Month: October 2010

My Wild Goose Chase

Posted on

I love the use of the Celtic “wild goose” as the symbol of this gathering exploring creativity, justice, and spirituality.  It evokes that other distinctly Celtic idea of peregrinati – journeys or wanderings of an undefined but spiritual nature.  It is the wild goose flying where it will, exploring new territories and discovering new horizons amidst even the everyday and the familiar landscapes of home.  The Celtic monks followed that call of the wild bird on their peregrinati, journeying with the spirit on undetermined paths.  They served, and worshiped, and reflected along the way but often had no real goal or destination beyond the journey itself.  They embodied Tolkien’s famous “not all who wander are lost” phrase, for it was their wanderings – their wild goose chases -that held the meaning in themselves.

Over the last decade or so I have come to embrace this idea of peregrinati.  Static systems that enforced doctrine, demanded conformity, and discouraged questions had left me hollow.  Those were expressions of faith focused primarily on enacting a transaction that guaranteed what would happen to me after I died.  There was no continual quest for truth, no moving to where the spirit led, no grasping of the idea that following Jesus was the purpose of my faith and not just a means to an end.  It was at the point when I was about to walk away from that façade of a faith that felt so lifeless and bereft of soul that I stumbled upon the most basic of truths – that the wild goose cannot be caged.

It was freeing to discover that to be led by the spirit was what it meant to follow Jesus.  Both require movement – intentional wanderings where the life of faith is to be lived.  My peregrinati were not just missional moments in my faith journey, they were the shape of my entire embodied faith.  Embracing how God’s image is creatively reflected in my life and pursuing the call to seek justice for the oppressed became more than just optional additions to an unchanging faith, but the very substance of the journey itself.  To follow Jesus and be led by the Spirit means engaging in this intentional wandering.  I am now free to be always seeking, always serving, always following as I wander on this journey.  And it was stepping out on that wild goose chase that not only saved my faith, but drew me onto the path where that faith is ever developing and discovering new things.

So I look forward to merging our peregrinati at this gathering and sharing our stories of where this wild goose chase has led us.

Read more

God Bless

Posted on

In reading Walter Brueggemann’s latest book, Out of Babylon – a fantastic read full of thought provoking insights – I was intrigued by his discussion of blessing. In referring to the confidence of the Davidic dynasty in the years leading up to the exile, he writes –

These [texts] concerning dynasty and temple, regularly reiterated in state-sponsored liturgy, gave certitude and entitlement to those most closely gathered around the center of Jerusalem power. All this certainty about God’s blessing of Jerusalem, its king and its temple, gave the people of Jerusalem an excuse to ignore the social facts on the ground. If God was indeed blessing the power structure of Jerusalem unconditionally, then they need not worry about the economic exploitation and political oppression going on around them.

I think we all too often use this idea of blessing to ignore the needs of others. Living for ourselves, demanding God’s blessing for ourselves, prevents us from opening our eyes to the needs of others. And often enjoying that blessing (politically or economically) results in the direct exploitation and oppression of others. What we see as blessing is simply ill-gotten gain – what we call blessing others live as misery. Brueggemann goes on to say how even with the empires at their backdoor many in Jerusalem lived in denial as they tried to keep up this certainty of blessing with false mantras of “shalom, shalom.” His point is that only the poetic utterances of the prophets quietly challenged those false assurances by implying that the mere saying of “shalom” does not create peace. Saying “we are blessed” while others suffer for our false sense of blessing has nothing to do with actual blessing.

The parallels to modern day America are obvious (which is where Bruegemann goes in the text). We claim God’s blessing with the certitude of a blood drenched flag backing it up and the exploited poor suffering in our wake. We’ve mistaken greed, power, and consumption for blessing. Yet, beyond this obvious comparison to America, what these words on blessing brought to my mind was how often the church acts in these ways as well.

If a church is growing – determined almost exclusively numerically these days (the counting of butts and bucks) – then they deem themselves to be at the receiving end of God’s blessing. If people are showing up and spending giving money, then they must be doing something right for God to bless them in such ways. Unfortunately the same rationale could be applied to a movie theater or football stadium. Claiming God’s blessing because people are showing up to be entertained or affirmed in their pursuit of the American Dream makes no logical sense, but sadly has become a handy excuse for the church to continue ignoring its participation in communal sins of exploitation and oppression or even ignorance. For if God is blessing a church (growing numbers), then why should they change or examine who they really are? Why bother asking what it means to sacrificially follow Christ when everything is going so well?

At the church I attend we have entered into an intense period of discernment as a community. Part of why we are doing so is because the numbers aren’t there, we’re hurting. I think it could be easy to see this struggle as a lack of blessing, or at least to say that we are in need of more of God’s blessing (not that I’ve actually heard this being said). But what I’ve been reflecting on during this time is that perhaps this is an opportunity to help us realize that any blessing we have exists for the sole purpose of us by extension blessing others. It has been providing us a chance to really examine who we are – which I do hope will lead to a response of sacrificial living. I don’t want us to have confidence in our own community for the sake of itself alone, for sometimes even in the midst of struggles it can be easy to do so, just like Jerusalem saying “shalom, shalom” with certainty as empire breathed down their necks. It can unfortunately be just as easy for the struggling as well as the numerically “blessed” church to turn inward and start existing only for acquiring “blessings” for themselves.

The nation of Israel was told that they were blessed to be a blessing to the nations. This wasn’t some warm fuzzy perk – this was a task that required sacrifice, generosity, and ongoing humility. Existing for the sake of others is hard work. Ensuring that the people around us are finding justice, not being oppressed, and being showered with the blessing of God is a lot harder than getting a few more butts in the pews or dollars in the plate. Giving up perceived blessing when that blessing feeds a system of injustice is even harder, but it is only in such actions that the true path to blessing can be found.

So I appreciated Bruegemann’s reminder that blessing can be a tricky thing. It is easy to think we are blessed and miss the point entirely by failing to be actively serving others and seeking justice for all. But we can also easily desire blessing for ourselves without realizing that that is not how God works at all. A church should never exist for the sake of itself, no matter how great of a community it might be. The body of Christ is called to bear witness, to be that communal voice answering the call of Christ – seeking justice for all. Blessing can only be used to bless – to be the healers of this world. Just as saying “shalom” does not bring peace, simply saying “we are blessed” (in praise or supplication) does not make it so unless there is the evidence of a simultaneous blessing of others.

Read more

Christianity and Cages

Posted on

Earlier this week I received an email mocking the quote at the top of this blog. Eowyn’s words from The Two Towers about her greatest fear being to live life as if it were a cage that not just prevents but crushes the very desire to do great deeds of service in the world capture my feelings on living missionally and purposefully as well. The email’s author though charged that by believing in Christianity and God I am living in a cage and that I am an insane, pathetic, uneducated fool because of it. Most of me simply pities the person with such unresolved anger issues that they lash out in emails to strangers, but the email prompted me to think on cages and Christianity – or more specifically our involvement in our own faith.

When I think of a cage, I imagine someone (or something) living in a world that is controlled by another. A fish in a bowl or a bird in a cage has its existence defined and determined by an outside force. It exists, but not in any way that determines the path of its own existence. A caged creature does not have a voice in its own life, and, more significantly, nor can it affect the world outside it. Like Neo trapped in the Matrix, the caged creature might assume it is living a full life; but even if it is unaware of the bars of its cage, they still exist to confine it. To be caged is to live a life without change. Static lives cannot participate in the act of becoming – be that becoming better selves or serving towards building a better world. Behind the bars, be they perceived or not, all chance of valor has truly gone beyond recall or desire.

In truth, I do see cages in Christianity. They might not be the cages that the email author implied, but we have erected structures that preclude our intimate involvement in our own faith journey. For instance, I’ve been immersed in studying theories of the atonement in seminary recently and I’ve seen how in allowing the atoning work of the cross to be perceived simply as a transaction that occurs on our behalf and not something we participate in with fear and trembling, we turn what should be a dynamic and transformative relationship with Christ into a static event. When salvation is fully outside of us, it becomes something done to us like unto kept creatures in a cage. But true grace does not involve God keeping us in a cage feeding us the scraps of salvation for his amusement. We are not caged creatures with no voice or role in the unfolding cosmic drama. Far from being an imposed act, atonement is an invitation to conversion and transformation, a chance to respond to Christ’s act of sacrifice through participation in the missional act of worship.

The tragedy of a broken world where all is not as it is meant to be finds salvation in Christ as it is transformed into wholeness. This isn’t done through human will as some seem so ready to accuse social justice Christians of, but nor is it an act of a mad scientist God experimenting on caged creatures. I love how Rowan Williams explains it, “The story of Jesus is not one of miraculous suspension and interruption of the human world, nor is it a story of human moral and spiritual heroism; it involves us in a self-declaration and a self-discovery.” Salvation is conversion, which is transformation. Transformation isn’t done to us, but it is a process that we are invited into in hopes of healing this broken world.

So I see how often Christianity becomes a cage. To believe that we are objects of some divine transaction who need not do the hard work of participating in the transforming restoration of all creation is to erect that cage around ourselves. We are songbirds who see no purpose but to stay behind bars singing pleasant tunes while all chance of valor, service, worship, and true relationship with God pass beyond recall or desire. Instead of becoming who we were meant to be (and seeing the world put right as well), we embrace the easy faith of a gilt cage unaware that we are living behind bars. Caged Christians don’t join in with Christ in the work of bringing freedom to the oppressed or healing the wounds of this world. If there is nothing to become, if everything just plays out outside of our cage, then there is no reason to ever desire to do great acts of valor in service of the redemption of all things.

But God is not a puppet master or mad scientist or even caring pet owner. When God desires relationship with us, it is not as one tending to a mindless bird in a cage. No, it is a relentless pursuit intent on redeeming our humanity through the continual transformation of that very humanity. Following God engages not just our mind and wills, but every aspect of who we are.

I, for one, am not content in a cage. I am not content with a faith that disengages from the discipline of becoming the person I was meant to be or from working to make the world as it was meant to be. I cannot believe God wishes for us a static life where our ultimate callings and purposes are domesticated by the assumption that we can be blessed without ever being a blessing. Relationship requires participation – not the numbing apathy of a cage. I do truly fear that cage – I fear living a life where I stop being transformed and stop participating in the work of Christ to bring justice and healing to our world. I fear a faith where I let the cage of my own theology confine me from participating in relationship with Jesus. I fear becoming so content in my cage that I stop becoming who I am meant to be.

Read more

Citizens or Neighbors?

Posted on

Last week a Tennessee man’s house burned to the ground while firefighters stood by and watched. Gene Cranick hadn’t paid a $75 insurance fee that opts him into his county’s fire protection services, according to him he simply forgot to send it in. So when his house caught fire, firefighters showed up and watched his house burn (with his pets inside). They worked to save a neighbor’s field (who had paid the fee), but simply stood by as his house burned to the ground. There is much to-do being made about following the laws of the land and the safety of firefighters working in a place they aren’t insured to protect. Comparisons are (rightly) being made to instances where people die in the ER because they are refused treatment since they don’t have health insurance. What we see is that the system rewards those with privilege any money who can afford protection, but denies help to those who fall outside that group.

Those, of course, aren’t the only laws that prevent help from reaching people. Numerous cities have passed laws against panhandlers. Included in these laws are rules that forbid giving handouts to beggars. These laws make it against the law to feed the hungry – giving a sandwich to a homeless guy on the streets is technically illegal in many areas. Also there are the laws about not giving aid to immigrants. Pastors cannot offer shelter, food, or sanctuary to the needy if they are illegally in this country. Doctors cannot treat the wounded for fear of lending aid that is against the law. We have allowed ourselves to be consumed by a system where we have essentially forgotten that the Sabbath was made for people, not people for the Sabbath.

Somewhere along the way we have started caring more about being a good citizen than being a good neighbor. It’s strange, because we still attempt to instill in our children the idea of being a good neighbor – to help even those that oppose us. With two young children at home, I see a lot of the TV shows and movies aimed at kids. I see Dora going off to help out her arch-enemy Swiper when he gets in trouble. Or in the new Tinkerbelle movie, I see the fairies mounting a rescue attempt for the one fairy that always tries to ruin their lives. No matter who those people are or how bad they have been, the message gets sent that if they are in trouble you help them no matter what. In the same way we teach our kids the story of the Good Samaritan, emphasizing that racial, cultural, and economic lines do not matter when it comes to how we should help others who are hurting. We say that we value being a good neighbor, but how quickly that gets abandoned when it gets in the way of being a good citizen.

Allowing the laws of the land to stand in the way of love is not what it means to live out what Jesus was encouraging in that parable. Standing by and watching a house burn down and pets be burned alive because of a $75 fee is not being a good neighbor. Nor is letting someone die because they aren’t rich enough to afford insurance. From a certain political perspective it can be justified as being a good citizen, but that is not even close to being the same thing. Perhaps we need to listen more to the lessons we teach our children. Being a good neighbor means taking care of people no matter their economic, racial, or political status. It means loving them no matter how badly they may have treated us or offended our sensibilities. It means we have to stop being the Priest or the Levite who let the excuses of legality and red tape justify our crossing to the other side of the road and walking right past those who suffer. Being a good neighbor means revering compassion and love above following the letter of the law. The laws were made to serve, not to prevent us from actually serving.

But I fear we have it all backwards in our society as we constantly seek to find new and more creative ways to avoid doing the hard work of actually following Jesus.

Update – For a perfect example of this messed up worldview, read these comments arguing that letting the house burn down was the “Christian” thing to do since having compassion means you follow a weak “feminized” Christianity that doesn’t care about responsibility or prosperity.

Read more

The Church Needs a Prophetic Voice

Posted on

We have all heard the old saying that Satan’s greatest ploy is to get people to stop believing in him. For when people aren’t looking to fight his evil then that evil has more room to flourish. I fear something similar is occurring in our country in our rejection of social justice. Instead of gathering the people of God together to work against injustice like Jesus commanded us to do; those with interests in allowing injustices (especially economic injustice) to continue are attempting to convince the church to shun the very idea of justice itself. The easiest way for the evil of injustice to flourish in this world is for the church to believe we should be doing nothing about it. And as crazy as it seems, that tactic is succeeding. The public is being encouraged to flee churches that teach about justice, to equate social justice with the atrocities of Nazi Germany, and to believe that supporting social justice will result in the elimination of all religious liberties. Basically, to embrace the exact opposite of the justice-seeking way of life that Jesus demands of his followers.

Glenn Beck’s recent tirade against those that care about justice illustrates this revisionist view of justice. He states that people who support justice for the oppressed are promoting a state sponsored church similar to the Nazi controlled churches in Germany. Playing on people’s fears, Beck convinces them that unless they stay silent on justice issues then the government will take over their churches. According to Beck, “when you combine church and state, and you take… a big government and you combine it with the church, to get people to do the things that the state wants you to do, it always ends in mass death.” His solution is to silence the voices for justice and let faith simply be about individual private commitments. What Beck fails to realize is that silencing the voices for justice within the church is simply a passive way of giving control of the church to the powers of this world. Empires (the State in both political and economic realms) can either directly control the church (as Hitler did) or it can control the church by rendering it impotent.

Beck’s example of Hitler’s Nazi controlled church, reminds me of the Barman Declaration (1934). An ecumenical group of Confessing Christians in Germany did stand up to the State controlled church, sending the message that they had no Fuhrer but Jesus. It was a bold move, but in demanding their autonomy they also gave up the right to speak truth to power. In creating for themselves the space to worship as they choose without interference, they inadvertently gave the state control of their voices, leaving the Confessing Churches little room to speak up on justice issues (like the extermination of the Jews). For this reason Dietrich Bonhoeffer disagreed with Karl Barth over the drafting of this declaration – it sacrificed justice for the sake of supposed autonomy. While there is much to be admired in the Barman Declaration, I have to wonder how Jesus can truly be the leader of the church if that church has allowed itself to be silenced in regard to justice issues.

Beck is correct in pointing out that throughout history the church has been controlled by the state to disastrous ends. But this is never because the state cared too much about justice. On the contrary, it was when the state controlled “church” ceased speaking out on behalf of justice for the oppressed that power was corrupted, liberty was denied, and mass deaths did occur. One thinks of Persian-controlled Ezra casting the foreign wives and children of the Jews into the wilderness to die as his religious zeal cleansed the land. Or of Charlemagne forcing the conquered Saxons to be baptized at the point of a sword. Or the silence of the church in places like Liberia, Kenya, Bosnia or Rwanda when their “Christian” rulers oppressed the people. The state controlled church can commit atrocities, but a church controlled through silence on justice issues is just as complicit in those atrocities.

The church must retain a prophetic voice. It cannot be a puppet of the state, but it also cannot be manipulated into silence. The church is never just a collection of individuals desiring their own private worship experience; it is the Body of Christ called to do his will. Standing up to Empire (political or economic) on behalf of the oppressed is simply part of what it means for the church to be collectively faithful. That prophetic voice has to call for an end to injustice, and since Empire is often the cause of much of the injustice in the world, it is going to have to be Empire that takes the steps to undo that injustice. If Christians abandon the right to push the State to repent of (undo) the wrongs it has committed (even if that undoing makes our lives uncomfortable), then we have just granted the state the freedom to control us all.

I look to the people of faith in recent years who have done the hard work of helping the church find its voice as it not only speaks truth to power, but does so in ways that seek justice through reconciliation. When Fr. Andre Sibomana was named administrator of the Rwandan diocese of Kabgayi in August 1994, he knew the church had to find a way to repent of its silence and complacency during the genocide. So he suspended all baptisms, first communions, confirmations, and weddings until Christmas and called the church into a period of confession and penance. He knew that the church could not move forward into new life until its political sins had been dealt with. Similarly Desmond Tutu was the Christian voice calling for justice for years in South Africa. Once Apartheid ended, it was only through the church working directly with the state through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that healing was able to begin. The church as prophetic voice had to call the state (and its own members) to justice and at the same time grant healing through the transformative power of Jesus Christ. Or as Ugandan theologian Emmanuel Katongale suggests, the church can never be just another NGO; it has to be a body that witnesses to a “different world right now.”

Read more