how to live – Page 5

Is it really either-or?

I’m getting tired of the constant use of either-or to describe whether someone is emergent. The latest is this article, which gives seven layers (stages?) that a church can go through on the path to emerging. Some of them are laugh-out-loud funny, some make me squirm uncomfortably, but the last one makes me mad.

I guess the pinnacle of emerging is the discovery that the Bible talks about injustice, poverty, and compassion. So apparently, the non-emergent churches out there are NOT aware of the biblical emphasis on social issues until they have reached the emergent plateau, and can call themselves an emerging church.

Setting aside the seeker churches (which, it seems to me, tend to view themselves as IN the mission field, and therefore keep their money and attention inside the church), this claim rattles me. Do we really have to be emerging in order to care about social issues? Are we really that blind to them until we have formed community groups, become concerned about conversations instead of conversions, have church in a bar, and grow goatees?

Of course not, and let me give you two examples, from opposite extremes. The first is my brother, Kevin. He left his professional career to devote his life to inner city kids. He and I have briefly discussed the emerging phenomenon, but it doesn’t touch the group he works with. You can imagine that their mission field is too busy avoiding crack dealers, trying not to get shot, and wondering who their daddy is to worry about whether the church is culturally relevant. Kevin’s gospel is two-fold: Jesus loves you, and stay in school. Kevin isn’t postmodern, emerging, or anything else along those lines. However, he is greatly in touch with social issues, and got there without an alternative community group. He did, however, once sport a goatee.

Which brings me to me (although I never went the goatee route). I also do not feel like I’m postmodern, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere on this site. And I haven’t left my cushy white-collar job to live in the hood. However, my wife and I have given loads of money away to churches and organizations whose mission is to tackle these social issues head on: sometimes with the gospel, sometimes by meeting felt needs. It is so ingrained in me not to blow the trumpet and tell you the precise amount or percentage I’ve given away, that even at this point I hesitate to tell you. The point of doing so would be simply to say that I also did not attend a postmodern convention or start a service with an “x” in the name, before I felt convicted by God to start giving this money away.

So let’s not make the mistake of assuming that non-emergent churches don’t care about social issues, and that all emergent churches (and people) do. It just may be that our emergentness (which is a word I think I just made up) and our compassion have nothing to do with each other.

The Way of Abraham, Part 2

I wrote a while about about “The Way of Abraham”, and as I was writing that post, it struck me that there was another aspect to Abraham’s relationship with God. It hit me hard as a result of a conversation my wife had with a friend of hers.

The conversation revolved around Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac (found in Genesis 22). The friend’s observation was that God doesn’t require that same type of sacrifice from us, because Jesus has already come to be our sacrifice.

This statement bothered me, and I started thinking about it. I’m pretty sure that from a theological standpoint, the sacrifice of Abraham and the sacrifice of Jesus are not the same at all. In fact, it’s not even referred to as a sacrifice (The word “sacrifice” doesn’t show up — at least in my ESV — until Gen. 31). So it’s an “offering”, and I’m not too sure what the difference is, but it struck me that whatever Abraham was thinking when God asked him to offer up his son, he most definitely did not have in mind the complicated rituals laid out in the Mosaic law, much less the atoning work of Jesus. However, I have always read this story with my own frame of reference firmly in mind; lately I’ve been trying to read the Bible as though I were a member of the group to whom it was originally delivered.

This is extremely difficult. Donella Meadows (who?) says this: “Your paradigm is so intrinsic to your mental process that you are hardly aware of its existence, until you try to communicate with someone with a different paradigm.” So I have to literally fight through my own paradigm, my own worldview, to see what is obvious and true in someone else’s worldview.

Here’s a lengthier quote from Ms. Meadows (full article here). The setting of the quote is her field of ecology, which I’d like to set aside for the moment; focus instead on how she describes the conversation she is having:

When I show this evidence to proponents of industrial farming, when I offer to take them to organic farms getting high yields, when I point out that hunger could be ended by sharing either food or technologies that can raise output without poisoning the earth or invading the genome, I don’t think my argument even reaches their auditory nerves, much less their brains. That kind of extreme failure even to hear an argument, much less process it, alerts me that this is not a rational discussion. It is a worldview difference, a paradigm gap, a disagreement about morals and values and identities and fundamental assumptions about the way the world works.

Oh, how many times have I done this myself! I want to go back over my life and count (and repent) over the times I absolutely did not hear what someone was saying, because of my own paradigm.

So, back to Abraham. He was not offering his son as a sacrifice for his own sins, or those of anyone else. I say that because the concept of a sacrifice for sin has not been mentioned yet; it was for a much later time. He was offering his son to God because he trusted the God who asked him to.

So here’s the rub, the thing that we have such a hard time grasping. God is asking Abraham to kill is own son? What kind of a God would do that? IMPORTANT: I haven’t seen that God has asked anyone else to kill their children, but God asks us all the time to give things back to him. Some of these things we are quite willing to give back, and some of them we hold on to so very tightly.

Take children, for example. In my upper-middle class suburban American culture, the defining mark of successful child-raising is when they graduate from college. When that child walks across the platform and receives that degree, the parents breathe a sigh of relief, look at one another, and whisper, We did it. All their planning, striving, and saving have gone into this one moment.

What would happen if God asked you to offer up to him your college fund? To throw away everything you’ve been working for? To give those thousands of dollars away to the Lord’s work, perhaps somewhere far off? Does this even compute, or do you immediately say, “My God would not require that of me. Doesn’t he command us to look after our own household? Isn’t it wisdom to prepare our children for life in the world?”

Perhaps Abraham thought that very thing. However, it is very clear that when he heard from God, early the next morning he began the journey of obedience. I imagine that every step was death for him. I’m not saying it’s easy. But since when is faith supposed to be easy?

The Way of Abraham, Part 1

Recently, I’ve been fascinated by the example of Abraham. We all know that Abraham left the land of his birth, Ur, to go to a place (as the Lord said) “that I will show you.” That is, he knew nothing about this new land. As I have recently discovered, however, he knew quite a bit about the land he was leaving.

By the way, what kind of name is Ur, anyway? I can just imagine the scene:
STRANGER: Great place you have here, Abe. What do you call it?
ABRAHAM: Er….
STRANGER: I like it!

But I digress. I heard an excellent teacher the other day describe how clay tablets have been found that identify ancient towns and districts, named after the family of Abraham: Haran, Terah, Nahor, and Serug. Now, this can serve as confirmation of the historical accuracy of the Old Testament narrative, but I’m more interested in the idea that when Abraham was called to go to the unknown land, he was leaving something behind. And it wasn’t just anything. If your family or tribe is so powerful that people are naming cities and districts after you, then you have a lot of clout in your hometown. Abraham had a great deal going for him in the land of Ur. I can’t imagine it was easy for him to just pull up and move.

You know, it was Terah’s idea to go to Canaan in the first place, but for some reason he stopped at Haran. Abraham was simply traveling along with his father, but what to do now that his dad stopped? Think about it: Terah had the vision, he was the founder, perhaps God had been speaking to him as he ended up speaking with Abraham. And here you are, Abraham, following your father who was following God, and he pulls up short! Do you stay with dad?

But no, Abraham heads out on his own, envisioned by his own message from God. This started a pattern of God calling people out of the “good” to be a part of the “great”, and this pattern has been repeated a number of times. Here are some more examples:

Moses was being raised in Pharaoh’s house. That must have been pretty nice. Perhaps, as the adopted grandson of the Pharaoh, he was being groomed for the throne. Even if not, he still had a tremendous education, unfathomable wealth, and great influence. And he clearly felt called by God to be the deliverer of his people (Acts 7:25) — even though he started about it the wrong way. God was calling him out of what could arguably be described as the best position in the known world to head a rebellion against that world’s most powerful nation.

Let’s move on to Paul. He describes himself (Phil. 3:5-6) as a Hebrew of Hebrews, blameless under the very rigorous Jewish law. He was the hatchet man for the powerful Pharisees, running a successful campaign to stamp out these followers of Jesus. God pulled him out of what could only be described as a very successful career, to become, quite literally, the scum of the earth (1 Cor 4:13).

Lastly, Philip was called out of a great revival to walk down an isolated desert road. Think about it! It’s revival! Great crowds were hanging on his every word. Dramatic healings and deliverances. To say there was “much joy” in the city (Acts 8.8) was an understatement.

And right out of the middle of all this, God calls him to take a walk down a desert road. Of course, we know that he was to encounter the Ethiopian eunuch, but Philip didn’t know that. All he knew was that he was being called away from where GOD WAS MOVING.

So the point? Well, I guess I’m feeling that same urging. I feel like leaving the “good” because the “great” may be just around the corner. For me, the “good” is a high-paying job, stability, a known future, participating in my local church, supporting various causes — you know, the Christian-American Dream. The great is…that’s just it; I don’t know. However, as I’ll explain in Part 2, I do know that I should be expecting the unexpected.

Change

I’ve been told “change is inevitable, so just be ready for it”. However, I’m visiting my hometown and have been told several times this week “you are just the same as I remember”, “you haven’t changed a bit”. I think it is supposed to be a compliment, but I’m starting to feel offended. I know that they can’t see all the changes within a 5 second encounter at the zoo or grocery store, but who are we kidding? We are all 20 years older, hopefully 20 years wiser and definitely carrying 20 years of experiences with us. Is change a negative thing in our society? The Bible promises change, encourages us to embrace change and challenges us to change. Are we fighting that change and missing out on the “transformation from glory to glory” that is associated with change in 2 Corinthians 3:18. Do I only embrace certain changes (added patience, wisdom gained from mistakes, etc) while fighting others (gray hair, redistributed figure, wrinkles)? Is that OK?

Christianity – do you wanna watch, participate, or pursue it?

School is soon to begin again and so I find myself reading more articles on teaching and learning in preparation for the coming year. According to several reputable sources in the teaching world, there are 3 levels of learning: watching, participating and pursuing. As you can imagine, watching is the easiest and least productive, participating is better and pursuing is best. As I read these articles, I couldn’t help but think about how they apply to Christianity and following Jesus. You can benefit from watching (or listening) to others while at church, in discussion groups (like this), and while with your friends and family…..but, not very much. A more productive approach would be to actually participate in Bible study, prayer, worshipping God, serving others, etc. However, by far, the best approach is to pursue God, Christianity and following Jesus. Pursuit implies passion, self-direction, immersing yourself, and heartfelt commitment. It implies perseverance and focus. It implies effort and enjoyment. You don’t pursue something that you don’t care about. So, the question to all of us is: which Christianity do you want – one you watch from the sidelines, one you participate in or one that you pursue with all your heart? Which Christianity do you currently live? To which Christianity does the Bible point?