Monday, February 23, 2009

Marination

First an update. Mom came down this weekend, so we got to spend some time with her which was nice. We used the opportunity to visit Church of the Highlands in Auburn which was good. Now I sit with a sick little girl. Cari has not felt well and has been running a fever, but beyond that there are no real symptoms. So we're treating her with a little tylenol and lots of fluids and love. Now on to thoughts.

I love to learn. I think I'm addicted to information. We live in an information age, where you can find out anything you want to know by simply going online. Just Google It. That should be their new slogan, but it would probably infringe on Nike copyrights. Anyway, I love to hear messages from people where some sort of new insight is going to be brought. I'm always wanting to learn something new. I'm constantly on the lookout either in a message, a book, or wherever I can find it. But, it raises a question. How much really absorbs and becomes transformative when you encounter so much?

I feel like I get a lot of information that only goes surface deep. We need to find ways to sit with insights and let them penetrate a little deeper. It's kind of like a good steak. You can put the marinade on there, but if it doesn't have time to sit it doesn't really penetrate and fill the entire steak with the flavor. A little marinating makes all the difference, so it is with good insights. If we move on from them too quickly they don't stick with us, flavor our lives, and transform us. Which brings me back to the parable of the Good Samaritan.

I don't know why, but the parable of the Good Samaritan has really been sticking with me, kind of marinating. Rob Bell spoke on it I guess about a year or so ago, and when I shared about this parable recently many of the insights came from him. Then it was a central text at the COH service we went to, and a phrase really began to stick out to me, "when he saw him". The text tells us that the Priest, the Levite, and the Samaritan saw the man. All of them saw him, and yet the Samaritan saw something different, he saw him with different eyes. And it raises the question, "what do you see?" Hurt people hurt people. When someone is hurting, when someone hurts you, when you're cut off in traffic, when someone annoys or offends you, what do you see? Do you see someone who is hurting and needs compassion, or do you simply see a jerk that you want to attack back at?

I think the Priest and Levite saw the threat of becoming unclean or a hindrance that would make them run late in their busy schedule, whereas the Samaritan saw a person who was hurting and in need. I read a while back that when we objectify others it actually makes us less human, less of what God intended when He created us. Likewise, when we see other people as human we become more human, we become more like what God intended when He created us. The eyes you see with makes all the difference. We tend to think that the more information we're exposed to the more clearly we'll see, but it is kind of the dilemma between knowledge and understanding. We can know all sorts of things about God and yet not have an actual relationship with God, not actually love God.

The difference, that moves us from where we are to where we need to be may lie in changing our eyes, and changing our eyes might just lie not in acquiring more knowledge, but in letting the information we have marinate, sink deep into our hearts and transform us from the inside out. Maybe it begins with simple questions like, "what do you see?"

Sunday, February 15, 2009

A Theology of Doing




So, there’s this guy. He’s an expert in the scriptures, and he wants to test Jesus, so he asks, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Now, first there is the issue of the question of whether there’s anything we can actually do to be able to inherit eternal life, but that’s not the real problem with the question here. What this guy is wanting to do is debate theology, but that’s not the way he frames the question. He doesn’t ask what the scriptures teach on inheriting eternal life, he asks what must I do.

Jesus, knows his intent, and as a good rabbi answers his question with a question, “What is written in the Law?” “How do you read it?” Jesus brings the question back to this guy in the form that the guy actually intended to begin with. Jesus doesn’t come back with what do the scriptures say you must do or what do you think you must do, but what is written in the Law, how do you read it? Jesus makes it a theological question.

The guy answers, “Love the Lord your god with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Maybe this was his own take, or maybe he had heard Jesus say this before. Maybe for him this is part of his setup. In whatever case, he knows the right answer, he gets the theology question right.

Jesus responds, “You have answered correctly,” “Do this and you will live.” Did you notice that, Jesus then brings the conversation back around from the theoretical to the practical, from what do you think, to what must I do, which was the original question by this guy to begin with.

Now, one of two things could be going on here. Or, I actually think both are taking place. It could be that he’s got Jesus right where he wants him; here comes the test. But, I think more is actually going on. This guy has the right answers. He’s an expert in the scriptures, he’s studied them for years. And yet, despite his study and vast knowledge something is missing. It’s an itch he can’t scratch. He knows there must be more that what he has, but he has the right answers. Here he could ask a number of questions, for example, he could ask, what is love, what does it mean to love. But, he doesn’t instead he asks the question, “who is my neighbor?”

Now, there were two major popular schools of thought during this time based on two different rabbi’s Hillel and Shammai. Shammai was known to be more strict. Born from wealth he believed in literal interpretation of scripture, a conservative fundamentalist type. Hillel on the other hand was raised poor, and known for a more liberal approach, trying to get at the spirit of the law rather than the letter of the law, as well as a more compassionate demeanor. Interestingly in most every debate we see Jesus in he sides with Hillel except in the matter of divorce. I bring this up because for the house of Shammai only fellow Jews were to be considered your neighbor. For Hillel, everyone was to be loved with the expection of one group, the Samaritans whom he considered half-breed disgraceful dogs. So, even the compassionate Hillel had a deep hatred for this particular group of people.

So, Jesus begins to tell a story of a man beaten, stripped, and left for dead who is rescued not by Jewish religious leaders, but by one of these deeply hated Samaritans. It’d kind of be like a story where an Al-Kida member plays the hero. You just didn’t do this. Now, if this guy has been beaten and stripped, you can’t tell who he is, what group he belongs to. So then a pastor, a priest, and a rabbi walk by. Sorry, a Priest walks by “on the other side”. On the other side of the road to Jericho? That’s like saying he walked by on the other side of a two foot wide alley. I mean to walk by this guy he probably had to step over him. It’s the same with the Levite. These guys are probably busy. They may be on their way to the temple for worship. They can’t touch blood or else they’re unclean. They may be in a rush. It makes sense that they wouldn’t stop for this guy. But then a hated Samaritan stops. He doesn’t know who the guy is or his background, and yet he’s overly generous. And it says that he bandaged the wounds and poured on oil and wine. Oil and wine, that’s the stuff that the priest and the Levite would use for Temple worship. Is Jesus making a statement about the true nature of worship here? The Samaritan takes the guy to an inn pays some money and promises to return to pay any additional charge owed. Jesus ends the story with a question, “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

The expert in the law replies, “The one who had mercy on him.” Notice this guy hates Samaritans so much that he can’t even bring himself to say the word, instead it’s, “The one who had mercy on him.” It’s almost as if Jesus is asking the question who is it that you hate so much that you wouldn’t want them to save you, even if your life depended on it? What if it’s in coming to love them that your salvation lies.

Jesus responds, “Go and do likewise.” To which I want to say, that wasn’t the question. The question was, “who is my neighbor.” But, actually the question was, “what must I do to inherit eternal life.” In telling the story Jesus doesn’t directly answer the question preceding it, rather he answers the original question, the real question that was brought to him.

Now, there’s another story where Jesus encounters a hated tax collector. As Jesus is passing through all kinds of people are trying to closer to him. But, in their efforts they effectively shut out this wee little man, forcing him to climb up in a tree (something you don’t commonly see, a grown man climbing trees). First, this begs the question of whether our pursuit of a relationship with God is helping others connect as well, or effectively shutting others out. But, the story continues. Jesus spots the man in the tree, tells him to come down, and has lunch with him. Something happens during this exchange and this wee little man changes. He commits to living a different type of life and Jesus says that “salvation has come to this house.”

So, we have two people. One an expert, knows all the right answers and yet something’s missing. The other knows relatively little in comparison, but is ready to jump into action. It’s easy to study, to learn, to wrestle to find the right answers. It is a much more difficult thing to take the risk to change your life because of your faith. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, maybe the same is true for knowledge and action. And it’s not that our deeds save us, but as James puts it, the deeds are the evidence of our faith. Hebrews 11 beautifully connects the ideas of faith, action, and the crediting of righteousness. Because the point isn’t to know all the answers, because the more you know the more you realize you don’t know. Rather the point is to seek to live out this way of Jesus. Not to debate, but to do, to love.

I have become increasingly convinced that we will become consumed by one of two polarities: either being right, or being a force for good in the world. There are many who work very hard at having all the "right" answers and they are convinced that they are right. Yet, there seems to be little to no doing, there seems to be very little love. As Andy Stanley likes to say, it's not just about information, but application. The people that knew the scriptures the best in Jesus' day were also the ones who brushed shoulders with him never realizing who he was. Jesus at Gethsemane doesn't pray that we'll get all the answers or that we'll have our theology right. And it's not that those things aren't important, we find other scriptures telling us so, but it comes in second, to our doing, to our loving. Which will you focus your dominant energies on, being right, or being a force for good?

It reminds me of a talk I recently heard by Dwight Pryor which was excellent. In it he shared the story about a man to whom God had spoken deep in his heart that he can go no deeper or higher in his relationship with God until he went wider, sharing God's love with more people. I think there is a lot of truth to that.

So, go and do likewise. Go wider and in so doing go deeper and higher. Like Zacchaeus rather than the expert in the Law concentrate your energies on being a force for good in the world rather than being so concerned about being "right". Learn to love the one you hate the most, you never know, your salvation might just depend on it.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Heresy





Well, the update section of the posts are probably going to start getting smaller, which is a good thing. Things have begun to stabilize, so each week is not quite so eventful. Katie is finishing her 8th grade sub job this week. Her 6th period class is kinda tough, but she's really been enjoying 8th grade. Next week she'll being her long term sub for the gifted teacher which will take her almost through the end of the school year. Besides that we took Cari to see the Imagination Movers on Saturday. We had gotten her tickets for Christmas, so the day finally had arrived. It was a long drive, but they did a great show and it was lots of fun. Cari didn't really sing or dance or jump around. She mainly just stood there with her mouth open overwhelmed that they were actually there in front of her as opposed to being on TV. They dropped balloons from the ceiling which she absolutely loved. She caught a blue one, and it took everything we had to pry it away from her long enough to buckle her in. She had a great time.

Now on to heretics. For some the word heretic is a dirty word. I grew up with the idea that if someone was called a heretic by anyone else, you just didn't listen to them. I mean being called a heretic was like a scarlet letter, it was worse than being called a cotton headed ninny muggins (which funny enough all those words must be legit since spell check didn't underline any of them?). But, I'm beginning to wonder if being a heretic is the worst thing in the world. I know it can't be fun carrying the stigma, but I'm no longer sure that if you're deemed a heretic that you're necessarily wrong. For instance, I've been reading in the book of Acts. This book begins with Jesus' assention and the Holy Spirit episode of Pentecost then it leads into the beginnings of the Church and it's spread. Now, one of the central issues becomes how to deal with this faith moving beyond Judaism. Jesus was Jewish. His theology was Jewish. This means his faith system was built upon living out the Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures of Old Testament. The tradition is that God gave Moses these books on Mount Sinai, so these are the words of God teaching us to live in harmony with Him. Now, I could go into a long rant on shmikah, olam habba, tikkun olam, and fulfilling the Torah, but if you want to learn about those it would be easier for you to just go out and get a copy of Rob Bell's book Velvet Elvis (a fantastic book you need to read anyway). So, Jesus is Jewish as are his disciples.

So, when Pentecost happens you have people from various places hearing the disciples speak in the tongue native to the listener. Also, the Church is persecuted and begins to spread out from Jerusalem. By chapter 10 you have Peter, a good little Jewish boy, having his whole understanding of what it means to live right with God blown apart. He begins baptizing people who aren't Jewish because when he told them about Jesus they received the Holy Spirit. Then Paul begins bringing the message to Gentiles as well, and they don't know what to do with it. If they're a part of The Way (what Christianity was called then) does that mean they have to be Jewish. By chapter 15 this is a huge issue. Paul has included these non-Jewish people and now these other Jewish believers are telling them that they now have to have a little procedure, if you know what I mean. Don't worry squirming at this point is quite natural.

So there's this big Church meeting. You may have been a part of one of these once. People on both sides are quite convinced that they are right, and they are arguing to get their point across. Paul, Barnabas, and Peter at this point are heretics. But, they share stories of what God has been doing and somehow manage to convince the meeting that this is something God is up to, and they shouldn't stand in the way of it. So, they send a letter to these people who have been told that a "minor incision" will be necessary. " It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things." (Acts 15:28-29)

Peter and Paul were heretics. So was Jesus. What I love about this letter is that it "seemed" good to the Holy Spirit and to us. They didn't claim something as solid with a lot of arrogance. Rather they spoke in humility about how they saw the situation, and not just how they saw it, but how they thought the Holy Spirit was involved. Often for one reason or another we want to act like we're sure about things whether we are or not, and often we're so busy with our way that we're not even paying attention to what God is up to. So, I find the opening of this letter quite brilliant. And the amazing thing is that in the end they side with the heretics. Now sometime heretics have destructive teaching, sometimes they're wrong and we need to be on our guard. But, sometimes the old party line is wrong as well. Sometimes the old party line is incomplete. And sometimes there are people who aren't being deemed heretics who are bringing destructive and dangerous heretical teaching.

See, we often want to think of faith as a destination rather than a journey. If you believe this, this, and this, then you're in. If you don't believe in line with our doctrines or dogma, then you're out. But, one of the major lessons of scripture is that God is taking us somewhere. God is constantly taking us from darkness to light. The central metaphor for faith and life in the scriptures is journey. And, when we quit moving, when we quit changing then we miss the new thing God is doing. So, just as much as we need to read the heretics with a critical eye we may need to do so just as much with the ones we think are safe. I noticed in a certain bookstore a few months ago that they began putting disclaimers on certain books that you should read them with discernment, as if you didn't need to do so with other books. It is the heretics of today who will bring the common understandings of tomorrow. When it was first proposed that the Earth was not the center of the Universe, it was deemed heresy. People were actually excommunicated from the church for holding to that belief. Now, we know we're not even the center of our own solar system, much less the universe. The scriptures didn't change, but our understandings of them did. Luther was deemed a heretic for challenging the authority construct of his day, and yet he helped give birth to protestantism. Something I have learned over the years is that what we consider traditional or biblical is actually usually newer than we realize, and sometimes the heresy we criticize is something we lost along the way that needs to be picked up, dusted off, and examined again for today and tomorrow. So, if you hear someone deem someone else a heretic, don't be too quick to shun. God may just be doing something among them and their heresy may just be tomorrow's common knowledge.

On a parallel note, Mars Hill in Grand Rapids, MI celebrated it's 10th anniversary Sunday. I have been tracking along with them for several years now. They are an amazing church, and if you are not familiar with them you really should become so. Their webpage is www.marshill.org They are doing great work around the world, and their teachings have continued to challenge and inspire me week after week. They more than anyone else continue to shape what I believe church could and should be. My congrats to the Tribe of Mars Hill. Grace and Peace.

Friday, February 6, 2009

Human Too

Ok, first, for an update. This week Katie has had steady work which is great. She is filling in for a maternity leave all next week, then the following week she's supposed to fill in for a different maternity leave throughout the rest of February, through March, and I think into April. So, while it's substitute pay, so it isn't much, it's going to be steady. So, it will be something. As for me, I'm learning to play as Katie's brother Will calls me, Mr. Mom. So, we're adjusting, but it's really not going too bad. For Christmas we had gotten Cari tickets to see the Imagination Movers, so we go to do that tomorrow, which we're excited about.

Now, on to the thoughts for the day section. As I've been reading various things I've been forming this idea, but it's still really fresh for me, so it's not well packaged and polished. But, I figure this is a blog, not a book, so it should be ok. I just hope there's enough to kind of follow the idea.
I finished rereading a book by Mark Kurlansky called Nonviolence 25 lessons in the history of a dangerous idea. To say it's thought provoking is a massive understatement. It challenges me in a lot of ways, but those are the kind of books that are so much fun to read. In any case, in it there is a quote from Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu from the funeral of Steven Biko. He said, "Pray for the leaaders of this land, for the police - especially the security police and those in prison service - that they may realize that they are human beings too." Now, I know that Jesus said to pray for your enemies. I try to trust that prayer can work wonders in both us doing the praying and the enemies for which we are praying, but what he is asking people to pray for is odd. I mean it seems like he would encourage people to pray that these "enemies" would see that the people they are oppressing are human beings too, something like "pray that they would see that we are human beings too." But, no he says pray that they, "realize that they are human beings too."
Now, I'm also re-reading Rob Bell's book Sex God. Which is quite an odd name for a book in the "Christian" genre (but it makes for a lot of fun to call bookstores and ask about copies, "Do you have a Sex God?"). But, this book is about the connections between our sexuality (much more than simply sex) and its connection with our spirituality. At one point he begins talking about how whenever we treat other people as things or commodities, it doesn't just do something to the person being objectified, but also to the person doing the objectifying.
See, the idea is that the Garden of Eden Creation story shows us how we were created to live, what it looks like to be truly human. Part of that is the connection with each other. When we see the "fall" take place, the two lose their connection, their ashamed of their nakedness, hide, and begin to play the blame game. To be truly human is to see the divine image in those around us and to connect on a deep level because of that. When we objectify and abuse, when we fail to see the divine image in those around us, something happens not just in them, but within us as well. We become less human, less than what we were created for.
But, what if your "enemy" was to begin to, "realize that they are human beings too"? Connecting with the divine image within themselves, "they" would also begin to see it in you. If "they" can become more human, then this is good news for you as well. If "they" can become more of what "they" were created to be, only then can "they" begin to see the divine image within you as well. Now, you may be wondering why all the quotation marks around the word they. One reason is that I'm not sure that an us/them mentality is actually helpful because really in the end there is just us, everyone is we. We all have this divine image no matter how scarred or fractured, we are all human. But, the other reason is that if we have an enemy, then chances are that we in some situations also are a "they". So, suddenly the question becomes flipped. Who is it that I am likely to miss seeing the divine image within? Who is it that I villainize, demonize? Maybe it's time that we turn around, face up to where we lack, return to the garden state, to what we were created for, and in so doing see the divine image within our enemies.
We need to pray for our enemies. Maybe we even need to pray that "they" see that "they" are human too. But, maybe we also need to pray that we see that we are human as well. Because, when we objectify others we lose a part of who we are. We lose a piece of our true humanity.