The Rest of the Story

At my church we do a testimony and praise time during our Sunday morning services. For those unfamiliar with the environment at a smaller church with a more traditional feel, testimony time begins with an invitation from one of the pastors to share things God has been doing in our lives. Then the free-for-all begins. …

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Welfare Bear

Welfare Bear

This image is probably offensive to lots of people. I know it is to me. The most offensive thing about it is that this is not actually an example of irony. Here at The Ironic Disciple we’re pretty protective of irony, which is about the discrepancy between appearance and reality, such as a contradiction between …

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A Litany

from Brennan Manning O Jesus, meek and humble of heart, hear me. Deliver me, Jesus, from the desire of being loved, from the desire of being extolled, from the desire of being honored, from the desire of being praised, from the desire of being preferred to others, from the desire of being consulted, from the …

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When I Die: Interpretation

Since a few people have described my last post as bizarre (in fact, one commenter was writing that very word into a comment as I was typing this sentence), I thought an explanation might be in order. The previous post is a parable of sorts, and this will be its interpretation. First, a word about …

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When I Die

When I die in that car crash, I want you to erect one of those roadside memorials with the white cross and flowers, making people wonder if perhaps the coroner came on the scene and found me in such bad shape that he gave instructions just to bury me right there. And use the good …

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The Rest of the StoryWelfare BearA LitanyWhen I Die: InterpretationWhen I Die

Apr 24

The Rest of the Story

Categories:

Spirituality

by peter

At my church we do a testimony and praise time during our Sunday morning services. For those unfamiliar with the environment at a smaller church with a more traditional feel, testimony time begins with an invitation from one of the pastors to share things God has been doing in our lives. Then the free-for-all begins.

To tell the truth, when we came to this church about a year and a half ago I didn’t like testimony time. Giving free time for people to share can quickly devolve into open mic night at the improv. Or, borrowing from Forrest Gump’s mother, “Testimony time is like a box of chocolates: You never know what you’re going to get… and you might just find out one of them’s a nut!” So from time to time we get some trivial stuff, some people with questionable filters or a need for attention, some sincere yet theologically suspect comments, etc. In short, it can turn into a good show. Most of the nicknames and greetings people have for me have come from testimony time (e.g., “Hey there, Cutie!” and “Our Little Baby”). Good times.

But what I have come to love about testimony time is that it is a time for the whole people of God to tell the whole story of salvation. It is not just one person who has been called to preach the gospel. The whole community together enacts and proclaims salvation both in their gathering together and in their scattering into the world. So when the great missiologist Lesslie Newbigin wrote about the local congregation being the hermeneutic of the gospel, he meant that people will understand the gospel and experience some of its power not as they listen to the collected sermons online, but as they are met by the community of God living the story of God.

But that’s messy. People are filled with imperfections–some they like, some they tolerate, and some they’re trying to get rid of. And churches are filled with people–some you like, some you tolerate, and some you’re trying to get rid of. It would be so much cleaner and more efficient if the kernel of the pure gospel in all its radiance could be separated from the husk of the dull and trite and sentimental and downright sinful people who are clinging to it.

But see, then it wouldn’t be the gospel at all. Jesus wasn’t trying to keep himself from getting dirty when he touched the lepers. He wasn’t trying to preserve his spotless reputation when he hung out with prostitutes and tax collectors. He wasn’t trying to maintain his innocence when he became sin for us. Being a deliverer implies that there are people who need deliverance, and he never minded getting his story mixed up with theirs. There is no gospel apart from the people the gospel is saving. So there can be no disembodied gospel preaching, no pure proclamation free from all the hopes and fears and loves and hates–no matter how great or how small–that are meant to be drawn into the gospel story. As we all tell our stories, as idiosyncratic or even idiotic as they may seem to us or to others, the whole story of the gospel somehow gets told.

Scripture talks about salvation in all three tenses: past (you were saved), present (you are being saved), and future (you will be saved). The whole story of salvation is proclaimed when we tell all three parts of that story. The first two are easy to tell during testimony time. Stories about good things that happened or are happening, and now we’re living in the glow of salvation. It’s harder to tell the third story, about a salvation that hasn’t yet come even though it’s desperately needed. A story that reminds us that we haven’t arrived yet. A story about need and pain and poverty of one sort or another.

If the call to proclaim the whole story of salvation is shared by the community, then those among us who bear sorrow and suffering are not the unfortunate outliers of the gospel story. Rather, on our behalf their calling is to bear the hardest part so that the whole story of salvation is told in the lives of the community of God. We honor their calling and we honor the gospel when we don’t insist that they pretend to be living in another part of the story.

So to those who mourn, who wait, who hurt, and who ask why–your stories also belong in testimony time. Your stories are part of the gospel story, and without your voice our gospel preaching would be incomplete. Your stories keep us from being so well-adjusted to the present that we lose our hope. As you tell your stories they become our stories too, which also means that you don’t have to bear them alone. We rejoice together and we weep together because we are saved together.

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2 comments

Mar 16

Welfare Bear

Categories:

Spirituality

by peter


This image is probably offensive to lots of people. I know it is to me. The most offensive thing about it is that this is not actually an example of irony. Here at The Ironic Disciple we’re pretty protective of irony, which is about the discrepancy between appearance and reality, such as a contradiction between what is stated and what is actually meant.

Okay, so if this isn’t irony, then what is it? It’s perhaps a contradiction between reality and what should be (according to the creator of the poster). There is an unexpected turn at the end, which is like irony, but not quite there from a literary perspective.

The unexpected result at the end is the difference in how two situations are addressed. If the two situations are equivalent, then the result or response should be the same. This assumes a definition of justice that goes something like this: “Equal things should be treated equally, and unequal things should be treated unequally.” It’s not a bad principle, really.

The creator of the image carefully used parallelism to show the situations are equivalent. For instance, the “Food Stamp” and “Park Service” are both capitalized, both are run by the same government agency, and some variation of the word ‘please’ appears in both. You might be thinking I’m reading into this, but consider what had to be overlooked to make these two situations equivalent. First, it is unnecessary to capitalize “food stamp” since that’s not actually the official name of the program. Second, and even more importantly, the Park Service is not a part of the Department of Agriculture–it’s in the Department of the Interior. The comparison would be weakened by this correction, as it would be much easier to imagine two separate government agencies acting independently of one another.

In other words, the mistake shows just how important it is for the sake of the argument to make the situations equivalent. If the situations are equivalent, then the response by the government should be the same in each case. This is the argument being presented to us. But if the situations are not equivalent, then the government would be perfectly justified in responding differently. In fact, to follow the logic, it would actually be unjust for the government to respond to unequal situations with the same approach.

What makes these two cases so different? The poor are not animals, they are people.

Even labeling them “the poor” can be dangerous because it puts “them” into a different category from “us.” Once they’re in a different category, they can be treated differently, and we might even assume they are less human.

Granted, the poster does not come right out and say that the poor are animals–not many would nod in approval if it did. But in arguing that poor people and animals should be treated similarly, at least some similarity has to be assumed. But for those who hold that there is an immeasurable difference between people–poor or not–and animals, there is absolutely no irony at all in the government responding to them differently. This is, in fact, exactly what we would expect! It would be unjust for the government to treat the poor as animals.

In this way, the argument in the poster actually violates its own assumed definition of justice. I guess there is some irony here after all!

The concern over social programs creating dependency and stealing human dignity is valid. But you don’t stand up for human dignity by dehumanizing people. The poster seems to advocate for the best interest of the poor, but actually demeans them in the process. Irony number two.

It also fails to recognize that if an animal dies of starvation, that might be be tragic in some sense, but it doesn’t rise to the level of a government obligation to keep it from happening. Are we really supposed to believe that the government also has no obligation to keep people from starving? Is our message to the government about food stamps really supposed to be summed up by the line, “PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE ANIMALS”?

There are probably thousands of valid ways to discuss the plight of the poor, the obligations of the government in caring for the poor, the effectiveness of social programs to confront the true causes of poverty, the difference between relief and development, the dangers and mechanisms of dependence, and on and on. But one thing is for sure: This is definitely not one of those valid ways to engage the issue.

This is why I am not looking forward to the rest of this election year. I am afraid it’s only going to get worse and worse. We don’t listen to each other. We don’t assume value, intelligence, love, goodness, etc. in our political opponents. In short, we de-humanize them by assuming they are deprived of basic human capacities. We are encouraged to be fearful and angry, but we don’t pause to consider that this will make us easier to control.

I guess the advice I’m giving is this: Don’t react out of fear and anger. Fear and anger can rob us of our agency, our ability to respond to our circumstances in a healthy and effective way. The temper of our political rhetoric can tend to dehumanize those who participate. Don’t turn other people into animals. And don’t let yourself be dehumanized in the process.

More succinctly: “Love your neighbor as yourself” applies this year and every year, in politics as in the rest of life. Be obedient.

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2 comments

Feb 26

A Litany

Categories:

Spirituality

by peter

from Brennan Manning

O Jesus, meek and humble of heart, hear me.
Deliver me, Jesus,
from the desire of being loved,
from the desire of being extolled,
from the desire of being honored,
from the desire of being praised,
from the desire of being preferred to others,
from the desire of being consulted,
from the desire of being approved,
from the fear of being humiliated,
from the fear of being despised,
from the fear of being rebuked,
from the fear of being forgotten,
from the fear of being wronged,
from the fear of being suspected.

And, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire
that others might be loved more than I,
that others may be esteemed more than I,
that in the opinion of the world others may increase and I may decrease,
that others may be chosen and I set aside,
that others may be praised and I unnoticed,
that others may be preferred to me in everything,
that others may become holier than I, provided that I become as holy as I should.

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1 comment

Jan 26

When I Die: Interpretation

Categories:

Spirituality

by peter

Since a few people have described my last post as bizarre (in fact, one commenter was writing that very word into a comment as I was typing this sentence), I thought an explanation might be in order. The previous post is a parable of sorts, and this will be its interpretation.

First, a word about my own foolishness. Not in the original post (though I am sure much foolishness is to be found there, both intentionally and unintentionally present), but in undertaking this one. Why not just remain silent? Richard Foster in his book Celebration of Discipline talks about silence this way: “One reason we can hardly bear to remain silent is that it makes us feel so helpless. We are so accustomed to relying upon words to manage and control others…. Silence is intimately related to trust.” I admit that this is exactly why I am not remaining silent; I don’t trust the people who read the post to be okay with it or me. Foster goes on: “Silence is one of the deepest Disciplines of the Spirit simply because it puts the stopper on all self-justification. One of the fruits of silence is the freedom to let God be our justifier.” I also admit that this post is, in part, an act of self-justification. The desire to be understood and to make sure the important theme I was trying to communicate doesn’t get lost.

The added foolishness is in destroying the parable by over-explaining it, which I am about to do. The quickest way to ruin a joke is by explaining it. Art is the same way. In the contemporary Christian world, we normally use story (and all art, really) as a vehicle for delivering principles. If people don’t understand what principles or rules were supposed to be ingested and affirmed, then the story wasn’t told right. What follows is me stupidly taking back the story from what you made of it to contend for what I meant. You might be better served by just not reading this. Really.

The parable is about temporal, conditional, childish love. How far have I really come since first grade in being able to show God’s love, which is eternal, unconditional, and perfect (i.e., mature)? Isn’t all of my love, and all the ways I talk about love and God, still just as childish as one of the most childish memories I have? Aren’t all of my attempts at love, from the perspective of the “saints and angels” (i.e., an eternal perspective), not just childish but incredibly bizarre? Maybe I am just as petty, immature, conditional, fearful, and spiteful in my love as I ever was.

Now on to the annotations:

Paragraph 1: Those roadside memorials really capture my attention and imagination. Humorously, I imagine someone from outside our culture recognizing the cross as a memorial used in cemeteries and then assuming a family decided to bury the person at the site. Even more humorous, imagine a coroner cutting corners in his job by recommending an onsite burial. That would seem bizarre, but I wonder how much further our attempts at memorializing our loved ones go. A granite headstone might outlast our memories, but the weather will eventually do to it what it always does to roadside PVC crosses. The letters will fade from stone just as the names fade from memory. Ecclesiastes 1.4, 11: “Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever. …There is no remembrance of men of old, and even those who are yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow.” Our love is so temporal, not just because of the defects in our character, but also because our memories and our very lives are so fleeting.

Paragraph 2: Samantha Flynn is a completely made up name. I know very few ladies named Samantha, so I thought it safe. Flynn is somewhere in the neighborhood of the last name of my actual first crush in first grade, but it’s also changed. My apologies if there is anyone in the universe actually named Samantha Flynn. When I was in sixth grade, my class wrote and performed a play for our school. We created a character named Samuel Snodgrass who was the antagonist (and the principal, of course). After we performed it, my brother was in tears. His name is Samuel and he thought I had pulled off this whole elaborate plan to humiliate him in front of the school. I felt terrible. I would feel [almost] equally terrible to learn of the existence of a Samantha Flynn. Even now I recognize that Samantha can be shortened to Sam, and my brother may be upset if he reads this. I’m sorry, Sam. Again.

Paragraph 3: Have you ever pictured your own funeral? How many people are there? It’s silly to think of myself as embarrassed at my own funeral that more people didn’t show up. Am I still trying to manage my image even after my death? From an eternal perspective, how bizarre must it be to spend so much time trying to get people to like me? The extended application to legitimate-sounding pursuits: How much of our talk of “leaving a legacy” is really just the same as flattering ourselves by imagining a church full of people broken up over losing us? Half of them are probably just wondering how fresh the chicken salad is anyway.

Paragraph 4: Samantha’s there, perhaps more of an observer than a participant, giving the same ambiguous look she gave in the grocery store. The story about Sunday School is true. That was the first grade me. The rationalization that turns a stubborn and immature first grader’s action into a principled example of civil disobedience is the adult me. It’s this post that I am writing now. It’s the bizarre need to let everyone know that what I did was the right thing for the right reasons. It’s the pretense of trying to convince others who–what a pity!–don’t seem to get it. But it reeks of self-conscious anxiety, of needing to be okay and trying to get everyone to believe that I really am fine. It’s revisionist history, trying to baptize everything so I won’t be condemned.

Paragraph 5: This also happened. First grade. Sunday School. I saw underpants. I was actually pretty embarrassed, and that’s what got me out from under the table. The teacher probably thought her ignoring me was what turned my behavior around. Not so. I used it in this parable because it’s such a picture of childish love: not exactly reprehensible, but not quite innocent. Understandable perhaps, but not excusable. The ironic thing is that mentioning underpants at a funeral would be bizarre and taboo, which is why I included it. But it made a couple people talk to me about the post, since being a pastor who mentions underpants on his blog is also bizarre and taboo. So… mission accomplished? I don’t know.

Paragraph 6: We are fickle in who we think deserves comfort. Even if we see someone genuinely sorrowful, there might be other factors we consider when contemplating mercy. Forgiveness that works that way, that waits until being satisfied with the groveling penance, may only be a masked attempt at gaining power over the offender. It is not about release, but about winning. In contrast, God is by no means casual about our transgressions, but he is still quick to meet us in our impure acts of contrition. Grace still comes to us, even though we are so motivated by self-love. Sorrow over sin for God’s sake can be healthy, but not punishing ourselves until we feel guilty enough to feel okay with being forgiven. That’s not forgiveness but idolatry, since I am trying to take the punishment for my sins.

Paragraph 7: Conditional love is weak and spiteful. From an eternal perspective, it is immature and bizarre. That’s the point of this whole parable. Whichever of our actions would be offensively out of place in heaven, we should consider them offensively out of place in the Christian life as well. When we react to people’s behavior and offer love (or not) based on their actions, their presence in our lives determines our love. It should be God’s presence in our life that determines our love. In deciding to love, Christ and his cross are my focus, not this person and their actions. How much Christ has done for me trumps whatever this person has done to me. Every time. I have had plenty of times, even in my closest relationships, when I went to the person intending to love, forgive, or encourage. And when I didn’t get the response I imagined I would get (perhaps they didn’t gush about how loving and gracious I was), I suddenly retracted the offer of love and became spiteful instead. There is a constancy and dependability to unconditional love that I so often lack.

Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Perfect love does not waver back and forth based on the actions of the other person. Perfect love is not spiteful. Perfect love is not greedy or self-absorbed, always weighing its actions by how much it can get out of the other person. And perfect love, if I’m honest with myself, is just as far away from my love as it was in first grade.

So that’s what was behind the parable. Also, I was hoping it would make you laugh. If there’s anything else it made you think of, I would love to hear other interpretations.

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4 comments

Jan 25

When I Die

Categories:

Spirituality

by peter

When I die in that car crash, I want you to erect one of those roadside memorials with the white cross and flowers, making people wonder if perhaps the coroner came on the scene and found me in such bad shape that he gave instructions just to bury me right there. And use the good PVC; don’t be a cheapskate.

When I die and you have my funeral, I want you to invite Samantha Flynn, the first crush I ever had. She was my secret love from kindergarten until second grade when my parents got divorced and I switched schools and love became an impossibility. I saw her again in a grocery store when we were in junior high, and I never knew if her averted glance and slight smile meant that my unrequited love had reason to hope or if she could barely contain her contempt at how stupid I looked in cotton shorts.

When I die and you invite Samantha Flynn to my funeral and she gets to the church, if no one has come yet, I want you to tell her that the service has been postponed a couple hours. Then, for crying out loud, go rent some people to mourn my passing and welcome her into the sorrowful procession.

When I die and you see Samantha Flynn sitting three quarters of the way back in the church where you’re giving my eulogy, her eyes averted from your solemnizing and a slight smile upon her face as if to say she can’t believe all these people would come bid farewell to such a loser, I want you to tell the whole rented assembly about the time in second grade when we were in Sunday School, when the teacher asked us all to sit under the table for a stupid reason and I refused while everyone else obeyed, and when the teacher asked everyone to sit back in their chairs and I sat under the table. Samantha may look up at you surprised, as she looked at me that morning, perhaps fearful that the social fabric of the Sunday School class would come unwound if I openly disobeyed the teacher, perhaps wildly excited that someone so bold as I held out hope that we all have the freedom to choose not to bow to tyrants, be they generalized existential anxieties or Sunday school teachers with poor classroom management skills–the message is the same for all of them.

When I die and you tell the story of my heroic stance for religious liberty, I want you to observe carefully if a knowing tear forms in Samantha Flynn’s eye. And if not, then I want you to tell the church-for-hire so gathered in my memory that it was not only my stubborn and principled rebellion that kept me under the table long past the time I heard the teacher whisper she would ignore me so that I would stop trying to get attention. I was also held there–captivated, really–by the sight of Samantha Flynn’s underpants.

When I die and you tell the story of Samantha Flynn’s underpants during my eulogy and in tears she runs out of the church and you’re paying the leased congregation for their services, I want you to hurry out to the parking lot before she leaves and discern whether the tears are a sign of unrequited love that she held also for me, a churning tumult of sorrow at love having been so close yet veiled, and also thankfulness at having been so loved even if unperceived. And if so, tell her that I am in heaven smiling and content to be so fondly remembered and that with the angels and the saints we’ll all bask together in the warmth of pure love remembering how childish all our love used to be, when she gets there.

But if this is not why she cries, yet for some other reason, perhaps that she was portrayed in an unfavorable light in the eulogy, and so by her outburst making herself the center of attention at my own funeral, tell her that I am in heaven telling the angels and the saints the same story about her underpants and that we’re all going to laugh at her, when she gets there.

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2 comments

Jan 17

At Just the Right Time

Categories:

My Life

by peter

I didn’t know the ultrasound tech wanted to do “a look around” before zeroing in on the baby. The last time we were in that room it was because the OB couldn’t hear the heartbeat on the handheld monitor at our regular 15 or 16 week appointment for our third pregnancy. He said he wasn’t worried, and that we’d go for the ultrasound once he got the room ready. We went there. Stared at the screen. It was a still image. There should have been movement.

That was last February. Miscarriage number two out of three pregnancies. Number three came in May. That one not as far along, maybe four or five weeks. Last summer we began to take the first couple steps toward foster care and adoption. If we didn’t get pregnant again before the beginning of the new year, that’s the route we would pursue.

A month or two before 2011 was to expire we learned about Baby 5. And it wasn’t too long before we were back at the OB’s office and back in that ultrasound room. I’m leaning forward in my chair. Trying to appear calm, just like the OB had tried eight or nine months before. I’m trying not to appear fixated on the screen, even though I am. Straining my eyes to see movement. Any movement. I don’t know that I’ll be able to identify much on an ultrasound screen, but movement should at least be recognizable.

The ultrasound tech identifies the right ovary. I take her word for it. A bit later, the left ovary. Good. Good to know. Thank you for that. There’s the right ovary again, and by this time my heart is starting to beat harder. I am starting to feel like a kid staring through his dark room at the closet in the corner, terrified of what might be coming, trying to make out a form in all the murky shapes. The tech keeps pausing, typing numbers, machine beeping, images being recorded.

I start making plans. When will I stand up next to Steph and hold her hand? I’ll need to move this chair out of the way. I’ll put it over there near the desk. After the appointment, I’ll call Mark to tell him I can’t make it to the Board meeting tonight. I’ll have to call Suzanne to coordinate when we’ll pick up Eden. Maybe Eden should stay with her cousin for the day. I’ll need to call Laura to…

“Now let’s look at the baby,” the tech says.

Holy-what-the-who-the-do-you-think-you-are? I’m at DEFCON 2 while you’re taking the ultrasound machine for a joy ride?

And then… movement. A heart beat. Life.

Stand down, men.

Then I burst into tears. Well, I did my version of bursting into tears. About an hour later, after happy banter with the meandering ultrasound tech, after setting the due date at early July 2012, after Stephanie’s “Didn’t you hear her say she was going to do a look around first?” (No! I most certainly did not hear that! Why would she do that?), after a trip to Dairy Queen, and after getting most of the way to where we were to pick up Eden, my face slowly contorted and squeezed tears out of my eyes like one might squeeze water out of a sponge.

That was in Advent, and I think it was the next week that Paul preached on the patience of God in delaying the return of Christ so that all might be saved. There’s a right time for things, and it can’t be rushed along. How I have sought so often to intervene in God’s timing. He could save right now if he really wanted to. He just doesn’t want to. Maybe it’s not that important to him. All those spiteful ways of trying to coerce God into acting immediately. But now…

Grant us this child, but not yet. Let your grace go full term.

With our first pregnancy, we waited until after the first trimester was over because that was safe. Then came the miscarriage a couple weeks later. With Eden, we waited until after the point at which we had the first miscarriage. Likewise with the third pregnancy, since that seemed to work with Eden. But not that time. The fourth pregnancy ended the day after learning that there was a fourth pregnancy.

Now in the fifth pregnancy, I finally realize there is no day that grants peace. There is no day that is safe, that guarantees only life from that point on. Our hope is not in the day. The false security stripped away, there is less to cling to, but also more.

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12 comments

Jan 05

Getting Back on the Horse

Categories:

My Life

by peter

The window of my study at the church looks right out at the entrance to our parking lot. It connects us to a two lane country highway that is fairly busy. Our location is just outside of town and not far from the highway, so it’s a common place to park and carpool or, more often, just to turn around.

A couple days ago I was talking on the phone when someone pulled up in a truck, sat for a minute in the parking lot, then opened the door and threw up on the pavement. A swish of water, a closed door, the need for pause complete, the traveler made his way back onto the highway toward home, I hope.

Today I looked out just in time to see a young man on a motorcycle coming down the road. He had no helmet (there’s no helmet law in Illinois), and didn’t seem entirely comfortable on the bike. Not a good combination. He wanted to turn into the parking lot in order to head back in the direction he came. My guess is that he was just trying out a friend’s bike.

I’m not great at estimating, but I would guess he was still traveling about 35 miles an hour when he began to make his turn. Our entrance is probably wide enough for three or four cars to come in at the same time, and he needed every bit of that space and more. The transition between highway and parking lot, given the 90 degree turn and his velocity, ripped the wheels out from under him and he slid the bike on its side into wooden barrier on the left side of the entrance.

He popped quickly off the ground, felt his head, arms, legs. Found himself in good shape, all things considered. Began heaving the bike back onto its wheels, unbending some crooked bike parts.

I walked out of the church, of course, to see if everything was alright. He was desperately trying to get the bike started, but to no avail. When I came out the door, he began trying a little harder, struggling to push the bike fast enough to pop the clutch. He averted his eyes, as if to say he hoped I was just coming out to get in my car, but without having seen him crash. He was embarrassed. He seemed to think he was in trouble.

This happens often enough. If someone is in the parking lot and I go out there, they seem uncertain and apologetic, as if they’re about to get in trouble. Two high school girls apologized profusely last fall when a flat tire stranded them out here. I just wanted to know if they needed any help. They were so embarrassed, they couldn’t say yes. So they waited 45 minutes for one of the girls’ father to come help.

My motorcyclist friend was shaggy, with baggy jeans and chains hanging out of his pockets. No worse for the wear, I could tell as I got closer to him. I asked him if he needed any help. “No, I got it.” Didn’t look at me. Kept pushing the beast with all his might.

Halfway through the parking lot he popped the clutch and exited out the back entrance. Fifty yards down the road he hung his head a little before giving it some more gas and going along his way.

A few minutes later, the bike was back, but with a different rider. More confident, skilled. He pulled in the front entrance, looked at the wooden barrier with a knowing smile, then exited out the back to rejoin his friend, the story having been verified. The smile on his friend’s face said he now knew for sure his friend had done something embarrassing, and there would be joy at rubbing it in.

I worry if maybe it says that church is a place where it’s too embarrassing to fall.

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1 comment

Dec 06

Pastors of the Scattered Flock

Categories:

Missional Church

by peter

We recently finished watching The War, a Ken Burns documentary that is about as long as World War II itself was. The sheer number of people killed was unimaginable. An estimated 50-60 million worldwide lost their lives. The economics of war are utilitarian by necessity: some die so that more may live. Greatest good for the greatest number, and all that. You’re going to lose a lot of men, but that’s the price of winning a war you can’t afford to lose.

Later in The War, as landing parties leapfrogged from one island to another in the Pacific theater, officers were told to expect to lose up to 8 out of 10 men trying to take this beach or that one. Needless to say, that was an unsettling prediction to hear. In anticipation of the number of casualties it would cost to take the main islands of Japan, about half a million Purple Heart medals were made. That supply has not yet been exhausted.

Planning for inevitable loss is a cold mathematics. Accepting its solution is the sign of a grim maturity.

How surprising, then, to see Jesus suggesting a different calculation: leave the 99 to save the 1. A shepherd cannot leave the 99, the whole flock, to save just the 1. The 99 are more important, if only by because there are more of them. But Jesus shows us a God who is not accommodated to loss. A God who came to seek and to save that which was lost. A God who is quite defiant in the face of death.

The shepherd who leaves the 99 to seek the 1 is Jesus, the one who claimed he was doing what God said he alone would do. The prophet Jeremiah promised that the one who scattered Israel would soon gather them together and be their shepherd. Jesus came and called himself the Good Shepherd, the Lead Pastor.

But when he saw the people harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd, he asked for more workers to be sent. He asked for more pastors of the scattered flock, who will seek and save in his name. And he had a dualistic perspective on that ministry: “Whoever will not gather with me scatters.” As is common to dualistic presentations, they beg for a decision.

Today the word ‘gathering’ has become church-speak for “get together with other Christians.” We talk about scattering less, and with anxiety. We’ll do it if we have to (and we’re not sure we have to). Both are passive. We are not gathering anything, but are the ones gathered. We are not scattering anything, but are the ones scattered apart from each other. As recipients of the gospel, this is of course the way it should be. Jesus came to gather what was lost, and that includes us.

But Jesus expects us not just to be gathered together, and not just to be scattered (awaiting the time when we get gathered again). He invites us to actively gather with him.

It’s the difference between being churched and being the church. The former means that we come to a building or program to have professionals do churchy stuff to us. (And yes, I meant for that to sound creepy.) Being the church means that we understand ministry is the task of the whole body, and as Paul told the Ephesians, Christ has provided different graces to equip the body to be able to do ministry.

You wouldn’t recommend a family pattern in which one member does all the chores while everyone else watches (and discusses whether or not that person attained to the various standards of cleanliness the rest of the family holds). Similarly, if one part of your body just stopped functioning, you would go to someone who could get that part working again. But when we see ministry as the special task of a few called pastors, it’s just like choosing the absurd option in each of the examples.

Being the church means performing your bodily function. (I just heard it, too….) It means actively going with Jesus to gather the lost sheep, not just passively being gathered together once a week. Gathering happens in the context of being scattered.

We are all shepherds, which is just another way of saying pastor. What parish have you been assigned to? Maybe it’s your neighborhood, or your office building. Who is your flock? Maybe it’s a network of friendships, an artist community, or a non-profit in the area. Is the thought of losing even one of your flock so disconcerting to you that you would be willing to leave the 99 to seek the 1? Would you be willing to skip going to church if it turned out the 1 would meet you for breakfast every Sunday morning? We’re actually losing more than that. Only about 20% of Americans go to church on any given Sunday. If we’re losing 8 out of 10, why do so few feel unsettled? Leave the 99 to find the 1? More like leave the 20 to find the 80.

If we will not be pastors of the scattered flock, shepherds who go with Jesus to gather what has been lost, then we are working against him. Imagine that. Could all of our emphasis on being gathered actually put us at odds with our Lead Pastor, who wants us to gather with him? Or, think of it another way: Is it possible that participating in all the programs a full-service church has to offer might ironically make us less like Jesus, even if we seem to know more about him?

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Nov 16

Meaningless

Categories:

Spirituality

by peter

Danger! Overuse of Exclamation Points ahead!!!


The book of Ecclesiastes is dangerous. Ancient Rabbis worried that, even though they believed it to be inspired scripture, the book could be misinterpreted and “cause an inclination to heresy.” Christians disagree on how to interpret passages of scripture, of course. But Ecclesiastes is special in its wide variety of interpretations. And not just of isolated passages, but of the book’s central theme and point.

So, I thought I would just ask. What do you think it means?

Here are the first few verses:

The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem:

“Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”

Here are a few questions, but feel free to just reflect without my prompting:
1. What do you think the book’s point is?
2. Of what use is Ecclesiastes? Is it helpful, confusing, out dated?
3. How do you feel when you read the book? Hopeful, depressed, at peace, anxious? Why do you think the book causes this reaction?

Let me reiterate–I really would like to know your thoughts. I love this enigmatic little book, but sometimes when I read it I have to set it aside halfway through because it takes the wind out of my sails. It would be great to hear how other people have interacted with it, both positively and negatively.

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Nov 11

Frugality and Grace

Categories:

Spirituality

by peter


You probably know the stories, having heard them growing up. About how everyone on the farm worked, about how the Native Americans used every part of the buffalo, about how scrap drives helped win The War. Relics of a natural law suspended in our own age of over-consumption, a sense of the limits within which life was conducted. Living within those limits was not a choice that marked one as fiscally conservative. Rather, making use of everything was the path to thriving.

Frugality has a certain suspicious sound to it today, as if it were being politely used where the word “cheap” would do. A frugal person is reserved, cautious, possibly even stingy. Or so my mental lexicon tells me.

But when I think back to those old stories, especially the kind my grandmother used to tell about life on the farm, I don’t imagine people who were cheap or stingy. They were resourceful, wise. They could find the value in anything. Even if it wasn’t perfect, they made use of everything. They were frugal.

Frugality would be a good quality to use in regard to grace. Not our misunderstanding of frugality, as cheap and begrudging, measuring out grace sparingly with a frown. But actual frugality, making use of everything–every moment, every relationship, every word–as an opportunity for grace. If we believe that “where sin abounded, grace abounded much more,” and that forgiveness is offered “in accordance with the riches of God’s grace,” then grace is not the limited quantity here. People who give grace sparingly don’t believe in amazing grace, and they’re probably being shaped by their own bitterness or anxiety. They’re afraid that grace may run out. But if grace is not abundant enough to overflow the boundaries of our tiny existence, then it’s a pretty flimsy branch to venture out on.

The limited quantity is time. We should run out of time long before we run out of grace. So we’re going to have to do everything we can to push grace into every moment that we have. On the farm when there seemed to be more mouths to feed than food available, the meal had to be stretched. Frugality meant everything got used, even the stuff that grosses us out today: cow tongue, pig feet, chicken liver. In our lives there is so much more grace than days available to pour it into, so our time needs to be used wisely. Frugality means that every moment gets used, and nothing is wasted. Even the stuff that others would deem unnecessary: the line in the grocery store, the freeway, the spiteful relative, the private conversation about someone else. Grace gets to feed on every morsel.

That’s what Paul means when he says that we should be careful how we live–not foolishly, but wisely–making the most of every opportunity. Every day, every word, and every relationship are to be used to show the grace that points to the one through whom all grace comes. Nothing gets wasted.

Those who have this kind of frugal spirituality are recognized not by their miserly demeanor, but by the lavish lifestyle of grace that they live. Being frugal with your days will lead you to being lavish in your love. Everything will get used. Grace will get its fill of every thought, word, and deed.

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