I saw a German illustration yesterday, the purpose of which was to show pedestrians what a truck/lorry or bus driver cannot see; i.e., when you stand/drive/ride your bike in these areas, he is unaware of you. It’s not that the driver is in any way ill-intentioned; because of the vehicle’s construction and the placement of the mirrors, he simply cannot see you. I was amazed at how big those areas are, and how many of them there are!
To show especially schoolchildren how dangerous it is to be in one of those “dead corners”, as they’re called in German, they parked both a truck and a bus, extended rope barriers from the truck to surround each blind spot, then asked the children to stand in each of those spots so they could get a feel for the areas to avoid. I thought it was an excellent practical demonstration.
Everyone has blind spots. This is an axiom we all accept. Sometimes we just can’t help it; the size of our vehicle and the way our mirrors are positioned simply don’t show us what everyone else can see!
One of the purposes of having trusted friends or a loved one is that we help each other become aware of our own blind spots. Becoming aware of a personal blind spot should lead to our choosing to become especially sensitized to, for example, a negative effect we consistently have on others, with the goal of changing those behaviours.
It might take awhile, because we may still not really be seeing it, but we start measurably moving in that direction, and we give our friends the right to remind us. If we are even somewhat emotionally healthy, even if we still can’t quite personally see what the fuss is all about, we trust our friends enough to believe them when they tell us (especially repeatedly) that our X leads to their Y, and out of love and respect for them, we adapt.
We’re all prepared to understand and to a certain degree excuse blind spots in others, because hopefully we’re all aware that we have them, too. But there are situations in which we should stop excusing what we’re calling a blind spot, because that’s not actually what it is.
A blind spot is legitimate as such only as long as we have had no opportunity to see it, in other words up to the point that someone close to us points it out and tells us of the undesirable effect it’s having. As of that point, we can no longer claim ignorance. If several people have pointed out the same thing, and we still act unaware of the damage we’re causing, this is no longer a blind spot. In this case we are in some way more invested into remaining intractable than we are into the investment that changing would require of us.
For an innocuous illustration: a man who leaves his clothing where he drops it each night can be excused until his wife has told him --maybe a few times, because he’s done this all his life and habit is hard to break-- how much that annoys her, and requests him to be an adult and clean up after himself. From that time onward, each time he does it he is (however unintentionally) telling his wife: “You and your reasonable wishes don’t matter to me as much as my own personal comfort and laziness matters to me.” I know many wives with this type of lament whose husbands seem to remain clueless of the message they are sending.
Another axiom I’ve come across lately is this one (I think it originates from Maya Angelou): "When someone’s actions tell you who they are, believe them."
Now, we all have times when we slide back into bad habits or forget what we’d intended to change. I’m not talking about that. I’m taking about someone who, despite having been told, shown and entreated many times by many different people, remains immovable in the behaviours that harm others. Worse, this person may turn the tables on those who muster the courage to tell him how he has hurt them, and play the victim, using blame-shifting tactics: “I can’t imagine why you would think that of me. I never intended any harm. I’m so hurt you would judge me this way.”
If this person is in any kind of authority, especially spiritual authority, the damage is of course on a much wider scale. This is not a blind spot, but something more sinister. There is a deep commitment to remaining the same at others’ cost, and unknowingly at their own cost. Whether it is intended as such or not, it results in abuse. Abuse of peoples’ trust, their time and personal investment, their loyalty, their expectations that he would care enough about the effects of his brokenness on them to at least make an effort to change.
I was married to an emotional abuser for over 30 years. He had many fine qualities as well as his brokenness, and he would say to this day that he loved me and never intended to hurt me. But the fact is, he did hurt me; over and over again, and he remained defensive about it and unwilling to own it as his problem to the end. Protecting himself trumped as the most important thing in his inner life.
The fact that people who do this can be wonderful people in other aspects does not change the fact that a blind spot is only a blind spot until it is revealed; then it becomes something else. When we exemplify an unwillingness to see, own and change our revealed “blind spots”, we’re like a lorry driver who keeps running over people in the street with the excuse: “But I didn’t see them!” or, worse: “Well, they shouldn’t have been standing there.”
Tuesday, October 20, 2015
Sunday, October 18, 2015
Convergence
This occurred on 20 August 2015, though I'm only writing about it now. I’m not sure when during the day it happened (I think after I did chores while worship music was playing in the background) but the words “feed my sheep” kept echoing through my brain. It felt like an invitation; so in the afternoon I went looking up the passage in John 21 which contains these words.
The whole passage spoke to me. In order of its writing:
In verse 3 Peter says, “I’m going fishing” and six other disciples come along. (This shows the gift of leadership Peter carried, I think.) After the despair and the joy of the past months, Peter went back to doing what he knew how to do. They’d experienced Jesus as the risen Lord, but Jesus now came and went randomly. It wasn’t at all like following him physically in a more or less orderly fashion, as they had done the past 3 years leading up to his death: Jesus goes somewhere, we tag along, he lets us see and do his stuff. Later he sends us ahead of him to do his stuff, but it’s at his initiative. No, now everything is far more uncertain than it was before the Cross.
What to do?
I can imagine that Peter, after denying Jesus as he had, couldn’t feel secure in his own heart that he was still an apostle-- hence, back to doing what he’d been doing all his life before this crazy invitation to follow Jesus came along: fish. But it didn’t work. They fished all night (and these men knew their trade) but caught nothing. At dawn, tired and disappointed, they vaguely see someone on the beach who calls out to them, asking if they had a catch (v4-5). They didn’t, and the stranger advises letting down their nets again (v6), after the best time to fish is well past and as they are coming in to shore, so probably in shallower water than fish were normally to be caught. The guy clearly isn’t a fisherman...
As they, for some reason (perhaps there were faint stirrings of an earlier memory?), obey these strange instructions, the catch is unexpectedly huge (v6). John the Beloved ‘gets it’ first: “It’s the Lord!” he says. And impulsive Peter does something I had never noticed before: he puts back on his outer garment, his robe, which he’d removed in order to work, before jumping into the water to get to shore quickly (v7).
I said right out loud, “He put his robe back on!” Some weeks beforehand we’d dealt in prayer with a robe hemmed with rocks A had been wearing, which had been weighing him down. Within the same time frame, I’d come to the realization that I was no longer habitually wearing the robe Jesus gave me in vision many years ago. At some point in the de-construction of my former life, I'd laid it aside. But recently, at the Spirit’s urging, I symbolically put it back on. I didn’t feel any different in that moment, really, but I knew I was supposed to do that. As I look back, though, I can see that our inward journey rather sped up from that point onward.
Jesus asks for some of their catch (v10), which I also found significant. He’s already got fish on the fire (v9), but he wants what they can bring to the table, too. (There's more in this thought to milk another time.) Peter evidently couldn’t swim faster than the men could bring in the boat; or perhaps he was somewhat hesitant to approach Jesus alone. In either case, the disciples unloaded the net (which did not break, and John considers that important enough to mention) together (v11).
“Now come and have some breakfast,” Jesus says (v12), which is more than an invitation to a Men’s Breakfast On The Beach event. In that culture, sharing of a meal meant sharing of life, and Jesus was symbolically inviting them back into the kind of fellowship they had enjoyed with him before his death and resurrection. How many times had they shared fish and bread with him? I imagine that was enough for the rest of the men to feel secure again. Yes, they’d let Jesus down; they’d run away and hidden, but they had not specifically denied even knowing him, as Peter had. And Jesus hadn’t publicly prophesied this over them, either.
Peter, though, needed more personal reassurance that Jesus still desired close fellowship with him; and more than that, to know that Jesus still wanted Peter to work in the family business. And Jesus gave it to him ..at a price.
I looked at several versions, including German, and read some commentaries too. An interesting aspect is how the translators title this section. Some call this “Jesus Challenges Peter”; some, “Jesus Restores Peter”; but the NIV, which I was reading first in English, titled this section “Jesus Reinstates Peter”, and I felt spoken to by that.
Verses 15-17 tell how Jesus challenges, restores and reinstates Peter. The words I have bracketed help the English to better reflect the nuances of the Greek meanings. First he asks him, “Peter, do you love me (unconditionally), more than you love these others?” And Peter, perhaps only now realizing that his love was not as unconditional as he’d thought, responds “Yes, Lord, you know I love you (as a brother).” This happens twice, and then Jesus asks one more time, bringing it down to Peter’s level of ability: “Peter, do you love me (like a brother)?” and Peter is hurt that Jesus needs to ask again.
Three questions, which correspond to Peter’s three betrayal statements: twice “I’m not one of them!” and once “I don’t know the man” (Lk 22:57). Could there be a connection?
At any rate, Peter responds with a confession of familial love to each question, and each time, Jesus gives him a task. “Feed my lambs.” “Take care of my sheep.” “Feed my sheep.” Some commentators see a progression here from lambs, to grown but immature sheep, to mature sheep, each of which have different needs. Jesus is commissioning Peter as a shepherd, after already having established himself as The Good Shepherd. What higher honour than to not only be reinstated in friendship and fellowship, but to be invited into Jesus' own footsteps?
I identify with this; because though my longing is to help provide any age sheep with what they need to thrive, I think I’m especially called to leaders. I’m an equipper, I’m a pastor and pastor of pastors, I’m an apostle, I’m a mother. That all has to do with nurture, with enabling an atmosphere where people come into their own callings and are released to be all that God has in mind for them to be.
Shepherds create pastureland for their sheep (think “pastor”). They may or may not fence it in for safety, but they lead the flock beside quiet waters and into verdant land, so the sheep can develop and grow well. Overshepherds (apostles) train and nurture shepherds and provide the same kind of thing for them, to the point where they can take their own flocks to pastureland they’ve marked out and prepared. I’ve known for many years, and it’s been prophetically confirmed countless times, that I’m no longer primarily called to pastor “a” church, but The Church.
The last thing that spoke to me about this chapter was that Jesus, after prophesying a rather unpleasant end for Peter, just as he’d prophesied the denials, repeated his original call to Peter: “Follow me” (v19). When Peter sees John (who is apparently eavesdropping!) and asks about his fate, Jesus emphasizes that’s none of Peter’s business and finishes with repeating “YOU follow ME” (v21-22). In other words: it doesn't matter what I've called anyone else to do, Peter; will you do what I've called you to do?
In following Jesus into this new territory, I’m aware that what we want to do will be misunderstood, and/or even seen as rebellion by some. It’s not a matter of “better” or “right” but about “different pastureland”. Different people will be called to develop differing pasturelands for different breeds of sheep. What is currently available allows only a few trusted rams to thrive --at the expense of other sheep.
My husband A is a theologian, a teacher and a consultant. I am what I mentioned above. We each have life histories preparing us for this next phase, I think, and have spent the past 2+ years getting frustrated enough with “the quiet life” and with pew-sitting that God can now lead us more deliberately again.
Like Peter went back to fishing, I went back to my hobby (cooking/catering) and tried to make that my vocation, because I couldn’t see a way to reconcile what I had been, and what God was still calling me, with the new context in which I found myself. (But just as fishing was no longer a viable option for the original disciples, that didn't work.) All the labels with which I'd previously identified were, in my mind, attached to a form of church I can no longer believe in and have no current voice in.
But lately God has been separating the two in my mind and heart. I do not just DO these things, I AM these things, no matter what it is I do. No wonder I’ll never be satisfied doing anything else, and people will not get the kind of help they need from me when I’m preoccupied with fluffy stuff.
This church and this whole area is full of dimly burning wicks which should be burning brightly. I’m put in mind of Isaiah 42:3: “A bruised reed He will not break, and a dimly burning wick He will not quench”, and I know it is not God dampening their fires! I so long to hold the match to them and watch them burn for what they’re made for.
All my life, I’ve always wanted to invest in the next thing God is doing, not the previous thing. My spirit is coming alive again at the thought of being pro-active in releasing people with the calling of leadership into what they were made to do. I don’t have to be personally deeply involved in their “thing”, whatever it is, but like a mother with grown children, I can stand by them, encourage them, be proud of them and glad for them.
This feels like convergence: all of what has made up my life so far, including my own historical failures, denials and faithlessness, finally starting to make sense and be useful -- all in the face of God’s ridiculous overriding grace and mercy.
The whole passage spoke to me. In order of its writing:
In verse 3 Peter says, “I’m going fishing” and six other disciples come along. (This shows the gift of leadership Peter carried, I think.) After the despair and the joy of the past months, Peter went back to doing what he knew how to do. They’d experienced Jesus as the risen Lord, but Jesus now came and went randomly. It wasn’t at all like following him physically in a more or less orderly fashion, as they had done the past 3 years leading up to his death: Jesus goes somewhere, we tag along, he lets us see and do his stuff. Later he sends us ahead of him to do his stuff, but it’s at his initiative. No, now everything is far more uncertain than it was before the Cross.
What to do?
I can imagine that Peter, after denying Jesus as he had, couldn’t feel secure in his own heart that he was still an apostle-- hence, back to doing what he’d been doing all his life before this crazy invitation to follow Jesus came along: fish. But it didn’t work. They fished all night (and these men knew their trade) but caught nothing. At dawn, tired and disappointed, they vaguely see someone on the beach who calls out to them, asking if they had a catch (v4-5). They didn’t, and the stranger advises letting down their nets again (v6), after the best time to fish is well past and as they are coming in to shore, so probably in shallower water than fish were normally to be caught. The guy clearly isn’t a fisherman...
As they, for some reason (perhaps there were faint stirrings of an earlier memory?), obey these strange instructions, the catch is unexpectedly huge (v6). John the Beloved ‘gets it’ first: “It’s the Lord!” he says. And impulsive Peter does something I had never noticed before: he puts back on his outer garment, his robe, which he’d removed in order to work, before jumping into the water to get to shore quickly (v7).
I said right out loud, “He put his robe back on!” Some weeks beforehand we’d dealt in prayer with a robe hemmed with rocks A had been wearing, which had been weighing him down. Within the same time frame, I’d come to the realization that I was no longer habitually wearing the robe Jesus gave me in vision many years ago. At some point in the de-construction of my former life, I'd laid it aside. But recently, at the Spirit’s urging, I symbolically put it back on. I didn’t feel any different in that moment, really, but I knew I was supposed to do that. As I look back, though, I can see that our inward journey rather sped up from that point onward.
Jesus asks for some of their catch (v10), which I also found significant. He’s already got fish on the fire (v9), but he wants what they can bring to the table, too. (There's more in this thought to milk another time.) Peter evidently couldn’t swim faster than the men could bring in the boat; or perhaps he was somewhat hesitant to approach Jesus alone. In either case, the disciples unloaded the net (which did not break, and John considers that important enough to mention) together (v11).
“Now come and have some breakfast,” Jesus says (v12), which is more than an invitation to a Men’s Breakfast On The Beach event. In that culture, sharing of a meal meant sharing of life, and Jesus was symbolically inviting them back into the kind of fellowship they had enjoyed with him before his death and resurrection. How many times had they shared fish and bread with him? I imagine that was enough for the rest of the men to feel secure again. Yes, they’d let Jesus down; they’d run away and hidden, but they had not specifically denied even knowing him, as Peter had. And Jesus hadn’t publicly prophesied this over them, either.
Peter, though, needed more personal reassurance that Jesus still desired close fellowship with him; and more than that, to know that Jesus still wanted Peter to work in the family business. And Jesus gave it to him ..at a price.
I looked at several versions, including German, and read some commentaries too. An interesting aspect is how the translators title this section. Some call this “Jesus Challenges Peter”; some, “Jesus Restores Peter”; but the NIV, which I was reading first in English, titled this section “Jesus Reinstates Peter”, and I felt spoken to by that.
Verses 15-17 tell how Jesus challenges, restores and reinstates Peter. The words I have bracketed help the English to better reflect the nuances of the Greek meanings. First he asks him, “Peter, do you love me (unconditionally), more than you love these others?” And Peter, perhaps only now realizing that his love was not as unconditional as he’d thought, responds “Yes, Lord, you know I love you (as a brother).” This happens twice, and then Jesus asks one more time, bringing it down to Peter’s level of ability: “Peter, do you love me (like a brother)?” and Peter is hurt that Jesus needs to ask again.
Three questions, which correspond to Peter’s three betrayal statements: twice “I’m not one of them!” and once “I don’t know the man” (Lk 22:57). Could there be a connection?
At any rate, Peter responds with a confession of familial love to each question, and each time, Jesus gives him a task. “Feed my lambs.” “Take care of my sheep.” “Feed my sheep.” Some commentators see a progression here from lambs, to grown but immature sheep, to mature sheep, each of which have different needs. Jesus is commissioning Peter as a shepherd, after already having established himself as The Good Shepherd. What higher honour than to not only be reinstated in friendship and fellowship, but to be invited into Jesus' own footsteps?
I identify with this; because though my longing is to help provide any age sheep with what they need to thrive, I think I’m especially called to leaders. I’m an equipper, I’m a pastor and pastor of pastors, I’m an apostle, I’m a mother. That all has to do with nurture, with enabling an atmosphere where people come into their own callings and are released to be all that God has in mind for them to be.
Shepherds create pastureland for their sheep (think “pastor”). They may or may not fence it in for safety, but they lead the flock beside quiet waters and into verdant land, so the sheep can develop and grow well. Overshepherds (apostles) train and nurture shepherds and provide the same kind of thing for them, to the point where they can take their own flocks to pastureland they’ve marked out and prepared. I’ve known for many years, and it’s been prophetically confirmed countless times, that I’m no longer primarily called to pastor “a” church, but The Church.
The last thing that spoke to me about this chapter was that Jesus, after prophesying a rather unpleasant end for Peter, just as he’d prophesied the denials, repeated his original call to Peter: “Follow me” (v19). When Peter sees John (who is apparently eavesdropping!) and asks about his fate, Jesus emphasizes that’s none of Peter’s business and finishes with repeating “YOU follow ME” (v21-22). In other words: it doesn't matter what I've called anyone else to do, Peter; will you do what I've called you to do?
In following Jesus into this new territory, I’m aware that what we want to do will be misunderstood, and/or even seen as rebellion by some. It’s not a matter of “better” or “right” but about “different pastureland”. Different people will be called to develop differing pasturelands for different breeds of sheep. What is currently available allows only a few trusted rams to thrive --at the expense of other sheep.
My husband A is a theologian, a teacher and a consultant. I am what I mentioned above. We each have life histories preparing us for this next phase, I think, and have spent the past 2+ years getting frustrated enough with “the quiet life” and with pew-sitting that God can now lead us more deliberately again.
Like Peter went back to fishing, I went back to my hobby (cooking/catering) and tried to make that my vocation, because I couldn’t see a way to reconcile what I had been, and what God was still calling me, with the new context in which I found myself. (But just as fishing was no longer a viable option for the original disciples, that didn't work.) All the labels with which I'd previously identified were, in my mind, attached to a form of church I can no longer believe in and have no current voice in.
But lately God has been separating the two in my mind and heart. I do not just DO these things, I AM these things, no matter what it is I do. No wonder I’ll never be satisfied doing anything else, and people will not get the kind of help they need from me when I’m preoccupied with fluffy stuff.
This church and this whole area is full of dimly burning wicks which should be burning brightly. I’m put in mind of Isaiah 42:3: “A bruised reed He will not break, and a dimly burning wick He will not quench”, and I know it is not God dampening their fires! I so long to hold the match to them and watch them burn for what they’re made for.
All my life, I’ve always wanted to invest in the next thing God is doing, not the previous thing. My spirit is coming alive again at the thought of being pro-active in releasing people with the calling of leadership into what they were made to do. I don’t have to be personally deeply involved in their “thing”, whatever it is, but like a mother with grown children, I can stand by them, encourage them, be proud of them and glad for them.
This feels like convergence: all of what has made up my life so far, including my own historical failures, denials and faithlessness, finally starting to make sense and be useful -- all in the face of God’s ridiculous overriding grace and mercy.
Thursday, August 6, 2015
The Onion Bag, or, Allium In The Family
Suppose for a moment that the Christianity we were raised with can be understood as resembling an onion. Lately A and I have been talking about how if one makes the effort to stay a constant learner in life, one is always encountering the next layer of the onion, as it were. Our onion of faith, I believe, is meant to grow as we grow; our capacity, understanding and sphere of acceptance enlarges. We can look back upon all the layers we have passed through, but we cannot look into a layer which has not yet grown upon us with any genuine understanding of it.
A has always had a large capacity of acceptance for other views than his own within Christianity. As he has actively been studying theology the past few years, that capacity has enlarged more and more. We’ve both long been aware that the conservative evangelical “package deal” we were sold as new believers in Jesus Christ is no longer acceptable to us as thinking citizens of the 21st century. In fact, we’ve come closer and closer to the view that Christ Himself is the “package deal”, and pretty much everything else is negotiable.
This view, though perfectly orthodox and held widely by educated Christians, does set us in direct opposition to those fundamentalists who hold that the Bible is a “flat book” requiring literal interpretation; that God as represented in the OT is not a “missionary God” meeting a violent and primitive society in a form they would understand and moving them along from it, but remains a wrathful Jehovah; that Jesus is not, as he himself states, the best representation of the Father that we have, but that we have to “integrate” OT genocide into our understanding of the character of a loving God; that the NT is not truly a new and different Covenant superseding the old, obsolete one, but that selected bits of the OT are somehow still binding on people and cultures separated from it by thousands of years, miles, and cultural advancements.
Having passed through many of those layers of belief ourselves over the years, or at least encountered them first-hand, we can look into and understand their layer of the onion, but we can’t expect them to be able to understand the one we now live from, which is outside of their capacity. In one sense, this brings a personal calm and a peace in that we really don’t need to argue with or defend our views to those who are incapable of relating to them. On the other hand, I’m aware this language sounds condescending and holier-than-thou, rather than a simple statement of fact. How to get past this?
To illustrate: I think most people are aware of the problem that fundamentalist Christians face when they have home-schooled their children in a way that insulates them from mainstream society-- and then the child wishes to get a degree. Yes, there are fundamentalist colleges and Universities in the United States, but seldom elsewhere, and those degrees are often not accredited in the “real world”. Say Sally wants to become a missionary doctor; she will have to attend a “worldly” University to do so. The great fear among fundamentalists is that Sally will open herself up to “the godlessness of science”, be confronted with “strange doctrines” and thereby “lose her faith” (i.e., no longer accept the type of onion she grew up in as the only authentic one). And it is true that this often, naturally enough, happens.
Let’s employ our imaginations for a moment.
Imagine that Sally has grown up surrounded by small, firm, yellow onions. She was always told “We are onions; this is what defines an onion; this is what an onion believes and how it looks; don’t let anyone deceive you!” When Sally goes to a Christian University, she encounters some of the small yellow onions she is accustomed to, but she’s also confronted with much larger, and some oddly-shaped, onions. Some are yellow, but some are white, and some are even (gasp!) purply red!
If Sally attends a secular University, she will immediately join the local Christian Club (under whatever name it goes). But here, and in her “worldly” life ahead as a doctor, she will eventually encounter not only all sizes and colors of what she recognizes as onions, but several types of shallots! And leeks, and scallions! And even a few disreputable-looking bulbs of garlic!! (Let’s not even mention the chives.) All of these vegetables claim to be onions too. What is a fundamentalist to do?!
If Sally is healthy, she will grow a few new layers. In doing this she must distance herself from the layers she has outgrown, but they are still a part of her journey. One cannot “un-know” something once known, and each layer has redeemable good in it. Sally will always be able to look back into them and understand their viewpoint, in a way that those who still live from those layers will never be able to understand the layer she is living from now. Why? Not because they are stupid and wrong, but simply because it is outside their sphere of experience, acceptance and understanding.
That’s why argumentation and logic really don’t work when interacting with fundamentalists (of any stripe). Small yellow onions do not even recognize a leek as being one of the family of onions; how can they ever learn anything from a godless leek? And why did Sally listen to one? In their opinion, Sally has abandoned the true faith and gone beyond what an onion is allowed to think or be. All Sally can do is live from her layer back toward the other layers lovingly, and hope that her example is attractive enough to draw some of them forward into a bigger, juicier, more eye-wateringly expansive life.
Way back in my Bible College days, one professor (who was actually quite fundamentalist in many of his views) often told us, “All truth is God’s truth.” We don’t have to be afraid of new advances in science, or new sociological stages, or the fact that quite disreputable people, or people of other religions than our own, sometimes “get it right”. All truth is God’s truth. I don’t have to defend God against anything true, for he is the Author of all truth. If my faith is built on things that cannot stand in the light of truths outside its sphere, then it’s about time I left it behind and find a bigger sphere to live from.
Jesus promised us life, and that more abundantly. I suspect that, if we will allow it, the onion just keeps getting bigger. We don’t lose the layers that we built upon, but we no longer live from there, either. And we can joyfully embrace all Alliums, without having to agree with them in every point. Do we identify as onions? Do we have Jesus Christ at the core of our onion stem? Then we are all in the onion bag together and can learn from each other.
Sunday, June 28, 2015
Honor
Ephesians 2:3 says: “Honor your father and your mother (which is the first commandment with a promise), so that it may be well with you, and that you may live long on the earth.”
“Honor your father and your mother” has more the flavor of a life principle, I think, than just meaning honoring one’s physical mother and father. Of course it includes honoring those two individuals who brought you into the world, who made it possible for you to even have the life with which you choose to honor or dishonor anybody, but it goes beyond this basic application.
Hmmm... But isn’t the command to honor father and mother part of the Old Covenant, which doesn’t apply to us any more? Well, even if so, it is repeated in the New Testament, and modern science has shown that gratefulness and thankfulness do tend to produce and maintain better health.
I remember many years ago I was really struggling with honoring my ex’s parents, as I was starting to really see the huge fissures in their church-face facade (which IMHO were not honorable!). I was so relieved when God made it clear to me that I was not required to honor them in the same way or to the same degree that their own son was. They did not give me life. They did not choose me as part of their family (in fact, quite the contrary). My level of “required honor”, as it were, was to be grateful for them giving my then-spouse life and honor their APPROPRIATE place in his life. This freed me from the intolerable burden of feeling required to respect insane behaviors and to love the unloveable.
Note well: the command is not to love your father and mother, but to honor them. We’re not talking about the warm fuzzies here. One cannot command an emotion. Some people don’t know their birth parents. Some parents are very difficult or broken people, impossible to love. But it should still be possible to honor the very fact of their parenthood: the fact that they joined forces to make me possible, the fact that they did not abort me, but granted me life. Honor in time may well eventually lead to love, but love can never develop from disrespect.
To me, taking the principle beyond its ground-level application means choosing to honor (not necessarily feel love for) many people and institutions in my past, including those with whom I may disagree. What I am honoring is the role they played (and sometimes still play) in my life to have formed me into the individual I am now, the one with the power of choosing to honor or to dishonor.
I honor the American Baptist church I attended in my childhood (with neighbors; ours was not a church-going family). This church, though it did not expose me to life in Christ, did awaken in me a hunger for heavenly things, a love for hymns and part-singing, and provided a community which embraced me. I honor the Whittakers, a younger couple who joined the church in the midst of the Jesus People revival and took me under their wing and to many meetings. I honor Kathryn Kuhlmann, in whose choir I had the privilege to sing and where I saw my first undeniable miracles.
I honor Father Al and Sister Cecilia at Mt. Mary Immaculate, the charismatic Catholic retreat house in Lafayette (now a Buddhist center) where I worked weekends in high school. This was at the tail end of the Jesus People movement, and we teens went everywhere anything Christian was happening. Al and Cecilia embodied love to all the teens who gathered there for prayer meetings and retreats, some of which were truly life-changing. (I heard Father Al eventually left the ministry and married. You go, Al!)
I honor the Baptist church I attended as a teenager, whose pastor was a bit odd and did Primal Scream therapy on the side, but where the youth group was thriving and I joined their (quite good) youth musical touring group. I honor our director Brian Beavers, who worked very hard with a bunch of lazy teens and brought out the best in all of us before going off to L.A., where I’m sure his huge musical talent was more appreciated.
I honor CCBS, the Bible school I attended in Southern California, which turned out to be cessationist (which I did not discover until I started attending). CCBS taught me to use the Bible as a tool (this had both positive and negative effects) and gave me the astounding and freeing revelation that my life was NOT blueprinted out by God ahead of time, and it was NOT my only job to “find God’s will” and fulfill that, but that I had free will, I had a choice. My choice was P, now my ex. (But hey, we made our marriage last over 30 years.) And after a few years of marriage, our choice was missions work in Austria.
I honor International Teams, which trained us in leadership and cross-culturality, and prepared us better than most other missionaries I met on the field for what life overseas would really be like. I honor CMML, the missions organization which first sponsored us (with whom I now would quite violently disagree on many points, or more vice-versa!). Their prayers, kindness and generosity made it possible for us to choose to return and make our life in Austria after our first 3 years there were over.
I honor Floyd Schneider (who doubtless considers me a heretic), the Plymouth Brethren missionary with whom we first worked on the field. I learned so much from him, both intentionally and unintentionally. He was a man who lived what he believed, though I now share few of his beliefs.
I honor the Pentecostal/charismatic pastors in Austria, especially Helmuth and Uli Eiwen, who “took us in” as one of their own after Holy Spirit blew apart our lives and our previous church affiliations in 1990. I didn’t then and don’t now agree with all their doctrines, but they made room for us and we had family of sorts in our transition time. I honor the Baptist church in Graz for the same reason: the pastor welcomed our family in for a season, knowing full well we would leave and start something else. This was essential for our children’s stability, and I am grateful.
I honor those who trained me in inner healing in the power of Christ, first Betty Tapscott but most especially John Sandford. John is so genuine and patient, and it was very easy to lay out all my skeletons. He’s been a father figure to me in various stages of my life, most recently my honeymoon with A. I honor Dave Olson, who has been a good friend and a trusted counselor to me for well over ten years. Dave always has a listening ear, some sound advice and prayer which gets to the root of the issue.
I honor the Vineyard movement in the German-speaking world, especially Martin and Georgia Buehlmann, who welcomed us in on the ground floor and allowed us to help shape a fledgling movement. Many happy and productive years were spent in this context and I will always be grateful for all I learned and all I was able to give away. Buehlmanns also personally took me under their wing after my first marriage fell apart and encouraged me to look ahead and keep believing.
I honor Randy Clark and his ministry Global Awakening. Randy saw spiritual and leadership potential in me and gave it space and encouragement. I found myself doing what I had always done at home in Austria, and finding it treated as something extraordinary! Randy was a mentor to me not only in healing prayer but in so many ways; his keen mind and always-questing spirit an inspiration. His friend Bill Johnson I also honor. Bill has a way of saying things that I’d found to be true but never heard anyone put out there before. I made so many life-long friends in the 10 years I was active with GA and will always be grateful for all the travel and ministry experiences I had in that time.
I choose to honor (this is admittedly a bit of a hard one) all the people who served with me in Vineyard Graz, right through from its founding in 1990 as Immanuel-Gemeinde up to the time in 2012 when I could no longer find a home in the church I had started. Though I left it in painful circumstances, so many good people had come and gone through the years. So much good was done and so many people saved, trained, helped, healed and blessed. I am still hearing stories of its impact I did not know anything about. Thank you for sharing life with me for over 20 years.
And I honor the church we visit now, and their founder and leader. It is amazing what they have built out here in the middle of nowhere: farmland all around, not a single highway in the county. Yes, there are problems with it and yes, I would do it differently; but they have accepted us, loved us and welcomed us in. All the people we’ve met in this fellowship are full of love and light. They are good people doing good work.
In conclusion, I find that to consciously honor my heritage and my journey is to honor those who have shaped it, and me, by finding and affirming the positive in it. It’s a choice: to cultivate gratitude.
The thankfulness that results not only benefits us personally, but it honors Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Honoring our life path honors Holy Spirit, who has been with us every step of the way, through dark and sunny times; and it honors Father God, our source, our head, to whom we will eventually return.
What’s not to like about honor?
“Honor your father and your mother” has more the flavor of a life principle, I think, than just meaning honoring one’s physical mother and father. Of course it includes honoring those two individuals who brought you into the world, who made it possible for you to even have the life with which you choose to honor or dishonor anybody, but it goes beyond this basic application.
Hmmm... But isn’t the command to honor father and mother part of the Old Covenant, which doesn’t apply to us any more? Well, even if so, it is repeated in the New Testament, and modern science has shown that gratefulness and thankfulness do tend to produce and maintain better health.
I remember many years ago I was really struggling with honoring my ex’s parents, as I was starting to really see the huge fissures in their church-face facade (which IMHO were not honorable!). I was so relieved when God made it clear to me that I was not required to honor them in the same way or to the same degree that their own son was. They did not give me life. They did not choose me as part of their family (in fact, quite the contrary). My level of “required honor”, as it were, was to be grateful for them giving my then-spouse life and honor their APPROPRIATE place in his life. This freed me from the intolerable burden of feeling required to respect insane behaviors and to love the unloveable.
Note well: the command is not to love your father and mother, but to honor them. We’re not talking about the warm fuzzies here. One cannot command an emotion. Some people don’t know their birth parents. Some parents are very difficult or broken people, impossible to love. But it should still be possible to honor the very fact of their parenthood: the fact that they joined forces to make me possible, the fact that they did not abort me, but granted me life. Honor in time may well eventually lead to love, but love can never develop from disrespect.
To me, taking the principle beyond its ground-level application means choosing to honor (not necessarily feel love for) many people and institutions in my past, including those with whom I may disagree. What I am honoring is the role they played (and sometimes still play) in my life to have formed me into the individual I am now, the one with the power of choosing to honor or to dishonor.
I honor the American Baptist church I attended in my childhood (with neighbors; ours was not a church-going family). This church, though it did not expose me to life in Christ, did awaken in me a hunger for heavenly things, a love for hymns and part-singing, and provided a community which embraced me. I honor the Whittakers, a younger couple who joined the church in the midst of the Jesus People revival and took me under their wing and to many meetings. I honor Kathryn Kuhlmann, in whose choir I had the privilege to sing and where I saw my first undeniable miracles.
I honor Father Al and Sister Cecilia at Mt. Mary Immaculate, the charismatic Catholic retreat house in Lafayette (now a Buddhist center) where I worked weekends in high school. This was at the tail end of the Jesus People movement, and we teens went everywhere anything Christian was happening. Al and Cecilia embodied love to all the teens who gathered there for prayer meetings and retreats, some of which were truly life-changing. (I heard Father Al eventually left the ministry and married. You go, Al!)
I honor the Baptist church I attended as a teenager, whose pastor was a bit odd and did Primal Scream therapy on the side, but where the youth group was thriving and I joined their (quite good) youth musical touring group. I honor our director Brian Beavers, who worked very hard with a bunch of lazy teens and brought out the best in all of us before going off to L.A., where I’m sure his huge musical talent was more appreciated.
I honor CCBS, the Bible school I attended in Southern California, which turned out to be cessationist (which I did not discover until I started attending). CCBS taught me to use the Bible as a tool (this had both positive and negative effects) and gave me the astounding and freeing revelation that my life was NOT blueprinted out by God ahead of time, and it was NOT my only job to “find God’s will” and fulfill that, but that I had free will, I had a choice. My choice was P, now my ex. (But hey, we made our marriage last over 30 years.) And after a few years of marriage, our choice was missions work in Austria.
I honor International Teams, which trained us in leadership and cross-culturality, and prepared us better than most other missionaries I met on the field for what life overseas would really be like. I honor CMML, the missions organization which first sponsored us (with whom I now would quite violently disagree on many points, or more vice-versa!). Their prayers, kindness and generosity made it possible for us to choose to return and make our life in Austria after our first 3 years there were over.
I honor Floyd Schneider (who doubtless considers me a heretic), the Plymouth Brethren missionary with whom we first worked on the field. I learned so much from him, both intentionally and unintentionally. He was a man who lived what he believed, though I now share few of his beliefs.
I honor the Pentecostal/charismatic pastors in Austria, especially Helmuth and Uli Eiwen, who “took us in” as one of their own after Holy Spirit blew apart our lives and our previous church affiliations in 1990. I didn’t then and don’t now agree with all their doctrines, but they made room for us and we had family of sorts in our transition time. I honor the Baptist church in Graz for the same reason: the pastor welcomed our family in for a season, knowing full well we would leave and start something else. This was essential for our children’s stability, and I am grateful.
I honor those who trained me in inner healing in the power of Christ, first Betty Tapscott but most especially John Sandford. John is so genuine and patient, and it was very easy to lay out all my skeletons. He’s been a father figure to me in various stages of my life, most recently my honeymoon with A. I honor Dave Olson, who has been a good friend and a trusted counselor to me for well over ten years. Dave always has a listening ear, some sound advice and prayer which gets to the root of the issue.
I honor the Vineyard movement in the German-speaking world, especially Martin and Georgia Buehlmann, who welcomed us in on the ground floor and allowed us to help shape a fledgling movement. Many happy and productive years were spent in this context and I will always be grateful for all I learned and all I was able to give away. Buehlmanns also personally took me under their wing after my first marriage fell apart and encouraged me to look ahead and keep believing.
I honor Randy Clark and his ministry Global Awakening. Randy saw spiritual and leadership potential in me and gave it space and encouragement. I found myself doing what I had always done at home in Austria, and finding it treated as something extraordinary! Randy was a mentor to me not only in healing prayer but in so many ways; his keen mind and always-questing spirit an inspiration. His friend Bill Johnson I also honor. Bill has a way of saying things that I’d found to be true but never heard anyone put out there before. I made so many life-long friends in the 10 years I was active with GA and will always be grateful for all the travel and ministry experiences I had in that time.
I choose to honor (this is admittedly a bit of a hard one) all the people who served with me in Vineyard Graz, right through from its founding in 1990 as Immanuel-Gemeinde up to the time in 2012 when I could no longer find a home in the church I had started. Though I left it in painful circumstances, so many good people had come and gone through the years. So much good was done and so many people saved, trained, helped, healed and blessed. I am still hearing stories of its impact I did not know anything about. Thank you for sharing life with me for over 20 years.
And I honor the church we visit now, and their founder and leader. It is amazing what they have built out here in the middle of nowhere: farmland all around, not a single highway in the county. Yes, there are problems with it and yes, I would do it differently; but they have accepted us, loved us and welcomed us in. All the people we’ve met in this fellowship are full of love and light. They are good people doing good work.
In conclusion, I find that to consciously honor my heritage and my journey is to honor those who have shaped it, and me, by finding and affirming the positive in it. It’s a choice: to cultivate gratitude.
The thankfulness that results not only benefits us personally, but it honors Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Honoring our life path honors Holy Spirit, who has been with us every step of the way, through dark and sunny times; and it honors Father God, our source, our head, to whom we will eventually return.
What’s not to like about honor?
Thursday, June 4, 2015
10 Lessons I Learned Through Betrayal
1. People (self included) are generally well-intentioned but weak and will choose the path of least resistance, even if their conscience twinges a bit.
2. Once authority is lost, whether based on fact or not, it is nigh to impossible to regain it.
3. Friendship comes in varying shapes and sizes and one needs to learn to accept what people can give, not demand what they can’t.
4. Loyalty does not consist of agreeing with me throughout a crisis, but in loving me faithfully throughout a crisis, which will show in your behaviour.
5. Your behaviour is what affects my life, not the words you speak. If your words are contradicted by your behaviour, I have no choice but to believe the behaviour.
6. Gossip travels much faster than fact and is sometimes impervious to correction.
7. Saying/doing nothing in a situation which requires words or actions can actually be more harmful than any words or actions you may have been afraid would be harmful.
8. Forgiveness is necessary not just because it is the right thing to do, but for my own sake; the burden of bitterness is too heavy to bear and will make me ill.
9. Those who saw you at your worst and still accepted you are worthy of your trust.
10. There is always a new beginning, even after you have lost everything your life had been built upon. But it takes courage to believe that and to take steps toward it. Cut yourself emotional slack, yes; but do take those baby steps.
Thursday, May 7, 2015
What is a Missionary?
When my children were in their early teens, they went on a couple of choir trips along with the youth group of the largest conservative church in the Austrian city in which we lived. One of the songs they learned was universally experienced by the kids as ghastly, but the choir director loved it. (Though a German-speaking church, it was fashionable at the time to sing many songs in English.) The tune is straight out of the 1950s, and the lyrics are as follows:
Be a missionary every day! (clap 4x)
Tell the world that Jesus is the way!
Be it in the town or country or a busy avenue
Africa or Asia, the task is up to YOU!
So, be a missionary every day! (clap 4x)
Tell the world that Jesus is the way!
The Lord is soon returning, there is no time to lose, so
Be a missionary, God’s own emissary
Be a missionary today!
I can’t even begin to tell you on how many levels I abhor this song. Quite apart from the infantile circus-like tune, the required clapping and cringe-worthy choreography, I object quite strongly to the inferred theology behind it, especially when inflicted upon children.
The inferences are that Hell is the default setting for anyone who doesn’t belong to their particular form of church group, and that it is therefore inherently required of each child (child, mind you) to “evangelize” by telling the world that "Jesus is the way" (whatever they might understand that to mean). Why? Because time is running out, Jesus is coming back soon and it’s all “up to YOU”!
*shudder* No pressure, then.
The song also offends me because of its loose handling of the term “missionary”, as though simply being a Christian and sharing our life, which includes our faith, with others (which I believe is the natural and normal Christian lifestyle) is equivalent to “missions”.
I feel a minor rant coming on.
***
I also have a beef with the term “mission trip”. I have no problem with calling something a short-term mission (aka STM), but having been a full-time career cross-cultural missionary for 30 years, my hackles rise when people call themselves missionaries because they once spent 10 days camping while helping build huts for an indigenous church facility in Oahaxa. Or helped out in disaster areas after the fact. Don’t get me wrong: such things are worthy causes and I applaud those who are willing to use their vacation time and invest in Kingdom work elsewhere. But humanitarian aid doesn’t make you a missionary.
(See the Wikipedia definition: "A short-term mission (STM) is the mobilization of a Christian for a short period of time ranging from days to a year; many short-term missions are called mission trips. The short-term missionary is a fairly recent innovation in the global missions movement"...)
What I have more of an issue with is when American Christians think “I'm a missionary too!” because perhaps once or twice a year they go on what are commonly referred to as “mission trips”, but which I prefer to call “ministry trips”. What happens on these trips is also fine and admirable and a good thing, but it is also not missions.
In this scenario, middle-class American (or other Western) Christians sign up with a large ministry to spend one or two weeks in another country, usually doing exactly what they would do at home if they were on a conference ministry team. Much of their time is spent in large gatherings of mostly indigenous believers (though often the music is taken from Hillsongs or the like and indistinguishable from that at home, save for the language). Ministry team members listen to the main speaker along with everyone else and at the end of the meeting are released to pray with conference attendees, just as they would on a ministry team at home. If they are lucky, they have a halfway competent translator to assist them, but this is not always the case.
Most people who have gone on these trips do report a real surge in their personal spiritual lives. They have taken some risks, faced the unfamiliar and pushed out the boat, as it were. They’ve tasted another culture, usually experienced a higher level of effectiveness in their prayers there, made friends with other team members and sometimes with nationals; certainly they benefit from the steep learning curve. However, their actual contact with the foreign culture remains at best just a taste. They have often paid more to go on this trip (not just the plane fares, hotels and meals, but the huge “overhead” many ministries charge on top of that) than many of the people they minister to earn in a year. They travel with other like-minded Americans, stay in Western-style hotels and eat at least two good meals a day. Yes, they work hard and yes, what they do is a good thing. But after a week or 10 days they fly home, exhausted but happy, and slide right back into their comfortable middle-class American lifestyle.
One may perhaps more accurately refer to this as “American Christian missions tourism”, but it is at best a cross-cultural ministry trip-- not missions.
What DO I consider missions, then?
The Oxford dictionary definition: Missionary: A person sent on a religious mission, especially one sent to promote Christianity in a foreign country.
Wikipedia: “A Christian missionary can be defined as "one who is to witness across cultures".[2] The Lausanne Congress of 1974 defined the term, related to Christian mission, as "to form a viable indigenous church-planting movement". Missionaries can be found in many countries around the world.
Jesus instructed the apostles to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19–20, Mark 16:15–18). This verse is referred to by Christian missionaries as the Great Commission and inspires missionary work.”
Up until very recently, a "missionary" was understood as someone who left their native land to go and live in another country, in order to bring people from a non-churched background to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ (whatever the strategy for that) and usually, to form an indigenous church out of those so reached. A missionary in this sense is not taking a break from their “normal life” to “do missions”-- missions IS their normal life. It is a full-time job. It involves great personal investment in learning a language, culture, customs and lifestyle sometimes very different from their own, and submitting to that culture in order to bring the living culture of the Kingdom, like yeast, into it.
Cross-cultural career missions means giving your life and energies to a culture that is not yours, with which you are unfamiliar, many aspects of which you may not agree with. It means raising your children bilingually and bi-culturally, knowing they will experience what is to you a foreign culture as their home culture. It involves constantly discipling a church full of (sometimes difficult) first-generation believers who have no mature Christian heritage or influence. It means identifying so much with your host culture that when someone in a Christian gathering calls out for prayer for various countries, it never occurs to you to stand in the group of your country of origin. It means changing almost everything about the way you live, usually to a far lower material standard than the one you left. It is a whole-hearted commitment to getting a spiritual job done under sometimes almost crushing physical, emotional and cultural circumstances.
I spent 12-15 years of my 30 years as a career missionary regularly going on ministry trips from my host country into many other nations. It was always an enriching experience, and often helped me in the permanent work in which I was involved. I’ve been on the all-frills and the no-frills versions of ministry trips. I’ve been a simple team member, I’ve formed, trained and led teams, I’ve organized trips, I’ve been the main conference speaker. I’ve stayed in the luxurious Hotel Gloria in Rio de Janeiro and with my friends in their 2-room house in eastern Ukraine (they gave up their only bed so I could sleep on it). I know both sides of this coin very well, and I maintain that "ministry trips" are just that: not missions. Granted, there may be some degree of discipling --if the conference is on a theme which equips the saints. There are often some conversions and re-dedications, but a very high percentage of attendees to the meetings are already believers.
In the 30 years I was in my host country, I saw many enthused career missionaries come --and go. I’ve come to believe one must deeply know they are called by God to do the work of a full-time missionary, or it will be too overwhelming. But if you know he has called you, you know you have access to the grace to keep on keeping on, even when (as happened to us several times) it seems you have made no progress or lost everything you’d worked for up to that point.
I suppose that’s why using the term “missionary” for anyone who has ever put their pinky toe across a border and waved a tract in someone’s face is rather offensive to me. I understand the desire to validate the average Christian's need for significance and sense of purpose, but have we not watered down the definition? It used to be enough to say “I am a missionary”; people understood that meant I lived and worked a primarily spiritual vocation in another country. Now I have to use all the descriptive terms: “a full-time, career, cross-cultural missionary” and even then sometimes have to explain what that is. Have we cheapened the term beyond recognition? Or has the English language moved on to embrace a much broader definition? Or is it a bit of both?
In any case, until given some very good reasons to think differently, I’ll personally refer to ministry trips, whether cross-cultural or not, as such; and I will refer to missions, whether short- or long-term, as such. Both are valuable and have their place in the grand scheme of Kingdom influence, but they are not the same animal. I wish our choice of language better reflected that fact.
Be a missionary every day! (clap 4x)
Tell the world that Jesus is the way!
Be it in the town or country or a busy avenue
Africa or Asia, the task is up to YOU!
So, be a missionary every day! (clap 4x)
Tell the world that Jesus is the way!
The Lord is soon returning, there is no time to lose, so
Be a missionary, God’s own emissary
Be a missionary today!
I can’t even begin to tell you on how many levels I abhor this song. Quite apart from the infantile circus-like tune, the required clapping and cringe-worthy choreography, I object quite strongly to the inferred theology behind it, especially when inflicted upon children.
The inferences are that Hell is the default setting for anyone who doesn’t belong to their particular form of church group, and that it is therefore inherently required of each child (child, mind you) to “evangelize” by telling the world that "Jesus is the way" (whatever they might understand that to mean). Why? Because time is running out, Jesus is coming back soon and it’s all “up to YOU”!
*shudder* No pressure, then.
The song also offends me because of its loose handling of the term “missionary”, as though simply being a Christian and sharing our life, which includes our faith, with others (which I believe is the natural and normal Christian lifestyle) is equivalent to “missions”.
I feel a minor rant coming on.
***
I also have a beef with the term “mission trip”. I have no problem with calling something a short-term mission (aka STM), but having been a full-time career cross-cultural missionary for 30 years, my hackles rise when people call themselves missionaries because they once spent 10 days camping while helping build huts for an indigenous church facility in Oahaxa. Or helped out in disaster areas after the fact. Don’t get me wrong: such things are worthy causes and I applaud those who are willing to use their vacation time and invest in Kingdom work elsewhere. But humanitarian aid doesn’t make you a missionary.
(See the Wikipedia definition: "A short-term mission (STM) is the mobilization of a Christian for a short period of time ranging from days to a year; many short-term missions are called mission trips. The short-term missionary is a fairly recent innovation in the global missions movement"...)
What I have more of an issue with is when American Christians think “I'm a missionary too!” because perhaps once or twice a year they go on what are commonly referred to as “mission trips”, but which I prefer to call “ministry trips”. What happens on these trips is also fine and admirable and a good thing, but it is also not missions.
In this scenario, middle-class American (or other Western) Christians sign up with a large ministry to spend one or two weeks in another country, usually doing exactly what they would do at home if they were on a conference ministry team. Much of their time is spent in large gatherings of mostly indigenous believers (though often the music is taken from Hillsongs or the like and indistinguishable from that at home, save for the language). Ministry team members listen to the main speaker along with everyone else and at the end of the meeting are released to pray with conference attendees, just as they would on a ministry team at home. If they are lucky, they have a halfway competent translator to assist them, but this is not always the case.
Most people who have gone on these trips do report a real surge in their personal spiritual lives. They have taken some risks, faced the unfamiliar and pushed out the boat, as it were. They’ve tasted another culture, usually experienced a higher level of effectiveness in their prayers there, made friends with other team members and sometimes with nationals; certainly they benefit from the steep learning curve. However, their actual contact with the foreign culture remains at best just a taste. They have often paid more to go on this trip (not just the plane fares, hotels and meals, but the huge “overhead” many ministries charge on top of that) than many of the people they minister to earn in a year. They travel with other like-minded Americans, stay in Western-style hotels and eat at least two good meals a day. Yes, they work hard and yes, what they do is a good thing. But after a week or 10 days they fly home, exhausted but happy, and slide right back into their comfortable middle-class American lifestyle.
One may perhaps more accurately refer to this as “American Christian missions tourism”, but it is at best a cross-cultural ministry trip-- not missions.
What DO I consider missions, then?
The Oxford dictionary definition: Missionary: A person sent on a religious mission, especially one sent to promote Christianity in a foreign country.
Wikipedia: “A Christian missionary can be defined as "one who is to witness across cultures".[2] The Lausanne Congress of 1974 defined the term, related to Christian mission, as "to form a viable indigenous church-planting movement". Missionaries can be found in many countries around the world.
Jesus instructed the apostles to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19–20, Mark 16:15–18). This verse is referred to by Christian missionaries as the Great Commission and inspires missionary work.”
Up until very recently, a "missionary" was understood as someone who left their native land to go and live in another country, in order to bring people from a non-churched background to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ (whatever the strategy for that) and usually, to form an indigenous church out of those so reached. A missionary in this sense is not taking a break from their “normal life” to “do missions”-- missions IS their normal life. It is a full-time job. It involves great personal investment in learning a language, culture, customs and lifestyle sometimes very different from their own, and submitting to that culture in order to bring the living culture of the Kingdom, like yeast, into it.
Cross-cultural career missions means giving your life and energies to a culture that is not yours, with which you are unfamiliar, many aspects of which you may not agree with. It means raising your children bilingually and bi-culturally, knowing they will experience what is to you a foreign culture as their home culture. It involves constantly discipling a church full of (sometimes difficult) first-generation believers who have no mature Christian heritage or influence. It means identifying so much with your host culture that when someone in a Christian gathering calls out for prayer for various countries, it never occurs to you to stand in the group of your country of origin. It means changing almost everything about the way you live, usually to a far lower material standard than the one you left. It is a whole-hearted commitment to getting a spiritual job done under sometimes almost crushing physical, emotional and cultural circumstances.
I spent 12-15 years of my 30 years as a career missionary regularly going on ministry trips from my host country into many other nations. It was always an enriching experience, and often helped me in the permanent work in which I was involved. I’ve been on the all-frills and the no-frills versions of ministry trips. I’ve been a simple team member, I’ve formed, trained and led teams, I’ve organized trips, I’ve been the main conference speaker. I’ve stayed in the luxurious Hotel Gloria in Rio de Janeiro and with my friends in their 2-room house in eastern Ukraine (they gave up their only bed so I could sleep on it). I know both sides of this coin very well, and I maintain that "ministry trips" are just that: not missions. Granted, there may be some degree of discipling --if the conference is on a theme which equips the saints. There are often some conversions and re-dedications, but a very high percentage of attendees to the meetings are already believers.
In the 30 years I was in my host country, I saw many enthused career missionaries come --and go. I’ve come to believe one must deeply know they are called by God to do the work of a full-time missionary, or it will be too overwhelming. But if you know he has called you, you know you have access to the grace to keep on keeping on, even when (as happened to us several times) it seems you have made no progress or lost everything you’d worked for up to that point.
I suppose that’s why using the term “missionary” for anyone who has ever put their pinky toe across a border and waved a tract in someone’s face is rather offensive to me. I understand the desire to validate the average Christian's need for significance and sense of purpose, but have we not watered down the definition? It used to be enough to say “I am a missionary”; people understood that meant I lived and worked a primarily spiritual vocation in another country. Now I have to use all the descriptive terms: “a full-time, career, cross-cultural missionary” and even then sometimes have to explain what that is. Have we cheapened the term beyond recognition? Or has the English language moved on to embrace a much broader definition? Or is it a bit of both?
In any case, until given some very good reasons to think differently, I’ll personally refer to ministry trips, whether cross-cultural or not, as such; and I will refer to missions, whether short- or long-term, as such. Both are valuable and have their place in the grand scheme of Kingdom influence, but they are not the same animal. I wish our choice of language better reflected that fact.
Sunday, April 26, 2015
Patriarchs vs Fathers
It seems to me that church leaders today, whether consciously or unconsciously, choose to lead on a scale somewhere between the Old Testament model of Patriarch or the New Testament model of Father. I’ve been in so many churches over the past 3+ decades and seen so many variations on a theme, but it does seem to boil down to whether the leader in questions has more of an OT or a NT mentality which determines which leadership style he chooses. (I use the term “he” inclusively of “he or she” for ease of writing style. Clearly, the OT allowed only men to be patriarchs, but women leaders today can sometimes show a similar mentality in their chosen leadership style.)
Patriarch:
The male head of a family or tribe; an older man who is powerful within an organization; the male founder of something. (Oxford Dictionary)
Father:
A man in relation to his child or children; an important male figure in the origin and early history of something; a man who provides care and protection. (Oxford Dictionary)
These definitions are similar, yet in some crucial ways disparate. Both are important figures; each could have been the founder or originator of a community, but the mentality behind the function (reflected in the definition) makes all the difference.
What can we learn from how the Old Testament portrays patriarchs?
A patriarch
1. was the unquestioned leader of the tribe, answerable to nobody but God (and thus to the prophets through whom He spoke)
2. was responsible for designating an heir to rule in his stead (today known as nepotism)
3. was responsible to God for the spiritual state of his tribe
4. in practice, often did not have good relationships with his sons, nor train them well to follow in his footsteps
5. ruled until he died
How does the New Testament portray fathers, physical or spiritual? (The same principles apply to mothers. Patriarchy does not allow for this)
A father
1. loves his children and rejoices in their progress, is not threatened by their success
2. is responsible to God to train them to love Him (primarily by example)
3. releases children as they grow into responsibility, balanced with concomitant authority, into the family business
4. trusts Holy Spirit’s working in them, calls them forth
5. leads by serving
In Austria, where I lived 30 years, there was a common but unhealthy dynamic that had existed for hundreds of years on family farms. The book “Herbstmilch” (Autumn Milk), written by an old woman recalling her youthful years on such a farm, really opened my eyes and I saw this dynamic still in place everywhere I looked. I call it the Altbauer/Neubauer dynamic.
The Altbauer (old farmer) was the patriarch of the family and ran the farm. His sons, when they married, brought their wives to come live and work on the family farm. The eldest son’s wife had to defer to her mother-in-law in all things, did not own anything, and was functionally often little more than a slave. As the Altbauer aged, she and her husband, the Neubauer, (new farmer) ended up running the farm and taking all the responsibility, but were not given the authority to make any actual decisions regarding the farm, as the Altbauer reserved this for himself. Often he retained control by simply not making any decision at all, abdicating the responsibility he refused to delegate by not acting when necessary. Legally, this also meant he kept the farm in his name rather than passing it on to his son, even when he could no longer work it himself.
Responsibility without appropriate, concomitant authority is not only wildly unfair, it is a very bad idea. It leads to frustration, ineffectiveness and eventually to despair. But the Altbauer often would not let go of his last shreds of rulership until shortly before (or even after) his death, by which time the Neubauer and his wife would be well into middle age, embittered and had run out of impetus to actually change anything on the farm. But finally they could rule, and by God now they would! --usurping their own young, strong sons in the process. Thus the cycle would begin all over again with the next generation. Many sons said “I’m not having this” and left the farm entirely.
Ideally, if the father rather than the patriarch model had been followed, the Altbauer would have seen his primary role as training the Neubauer to run a farm, and gradually increased the level of authority given to his son along with the level of responsibility placed upon his shoulders. This would eventually have ensured for himself a bit of rest, an old age with a family that actually still got on together, and a farm more likely to thrive because it was run by somebody young enough to shoulder the hard work and make decisions from first-hand experience rather than from outdated habit.
This dynamic is true for churches as well. Hope deferred makes the heart sick, and heartsick sons and daughters do not thrive. People up through their mid-40s have the necessary drive to lead well; if they are never allowed to, a church stagnates. Yes, they need to benefit from the wisdom of their elders, but they need to be the ones making the decisions, because in most cases they are already “running the farm”, as it were.
I remember a church back in Milwaukee which technically believed in plurality of leadership, but in actuality one “elder” ruled them all with an iron fist. This was a community church and said elder was not answerable to anyone. By the time I encountered this fellowship, he had been the head elder for decades and everyone was simply waiting for him to die. But because he lasted into a ripe old age (probably out of sheer spite), by the time he did die those who had become elders under him had lost their fire for positive change and things went on precisely as before, with the elephant still in the room and all the old dysfunctions carrying on into the next generations. Most of the children who had observed all this had no desire at all to follow the faith of their elders.
This is a chilling scenario. If we choose the patriarch role, we run the very real risk of (as many of them did) losing the very sons and daughters into whom we have invested.
The Apostle Paul considered himself a father to the churches he founded and the “sons” he put in charge of them. He certainly anguished over them and wrote with love and caring to them. But he was never interested in founding a dynasty. Quite in contrast, he seemed almost reckless in the speed with which he recognized and designated leaders of a new community of faith, and then went off to found some more, leaving them to it! Although St Paul communicated by letter and visited when he could, he clearly did not consider himself answerable to God for their walk of faith. His job was to train them as well as he could in the time allotted him, and then trust Holy Spirit in them to lead them into all truth.
We live under the New, not the Old, Covenant/Testament. But even if we wish to reference, say, the priesthood in the OT (which --though also problematic theologically --perhaps corresponds a little more to modern-day church leadership than does patriarchy), priests were relieved of active duty at age 50. Yes, they still served in the temple, but no longer in the roles reserved for younger, stronger men.
Can we not learn from these principles? Certainly at the latest by the time we start having biological grandchildren ourselves, we need to be thinking about what that means. As a grandparent, we are undoubtedly related and have a place of honour in the life of the grandchild. But we certainly do not have the same decision-making role in their lives as do their own parents. If asked, we may give our input, but then we need to shut up and let them do what they decide to do! We need to trust that whatever we were able to teach those parents, by example and by word, in the years we had that role in their lives, was enough; and that whatever we messed up (and we did), God is able to help and heal and teach them something better.
Let’s choose to love and train those we bring up in the Lord, and then release them to be all they can be. Let’s not micro-manage from behind the scenes. Let’s not assign responsibility without authority, leading to discouragement and bitterness. Let’s recognize who is doing the job, affirm them in it, release them to it, and rejoice in their success. Let’s imitate our Father in heaven-- let’s choose to be fathers and mothers, not patriarchs reflecting a covenant no longer in effect.
Patriarch:
The male head of a family or tribe; an older man who is powerful within an organization; the male founder of something. (Oxford Dictionary)
Father:
A man in relation to his child or children; an important male figure in the origin and early history of something; a man who provides care and protection. (Oxford Dictionary)
These definitions are similar, yet in some crucial ways disparate. Both are important figures; each could have been the founder or originator of a community, but the mentality behind the function (reflected in the definition) makes all the difference.
What can we learn from how the Old Testament portrays patriarchs?
A patriarch
1. was the unquestioned leader of the tribe, answerable to nobody but God (and thus to the prophets through whom He spoke)
2. was responsible for designating an heir to rule in his stead (today known as nepotism)
3. was responsible to God for the spiritual state of his tribe
4. in practice, often did not have good relationships with his sons, nor train them well to follow in his footsteps
5. ruled until he died
How does the New Testament portray fathers, physical or spiritual? (The same principles apply to mothers. Patriarchy does not allow for this)
A father
1. loves his children and rejoices in their progress, is not threatened by their success
2. is responsible to God to train them to love Him (primarily by example)
3. releases children as they grow into responsibility, balanced with concomitant authority, into the family business
4. trusts Holy Spirit’s working in them, calls them forth
5. leads by serving
In Austria, where I lived 30 years, there was a common but unhealthy dynamic that had existed for hundreds of years on family farms. The book “Herbstmilch” (Autumn Milk), written by an old woman recalling her youthful years on such a farm, really opened my eyes and I saw this dynamic still in place everywhere I looked. I call it the Altbauer/Neubauer dynamic.
The Altbauer (old farmer) was the patriarch of the family and ran the farm. His sons, when they married, brought their wives to come live and work on the family farm. The eldest son’s wife had to defer to her mother-in-law in all things, did not own anything, and was functionally often little more than a slave. As the Altbauer aged, she and her husband, the Neubauer, (new farmer) ended up running the farm and taking all the responsibility, but were not given the authority to make any actual decisions regarding the farm, as the Altbauer reserved this for himself. Often he retained control by simply not making any decision at all, abdicating the responsibility he refused to delegate by not acting when necessary. Legally, this also meant he kept the farm in his name rather than passing it on to his son, even when he could no longer work it himself.
Responsibility without appropriate, concomitant authority is not only wildly unfair, it is a very bad idea. It leads to frustration, ineffectiveness and eventually to despair. But the Altbauer often would not let go of his last shreds of rulership until shortly before (or even after) his death, by which time the Neubauer and his wife would be well into middle age, embittered and had run out of impetus to actually change anything on the farm. But finally they could rule, and by God now they would! --usurping their own young, strong sons in the process. Thus the cycle would begin all over again with the next generation. Many sons said “I’m not having this” and left the farm entirely.
Ideally, if the father rather than the patriarch model had been followed, the Altbauer would have seen his primary role as training the Neubauer to run a farm, and gradually increased the level of authority given to his son along with the level of responsibility placed upon his shoulders. This would eventually have ensured for himself a bit of rest, an old age with a family that actually still got on together, and a farm more likely to thrive because it was run by somebody young enough to shoulder the hard work and make decisions from first-hand experience rather than from outdated habit.
This dynamic is true for churches as well. Hope deferred makes the heart sick, and heartsick sons and daughters do not thrive. People up through their mid-40s have the necessary drive to lead well; if they are never allowed to, a church stagnates. Yes, they need to benefit from the wisdom of their elders, but they need to be the ones making the decisions, because in most cases they are already “running the farm”, as it were.
I remember a church back in Milwaukee which technically believed in plurality of leadership, but in actuality one “elder” ruled them all with an iron fist. This was a community church and said elder was not answerable to anyone. By the time I encountered this fellowship, he had been the head elder for decades and everyone was simply waiting for him to die. But because he lasted into a ripe old age (probably out of sheer spite), by the time he did die those who had become elders under him had lost their fire for positive change and things went on precisely as before, with the elephant still in the room and all the old dysfunctions carrying on into the next generations. Most of the children who had observed all this had no desire at all to follow the faith of their elders.
This is a chilling scenario. If we choose the patriarch role, we run the very real risk of (as many of them did) losing the very sons and daughters into whom we have invested.
The Apostle Paul considered himself a father to the churches he founded and the “sons” he put in charge of them. He certainly anguished over them and wrote with love and caring to them. But he was never interested in founding a dynasty. Quite in contrast, he seemed almost reckless in the speed with which he recognized and designated leaders of a new community of faith, and then went off to found some more, leaving them to it! Although St Paul communicated by letter and visited when he could, he clearly did not consider himself answerable to God for their walk of faith. His job was to train them as well as he could in the time allotted him, and then trust Holy Spirit in them to lead them into all truth.
We live under the New, not the Old, Covenant/Testament. But even if we wish to reference, say, the priesthood in the OT (which --though also problematic theologically --perhaps corresponds a little more to modern-day church leadership than does patriarchy), priests were relieved of active duty at age 50. Yes, they still served in the temple, but no longer in the roles reserved for younger, stronger men.
Can we not learn from these principles? Certainly at the latest by the time we start having biological grandchildren ourselves, we need to be thinking about what that means. As a grandparent, we are undoubtedly related and have a place of honour in the life of the grandchild. But we certainly do not have the same decision-making role in their lives as do their own parents. If asked, we may give our input, but then we need to shut up and let them do what they decide to do! We need to trust that whatever we were able to teach those parents, by example and by word, in the years we had that role in their lives, was enough; and that whatever we messed up (and we did), God is able to help and heal and teach them something better.
Let’s choose to love and train those we bring up in the Lord, and then release them to be all they can be. Let’s not micro-manage from behind the scenes. Let’s not assign responsibility without authority, leading to discouragement and bitterness. Let’s recognize who is doing the job, affirm them in it, release them to it, and rejoice in their success. Let’s imitate our Father in heaven-- let’s choose to be fathers and mothers, not patriarchs reflecting a covenant no longer in effect.
Thursday, December 11, 2014
Massage Musings
A friend of mine invited me to join her for a spa day last Monday. It included one of the best massages I’ve ever had. Though it was advertised as a back and shoulder massage (including facial), which often can be pretty minimal, this young woman really did it right. The room was warm and semi-darkened, tinkly music played softly in the background, aromatic oils perfumed the air, and the massage bed was covered in thick cushy blankets and very comfortable. Even the spot to put your face through was nicely padded and fit my head well.
After I was nude and under the fluffy blankets, the masseuse asked me how I like my massage: light, medium, firm? I replied that I would yell if she hurt me but otherwise I’d take all the pummeling she could offer (I like my muscles properly kneaded)-- and after warming me up, she did! It was pure heaven; and she massaged not only my full back right down to the top of my bum, but my neck up to the hairline, arms, hands and fingers, and the front of my shoulders too. Then she proceeded to do much the same thing (though gentler) to my face and neck, slathering me all the while with delicious-smelling and -feeling unguents.
As I lay there, my eyes closed, limply being pampered, I realized how completely and utterly relaxed I was whilst having my bare body manipulated by a person who was a complete stranger to me. I mean, really, the only other time I feel touch on my bare skin is when I am intimate with my husband! So why didn’t this bother me in the least?
Because this woman is a professional; and besides that, had quickly clearly shown she knew what she was doing. It never occurred to me to worry that she might be, for example, a lesbian looking for more than massage. It goes without saying that one should never have to worry that one’s doctor, dentist, masseuse or physical therapist will abuse their profession by having sexual thoughts, ogling your body, making overtures or entendres or, God forbid, touching you inappropriately during treatment.
And then it suddenly hit me that I was really, really angry that X had done precisely that when she was P’s physical therapist. I thought I’d done all the forgiving necessary, but I’d never realized the blinking obvious: that X actually abused the patient/therapist relationship when she flirted with my ex-husband, a clearly married man, while her hands roamed his bare skin in the course of prescribed treatment. (No wonder he signed up for more --very expensive-- treatments after his prescribed course was over!)
Of course I am not blaming X for everything. P clearly had to respond-- and respond he did. But she did give him something to respond to that he couldn’t have seen coming, and shouldn’t have had to worry about in that context. She got under his defenses when he was injured, had lost some self-confidence, and was in a vulnerable position. In a very real sense, she got under his skin. X acted highly unprofessionally and abused her position of trust as a physical therapist. And realizing that so clearly made me really, really furious.
I realize I am particularly upset because it was precisely this sort of abuse that we had to deal with a few times in the course of pastoring for over 20 years, and P was always especially angry with those people in our care who abused a position of authority or trust. Yet when it happened to him, he couldn’t see it at all and he consistently defended X if anyone questioned how their relationship came about.
Well, I know what to do now, I know the ropes of forgiveness. But I had to vent and get it out here in writing so I can deal with it appropriately. I suppose things like this will still come up periodically, even though it’s been six years now, and even though I have made every effort to deal with all that I know. Funny what can trigger a deeper level of knowledge --and response.
It was still a great massage experience, though!
After I was nude and under the fluffy blankets, the masseuse asked me how I like my massage: light, medium, firm? I replied that I would yell if she hurt me but otherwise I’d take all the pummeling she could offer (I like my muscles properly kneaded)-- and after warming me up, she did! It was pure heaven; and she massaged not only my full back right down to the top of my bum, but my neck up to the hairline, arms, hands and fingers, and the front of my shoulders too. Then she proceeded to do much the same thing (though gentler) to my face and neck, slathering me all the while with delicious-smelling and -feeling unguents.
As I lay there, my eyes closed, limply being pampered, I realized how completely and utterly relaxed I was whilst having my bare body manipulated by a person who was a complete stranger to me. I mean, really, the only other time I feel touch on my bare skin is when I am intimate with my husband! So why didn’t this bother me in the least?
Because this woman is a professional; and besides that, had quickly clearly shown she knew what she was doing. It never occurred to me to worry that she might be, for example, a lesbian looking for more than massage. It goes without saying that one should never have to worry that one’s doctor, dentist, masseuse or physical therapist will abuse their profession by having sexual thoughts, ogling your body, making overtures or entendres or, God forbid, touching you inappropriately during treatment.
And then it suddenly hit me that I was really, really angry that X had done precisely that when she was P’s physical therapist. I thought I’d done all the forgiving necessary, but I’d never realized the blinking obvious: that X actually abused the patient/therapist relationship when she flirted with my ex-husband, a clearly married man, while her hands roamed his bare skin in the course of prescribed treatment. (No wonder he signed up for more --very expensive-- treatments after his prescribed course was over!)
Of course I am not blaming X for everything. P clearly had to respond-- and respond he did. But she did give him something to respond to that he couldn’t have seen coming, and shouldn’t have had to worry about in that context. She got under his defenses when he was injured, had lost some self-confidence, and was in a vulnerable position. In a very real sense, she got under his skin. X acted highly unprofessionally and abused her position of trust as a physical therapist. And realizing that so clearly made me really, really furious.
I realize I am particularly upset because it was precisely this sort of abuse that we had to deal with a few times in the course of pastoring for over 20 years, and P was always especially angry with those people in our care who abused a position of authority or trust. Yet when it happened to him, he couldn’t see it at all and he consistently defended X if anyone questioned how their relationship came about.
Well, I know what to do now, I know the ropes of forgiveness. But I had to vent and get it out here in writing so I can deal with it appropriately. I suppose things like this will still come up periodically, even though it’s been six years now, and even though I have made every effort to deal with all that I know. Funny what can trigger a deeper level of knowledge --and response.
It was still a great massage experience, though!
Thursday, August 14, 2014
Just Imagine
What if I had a Christian friend who was into a lifestyle of regular overeating and overconsumption-- say, 2 or 3 times the planet average? If I said to him pointedly that it was unhealthy for him, affects others who have less, and he should stop it, he may very well think me quite rude and that it was none of my business-- and he would be right. If I went so far as to tell him flat-out he was a sinner because he willfully and regularly indulged in the "biblical sin" of gluttony, and warned him of possible eternal consequences as well as almost certain temporal ones, I doubt he would care to have me as his friend any longer.
Most of us do have someone in our circle of friends who is greedy (of which gluttony is a form), whether we are personally aware of it or not. But because this is a culturally acceptable sin among Western Christians, we tolerate and tacitly support greed and gluttony, in others and in ourselves (sometimes even calling that fourth luxury limousine "the blessing of the Lord"!). If I choose to remain friends with such a person, I am not by doing so saying that what he is doing is not a sin. I am not supporting him in his sinful lifestyle choices, nor am I sinning myself by associating with him. I am simply being his friend.
Why is the "biblical sin" of homosexual practice treated so differently? If I personally believe, and even think I have good reason for doing so, that my friend is in error and is endangering himself and/or others by his lifestyle choices (whether overconsumption or homosexual practice), I have some choices to make about how valuable the friend is as a person, how valuable this friendship is to me, and the terms upon which I will retain his friendship. Almost all of us, in the case of greed, are willing to accept that whatever his choices, and whether I approve of them or not, they are HIS choices for which he is responsible, and as a friend my job is to love him whatever choices he makes.
If it is a close friendship, I may have the freedom (with sensitivity and when invited) to tell him how I feel about it-- once. But I certainly don't have the freedom to confront him out of "tough love", to nag him, to try and persuade him otherwise, to leave little news articles around for him to find clearly outlining the dangers of his choices, etc. Such actions would not be considered congruent with friendship in most cultures, and it wouldn't be surprising if my friend felt he no longer required such a "friend" as me in his life.
Making it more personal, think about the sins you commit every day-- those of commission (what you do) and those of omission (what you fail to do). Would you like someone following you around pointing out each incidence, and nagging you, under threat of withdrawing their friendship, until you cleaned up your act? Many Christians seem to have the warped concept of Holy Spirit as this sort of micro-managing sin-spoiler who uses a guilty conscience and a fear of consequences to shame us into better outward behaviour. Where did we get this strange idea? And why would we want to be "that guy" to our spouse, our children, our friends?
Just as I would not like my friend peering over my shoulder and saying, "Did you really need cream in that coffee? What about your waistline?" "Another day past, and you still didn't call your grieving friend", or "You know, what you just said was gossip", my friend does not need me doing the same to him, whatever his transgression. This is not "soft love", as some would have it; it's just love. It's just treating him with respect and honour, the way I would like to be treated. It's the Golden Rule. Just when did following the Golden Rule become unacceptable for Christians?
If we want to think biblically, we need to be aware that there are 5 to 6 times as many Bible verses condemning greed as opposed to the few which even mention homosexuality. The greed of the Western world, which has been part of forming the basis of modern evangelical theology, is certainly and demonstrably far more responsible for the current sorry state of the globe than is the success or failure of any feared "homosexual agenda". (The sins we consider "serious" are usually the ones we are not knowingly guilty of ourselves.)
Just imagine: what if we treated what we consider "fat people" (without even asking or knowing why they are the size they are: heredity? Diabetes or other disease of which weight gain is a corollary? Culturally desirable? A side effect of medication? Or overconsumption?) the way some Christians seem to want us to treat homosexual people? What if we assumed what their private lives looked like, judged them, shunned them, broke fellowship with them, refused to hire or to be served by them, kept them from schools and the medical profession, made rude remarks about them, blamed them for all ills in the world, and tried to get others to do the same? How long would this kind of patently unloving and non-Christian behaviour be tolerated if it were overweight people on the receiving end of it, and not homosexual people? (Have you ever noticed, by the way, that a great many of the vitriolic Christians ranting against homosexuality would fall into the overweight category themselves?)
After all, many of the verses that apply to sexual immorality also apply to greed. By all means, be biblical: but be consistent, too. So according to Ephesians 5:5 anyone who is greedy has no inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and of God. Ephesians 5:3 tells us greed "must not even be mentioned among you as is proper among the saints", and 1 Corinthians 5:11 tells us we should not even associate with a brother or sister (a fellow believer) who is greedy; do not even eat with such a one! And it goes on; greed is, according to the weight the Bible lends it, apparently a much bigger deal in God's Kingdom than it is in our agenda, and sexual transgression a far smaller deal. I am embarrassed by and ashamed of my fellow believers who believe they are acting biblically and seem to think God is applauding their "stand for righteousness" when they hate on people God created and loves.
I can't help but think that either the Good News is genuinely good, or it's not; that Jesus paid for it all, or he did not. Either all our failings and sins, whether intentional or otherwise, are forgiven and covered by his once-for-all sacrifice, or they are not, and we are all toast. We like to pick and choose, and find some sins worse than others. I personally have great difficulty with the thought of unrepentant murderers or child molesters being offered the same clean slate I am. But there it is. It's either for all of us, or it's for none of us. And especially when my friend and I both know Christ and his redeeming love, I am not Holy Spirit (part of whose job it is to convict of sin, righteousness and judgement) in his life, nor is he in mine; that position is taken.
In this life, we will always meet and interact as imperfect, flawed, broken, yet beautiful and lovable, worthy-of-being-redeemed people. None of us live in the place where that process is complete, and none of us know the essential raw material of the other that God has to work with.
We as the Christian Church must, and I as an individual Christian must, learn a deeper measure of grace-- both to receive it for ourselves and extend it to others.
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Poignancy
Lying on the couch, I could hear A upstairs playing the first line to the Beatles' "Norwegian Wood". I'd always liked the tune of this song, but found the words senseless. The evening before, a girlfriend and I had been discussing our previous marriages and suddenly, into my head dropped these poignant lyrics:
(sung to the tune of "Norwegian Wood")
You may not have known
how what you said cut to the bone.
I, wounded inside, bled every time;
part of me died.
But nobody noticed my pain, because I carried on.
Yet slowly but surely, the love that had held me was gone.
I tried to explain how your abuse
caused me such pain.
You never could hear;
I had to conclude: you didn't care.
I drew back inside
where it was safe, where I could hide.
You thought me so hard;
you couldn't see all of my scars.
If "couldn't" or "wouldn't" was primary, I'll never know;
but you didn't love me in ways that would let my heart know.
If we had known sooner the anger that burned in your soul,
we might have been allies against what could only control.
And when we arise,
we will each see with clearer eyes.
No longer alone,
then we will know as we are known.
Then we will know as we are known.
I am (as always) aware that this is only my view and only a partial view, but as far as it goes it is truth, and I found it poignant. Perhaps it will speak to some other women, or men, out there who have experienced something similar in a relationship.
(sung to the tune of "Norwegian Wood")
You may not have known
how what you said cut to the bone.
I, wounded inside, bled every time;
part of me died.
But nobody noticed my pain, because I carried on.
Yet slowly but surely, the love that had held me was gone.
I tried to explain how your abuse
caused me such pain.
You never could hear;
I had to conclude: you didn't care.
I drew back inside
where it was safe, where I could hide.
You thought me so hard;
you couldn't see all of my scars.
If "couldn't" or "wouldn't" was primary, I'll never know;
but you didn't love me in ways that would let my heart know.
If we had known sooner the anger that burned in your soul,
we might have been allies against what could only control.
And when we arise,
we will each see with clearer eyes.
No longer alone,
then we will know as we are known.
Then we will know as we are known.
I am (as always) aware that this is only my view and only a partial view, but as far as it goes it is truth, and I found it poignant. Perhaps it will speak to some other women, or men, out there who have experienced something similar in a relationship.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)