The Greatest of These
Tag: christianity
What Do You Look For In a Church?
Not long ago someone who was moving to a new city asked a group of us what we looked for in a church.
Some people said they valued good preaching, or good worship music, or a good children’s program. Some wanted a place that offered the old time religion and salvation message that was good enough for Grandma. Some wanted something deeper or fresher or more relevant. Some wanted standards. Some wanted to be open to everyone and everything. Some wanted a place where they could take an active part and others wanted a service that ended on time with easy access to the exit and the parking lot.
When they asked me I said I don’t know anymore.
I’ve been in rooms with brilliant teachers teaching brilliant thoughts to eager learners.
I’ve been in open fields with people willing to lay down their lives for the nations,
in kitchens where folks fed the poor,
in safe houses with two or three friends who understood my brokeness patiently worked toward my emotional healing,
in giant cathedrals with choirs and organ music that carried the echoes of a thousand years of faithfulness,
on patios around the barbecue where people talk about the love of Christ and things that matter,
in backrooms where street people loved each other with the deepest sincerity,
in quiet sanctuaries where the sacraments repeated the promises I needed to hear,
in rented spaces with music and dance so enthusiastic I could feel the beat in my chest,
in accepting ethnic communities where I was the only white person,
in gyms where children laughed and played and recited memory verses,
in creaky old pews where multi-generational families prayed together and stayed together
in halls and airport hangars where the power of the Holy Spirit was so strong people were thrown out of their chairs or fell on the floor with laughter or were healed of incurable diseases on the spot,
and in wood paneled sanctuaries where the elderly found comfort in hymns about heaven.
I have known the safety of basement classrooms with friends who desire to hear the Lord and are willing to graciously speak truth into my life.
I’ve known the church of the internet where spirit to spirit connection rides the air waves.
I’ve known the reverent and the raucous, the richly furnished and the barely maintained, the well-staffed and the unstaffed, the steadfast and the risk-taking.
It’s hard to choose which one I will reject if I cling solely to one and forsake the others.
I love them all.
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.
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Absalom: When Rebellion Thwarts Reformation
Twice this week I heard this question: What makes you angry?
Both times the men posing the question suggested paying attention to the circumstances that raise a flood of righteous indignation.
“It could be a clue to your calling.”
I didn’t have to think long. What makes me angry? When the cries of the victims of injustice, when the wounds of the abused, when the silent tears of those imprisoned in mental anguish or in circumstances they cannot control are ignored or downplayed by people who have the capacity to help, I feel rage rising. When people who brag about leading a loving community misuse their power by exploiting their charges, I am livid.
Recently I read a rant by a popular writer who can obviously relate to my anger. He blasted away at hypocrisy and corruption and cover-up within the institutional church.
“Wow, Lord! This is good. I totally agree. This guy is absolutely right.”
God’s still small voice response shook me.
“So was Absalom.”
“Absalom? The son who rebelled against his father the king?” I asked.
“Beware the man who calls victims of injustice to follow him saying, ‘If I were in charge…’”
I re-read the story of Absalom in 2 Samuel 13 to 18.
Absalom was right about injustice and corruption being covered up within the kingdom. He had first-hand knowledge of this. The prophet Nathan exposed King David’s crime of taking what was not his – Bathsheba, the daughter of one of his valiant friends and the wife of Uriah, who was out fighting for him. It couldn’t have been easy for a faithful servant to tell the king that his decision to cover up his sin by committing a greater one, arranging Uriah’s murder, would have serious consequences in his family for a very long time. David admitted fault. Psalm 51 records his feelings of deep remorse, but there were still consequences set in motion by his acts.
Later David’s eldest son, Amnon, also abused his power when he took what was not his. He raped his half-sister, Tamar, Absalom’s full sister. David was very angry, but he did nothing that gave the appearance of justice being done on behalf of his daughter.
Some say David couldn’t act because Amnon and his cousin/adviser made sure there were no witnesses, and in those days, and often in these, a mere woman’s testimony was not enough. Some suggest David did not take action because he was still in the throes of depression over his own sin. Some pose that Amnon, as first-born, was in a position of privilege, and even though God continually broke the expectations of society by choosing a younger son for a task, David was still intimidated by primogeniture culture (the eldest son inherits everything) – and because Amnon was still his boy.
Maybe David hoped that if he ignored it someday the whole thing would just go away.
It didn’t go away. It became worse. Absalom took things into his own hands. He arranged for Amnon’s murder. Then he fled.
David mourned for two sons.
The story of David and Absalom’s uncomfortable estrangement, and eventual quasi-reconciliation is told in 2 Samuel 14. By this time, Absalom was a full-fledged manipulator. He used appearance, charm, popularity, intimidation — whatever it took– to move himself toward a position of power. He sat at the gate and listened to people’s complaints of unjust treatment, something the king had apparently been failing to do. 
Injustice was piling up like garbage in the dark corners of Jerusalem. The failure of authorities to listen to the common people and deal with injustice is fuel for rebellion. How many times is this lesson repeated in history?
Absalom began to build an army of malcontents.
But wait? Didn’t David do the same after he fled from Saul? He did, but there was a difference. Although he wailed loud and long about unjust treatment, David never took justice into his own hands. He would not touch God’s anointed. He honoured the office, even when King Saul was reduced to a dangerously unbalanced giant wounded ego. David knew he himself was more popular. He could have made a bid for the hearts of the people to back him up in military take-over. But he waited for God to hand him the scepter. He honoured the position of the king who was trying to kill him.
Absalom couldn’t wait. Absalom dishonoured the king who disappointed him. Absalom led a rebellion. Absalom publicly shamed the women in David’s household. The victim turned perpetrator. Absalom died. He fell victim to his own symbol of beauty and by the hand of the man who once took up his cause.
I can relate to the popular writer who is dismayed by the lack of love or fairness. The repeated reports of willingness to hide corruption in church leadership is infuriating. I haven’t been in a place where I felt unsafe in years, but I know from the past what it is like to see women and children’s stories of abuse dismissed or “re-framed” to benefit someone’s hold on power.
I have seen a pastor badger a woman on staff of a Christian organization to confess her part in seducing the elder who raped her violently, even though she had been beaten. She lost her job. There were no serious consequences for the man.
I have hidden victims of incest in my home who were coerced to change their stories because they were told it would be their fault if the family broke up and the step-father was subject to ridicule or prosecution.
I have seen men falsely accused by bitter ex-wives who knew how to garner sympathy, but still neglected emotionally and physically the children now kept away from their daddies.
I have seen men on the verge of bankruptcy because another member of the congregation cheated them out of weeks of wages. After the issue was brought before the elders, nothing happened to the thief. The victims were told it was their responsibility to forgive.
I have seen teenagers thrown out of the house when they told a someone they were gay or that they had an abortion.
I have seen people become slaves to cult leaders with bad, bad, bad theology who prey on spiritual vulnerability motivated by a personal need for power.
I know what it is to cry myself and not be heard, and I know what it is to be loved, healed and restored by people who cared.
But I’ve also known the horror of feeling I had to betray a friend’s confidence because she chose to protect her husband’s reputation over her child’s well-being. I know the utter agony and extreme pain of hearing someone I cared deeply about screaming that I had ruined her life as the police took him away. All these years later I cry just thinking about it.
As a teacher, foster mother, and friend, I have heard stories that make me want to cover my ears and scream, “Don’t tell me! I don’t want to know!! Shut up! Just shut up! Shut up because now I am obliged to do something about it and I know how this goes!” But I listen and I act on the children’s behalf. I think I understand how the prophet Nathan may have felt when God told him what King David had been doing.
I know it is worse to leave the garbage festering where the next generation plays than to deal with unpleasantness. Hidden corruption in the church is threatening our ability to live and breathe and unite in trust and love for each other. God is exposing it for a reason. He loves us. Love without truth is mere indulgence. God’s love is also just.
I can relate to the popular writer’s rants, and I can relate to the pastors and staff who don’t want to know about hidden sin, because taking proper measures can cause years of building to crumble and wound bystanders. In the end, as painful as it is, we must stand up to protect vulnerable lambs in the flock while still seeking rehabilitation and restitution for offenders.
I also know the sickly sweet voice of the enemy entreating, “Are you angry? I can help you with that.”
I hear the warning that is also an encouragement from Abba, my heavenly Father, “There is a higher way.”
He tells me not to partner up with an army of angry, invalidated, unheard, unhealed victims as a force for reform.
“Unless you are part of the process of honesty, repentance, forgiveness, and restoration you are not working for the kingdom. You are working only for yourself. And that never ends well.”
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Until Spirit touches spirit
“Forms and rituals do not produce worship, nor does the disuse of forms and rituals.
We can use all the right techniques and methods, we can have the best possible liturgy, but we have not worshiped the Lord until Spirit touches spirit.”
-Richard J. Foster
It’s the light that gives stained glass it’s beauty. Caught a bit of it shining through the old St. Eugene’s church on the mission.
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Say Three Nice Things
When our children were young, squabbling and tattling drove me nuts. He said… but she…and then he said…
I’d try to listen and straighten things out.
And then someone played the trump card – THAT’S NOT FAIR! Every. Single. Time.
No matter what I said, the atmosphere, which could have been perfectly cheerful only moments before, suddenly filled with anger, malice, slander, and curses. SELFISH! STUPIDHEAD!
We decided that the children themselves needed to learn to give honour and respect to their opponent, even if they disagreed. That’s where the three nice words policy started.
For every insult or negative word spoken against a brother or sister we asked the children to say three nice words about them before regaining privileges. Every protest of “But Mom, he is so…” doubled the required nice words.
Now when you are really mad at your brother it is hard to come up with three nice things to say about him. Sometimes it took a period of thinking about it in their room and they had to dig deep. You are good at tying your shoes.
After a while I realized I needed to say more nice words myself – especially after the toddler told someone he thought his middle name was Stop-it.
Words can change atmospheres. When we come in the opposite spirit we avoid getting sucked into the vortex of tit-for-tat nastiness. I changed my words from “How could you be so careless?” to “You are learning more about how to pour milk. Let’s try again.” The result was a better attitude in both of us.
I read through some of the posts on my usual social media sites today. These posters are my “friends.” Some of them are learning more about how to disagree respectfully. But honestly, sometimes I feel like going all Big Mama on them and telling some writers that now they need to say three nice things about the politician, the preacher, the journalist, the bus driver, the pharmaceutical companies, the pipeline workers, the other denomination, other party, other country, other province, other gender, other orientation, other team.
We can talk about what we believe, that God is love and that he will take care of all our needs, but if we have nothing kind to say and merely squabble and tattle to other people or try to guilt them into taking up our cause by shouting THAT’S NOT FAIR! we demonstrate that we don’t really believe in His ways. We forget we can talk to him about our problem (especially if it is caused by the choice of someone else.) We act like scared victims left to our own devices, in this case, electronic devices.
What we truly believe shows up in our words and actions when things don’t go our way.
So here’s my challenge. Discussing ideas is one thing. Tearing down people is another. If you have neglected to bless the person or institution who has you so riled up and you have posted negative things about them, say three nice things about them. (Do it on you own page — very few will read it here.) You can change atmospheres.
If you can’t think of three kind words, you have a bigger problem than they do. You might need to go to a quiet place and think about it for a while.
“But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” – Jesus
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Now What?
Perplexed
These are my ear buds for the iPod that holds my precious music. This is what they look like when I go to use them. Tangled. No matter how carefully I set them down, they end up in a convoluted wad. Every single time. (It may have something to do with sending them through the laundry process tucked in the pocket of my jeans, but hey, they still work.)
This phrase caught my attention recently:
“We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair…” (2 Corinthians 4:8 ESV)
The apostle Paul wrote this to people he was urging to make changes. They needed to learn to relate to others based on love. These changes would transform the way they “did church.”
Did he say “perplexed?” (Actually he said aporeo which apparently means not knowing which way to turn, or how to decide, or being stymied about what to do — or to be perplexed.) The word perplexed comes from the root idea of “through entanglement or intricate entwining.” Like my earphone cord.
But I thought Paul was the one who had it all together, the one who had a direct line to God and always knew what to do.
Apparently not. Apparently he, and the ones who ministered with him were, on occasion, perplexed. But not driven to despair. He humbly acknowledged that they were like fragile flawed jars of clay because God chose the weak of the world to make sure people knew it was Jesus Christ and not them who was the source. For the sake of the gospel they were willing to live in that uncomfortable place between well-that-didn’t-work and what-now-?.
For someone who wants a firm handhold in the future before taking the next step into the unknown this is both discouraging and encouraging. Discouraging because not even spiritual giants like Paul had all the answers and encouraging because not even spiritual giants like Paul had all the answers. He was willing to endure being perplexed the way he was willing to endure affliction and persecution and hardships – out of love. Someone told me that if you want to receive Jesus’ promise of peace that passes understanding you need to understand that you won’t always understand.
I find myself in that uncomfortable in between place. A while ago I took a step of faith into unfamiliar territory as I am learning about hearing God’s voice for myself and leaning more on Him for wisdom and discernment. I stopped going to the traditional services under the steeple on Sunday morning. (I didn’t leave the people because they are my brothers and sisters in Christ and family is family. You can’t divorce brothers and sisters, but I have discovered that’s the assumption many make if you aren’t in the pew for that hour and a half a week.) I felt the Lord was asking me to step back for a time to gain a broader perspective. He wanted to show me something, a bigger picture of what he means by The Church that I couldn’t see inside a section of distinctiveness protected by administrative berms that sometimes don’t let fresh water in or stale water out. I’ve met a lot of sincere followers of Jesus here outside the berms and I am not without fellowship, but it’s not comfortable place.
Yes. He has shown me a lot. My eyes have been opened – but I can’t talk about it.
I can’t talk about it because, although everybody sees the problems in other denominations or fellowships, nobody likes being told they have parts missing on their ship. And every isolated group has parts missing. We all have holes.
We are like a town that has learned to live with the smells from the pulp mill and frequent serious collisions on that really bad corner by the bridge but still believe our community is the best because we have a new state of the art hospital and our team won the cup last year. It’s not all bad. There’s really good healing stuff and stuff to cheer about and really stinky stuff and even dangerous stuff. It’s just tangled.
You can’t repent of sin you don’t acknowledge and lately I have been facing the challenge of untangling ideas and separating truth from false beliefs in my own life. Repentance means exchanging the way I think for the way God thinks. I have parts missing on my boat, and having that painful fact pointed out has also been a part of this process.
Now I’m perplexed. I’m standing on a point on the road where I do not yet see a clear answer, and I don’t know where this is taking me. The now-what? point. The point of asking over and over, “Did I hear you right?” Are these ear buds working?
But there is more. I know in my knower that God knows what he is doing. Every day I meet another person with the same desire – to know Christ more deeply. Everyday I read about someone on a similar journey of hope.
Perplexed, but not driven to despair.
And because the Lord is relentlessly kind he brought a song by Misty Edwards and Paul Moak to my attention. The lyrics, in part:
Can’t pretend that I am blind
Can’t go back and erase the mind
Naivety and wide-eyed wonder are far from me
But at least now I see
It’s like I’m walking on a tightrope
Stretched across the universe
Way too high to go back from where I came
Overwhelmed at the miles I’ve yet to tame
I’m too far in to turn around now
And I’ve got too far to go to sit down now
Too far in, too far to go…
I know, I know You’re with me
You surround me, You surround me
Your invisible hand is around, around
In this uncomfortable in-between
Where I’m too far in to turn around now…
–Misty Edwards and Paul Moak, Little Bird album, Forerunner Music, 2014
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Nor Sit in the Seat of Scoffers
For some reason this chair in front of a windowed door caught my eye. I snapped a photo of it and continued on my way. Later, while I was experimenting with editing dud pics and wondering what it would look like in black and white, I heard this phrase in my spirit.
Nor sit in the seat of scoffers.
This is from the first verse in the book of Psalms: “How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers.”
Other translations call scoffers mockers, deriders, the scornful. People who are familiar with social media call them trolls.
I’ve been thinking about scoffers and the temptation to sit in that seat. How many of us no longer read comments on news sites or have ceased joining discussions in formerly interesting groups because scoffers have entrenched themselves there? Scoffers block the way to greater insight the way the troll in the children’s’ story blocked the three billy goats from reaching greener fields.
Scoffers don’t move. They sit.
Mocking, scornful deriders have been around for a long time, and they sit in the middle of many pathways. Sometimes you don’t realize you have been dealing with scoffer until they are gone. It’s like the moment when someone shuts off the persistent background noise of a loud fan. Peace. During their rare absences, quarrelling, abuse, strife, doubt and dishonour are also absent — until someone else decides to sit in their chair. Sometimes that empty chair is hard to resist.
The book of Proverbs has a lot to say about the scornful.
“He who corrects a scoffer gets dishonour for himself,
And he who reproves a wicked man gets insults for himself.
Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you.”
Contrast that with the next sentences:
“Reprove a wise man and he will love you.
Give instruction to a wise man and he will be still wiser,
Teach a righteous man and he will increase his learning.”
(Proverbs 9)
A scoffer presents him- or herself as someone seeking wisdom, but who can’t recognize it when it is plainly demonstrated to them. Arrogance blocks their own view. Arrogance is the inability to esteem others more highly than yourself. A mocker has no grace for anyone “not up to their standards” and will miss the wisdom of children and folks they consider to be of lower status.
My brother and I were only a year apart. Teachers in our junior high school loved his class and hated mine. His class had natural leaders (my brother was one) with a great sense of humour and sense of comaraderie that honoured classmates. Our class was greatly influenced by two extremely intelligent, but rather bitter scoffers. From the first day they so intimated the other students (I was labeled “hairy arms” by one of them) that we felt we needed their approval before cooperating with any project a teacher suggested. They rarely gave it. Secretly, many of us envied their power and wanted to be like them. For three years we turned into an entire class of cross-armed witty, but nasty, skeptics who dared the teachers to engage our enthusiasm. Scorn is contagious.
To make things worse, one year our home room teacher announced a seating plan based on academic merit. Every month we all knew exactly how we ranked when he re-assigned numbered desks. Those two boys never lost their seats in the first row. The teacher actually joined them in his derision of the last row. He believed he could shame the “low” achievers into trying harder, and that “healthy competition” would stir them on to greater things.
It didn’t work. For a couple of students the results of this experiment were tragic. Not all gifts can be measured by percentages on a test. Names stick.
I found scoffers entrenched in universities as well. One would think that in an environment dedicated to new ideas and daring research would be highly honoured. Many discouraged potential PhD candidates and their supervisors can tell you how often a project is dismissed by a scoffer with power who sits in front of the door to research grant approval.
I’m not surprised by scoffers and mockers of those who don’t believe in God or Jesus Christ. It’s a lifestyle. What surprises me is the number of scoffers who identify as believers. Now I’m not holding up naivety or gullibility as virtues; good questions lead to knowledge and wisdom. If you have a hole in your boat or those jeans really do advertise that your backside looks like a barn door you need to know. But some questions don’t lead to answers. Some questions are only meant to mock and deride and discourage and stop folks who want to press on.
Paul quoted the Old Testament prophet Habakkuk when he spoke in the synagogue at Pisidian Antioch. “Behold, you scoffers, and marvel, and perish; for I am accomplishing a work in your days, A work which you will never believe, though someone should describe it to you.’” (Acts 13:41.)
I’ve met people in churches who insist there is no proof that God still does miracles today. When provided with documentation they dismiss it or ignore it. Scoffing makes it hard to believe. Scoffing entrenches disbelief because the scornful cannot give up the power of the scoffer’s seat and turn to see the light shining behind them.
Wait. What?
I was about to finish up this essay when I heard the Lord say in my spirit, “You’re still in the scoffer’s seat yourself, you know.”
“What? How so?”
“Why do you find it so hard to believe what I’ve told you about the way I see you, about your identity in Christ.”
I’ve been struggling with writing a short bio for a project I am joining. It’s sometimes easier to ask someone else to write these things because it does stir up the scoffer’s stopper question, ”Who do you think you are anyway?”
Oh boy. Busted.
Change is hard, but it’s time to kick the scoffer out of her chair and open that glass door by faith. Here goes.
Ok Lord, I am no longer a hungry caterpillar crawling on my belly. I am a butterfly who is learning what wings can do.
I am, like Snow White, one who appeared to be dead, now raised to new life by the kiss of the Prince of Peace.
I am learning about the power of love because You love me and by Your grace I am still subject to change.
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Pedestal Perching
One of the commonest causes of failure in Christian life is found in the attempt to follow some good man whom we greatly admire. No man and no woman, no matter how good, can be safely followed. If we follow any man or woman, we are bound to go astray. There has been but one absolutely perfect Man on this earth-the Man Christ Jesus. If we try to follow any other man we are surer to imitate his faults than his excellencies. Look to Jesus and Jesus only as your Guide.
– R. A. Torrey
I am so grateful for the opportunity to learn from great heroes of the faith from the early church fathers to contemporary writers, podcasters, preachers and conference speakers. I honour them. I quote them. I pass on what I have learned from them. But I don’t put them on a pedestal or follow only one person. That’s not fair to them, and it would be dangerous to me.
When I quote someone it does not mean that I accept everything they have ever said or written. The freedom to exercise the discernment Christ gives everyone in whom he lives is far too precious to surrender, but I do value truth when I hear it.
We all need to learn and sometimes that means living with incomplete concepts and trusting that more mature people may have a grasp on paradox and aspects of Christian living for which we do not yet have a grid. There is grace for that, and humility makes room for trust. Sometimes, however, we are prone to looking to public figures instead of looking to Jesus Christ for our answers.
For many years people, especially women, were given the impression they were not educated enough or spiritual enough or had enough authority to respectfully ask questions. Many have not been in a position to reject teachings or practices that didn’t line up with what the Holy Spirit and the scriptures were revealing to them. If they dared they found themselves rejected.
No one knows the perfect truth but God, but even if they did they still wouldn’t lord it over anyone. That would attract attention to themselves and distract their audience from being Christ-centered.
If you are coerced into obeying a church leader who doesn’t permit honest questions or any thoughtful disagreement, that’s not the mutual submission the Bible talks about. It might be time to get your eyes back on the One who sets you free. It might require you to forgive, bless, and move on.
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Without Distortion
This shocked me. I read a story about young women in Mauritania who were force fed to make them fat and thus more attractive to potential husbands. Apparently in that culture silvery stretch marks are particularly appealing.
None of the comments posted below the article were from people who were a part of nomadic Mauritanian culture. Outrage flowed from the keyboards of those who saw the situation from behind their own particular cultural lens. They did not have a grid that allowed for another perspective.
“How could that possibly be attractive?”
“It’s unhealthy!”
As a person who has striven to fit my body into my culture’s definition of beauty – to the point of damaging my health in a desperate effort to appear healthy, and now being cognizant of the irony of that effort – I see it differently. I’ve seen how my own culture’s lens distorts the way we treat others when they don’t fit arbitrary standards. Maintaining one’s own perspective (“our way of life”) can seem so important to us that anyone who even questions its validity can trigger angst and anger.
Another article I read provoked the same angry reaction in readers. Published medical studies seem to show that thin people do not live longer than mild to moderately plump people (based on BMI.) In fact chubbies might have the edge in the mortality game. The shared post brought out the same angry reactions in readers. One said fatness demonstrated lack of self-control and others added the “just” clause. The just clause starts with the word just and finishes with whatever eating/exercise discipline the writers assume will correct other people’s weight problems, regardless of differences in physiology and metabolism. Several commenters (ignoring the work of qualified medical researchers) concluded that the study must be wrong because, “It’s unhealthy!”
Some said, in their own words, “If you don’t heap shame on folks for not living up to standards you will be giving them permission to sin!”
Where have we heard that before? The acceptable body shape that constitutes attractiveness is merely one example of our inability to see beyond the boundaries of our own paradigm without distortion.
I’m using the weight topic as an example because many of us in North American society have an emotional investment in it. Our obsession with food, whether joyfully eating it or pointedly not eating it, takes up a great deal of our time and attention and even our money. Whatever we choose to invest heavily in can reveal where our treasure is.
But.
I don’t actually want to talk about weight so please don’t 1) advise which diet/exercise method worked for you and should work for me if I just try harder or 2) feel you need to tell me how long and hard you have struggled without resolution because 1) I’m not listening anymore or 2) I believe you.
The issue I actually want to talk about is seeing past our familiar cultural borders and instead learning to see through Jesus’ lens.
The little fellow in the photo looking at me through a bevelled and rippled glass door is actually an exceptionally good-looking cheerful kid (by my culture’s standards.) It’s the glass grid that makes him look like a morose oddity. His view of me was also warped. We have enough trouble seeing our close neighbour without adding our own judgments of normal/abnormal, let alone seeing people in other countries or times clearly. We also forget that when we read the Bible we are viewing words spoken and actions taken in another culture through our own beveled, rippled grid.
When we neglect to consider cultural context we can misread the message. Can we who live in a culture that has officially banned slavery and regards its re-appearance in the world as an evil practice understand what it was like to live in a place where people knew no other way? When Paul was inspired to write Ephesians 6 was he telling us that we ought to maintain the economy with slave labour or was he giving an insight into how relationships work when mutual respect is present? Which culture needs to be maintained, the culture of ancient Ephesus or the culture of honour?
We can also experience different cultures in different denominations. Each one says this is how to worship together, this is how to pray together, this is how to teach, this is how to serve, this is how to build an edifice, or this is how to vote. (Sometimes I think we need to be more concerned about keeping the state out of the church than keeping the church out of the state.) When we are entrenched in one way of doing church (instead of being the church) other expressions can look, well, weird.
John, one of the zealous brothers Jesus nicknamed “the sons of thunder” experienced a major shift in his own cultural paradigm. There was a time, after he returned from his first amazingly successful short-term missions trip, that he was full of himself. He had seen the demonstration of the power of the kingdom Jesus talked about flowing through his own hands. Heady stuff. In his world it was normal to expect God to smite people with punishment for not following the worship rules properly. John and his brother offered to defend Jesus with their own version of correction.
“Do you want us to call down fire on them, Lord?” they asked when passing a village that refused the Lord welcome.
“You know not what kingdom you are of,” Jesus answered. In other words, no. That is not the way things work in his kingdom.
Jesus was about to change their culture. The world would never be the same. After Jesus’ death and resurrection and the arrival of the Holy Spirit in power, John was transformed into a new man living in a new world. It wasn’t about obeying a complicated list of rules anymore. It was about living by one rule: love. This was a shocking message in a culture built on fear of punishment and the right of revenge. So shocking was this extension of the law of love that the man who later became known as the Apostle Paul set out to crush this new culture – with punishment, of course. Saul/Paul also became a changed man when he met the God of love who wanted to adopt him into his family. Then he himself set out to change cultures.
In later years John wrote:
I, the elder, to you, a lady chosen by God along with her children. I truly love all of you and am confident that all who know the truth share in my love for you. The truth, which lives faithfully within all of us and will be with us for all eternity, is the basis for our abounding love. May grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Jesus the Anointed, the Father’s own Son, surround you and be with you always in truth and love.
I was so filled with joy to hear stories about your children walking in truth, in the very way the Father called us to live. So now, dear lady, I am asking you to live by the command that we love one another. I’m not writing to you some new commandment; it’s one we received in the beginning from our Lord. Love is defined by our obedience to His commands. This is the same command you have known about from the very beginning; you must live by it. (2 John 1-4)
What a different tone in this gentle man compared to the rash young man who wanted to bring about judgment by calling down fire from heaven. He was subject to change in the presence of Love.
I’ve been going through a painful period of stepping outside my familiar church culture for the past couple of years. It has been a time of stripping away assumptions as the Lord has prompted me to question a lot of my former choices and habits. Sometimes my actions were fine, but my motives were wrong. Sometimes the reasons were right, but the methods did not encourage or build people up.
Sometimes I have acted on things God never actually said. Somebody else told me that was what he said and I just assumed they were right. Sometimes my prayers have not been in alignment with his purposes and sometimes what I thought was self-sacrificing love was actually a form of arrogance that did not esteem others highly enough. The revelations are somewhat shocking and I often want to defend myself and slip back into the familiar comfort zone, but God’s love is relentless and he won’t let me go.
Most of all he has been showing me that until I finally understand that He is love, that He is my source and will himself meet all my needs, physical, emotional, and spiritual, I will not be able to step out from behind my own distorted glass window and see with his eyes.
It’s a journey, but he promised to be faithful to complete it, walking with me. But just so you know, I am still subject to change. And this lecture is for me.
Charis: Subject to Change 