He drew a circle that shut me out-
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle and took him in.
~ Edwin Markham
Tag: christianity
But someone is wrong!
Note to self: Attacking people for attacking people who attack people? Riiight. And how’s that workin’ for ya?
It’s so easy to be captured by the spirit you oppose. It’s like the devil shouts in the cafeteria, “Food fight!” and then stands back and watches the pie fly.
Sorry, Lord.
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Black and White
I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will counsel you with my eye upon you.
Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding,
which must be curbed with bit and bridle,
or it will not stay near you.
(Psalm 32:8,9)
I heard someone ask once, “What are the minimum qualifications for being a Christian? What is the least I must do or believe to get “in”? I had trouble answering that question. It felt like a young man asking a friend’s advice on a relationship with a woman who expressed her love for him, by asking, “What is the minimum required of me to be married to her?”
I would be tempted to say, “Run, girl!”
Jesus answered a similar question in Mark 10.
And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’” And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.” And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
In other words, he wants your whole heart.
When first introduced to the God of power in the desert, the one who showed up on the mountain in a sound and light show beyond description, the children of Israel said, basically, “Moses, this God is too scary. Tell you what, you talk to him, get his demands in writing, and when you have it in black and white we’ll have our people look at it and get back to you.” Thus a relationship with rules and a book (and experts on rules and the book as intermediaries) became the norm. The question they were asking was, “What is the minimum we need to do to get what we want and keep this God from being mad at us and making our lives miserable?”
A minimum marriage requires signatures in black and white on a marriage certificate. A true marriage requires a husband to lovingly lay down everything for his wife, the way Christ laid down his life for the church, and for a wife to respond to that love by offering him everything she has in return. The Bible often uses the metaphor of the Bride of Christ for his chosen church, the ones who have responded to his call.
Being a Christian is all about relationship. And yes, God does communicate with his beloved with more than rules and a book. He has already given everything. She just has to come to him.
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Metamorphosed
The point of preaching the good news of the Kingdom of God has never been to make bigger, fatter caterpillars.
Now all of us, with our faces unveiled,
reflect the glory of the Lord as if we are mirrors;
and so we are being transformed,
metamorphosed,
into His same image from one radiance of glory to another,
just as the Spirit of the Lord accomplishes it.
(2 Corinthians 3:18)
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There Will Come a Day
“It is not for us to predict the day – but the day will come – when people will once more be called to speak the word of God in such a way that the world is changed and renewed. It will be a new language, perhaps quite non-religious language, but liberating and redeeming—like Jesus’ language; so that people will be alarmed and yet overcome by its power – the language of a new righteousness and truth, a language proclaiming that God makes peace with humankind and that God’s kingdom is drawing near. Till then the Christian cause will be a silent and hidden affair, but there will be those who pray and do right and wait for God’s own time.”
-Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Thoughts on the Day of Baptism, Letters and papers from prison.
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Quite Contrary
This morning as I was editing photos of flowers a nursery rhyme came to mind: Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?
It struck me that a garden grows without a lot of effort on our part. Yes, we need to remove weeds and water and feed, but pulling plants up by the roots to measure progress tends to have a deleterious effect. Even pulling out weeds before seedlings are established with their own clear identities will become an act of violence and rip them out of the ground as well.
So often we think of the gift of discernment as the gift of point/counterpoint adversarial doctrinal debate rather than what the Bible calls it: the gift of discerning of spirits. Argument for the sake of argument may work in a science faculty in a university where theories are launched and frequently shot down, but it doesn’t work well in matters of the heart. By heart here I mean the deep longing for connection with our Creator part of us, the place where spirit and soul communicate. Try knocking down a point God is making and see how far it gets you.
Some people can detach themselves from emotional investment in an idea. Most of us can’t. That’s why endless debate over how a Christian grows, who’s in and who’s out or how the mechanism of transferring a person from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light actually works, or the proper way to organize a gathering of believers feels more disruptive to many people than providing them with a loving, supportive, safe environment
and leaving the rest up to God.
Sometimes we need to plant seeds and let Holy Spirit take responsibility for turning them into flowers or fruit.
So my re-interpretation of the song today might be, “Mary, Mary, good grief, girl! How can anything possibly grow in your garden if you have to be so contrary and come up with a counterpoint to debate every single little thing? If it weren’t for grace those silver bells and cockle shells would be a pile of dead dissected seedlings by now.”
He gives us our part to do in preparing the soil, planting seeds, watering, and harvesting the fruit, but it’s God who pulls off the miracles. He says, “Trust me. I know what I’m doing.”
Then Jesus said, “God’s kingdom is like seed thrown on a field by a man who then goes to bed and forgets about it. The seed sprouts and grows—he has no idea how it happens. The earth does it all without his help: first a green stem of grass, then a bud, then the ripened grain. When the grain is fully formed, he reaps—harvest time! (Mark 4:26)
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Just keep a lid on it?
There was a time when I could have gladly smacked one of those smiling, happy, praise-singing, weirdos upside the head with a hymnbook as they had their own little personal in-love-with-Jesus experience in a church service. The guy up front leading the choruses, who insisted we all needed to plaster on a smile as big as his, particularly irked me. Did he not know the scripture that said, “Whoever sings songs to a heavy heart is like one who takes off a garment on a cold day, and like vinegar on soda?” I was tired of faking it. I didn’t need to add hypocrisy to my considerable growing list of sins.
“So your Christian experience is wonderful. Goody for you,” I thought, “Well, mine sucks. I am exhausted trying to raise rebellious teenagers, maintain some sort of relationship with a workaholic husband, dutifully meet the expectations of church and parents and maiden aunts, and appease picky people everywhere I go, all while coping with depression and chronic fatigue and pain that nobody, even doctors, understands. His yoke is easy? Hah!”
Finally I quit trying. I just gave up.
I gave up on my ability to try any harder, or to try at all.
I didn’t give up on Jesus though, unlike some of the outsiders I formed friendships with at the time. I felt like one of his left-over disciples standing around after he said something about eating his body and drinking his blood. Many religious keeners found that statement extremely offensive and said, “That’s it. I’m outta here.”
Like the ones who stayed with Jesus I said, when he asked if I wanted to leave too, “Where else can I go? The stuff you say is really hard to understand but I have no hope in anything else. I don’t get you and this whole church thing drives me nuts, but I recognize that you alone have the words of life.”
When I finally gave up, he could finally start to change me.
Recently I heard someone go on a mini-rant that sounded very familiar. It was along the lines of, “If someone is having a great personal spiritual experience they should just keep it to themselves! It is insensitive to talk about what God is doing for them when so many are suffering.”
How strange it is to be sitting on the other side of the table. I realized the irritating person he was talking about was me. God has been so good to me in the past few years. I have come to understand his love in a way I never did before. Like a person who goes on and on about a new love, I just want to talk about him, brag about him, praise him. I had forgotten how annoying that can be when you are in a place where the relationship feels duty-based, when prayers aren’t answered, when pain and suffering without an end in sight is a way of life.
Here’s the question I have been pondering: Should I shut up? Am I somehow increasing the pain of disappointment in God by talking about his goodness to those who can’t feel it right now? Should I just keep a lid on it?
I was reading today about Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem: “And as they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, “Why are you untying the colt?” And they said, “The Lord has need of it.” And they brought it to Jesus, and throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. And as he rode along, they spread their cloaks on the road. As he was drawing near—already on the way down the Mount of Olives—the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.” Luke 19: 33-40
And the events in the temple after his arrival: “And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant, and they said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” And Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read, “‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise’?” (Matthew 21:14-16)
Jesus did not allow expression of praise to be limited to a level that was comfortable to those who felt indignant, like I once was. The reason I was so uncomfortable around people who had joy and a deeper personal experience with Christ was because I was like the older brother in the prodigal son story who had worked so hard for the Father and felt angry that I even though I had been so dutiful, I had seen so little reward. The wandering irresponsible younger brother had done nothing to deserve special treatment! My pride was in my effort, and that’s the very thing that was getting in the way of seeing that everything he owned was already mine. It wasn’t until I gave up my need to prove my worthiness that I could start to receive.
Will I stop talking about his goodness? No. My focus is on the Lover of my soul first. I have tremendous empathy for those who are frustrated and feeling left out. I really do, but I desire to bring hope and not merely sympathy. I don’t intend it to, but sometimes that just may appear to be offense-worthy. I know there is nothing in me, or the millions of others who have known His favour, which has earned a single drop of his blood by my own effort. I weep with those who weep, yes, but now I can finally rejoice with those who rejoice without feeling offended myself.
I’m not going back. In the words of the old spiritual, “If I don’t praise Him, the rocks is gonna cry out, ‘Glory and honour! Glory and honour!”
God is good.
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Il Signor non è morto: Mercy Triumphs over Judgment
While on the long drive home from Alberta today I was listening to my iPod on a shuffle setting. Two pod-casts I didn’t realize were even on there showed up between songs. I have enjoyed the speakers in the past so I listened. Both were on the same topic of law versus grace and how mercy triumphs over judgment.
This stood out to me: The letter of the law is like a doctor who gives only a diagnosis. The spirit of the law (love written on the heart) is like a doctor who can offer a cure. The rules (thou shalts and thou shalt nots) can only show us where we went wrong, but they cannot show us how to change at our core, not in any major permanent way. We need mercy and grace for that. We need a supernatural work inside our very being.
As I was thinking about this illustration, a song from Cavalleria Rusticana started playing on my iPod. I have pretty eclectic tastes, but even I was a bit jarred by the juxtaposition of a sermon on grace and mercy and a scene from an opera with themes of adultery and murder. But as the song progressed I felt a correlation in my heart. The scene of the Easter church service became another illustration of the difference between justice and mercy.
In this scene Santuzza is standing outside the church on Easter Sunday. She has been judged and excommunicated because of her affair with a married man. (Some productions have the chorus singing from off-stage after the processional to highlight her rejection and isolation). The excommunication was meted out by those demanding justice, and she was indeed guilty. The sentence labeled her a sinner and amputated her from the fellowship of other believers, but it offered her no way to change nor hope of restoration. Yet Santuzza cannot help but be moved and sings from the outside, “Innegiamo, il Signor non è morto.”
(Translation)
Let us sing His praise, the Lord is not dead,
let us sing His praise, the Lord has risen
and today ascended to the glory of Heaven!
Resplendent, He has spread His wings.
She is on the outside of the religious establishment, yet sings praise to the risen Christ from her heart, while many others on the inside may be participating in ritual for less devoted reasons.
I wonder how many broken, humbled people who don’t fit in a regular “church” still desire to worship His Presence from their hearts on their knees in the street (or on a mountain side.) I wonder if more “outsiders,” those Jesus called the poor in spirit, find it easier to experience God’s love in a place where they are not diagnosed as terminal sinners. I wonder if the grace and mercy of the risen Jesus Christ will soon touch more genuine seekers in mercy and restore them to the way God sees them, as He says gently, “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.”
He did for me.
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More than Words II
Owies hurt. They really do.
I promised myself, when I was I wee girl, I would remember that fact when I grew up. I would remember that when you are three years old and get a really good cry going over a sore finger pinched in an unforgiving door, it’s hard to suddenly stop, even when the finger isn’t as red as it was a few minutes ago. It doesn’t help when unsympathetic daddies offer amputation as a cure –even if you don’t know what amputation means. It’s even worse when somebody does tell you what it means.
It’s also hard to understand why some words can get you in trouble when you say them but don’t get grown-ups in trouble when they say them. And then there are the words you stumble upon that get you in trouble. I remember when my little brother was bugging me and I said, “Stop it, you person-who-bugs-people!” (well, not in those words) and got my mouth washed out with soap. It seemed perfectly grammatically consistent to me.
I was looking after my little granddaughter when such a situation repeated itself. (What is it with daddies and the amputation cure?) That was also the week her brother was having his adenoids taken out.
“Are they going to amputate?” she asked in shock.
She was very worried about him, and cried on several occasions that she didn’t want him to get hurt. Little brother was born with exceptionally large adenoids that doctors overlooked because other illnesses usually cause the type of breathing problems he had, and they needed to be eliminated first. Finally someone clued into the adenoids problem and he was scheduled for surgery.
“What are adenoids, Mommy?” Daisy asked with deep concern.
“They are just little balls of tissue growing behind his nose that make it hard for him to breathe,” Mommy explained. “The doctor is going to put him to sleep and take them out. He will have a sore throat, but he will be okay in a day or two.”
At church the next week people prayed for Little Mighty Man’s up-coming surgery. Someone asked Daisy why her little brother was going into the hospital and she answered in her best speak-up voice, “He’s having his little balls amputated.”
The reaction to her simple statement of fact is one I have often encountered when speaking about God and my relationship to him. My words trigger a reaction I do not expect. I seem to have said something which carried a different meaning than I intended. Recently I quoted a verse for someone from 3 John 1:2, “I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.” I thought it was a blessing.
“Prosper? Prosperity?” he said, face red and eyes a-popping, looking as if I just suggested he have his little balls amputated. “I hate the prosperity gospel! Do you realize the damage that kind of thinking causes?”
Huh? What it something I said?
I’ve written before about feeling like I am often caught in the cross-fire between different streams of Christianity. I love to feast at many tables and have learned, for the most part, that bone-spitting will be involved. Alas, in the midst of what I hope will be a demonstration of brotherly love, I keep running into the problem of communication and a tendency for partakers to take –or give– offense.
Long ago, as a singing student, I learned that each school of voice culture, and perhaps even every individual voice teacher, had their own vocabulary. One teacher kept talking about the bell in my mouth, another about full-throated ease. Until they gave a demonstration I had no idea what they meant. Since a singer can’t easily see the muscles and tissues and cartilage involved in making a good sound, the appeal to imagery often helps make the link to sensation. Teaching singing is a more physical activity than discussing spiritual things, but it still uses a lot of subjective language. I believe many fields of interest are like this, especially social sciences and the arts, but the attempt to describe God and faith uses even more abstract terms than the arts. Every spiritually-oriented group seems to develop it’s own vocabulary and assigns different shades of meaning to the same words.
I’m finally figuring out that to the guy I upset, “prosperity gospel” means “bribery by means of false promises appealing to selfish greed.” Well, alrighty then, if that’s what he thinks it means I’m agin it too. To some the term thrown back in argument, “poverty spirit”, means “the inability to trust God to supply resources necessary for the task he assigns you.” Okay, I’m good with that. The church has a long history of watching endeavours based on faith eventually turn into endeavours based on more creative fund-raising techniques. (Personally I tend to pay attention to the experience of Paul who said he had learned the secret of being content in whatever condition he was in.) But unfortunately I don’t hear people carefully listening to each other very often.
There are so many terms over which people engage in arguments. They frequently take a stand for or against their opponent’s viewpoint without ever clarifying what the other means. Often the arguments are on two separate tracks that will never make contact with each other because they assign straw definitions to each other’s words (a verbal asymptote for you math types). What is actually meant by terms like religion, doctrine, spirituality, judgment, grace, healing, abuse, love, the goodness of God, the filling of the Holy Spirit, worldly, heaven, hell, forgive? I have no idea what “hate the sin and love the sinner” actually means to the people tossing it about like a volleyball amid signs that seem to focus more on the hate part. Add the problem of multiple languages and translations and words become a tangled mass of ropes ready to trip up even the brightest scholar.
My point, and I do have one, is that the language of God seems not to be primarily verbal –and is certainly not English, authorized or otherwise. John 1 says “the Word was God.” Noting our propensity for misinterpretation, God sent his son as a living being who encompassed love to show us what he was truly like.
Have you ever noticed how often in the gospels Jesus did not answer questions with the expected point/counterpoint response? When asked why, he said, “Me.” When asked what, he said, “Me.” When asked how he said, “Me.”
God’s poetry, his creativity, is more than words. It is summed up in Jesus Christ who went wordlessly to the cross, and stretched out his arms in love that we might know his Father really is.
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Speaking the Truth
There is a difference between speaking the truth in love and loving to speak the truth.
You only have as much influence in people’s lives as they have value for you. Anytime you try to have more influence than someone has value for you, you will manipulate them. -Kris Vallotton.
Charis: Subject to Change 