tabletalk

A View From the Side of the Road

An observation.

Last fall we had horrendous fires in Southern California. We could see the flames from our home. Our circumstance was safe, but many people suffered great loss. But we in S. Calif. know that the threat wasn't over with the fires. Once it started to rain, you could count on mudslides and hillslides and more. In anticipation of that, some agency decided that before the rains began in earnest, the hillsides that were burned needed to be reseeded. Not all, but those up on the mountainside near us needed to be sprayed in order to speed up the growth of vegetation to hold the earth in place. So they did.

Some two to three months later I can see those hills as I drive by in my car.

The irony - the places that have been seeded are still bare. The ones that were left un-seeded are now green.

What's my point? Simple. For me it represents the urgency with which we as a people act in order to control our circumstance. We can't wait for things to happen in a natural course. Our anxiety dictates that we take charge and make things happen. One of the things I'm learning in spiritual direction is that by taking control we often miss the point. That we're not in control and God's ways are different than my ways.

Look to the hills. Where is the green pasture? It is a thought worth considering. How do we do that in our busy lives when everything is centered on producing. The more we press, sometimes the further we get from the product, from the right result, from what God is doing.

Can we wait? Can we let things take their course without preempting the process? Do we really believe our answers are better than God's?

I look to the hills, from when cometh my help?

(P.S. - Maybe the sprayed areas weren't intended to grow. Maybe the spray is a kind of glue to hold the hill together....analogy still works.)

Radical Continuity: An Image

Last night I was driving to, and back from, San Diego - it's about a 75 mile drive one way. One thing you can count on when you head south on the I5 is traffic. If you don't have it in your direction it's coming at you. It was already dark and the stream of lights coming toward us seemed to be an endless ribbon that moved in a parallel but counter universe to my own.

As I watched I became aware that it was a good analogy for the spiritual journey and for the idea of radical continuity. So here you have it.

The journey we are on is longer than our individual excursions. I'm going 75 miles, the trucker might be going 1,500 miles, the teenager is just getting off at the second exit a mile from where they got on. The road is what is common between us. For a while, whether it is 1 mile or 1,000 miles, we share the same terrain. This is one of the bonds between human beings - the terrain we share. It is the landscape of physical geography, it is the ground covered in a lifetime, it can be the terrain of the heart, or work, or whatever. Humanity has a commonality that unites us. Everyone knows this, we often forget this. It is in itself a radical continuity. We can begin to think of ourselves so individualistically that we forget our connectedness.

The terrain of heart and place and journey are our touchstones with one another. It is something that is echoed in Paul's words/ideas about one part of the body saying to another, "I have no need of you." We're part of God's continuity.

Sometimes people join in our journey for a very brief moment, just a couple of exits. Sometimes people join in our journey for the long haul. I know when I'm on a long road trip I will find someone who drives at the speed I want to go and use them to pace myself.

What I'm learning in this time of radical discontinuity in my life is that those who join me in the journey are part of the radical continuity - the journey itself. They are part of it, because God has brought them into my lane. Once again, God is the one who holds all things together. None of this is arbitrary. I'm not saying it is all planned out either. But I believe that once you are "in the way of Jesus" Jesus gets in the way. Often in the form of people, companions, friends, colleagues....

Next time you see that stream of traffic, consider those who come alongside you for your journey and thank God.

Radical Continuity and Long-Time Friends

I want to comment again on the idea of radical continuity. Particularly I want to reflect on the role of long-time friends.

Lately I've been reading that time honored and oft revised book by Richard Bolles "What Color Is Your Parachute?" But even as I write this I've got the title covered up with my wallet so nobody around me looks at me sadly and surmises I'm a desperate, out-of-work soul. OK! So I probably am! Not really desperate, but wondering eagerly where this path will lead. One of the things he says is that you should treat your friends well and value them along the way - long before you "need" them to help you with a job. I hope I've been a good friend over the years.

What I want to reflect on is the fact that friendship can run deep. So deep that years and distance don't seem to diminish the ability to not only be friends, but that the friendship can actually grow as one matures, even if there has been little contact. How do I know this? I'm experiencing it every day.

God's radical continuity in my life, besides the presence of Christ through the Spirit, is mostly seen through friendships that I've had for many years. I know I said this in the previous post, so I write here for emphasis. I've never been strategic about friendships. I'm not a climber. There's no place I need to get to. I don't look past people in a room to get to the "important" people (at least I hope not!). The important people have always been those God has put in front of me at the moment. Sometimes they are the ones I don't see often, but remember regularly. (One thing I learned long ago was to pray for those who come to mind. I'm not good at lists but I'm good at being immediately present.) All I can say is that friendships that were established long ago are sustaining me at the moment. Many of those walking with me are people who I've not been in regular contact with over the past 20 years. Why is this?

My only conclusion is that God draws together the resources I need. God is calling people to me. It's not something I orchestrate or scheme. It is with gratitude toward God and those he's called to my path that I write this.

What's my purpose? Well - value one another. Value those who journey with you, even the least of those who walk by you.

I'm reminded of a letter that I received from a student at Lithuanian Christian College a few years ago. In a remarkable way, our congregation had given him a scholarship for his education. The letter said something like this, "Thank you for the scholarship. I'm a business major. Without your help, I wouldn't be able to continue my education. Who knows, perhaps maybe some day, I'll be able to help you out financially."

I was very moved by this expression of thanksgiving. And very much aware of its potential validity.

You never know when the tables turn. Be mindful.

Radical Continuity

Again, this is what my spiritual director has asked me to focus on. Being in a state of radical discontinuity is one thing. But accompanying this is also being in a place of "radical continuity". I think I get it. Not in some superficial way that just echoes spiritual platitudes. How often do we hear Christian people talk about God being with them or they can feel God's presence or them never being alone, but they are unable to offer what that looks like, or their life doesn't reflect it.

Radical continuity affirms the above, but it asks that you attend to the ways that continuity takes place. Radical continuity is the continuous love of God for us through thick and thin. It isn't platitudinous it is very grounded.

For me, the radical continuity is mostly seen in companionship. God has provided for me in this time of radical discontinuity a remarkable group of fellow travelers. Some were expected, some were simply gifts. A long time friend who had surgery for cancer has been a fellow traveler. God used him to get me outside myself early on in my discontinuity. A colleague in ministry who has called me every week sometimes two or three times, just to make sure I was putting one foot in front of the other. There's been several others who I'd not spoken with in 20+ years and they have consistently encouraged and supported me through emails and prayers. The prayers...so many friends pray and I know they pray often and regularly. New friends, old friends, emerging friendships - God has given me fellow travelers. It has always been that way. I've never walked alone. There is a radical continuity to God's love very simply through his people.

When you see it happen it can be quite majestic. Thanks.

Radical Discontinuity

That's what my spiritual director has told me. I'm in a period of "radical discontinuity." Since my resignation as Pastor of Trabuco Presbyterian Church, I've been in a time of discontinuity and it has been radical! I didn't jump from one job into the next, I merely needed to stop and collect myself before I did move on. I felt it was disingenuous to make the congregation go through my personal "collecting". So rather than make this into a prolonged job search where I was only half committed to everything I was doing, I decided that it was best to commit myself to being in a personal "radical discontinuity," in the hopes that I would emerge knowing what to do next by focusing my energies on what was important to me, and the tasks that I had to accomplish to move forward in faith, ministry, calling, life.

It began by plunging into this "radical discontinuity." People who retire experience this. (Some have congratulated me on my retirement! Not old enough and not rich enough!) My director mentioned the other day that he went to a 'prepare for retirement seminar'. He said that the speaker said that retirees face three similar challenges. They face the anxiety of what to do. This is the future question. They face the question of 'Who am I?' We might say, the 'existential' question. Third they face the question of what to do with their time. He said the first thing that the speaker recommends to those in retirement is to create a business card. Let me say, it was one of the first things I did when I left my position as pastor. It helped me answer the question, "who am I?" - at least in casual conversation.

Some observations about living in this "radical discontinuity". First is to not live too far into the future. This is advice I've given others. It comes from Henri Nouwen's look at the Desert Fathers. His comment is that trying to secure the future leads to anxiety and greed. Plus the future is illusory. We have no idea about what Saturday will be on Tuesday. We have only Tuesday. Now we make plans for Saturday, but we don't live into them until we get there. So no use being anxious about tomorrow, Jesus says, today's troubles are enough. Second is to notice that the discontinuity is not an enemy. Can you make friends with where you are if you are in-between? If everything around you is changing, can you be at peace? The goal is to not strive against where you are. The goal is not to suppress your anxiety but simply face it. What will I do? How will I make money? Where will I live? I feel all these things and they make me anxious. But the truth is that I will make money, I will live somewhere, I will do and be something. Facing the anxiety and brushing it away with bravado or toughness or denial is no help. Letting out. Naming it. Turning it over to God. Telling friends. The pressure in the pressure cooker (an analogy I doubt anyone younger than me would understand) gets less and you can focus on today. Which is all you've got.

Radical discontinuity, when everything around you and in you is changing isn't a burden or something to be gotten over. It is rather a place to learn and live and grow.

Being Led Not Driven

What brings about the change in our lives? Is it that self-determined attitude of pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps? A friend of mine when he saw a popular Christian book in Costco was taken aback by the title. He hadn't seen the book before that moment. It didn't take him long to summarize his feelings. He concluded two things. First, he decided he didn't want to be driven. Drivenness is how we describe the unhealthy business person, the high achiever. He said, "I don't want to be driven, I want to be led." Secondly he determined that purposes were too impersonal and a false representation of God - God is more than a purpose. He said, "I don't want to be led by purposes but by a person."

In Silas Marner, the object of Silas's gaze is shifted from his gold hoard to a little girl he adopts named Eppie. He retreats from his aloofness to the town and its people. He is reshaped by what holds his gaze. Here is how George Eliot describes the change.

“Silas began now to think of Raveloe life entirely in relation to Eppie: she must have everything that was a good in Raveloe; and he listened docilely, that he might come to understand better what this life was, from which, for fifteen years he had stood aloof as from a strange thing, wherewith he could have no communion: as some man who has a precious plant to which he would give a nurturing home in a new soil, thinks of the rain, and the sunshine, and all influences, in relation to his nursling, and asks industriously for all knowledge that will help him to satisfy the wants of the searching roots, or to guard leaf and bud from invading harm. The disposition to hoard had been utterly crushed at the very first by the loss of his long-stored gold: the coins he earned afterwards seemed as irrelevant as stones brought to complete a house suddenly buried by an earthquake; the sense of bereavement was too heavy upon him for the old thrill of satisfaction to arise again at the touch of the newly-earned coin. And now something had come to replace his hoard which gave a growing purpose to the earnings, drawing his hope and joy continually onward beyond the money.
In old days there were angels who came and took men by the hand and led them away from the city of destruction. We see no white-winged angels now. But yet men are led away from threatening destruction: a hand is put into theirs, which leads them forth gently towards a calm and bright land, so that they look no more backward; and the hand may be that of a little child’s.”

This is the theme of Christmas and the rest of our story. We are not intended to be driven people...and particularly we are not driven by purposes. We are to be led in this life, taken by the hand and shown the way. God is not interested in accomplishments, they are false gods. God is interested in relationship with us. Just as we are without excuse.

God Begins With Where We Are

The scandal of the Gospel is the deep and wide mercy of God. Most religions - anything based on some form or worship - are demanding of change in order to experience the blessing of the religion. God is interested in change, but God is the change agent. God begins with us where we are, not where he wants us to be.

Look at the Magi. They are astrologers and astronomers...star gazers. God doesn't make them renounce their world in order to find his Son. Instead God meets them in their world. God uses their means as his own in order to guide them. They don't have to reject a thing in order to find Jesus. It is one of the wonderful surprises that God is in our midst - "Bidden or unbidden, God is present." (This quote is on my Spiritual Director's wall). Think long and hard what this means. God begins with where we are. I believe this to be true of Christians as well as outside the church. What is ironic to me is that it is easy to believe this for those outside the faith, after all, they are "outsiders". But once you are inside, well, now you're responsible and the rules have changed. Buck up, get on with it, do the right thing. Somehow we think that the process should be complete and we should be free to move on without hindrance. I know most people don't intellectually believe this, but we behave towards ourselves as if we do. We become shamed in our failures or distance or ? that measures our proximity to God. "Bidden or unbidden, God is present." God begins where we are. God uses the Magi's stars.

In "Silas Marner" George Eliot uses Marner's gold as the means to his conversion. Even though his hoard of gold is stolen and he must begin all over again, Marner does re-establish his wealth. But it holds less and less a place of joy. Once his stash is taken, Marner finds his joy somewhere else. Even once his wealth returns his gaze shifts. But his way of salvation is through his gold, not in-spite-of-it. What I mean to say is, "What holds your gaze?" God is very close by. Look for God to be working in and around that which you hold dear, not necessarily that which is far off and distant.

In a book by Diogenes Allen from Princeton Seminary, he noted that conversion isn't about how quickly you turn, it's not about how you end up facing Jesus, but that you end up facing Jesus. Salvation is who holds your gaze, not how you get there. It's about where we end up facing not whether we get there through certain prayers or rote steps.

Bilbo & Frodo don’t start out brave & courageous in Tolkien's stories, they end up brave and courageous. They begin reluctantly. Children are not "grown up" nor do they need to be, they need first to be children and all that means. God begins with us as children.

The three travelers, the Magi begin as magicians and end up as Wise Men.

God begins with them where they are, but takes them home by another, wiser way.

Silar Marner: 19th Century Example for 21st Century Living

“So year after year, Silas Marner had lived in this solitude, his guineas rising in the iron pot, and his life narrowing and hardening itself more and more into a mere pulsation of desire and satisfaction that had no relation to any other being. His life had reduced itself to the mere functions of weaving and hoarding, with any contemplation of an end towards which the functions tended. The same sort of process has perhaps been undergone by wiser men, when they have been cut off from faith and love – only, instead of a loom and a heap of guineas, they have had some erudite research, some ingenious project, or some well-knit theory. Strangely Marner’s face and figure shrank and bent themselves into a constant mechanical relation to the objects of his life, so that he produced the same sort of impression as a handle or a crooked tube, which has no meaning standing apart. The prominent eyes that used to look trusting and dreamy, now looked as if they had been made to see only one kind of thing that was very small, like tiny grain, for which they hunted everywhere:”

With this George Eliot describes what becomes of us when we allow something to hold our gaze that has no life in itself. She describes here the natural consequence of idolatry. For my definition, idolatry is anything which holds our gaze that isn't Jesus himself.

This time after Christmas is called Epiphany. It is believed that the Wise Men arrived after Jesus' birth. When they left their homeland, they were Magi, they were star-gazers, astrologers and astronomers. The ancient world didn't separate things out like we do. They watched the stars and were guided by them. They would have been viewed as idolaters by the Jewish people they went to visit. For them, the stars held their gaze, not the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The Jews would have seen them as a threat, not a positive witness to the birth of the Messiah.

The first point I want to make is - that which holds our gaze shapes us. Silas Marner was shaped by his hoard of gold. The Magi, their eyes fixed in the sky. Marner couldn't look up. The Magi lived unable to look down. This is my first point. That which holds our gaze shapes our living.

Next: God begins with human beings where they are - in their idolatry.

So on this New Year's Day, it is enough to consider where you are looking, what holds your attention - who holds your attention.

Questions From Without: Hell and the Bible 1

My friend, Scott Truman, wrote a comment to the previous post and suggested three passages where he wants me to apply McLaren's matrix. Scott thanks for the thoughtful response. We'll use your texts for conversation.

The matrix McLaren suggests is to: Identify the Passage; Identify the Behavior it addresses; What is the Consequence; What's the Point the text is making.

Passage: Matthew 13:24ff - The Parable of the Sower and the Seed
Behavior: Being weeds and bearing no fruit, no harvest. Everything that causes sin, all who do evil are
included in this passage. Being either counter to the Gospel or unproductive.
Consequence: Thrown into the fire, weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Point: Bear fruit; hear and respond to the message, the good news.

Let's start at the end to think about this passage. Jesus wants his hearers to repent, turn, receive the good news of his coming and bear the fruit of relationship with him. The fruit is that others will come, not that they be turned away.

I had a professor in seminary who said that the purpose of this passage was to find the good soil and only sow the Gospel in that receptive ground. My hand flew up in protest and I was summarily dismissed. I believe the greater context of this passage is to say that God's message and salvation is so abundant in grace and mercy it can be spread over all kinds of soils in the attempt that it will find a place to grow. There is abundance not scarcity in this passage. Abundance of what? Grace and Good News.

I believe with McLaren that the intense language of the New Testament as regards hell and judgment, is intended to cause us to take seriously Jesus admonitions. I don't believe it is intended to create a kind of scenario that results in a "turn or burn" mentality. God is not interested in our burning, he is interested in our turning. God doesn't give up on those who reject him, but he warns us that we are in a serious and perilous spot.

So many times Christians use these passages to support our separation from those who don't believe. We quote them or hold on to them to justify our position as being right and good. We're safe, those sinners are in trouble, just like Jesus says.

Jesus however uses these illustrations to motivate those on the inside of the faith. The message is a positive one: bear fruit. It isn't the judgment against the world that Jesus is talking about, it's against those who seem to think that they know him. Can we hear his voice? Every time I preach or teach the Bible, once I understand the context of the passage, I consider the fact that it is first a word to me before it is a word to others. It is what is called "standing under the Word." Take the log out of your own eye before you take the speck out of your neighbor's eye.

I believe we'll discover that these passages are more like this, than they are condemnation for the lost. Jesus came to seek and save the lost. It seems his harshest criticism is for those who say "I see, I hear, I speak" and are blind, deaf and dumb.

Questions From Without: Hell and Reading the Bible

Anytime someone reads the Bible they come to it with a set of expectations. Every single person brings prejudices, insights, wisdom, ignorance, good methods and bad to reading the Bible. Many times in our 21st century existence we forget that there are 20 centuries between us and those who wrote the texts we read. Often we simply lift the texts out, transporting them over the centuries into our modern existence without any translation or context. This can cause us to go horribly wrong in our interpretations. We all want it to speak to us. Often all of these expectations and methodologies end up keeping us from understanding. Every approach has its limits. There is no "right way" to read the scriptures. But there are better ways to read it than ohters. This requires great discernment and good mentors and a lot of honesty.

We are going to look at a way of reading the passages on Hell, suggested by Brian McLaren in chapter 19 "Homework Assignment" in The Last Word and the Word After That. It's a method that I believe allows us to let the passages to speak for themselves. This is Lewis's point, let the text speak and learn from it without imposing your expectations and needs on it. We can't do this perfectly but we can approximate it. Here is McLaren's method:

"Make a table with four columns, headed 'Passage,' 'Behavior,' 'Consequence,' and 'Point.' Read through Matthew, and note each passage that deals wit the subject of judgment (not just the passages that explicitly mention hell of Gehenna or Hades). Then note the behavior that will be judged, along with the consequence that follows that behavior. Then try to identify the point: what is the rhetorical purpose of the passage?
Here's what I think you'll find.
1. Our contemporary modern Western conservative Protestant gospel would say this:
Behavior: Not accepting Jesus Christ as personal savior, not being saved or born again, not asking Jesus
into your heart so your sins can be forgiven, etc.
Consequence: Being sent to hell.
Point: Accept Jesus as your personal Savior.
2. Not one passage from the Gospels says anything remotely like this."

We're going to use this method. If you would like to try it on your own that would be exceptional, but if you trust McLaren not to misquote the scripture, then we'll simply use his table from the above chapter.

The next few blogs will look at how this works. One of the things to know is how the people of Jesus' day viewed hell. Each of the principle religious groups of Jesus' time had a different way of approaching this concept. Hell was in no way accepted by all the religious people of that time. It took centuries for it to become something like what we have today. Remember we can't simply understand a text in our own time without understanding it first in Jesus' time. We will need to know how the Sadducees look at a text and how the Pharisees would view it. There are other groups like the Herodians and more. So I will comment on them as their views are addressed in different texts.

The hard thing for us is to set aside our agendas so we can listen to the biblical agenda. Wouldn't it be best to get close to what God wants of us, rather than to make God get close to what we want?