schedules to keep us pointed in the right direction and relevant to the next person, for whom we exist to touch and incorporate into the body of Christ. A few of us just hang out in what we have built by the fire of the Spirit at work in us. But most of us are manifesting the Spirit for the common good.

The last thing that happened to me in my experience of the body of Christ yesterday was being in a group of men who were asked to share how God was moving them to live as people who claim Jesus as Lord — and they did it. It was a wonder.

Lessons from St. Lucia: L-I-V-E-E-T-E-R-N-A-L-L-Y

Doing Theology, Music, , , , , ,

pitons

One of the best things about taking a trip to a foreign place is experiencing being foreign. When I am away from what usually props up my normality and I don’t have easy access to my usual avoidance mechanisms, it is just me, God and whoever we meet. It makes for a great time to see what is really going on with us.

At the plantation

This time we were in St. Lucia, where it is between 78 and 86 degrees all year round (which sure beats the 6 degrees Philly was experiencing while I was gone!). It is a weird place for other reasons as well, mostly social ones. For instance, while we were touring one of the original plantation houses from the 1700s, it dawned on me that we who were on the tour were a lot like the plantation owners, still — buying up services, experiences and time with our European-descended money, while the tour operators were a lot like the former plantation slaves, still — serving up whatever might suit our fancy while receiving very little for it, stooping to ask us for monetary “appreciation” on our way out. Hmmm.

My trip continues to give me a lot to think about. Being an American (and one who has plenty of money) comes with a big responsibility to God and others. Plus, it is important to ponder what it is like to not have plenty, since like Jesus is quoted saying in Luke 6:20,

Looking at his disciples, he said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.”

Is he talking to me? (or to you?). Matthew quotes it as “poor in spirit,” but I think Luke knew what He was talking about, too. Being poor makes it easier to be blessed. When you are poor, you need to rely on someone outside yourself. I quickly figured out that it makes the St. Lucians a bit resentful to rely on giant cruise ships dumping 5000 rich people onto their shores for their livelihoods. But relying on God is bigger than relying on Americans or the Europeans. Being rich does not save you. Being poor doesn’t either — but it can supply motivation.

In the treetops

banana catsupWhere this thinking came into even greater focus was when I met Lee Ann. She’s the gift shop operator at Treetop Adventure Park outside Dennery, where she tried to induce me to buy banana ketchup. She also works as a harness adjuster for the zip lines. That’s where I first met her, in a tree top, where she was softly singing to herself. I asked her what she was singing, maybe I would like to sing along.

She asked, “Do you sing?” I admitted I did.

She asked me to sing a few bars. So I, for some reason, burst into “Victory Is Mine” and started clapping my hands and such. I am not sure if Gwen was embarrassed at this point or not. Embarrassment kind of comes with the territory when travelling with me.

She said, “Oh, so you know gospel?” I admitted that I knew a little.

She started thinking through her selections of Christian music. (Was it “anything to satisfy the customer” or was it just for fun?) She came up with, I am a C. And we started singing together.

You may have never heard this tune. It comes from American Sunday school, where people get little kids to proudly bear their connection to Jesus. Lee Ann must have gone to a VBS, at least.

We only had a minute, since Gwen had already taken off on her zip. We could not get though the whole song: “I am a C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N. And I have C-H-R-I-S-T in my H-E-A-R-T.” But that is as far as we could go, although I knew there was a hard part that we had yet to spell and sing. Lee Ann could not remember it either.

That’a the ironic part. She forgot the part she needed to remember the most, I think, being a poor ketchup salesperson. And I forgot the part that Americans are most likely to forget these days, being rich, self-reliant, banana-republic consumers. I later remembered that the full gospel song of assurance ends with, “And I will L-I-V-E-E-T-E-R-N-A-L-L-Y.”

The end of trickle-down theology

People with Empire-trickle-down theology forget that it is in the age to come that the promises to us in Jesus are fulfilled. We won’t get eternal life by becoming robots. And we won’t get it by forcing real people to act like robots for our pleasure. Only Jesus offers eternal life. Only Jesus has demonstrated how it comes about by rising from the dead.

People who live off the disposable income of those who benefit from the Empire have a clearer choice to make. They need actual Christianity that focuses on eternity, just like Jesus promises:

My Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day (John 6:40).

For some people, great need drives them to find hope for life now and forever in Jesus. I met such potentially-blessed people in a place where the former slaves are still servicing the needs of the 1% from around the world, the rich who can afford to float in on giant, resource-sucking cruise ships.

I think I needed a little wake-up call occasioned by my lapse of memory. I don’t think I forgot a line of a children’s song purely because I have senior moments, now. I think I get duped, too, by living in an environment in which people act like they are gods and expect life to be served up to them on a silver platter all day. We are way too invested in making the most of our limited live spans. Many of my friends are not desperate for Jesus to save them at all, they are more likely to allow Him to serve them if He doesn’t ask for appreciation too often.

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Someone is always looking for the star: Seeking with the Magi

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Someone is always looking for the star. They want light from God. They are looking for salvation from the darkness they feel and the darkness pressing in on them. These seekers are always odd, since most people are just calling darkness light and having a fight if you contradict them. But quite often these odd people have stories written about them, because they find the places the star leads them.

The story of the wise men is a story about odd, light-seeking people. The prophecy of the star at the birth of Jesus is found in Numbers 24:17. The magi who were looking for Jesus knew about this prophecy. In their Persian libraries they maintained the Jewish scriptures and had access to the works of the great Jewish wise man, Daniel, who had reached the higher echelon of the profession in Babylon. So the wise men looked for the new born King of Israel because they read it in the scriptures and acted on what they read.

The magi saw the signs

I want to be like one of the magi. I want to be good at seeing the signs. I want to keep looking for the places where Jesus is being born. Since they already had all the writings, I suppose the wise men could have enjoyed sitting in Babylon or somewhere in Persia reading about the interesting things that might happen in places they’d never go while  eating pomegranates after work — I could be eating M&Ms and watching the Eagles. Instead, they wanted to be on site. They wanted to see God born. If I walk around Philadelphia with their attitude, there is a good chance I will see where the light is resting too.

The Greek word for the wise men is μαγοι, (magi). It is from this word that we get our word magician. At that time Matthew was writing about the wise men who saw “his star” rise “in the east,” the boundary between those who attempted to sway the spirits and those who performed what we might call science was blurred.  For instance, early chemists were often alchemists, people trying to change one substance into another (usually into gold) by all sorts of methods, including incantations, but also including methods that we would recognize today as experimental chemistry. Similarly, these magicians from Persia who came to find Jesus could probably be referred to as scientists in a broader sort of way. People say there were three magi, but there could have been two or twenty-five. There were three gifts mentioned in the account in Matthew, however.

The star mentioned in Numbers 24 was prophesied by an unusual character, called Balaam. Balaam seems to have been a sort of traveling soothsayer, and could be considered a distant professional relative of the magi who came to Jesus’ house. He was based at Pethor, which is not only near the River Euphrates, but is also close to Babylon. Back in the day, Balaam was contracted by the King of Moab, Balak, to curse the Israelites. The Israelites were moving through Moabite territory on their long journey to the Promised Land and the king wanted them to keep moving. The Israelites were not going to settle in Moab, so the Moabites had the opportunity, as had the Edomites and Amorites before them, to show hospitality and enable them to go on their way. But, like the others, the Moabites displeased God, only they did it by hiring Balaam. The account of what happened to Balaam — how he was commissioned, how he was warned about his behavior by God, how God rebuked him by making his donkey talk, and how every attempt he made to curse the Israelites simply led to them being blessed — can be found in Numbers 22 through 24. In one of Balaam’s attempts to curse the Israelites, he ended up speaking the prophecy the wise men learned:

I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not nigh: there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth. (Numbers 24:17 KJV)

In one sense, the prophecy applies to Israel itself, particularly with reference to David’s conquest of the Moabites. But the concept of the scepter, a symbol of kingship, refers not only to David, but to David’s greater son, and refers back to Genesis:

The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh comes; And to Him shall be the obedience of the people. (Genesis 49:10 KJV)

This passage from Genesis refers to the coming Messiah, to be descended from Judah. By inference, we can say that Numbers 24:17 also refers to the coming Messiah. The wise men seeking the newborn king probably knew about Balaam’s oracle. Maybe Daniel himself made the connection for them, since he also prophesied about the Messiah (Daniel 9:25-26).

The magi applied their wisdom

More than how they arrived at their conclusions, I am impressed by how the magi applied their wisdom. They not only knew that the star and their studies meant something, they knew what to do. Then they did it. They took off for the place the light led. In a very real sense, they went to attend to the birth. That’s the kind of knowledge I want. The world does not need more people eager to fight for their thinking to be ascendant. But the world does need more people who are eager to see what God is doing and cooperate with what is being created. The wise men did not know if they could prove their point. But the proof they already had pointed them in the right direction. They had the courage to take their provisional knowledge on the road and to let their wisdom be subject to change. Such knowledge requires trust in God, but they went with it.

I want to be like the magi. I want to attend the births. I want to be in the places the light is breaking in and breaking out. I want to follow the Savior even if that sometimes means I don’t know exactly where I am going.

People need to be saved; everything I learn keeps pointing to that reality. They are being enslaved and trained by godless powers or by powers taking the place of God. But they are seeking and I can cooperate with what is being born in them. What shall we do?

1) Believe that the Savior will be born. That begins with believing Jesus, God-with-us, was born, of course. But there are many poor places in Philly right now where Jesus is being born, just like John says. John’s nativity story skips the history and goes straight for the wisdom: Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—  children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God (John 1:12-13).

2) Go find out where the Savior is being born. So often we try to create a birth moment, or we think we are sent to impregnate every moment. We call that being missional, as if we were the actual incarnation, not just carrying the Spirit of God with us. We are important, but we can get a bit grandiose. The wise men were more likely to have been raggedy, unaccepted-by-the-establishment types, certainly not like three medieval European kings, searching back alleys and stables for something the powers were trying to kill. Rather than assuming we are supposed to find time in our busy schedules to keep the world filled with light, I think it is a better ambition to go find where the birth happening and be wise enough to assist with the birth.

3) Give your treasure for what is prospectively going to happen. Again, so often we are saving our treasure to apply the grand strategy we feel responsible to actualize. We hoard our stuff as if we know what’s coming. Or at least we hoard our stuff because we are afraid we know what is coming. The wise men had some valuable stuff to invest in a baby. Joseph probably used it for the family’s escape to Egypt. No money invested in God’s dream is wasted. Nothing you give to assist in the birth of Jesus goes unused. Either your heart gets better or the light gets brighter. Either your own chains get loosened or someone else stays out of spiritual or physical jail. Someone is always looking for the star. Help them.

Wendell Berry: identity, autonomy, privacy, competition

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We had a winter wedding and draped the sterile “sanctuary” in ivy filched from front lawns all over town and made into garlands by loving friends. We thus began our somewhat-ignorant stumble into fidelity. On the occasion of our anniversary this week, my very-deep wife found an essay by Wendell Berry that eloquently summarizes much of what we instinctively discovered and practiced. What she focused on was Berry’s piece of wisdom that we have found to be true:

“No matter how much one may love the world as a whole, one can live fully in it only by living responsibly in some small part of it.” We have practiced that in marriage, family, church and city.

The essay she quoted was written in 1977 as part of his book: The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture. Berry wrote his prophetic book as the American Empire flowered and turned to fruit, and as the society began to democratize and monetize everything. If you are a Christian who longs to be a humble creature, you might like to read it all: [link].

For today I offer you two long quotes from it that seem to go together to me. Berry makes important points about topics we have been exploring for a few years as a Circle of Hope. He is writing at a time when the adoption of the concept of “identity” and other new definitions are beginning to bud. By our time we have eaten the pie.

“The so-called identity crisis, for instance, is a disease that seems to have become prevalent after the disconnection of body and soul and the other piecemealings of the modern period. One’s “identity” is apparently the immaterial part of one’s being–also known as psyche, soul, spirit, self, mind, etc. The dividing of this principle from the body and from any particular worldly locality would seem reason enough for a crisis. Treatment, it might be thought, would logically consist in the restoration of these connections: the lost identity would find itself by recognizing physical landmarks, by connecting itself responsibly to practical circumstances; it would learn to stay put in the body to which it belongs and in the place to which preference or history or accident has brought it; it would, in short, find itself in finding its work. But “finding yourself,” the pseudo-ritual by which the identity crisis is supposed to be resolved, makes use of no such immediate references. Leaving aside the obvious, and ancient, realities of doubt and self-doubt, as well as the authentic madness that is often the result of cultural disintegration, it seems likely that the identity crisis has become a sort of social myth, a genre of self-indulgence. It can be an excuse for irresponsibility or a fashionable mode of self-dramatization. It is the easiest form of self-flattery–a way to construe procrastination as a virtue–based on the romantic assumption that “who I really am” is better in some fundamental way than the available evidence proves.

The fashionable cure for this condition, if I understand the lore of it correctly has nothing to do with the assumption of responsibilities or the renewal of connections. The cure is “autonomy,” another mythical condition, suggesting that the self can be self-determining and independent without regard for any determining circumstance or any of the obvious dependences. This seems little more than a jargon term for indifference to the opinions and feelings of other people. There is, in practice, no such thing as autonomy. Practically, there is only a distinction between responsible and irresponsible dependence. Inevitably failing this impossible standard of autonomy, the modern self-seeker becomes a tourist of cures, submitting his quest to the guidance of one guru after another. The “cure” thus preserves the disease….”

Wendell Berry

Berry goes on to apply his thoughts on identity and autonomy to marriage. He has a lot to say to us in a time when single parenthood or parenthood by less-committed cohabitors is common:

“…Failing, as they cannot help but fail, to be each other’s all, the husband and wife become each other’s only. The sacrament of sexual union, which in the time of the household was a communion of workmates, and afterward tried to be a lovers’ paradise, has now become a kind of marketplace in which husband and wife represent each other as sexual property. Competitiveness and jealousy, imperfectly sweetened and disguised by the illusions of courtship, now become governing principles, and they work to isolate the couple inside their marriage. Marriage becomes a capsule of sexual fate. The man must look on other men, and the woman on other women, as threats. This seems to have become particularly damaging to women; because of the progressive degeneration and isolation of their “role,” their worldly stock in trade has increasingly had to be “their” men. In the isolation of the resulting sexual “privacy,” the disintegration of the community begins. The energy that is the most convivial and unifying loses its communal forms and becomes divisive. This dispersal was nowhere more poignantly exemplified than in the replacement of the old ring dances, in which all couples danced together, by the so-called ballroom dancing, in which each couple dances alone. A significant part of the etiquette of ballroom dancing is, or was, that the exchange of partners was accomplished by a “trade.” It is no accident that this capitalization of love and marriage was followed by a divorce epidemic–and by fashions of dancing in which each one of the dancers moves alone.”

Identity, autonomy, privacy, and competition have come to “encapsulate” most of the people we know. They are concepts that form new sanctuaries and they can’t be disguised by draping the ivy chains of our Christianity over them.

May you have some time this Advent, away from the monetization of our holy-days, to do a ring dance, to spend some time in the wilderness rediscovering how you are a much-loved creature, and to celebrate your responsible dependence

  • on God (who gives you yourself and gives himself to you in Jesus),
  • on your spouse (if you are given one) and
  • on your community (which you have been given).

We are the sanctuary in which God’s Spirit dwells. During Advent, as we remember how God comes in to our creatureliness in Jesus, it is a good time to remember how that same Spirit makes us God’s dwelling place as a people in our own time and place. This is also a good verse for a Christmas card: “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.  Do not deceive yourselves. If you think that you are wise in this age, you should become fools so that you may become wise.  For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God” (1 Corinthians 3:16-18).

The Difference between Acceptance and Agreement

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What I want is what I have always wanted: to live in a community of trusted partners and to act for redemption in every way we can think to act.

  • I hope we can be Bible-lovers — like many so-called “conservatives,”
  • I hope we can be welcoming and justice-seeking — like many so-called “liberals.”

I hope we will never stop calling people to follow Jesus as their Lord and to discern the movement of the Spirit for their direction. And I hope we will never stop trying to create an environment in which people can come to Christ in different ways, at different paces and according to their ability. I want Circle of Hope to be a safe place to explore and express God’s grace where truth does not kill and love does not lie.

Orientation is a starting point not our end point

I think that spirit makes Circle of Hope welcoming, not just to people naming various sexual identities, but also to people of various political convictions and spiritual backgrounds. We don’t believe that people need to change their ordinary orientation, sexual or otherwise, in order to follow Jesus. Instead, we invite everyone to change their spiritual orientation toward God and their fellow human beings. When people adopt that orientation, they submit their humanness, in all its wonder and flaws, to God as revealed in the way of Jesus. That reorientation makes all the difference.

The New Testament repeatedly says, we are all wonderful image-bearers of God as far as the Lord is concerned because of Jesus, no matter how the world defines each of us. We can rest assured that God knows, as well as we do, that we bear that image in imperfect, broken, and often hurtful ways. But our ongoing relationship with Jesus as Lord and our movement toward expressing our true selves is much more important than our imperfect behavior. Hoping to keep us moving and not stuck in condemnation, I think Circle of Hope has been doing a good job to embrace and challenge people in all the broken and glorious conditions they come to us just like we accept God’s embrace.

Even with that urge to embrace people as they are, it is almost impossible not to compare and contrast one another. But, the truth is, when it comes to “us” and “them,” there is no “them.” There is only “us.” We are all beautiful and precious people valued by God. We are also broken people, to one degree or another, needing the healing of the Holy Spirit and the experience of authentic community to live as Jesus calls us to live. To be human is, among other things, to be in some wonderful and weird way, dysfunctional. We are all broken people, as well as glorious people (Romans 3:23-24).

We need to get to “us” not just define “me”

As a result of our brokenness, we are prone to conflict and usually scared to death of “them.” I encourage Christians who invest too much time in defining their opponents to apply the difference between acceptance and agreement. When we confuse acceptance and agreement we do not love as we should.

In our Cell Plan we note that it’s a common mistake for people to assume that they should not accept someone fully until they have repented and changed. Some Christians think that a person is not evangelized until they behave properly! Some believers think they are condoning sin if they disagree with someone’s choices  but, at the same time, respect, honor, and accept them — even though the Bible calls us to be that generous! (see Titus 3:1-2; 1 Peter 3:15-16). If we applied acceptance and agreement as two different concepts, we might stop withholding acceptance as a form of disagreement and learn to better love those outside our boundaries of agreement.

Christ-followers ought to declare their love through their actions. Many Christians have the well-earned reputation of putting a lot of energy into their messages of disapproval — that’s their main activity! But disapproval is not the Lord’s main activity or His message! I hope people get the impression among Circle of Hope that, “We love you just like Jesus does.” For instance, we have been talking a lot about the protection of sexual minorities this week. I think it is an “of course” that people oriented toward Jesus and toward serving others would be among the first to look out for the human rights of any oppressed group, always showing them the utmost respect as image-bearers of God. The first time I ever got in “trouble” for moderating the Dialogue List was when I confronted a person who was sounding “anti-gay.” He was honing a message of disapproval and he wanted affirmation for it. I respected him, but I had to do my job, as pastor, to keep the community knit together in love, so I confronted him.

We want to be that unique Kingdom society within our secular culture that blesses those with whom we do not agree and who may not agree with us. Within that context of active, energetically-demonstrated love, we may then also make our differences clear. If we are loving as radically as we are given to love, this should only make the love we offer all the more meaningful and transformative. I don’t think I, or Circle of Hope, have always loved in transformative ways — but we mostly have! Even so, I am sorry for all the times people felt judgment, not love. People will outgrow us, get sick of us, or never understand us, but I always hope they never leave us because they bounced off our indifference or rejection.

We can’t make others accept before they agree. It takes faith.

I don’t think we are prone to judgment, but people feel judged nonetheless. It might be because they also need to learn the lesson we need to apply: the difference between acceptance and agreement. For instance, how someone sees sexual morality is the strange new litmus test for mutuality these days. Many people have liked us Christians but hated our morality. They have even felt “set up” when we were nice and then we did not agree with them; they felt welcomed to speak their minds and then felt betrayed when they were asked to listen. When it comes to unbelievers, in particular, they probably should restrain themselves from demanding that Jesus-followers sign up for the latest versions of the world’s philosophy, just like they don’t think Christians should tell them how to live. I felt like the church was demanding and a bit uncaring this week, too; so I also know something about how hard it can be to turn around and stay with love when I don’t feel the love coming my way. I still want to invite people into that process of staying with love in honor of Jesus, however.

I hope I am not wrong, but I think people can form mutually respectful friendships without demanding absolute agreement on all issues (most marriages seem to work this way!). There is a difference between acceptance and agreement. If there is acceptance, then any necessary agreement can be formed. Mutually respectful diversity, in the end, provides us with the most opportunity for growing, loving, and learning. What’s more, it allows Jesus to heal our wounds and make us one, just as the Healer and the Father are one, which is much more satisfying than anything the-powers-that-be promise.