Examined Life: January 2012

I've been thinking for a long time now that what I need in life is a church of people who think like I do. In fact, I tend arrogantly to think that about most things. I wish my family thought about some things more the way I do-- wish I didn't feel so different from them sometimes. I wish more teachers thought about their teaching and their students the way I do. I wish voters and the masses thought more like me because then our country wouldn't be in so bad a condition. I wish I could make my students see so clearly the way I see it the gift I am trying to give them. You get the painful prideful picture.

I wrap it all up nicely, though. It's not that I think that I have it all together. It's that I know I don't, that I think critically and question and search and try. If everyone could only think and try like I do! Oh so humble. Yep, that's me.

Now what I want is a room full of people who don't think like I do. I want people with different perspectives (Isn't that word perspective the point in which I ground all my teaching?), people who see things in ways I'm not capable, people with talents and gifts different from mine, people with different personalities, different upbringings. I want people with different chips on their shoulders than the ones I bear, people who've been where I am but are moving forward, and people who might be able to find something they need in me.

Part of this comes from the book Revise Us Again by Frank Viola that Jason just read and then I read in turn, starting a little bit of a Frank Viola reading frenzy in our house. My favorite chapter of the book was the last: "Your Christ Is Too Small." Indeed He is, not because He is but because we have blinders on our eyes-- blinders we put on ourselves. The chapter deals a lot with diversity and unity in the church and I think really captures why we fracture our church into denominations and fixate on issues that keep us from ever progressing or really being what the New Testament seems to be exhorting us to be. I don't know if I can recapture the effect here in a few quotations, but I'll try:

But there is a danger in receiving a greater revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ, one that moves from shallow waters into the depths. It's the peril of allowing our first seeing of Christ to shape the way we recognize Him for the rest of our lives. (Please read that sentence again.) I'm going to make this shockingly pointed: The Lord Jesus Christ will end up coming to us in a way that makes it easy for us to reject Him.

Jesus continued to break out of [the disciples'] expectations. He couldn't be pinned down, figured out, or boxed in. The Twelve were constantly confounded by Him. His teachings were offensive. His actions scandalous. His reactions baffling. But the greatest offense of all was the cross. It offended everyone- both Jew and Gentile. The only crown the promised Messiah-King would accept was a crown of thorns. Look at Him again. A suffering Messiah, a defeated King. Boy, it's easy to reject Him.

You cannot cling to the Christ you know today. He will vanish from your midst. Jesus Christ is an elusive Lover. Seeking Him is a progressive engagement that never ends. He doesn't dance to our music. He doesn't sing to our tune. Perhaps He will in the beginning when He woos us to Himself, but that season will eventually end... We all wish to cling to the Lord that we know now. We all wish to hold on to the Christ that has been revealed to us today. But mark my words: He will come to us in a way that we do not expect-- through people who we're prone to ignore and inclined to write off... And so we cling to the Lord that we recognize-- receiving only those who talk our language, use our jargon, and employ our catchphrases-- and all along we end up turning the Lord Jesus Christ away.

In fact, this is the very root of denominationalism and Christian movements. It works like this: A group of Christians sees an important aspect of Christ. That insight usually comes from a servant of the Lord whom God has raised up to restore a certain truth to His church. The group is captured by it. Even changed by it. And they stand on the earth to promote and express it. But then, subtly, they build a circle around it. And then a castle and a wall. Then they enshrine it. And when someone else comes in contact with them with another aspect of Christ to share, they blow it off with monumental disinterest.

Until our Lord returns, we will all continue to "see in a mirror, darkly" (1 Cor. 13:12 ASV). Consequently, a church ought to learn the fine art of weaving together the varied experiences and insights that each member brings to it. Those experiences and insights will be diverse. But they are what make up the body of Christ. And as long as they don't take away from the gospel or depart from the biblical revelation of Christ, they ought to be embraced.

Let me be clear. There is nothing more opposite of the Spirit of Jesus Christ than the spirit of pride and arrogance. A famous saying goes like this: It's possible to be "pure as angels and as proud as devils." I disagree. If you're proud, you're not pure. For God resists the proud (1 Peter 5:5; James 4:6). We find Christ in only one issue: poverty. "Blessed are the poor in spirit," were the Lord's words (Matt. 5:3). A spirit of poverty says, "I need to know Him more. I don't have the corner on Him. I am a child in this business. I'm still in school. I'm still learning. I haven't arrived."

I will end this chapter with a question: How well can you know the Lord? You can know Him in proportion to the poverty that's within your heart. "Blessed are the poor in spirit" (Matt 5:3). The opposite of that statement is what the Laodicean church said of herself: "I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing" (Rev. 3:17 NKJV).

A sure mark of spiritual poverty is a wide heart. If you have a narrow heart, you will recognize Christ only through some of His people. And you will be blinded to find Him through others. Jesus Christ is a lot larger than what most us have thought, and He works through a lot more people than we would expect. In C.S. Lewis's Prince Caspian, Aslan tells Lucy, "Every year you grow, you will find Me bigger." This is a wonderful description of authentic spiritual growth. We know we are growing in the Lord when Jesus Christ is becoming bigger in our eyes. Is your Christ too small? May we rescript our lives in a way that opens our hearts to the fullness of Jesus. Please, Lord, revise us again.

Besides this book, which I know it looks like I've typed in its entirety above (but, believe me, I haven't-- read the rest!), the other thing that's getting me thinking about getting beyond myself is that I've been confronted with how Christianity appears to others a lot lately. I've seen Facebook posts of frustration with Christians and their short-sightedness, heard from friends with different beliefs, and read some posts from a blog that I stumbled upon today called "Friendly Atheist."

And the first thing that has stuck out most to me in these experiences in the past couple of weeks is that I get exactly how they feel. I completely see how Christianity looks like a sham. I don't blame them for shooting their darts and casting their stones. I get it. They have a point. A lot of points. The church (and by that I mean you and I) would do well to quit trying to "save them from hell" for being wrong and start listening to them for the truth they have to tell, which is maybe more relevant than half of what's coming from our pulpits anyway, and start making some changes.

The second thing that has stuck out to me makes me feel warm and like my heart is swelling just thinking about it because the second thing I've found, particularly while reading on the blog dedicated to atheism this evening, is that I know in my heart that there is more out there than us. There has to be. I have faced a crossroads in the past few years multiple times where my choices have been to accept God on faith or reject Him. And I have thought about the reject Him option. I really have. Why? Because it hasn't seemed real. Christianity and church and I and my own arrogance in my way of thinking have made it seem like a lie, a "chemical weapon for the war that's raging on inside," as John Mayer puts it. I've started to wonder if it really is just a crutch for dealing with the meaningless of life... I understand the vitriol with which an atheist may criticize the religious. We religious people use our swords and shield of faith and self-righteousness pretty carelessly and crushingly really often. We don't even know the history of our faith or our Bible as well as people who don't believe and deftly poke holes in our logic as we just stand by and instead of answering intelligently or genuinely with humility tell them that they're wrong and we're right, and we'll pray for their salvation. We look like fools when we take hard stances against things otherwise scientifically plausible and accepted because "the Bible doesn't say so," and we bemoan the "banishing" of prayer from school as if it isn't something done in our hearts anyway, as if it's something that could ever be taken away from the inside. We vote on the basis of "preserving the family" because we seem to think all hell will break loose Sodom and Gomorrah style if gay marriage is allowed, while turning a comfortable blind eye to all the ways hell really is breaking loose because of us or because of our negligence. We split our family over whether the elements of Communion literally become Christ's body and blood or are symbols, when and how Baptism should occur, whether we should use instruments in worship, and if we do allow them, whether we prefer organs or electric guitars. No wonder people hate us. And they don't hate us because of Satan. They don't hate us because they resent what we have or because we're so good and they're so not. They hate us because we show our ignorance and our blindness all the time, all the while claiming to know the truth, all the while insisting we're right. Why? Because if we find that one thing we have always thought was right is wrong or that it's not exactly as we thought, the whole thing crumbles for us. And we can't afford that, so we fight for it-- every single point from dinosaurs to eternity and from homosexuality to divine authority of every word of Scripture-- so that our foundation doesn't give way beneath us leaving us with the choice of rejecting our religion-which we could never do!- or admitting humbly that we may have been wrong, that we may not have God completely figured out.

He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?

Now, I'm going to admit here that I'm taking that Scripture out of context. I don't know the last time or if I ever have read all of Micah. I haven't even read the whole Bible... yet. I am not a biblical scholar, and I'll admit I know the verse mostly because it's popular. But isn't that a sound principle? Do justice. Love kindness. Walk humbly.

Humbly.

I am so grateful to God right now that He did not let me reject Him completely forever. Because when I read testimonies against Christianity, when I think of all the reasons our religion is laughable and despicable and false and everything negative you can imagine, I now not only relate but know something more. I know that there is a God. And a Christ and a Holy Spirit. And all three are far much more than we've painted them. Surrounded in mysteries we cannot fathom.

And the only way we can ever know them-- Him-- more is to admit that we don't know. And surely that is the best way we can ever share Him with those who don't know Him.

We've made evangelism about sharing all the right answers with people. Giving them the path. Showing them the way. Praying the prayer. Joining the club.

And we've made it so easy to reject. Because we have presented it with such arrogance. Because we refuse to see our own non sequiturs, because we refuse to be wrong, because we limit all possibilities besides what we know.

Humbly. Humbly. Humbly.

All I want to do right now is tell people about the God I am feeling, knowing, seeking right now with new fervor, with new delight, with new eyes...

Oh, for the chance. And for the ability to share humbly, humbly, humbly, without overstepping, without being a hypocrite, without shadowing God's light with my errors and my lack of understanding...

"I need to know Him more. I don't have the corner on Him. I am a child in this business. I'm still in school. I'm still learning. I haven't arrived."

Examined Life

Monday, January 16, 2012

What if I'm wrong? I'd rather be wrong...

Friday, January 13, 2012

Wanted: People Who Don't Think Like Me