All posts by Rod White

Intent: Jesus Is Not Tupperware and You Don’t Sell Him.

Building community, Leadership, , , , , , ,

I was going to take a picture of our pitcher. But I found the exact one on Etsy for $8Gwen was marveling at a Tupperware pitcher the other day. Someone gave it to us for our wedding and it is still working well. Other pitchers come and go, but the sturdy little Tupperware goes on and on — which, I suppose would be a good reason to trust Tupperware. The corporation would be delighted if you formed a love relationship with your plastic pitcher and the business behind it.

A lot of people do trust Tupperware-like operations. You might know that Tupperware was among the original direct sales organizations that sprung up after World War 2 — Earl Tupper and Brownie Wise gave women something to do after the men came back from the front and told them to go back to the kitchen. Now they have about 2 million people who sell products worldwide. Individual, entrepreneurial capitalism is like the new American dream which comes complete with a post-Christian religious-like philosophy [addictive Tupperware propaganda here].

The method is so ingrained in our society that a lot of people seem to think the church is, essentially, a Tupperware party. You invite a bunch of people, show them your stuff while eating appetizers and try to parlay your relationships into a Jesus sale. People have certainly criticized Circle of Hope because their friends don’t want to come to our Jesus party and buy Jesus. They want to improve the product. That’s if they even want to be involved at all. Plenty of people would rather die than be involved in direct sales!

It is hard to describe the church outside of some economic metaphor, since our imagination for forming society in the United States is almost completely subsumed under how our economy works and what rights and laws are commensurate with making it doable and just. Half the time on the BIC Listserve the men (mostly) of our denomination are talking about politics as if the church has a big stake in the economy of the United States. I think we can do a lot better than merely debating just how crazy the recent Senate vote on watered-down gun laws was (although, Lord knows, the prophets need to turn up the volume). I think we can do better than integrating into the economy.

Intent holds us together

At least I don’t think we have much to say about society until we have a church. The church is how God does his work and demonstrates the life we have received. Here is a great teaching from the Bible that briefly sums up what the church is all about:

[God’s] intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Ephesians 3:10).

If you want to sell something, sell that!

Better yet, swear off economic metaphors for describing God’s people altogether, for a while. Because the church is not an economy in the popular, “consumer/free-market capitalism” sense. We are a people who God rules and through whom God reveals the character and purpose that creates us. We ARE a people in which someone can be included. We DO God’s purpose of revelation by which we include ourselves in the destiny of the world, whether it invites us to the party or not.

We don’t need an organization to work out Ephesians 3:10-11. And if the organization we adopt is modeled on consumer capitalism or American political theory, we’d be better off without one! We live out God’s purpose as individuals and in the course of daily life. We should organize our time to do that. The Spirit of God is in us and God is expressing life and love through each of Christ’s followers. But if we want to make ourselves known to the powers and provide a place for people to be included, it is pretty arrogant to think we can do that on our own. And since God’s intent is to work through the church, not just you or me, we should see ourselves as agents of the church, not as a church of me, myself and I. Because God has built each of us into the church, Circle of Hope is organized into cells and into teams. Our cells organize into congregations. Our congregations organize into a network. Our network is part of a denomination and is connected worldwide in creative ways.

What holds it all together? I focus on the word INTENT in Ephesians 3:10. God’s intention is the creative spark that again and again forms the body of Christ and animates it. And God’s intent is met with our similar intent, sparked by God’s Spirit in us making all things new. We hold together by the covenant that makes us a people and the agreements that make us doers of the word in so many ways. Our covenant, in particular, is what makes us more than a Tupperware party. We don’t hold weekly meetings to convince our members to buy another piece of the collection. We are all the “owners” ourselves and we present to others the person of Jesus, not a product; we call for relationship, not self-actualization through endless “freedom of choice.”

The leaders of the men’s retreat were working out our presumption of covenant love throughout the weekend. They took an audacious risk by making their small groups painstakingly diverse, crossing all congregations. Then they went even further by making dyads that were randomly selected by the small group leaders. Then they had these pairs doing intimate, spiritual things. They demonstrated a huge trust in God’s presence in the body. The had a huge faith that individuals would experience God’s truth and love and intentionally follow God’s lead. They assumed they could trust the small groups to include everyone. They trusted the dyads to do spiritual things. They presumed a covenant life and didn’t even allow for too much individual anonymity. I’m sure a few people were blown away, so far out of their comfort zone and over their capability that they are still reeling from it. But I did not hear anything about that yet. What I have heard is story after story of being moved, connected and inspired — and formed into a people as God intended.

Our destiny is to make God’s heart and God’s ways known to the world, to live out the eternal purpose of God made known in Jesus. Our destiny is not merely to keep deciding what we want to do. It is not to keep inviting people into sales events that presume they are merely meant for deciding what they want to do. We share God’s purpose. We are each someone valuable to God, and what we do has meaning beyond our capacity to choose. We are a people through whom God intends to work out his life and purpose, and what we accomplish has eternal ramifications. We have a God-intended destiny, and it defines how we take our steps together.

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Endless Love Chooses Limits

Building community, , , , , , , , ,

My sister made a good point last Wednesday after we stopped playing Wii bowling and watched a few minutes of the news. She said, “I like it when the TiVo’s got nothing and I need to watch the commercials. They are educational.” It will be part of her book “$%!# People in the Last Years of the Baby Boomer Demographic Say.”

I am unlimitedBecause she said that, I listened to the Sprint commercial for their I-Phone 5 deal while I was looking for news about the Phillies (which was not good news). While I was reaching for a Rolo, my ears perked up, because the Sprint commercial actually said, “I need, no, I have the right to be unlimited.” I looked at Gwen and asked, “Did you hear that?” She verified that it happened. Then YouTube confirmed it.

I think the commercial is supposed to be a little ironic. But since truth is not a goal for most advertisers, one cannot be too sure — and ads rarely say something which isn’t supposed to resonate in thirty seconds. So I think being unlimited is exactly what the advertiser meant to promise. And even though it is absurd, I think they meant to tap into the innate, entitled feeling (that is becoming more prevalent all the time) that we have a right to be unlimited. Maybe that sense of entitlement is a legacy of those baby boomers I mentioned. YouTube also verifies they promised fame would make their children live forever (who all sing and dance), all while enjoying endless love. Now those well-educated boomers are working on how they will make it literally possible not to die.

Endless love

As a missionary, that thirty seconds was very educational. I also promise people can have eternal life, which is unlimited. I don’t think one has an innate right to it, but once it is given by the Giver I could say, “I need, no, I have a right to be unlimited.” My fame won’t make me live forever (or my children, as our brothers and sisters at Saddleback are pondering), but God’s fame will live forever. But what about endless love? The Bible records this teaching:

Romans 8:37-39: But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

1 John 4:9-12: By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

What about endless love? God has loved us from the beginning and will love us until the end. Nothing will ever separate us from God’s love. But what kind of love is this unlimited love? It is not like Sprint’s sense of being unlimited, which you can pay for and buy a right to. It is not something I can work hard enough to deserve, like people think of fame or scientific progress.

I suppose it could seem ironic that God’s unlimited love is the kind that limits itself. Nothing can separate us from the love of God because it is in Jesus our Lord; the love is expressed by God who became a limited human to serve humans. Nothing can separate us from the love of God because the one and only Son limited himself to life like ours, killed death, went beyond angels, undermined the powers that be, invested our present with hope and guaranteed our future. God-with-us, who knows the heights and depths and every possibility of our creation, put endless love in limited flesh and made limited flesh full of endless love.

Expressed in our limits

make it workOne the way home from my sister’s, I read a book on the plane about psychology (of course). It had a great metaphor for seeing our many inner “selves” as a family system. What the author suggested is that we get in touch with our true, inner Self with a capital “S” and learn how to let that Self relate to our many selves with honesty and understanding, just like a family therapist would help a family. That is a nice Hindu-ish idea that assumes that people can find the image of God in themselves and “make it work.” I think it was another example, like the Sprint commercial, of how we are being trained to see our potential as limitless.

But true, endless love from our true selves is a gift of God, who demonstrates how it comes alive in Jesus. We don’t make it work as much as it works in us. It is endless, but it limits itself to be expressed in us. Our sin gets us condemned to being in charge of forever. But God’s love demonstrates the alternative that saves the world.

For instance, tonight we are going to have a meeting about making a covenant with the other members of Circle of Hope. We would need an alternative commercial for our alternative kind of life: “I need, no, I have a right to be limited.”  I make a covenant with a visible group of Jesus-followers because I need to love in this time and place as one of these people — Christ in me, Christ as us. The meeting answers crucial questions:

  • How am I going to be a visible part of an actual body?
  • How can I not end up like some kind of imaginary god whose love is endless, a god outside an actual body, an aspiration I need to make work?”

God’s love is in us and is something that works in our limited condition; it is a life into which I can enter and from which I can live.

This is a big deal. The love of God is Jesus entering into our world and our lives. Expressing love like God’s is living fully in our world, entering the experiences of others, and living with Jesus in his body, the church. It is a love that serves within the limits of creation. It is limited by the need to be a receiver who gives as a real person to other real people. It is love that is not looking beyond what is to what isn’t, and so love that honors the person in front of them and doesn’t expect what has not matured to fruit yet, much less the impossible.

When we meet in our cells or public meetings we are not there to experience wonderful people whose fame should live forever (or to lament the undesirables we are stuck with!). When we meet, we are humbly emptying ourselves of self-aspirations to endlessness and entering in to the smallness of knowing someone and being  known, of discovering the goodness created in us and the new life given to us by Jesus. I am not going to “make the cell work” or bring all my endless demands for what I deserve to it. I am going to give of myself as love is given to me by God. I am going to honor the limited person and context and be used to fill them with whatever fullness of love they can contain.

That’s a lot of meditation on a thirty-second commercial! But I needed to do it. We are longing to be the body of Christ – not the only representation, of course, but a real one. I love the limitations of a love that empties itself of rights and gives out of God’s endless supply. Within those limitations is where the love of God saves us. It sounds reasonable, I suppose. But then my wife wipes me out at Wii bowling and I have to love her. Someone  messes with my I-phone and I have to make a choice. Someone invites me into a covenant of love like God’s and I have to reorient who I think I am!

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Drones are the lesser of two evils? Really?

The Mission,

My friend and member of Shalom House, Candace McKinley, wrote a brilliant response on a list serve we mutually read. Someone was defending drones as the lesser of two evils and being sympathehetic about the imagined plight of the president who was making hard decisions. I thought her reply was so great I asked her if I could repost it. She said yes.

I do not think that is accurate to describe drone warfare as the lesser of two evils as if there are only two choices for action. What about relying on traditional intelligence gathering? What about trials? Or even working on rectifying the causes of terrorism–reversing US policies that have propped up dictators, destabilized legitimate governments, built military bases all over the world, and harmed local economies? Perhaps instead of striking out blindly in fear and in hate after 9-11, our government could have instead acted rationally: gathered intelligence on who perpetrated 9-11 and why; changed our policies; gone to the international community; answered the question of “Why do ‘they’ hate us?” honestly and not with the pointless lie of “Because they hate our freedom.”

Targeted killings using drones are problematic for many reasons. Legally, there is the issue of violating another country’s sovereignty, attacking other countries without a formal declaration of war, assassinating individuals without trial, killing US citizens without due process. But there is also a deep moral issue.

[Our friend] makes a good point. Imagine if we were on the receiving end of another country’s drone program. What if Venezuela decided to make targeted strikes against American citizens who they believed were actively involved in terrorist acts against their country that endangered the lives of its citizens and aimed to destabilize and overthrow their government? Their “accurate” drone strikes result in massive harm to personal property of civilians and collateral damage–the loss of life to civilians, including many women and children. Imagine attending a wedding to celebrate the union of two of your family members along with 150 friends and family members. It a celebration on Lemon Hill in Fairmount Park. The wedding reception is cut short when a drone opens fire on the crowd, killing most of the 150 guests. Seeing the explosion, bystanders and ambulances race to the scene to aid the victims. Another round of bombing greets the rescuers.

Venezuela thought the gathering was suspicious and had some intelligence that an American agent known to be involved in the planning of anti-Venezuelan government attacks might be in attendance. Soon, people no longer attend block parties, outdoor concerts, dragon boat races on the river, street fairs or large farmers markets for fear of drone attacks. You don’t want to look suspicious.

You go out to the grocery store to pick up some milk and eggs for breakfast the one day. You return home a half hour later to find your house in flames. Your home destroyed by a drone attack. Pieces of your spouse and children scattered among the burning wreckage. Your home happened to be next door to the home of a man suspected of donating to an anti-Venezuelan cell.

The above two scenarios may seem overly dramatic, but they are the reality for too many people living in Pakistan and other countries where the US engages in drone warfare. Over 4,700 people have been killed by US drones. Also, the idea that other nations could use drones–armed or unarmed–against the US is not so farfetched. The US no longer has the monopoly on drones. Israel is the largest drone exporter and China is into the business of drones as well. Again we reap the whirlwind.

This Saturday, Shalom House members attended a talk by Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODE Pink in Bethlehem, PA. She spoke about drone warfare and CODE Pink’s efforts. Around the room was a string of names and ages written in careful black script noting over 100 Pakistani children killed by drone strikes. Listening to her tell us about CODE Pink’s recent delegation to Pakistan and the stories told by those living under drone warfare, I couldn’t help but imagine myself in their shoes. What would it be like to live in constant terror? To have your community torn asunder? To feel powerless to stop the killings or to even have your story heard? To be on the receiving end of the capricious vengeance and violence of a country thousands of miles away who feels that it has the right to bomb you and your family? To be given no justification or explanation for the attack beyond lip service?

I think the moral question of drone warfare, in deed of all warfare, can be answered in one line: Do to others as you would have them do to you. And for us who are Christ followers: Love one another. Even more so, love your enemies.

I don’t think it is too much to ask our governments to do the same or to hold them to the same standard. Governments are going to act in what they perceive is their best interest without us making excuses for their actions. Especially since we live in a democracy where our votes and voices are supposed to have meaning, why not demand that our government not kill in our name?

During the month of April, there are going to be a number of protests, forums and actions around drones. On April 13 there will be a big rally and march in DC organized by ANSWER and on April 26-28, there will be a forum, protest and rally in Syracuse, NY at a drone base. I’ll share a calendar of local and regional forums and actions later this week.

Below are some links to some resources about drones. Check them out for more information about the US drone program.
Drones Watch: A Coalition Campaign to Monitor and Regulate Drone Use
Infographic: Drone Strikes under Obama
Bureau of Investigative Journalism: Covert Drone War

I add an article about drone support in our own back yard.
Horsham command center for drones wins support.

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David Bazan and the Dialogue about Lost Faith

Music, The Mission, , ,

About the time Circle of Hope got going, a group named Pedro the Lion started becoming popular. It was the brainchild of David Bazan, the son of a Pentecostal worship leader who brought a down-to-earth Seattle vibe to his music and didn’t mind being a Christian who talked about issues of justice and issues of doubt.

Pedro+the+LionSince nothing ever disappears from the internet (even if we can’t remember that long ago!), we can still see what Bazan was saying about faith and art back in the early days of Pedro the Lion. He said that his faith naturally permeated his music because it is an extension of who he is. “Anyone with a strong, sincere belief in something shouldn’t treat it lightly. It seems I’m always being called upon to boil down my faith for interviews. Defining it should be done with great care.” [Want to see the whole interview?]

Becoming a Christian rocker who makes a living finding ways to make holy scripture fit alongside gnarly power chords was NOT what Bazan wanted to do. He thought that ”the basic act of being creative glorifies God.” Christian rock “turns the music and the message into crap. The message is degraded when it’s made into slogans and low-level propaganda. They’re attempting to reach a certain audience just like advertisers do — and that, ultimately, degrades the art.”

A more pure model, he said, would be to try to express yourself artistically, as honestly and sincerely as possible. But  “It would be naïve to think you could steer clear of the forces of money and acceptance. To ignore it is to let it rule you. You can only control it if you openly address it.”

He was a sincere, intense twentysomething. He was leading the way into a faith that was not just a slogan or a straitjacket. Now he is leading people into his own agnosticism. Pedro the Lion broke up mainly because of Bazan’s drinking and inconsistency, it seems. But now he has  righted the ship and is writing and performing provocative songs in his own name.

david bazanBazan earned religion and philosophy credits from a Christian college and that pursuit started his journey into analyzing everything he could get his mind around. Curse Your Branches chronicled his struggle with faith, and the resulting spiral that came with uprooting his foundation. He did not claim a sudden disbelief, but he did not let any metaphysical question avoid his analysis, either. As more people heard his musical autobiography, he found out just how many others were asking the same questions he was asking.

A newer album, Strange Negotiations, shows that the religious roots are still visibly dissolving. He  addresses his current reality with brutal honesty. He has abandoned his faithful stability. But, reportedly, his wife, parents, and some of his friends still pray for him. One of the songs on the album, “Virginia,” reflects his shaky roots [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMzqRHFjcbo]. He muses about a friend who died very young:

We were worried about your personal salvation.
Was it heaven or hell that you saw when your eyes closed?
You smiled at us floating high above the question
Like you knew something we didn’t know.

He says Negotiations  is about the “frustration that comes from realizing the refusal to participate in the mass delusion while not dismissing the deluded is the only way forward… I think people are starting to take more seriously the discrepancies in their faith. I think we’ll all be better off for that.” [Want to read the whole interview?]

I find Bazan’s journey fascinating because I have travelled it with his peers since they first loved Pedro the Lion. Now they are part of the dialogue about the loss they feel about their dissolving faith. They care about their Evangelical or Catholic relatives and friends, but they can’t stand going into the church and experiencing the cognitive dissonance. They slowly take on the new religions of the day, based on Eastern thought or generated by one of the many denominations of psychotherapy. They graze for the solidity of organic food and experiment with the relevance of occupying something. Mostly they wonder about themselves and express their wondering.

It is challenging to be tagged as part of the old church they have left behind. I can safely say that I never adopted the Christianity Bazan rejected, so I think I can relate to his conviction. But I can also say that I met Jesus, whose smile I experience as much more than the smirk of a lost friend.

Other relevant posts:

What if I Don’t Feel God Anymore? Sep 2012
The Tantric Propaganda in Green Lantern and Elsewhere Sep 2011
Good Questions About Jesus Jul 2010

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Selling Dresses for Syrian Refugees Bought Comfort

The Mission, , ,

The Syrian uprising was reportedly ignited by bored teenagers who spray-painted some graffiti on the wall of a school in Dara’a challenging President Assad, who is a trained ophthalmologist. Their message simply said, “It’s your turn doctor” (check out the NY Times). When the reaction of the authorities was harsh, neighbors came to the defense of their kids and protests soon spread around the country. Before long, defecting soldiers created militias, which have now formed a coalition, one that does not include radical Islamists who have flooded into the conflict from around the Middle East.

Walid snuggles under an MCC comforter in Zarqa, Jordan.
Walid snuggles under an MCC comforter in Zarqa, Jordan.

By the start of 2013, more than 60,000 people, mostly civilians, had died and tens of thousands of others had been arrested. More than 400,000 Syrian refugees had registered in neighboring countries, with tens of thousands not registered. In addition, about 2.5 million Syrians needed aid inside the country, with more than 1.2 million displaced domestically, according to the United Nations.

In December the Mennonite Central committee beefed up their aid to $1.3million dollars as the refugee crisis deepened (check out the MCC website). Thank God that we are part of MCC! We are supporters of MCC in a number of ways. A good portion of our common fund goes directly to the mission all over the world. Our thrift stores exist as part of the MCC network of stores. Last year, $87,000 of our profits went to many good works.

Sara and the dresses
Sara and the dresses

On top of those regular contributions was the special portion derived from selling wedding dresses. Remember those dresses? The story goes like this. The landlord was trying to rent one of his unrentable spaces so, of course, he contacted us. He is familiar with our mission to redeem unrentable spaces – or so it would seem. As part of the deal, he wanted us to buy the who-knows-how-many wedding dresses and formals he had in the space. We bit the hook, assuming that we could sell almost anything – but not completely sure.

Howard and Katie getting the word out.
Howard and Katie getting the word out.

We wanted to highlight our new store and the plight of Syrian refugees, so we had an October-long dress sale: Be a hero, Buy a dress! Some of us even got out on the street to advertise (thanks Howard and Katie). Some of us even dressed up in the dresses and went to the Halloween Gala for Syria (Zombie Optional). We started selling dresses and some people even bought them because Syrians needed help. We have paid back the purchase price and have given over $2500 directly to Syrian refugees in Lebanon and Jordan. Plus, we continue to sell dresses in both stores, and the money will continue to go to Syrians as long as we have dresses!

Apart from the joy of doing our part to help people in need, we have learned and gained a lot from this experience.

1)  We succeeded in making people aware of the trouble in Syria and making them aware that we care about it. We are world Christians. Jesus cares and so do we.

2) We forced ourselves out of our comfort zone and on to Broad St. and, as a result, met a lot of new people. We learned that we are actually quite capable of mixing it up on the street. Come to find out, we have a lot to offer people who need us. Jesus has gone before us and we are following.

3) The new, unrentable store space actually worked well! Circle Thrift profits (and contributions to our causes) have gone way up! Jesus has a lot of ways to get things done and we are trying to be creative, too.

It is a big world and it is such a mess! It is always tempting to hunker down and ignore as much as possible (FB, Twitter and this blog, notwithstanding!). It is hard to make choices about who to serve and how to give. But another thing I think we learned (again) from our four-month attention to Syrian refugees is that we get bigger when we try to do bigger things. Our hearts get bigger when we love beyond their normal confines. Our faith gets bigger when we exercise it, especially on behalf of those even poorer than ourselves.

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I, for one, have a big stake in it

Building community, Leadership, ,

I have been learning a lot about our life together as Circle of Hope at Broad and Washington from the Stakeholders discussion, both on and off the blogsite.  For one thing (since I can see the stats) more people than ever have visited the site this year.  That’s a good thing. What’s more, I think care-filled, intelligent and vulnerable comments have been offered as part of the dialogue.  I am re-learning what a treasure chest we are.  We are people who have applied ourselves to learning the way of Jesus, like the Lord says, ”Every scribe who has become a disciple of the kingdom of heaven is like a head of a household, who brings out of his treasure things new and old” (Matthew 13.52).

Working a little stake

One of the things I’m learning, again, is that there are a lot of little stakes being worked out there. Some people are bringing up treasure that is old, which is that much better for being seasoned. Some people are discovering new treasure in themselves and it is all very exciting. I think it would be great if we could get it all together into a big mining company with Jesus as the CEO. He is actively making that happen.

stakeholders

Sometimes people start using the word “stakeholders” with just a vague notion of what it means. It has the general sense of someone who has a stake in something. They care. They are the people who feel they “own” the organization.  That’s a good way to look at it.

I use it in a more direct way. Being a stakeholder is like mining gold — like 49ers in California staking a claim in a territory they were sure had gold in it and being crazy enough and determined enough to keep digging until they find it — only our territory is the human “goldfield” of the Philadelphia region.

Still direct, but looking for deeper gold, being a stakeholder is like Jesus claiming us and us claiming him back, Jesus settling right into us and us settling right into him,  everyone expecting to see glory and digging in until they find it, like He prays in John 17, “The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one;  I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.” That’s treasure.

Big capacity

I think it would be better if we perfected a big, diverse operation with Jesus directing the whole thing. I suppose we are as far along as anyone in that pursuit. Many people are “digging in” at different levels. I’d say people are stakeholders “according to their capacity,” but that seems demeaning to me – I think we can all make a choice to serve with our whole hearts and not be restricted by an estimation of our “capacity.” We can’t really predict what the Spirit of God might do with us, whether we think we can do it or not.

For some people, capacious or not, their stake really is just dust in the wind, but some are working well with spoonfuls of dirt, others are immersed in the mud to good effect, and still others have learned how to move the dirt with heavy equipment. For instance, some people will read the title of this blog post, that’s a start. You obviously got this far in the text and may have even delved into what’s behind the words. Then there are people who will click the link and go to the BW Stakeholders site. Some will dig in and read it. Some will give of their treasure, new and old, there, with a comment. Then some will go to the meeting January 4. Some will bring glory to the meeting when they speak. Others will listen to others and not feel bad about talking or being talked to. Then many will do something about what is being said more than talk about it. Some will actually lead us to fulfill the goals we’ve discerned. And so on. There are a lot of levels. And I think the sum of the little stakes may be greater than the whole.

I admit, I love the chaos of the whole process of mining spiritual gold. Becoming a stakeholder always invites the moment of creation. I don’t think it is too grandiose to say we are exercising the image of God in us when we “hover” over the new year and then unveil glory by deciding the year is important and recognizing that what we do matters. Whether the stakes seem small or we get a glimpse of all the treasure around us, we are important in the process of bringing life to 2013 and should feel and act that way because God has made us so. It is always a good lesson to relearn.

Three magi who are coming to Jesus presently

The Mission,
Adoration of the Magi — Mantegna 1462

The first thing I remember reciting in a Christmas play when I was the perfect Sunday school child from that nonChristian family was the story of the magi in Matthew 2 in the KJV. “When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him….”  The story has “troubled me” in a good way ever since. When I was becoming a full-on Christian in college, my professor gave me an impossible solo movement of a song to sing in a competition that recited the same thing. “And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born.” The answer to me then, and now, “He is born in you and all around you; look at the signs.”

I feel a special admiration for the mysterious visitors from the East who found Mary and Joseph and offered gifts to the newborn king. I still am thrilled to see the star “standing over where the young child is.”

I realized this week that I have heard rather improbable stories from three magi in my own life right now. I want to tell you about them, like Matthew wanted to tell the story about the first magi who sought out Jesus. My comrades are seeking the newborn king and offering treasures in their own ways; they are writing the nativity story for 2012.

Howard

Howard was out on the street yesterday with his well-worn sign that says, “Tell me your story.” He got rained on and didn’t get too many takers so he started back down Broad St. feeling a bit discouraged. Then he met the pastor of Isaiah Beard’s church at 18th and Federal who told him all about the life of an inner city pastor of a small church. The man was so encouraging that Howard’s spirit was lifted. Then he met a woman who was a recovering meth addict who was on her way to Circle Thrift. Her longsuffering mother had told her to go to “Circle church.” Howard said he would accompany her. “When he saw the star, he rejoiced with exceeding great joy.”

Ben

Ben told a story in the PM when he spoke on the second Sunday of Advent that people are still talking about.  He was on the job as a chaplain at Jefferson Hospital when a woman came to give birth in a very high-risk situation. The doctors had very little hope she would survive the process. But he and the family prayed that she would survive her mysterious neurological event when the doctors took the baby by c-section. Her mother and grandmother in particular demanded that God answer their prayer: “We declare it done in your name, Lord.” He longed with all his heart that the baby would live and the family would rejoice. The baby was delivered healthy and he got to meet the father in the nursery before he left for the day. But he couldn’t leave the event at work; he texted his colleague to find out about the mother. The reply read, “She’s fine” – even though the doctors had said she would die. It was a miracle. “He departed; and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was.”

Maggie

I was at the Christmas gathering for our main leaders, the BW Cell Leaders and Apprentices. I had a rare time to talk with Maggie in the kitchen as we ate morsels from the mountain of food surrounding us. We got into a discussion about our surprising mutual study of how discoveries in genetics move us to evangelize. How might it be possible that what we believe might actual work back into our genetic development? The research seems to validate that the process of mentalizing actually changes our brain chemistry and neurological formation, even working its way into our DNA. Maggie’s the scientist, the postmodern magi imagining new research projects. It was amazing that she should come from the far reaches of science where she is pointedly and directly told to abandon her faith lest it ruin her career and still bubble over with enthusiasm for science and Jesus right in my kitchen!  “When she was come into the house, she saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when she had opened her treasure, she presented unto him her gifts.”

The story of the birth of Jesus is a living story. The magi still come to the manger. He is born in you and all around you; look at the signs.

           

Sojourn at the Movies

A life in the Spirit, Film/TV, , , , ,

The U.S. embassy in Germany has a nice page on film. On it, they say, “Moving pictures were not an American invention; however, they have nonetheless been the preeminent American contribution to world entertainment.” Do you think that movies are what Americans do best? They are also good at drone warfare, but let’s stay thankful.

I am thankful for the stimulation the movies gave me over the holiday. Gwen and I often see one of the big movies when the distributors begin their winter releases. This time we decided to do it big and we saw four! Each one had some inspiration to offer in one way or another. If you can go to the movies as “play” they can be good for you. When a very young child is first playing with their parents, he or she is learning to discern between imagination and actuality, what is in my mind and what is in an other’s. When we go to the movies, an author, director and crew are telling an artful story. Experiencing the story, imagining what is behind it, and discerning what it all means is a rich experience of mental activity. Of course, if one just experiences the violence, language, sex, and noise in the film, it might be better to skip the sensory oppression. If one just consumes movies and does not relate to them, I’d avoid them.

The movies I saw each had something to say that is very relevant to where I live and to what is happening around me in the quickly-changing social landscape of the United States! It was like going on retreat! Let me tell you about them in the order experienced.

The Life of Pi

Needs a big screen

I went to see The Life of Pi when Wreck it Ralph was not an option. I was glad I did. I’ve been thinking about it ever since, as Ang Lee no doubt hoped I would. It is a stunningly beautiful film I would watch again without the sound on. I wish I had a more extravagant word than stunning to describe how beautiful. It also has a lot to say — layers and layers to say. But the main thing I took away was about the power of story in the face of the facts. It is a nice piece of rebellion against the rationalists who dominate so much of what is proper and legal in the United States. We all want to love, feel, and forgive, but we are forced to fight over facts, policies and definitions. One’s identity is more than the definition, one’s life is more than what happens.

Lincoln

Put DD Lewis on the penny

Lincoln was a revelation in so many ways. I am not a big critic of movies, generally, since I want to relate to them, not critique them. But I know a better one from a worse one, I think. I have to say that I don’t think there is anything wrong with Spielberg’s loving portrayal of St. Abraham. And Tommy Lee Jones as Thaddeus Stevens! One of my friends ran to Amazon immediately to find out about this unknown abolitionist from PA. Some critic said Sally Field was miscast as Lincoln’s troubled wife – poppycock. What I took away was all about leadership. Lincoln had his eye on “true north” and got there in whatever way he could. He seems to have been a master of doing the best with what was available. He learned while others were just defending themselves. And the 13th Amendment is a good thing. Democracy won’t save us, but let’s celebrate when the righteous last long enough in it to get something good accomplished.

Anna Karenina

The movie in a nutshell, I think

I like costume dramas and set direction, so I was looking forward to Anna Karenina. I was not disappointed by the art (although sometimes the artifice was distractingly artificial). “All the world’s a stage” and much of the movie is set on the literal set of an old theater. And Kiera Knightly wears some amazing stuff, when she is clothed. But they just told the story of Anna’s affair without much of the backstory Tolstoy was really talking about! It put me to sleep, literally (but then, so did the book, I admit). It reminded me of some experiences I have had when I am listening to someone and I am quite bored with what they are saying. Most of the time I need to pinch myself and get engaged because they aren’t really doing any inner work. I might need to pinch whatever they are doing so they can wake up. Lord knows that many people I know are totally led around by their lust and unprocessed obsessions, miserable and making other feel the same.

Silver Linings Playbook

Llanerch Diner!

I did not really want to go see Silver Linings Playbook. I’d only heard about it from Gwen. Once again, I find out how trustworthy Gwen is! If you love Philly and the people of Philly, this is worth the price of admission. I did not realize it was a great reflection of our fair city. A main scene happens in the Wanamaker building ballroom where I attended a Habitat fundraiser earlier in the year! But what I loved even more, with all my psychotherapy studies this year, was seeing troubled people doing good work and feeling better, plus troubled families managing not to be messed up by the system too much and finding their way home. Even the police are not too bad in this movie! What I took away was some encouragement to go with my best inspiration and let my positive attempts bear fruit. Good things can happen.

My sojourn in the movies turned out to be a good pre-Advent retreat. The incarnation is a great story. Teaching about it and leading through it requires being inventive in the face of an era of change in which people seem to be light on meaning and not so happy with that. I want to hold on to the surprising hope that does not disappoint. We are built for joy and Jesus is the continual spark that allows it to flame.

Billy Graham and the Unintended Consequences of Exerting Influence

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Billy Graham’s 95th birthday

The Cell Leader Coordinators were discussing a recent spate of articles last week. They were all quoting the Pew Foundation’s research on the impact of evangelicals on evangelism in the United States. Then up popped Billy Graham, the evangelical par excellence, in the Sunday paper (most likely fronting for his son, Franklin). I want to talk about the Pew study in a minute, but first I want to dispute with Rev. Graham’s exhortation, which is a good example of what the study is talking about.

For one thing, no 93-year-old should have such a beautiful head of hair. Very disturbing. I will dare attribute it to the blessing due a tireless evangelist.

But as for some other things…

1) When did the American people have their hearts turned toward God? Was it when they considered slaves 3/5 of a person? Was it when they were cleansing the continent of Indians? Was it when they dropped the bomb on Nagasaki? A lot of Americans have been Christians, but the government was not designed too well to reflect their faith, or at least it rarely has — maybe when the Marshall Plan bailed out Europe, or maybe when George Bush decided AIDS was actually a problem. There are exceptions to the godless rule, but what era are you remembering?

2) How people have sex, how families are made, and whether the government can dictate our convictions are important “issues.” But I can’t see why they make this election “critical.” For an evangelist the question should start with Jesus, not issues. Why in the world did you not mention the fact that the person whose stand on the issues your prefer happens to be a leader in a non-Christian religion? There’s an issue for you.

Unless something has changed in Barack Obama’s life since 2008, his Christian testimony is well known. You can watch him say it on YouTube. If the evangelist is going to get involved, one would think he’d vote for the evangelized. Just saying. I’m not matching your thinly-veiled endorsement of Romney with my thinly-veiled endorsement of the drone president. Just saying.

3) For a Christian to try to exert political power in the name of his “definitions” seems so worldly to me! Saying that the Bible “speaks” still seems like a strange anthropomorphism to me. The definitions are not Lord, Jesus is Lord. The Bible doesn’t save me, the resurrected Jesus saves me. Any power we, as the church, exert in the election should come through the example of our self-giving love that we can define for people who are moved by the presence of God’s grace in it.

There is so much that is disturbing here. But I will pray with you that America and the whole world turns their hearts toward God. Some of the Christians will indeed, be turning back.

But I want Pew to talk to you, too.

The October 10 issue of Newsweek is an example of what many publications are printing. The Pew Foundation found that “Nones” are on the rise. That is, for the first time, there are now as many Americans who claim no religion as there are white evangelicals. Both groups make up about a fifth of the population. The number of Americans without religion is on track to surpass the “born-again” population. About a third of adults under 30 don’t associate themselves with any faith, compared with only 9 percent of those over 65. This is not, the report suggests, simply a result of a general youthful tendency toward irreligion. “[Y]oung adults today are much more likely to be unaffiliated than previous generations were at a similar stage in their lives,” the report says.

Some theorists believe young people are rejecting religious labels precisely because they have become intertwined with so-called conservative social policies. The report quotes Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell’s book American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us, which argues that as the religious right gained power, young Americans “came to view religion … as judgmental, homophobic, hypocritical, and too political.”  You think?

People of the dominant strain of Evangelicals have become the anti-evangelists of the age. Perhaps the cost of full-page political ads all over the country could have been used for better ends. At the end of September the candidates had also expended a lot of money on influence: 1.3 billion dollars on the publicly accountable campaign, another 65 million dollars by unaccountable PACs on Mitt Romney’s side. Do evangelists think anything about that?

Related articles

Do we need simplicity skills?

A life in the Spirit, Film/TV, , , , , , ,

Jonny Rashid often calls me a monk, which is more than a little bit true. It is very true that I admire the Christian radicals who created intentional communities in reaction to fellow-believers getting swallowed by the empire, and I admire how they multiplied monasteries when the Roman Empire fell apart. Believers gathered around Jesus and formed an amazingly creative response to the utter chaos and violence around them. They responded to their challenges with radical simplicity. As a result, their network of intentional communities preserved the truth about Jesus, provided a social safety net, and formed centers of creativity and charity that were rare points of light in Europe for hundreds of years. I think they flowered with Francis of Assisi. All the values that held the communities together: poverty, chastity, and obedience are extremely unpopular today. So people often ask the question, “Do we need to think about simplicity?”

Yes.

bucket_2017_04.jpg

You might like to start with my favorite movie: Brother Sun, Sister Moon. In this clip [link], Francis and his newly-minted band of monks are working in the fields outside Assisi and dealing with the new poverty they have chosen. I like the heart of what they are doing, especially the way Francis receives the bread he’s begged with radical gratitude. His single-minded focus turns the hot, impoverished day into worship.

I don’t know what you think of these monk people: scary maybe, from another planet, embarrassing, quaint. Regardless of how you feel about them, they are successfully working on being simple. God did not give it to me to be a monk, but it was given to me to be simple, same as the rest of us.

The heart of simplicity

To get started on disciplining ourselves for simplicity, we will one main thing. That is, we focus on Jesus and let everything else follow who we follow. Jesus said,

“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy (or single), your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” (see Matthew 6:19-24).

That is probably the key teaching on simplicity. Simplicity is about being basic, unclouded, whole. Simplicity is about being radically centered, not just frugal or generous. Simplicity is not mainly an economic matter. The pure in heart, the simple, the single-minded, will what they do from one reality: faithfulness to Jesus, no matter what their circumstance. That willingness is the character trait upon which simplicity skills are founded. Eternity is centered in our hearts so that reality gives our hands their focus.

We usually think of simplicity in terms of money. We are living in the United States, after all — and those people care about money! Not that everyone in the world isn’t pretty much obsessed with it, too, but Americans are schooled to see themselves as part of an “economy” and to see their consumer choice as an expression of their “freedom.” No matter how many times we are instructed that the president can’t really do all that much about the economy, the presidential election is going to be about jobs, when it should probably be about drones.

We need simplicity skills because our relationship with money (and with most everything else about us) is not so simple. We are at the center of a schedule that cannot be juggled properly; we are at the center of a communication system that overwhelms us — we can’t even figure out how to use the machines we have to use to run it; we are expected to be the center of an enterprise that sells our time, our communications, and our future — in terms of debt. The decisions we have to make are weighty.

Here are two ideas that I find important as part of my own simplicity skills for dealing with money. I wouldn’t say they are easy, but they are basic skills for using the tool of money in a radical way.

Be frugal. Budget with a vision. James 4:13-17

We should not construct our budgets as if our lives came from ourselves and as if the future were in our hands. This is basic Christianity. We say things like: “If I live, I live to the Lord. Whatever is at the heart of God, that is what I want in my heart.” I don’t think anyone writing the New Testament is sitting around waiting to find the perfect choice to make so they don’t mess up eternity. God can be trusted for the future. They are moving with the Spirit and focused on that one thing.

I have had the distinct pleasure of walking with people who are getting married this year. Some of them have already talked a lot about their finances and others almost not at all. Some are easy-going about how to organize their budget and assets and naturally want to share. Others are quite nervous about how sharing is going to work out and are naturally protective. Maybe that reflects how they first attached to mom and felt she was generous or withholding. Who knows? But how we handle our money as partners and as a community is important.

A basic simplicity skill is budgeting our money. We should know what we have, what we usually spend, what our goals are. We should not have to go to the ATM to find out what we have before we buy a snorkel for our vacation. We should not put it on the credit card and fix things up later. We should have a radical strategy for how we spend so our money is used for eternal purposes.

Be focused. Know when to kill the fatted calf. Luke 15:29-30

Throwing a lot of cash at an over-generous party might seem like the opposite of having a disciplined budget and being aware of how one is spending down one’s assets. If we did not live in eternity, scarcity would, indeed, be a huge  problem. If you kill the fatted calf too often, there isn’t another calf to eat! You know about the calf, right? If you are a subsistence farmer/cow raiser, the succulent meat of the cow you fed a special diet to plump it into shape is a very rare treat. You don’t eat it until you are celebrating the Eagles winning the Super Bowl, or your sister finally gets her BA.

Simplicity is also about knowing when it is time to kill the calf and celebrate. Simplicity is not all sweating in the field being poor. It is sharing our bread and praising God. Of course, some of us kill calves we don’t even own yet, hoping we will get some joy out of it — that is a little backward. The skill is to have the joy of eternity in our hearts and to celebrate it, not to celebrate in order to get some joy. We might see some joy looking backwards, but we get it by living forwards.

fatted calf | the classical beaver

Maybe we should all have a “fatted calf fund” as part of our budgets.  Some of us may be living under our means already, so we always have money with which to bless others. But some of us have not mastered money-making and spending yet, so we might need to deliberately put some money away for the time when we need to buy the piece of jewelry, or send someone on a trip, or take a friend to dinner, or buy a forty dollar piece of meat or  a wonderful carrot at Vedge. That’s radical budgeting, too.

I hope my two suggestions spur your imagination for how you can be simple in practical ways, in that you discipline your money, and other things, to move with Jesus in this wild world. One person told me, “Wow! Being simple is complex!” Well, I guess so. But the heart of all that disciplined living is simple. The main thing is being faithful to the Lord who is so single-mindedly devoted to us.