I wish I was better at thinking about “us” and not just myself. The phrase “common good” conjures up so many negative thoughts and emotions for me. Most of them having to do with communism and socialism. I instantly begin thinking about the book Animal Farm and how that phrase was twisted and used for the exact opposite of what it was intended to mean.
The challenge of course is that it’s a biblical concept. Paul speaks about it as does St. Augustine and of course the early church lived this way. Maybe my repulsion to the phrase is more a product of my middle class American culture than Jesus’ actual opinion of the subject or church history.
One of the principles I learned from a professor was, “Be wary of an ‘interpretation’ of Jesus words that ends up completely ignoring them.” Yet, I find myself doing this all the time.
For example Luke 6:30 says, “…If anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back.” If I were preaching on this verse I would be super tempted to say, “Now don’t worry. Jesus isn’t saying that if someone steals something from you, you shouldn’t demand it back. What he’s saying is that we need to live generously.”
Really? Is that what he’s saying Tilford, because it sounded an awful lot to me like your trying to explain away a very straight forward interpretation of that verse with the assumption, “Well, dear Lord he can’t possibly mean that!”
The genius thing I do (among others) is withdraw a principle from the verse that ends up removing the prickly parts. Like the phrase I said above, “…what he’s saying is that we need to live generously.” Brilliant! This is especially helpful if I’m reading, preaching, or discipling someone through difficult verses of the Bible. All I have to do is read the verse aloud and then distill it into an easy to swallow principle that goes down like butter! Not only do I feel better about my faith but the folks I’m talking to are put at ease. Don’t worry friends. Following Jesus is easy!
I’m an idiot alot of the time.
Of course I’m not saying that all these “challenging” verses have straightforward interpretations that we’re blatanly ignoring. I think we need serious conversation and prayer about the difficult sayings of Jesus. However, I despise when we avoid those difficult conversations by quickly muzzling Jesus with a slick interpretation that assumes the easy route.
I think the world is waiting for a church that is better at being obedient than slick.
There’s an interesting idea that I find myself daydreaming about off an on. It’s the idea that none of us are Christians, instead we are all becoming Christians. At first glance this may seem like nothing more than a slippery semantic twist. ”Oh I get it” you say to me with a knowing wink, “we say we’re not Christians but we really are. We just say we’re not, so people will think we’re humble.” To that I would reply, “Nope. It’s not really humility as much as an acknowledgement of the reality that as human beings we’re an awfully mixed bag.”
There’s a big theological word called “sanctification” that basically says we are works in progress. We are literally becoming saved. Doesn’t Paul say something about working out our salvation with fear and trembling? I think somewhere in our evangelical scramble to assure everyone that they’re really saved and going to heaven we lost this idea that it’s a process. We’re on a journey. We’re literally becoming Christians.
Next time someone asks if you’re a Christian I think an interesting answer would be “Nope, but I hope to be someday.” Not to be tricky or evasive but to be more honest about the reality of our religious lives.
As I mentioned a few days back I attend a small church that is quite lame but we love it. One of the questions we’re wrestling with is how we grow numerically? Right now we’re pretty limited by the space (we meet in a friend’s tiny living room) and by the number of quality small group leaders we can prod (bribe) into leading. Right now we grow to about 30 people and then drop down to 15, then grow to 30 and drop down again, and again, and again, etc.
The way I see it we have two options. 1. We find a bigger space to meet. 2. We split into two groups. I think we’ll probably end up going with option #1 for now but #2 is probably inevitable. That makes me sad. Growth is great but it also sucks.
Every Monday evening I attend a small church of people (roughly 20-30) attempting to follow Jesus together. It’s pretty simple really. We sing a few songs, someone shares on a topic of Christian spirituality, we break into even smaller groups to share on a more personal level, and then we leave. It takes about 2 hours to go through this progression. Josh and Mindie Runnels lead the group and being their friends we help out quite a bit. I like it.
It’s amazing how hard it is to keep something simple though. There’s always the temptation to do more and try to become more cool. We aren’t very cool. In fact I would argue alot of the times we’re very lame. We aren’t the best at planning ahead and the electric piano we use for worship is very old and unpredictable. However, I think we love each other most of the time. For me that’s enough.
I remember about 10 years ago I sat around with a group of up and coming worship leaders and we dreamed of how church would look when we were adults. We imagined people swinging from trapezes and fireworks during the sermon.
Who would have thought we’d be leading something so lame and loving it.
I’ve been wrestling for sometime with the question of whether or not Christians should have excess money. Of course we give our 10% to “God” (church or charity) but the beauty is that’s a sliding scale. It hurts you alot when your poor but the wealthier you get the easier it is to stomach. If you making 10 million/yr. then you still get to keep 9 million! What I’m wrestling with is whether it’s morally defensible to keep 9 million or 9 thousand for yourself. How do we justify having thousands in the bank while others go without?
Let’s say you have a friend across the street who’s starving to death. If you had an extra dollar wouldn’t you give it to him? This is basic kindergarten stuff right? Now let’s say that person is a homeless aids orphan in South Africa. Would you still give the money?
To live happily I need less than I think. A small home for my wife and family. Heat in the winter. A few hundred dollars worth of groceries each month. Gas for my car. Clothes, coffee, books, running shoes, and the occasional meal at Cafe Brazil! Let’s say that comes out to $30,000/year in expenses. Should I give the rest away? What about retirement, kids college funds, braces, vacations, and icecream? The items that aren’t essential but sort of feel that way. Are those things wrong of me to indulge in? Can I justify socking away $500,000 over my life time for when I get old, while others go without? What does God require of me?
A few years ago I realized that I grew up in one of the most prosperous towns in the world. I was rich. Of course, now days I bring in a salary that most people would consider modest. However, compared to most of the world I’m rolling in money. At what point do I say, “Okay, my family and I have enough. Everything else is given away.” Something in my conscious is screaming that I have to make that decision but I keep holding off because I don’t want to sacrifice too much. I’m afraid that I’ll look back and regret not giving more to my kid’s college funds, retirement, etc. That I’ll regret not being “wise” with my money. Doesn’t proverbs say something about an ant storing up for winter being a good thing? Where is the line between being a wise ant and being the fool that Jesus chastises in the story of the man who built bigger and bigger barns instead of giving away what he didn’t need.
To sum it up I guess I’m wondering how much money a Christian keep for himself and his family. God help me.
Last weekend I was in the Christmas production for Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas singing a portion of the song Inescapable Day. The musical was an adaptation of Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol with a more overt evangelical Christian slant worked in. The quality of the production was top notch and I thoroughly enjoyed working with the team there. It was clear that they truly loved God and people. Another thing that struck me was that the team was absolutely committed to making this more than just a good show. They wanted the power and love of Jesus to shine through and really weren’t interested in getting glory for themselves. That’s unusual among people who stand on stages alot. If you’re in that area and need a good Church I would highly recommend Gateway.
You may have noticed that I lost about 2 years of blog posts in a server transfer disaster. Instead of bemoaning my loss I’ve decided to move forward and do my best to keep putting good content out there. Here is something that I posted awhile ago but was sitting in my “drafts” folder because that’s where it was in the file backups. Thanks for your patience.
I wanted to post another excerpt from Peter Rollins book How Not To Speak of God to continue developing the idea of Orthodoxy as believing in the right way as opposed to right belief. Enjoy.
“There is an old anecdotein which a mystic, an evangelical pastor and a fundamentalist preacher die on the same day and awake to find themselves at the pearly gates. Upon reaching the gates they are promptly greeted by Peter, who informs them that before entering heaven they must be interviewed by Jesus concerning the state of their doctrine. The first to be called forward is the mystic, who is quietly ushered into the room. Five hours later the ystic reappears with a smile, saying, ‘I thought I had got it all wrong.’ Then Peter signals to the evangelical pastor, who stands up and enters the room. After a full day has passed the pastor reappears with a frown and says to himself, ‘How could I have been so foolish!’ Finally Peter asks the fundamentalist to follow him. The fundamentalist picks up his well-worn Bible and walks into the room. A few days pass with no sign of the preacher, then finally the door swings open and Jesus himself appears, exclaiming, “How could I have got it all so wrong!’
This video really got me to thinking about beauty in the modern era. What a strange world we live in when people’s imperfections can disappear with the click of a mouse. Unbelievable.
I remember seeing a news piece a few years ago about a makeup artist who was so concerned with what was being communicated to young girls via the magazines they were reading, that she started going around the country raising awareness, her message was something to the effect of “These people are works of art, they aren’t real. No matter how much you diet or apply makeup you’ll never look like them. When they wake up in the morning they look just like you!”
I really do think that the whole “Barbie or bust” (no pun intended) idea of beauty is extremely destructive. What are we communicating to our children when every person’s skin they see, on T.V. or the drive by billboards, looks like a freakin mannequin. I can’t imagine the types of conversations I’ll have to have with my kids in a few years. My little girl will say, “Daddy, look at that lady on t.v.! She is so beautiful!” I’ll reply, “Well honey, she isn’t actually real. See there is this thing called photoshop that allows you to make people look perfect. It’s weird I know, but it helps people sell things.” God help me.
I think all this hits a little to close to home because I’m in the design business. Just a few months ago myself and Charles (the lead designer in our business) were working on a project together. The client had requested that we touch up a picture of one of his family members. It wasn’t anything big. However, once we got started it was so hard to stop! After fixing the teeth, we noticed that the eyebrows were a little bushy, and the eyes could probably be a little bigger. Also, that chin could afford to be a little smaller. If we raised those cheekbones she looks older. All of the sudden one of us (I honestly don’t remember who- I think it was Charles) yelled out, “Stop! We have to stop this!” He was right.But there was such power in that mouse. Razorburn? No problem, “click”-it’s gone. Dirty fingernails? Click-gone. Bags under the eyes? Click. Hair out of place? Click. Nose to big? Click. Eyes too small? Click. Cheek bones too low? Click. Skin to blotchy? Click. My God this is out of control. Now some nerd sitting in his apartment loft is deciding what beauty is? Scary.
When I think of Jesus I think of someone who seemed to be saying “God believes you are beautiful. Hey you leper! God loves you and thinks you are beautiful. Hey you drunk, God thinks you are beautiful. All you outcasts and beggars, God thinks you are beautiful. It would be easy to pin all the blame on the advertising agencies of the world. But you know what this comes back to all of us, because who is buying the way they are selling? Me and you. So maybe the point of the video isn’t to think, “How could those people?!” But instead to turn that pointing finger back at myself and think, “Why don’t I live more like Jesus lived?” Believing that everyone is beautiful.
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