The other day I was reading Genesis 10:10-21, and I kept noticing this recurring phrase that piqued my curiosity. It's giving all the generations of Noah's sons after the flood, and it keeps saying, "These are the sons of .... according to their clans, and languages, and territories and nations ..."
It stands out to me for two reasons: a) in Genesis 11, right after all this, it's going to tell the story of the Tower of Babel, and it'll start by saying that everyone had only one language and a common speech (in contrast to what it's saying here in Genesis 10); and b) all this diversity of clans, territories and languages in Genesis 10 seems to be happening in fulfillment of God's blessing, back in Genesis 9, when he told Noah's family, to multiply on the earth and increase upon it (9:7).
In other words, God's heart, it seems, is for a rich, variegated, wide-spreading, culturally diverse family of human beings filling the earth. And whatever else was wrong with it, the problem with the building project of Babel was that it was forcing humanity into stark, sterile homogeneity.
It makes me think about the importance of cultural diversity among God's people, and the ways church ministry can either promote or discourage the kind of nation/tribe/language/cultural variety we see in Genesis 10. Because it's not just Genesis where we see it. If the Book of Revelation can be trusted on the matter, it's what we'll experience on the last day, too: we'll be part of "a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb" (Revelation 7:9). Churches that enjoy the Genesis 10 blessing of rich, difficult, but joyful cultural diversity are getting, I think, good practice here on earth for that Heavenly day.
From the Beginning: A Devotional Commentary on Genesis (V)
The Thursday Review: Paroxysms of Peace
first posted October 3, 2012
The English word “paroxysm” is an oldie but a goodie. Literally it describes a sudden and/or violent outburst of emotion. You could have a “paroxysm of laughter,” though the term generally has negative connotations. Paroxysms of rage are more common.
The word itself comes from an old Greek word, paroxusmous, which, according to my Greek lexicon, means “stirring up, provoking”. It only appears twice in the New Testament.
The first appearance is in Acts 15:39. Here Paul and Barnabas have what the NIV calls a “sharp disagreement” and the KJV a “contention”. Literally, Luke says they had a paroxusmos so intense that they parted company. The fight, it turns out, was over John Mark (of the Gospel of Mark fame), who had deserted them on their first missionary trip over in Pamphylia. Paul felt he was unreliable and didn’t want to bring him on their next foray. Barnabas begged to differ—begged so sharply that a paroxysm of conflict flared up—begged so sharply that he and Paul parted ways, Barnabas to Cyprus with Mark in tow and Paul off to Cilicia.
It’s a sad story, to be sure, but then, those of us who have been doing ministry for a while now know that churches have split over smaller issues than the roster of the mission committee. And bigger.
But here’s the fascinating thing. Besides its use to describe the “sharp disagreement” in Act 15:39, the word paroxusmos only shows up another time in the New Testament. In Hebrews 10:24 the writer says, “Let us consider how we can spur one another on to love and good deeds.” This is how the NIV renders the verse. NASB says “to stimulate one another to love and good deeds.” Old KJV says, “Let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works.”
Literally what it says is something like: “Let us consider one another towards paroxusmon-- incitements, provocations—of love and good deeds.”
Now, former Bible teachers of mine read this blog from time to time, so I need to be careful here not to commit the exegetical fallacy of semantic anachronism, but I find it worth reflection, at least, that the Bible uses the word paroxusmos once to describe a sharp disagreement between two Christian ministers, and elsewhere to describe (in what most biblical scholars would agree is an startling image) our duty to “provoke” one another to Christian love. On the one hand, a paroxusmos led to a deep rift between two friends; on the other hand it leads to Christian charity and shalom.
And I’m reflecting on this especially, because like I say, conflict in ministry is inevitable. Paroxysms of all sort are bound to come. And because we tend to prefer smooth feathers and shiny faces on Sunday morning, I think received wisdom is that they ought to be avoided, or at the very least resolved discretely, even if, in their avoidance or resolution, we find ourselves settling for false peace. At least the tomb looks white, right?
But Hebrews 10:24 and Acts 15:39 fly like two sticks between the spokes of Received Wisdom’s bicycle, sending False Peace head over handlebars. Because when you line these two verses up, they suggest that conflict is not by nature bad; nor is it to be avoided at all cost; and there are fates worse than ruffled feathers.
These two verses suggest that conflict can actually become a catalyst towards charity and service, if it’s entered into for Christ’s sake; and what determines whether or not it will is whether or not the parties involved are really provoking one another for Christ’s sake. (Even Paul and Barnabas’s paroxysm led to love and service in the end. In the short term, it expanded the ministry of the gospel by sending Barnabas to Cyprus and Paul to Cilicia; and in the long term, we have hints that things get patched up between Paul, Mark and Barnabas (see Col 4:10)).
This is hard work. Paroxysms of any sort (ancient or modern) hurt. But then the cross itself teaches us that the Way of Christ has never avoided the suffering that redemption costs. And conflicts that redeem will cost us: utter humility and risky openness, and above all real, raw honesty about our own goals and agendas in any given dispute. But if well seek those treasures of his Kingdom, first, then we may find that redemptive Paroxysms of Peace are being added to us, as well.
On Playing Calvinball in Church
Richard Beck is a Christian Psychologist who teaches at Abilene Christian University in Texas. His blog, Experimental Theology is one of my favorite stars in the blogosphere, and I seldom come away from it without having a few thoughts, or more, provoked. Some of his ideas—like the one about the connections between Christian Hospitality and the Circle of Kindness, for instance—or the one on the theological meaning of monsters—have even found their way into a sermon or two of my own (always, of course, with due reference).
One of his posts, in particular, has stuck with me for years now, and I’ve gone back to it more than once as I’ve thought through various aspects of church life and ministry. Back in 2008, he did a theological analysis of The Complete Works of Calvin and Hobbes (yes, Calvin and Hobbes. This is the sort of off the wall musings that has so endeared me to his work). The whole series is worth reading (click here), but the one that especially resonated with me was the post in which he draws some theological connections between the Church and Calvinball.
It may be that you’re not a Calvin and Hobbes aficionado, so this may take a bit of back story. “Calvinball” is a game Calvin invents after one too many little-league humiliations.
As a self-avowed artist growing up with two brothers who were far more athletic than me, I have always identified with Calvin’s experience of alienation, discomfort and outright rejection whenever he tries to enter the world of organized sports. Which is why, perhaps, Calvinball has always struck a funny bone of mine.
Calvinball is Calvin’s alternative to organized sports, because, as Hobbes likes to point out, no game is less organized than Calvinball. It has only two rules. Rule #1: It may never be played the same way twice; and Rule #2: You make up all the other rules as you go.
Here’s some footage of a game underway:
The connection between Calvinball and Church life may not be immediately clear, but Richard Beck suggests that, as an alternative to the world of organized sports, Calvinball is perhaps as good a metaphor as any for the Church, as an alternative community to the communities of the World.
“You start to see some really profound things when you compare the world of Calvinball to the world of organized sports,” He argues. “Organized Sport is...a competitive world where rules govern the engagement; a world that creates winners at the expense of losers, and encourages scapegoating (since someone has to be to blame). By contrast, Calvinball is... a relational world... where trust structures the engagement; ... it’s a win-win, joy-filled game ... that enhances community.”
In Beck’s analysis, “Calvinball is based on trust and friendship. Enemies can’t play Calvinball; you’d just have too much control over the other person. With winners and losers and adversarial dynamics in play it comes as no surprise that people are scapegoated in organized games. But the world of Calvinball fosters community. There are no losers, and thus no scapegoats, among friends.”
Well, anyone who’s a Leafs fan probably wishes that were true in organized sport, too. But this is the point where I’m stopped dead in my theological tracks, because Beck goes on to say: “I think we see in Calvinball an analogy for what was observed in the early Christian Church... The Greek term that I’m thinking of is the word koinonia...”
Koinonia may be as unfamiliar to you as Calvinball, so I should explain. It means “fellowship” literally, but the way it gets used in the New Testament, it means far more than simply “hanging out with good friends”. The standard “go-to” definition is found in Acts 2:42, where it’s describing the community of the very first church and it says,
They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.The sharing and celebration and mutual support and positive regard that you see at work there, that’s koinonia. It’s a kind of trust-based, joy-filled togetherness that’s maybe better illustrated by a good game of Calvinball, than it is by anything else. At least, if Richard Beck’s on to something, it is. “It might be a stretch to connect Calvinball with Acts 2:42,” he says, “but let’s go with it... Calvinball and the church represent a kind of ‘coming out’ of a world of competition and adversarialness. Both represent a place where a new kind of game is played... a game built on koinonia rather than competition... a game centred on trust and community and joy.”
I have seen a lot of churches over the years, and a lot of different approaches to doing church. Some churches I’ve seen have been more like a business venture, others more like an ingrown (and sadly dysfunctional) family. Some have been like a circle of wagons, defended from the outside world, and others like a dispenser of religious goods and services.
But I’ll be honest, the kinds of church experiences that I remember most vividly and most positively, the ones where I look back and say, yeah, the Holy Spirit was certainly doing some very remarkable things there, are the ones that had the kind of trust and joy and creativity and grace that tickles the funny bone and sparkles compellingly whenever Calvin and Hobbes get going on a rollicking round of Calvinball.
It may be that this--the degree to which we bring a Calvinballesque spirit to the game--or, if that sounds too trivial, than let me speak more concretely about the degree to which our life together exhibits the characteristics of genuine koinonia--it may be that this measure of success, more than butts in pews or bucks in offering plates or whatever other measure we may be tempted to use--this is the truest indication of what God is really doing in our midst.
At least, as far as Acts 2:42-47 is concerned, if we have koinonia, by God's grace, everything else will follow.
Christ's Comet: an analogy for the local church
As a pastor, I have often found the image of a comet to be a helpful framework for thinking through and reflecting on the various levels of participation in church life that one sees among the people connected to any given local church, from Christmas-and-Easter Christians, on the one hand, to fully devoted day-in-and-day-out disciples on the other.
In case you've never seen one before, let me explain. A comet is a beautiful moving object in the night sky with three basic parts: the nucleus, the coma and the tail. The "coma" is a glowing cloud around the nucleus, that the nucleus creates as it moves through space, and the "tail" is the luminescent stream of gases that the nucleus leaves behind it on its journey. What's important to note, for our purposes, is that it's the movement of the comet’s nucleus which creates the coma and the tail, and makes it shine so brightly.
Here’s a diagram:
Let me point out the parallels here, for starters. The local church is like this in that ideally it, too, is moving—that is, it is on mission for Jesus and going from point A to point B, spiritually speaking, in the process. A stationary or stagnant church, obviously, doesn’t ‘shine’ any more than a stationary comet would. And, like a comet, it is made up of a solid core nucleus, namely, serious disciples who are genuinely committed to living out their faith in the context of day-in-and-day-out community. Without that nucleus, you've got no comet.
But here's where it gets interesting. Because around that nucleus of disciples there's going to be a glowing “coma”—that is to say, a bunch of folks who are Christian and committed to Jesus (so they’re glowing) but they aren’t “all in” in terms of their commitment to this local congregation (i.e. they’re not part of the nucleus). They are attracted to the ministry and life of the community, they participate in it on a more superficial level. They are, more or less, moving with the congregation, but they haven’t yet made a deep commitment.
Then there are folks who are in “the tail”—that is, they are Christmas-and-Easter types, maybe, or perhaps they are they are the spouse of a member of the church. It could be that they were once involved but in various ways have dropped off. They may not even be Christians, but they still have a residual “glow,” because they were or are in contact with the nucleus. However, they’re not really “moving with” the nucleus (or if they are, they’re moving much more slowly). Every church community, whether they realize it or not, has a "tail" like this.
Like I say, as a pastor, I find this a helpful image for thinking about church life. Ideally, my work as a pastor helps people in the tail move up into the coma, and people in the coma move up into the nucleus. When people in the nucleus break off into the coma, I do what I can to keep them from dropping into the tail. I sometimes find it helpful, even, in pastoral work, to ask myself "where in the comet" is this person, and then shape my pastoral response accordingly.
So it's a useful visual, to be sure.
But, here’s the reason I find the comet analogy especially helpful: because for the comet to be a comet (and for it to shine brightly in the night sky) it actually needs the coma and the tail along with the nucleus.
Every local church needs all three.
Of course, you can’t have a tail and a coma without a nucleus, anymore than you can have a church without a core of serious, committed disciples who are moving in the direction of Jesus. However, that nucleus won’t “glow” unless it has a coma and a tail—just like the church won’t “glow” if it doesn’t have an aura of seekers, neighbours, Christians who are not quite “there” yet, etc.—people who are participating in the community at various levels of commitment, but they haven’t made a covenant or membership commitment to this local church.
Sometimes church leaders can be tempted to despair over the "commitment level" of people in their community (and to be sure, the ideal movement is always "up into the nucleus" through deeper commitment and fuller devotion to Jesus), but the thing to understand is that a church without any loosely-committed adherents is like a comet without a coma or a tail. And just to beat the analogy to death: the movement of the nucleus actually creates a coma/tail; it's inevitable, even, dare I say, desirable. In the same way, the mission of the church’s core will create a coma and a tail of people who are more-or-less moving with the church but not quite “all in.”
It's inevitable. Even desirable. Because a church that doesn’t have this happening, is probably not moving that much on mission, and probably isn't, actually, shining too brightly for Jesus.
When Shasta meets Narnia and the World meets the Way
There's a scene in the third Narnia book, The Horse and His Boy, that has always sort of spoken to me.
To set the stage, let me explain that Shasta is a young orphan boy who grew up in Calormen, a proud and cruel Empire across the desert south of Narnia. All his life he has believed he's the only son of a hard-handed fisherman named Arsheesh. At the start of the story, however, he happens to meet Bree, a talking horse from Narnia who was raised in captivity in Calormen. Bree points out to Shasta that he is obviously northern-born, too, and convinces him help him escape to Narnia.
Tashbaan is the capital city of the Calormene Empire, and they must pass through it on their way across the desert and home to Narnia. Shasta, you must remember as you read this scene, has grown up surrounded by the sombre and arrogant Calormenes, and is completely acculturated to their ways. Aside from Bree, he has never encountered a true Narnian before. But while they are wending their way through the crowded, labyrinthine streets of Tashbaan, this happens:
It was in a splendid street very near the top of the city (the Tisroc's palace was the only thing above it) that the most disastrous of these stoppages occurred.
"Way! Way! Way!" came the voice. "Way for the Barbarian King, the guest of the Tisroc (may he live for ever)! Way for the Narnian lords."
Shasta tried to get out of the way and to make Bree go back. But no horse, not even a Talking Horse from Narnia, backs easily. And a woman with a very edgy basket in her hands, who was just behind Shasta, pushed the basket hard against his shoulders, and said, "Now then! Who are you shoving!" And then someone else jostled him from the side and in the confusion of the moment he lost hold of Bree. And then the whole crowd behind him became so stiffened and packed tight that he couldn't move at all. So he found himself, unintentionally, in the first row and had a fine sight of the party that was coming down the street.
It was quite unlike any other party they had seen that day. The crier who went before it shouting "Way, way!" was the only Calormene in it. And there was no litter; everyone was on foot. There were about half a dozen men and Shasta had never seen anyone like them before. For one thing, they were all as fair-skinned as himself, and most of them had fair hair. And they were not dressed like men of Calormen. Most of them had legs bare to the kneee. Their tunics were of fine, bright, hardy colours -woodland green, or gay yellow, or fresh blue. Instead of turbans they wore steel or silver caps, some of them set with jewels, and one with little wings on each side of it. A few were bare-headed. The swords at their sides were long and straight, not curved like Calormene scimitars. And instead of being grave and mysterious like most Calormenes, they walked with a swing and let their arms and shoulders free, and chatted and laughed. One was whistling. You could see that they were ready to be friends with anyone who was friendly and didn't give a fig for anyone who wasn't. Shasta thought he had never seen anything so lovely in his life.
A bit of background might help here. In C. S. Lewis' books, Narnia (and the North) is, in a general way, symbolic of the Life of Faith-- the Christian Life, the Christian Community, the Christian Church. Tashbaan, by contrast, grave and noble and mysterious as it is, is roughly speaking a symbol of the World. Shasta, as a refugee from the World, is encountering here, for the first time, authentic Christians living in authentic Christian community.
And now, hopefully, you'll understand you why this description of Shasta's first encounter with the "Narnian Lords" is so compelling to me. The bright colours and sparkling joy, the easy gait and springing step, free camaraderie and open-armed peace with the world that radiates from this band of brothers and sisters is one of the most poetic pictures of Christian community I know of.
A friend once said, in passing, that he felt Christians should be the most interesting people in the world. I've mulled that over a lot since then. He wasn't speaking about holiness, per se, when he said that, or Bible knowledge, or any of the typical stuff we associate with the Christian life. He just meant that, if we really are the Redeemed of the Lord--set free from the power of sin and death and experiencing the on-going renewal of the Image of God in us--if all that's really true, our lives ought to be more fully engaged, more filled with wonder and creativity, more curious about the Creator's world, more free with our friendship and more spendthrift with our love than any other way of living on offer.
We ought to be moving through this world together like a band of Narnian Lords through the crowds of Tashbaan. And if we did, I think, more than just Shasta would be left wondering if they'd ever seen anything so lovely.
4 ways a Middle Earth Worldview is more Biblical
... than our own. What with The Hobbit's release piquing fresh interest in all things Tolkien at our house, prompting a family movie marathon through the Lord of the Rings and inspiring my daughter to muscle her way through all three books in about two weeks, I've got Middle Earth on the brain these days.
One of the things that struck me forcibly this time through the series, and especially as I unpacked them with our kids, is how different the worldview of the book is from our own. "Worldview" is a way of describing the psychological underpinnings, the cultural values, the epistemological framework, and the philosophical assumptions that unconsciously guide the way we interact with the world.
The worldview of our modern, western world, for instance, tends to seek instant gratification, places a premium on the image, takes a mechanistic approach to nature, has an evolutionary outlook on life and society, values self-expression and individuality, gives epistemological authority to screens, numbers, results and speed, sees the self as ultimate and the latest as best.
Realizing that each one of the above statements is loaded far beyond the ability of a mere blogpost to unpack, let me just suggest that these things-- instant gratification, the image as prime, nature as machine, the individual as ultimate-- these things are different from a biblical worldview. When the writers of the Bible looked at the world, they felt different things were of utmost importance. They made different assumptions about how things worked and what you could reasonable expect out of life. They drew meaning from different source. They concluded things were "true" based on different criteria.
And then, as an experiment in "worldview studies," let me point out some ways the worldview of the inhabitants of Middle Earth is also very different from our own, but curiously (even unexpectedly) very much like the Bible's.
1. Older is better. When Tolkien points out that something is old, it's usually said with reverence, awe, humility and deference; indeed, some of his most poetical passages are devoted simply to describing the age of something. This is because in a Middle Earth worldview, older is proven; older is wiser; older is tested; older is true. Our world tends to see the newest and youngest as best-- fresher, original, more innovative--but this is neither a universal nor especially a biblical assumption. Generally speaking the Bible's worldview, like Tolkien, sees age as venerable (It's not for nothing He's called the Ancient of Days).
2. Nature is deeply alive. One of the brilliant aspects of Tolkien's book, I think, is the way he spiritualizes nature without deifying it. He draws out the deep-down "aliveness" of the natural world without slipping into the ditch of paganism. In our worldview, we tend to view nature as a dead, cause-and-effect machine that is ours to tinker with (witness the latest talk about "bioengineering" or "geoengineering"). Not so in Middle Earth, where trees, rocks, rivers and creatures alike are vibrant with a life that give them intrinsic worth. Though it's sometimes overlooked, this too is a biblical worldview. When Isaiah talks about the trees of the hills clapping their hands and the mountains breaking forth into song, it's a metaphor, but it's no mere metaphor.
3. Song and Story are authoritative. No war council in the modern world would have begun by recounting in full detail the story of the enemy's chief weapon, reviewing all the twists of fate and turns of history that brought the allies to the point they find themselves at. But that is precisely where Elrond starts with the war council of Rivendell, on the assumption that the decisions of the council depend precisely upon their hearing this story. It always struck me that in the book, great emphasis is placed on Aragorn's ability to recite the legends, songs, lore and stories of Middle Earth, as though his claim to the throne rested as much on this as it did on his skills with a sword. That none of Aragorn's songs make it into the modern film adaptation of the book is evidence itself that our world draws "epistemological authority" from other sources.
4. Fellowship, Community and Fealty are profoundly humanizing. When Merry is sworn in as a guard of Gondor, Denethor promises to reward his "fealty with honour." When Theoden musters his cavalry for their glorious charge onto the plains of Minas Tirith, he calls on the men to fulfill "oaths they have taken." In his final rousing speech at the Black Gates of Mordor, Aragorn assures his men that "a day may come when we forsake all bounds of fellowship, but it is not this day." In a world like ours, that so highly values individuality, these appeals to higher commitments that draw us up and out of ourselves may seem like a relic of a bygone time. In Tolkien's world, however, bonds of fellowship, commitment to community, loyalty to causes that transcend the self-- these are things that separate humans from all the other mythical races (it's no coincidence, for instance, that the orcs always end up battling and devouring themselves; nor is it a coincidence that the elves remain so detached from the plight of Middle Earth). This, too, is very much like the biblical worldview, where community is throbbing at the heart of what it means to be a follower of Jesus.
Paroxysms of Peace
The English word “paroxysm” is an oldie but a goodie. Literally it describes a sudden and/or violent outburst of emotion. You could have a “paroxysm of laughter,” though the term generally has negative connotations. Paroxysms of rage are more common.
The word itself comes from an old Greek word, paroxusmous, which, according to my Greek lexicon, means “stirring up, provoking”. It only appears twice in the New Testament.
The first appearance is in Acts 15:39. Here Paul and Barnabas have what the NIV calls a “sharp disagreement” and the KJV a “contention”. Literally, Luke says they had a paroxusmos so intense that they parted company. The fight, it turns out, was over John Mark (of the Gospel of Mark fame), who had deserted them on their first missionary trip over in Pamphylia. Paul felt he was unreliable and didn’t want to bring him on their next foray. Barnabas begged to differ—begged so sharply that a paroxysm of conflict flared up—begged so sharply that he and Paul parted ways, Barnabas to Cyprus with Mark in tow and Paul off to Cilicia.
It’s a sad story, to be sure, but then, those of us who have been doing ministry for a while now know that churches have split over smaller issues than the roster of the mission committee. And bigger.
But here’s the fascinating thing. Besides its use to describe the “sharp disagreement” in Act 15:39, the word paroxusmos only shows up another time in the New Testament. In Hebrews 10:24 the writer says, “Let us consider how we can spur one another on to love and good deeds.” This is how the NIV renders the verse. NASB says “to stimulate one another to love and good deeds.” Old KJV says, “Let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works.”
Literally what it says is something like: “Let us consider one another towards paroxusmon-- incitements, provocations—of love and good deeds.”
Now, former Bible teachers of mine read this blog from time to time, so I need to be careful here not to commit the exegetical fallacy of semantic anachronism, but I find it worth reflection, at least, that the Bible uses the word paroxusmos once to describe a sharp disagreement between two Christian ministers, and elsewhere to describe (in what most biblical scholars would agree is an startling image) our duty to “provoke” one another to Christian love. On the one hand, a paroxusmos led to a deep rift between two friends; on the other hand it leads to Christian charity and shalom.
And I’m reflecting on this especially, because like I say, conflict in ministry is inevitable. Paroxysms of all sort are bound to come. And because we tend to prefer smooth feathers and shiny faces on Sunday morning, I think received wisdom is that they ought to be avoided, or at the very least resolved discretely, even if, in their avoidance or resolution, we find ourselves settling for false peace. At least the tomb looks white, right?
But Hebrews 10:24 and Acts 15:39 fly like two sticks between the spokes of Received Wisdom’s bicycle, sending False Peace head over handlebars. Because when you line these two verses up, they suggest that conflict is not by nature bad; nor is it to be avoided at all cost; and there are fates worse than ruffled feathers.
These two verses suggest that conflict can actually become a catalyst towards charity and service, if it’s entered into for Christ’s sake; and what determines whether or not it will is whether or not the parties involved are really provoking one another for Christ’s sake. (Even Paul and Barnabas’s paroxysm led to love and service in the end. In the short term, it expanded the ministry of the gospel by sending Barnabas to Cyprus and Paul to Cilicia; and in the long term, we have hints that things get patched up between Paul, Mark and Barnabas (see Col 4:10)).
This is hard work. Paroxysms of any sort (ancient or modern) hurt. But then the cross itself teaches us that the Way of Christ has never avoided the suffering that redemption costs. And conflicts that redeem will cost us: utter humility and risky openness, and above all real, raw honesty about our own goals and agendas in any given dispute. But if well seek those treasures of his Kingdom, first, then we may find that redemptive Paroxysms of Peace are being added to us, as well.
Blogging in the Echo Chamber
A while ago I began a little online social experiment: I started clicking that "next blog>>" link which Blogger so conveniently supplies in the navigation bar of my blog (see above), just to see what would come up. After all, I reasoned, if terra incognita is indeed all about exploring uncharted territory, it wouldn't hurt to meet some of my undiscovered nextdoor neighbours in that neighbourhood called "the blogosphere."
But as I did so, I started to notice that every time I asked Blogger for a "next blog>>", I was taken to a blog that contained some Christian's random musings about being Christian, with a "life verse," the name of some church somewhere, or phrases like "Journey with Jesus" in the header.
(For example, these are the blogs I discovered after five consecutive clicks just now:
1. Learning the Faith: "This blog will serve as an outlet for all of the many wonderful things that I am learning regarding Faith and Religion." (Author's life verse: 1 Peter 3:15-16)
2. Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer in Christchurch. (Blogger Father Clement is a Catholic Priest living in New Zealand)
3. The Jesus Narrative. A place where "Christians talk about Jesus."
4. Grafted by Grace. From Blogger Kim Morgan's profile: "I have been grafted by grace into the good olive tree. (Rom. 11:17) I have lived a life that was less than glorifying to God, (James 1:21), but His Word set me free to become the woman he created me to be."
5. Outside the Boxes. A blog that "contains reflections from a fellow journeyer as he reflects on some of the places his faith informs his daily experiences to help you find those places in your life where that happens as well.")
After a month or so of clicking, it slowly dawned on me that this can't be entirely coincidental, that I should always discover a blog something sort of like mine whenever I asked for a "next blog." I started to suspect that there were forces larger than me at work here. And after a bit of investigation, I discovered them. From what I understand, the "Next Blog" feature is programmed to link you to blogs that are, some way or another, like yours. Apparently it matches words or tags or something, and finds statistically similar bloggers.
In a way, I guess, this is entirely intuitive. After all, if I'm after some interesting blogs, it's only natural that I'd want to read about people interested in the things I'm interested in: people who muse randomly about Christianity, just like me, people who read the same reads I read, people who like U2 like me, too.
And that's the problem, I think. It's all too natural, too intuitive.
I heard a social commentator on the radio talk about this intuition, our natural tendency to stick to only the most familiar strands of the world-wide-web. She said something about how social networking media are actually shrinking our social networks, because they use like-mindedness as the primary currency of relating. Then she said something about irony.
And then she named it all. She called it: "The echo chamber." An "echo chamber" is a social context where we exclude difference so that all we have to hear are our own ideas and opinions echoed back to us by faceless others who are statistically most likely to be like-minded.
So, as I do the lab-report for my little social experiment, I'm wondering about some obvious questions. Like, for instance: Is this maybe what we're all looking for in life, in a way? A convenient button we can click to rest assured we'll only discover people who are pretty likely, in the end, to be just like us?
And more poignantly: How do we try to make the church into an echo chamber like this? Do we "network" (so sad a term for human relating) only with those believers who are just like us? They don't necessarily have to, but do things like youth-groups and 50+ groups, or contemporary worship movements and traditional services at 9:00, or even those standard evangelical "statements of faith" that we use to identify what "kind" of Christian we are-- do these things function to make our experience of the Faith an echo chamber? And if we had a "next pew" button like my "next blog" button, that could ensure we're only sitting next to the spiritually like-minded, would we use it?
And if we did, what kind of a cheap substitute for that diverse, dynamic, multi-layered, mission-minded, multi-cultural, multi-tongued community of faith that Jesus wants to make us into, would we be settling for? If you're like me, and you got here by clicking for a "next blog," I welcome your thoughts on this one. If you're not like me, I welcome them all the more.
The Full Divine Panoply
I`d been working my way through Tolkien that summer, so I guess my 12-year-old imagination was pretty fertile ground for images of spiritual warriors armed with mystical armour with arcane names like "The Helmet of Salvation" and "The Belt of the Truth." When I got home, I drew an elaborate picture of some elfin warrior who bore a striking resemblance to Aragorn (as I pictured him in my imagination; this is, remember, well before Peter Jackson), bearing a flaming"Sword of the Spirit" and warding off demonic darts with his "Shield of Faith."
A talk on "The Whole Armour of God," I'd discover later, is standard fare for Bible Camp speakers. I`ve heard the most elaborate talks explaining obscure details about the typical armour of the Roman Infantry, and relating them to intricate details about the means and methods of spiritual warfare for individual Christians. I was even at one Bible Camp where the speaker was a Christian children`s entertainer named (I`m not making this up) Fester the Clown. Fester the Clown made an entire set of the Whole Armour of God out of balloons, Sandals of Evangelism and all. One lucky camper got to take it home with him in a giant plastic bag as a reminder of his call to arm himself for spiritual warfare.
Now, I hate to burst Fester`s balloon, but the thing that he never told me, nor did any of the other speakers I`ve ever heard expound on this passage, is that throughout Ephesians 6:10-20 Paul uses the 2nd person plural. He is not talking to or about individuals here, arming themselves for solo combat against their personal demons and temptations. He's talking to and about the group, the community of faith, the Church. Put differently: "you" are not called to put on the whole armour of God as much as "we" are called to do so together. This is a subtle point, perhaps, but a few examples will show that it's not so subtle as to be moot.
Take, for instance, the Bride of Christ imagery. While Jesus is most certainly the lover of individual souls, when the Bible says that "you" are the Bride of Christ, it means "you" plural, that is the church together, is the Bride of Christ. And we miss a vital theological point if we miss this distinction. A more obvious one, perhaps is the Body of Christ imagery, where we are each, clearly, only members of the whole Body and can't function without the others; a less obvious one is the Temple of the Holy Spirit, where the primary reference is to the community of Faith together being built up together into the Temple of God (Though it's common to hear talk about how you (sg) are the Temple of the Spirit, out of 7 references to the Temple of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament, only 1 refers to individuals and all the rest are about the community together).
What difference would it make if Paul's envisioning the Community of Faith in Ephesians 6, arming itself together for spiritual combat, and not individual spiritual gladiators? Maybe a good place to start thinking through the implications would be 6:18, where he talks about the "secret weapon of prayer" (as I heard one preacher call it picturesquely). If Paul's primarily imagining corporate prayer here as a "weapon" in our battle against the powers of this dark world, then it will mean, I think, remodelling the "prayer closet" a bit. In most of the discipleship material I've ever seen, the emphasis has been almost exclusively on individual prayer.
And if Paul is calling the church corporate to take up the "Sword of the Spirit," which is the Word of God, then sharpening my personal knowledge of the Bible in my personal "quiet time with God" will certainly not do it. Instead, the call will be answered as the community of Faith itself becomes a place where together we seek out, listen for, weigh together and respond in one spirit to the utterance of God (the word there is rhema, not logos) as it is breathed by the Spirit through the Scriptures into the gathered community. Puts a little different spin on the "sword drill," that other staple of Bible Camp spirituality.
We could do the same with the rest: what if lacing up the Sandals of Evangelism was less about me personally leading individuals to the Lord (though it may include that), and more about the community of faith becoming, and being, a place where the Gospel or Peace is proclaimed, and lived out, and given room to touch and transform lives? Of course, Fester the Clown would have to do a whole lot more balloon twisting if this reading is right, but as a spiritual exercise go through Ephesians 6:10-20 and read it asking yourself: would it make any difference if this was about "us" and not "me"?
Words for People of the Resurrection
And this is not for nothing. Because Paul's paraenesis is all wrapped up in the Image of God theology that he alludes to in verse 10, the image of God theology that underlies his whole understanding of the resurrection itself and its meaning for us as Christ-followers (see 1 Corinthians 15:49). In the resurrected Jesus, we see the true Image of God, who himself fulfills the calling and reveals the destiny of humanity, in the ultimate fulfillment of what God meant when he said in Genesis 1:27-28: "Let us make man in our image." (Look at how Paul describes Jesus in Colossians 1:15ff., if you want more fodder for this canon).
On Baptism and Philadelphia
Among the candidates to be baptized last Sunday were my two oldest children. It was a great privilege to be part of this with them, but there's something I've been thinking about ever since. While I was putting together my notes to introduce the baptism candidates, I wrote out this sentence: "It's a real honour for me to stand with my daughter and baptize her as my sister in the Lord."
And I stopped dead at the keyboard, staring (through an accumulating mist) at those words on the screen: I'm baptizing my daughter and son, as my brother and sister in Jesus.
Often when we use the brother/sister terminology in Church it becomes whimsical, farcical, satirical or just plain empty. So I get why it's fallen out of common usage. But, remembering their baptism today, I'm thinking of Bonhoeffer. He stretched the concept of the Mediation of Christ to its inevitable conclusion, holding that: "within the Christian community there is never, in any way whatsoever, an 'immediate' relationship to one another ... but ... Christ [always] stands between me and another."
And I wonder: Could it really be? Could it be that since Jesus, the God-Man, mediates all human relationships, then before they are my children, my son and daughter are first and foremost my siblings in Christ? And could it be that any claim I might make on them is always secondary to and limited by and transcended by and mediated by the claims of Christ on us, who always stands between us?
And asking, I know the answer. An answer that has the potential to break open and heal and transform all my relationships.
Before she is my mother, she is my sister in Christ.
Before he is my father, he is my brother in Christ.
Before she is my wife, she is my sister in Christ.
There is no relationship I have that Christ hasn't first laid claim to, in a way that both rebukes and purifies any talk about me actually "having" a relationship with another human being who I might call "mine." And to look at them-- mother, father, son, daughter, brother, student, friend, neighbour, wife-- I must always look through the Christ who stands between us. To speak to them--mother, father, son, daughter, brother, student, friend, neighbour, wife--I must always speak through Christ.
To really see them, I must first see the Mediating Christ who names them brother and sister.
And what would community look like if we could do that?
Listen Local, Save the Planet?
Those of you who stop in at terra incognita on a somewhat regular basis may have noticed that September's CD of the month was this one: Wide World Crashing by tripmeter.
Never heard of tripmeter? CDBaby describes their sound as "up-tempo melodic rock with soaring vocals, rich guitars and creative rhythms. In short: well-conceived songs in captivating and clever arrangements."
Recommended, they say, if you like: Foo Fighters, Mute Math, Nine Inch Nails.
Well, I don't really know Foo Fighters, Mute Math, Nine Inch Nails (in the words of Grandpa Simpson: "I used to be with it, but now what's 'it' seems strange and scary to me... it'll happen to you...").
But I've really grown to love the energy and edginess of this album. From the tintinabular peals of "My Addiction's" opening riff, to the pedal-to-the-metal drag race of "Drive to the Sun," to the ominous-but-hopeful vision of "Somewhere" (Somewhere, you can find the heart to beat this... no one gets left behind without good reason...), there's a lot to feast on, aurally speaking.
But it's not just that.
The thing is: I know these guys. They were all students at Briercrest college during my days there. Took Greek exegesis with the drummer (the guy parsed irregular Greek verb forms with as much flare as he syncopates the down-beat). Was in a small group for a while with the lead guitarist. Even the guy on the cover-art was my next door neighbour (helped him when the waterlines of his trailer froze one 30 below morning on the prairie).
And it's this human difference that makes me love this CD. It's the same difference that makes me love home-made soup over Campbell's Chicken-by-Product Noodle: the difference between what's bagged and canned and mass-produced for anybody and nobody, and what comes to us as a gift from hands we know, have shook, have helped to jump-start their frozen car (another 30 below prairie morning with my neighbour).
It's why I love independent music. And I'm not talking about the kind of "independent" music that's really just a niche-market genre gimmick out of Nashville or L.A. or where ever it is that "indie rock" comes from. I'm talking about music that grows out of the lives and hearts and heads of the people next door, down the street, in our communities, in our neighbourhoods, in our lives.
In his book Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future, Bill McKibben develops a pretty cogent argument in favor of making economic choices that promote small, community-oriented, human-scale thinking over the more/massive/mass-market world that we've grown to expect and accept. He argues (again cogently) that the more/massive/mass-market world is pretty de-humanizing after all, and unsustainable anyways, and if we're really serious about building a durable future, we're going to have to start thinking locally.
You know: buy locally-grown food and locally-produced goods from the hands of real people that you can actually shake. McKibben doesn't stop there, though. He goes on to argue (still cogently) that part of building a durable future will include community-oriented, human-scale choices about our entertainment. If we can build community and a sense of place by supporting local entertainment (like our music, theatre, sports, and so on) we might discover a world where words like "more," "massive," and "mass-market" are no longer synonyms for "better."
And this world, he argues, is the kind of world we'll need if we want to build durable and sustainable economies in the coming years.
Well. I don't know if I'll really save the planet by listening to tripmeter, but it's nice to muse. And there's still this: whenever I hear Wide World Crashing, suddenly I'm strolling again along that back alley behind the Sparrow Gardens arena where so many Briercrest bands have had rehearsal space, savouring the muffled sound of rock-dreams thumping through the walls- and whenever I listen to my friend Dale Dirksen's These are the Days, I'm sitting with him again in his office, musing about music and minsitry and life together- and whenever I listen to that rough-around-the-edges worship CD we produced at my old church, I'm there again trading chords and words and laughs with people I love.
I'm grounded. I'm anchored. I'm home.
And the Musik Biz doesn't produce a can of alt-rock-indie-fusion-pop that you could open for this kind of aural experience.
Gutenberg's Revenge and Other Thoughts
I suppose after my last post, the next logical step would be to muse a little about the revenge effects of the various technologies we've introduced to church ministry itself. When the Gutenberg Press took the Bible out of the hands of the priesthood and put it firmly into the hands of every believer-- with the laudable intention of building biblically literate, thus better, Christian communities-- I don't suppose anyone could have guessed that it might also be putting deep cracks in the foundations of Christian community, by pushing the individual's "interpretation" of the Good Book to the centre of Christian experience and pushing the community to the edge. Did Gutenberg get its revenge (mused the blogger) by filling the pews with a hundred personal popes piously practicing their private versions of the Faith, ready and able to leave when the interpretive going got tough? Is the embarrassing fragmentation of the church today part of the Gutenberg legacy?
Not that I would want to go back to the gloom of the pre-Gutenberg era, mind you... any more than I would want to go back to my pre-HTC Dream life... but perhaps if we can name the unintended effects of our technology, we can make more informed choices about when, why and how to use it.
So, off the top of my head, here are a few possible "revenge effects" of technology in the Church.
In an effort to make our preaching more effective, we've introduced a variety of presentation technologies behind the pulpit. Has this had the unintended effect of shackling our sermons to ideas that fit neatly on to PowerPoint slides and shackling our preachers to what's written on the screen?
In an effort to make our music more engaging, we've replaced hymnals with screens. Has this had the unintended effect of alienating people from the songs they're singing because they no longer have the music in front of them?
In an effort to make worship more dynamic, we've amplified everything. Has this had the unintended effect of deafening us to the voice of God and the voices of each other in our gathered times?
In an effort to make our faith more "relevant" we've introduced a wide variety of media to our worship, from video montage, to film clips, to Christianesque imagery moving behind the song lyrics on the PowerPoint slide. Has this had the unintended effect of making us less able to recognize the deeply relevant but counter-cultural aspects of life with God (things like stillness, Sabbath, quiet, simplicity)?
These are real questions, not just rhetorical points. And even if the answer is "yes" to any of them, that doesn't mean the technology itself must go (*just wait, I'm getting a call on my phone*). But if we can see the "revenge effects" of our own cleverness like this, we will also begin to see, I think, the limitations of our cleverness. And to see our own limitations is to take a humble step towards deeper dependence on God.
Can We Talk?
One of the things I've found indispensably useful since starting my new life as a pastor is my new HTC Android Dream Smart Phone. I say this with not a little sheepishness, because for a long time I held out against cell phones on principle. And now, here I am, with no mere cell phone, but a touch-sensitive cellular communications device with instant access to email, gmail, text messages and chatting, roaming internet, youtube viewing and GPS capabilities. It's like going from a pedal bike to a Porsche over night.
Now I say I held out because for a long time I had this sense that cell phone technology stunted the growth of genuine community by making us so independent and self-sufficient that we no longer need to have any real connection with the actual flesh-and-blood human beings around us. For example: time was when my car broke down on the side of the highway I would have to knock on the neighbour's door and ask for help; and more often that not, they would. Now I can call nameless, faceless roadside assistance from the comfort of my car (and view a variety of inane Youtube clips while I'm waiting for them to come).
I was talking about this with a friend a while back and she told me that she found her cell phone helpful because when she had to walk home from her university classes at night and felt unsafe, she could call her dad to come meet her. Then she said: "Of course, if I didn't have the cell phone, I'd have to get to know the other students in the class well enough that I could walk home with one of them..." And I think that was my point in the hold-out days: I felt that roaming communications technologies like cell phones allowed us to seal up our spheres of influence so tightly that the strangers around us never had to be anything more than strangers.
And maybe there's a kernel of truth there.
But here I am with my HTC Smart Phone and finding it, as I said earlier, indispensably useful.
But I'm also wondering about the revenge effects of such technology.
Author and social scientist Edward Tenner argues that all technologies have a natural tendency to "bite back" with "revenge effects" on the societies into which they are introduced. His theory is that societies are really just systems that constantly seek the "status quo." He suggests that as new technologies significantly upset this status quo, the system itself will naturally adjust in unexpected, unintended, even unconscious ways to counteract their effect, and so maintain the status quo.
Example 1: As we introduce a plethora of ingenious time-saving appliances to the kitchen, the system adjusts to maintain a status quo of business: once it's been freed from meal prep-and-clean-up hours, it's possible to overload our evening schedule with other things, and so we find ourselves busier than ever.
Example 2 (and perhaps more to the point): As communications devices make communication increasingly clear and easy, we find our actual communicating and decision-making processes more (not less) cloudy and confused because now everything has to be answered and decided and acted on under the tyranny of the now.
I'm not sure if Turner's on to anything or not (though they say that the advent of email has significantly increased-- not decreased-- paper consumption in the office workplace). But I do know this: the other day a friend called me at home and when I picked up the phone he said: "Finally found you." He'd tried my gmail, left a message on my voice mail, called my office phone, and when he couldn't get me at any of these he tried me at home. All the ways to connect with me, it seems, had actually made me harder to find.
Vengeance is mine, sayeth the HTC Dream.
A Tale of Two Towers (September 6)
I've had a few people ask about having my sermons available online. At some point we expect to provide this through our church website, but that's still a little ways away. Until then, I thought a simple approach would be just to post them here. Simple, and if it happens to prompt comments and/or further dialogue over the Good Book, all the better.
The Second Shortest Verse in the Bible
A little Bible trivia for you today. Contrary to what you might have learned at Bible Camp, John 11:35 ("Jesus wept") is not the shortest verse of the Bible. Not quite, anyway.
In the original Greek, John 11:35 clocks in at a whopping 16 letters (εδακρυσεν ο Ιησους), while 1 Thessalonians 5:16 ("Rejoice continually") is a mere 14 letters (παντοτε χαιρετε).
If five years of Seminary hadn't so thoroughly conditioned me to be wary of making theological mountains out of exegetical molehills like this, I'd be tempted to wonder out loud over the fact that the two most succinct words the Bible has to speak are so seemingly contradictory.
Rejoice continually.
But Jesus wept.
I'd be tempted to reiterate something I've said before about "true contradictions" in the Bible.
Rejoice continually.
And Jesus wept.
I'd be tempted to say something about how these two contradictory words frame a paradox that pulses (or should pulse) at the heart of genuine Christian community: We are a people called to rejoice continually; But our founder and leader and Lord wept.
I'd be tempted to say something about Churches I've seen where one of these two brief words was allowed to drown out the other: Churches rejoicing so continually that they couldn't hear Jesus weeping in their midst, and wouldn't have known what to do if they did; or Churches so intent on hearing his tears that they'd forgotten his call to rejoice, and might not know what to do if they remembered.
Rejoice continually; Jesus wept.
I might even be tempted to make outrageous and entirely unsubstantiate-able speculations about the weight of the irony here: that the verse we remember as the most concise- "Jesus wept"- actually has a more concise word underlying it- "Rejoice continually." And maybe wonder about how our joy must fundamentally depend on those tears; how those tears were for our joy; how our joy must be mingled with those tears, because those tears alone make possible a deeper joy.
Rejoice continually. Jesus wept.
Then again, maybe sometimes the exegetical molehill is the theological mountain.
On Fixed and Floating Land
There's a kind of holy restlessness, it seems, pulsing at the heart of Christian communities.
I think that as Christian communities, we'll know we're really beating with the rhythm of this God's heart, because we'll find in our midst the same kind of holy restlessness: an impulse to send, and seek, and renew, and send again. An impulse that moves us to laugh with each other all the more richly, to weep with each other all the more deeply, to embrace each other all the more warmly, because we don't know when or how the sending God might send us out once again.
The tendency, of course, is rootedness. Cain wandered east and built a city; Noah was so named in the hope that he might give the harried Sons of Adam rest; Lot pitched his tent in the plain outside Sodom and settled down there.
But Abraham-- and the seed of Abraham in him-- answered God's call to become an alien and stranger in the world. Abraham, the patriarch of Faith, embraced a life of holy restlessness.
Perhaps one of the most vivid descriptions I've ever read of this is in C. S. Lewis' science fiction novel, Voyage to Venus. Lewis portrays the planet Venus as a world entirely untouched by death, inhabited by a sinless King and Queen. Aside from small spots of 'Fixed Land,' the entire surface of this perfect world is covered by ocean. The extraterrestrial Adam and Eve of this new
As the story unfolds, a diabolical villain tempts this Eve to taste the forbidden fruit of living on the
Well, these things are on my mind a lot these days, perhaps for obvious reasons. But I think it's a lesson God is calling me to learn all over again: what does it mean to choose to live on the floating island of His will? What does it mean to refuse the alluring self-determination of the Fixed Land?
What does it mean to embrace the holy restlessness of the Christian life?
Standing on the God-Trodden Mountain
There's a monastery at the foot of Mt. Sinai called St. Catherine's (its official name is "The Sacred and Imperial Monastery of the God-Trodden Mount of Sinai"). My Father-in-Law was vacationing in Egypt not long ago and as we were perusing his post-trip photos, this picture of a painting at St. Catherine's caught my eye.
Though I didn't know it until just then, this is exactly the scene I would have expected to see illustrated in a Christian monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai: The Mount of Transfiguration. As I stared at the photo, both the Mount of Transfiguration and Mt Sinai stood out with new clarity on the horizon of my imagination.
I don't think evangelicals really know what to do with the Transfiguration. Our doctrine of inerrancy assures us that it happened, jot-and-tittle the way it's reported; but beyond that, what it means is anyone's guess. The only sermon I can ever remember having heard about the Transfiguration focused more on the actions of Peter than Jesus.
But here's some beef-jerky for thought to chew on: besides the Mount of Transfiguration, I can only think of one other holy hill where the feet of both Elijah and Moses have walked. That's Sinai. Moses hid in the cleft of a rock and saw the back of the Lord's glory as he passed; Elijah hid in a cave as the Lord passed by with the sound of crushed silence. Moses met the Lord on Sinai and later brought the newly-created people of God there so God could cut his covenant with them. And later still, Elijah met the Lord on Sinai after he had fled there, complaining (wrongly) that the covenant had failed.
Covenant and theophany: Sinai is that sacred and imperial mountain where the Lord himself once trod in glory to establish and affirm His promise to his despondent people.
But centuries later, three men walked with Jesus up a different mountain. There, squinting suddenly in the light of his transfigured glory, they found themselves standing on a new God-trodden mountain. And wonder of wonders: history removed her veil, mysterious past kissed hopeful future, heaven caressed earth for a breathtaking moment--and the two men of faith who had once come within touching distance of the glory of the Lord on Sinai now stepped into the present and spoke with him face to face.
"They spoke" says Luke, "About his departure which was about to bring fulfillment at Jerusalem." But the Greek word Luke uses for "departure" is not the word we'd expect (like maybe aperchomai); he actually says, "They spoke to him about his exodus." Of course, exodus literally means "going out," but Luke has used a weighted word here, one that points his readers back to the Exodus and Sinai, even as it points them ahead to the cross-crowned hill outside Jerusalem.
Somehow, in the Transfigured Jesus we discover the one who will bring all the God-glimpsing and promise-making of Sinai to their final fulfillment.
So perhaps nothing could be more fitting for an illustration at the foot of Mt. Sinai than this painting, pointing us away from Sinai to the unnamed mountain of transfiguration. For the transfiguration of Jesus reminds us that it is no longer on Sinai, sacred as it is, that we encounter the Glory of the Lord; it is no longer to this mountain that the people of God look for the reminder of the divine covenant that binds them together.
Or any mountain, for that matter.
It is in Jesus. Because in the presence of his broken body and poured out blood we discover ourselves a covenant people once more, catching glimmers of the glory of the Lord. And whenever his nail-pierced feet stand in the midst of the people gathered together in his name, that ground becomes a God-trodden mountain all over again.
Musing Art and Faith
The other day I was driving along, half-listening to the radio when this girl with a fragile voice started singing a melancholy tune about her confusing love affair with some guy named Art. And I thought: "Sweet melody, but the girl-chases-boy thing's been done before."
But by the time the second chorus came around, I was listening a bit closer, and it slowly dawned on me: She's not singing to Art-short-for-Arthur; she's singing to art itself. This is music for the muse:
Art, O Art I want you
Art, you make it pretty hard not to
And my heart is trying hard here to follow you
But I can't always tell if I ought to
And as I listened, the words fell around me like familiar rain. I'd sung this song before. Not the tune, of course, or even the lyrics, but the question. I want to do art, but I how can I tell if I ought to? This is a question my heart used to sing a lot.
For me, the uncertainty came from some vague notion I picked in the ditches of my faith-journey, that you couldn't be a Christian and an artist; it was an either-or. Somehow, growing up evangelical left me with the pretty strong impression that art was only acceptable in the church if it asked you blandly to ask Jesus into your heart when it was through with you. No ambiguous questions about ugliness or beauty, please, just solve the problem with a simple sinner's prayer. (Franky Schaeffer refers colorfully to this kind of evangelical "art" as "theological sloganeering".) In one of my more maudlin moments some ten years ago, I put it like this in an old journal: "Because something (God did you put it there? Is it sin to listen?) inside me sings of the beauty and truth of creation, and because something even deeper longs to capture, reflect and join the beauty and truth of creation, I am a poet .... I stare at the word on the page, and am flooded with questions impossible to answer: can I be a poet & serve God?"
By God's grace I happened to read a number of books that helped me answer that question with an honest and hopeful "yes." Among these were Madeline L'Engle's (insightful) Walking on Water, which suggests that all true art is Christian art, since Jesus himself is "the Truth"; and Franky Schaeffer's (sometimes bitter) Addicted to Mediocrity, which calls evangelicals to rediscover the church's rich tradition of art-making.By God's further grace, I also meet a wise mentor who encouraged me to see my artistic passions as a calling and gift from God. He helped me believe that there really was an important role for the artist in the Christian community. He also allowed me do art in a way that served the Christian community (like the artwork I designed for the chapel space pictured above).
But I'm convinced there are other men and women besides me asking the same confusing question that the girl on the radio was singing to her lover Art: is there any place anywhere for this artistic passion of mine? And as she sang that afternoon, I started to imagine all over again: what would it be like if the community of Jesus' people sought out these wondering artists to tell them, "That place is here among us." What would it be like if Jesus' people embraced the artists in their midst without asking them merely to do some theological sloganeering for them?
What would it be like if Christians affirmed the truest work of the artists among them with the heart of Jesus, who affirms all things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely and admirable?
Home Improvement
My arms are sore. We're renovating our house and I've spent the last week tearing out, scraping up, pulling off and painting over the various floor and wall coverings in our basement. I have no delusions of competency when I start projects like these, but I do love the excuse it gives me to walk around the house in work gloves and grubby pants, swinging hammers at things.
I don't get a lot of chances to swing hammers in my line of work. Alhough somewhere in Alberta there's a house with a red tin roof I put on 10 years ago that hasn't blown off yet, and there's another house with a hardwood floor I installed that people are still walking on, my experience with build-it jobs is not vast.
But I love the sweat and ache of physical work.
Bonhoeffer pointed out that work is one of the four mandates God gave humans in the Garden of Eden. The sweat and ache may not have been original, but the Bible affirms that work-- doing constructive things with our hands and minds--is a good that God planned for us in the beginning.
In his book Work in the Spirit, Miroslav Volf asks why. What is it about work that makes it good? He maintains that modern theories of work, capitalist or Marxist, make it a means to strictly material ends: it accomplishes our immediate goals. He argues that such instrumental perspectives offer no boundaries to prevent work from becoming dehumanizing, degrading, even demonic. And he points to things like sweat shops, monotonous assembly lines and workaholic burnouts to prove his point.
Volf holds that the key to finding meaning in our work lies, of all places, in Christian eschatology-- what we believe about Christ's return and the end of the age. He argues that the hope of New Creation allows Christians to value their work now as a participation in the future renewal of all things under the shalom Christ. God's Spirit is at work in and on behalf of the creation, labouring towards its final consummation. And the Spirit calls us to join him, working towards that day when the healed nations will bring their glory and honor into the heavenly Jerusalem.
Volf's not alone in ascribing eschatological significance to our work. Paul wrote some strong words to the Thessalonian church about some Christians who were using the hope of Christ's return as an excuse to stop working. "Keep away from these lazy busybodies," he says. "That's not the tradition you recieved from us." Christian communities with a genuine Second-Coming hope will be places where work is valued, not as an end in itself, not even as a means to an end, but as a participation now in God's good and coming future.
This has transformed how I view my work. Whether teaching, or writing, or scraping floors, my work really matters to God. Not because of the bread it will put on the table, not because of the identity I will derive from it,but because Spirit himself is at work in and on behalf of my little corner of the world. He's toiling for its future transformation in Christ. And if I have eyes to see him, I can join him in this with my faithful, earnest, sometimes sweaty, work.