Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me." But the Lord answered her, "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her." -Luke 10:38-42 (ESV)
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, without doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. -James 1:5-8 (ESV)
I bide my time far too much in worrying.
I admitted this fairly plainly a few weeks ago. The gist there was that persistence in prayer is a discipline which demonstrates faith that God will act. The source of it is a healthy knowledge of God's Providence. This doctrine of Providence has two elements. The first is sovereignty. God must be able to provide or else imploring Him to do so is a waste of time. Not only must He be able, He must be active to perform it. Thus God cannot sit lackadaisically in Heaven, capable of ordaining and doing yet not. The second is His benevolence. We must believe that God is enthroned in Heaven contending on our behalf for our good. If He is uninterested or malevolent, He oughtn't be sought out for help. It wouldn't do any good.
So is that simple? Is the cure to worry simply not to think? That seems to be the opinion of our age. The popular cures to anxiety involve distraction and mediation. The modern democrat busies himself with material cares, earning money to survive. When he makes enough money to survive, he turns his attention to entertainment and luxury. Once he has no need of worry about life's immediate needs--once he has attained the bases of Maslow's hierarchy--he can go after the glitzy pleasures his wealth affords. He can start saving for the next house, the next smart phone, the next car, the boat and the lake house. And when he achieves these things, he can tarry away enjoying these luxuries. Of course, once habituated to a productive work life he hasn't the inclination to truly enjoy these things. But they do provide welcome relaxation from the bitter stress of his busy-ness. And the noisier his life gets the more he drowns the gnawing moans of his soul. He is too busy to confront the void inside, and when exhaustion threatens to amplify the dirge he has his pleasures to distract him.
The most severe cases necessitate the pills. He who can't busy or distract himself enough may find the grip of anxiety paralyzing. For him there are shrinks and meds aplenty to assuage the sore emptiness of his existence. (Please note that I am not here making a commentary on legitimate chemical imbalances nor am I saying that anxiety and depression are not real psychosomatic issues. I just don't think they are as prevalent as we seem to think them.) There's always a Zoloft for fears and worries to return you to a healthy (read: productive), functioning life. For what is life if not produce and function?
Yet the anxious and unproductive seem wrapped and rapt in their own musings, though typically to their detriment. And while most modern democrats see the solution as filling the mind with sundry thoughts to drown it out (or the oddly inverse-yet-identical Buddhist/New Age solution of emptying the mind of all thought through meditation), Jesus and James seem to suggest another way: fill the mind with something else.
The vessel of the mind is easily filled with worry. Meditation is the Christian answer, but does anyone really know what mediation is? What is it to meditate on the Law of the Lord? I had a mentor long ago give me the answer.
Meditation and worry are the same process. They just have different foci.
Martha was much troubled by the work of hospitality. Her motive wasn't bad, yet her distraction kept her from what Jesus calls "the good portion". What is the one necessary thing? In this story, that was to sit and listen to the Lord's teaching. The cares and concerns of this life will be taken care of in due time, but in that moment she needed most of all to sit and listen to Jesus. She needed to stop filling her mind with the troubles of today and start filling it with the words of Jesus.
James tells us that if we need wisdom or understanding, we need only to ask. Yet we must not ask double-mindedly. He who asks without faith in the Answerer is like a wave tossed to and fro; he cannot ground himself because he has no confidence that his prayer will do any good. The confidence that our prayers will be answered is the confidence to persist, to move, even to produce without fear that things beyond our control--or even things within our control--will destroy us. We rejoice because clarity will come if only we ask, expectant of an answer granted not from more obsession over the object of our concern but from more obsession with the Sovereign Lord who grants it. Christian meditation and prayer are unlike Buddhist and New Age practice because the Christian must fill his mind, not empty it.
So here I sit in my twenty-first-century, quarter-life crisis doing all I can to fixate upon the Lord in between schooling, jobs, careers, vocations, relationships, longings, doubts, and troubles. May I learn to pray as one single-minded on the confident assurance that my heart's cries are heard and my troubled mind shall one day fall silent. The key is to fill the mind with the things of God, the comfort of His character, the truth of His omnipotence, the warmth of His benevolent love which contends for me, not against me. May the unbelief of distraction find cessation in the overwhelming awe of His presence to save, to heal, and to shelter. God be here and swiftly so with all wisdom, amen.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Friday, April 20, 2012
You Only Think I'm Kidding Chapter 6
NEVER TALK TO WOMEN (IF THEY TELL YOU THEY WANT TO)
You see, a woman never says y'all need to talk if it's something wonderful. It's never, "We need to talk... I just love you so much! That's all," or "Can we talk? I want you to watch more 'Battlestar Galactica' with your pasty friends" or "Can we talk? Why don't Catholic priests have beards? It's been bugging me all day, I thought you might know." It's always doom, fellow-males.... usually yours.
Now ladies, I know you are picking up stones to troll me in the comments, so let me make something clear: fellas do this too. "Hey, babe, we need to talk or whatever," a man may say with his best James-Dean apathy. Then he uses that to herald the announcement of his attraction to another woman with half the personality and twice the curves. Yet a man doesn't do so exclusively to announce bad news. His "need-to-talk" talk could mean that y'all "aren't working out but a floozier gal and I will", or it could just as easily mean, "Let's get married and stuff." Or, "We need to talk... I'm bad at expressing my feelings so here goes...". Or, "Can we talk later? ... Can I get out of your stupid friends' wedding to do something actually worthwhile or awesome?" Note that there are a variety of things a man may mean by "We need to talk", typically as a segue into "Here's something I should say that involves my stupid feelings or sumthin'." Could be bad, could be good.
But a woman never has good news when she just needs to talk. Unless you count the perspective of the tight-trousered barista she met who "has a spark" with her.
So how can we men respond to the omnipotent "Can-we-talk" talk? I have some suggestions:
Guess what, America? I'm back with some knowledge.
But Prophet, you ask, how did you escape the clutches of the Oversoul and the wretched Dubstep? Hard work, my friends. Hard work and quality. You see, I realized that the Oversoul had suckered my unsuspecting psyche with its demonic electronica sorcery. So every time I tried to retrieve the fragments of my tortured individuality, I was drowned out by the raucous tyranny. My mind kept crawling for months over the crags of distorted sampling and disorientingly monotonous 4/4 bass lines. So when the time finally came to effect my escape, I knew I had to come up with something to distract the Oversoul. But how can you stifle what is designed to be stifling? With order, of course. I hummed the best song I could think of until I had escaped.
Eye of the Tiger!
One impressive montage later, I was back. And I have a new message for you fellow males out there:
Don't talk to women when they want you to.
"Wait a sec," you say, "we knew you were an opinionated, ignorant, carnivorous pontificate who calls women unwitting pedophiles and would inflame us with dangerous rhetoric whispered only in the deepest recesses of our souls. But a misogynist? That's a step too far." Well my dear ones, stop abusing verb phrases and listen close.
I love women. Too much even. The restraining orders are proof of that. I was born of woman, grew up in a house ruled by women, and will probably die under the care or knife of a woman. After all, my Y chromosome guarantees that cancer, heart disease, radiation, or bullets lower my male life expectancy below that of a woman. So understand the heart from which I say this: a cold, bitter one dead to all emotion but rage. (And hunger, if that counts as an emotion.)
But when a woman wants to talk, let us make no mistake: it is never good news. You see, there are several ways one may request a conversation. "Hey, let's grab coffee later and chat about the IPO report, Steven." "What time do you want to go over the economics project, Sandy?" "My lord, if we don't discuss the new dress code the royal guard might take to wearing Dave Barnes t-shirts in the imperial court. Then the rebellion will regard us as inglorious and bro-ish!" But there's one men never, ever, EVER want to hear from a woman.
"Can we talk?"
To say nothing of its even uglier sister and/or prom date: "We need to talk."
To say nothing of its even uglier sister and/or prom date: "We need to talk."
I remember getting these in the past way too often, usually right before the crippling cycle of depression and self-loathing completely unrelated to rejection. My favorite was one that worked something like this: I got a text asking if I was available around "4:50ish". My girlfriend Carly said we needed to talk. I considered this to be no big deal, figuring maybe she wanted to talk about how much fun she was having with me or how good I look in blue or what we should name our second child.
So full of excitement for quality time with a beautiful woman, I told her I was available. This was, in fact, a half-truth since I needed to get a shift covered at work but I figured it would be no big deal. Carly replied, "Good. I have a pretty packed day and I have to work at 5."
Since "Rattler Van Damme" is the obvious choice for a first-born.
So full of excitement for quality time with a beautiful woman, I told her I was available. This was, in fact, a half-truth since I needed to get a shift covered at work but I figured it would be no big deal. Carly replied, "Good. I have a pretty packed day and I have to work at 5."
What do you suppose was the content of this conversation? Duh, a rejection. So with another set of emotional baggage checked in at Heartsbreak International Airport, I gained a valuable example of this most basic truth.
You see, a woman never says y'all need to talk if it's something wonderful. It's never, "We need to talk... I just love you so much! That's all," or "Can we talk? I want you to watch more 'Battlestar Galactica' with your pasty friends" or "Can we talk? Why don't Catholic priests have beards? It's been bugging me all day, I thought you might know." It's always doom, fellow-males.... usually yours.
Now ladies, I know you are picking up stones to troll me in the comments, so let me make something clear: fellas do this too. "Hey, babe, we need to talk or whatever," a man may say with his best James-Dean apathy. Then he uses that to herald the announcement of his attraction to another woman with half the personality and twice the curves. Yet a man doesn't do so exclusively to announce bad news. His "need-to-talk" talk could mean that y'all "aren't working out but a floozier gal and I will", or it could just as easily mean, "Let's get married and stuff." Or, "We need to talk... I'm bad at expressing my feelings so here goes...". Or, "Can we talk later? ... Can I get out of your stupid friends' wedding to do something actually worthwhile or awesome?" Note that there are a variety of things a man may mean by "We need to talk", typically as a segue into "Here's something I should say that involves my stupid feelings or sumthin'." Could be bad, could be good.
But a woman never has good news when she just needs to talk. Unless you count the perspective of the tight-trousered barista she met who "has a spark" with her.
So how can we men respond to the omnipotent "Can-we-talk" talk? I have some suggestions:
1) Feign busy-ness, then never speak again. This may seem extreme at first, but the same effect is gained as if you'd had the talk. Just keep putting off the needful conversation and avoid it. Granted, the lack of communication will destroy your relationship. But isn't that what was coming anyway?
2) Counter with a talk of your own. This is a tricky strategy. However, if you can come up with an even bigger or more outlandish issue, that might distract her from the soul-crushing issue she wants to discuss. It's hard for a woman to break up with some guy for being emotionally distant when he's passionately convinced that she has a government microchip in her toe ring recording all his thoughts.
3) The jellyfish defense. This involves overdosing on apathy in the hours before the conversation. It can be tough to pull off, but substance abuse can help. Let me suggest a concoction of anti-depressants, ibuprofen, and a six-hour regiment of soccer matches. No heartbreak can penetrate that indifference!
4) The Chewbacca defense. Like option 2, this involves bringing in something of your own. However, unlike the counter-talk, the Chewbacca defense requires bringing in a completely-unrelated topic and obsessing over it until your time together is up. For instance, insist that it is total madness that Chewbacca, a Wookie, would dwell on Endor with the Ewoks. That Chewbacca doesn't really live with the Ewoks is irrelevant; either way, it's not about how she doesn't feel "the spark" anymore.
In the War of the Sexes, "Can we talk?" is the Big Bertha gun which has left many numerous casualties in its wake. Any flak-jacket we men can acquire will keep me from feeling lonely and rejected forever show the enemy who has the real power.
(Stay tuned, ladies. Y'all're gonna get some useful knowledge 'bout the fellas next time. Men are pigs... and I'ma fry up some bacon!)
(Stay tuned, ladies. Y'all're gonna get some useful knowledge 'bout the fellas next time. Men are pigs... and I'ma fry up some bacon!)
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Lenten Reflections: Luke 11 & 18
"Nevertheless, when the the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?"
I was overwhelmed at the question. All at once my heart cried out, "Yes, Lord, find it in me!" Yet I knew that my practice was in no way an indicator of that faith. You see I falter in prayer more than I succeed. I'm not particularly diligent in prayer. I am usually too busy chasing the rabbit trails of my stream of consciousness. I tend not to focus and reflect upon what God would do and have done in the world. When you don't think about what God is doing, you tend to forget that He does anything at all.
I was sitting in the park reading Luke's gospel as a part of my church's challenge to read the four gospels for Lent when I came across this convicting passage. I had a lot on my heart that day, deep questions and frustrations on that Thursday morning. Fed up with my job, longing for a home not so alien as this Ohio River Valley; I very much knew some changes I needed to make and steps necessary to explore my dreams, but where was the time? Imagine being submerged in a shallow but fast-moving stream headed for dangerous rocks. All you need to escape your skewering fate would be to stand upright for even an instant; the water is too fast for even so simple an act of self-salvation! It takes all your energy just to stay afloat, and this delicate balance would be easily turned to tragedy with even a small additional burden. What I really needed was a rope thrown from the shore.
See, sometimes I live life more like a deist or a stoic. The deist lives life as if God were far off and uninterested in the lives of men. For the most part, God has left us to follow our own path and isn't much interested in us. In its philosophical and theological heyday, this belief was considered liberating. I have to admit that I can't think of much more dreadful. How callous for an uninterested God to create a beautiful world then leave it to its own devices. Yet don't I sometimes live as though that's the God I serve? The stoic believes that by focusing on the things he can control and simply enduring the things he can't, he can achieve happiness in life. He shuns himself from exterior pain because it would leave a weakness. Don't I live this way too? Don't I resist weeping at the genuine sorrows of life? Do the things which pain the heart of God pain mine even slightly, or am I--a mere man--of a stronger heart than God?
Thus prayer is a struggle because my go-to preference is simply to do without it. I don't cry out to God because I think I should just keep a stiff upper lip and deal with the hard things. God doesn't change circumstances, I reason without thought. So really, it doesn't much matter if He's in heaven and sees me. He does what He wants, I just live with His choices. No one is going to throw me a rope. Stand up in the water no matter how much it hurts.
This isn't the same God who told the disciples to pray. He asks them, "What kind of parent, when his kids are hungry, throws a rattler in their faces? Or, when the kids are thirsty, gives him a scorpion?" I can't help but find the scene He describes humorous (who says Jesus isn't funny?). You're not exactly on the fast track to parent of the year if you withhold meals from your kids, much less if you toss poisonous wild life at them. I'm not a frequent viewer of daytime talk trash, but I'm sure I would hear about a story in which Maury Povich confronts that careless mother.
"Please, Momma, I want s'more."
"More whut?"
"Dishwater soup please. Please? I can see all mah ribs."
"Gave it all to the goat, boy. But here's a bag of black widow spiders. Catch 'em with yer mouth!"
Jesus continues, "If you, who are evil, know how to give good gifts, how much more will your Father in Heaven who is good give you good gifts?" Just like there (normally) isn't a single parent on earth who, though all parents are fallen, would abuse their children in such (hilarious) ways, how much more will a good and perfect Father give good gifts! It is this statement which prompts Jesus to ask if there will be faith on the earth when he returns.
When we pray for blessing, and the ultimate blessing of God's kingdom to come, we are showing our faith in God! Elsewhere, Jesus says that God knows what we need before we ask. That normally would lead us to conclude that there is no point in prayer since God knows what we need. Yet Jesus says, "Pray because God knows what you need before you ask." This is because God, in his omniscience, is not angry or offended at our lack. Instead, He already knows! Don't try and fake like you have it together before you go to God. You don't! It also means that our prayer is an evidence of faith. For just as we trust in God's knowledge of all things past, present, and future, so too we also trust in His strength to deliver all those good and perfect things He has ordained for us. Prayer is for our benefit. And in the mystery of Divine Providence and human agency, our prayers bring about are the means by which God carries out His perfect plan.
I wept at the realization that weakness is something we can hide from men but not from God. So why pretend? Why live as though He designed life to suck? Moreover, why think that no rope is coming? Jesus says that God knows you need a rope. Even a wicked, unjust judge would give you a hand if you bugged him enough. How much more will a God who loves you! And I pray so double-mindedly, praying for the best but expecting the worst. Could this be why Jesus asks after his teaching on prayer in Luke 18, "Will I find faith when I return?" Our prayer stems from the confident expectation that we are heard and what we request will come to pass. Quit posing and posturing. Own up to who you are because God is big enough to handle your rawness, answer your impossible requests, and save your soul.
I was overwhelmed at the question. All at once my heart cried out, "Yes, Lord, find it in me!" Yet I knew that my practice was in no way an indicator of that faith. You see I falter in prayer more than I succeed. I'm not particularly diligent in prayer. I am usually too busy chasing the rabbit trails of my stream of consciousness. I tend not to focus and reflect upon what God would do and have done in the world. When you don't think about what God is doing, you tend to forget that He does anything at all.
I was sitting in the park reading Luke's gospel as a part of my church's challenge to read the four gospels for Lent when I came across this convicting passage. I had a lot on my heart that day, deep questions and frustrations on that Thursday morning. Fed up with my job, longing for a home not so alien as this Ohio River Valley; I very much knew some changes I needed to make and steps necessary to explore my dreams, but where was the time? Imagine being submerged in a shallow but fast-moving stream headed for dangerous rocks. All you need to escape your skewering fate would be to stand upright for even an instant; the water is too fast for even so simple an act of self-salvation! It takes all your energy just to stay afloat, and this delicate balance would be easily turned to tragedy with even a small additional burden. What I really needed was a rope thrown from the shore.
See, sometimes I live life more like a deist or a stoic. The deist lives life as if God were far off and uninterested in the lives of men. For the most part, God has left us to follow our own path and isn't much interested in us. In its philosophical and theological heyday, this belief was considered liberating. I have to admit that I can't think of much more dreadful. How callous for an uninterested God to create a beautiful world then leave it to its own devices. Yet don't I sometimes live as though that's the God I serve? The stoic believes that by focusing on the things he can control and simply enduring the things he can't, he can achieve happiness in life. He shuns himself from exterior pain because it would leave a weakness. Don't I live this way too? Don't I resist weeping at the genuine sorrows of life? Do the things which pain the heart of God pain mine even slightly, or am I--a mere man--of a stronger heart than God?
Thus prayer is a struggle because my go-to preference is simply to do without it. I don't cry out to God because I think I should just keep a stiff upper lip and deal with the hard things. God doesn't change circumstances, I reason without thought. So really, it doesn't much matter if He's in heaven and sees me. He does what He wants, I just live with His choices. No one is going to throw me a rope. Stand up in the water no matter how much it hurts.
This isn't the same God who told the disciples to pray. He asks them, "What kind of parent, when his kids are hungry, throws a rattler in their faces? Or, when the kids are thirsty, gives him a scorpion?" I can't help but find the scene He describes humorous (who says Jesus isn't funny?). You're not exactly on the fast track to parent of the year if you withhold meals from your kids, much less if you toss poisonous wild life at them. I'm not a frequent viewer of daytime talk trash, but I'm sure I would hear about a story in which Maury Povich confronts that careless mother.
"Please, Momma, I want s'more."
"More whut?"
"Dishwater soup please. Please? I can see all mah ribs."
"Gave it all to the goat, boy. But here's a bag of black widow spiders. Catch 'em with yer mouth!"
Jesus continues, "If you, who are evil, know how to give good gifts, how much more will your Father in Heaven who is good give you good gifts?" Just like there (normally) isn't a single parent on earth who, though all parents are fallen, would abuse their children in such (hilarious) ways, how much more will a good and perfect Father give good gifts! It is this statement which prompts Jesus to ask if there will be faith on the earth when he returns.
When we pray for blessing, and the ultimate blessing of God's kingdom to come, we are showing our faith in God! Elsewhere, Jesus says that God knows what we need before we ask. That normally would lead us to conclude that there is no point in prayer since God knows what we need. Yet Jesus says, "Pray because God knows what you need before you ask." This is because God, in his omniscience, is not angry or offended at our lack. Instead, He already knows! Don't try and fake like you have it together before you go to God. You don't! It also means that our prayer is an evidence of faith. For just as we trust in God's knowledge of all things past, present, and future, so too we also trust in His strength to deliver all those good and perfect things He has ordained for us. Prayer is for our benefit. And in the mystery of Divine Providence and human agency, our prayers bring about are the means by which God carries out His perfect plan.
I wept at the realization that weakness is something we can hide from men but not from God. So why pretend? Why live as though He designed life to suck? Moreover, why think that no rope is coming? Jesus says that God knows you need a rope. Even a wicked, unjust judge would give you a hand if you bugged him enough. How much more will a God who loves you! And I pray so double-mindedly, praying for the best but expecting the worst. Could this be why Jesus asks after his teaching on prayer in Luke 18, "Will I find faith when I return?" Our prayer stems from the confident expectation that we are heard and what we request will come to pass. Quit posing and posturing. Own up to who you are because God is big enough to handle your rawness, answer your impossible requests, and save your soul.
Friday, March 16, 2012
Bitter Much?
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? -Romans 8:28-31
"If only he'd planned out his blog better, he'd still be with us!"The past couple of months I've been acclimating to my new job. I can't say that I'm crazy about it, frankly. I find that it has a lot of rather esoteric policies which, while I completely understand why they are in place, kinda rub me the wrong way. I have always held the opinion that procedures laid out by administration are there to do your thinking for you. They're usually written by someone far above who may or may not remember what it is to do your job. Whether they're effective or not, the principle remains that they exist to remove your individual judgment from a situation. I think this does bad things for individual employees, since it simultaneously expects more and less from them than it should. They require more in that an employee must defer to a boss who may or may not be right and remember all the steps in a process which may or may not be helpful (lest they be reprimanded for an ultimately inconsequential mistake). They require less in that they assume the individual worker isn't better off figuring things out for himself. Thus the policy may be more efficient, but that may not be better for the excellence of the employee in a holistic sense. Yeah, I know, "Companies exist to make money, not good people!" Hence, I won't be in this job forever.
I long ago added to my list of prayer requests the question of graduate school. I am more and more excited about what I see in catalogs. I am person always excited by possibilities and now sometimes I fear I'll never settle down. Whereas before I feared I'd never find anyone, now it's more because I may just chase after awesome things hither and yon until I get old and rot. Mom was right though; this is what your twenties are for. It's weird to think that I kinda used to obsess about getting married and starting a career right at 22. Must be a Southern thing.
Not long ago I was reminiscing with a friend about our college days. He noted that a few years back my self-deprecating sense of humor betrayed an underlying bitterness. I was honestly a bit surprised to find three years later that anyone had noticed. Granted, my immediate family knew my insecurities and that sometimes (okay, often) I masked them with jokes. I knew that about myself and hoped nobody else figured it out. Imagine my surprise upon discovering that it was a topic of discussion among some of my friends--a topic concerning my emotional well-being.
It has really only been in the past few months that this bitterness has been uprooted. Over the past year or so I was convicted that my attitude didn't really match my theology. I believe and publicly espouse a very strong view of God's Providence and oversight in all things. I also believe that God is good and is out for my benefit as His child--even that he is working all these sundry things for my good--no matter what happens. So why did I harbor this nasty self-pity, lurking deep within? More aptly, why did I take all of these failures (mainly relational and ministerial) so personally? I can no more control the actions of another than I can the weather. Sometimes things don't work out, even when you've done everything in your power to fix them. I realized that I was taking as my failure things that only God could control. Only God and other people can control how they made their decisions. Those people I would counsel are accountable for their choices, not me. And if God has already promised that all these confusing, frustrating things work together for my good, how could I blame myself?
It was pride, plain and simple, to take on as mine what God had ordained. I saw how decisions I didn't like were being handed down to me from leaders I was under or from friends who rejected my counsel. I grew to hate the former because they pretended such wisdom when the solution seemed obvious to me. Seeing how those leaders in my organization handled controversies at that time, even now I still think they were wrong. Nevertheless it was God who appointed those people over me and indirectly their decisions came from him. It was mine to honor without begrudging and I failed miserably, if only in my heart. Some of my friends made choices which grieved me to see from afar. It hurt doubly so because I had been sought out for help and counsel. When I saw them do things that I warned against, I felt a foretaste of pain I feared would befall them. Praise God these fears were sometimes unfounded, but often enough they were not. I am still hurt to think about how some bashed their hearts against the craggy shoals of ill-advised solutions. Still, the Scriptures tell us that each must carry his own load. I am not responsible for the spiritual and emotional well-being of every person I meet. To think so is a short road to burnout, pride, and ultimately bitterness. The healing from all this is ongoing and I pray that the lessons I've learned will stick. I have faith now where I didn't before--that all this has somehow built me in Christ's likeness--and I thank him for the joyful and the tough lessons.
None of this to say that I won't stop making self-deprecating jokes. And what's a bigger joke than the quality of my written corpus? Ba-zinga!
Not long ago I was reminiscing with a friend about our college days. He noted that a few years back my self-deprecating sense of humor betrayed an underlying bitterness. I was honestly a bit surprised to find three years later that anyone had noticed. Granted, my immediate family knew my insecurities and that sometimes (okay, often) I masked them with jokes. I knew that about myself and hoped nobody else figured it out. Imagine my surprise upon discovering that it was a topic of discussion among some of my friends--a topic concerning my emotional well-being.
It has really only been in the past few months that this bitterness has been uprooted. Over the past year or so I was convicted that my attitude didn't really match my theology. I believe and publicly espouse a very strong view of God's Providence and oversight in all things. I also believe that God is good and is out for my benefit as His child--even that he is working all these sundry things for my good--no matter what happens. So why did I harbor this nasty self-pity, lurking deep within? More aptly, why did I take all of these failures (mainly relational and ministerial) so personally? I can no more control the actions of another than I can the weather. Sometimes things don't work out, even when you've done everything in your power to fix them. I realized that I was taking as my failure things that only God could control. Only God and other people can control how they made their decisions. Those people I would counsel are accountable for their choices, not me. And if God has already promised that all these confusing, frustrating things work together for my good, how could I blame myself?
For each will have to bear his own load. -Galatians 6:5
It was pride, plain and simple, to take on as mine what God had ordained. I saw how decisions I didn't like were being handed down to me from leaders I was under or from friends who rejected my counsel. I grew to hate the former because they pretended such wisdom when the solution seemed obvious to me. Seeing how those leaders in my organization handled controversies at that time, even now I still think they were wrong. Nevertheless it was God who appointed those people over me and indirectly their decisions came from him. It was mine to honor without begrudging and I failed miserably, if only in my heart. Some of my friends made choices which grieved me to see from afar. It hurt doubly so because I had been sought out for help and counsel. When I saw them do things that I warned against, I felt a foretaste of pain I feared would befall them. Praise God these fears were sometimes unfounded, but often enough they were not. I am still hurt to think about how some bashed their hearts against the craggy shoals of ill-advised solutions. Still, the Scriptures tell us that each must carry his own load. I am not responsible for the spiritual and emotional well-being of every person I meet. To think so is a short road to burnout, pride, and ultimately bitterness. The healing from all this is ongoing and I pray that the lessons I've learned will stick. I have faith now where I didn't before--that all this has somehow built me in Christ's likeness--and I thank him for the joyful and the tough lessons.
None of this to say that I won't stop making self-deprecating jokes. And what's a bigger joke than the quality of my written corpus? Ba-zinga!
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Hope Still Flies
"Hope, to me, is wishing for something good to be true. I believe it is inherent in all of mankind to hope, not because we need to escape where we are, but because we have souls- and those souls were made for something greater than this world. I write about it so often because I think it compels us all. I want to make songs that people at any intellectual level can feel stirred by. Hope is the basest of human feelings to me, the feeling that all emotion springs from." -Reese Roper
“Hope is one of the Theological virtues. This means that a continual looking forward to the eternal world is not (as some modern people think) a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do. It does not mean that we are to leave the present world as it is. If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next.” - C.S. Lewis
I had the pleasure of attending the final Stuck with Virtue Conference at Berry College back in November. The last panel was on Higher Education, namely, if it really existed. Since education is tending toward more and more practical job training, the question was posited if truly liberal education--that is, education that liberates the soul and teaches us how to be free of our baser instincts--can endure. One presenter made the forlorn point that liberal education is necessary for civic virtue... and that without it, we can expect an increasingly productive work force without a clue about who they are and how they should spend their mounting resources. After the last panel concluded, everyone migrated to the ballroom for a catered lunch. Faculty representing several of the attending schools stood and offered final thoughts. Most expressed gratefulness for the event and the presentations. Then a faculty member from Berry stood and directly addressed the bleak professor from earlier. "I think in all our talk about the loss of civic virtue, I think we need a healthy reminder of one of the virtues you missed... a Christian one. The virtue of hope." It was this scene and the interview with Reese Roper of Five Iron Frenzy I did with Mousertime that caused me to mull and ponder on this elusive virtue.
What is hope?
Hope is the belief that the world, both in its temporal circumstances and its ontological value, will be somehow better tomorrow than it is today for the whole of mankind and for the individual himself; it is grounded in a faith that nothing is outside the purview of a benevolent higher power which controls the cosmos and responds to our personal desire for the world to improve.
This is not to say that the world always gets better in the way that the hoper thinks it should. Sometimes circumstances become tragically worse rather than better. Imagine the young father diagnosed with a terminal cancer. He and his children hope that he will overcome every day, yet every day he grows weaker and weaker with chemotherapy until finally he dies. It can't be said that their circumstances became more subjectively favorable. It might even appear to them that their hope was in vain. Maybe hope isn't even real.
This is not to say that hope doesn't have any empowering component either. Consider the case of the man paralyzed by a back injury. Doctors tell him that he will probably never walk again. He returns home dejected, thinking that nothing can be done for him. Then he hears the story of an unorthodox physical therapist in town, reputed to have a greater success rate than any local therapist. Still unimpressed, he wallows in depression until he sees the first shaky steps of his granddaughter. Inspired, the handicapped man hopes that the therapist can help him walk again. So he goes to the therapist week after week, straining through pain and frustration failure after failure. The hope of walking with his granddaughter keeps his perseverance strong and he finally makes those first wobbly steps himself. His hope made him strong and against all odds he persevered. Surely hope can be powerful.
But was his hope any stronger than the family of the first example? Certainly not. Likewise, could not one imagine a scenario in which the body of the grandfather failed him altogether in spite of all hope? Or what if, in the first example, somehow the father's will to live overcame defeated cancer against all odds? That too is not all that alien a story. Thus we must concede that the strength of hope is probably not the variable here, lest we accuse the young father of failing his family by not willing or hoping hard enough. The circumstances were simply different.
True, there was a component of man changing his circumstances in the second example. The crippled grandfather could have simply hoped from the wheelchair that his station would change. Though he hoped until his death, if he did nothing he would (more than likely) remain as he was. In fact, hope was the impetus to action in both stories. The young father and the grandfather both hoped that their condition would improve, then they acted in accord with a realistic hope. Neither man can be faulted for a weak attempt at healing or weak hope for things to get better.
The variable is the providential element of hope. There must be an unseen power which manipulates circumstances beyond the control of man. It is this which inspires man to hope in the face of uncertainty at all. Some will object that they don't believe in any providence of any sort, that no God or gods or force or energy exist or are benevolent friends of man. However, their lives betray them because they certainly hope whether or not they mean to. So why hope if things are truly left to chance? It won't do any good. It can't be chalked up to an evolutionary psychological leftover. For how could it benefit survival to deny capricious chance? A real survivor is one who accepts a situation as it is, not how he wishes it were.
Again, it must be seen that man is more than a mere self-perpetuator. He is a soul with needs, crying out into the silence for an answer. Why cry if there is no answer? Why hope if there are no hands to carry you through? Why ask if there's anyone listening to the minorly and majorly hopeful thoughts floating about in the mind if no one else can ever hear them?
And finally, most poignantly, something must be said about when things don't turn out like we hoped. Does God delight in dashing our hopes? Here inquiry must cease. This visceral pain won't be assuaged away by clever rhetoric. Really only two responses present themselves. The first is to walk away from all hope and transcendence in disgust. Burn all the hopeful books and journals written, ignore all the wisdom of the ages for it cannot complete its ontological explanation of human suffering. The second is to take by faith that sometimes things great and small don't work out like we hoped because God knows better. Our hopes may not have been misguided but short-sighted. Our hope that things will work out in the end isn't always empirical but it has proven logical. Logic requires a kind of faith that our thoughts and concepts tell us true things about the world we live in. And if you have the faith to be logical, how small a step it is to have the faith in the superlogical, things above and beyond what we can conceive and imagine. Tragedy will become victory when the superlogical is revealed. That is the greatest hope of all.
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
-Emily Dickinson
Saturday, February 25, 2012
The Reality of Fiction
When one places life's center of gravity not in life but in the "beyond"--in nothingness--one deprives life of its center of gravity altogether. The great lie of personal immortality destroys all reason, everything natural in the instincts--whatever in the instincts is beneficent and life-promoting or guarantees a future now arouses mistrust. -Friedrich Nietzsche
My first and last philosophy, that which I believe in with unbroken certainty, I learnt in the nursery. [...] The things I believed most then, the things I believe most now, are the things called fairy tales. They seem to me to be the entirely reasonable things. They are not fantasies: compared with them other things are fantastic. Compared with them religion and rationalism are both abnormal, though religion is abnormally right and rationalism abnormally wrong. Fairyland is nothing but the sunny country of common sense. It is not earth that judges heaven, but heaven that judges earth; so for me at least it was not earth that criticised elfland, but elfland that criticised the earth. -G.K. Chesterton
Sometime in early February:
I sat at my usual spot at the coffee shop I've come to frequent here in Louisville. I cautiously brought the cup of hot cinnamon tea to my lips, hoping to bump into my new friend. I first met my friend Henry several months ago while helping some friends move. He reminded me of Thoreau, a man with luddite tendencies desperately trying as hard as he can to escape the corruption of the world. I would consider him to be some kind of existentialist, even though he would probably refuse the label and call himself an individual (as any good existentialist would).
A sip. Ah, the tea is perfect.
Henry arrived as if on cue. We greeted one another cordially and I slid aside my impressive (though only to me) stack of books on medieval theology. He took a seat and I lit my pipe. He produced a pack of cigarettes. We ignited our vices and began to reason together.
I had an ulterior motive in meeting with him, of course. You see, I care tremendously for his soul. As is so common in our ultra-modern, ultra-convenient times, he seems to me a listless and tempest-tossed alien. He has never been more comfortable and never so homeless. In addition to the cosmopolitan curse, he is also weighed down by survivor's guilt. His best friend drove thirty miles into the glorious New England countryside to drown himself ingloriously in a pond just a bit off the highway. Henry blamed himself for being so far south when his friend took his own life. Needless to say, I continue to release many fragrant prayers to the Lord for him.
"I'm working on a project," I announced after the pleasant small talk had subsided, "maybe you can help me."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. I could use another pair of ears. Y'see, I'm writing on hope. Tryin' to figure out what exactly it is, what it does for us, why we need it, is it even real? Maybe you can help me sort through all my thoughts."
"Okay," Henry agreed. "What do you have so far?"
"Well, I began... um, are ya familiar with the 'Green Lantern' comics?" He nodded. "Well, then you know how the Blue Lanterns work. The symbiosis with the Greens and everything, the symbolism of hope being useless without willpower, but together hope can super charge willpower. Right?" Yes. "But isn't that just a fancy way of saying that hope is just a delusion?"
"How so?" he asked.
"Think of it. Hope isn't real, it's just a tool. It really doesn't matter what you hope in, so long as you hope for something. Nietzsche would say that hope is a great lie, particularly when imposed from the outside. It's a fantasy, a tool for control. Or it's just something we need in order to function, an existential necessity. Anyway," I concluded, "that's where I'm stuck. Ya got any thoughts for me?"
He mulled it over for a moment. Then he answered, "I think hope is fantastic in some sense. Honestly, I'm not really as much of a philosopher as a writer or English dork. But I think fiction really resonates with people because it IS fake. Maybe it's not real, but that's what so compelling about it."
"So you would say that the compelling things about literature aren't really based on anything real?"
"They're rooted in our experience, or how we perceive it. We want the world to be better than it is. We wish our experiences were more than they are."
"It's just a wish then? It has no reality?"
"It's a real desire for things to be better than they are. There's nothing false about wanting things to be better than they are. In fact, idealization keeps us going. Writers craft ideal characters to fit their stories. The people they invent function just the way they're supposed to in the narrative. But any good writer will tell you that a solid character eventually writes themselves. That sorta makes them real, doesn't it?" Henry asked whimsically.
"But are the characters really ideal? Are ideal or realistic characters better?"
"Realistic ones, of course. I meant that they function ideally in the story. They do what the author wants."
I conceded the point. "But why are realistic characters better? Why not the perfect ones?"
"I think real characters need to be relatable."
"Why do the readers need to relate?"
"Are you leading me somewhere?"
"I asked you first."
Henry sighed in defeat. He knew that I was in fact leading him somewhere. Still, he was the one who had to get there. To state it plainly wouldn't mean the same to him. "I think readers need to relate because they need to see themselves in the story. They ought to recognize what kind of person is in the story and how they're like that character. They need to see that a character will react in a story just like they will, or if they're different, why they did otherwise."
"So a realistic character has to seem real, not entirely fictional?"
He was thoughtfully quiet before replying, "I suppose so."
"So might it be fair to say that the compelling thing about fiction is, on some level, not what is imaginary but what is real about it. Aristotle praised poetry for this reason; it attained unto the universal. It uses narrative to tell us what's true about being human in a way that philosophy never could."
"Interesting."
"Couldn't hope be the same?" I asked. "Could it be that we're not compelled by fiction but by reality? And not reality as it is--for the real world is a harsh place--but reality as we always hoped it could be? As though our hearts yearn for the world to be better than it actually is not because we can imagine it better but because it is supposed to be better than it really is? What if there's something terribly wrong with the world? We think that our hopes aren't real because we don't see any tangible proof of them. But the hope itself is the evidence! Or else why would there ever have been hope at all?"
(A more thorough treatment of the question of hope will follow this dialogue.)
My first and last philosophy, that which I believe in with unbroken certainty, I learnt in the nursery. [...] The things I believed most then, the things I believe most now, are the things called fairy tales. They seem to me to be the entirely reasonable things. They are not fantasies: compared with them other things are fantastic. Compared with them religion and rationalism are both abnormal, though religion is abnormally right and rationalism abnormally wrong. Fairyland is nothing but the sunny country of common sense. It is not earth that judges heaven, but heaven that judges earth; so for me at least it was not earth that criticised elfland, but elfland that criticised the earth. -G.K. Chesterton
Sometime in early February:
I sat at my usual spot at the coffee shop I've come to frequent here in Louisville. I cautiously brought the cup of hot cinnamon tea to my lips, hoping to bump into my new friend. I first met my friend Henry several months ago while helping some friends move. He reminded me of Thoreau, a man with luddite tendencies desperately trying as hard as he can to escape the corruption of the world. I would consider him to be some kind of existentialist, even though he would probably refuse the label and call himself an individual (as any good existentialist would).
A sip. Ah, the tea is perfect.
Henry arrived as if on cue. We greeted one another cordially and I slid aside my impressive (though only to me) stack of books on medieval theology. He took a seat and I lit my pipe. He produced a pack of cigarettes. We ignited our vices and began to reason together.
I had an ulterior motive in meeting with him, of course. You see, I care tremendously for his soul. As is so common in our ultra-modern, ultra-convenient times, he seems to me a listless and tempest-tossed alien. He has never been more comfortable and never so homeless. In addition to the cosmopolitan curse, he is also weighed down by survivor's guilt. His best friend drove thirty miles into the glorious New England countryside to drown himself ingloriously in a pond just a bit off the highway. Henry blamed himself for being so far south when his friend took his own life. Needless to say, I continue to release many fragrant prayers to the Lord for him.
"I'm working on a project," I announced after the pleasant small talk had subsided, "maybe you can help me."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. I could use another pair of ears. Y'see, I'm writing on hope. Tryin' to figure out what exactly it is, what it does for us, why we need it, is it even real? Maybe you can help me sort through all my thoughts."
"Okay," Henry agreed. "What do you have so far?"
"Well, I began... um, are ya familiar with the 'Green Lantern' comics?" He nodded. "Well, then you know how the Blue Lanterns work. The symbiosis with the Greens and everything, the symbolism of hope being useless without willpower, but together hope can super charge willpower. Right?" Yes. "But isn't that just a fancy way of saying that hope is just a delusion?"
"How so?" he asked.
"Think of it. Hope isn't real, it's just a tool. It really doesn't matter what you hope in, so long as you hope for something. Nietzsche would say that hope is a great lie, particularly when imposed from the outside. It's a fantasy, a tool for control. Or it's just something we need in order to function, an existential necessity. Anyway," I concluded, "that's where I'm stuck. Ya got any thoughts for me?"
He mulled it over for a moment. Then he answered, "I think hope is fantastic in some sense. Honestly, I'm not really as much of a philosopher as a writer or English dork. But I think fiction really resonates with people because it IS fake. Maybe it's not real, but that's what so compelling about it."
"So you would say that the compelling things about literature aren't really based on anything real?"
"They're rooted in our experience, or how we perceive it. We want the world to be better than it is. We wish our experiences were more than they are."
"It's just a wish then? It has no reality?"
"It's a real desire for things to be better than they are. There's nothing false about wanting things to be better than they are. In fact, idealization keeps us going. Writers craft ideal characters to fit their stories. The people they invent function just the way they're supposed to in the narrative. But any good writer will tell you that a solid character eventually writes themselves. That sorta makes them real, doesn't it?" Henry asked whimsically.
"But are the characters really ideal? Are ideal or realistic characters better?"
"Realistic ones, of course. I meant that they function ideally in the story. They do what the author wants."
I conceded the point. "But why are realistic characters better? Why not the perfect ones?"
"I think real characters need to be relatable."
"Why do the readers need to relate?"
"Are you leading me somewhere?"
"I asked you first."
Henry sighed in defeat. He knew that I was in fact leading him somewhere. Still, he was the one who had to get there. To state it plainly wouldn't mean the same to him. "I think readers need to relate because they need to see themselves in the story. They ought to recognize what kind of person is in the story and how they're like that character. They need to see that a character will react in a story just like they will, or if they're different, why they did otherwise."
"So a realistic character has to seem real, not entirely fictional?"
He was thoughtfully quiet before replying, "I suppose so."
"So might it be fair to say that the compelling thing about fiction is, on some level, not what is imaginary but what is real about it. Aristotle praised poetry for this reason; it attained unto the universal. It uses narrative to tell us what's true about being human in a way that philosophy never could."
"Interesting."
"Couldn't hope be the same?" I asked. "Could it be that we're not compelled by fiction but by reality? And not reality as it is--for the real world is a harsh place--but reality as we always hoped it could be? As though our hearts yearn for the world to be better than it actually is not because we can imagine it better but because it is supposed to be better than it really is? What if there's something terribly wrong with the world? We think that our hopes aren't real because we don't see any tangible proof of them. But the hope itself is the evidence! Or else why would there ever have been hope at all?"
(A more thorough treatment of the question of hope will follow this dialogue.)
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Lenten Reflections: Matthew 1 & 2
I was raised in the Baptist tradition, so low church I think I scrapped the bottom of the holiness barrel. I leaned downright Anabaptist for a long time, so the idea of a Christian calendar with seasons of fasting seemed alien to me. After all, fasting doesn't make you a better Christian. Aren't we free in Christ from the law and its appointed seasons of feasting and fasting? The whole Christian life is a feast, I thought. By the end of high school I was identifying as a Calvinist and in college I was exposed to the deep wells of tradition and theology that pushed me firmly into a broadly-Reformed camp. There I discovered the history of the saints gone by and realized that the Church Universal didn't end with the Apostle John only to restart with Billy Graham (and maybe a blip with Martin Luther). I learned how Lent is supposed to be a time to prepare us for Easter, that the fasting is supposed to deepen our feasting on God. Our hunger for food or caffeine or the internet is supposed to bodily turn our affections toward a deepened spiritual hunger for God. Still I participated in Lent only once and then halfheartedly, forgetting partway through I was even fasting or what the point was. I failed to orient my hunger toward the Lord and fell back into my thoughtless feasting. Praise God that grace abounds to the chief of sinners.
This year I actually attended a morning Ash Wednesday service at Sojourn, a Southern Baptist congregation which manages maintain low church form with high church sensibilities. They have a deep appreciation for liturgy, ritual, art, and holy expression while keeping the last, the lost, the least unalienated with esoteric holy trappings. So this morning I heard the real truth of Lent again for the first time: Man is mortal and we die to something to come alive again with a celebration of Christ's resurrection. Along with that came a charge to read the Gospels this season, so I endeavor to do so as I fast praying that my devotion to the Holy Writ will increase in my temporary death.
Today I read and meditate upon Matthew chapters 1-2. Here we read the genealogy of Jesus. It is filled with the names of men sometimes glorious, but more often inglorious. Particularly Matthew calls to mind the wicked kings of Israel we read about in Kings and Chronicles. These are men like Rehoboam and Manasseh who bow the knee to idols and demons, couching the plans of God with their own expedient safeguards and back-up plans. God can't be wholly trusted, they reasoned, so my Judahite army, Molech, and Asherah will save me if Yahweh fails. There are harlots like Rahab and liars like Abraham. Still God chose to use this pedigree to fulfill His purpose.
Other things could be noted (the Magi, Herod, the Bethlehem slaughter), but I was struck today by the example of Joseph. Here was a man I once heard described as "the manliest Christian outside of Jesus Himself." He first hears that his betrothed is pregnant though he has never had sex with her. Rather than expose her to a public humiliation, we are told that he plans to divorce her quietly. This is a drastic understatement. According to Levitical law, he could have had her stoned for infidelity! Yet even before he realizes what has transpired, he still intends to extend grace and break off the engagement. Now, we know as the reader that had he done these things he would have in fact done something quite unjust. Yet from his perspective and the vantage point of those around him, this would have been reasonable, just, and even gracious.
Then he has a vision of an angel telling him that this child is from the Holy Spirit. And he believes and marries her. In spite of the local gossip around Nazareth, he takes responsibility for a child not his own. Only an unfair modern critic would try to say that he is buying into some mythology to justify himself here. Ancient people may have had a more primitive science, but they certainly knew where babies came from! He knew this wasn't natural, that it defied all explanation. He knew that the community might (and probably did) speak against the character of his future wife. Nevertheless he persevered by faith that God was working something astounding. He doesn't even know that Messiah has come, he just believes!
It is by faith that he takes his family to Bethlehem. His wife is due any day and he still goes, knowing that through obedience to Caesar he is obeying God. He trusts God to iron out all the details. God provides a safe birth. It is by faith that he listens to the angel's warnings and flees to Egypt. Can you imagine? He didn't go back home to Nazareth at all. He brought no effects of home with his young family. Instead, he flees by night to a foreign land--a land of slavery in the Jewish mind--to escape the wrath of a jealous king. Here he shows the great virtue of provision. He thinks again of the safety of his family--a disgraced wife and a child not his own--and leaves everything behind all based on another vision from a divine messenger. He has no natural promise of safe conduct, no tangible guarantee of success. He has his faith and his God, and that his more than enough. He has nothing yet he has everything.
His journey is not so different from ours. We too sojourn by faith, not by sight. We Christians live as a people in-between in a kingdom here but not here yet. The promise of Christ has yet to be fully realized. We have the Word of God, the Spirit of God, and promises of suffering and deliverance. And so we sojourn. We travel through life prayer by prayer, trusting not in the might of our hands nor the strength of our earnings nor the knowledge of our minds. This is the life of a Christian, the life of Joseph. It is one which is folly to the world yet salvation for those who believe. May we endure well this mortal race with our full hope in God the Father, faith in Jesus Christ our Redeemer, by the power of the Holy Spirit indwelling us. May the ash on our foreheads be a reminder that to dust we shall return and from death we shall rise in the glory and majesty of our brother Jesus Christ and our Father God Almighty. May this season of death be a season of life.
This year I actually attended a morning Ash Wednesday service at Sojourn, a Southern Baptist congregation which manages maintain low church form with high church sensibilities. They have a deep appreciation for liturgy, ritual, art, and holy expression while keeping the last, the lost, the least unalienated with esoteric holy trappings. So this morning I heard the real truth of Lent again for the first time: Man is mortal and we die to something to come alive again with a celebration of Christ's resurrection. Along with that came a charge to read the Gospels this season, so I endeavor to do so as I fast praying that my devotion to the Holy Writ will increase in my temporary death.
Today I read and meditate upon Matthew chapters 1-2. Here we read the genealogy of Jesus. It is filled with the names of men sometimes glorious, but more often inglorious. Particularly Matthew calls to mind the wicked kings of Israel we read about in Kings and Chronicles. These are men like Rehoboam and Manasseh who bow the knee to idols and demons, couching the plans of God with their own expedient safeguards and back-up plans. God can't be wholly trusted, they reasoned, so my Judahite army, Molech, and Asherah will save me if Yahweh fails. There are harlots like Rahab and liars like Abraham. Still God chose to use this pedigree to fulfill His purpose.
Other things could be noted (the Magi, Herod, the Bethlehem slaughter), but I was struck today by the example of Joseph. Here was a man I once heard described as "the manliest Christian outside of Jesus Himself." He first hears that his betrothed is pregnant though he has never had sex with her. Rather than expose her to a public humiliation, we are told that he plans to divorce her quietly. This is a drastic understatement. According to Levitical law, he could have had her stoned for infidelity! Yet even before he realizes what has transpired, he still intends to extend grace and break off the engagement. Now, we know as the reader that had he done these things he would have in fact done something quite unjust. Yet from his perspective and the vantage point of those around him, this would have been reasonable, just, and even gracious.
Then he has a vision of an angel telling him that this child is from the Holy Spirit. And he believes and marries her. In spite of the local gossip around Nazareth, he takes responsibility for a child not his own. Only an unfair modern critic would try to say that he is buying into some mythology to justify himself here. Ancient people may have had a more primitive science, but they certainly knew where babies came from! He knew this wasn't natural, that it defied all explanation. He knew that the community might (and probably did) speak against the character of his future wife. Nevertheless he persevered by faith that God was working something astounding. He doesn't even know that Messiah has come, he just believes!
It is by faith that he takes his family to Bethlehem. His wife is due any day and he still goes, knowing that through obedience to Caesar he is obeying God. He trusts God to iron out all the details. God provides a safe birth. It is by faith that he listens to the angel's warnings and flees to Egypt. Can you imagine? He didn't go back home to Nazareth at all. He brought no effects of home with his young family. Instead, he flees by night to a foreign land--a land of slavery in the Jewish mind--to escape the wrath of a jealous king. Here he shows the great virtue of provision. He thinks again of the safety of his family--a disgraced wife and a child not his own--and leaves everything behind all based on another vision from a divine messenger. He has no natural promise of safe conduct, no tangible guarantee of success. He has his faith and his God, and that his more than enough. He has nothing yet he has everything.
His journey is not so different from ours. We too sojourn by faith, not by sight. We Christians live as a people in-between in a kingdom here but not here yet. The promise of Christ has yet to be fully realized. We have the Word of God, the Spirit of God, and promises of suffering and deliverance. And so we sojourn. We travel through life prayer by prayer, trusting not in the might of our hands nor the strength of our earnings nor the knowledge of our minds. This is the life of a Christian, the life of Joseph. It is one which is folly to the world yet salvation for those who believe. May we endure well this mortal race with our full hope in God the Father, faith in Jesus Christ our Redeemer, by the power of the Holy Spirit indwelling us. May the ash on our foreheads be a reminder that to dust we shall return and from death we shall rise in the glory and majesty of our brother Jesus Christ and our Father God Almighty. May this season of death be a season of life.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)