winncollier

I'm a Consumer Christian

2010-07-22T14:08:00.004-04:00

The danger is not lest the soul should doubt whether there is bread, but lest, by a lie, it should persuade itself it is not hungry. {Simone Weil}

Give us this day our daily bread. {Jesus}

Much ink has been spilt (with good cause) resisting the soul-numbing prevalence of hyper-individualism, where we view God - and then in turn people and neighborhoods and natural resources - merely as raw material for the pursuit of our isolated whims. The gospel tells me that my comfort and the satisfaction of my every impulse is not the goal of the universe. Bummer.

In the church, we have created a cottage industry around denouncing consumerism, and I understand the revulsion to this spirit of our age. I too am frustrated to no end when we belittle the mystery and beauty of Christian community by our penchant for using churchy experiences with all their gizmos and "energy" the same way we down a can of Red Bull: guzzle, toss, grab another when wanted. Yum. I recently read that at some churches, you can now get your pastor delivered via hologram. Truly, I am at a loss for words.

I'm concerned, however, that the way we talk about all this sends the message that there is something wrong with our cravings and the hope to fill our unmet longings, something unseemly about our hunger. I've seen shame attached to the notion of someone coming to the church community without arriving ready to give. Jesus invited the weary people to come, to come and eat, come and drink, come and rest. To hear some of us, we only want the people who are ready to come and work, come and plug right in "doing mission."

I once heard a young pastor on the speaking circuit say, with a swagger: "We aren't here to meet your Christian needs. If you're a Christian, we aren't really here for you - we're here to be on mission for those who don't know God." It came across brash. He sounded revolutionary, a bad-ass pastor. He prompted a lot of laughter. I wanted to cry.

A while back, during our Denver years, Miska and I were exhausted. Serving God had worn us out. A church up in the hills welcomed us in. We attended on Saturday nights. It was a peaceful space. We heard the Scriptures and prayed some prayers (or didn't). We sang along with a few songs and soaked in the gospel. We didn't sign up for any ministries or serve on any teams. We dropped checks in the offering plate, and we (usually) showed up on time for church. Other than that, not much. Oh, we did attend a small group. Twice.

We were consumers, and it saved my soul.

Jesus' first miracle was wine at a wedding in Cana, an extravagant act intended for no good reason other than the peoples' consumption and joy. The Psalmist describes our want for God in visceral terms: hunger, thirst, cravings. Jesus gave us a table with wine and bread as the retelling of the Great Story. At Jesus' Table, all we do is come and receive; we gorge on grace. We do not come to Jesus to work. We come to rest. We come to allow grace to work on us. The Christian's work is what happens when resting people find the free life of the Spirit flowing among them. Work is what we do when the Kingdom has taken root and joyful obedience begins to sprout. But first, we rest. First, we consume.

The gospel never calls us to myopic self-centeredness. The kingdom of God moves and (re)creates and leads us to lay down our life and give ourselves away. But who can say exactly when - or how? The new creation I first encounter is God's love that pours and pours and pours into my soul. And I must drink it in. I must consume it, a man desperate and starved with nothing much, for the moment, to give.

Words I've Heard

2010-07-17T22:15:00.006-04:00

A few things I've read or heard this week that made me sad, made me laugh, made me want to be a better man:

//sad//

"This is it. This is when it all went away. The Anglican Communion is not going to make it."
Diana Butler Bass on Episcopal Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori's "fighting words" tossed toward the Archbishop of Canterbury and the wider Anglican world.

//laugh//

"Wow!! This is AWESOME!! You are the high king of the church and you get to run the slides!?"
Wyatt, trying to understand what it means for his dad to be a pastor (and confusing it with a certain Chronicles of Narnia character) but actually far more plussed about the revelation that his dad was tapped to run slides for an Evensong gathering at All Souls (our church).

"Dad, I've been thinking about it - and when we get to heaven, I think you'll be able to drink and drive."
For once, this wasn't one of our boys (could have been though). After a discussion the night before on the dangers of alcohol, one of Wyatt and Seth's friends said this (loudly, and among a large crowd of other parents) to his dad when he was picking him up from an event.

//want to be a better man//

"The truth's not foolish."
Colum McCann's character Claire in Let the Great World Spin

"I gave them all the truth and none of the honesty."
Colum McCann's character Gloria in Let the Great World Spin

Things Far and Near

2010-07-15T11:45:00.000-04:00

A litany from the gospel reading, Luke 10.25-37

The lawyer raises the question for us:
What must we do to truly live with God?
The Scriptures tell us to love God with all our heart
But my heart loves so many other things
Love God with all our soul
But I have so many competing desires
Love God with all our strength
But my energy and my passion is divided
Love God with all our mind
But my mind feels too powerful or too broken
to be a place of love
Love, not only God - but also our neighbor, even as we love ourselves
But who is our neighbor?
Our neighbor is whoever God has brought near to us.
Then we will love our God who has come near to us and our neighbor God has brought near to us
In this way, we will love our God
With all of our heart, our soul, our strength and our mind.
And then, people of God, we will truly live.

And a blessing in response to Ephesians 2:11-12

To all who have known what is to be far
Far from love
Far from hope
Far from life
Far from God
Jesus has come near to you
Jesus has brought you near to him
So live near. And free. And alive.
And go the far places in your world. And witness that Jesus is near.
Amen.

ViralHope

2010-07-12T19:51:00.001-04:00

A bit ago, I mentioned ViralHope which I contributed a chapter to. Here is a video short created by Aaron Nee (of the Brothers Nee, writers/directors/producers of The Last Romantic). The words come from one of the chapters. If you haven't snagged a copy, consider it.

Drowning

2010-07-07T16:30:00.001-04:00

Do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God who came to save us from our sins?
I believe

Do you believe that Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead to bring you life and to bring you home into his kingdom?
I believe

Do you renounce Satan and his kingdom and all his evil works?
I do

And will you turn from your sins and obey Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit?
I will

Will you now lay your life down and be buried in God’s love?
I will

Last Sunday, Wyatt received baptism. One of the perks of being your boy's pastor is that you get to participate front and center in these sacred moments. I was knee deep in the baptismal waters, my arm around his shoulders (and that's where I hope to always be, wading into his water, standing next to him). With joy, I laid priestly hands on my son and said holy words, In the name of the Father and the Son and the Spirit, be buried in Jesus' death...

Baptism is many things, but three things at least - and all three are about belonging. In our baptism, we declare that we belong to Jesus and to Jesus' kingdom. In baptism, the church declares that we belong to the community, this family of faithful storytellers. And, most importantly, in baptism the Spirit declares that we belong to the Triune God. Baptism is really more about what God is doing than about what we are doing. God has marked us, come after us, loved us to death. And life.

Because this whole thing is a communal affair, the entire community renews our baptismal vows before the new vows are taken. In a way then, with each new baptism, it is as though we are being baptized anew. The last question of the vows, the words that are spoken just before we put a body under the waters, echoes for me today.

Will you now lay your life down and be buried in God's love?

Will I?

The verbs in this question are passive. Will I lay down? Will I be buried? Will I surrender the illusion that I can pull my life together? Baptism is something I receive, not something I do. I don't baptize myself; another baptizes me. I don't finagle my way into the church; the community simply gives me a wide welcome. I didn't snag a ticket into God's kingdom with my spit-n-shine resume. God isn't lucky to have me. God came and got me because God is kind and because this is what God does - God comes and rescues.

So this is the question my baptism asks me: Will I lay down and drown in love? Will I drown?

Will I hold my ground and guard my self-interests in my marriage - or will I drown?

Will I wallow in selfish guilt about what my poor fathering choices say about me, or will I surrender every shred of image and reputation and just love my boys, now, today? Will I protect myself - or will I drown?

Will I keep distance from those I'm sure to disappoint or those who I think will leave me lonely - or will I drown?

I choose to drown.

I surrender the image of the put together husband, father, writer, pastor, friend.
I choose to drown.

I am probably not as smart or brilliant or witty or insightful or artful as you are.
I choose to drown.

I will probably never write a bestseller.
I choose to drown.

I want to drown. Because I want to live.

What kind of drowning are you surrendering to?

Firefly

2010-06-30T17:59:00.000-04:00

My earliest years were spent in Middle Tennessee. Murfreesboro, to be exact. We lived a few miles out Franklin Road, with vast stretches of farmland between us and town. Our small community centered around a youth camp and working ranch. It was a magical place for a young boy to actually be a young boy. Horses in our backyard. Six thousand acres to roam. A mountain to climb and camp. Rodeos every Friday afternoon during the summer. But the fireflies - those haunting, hovering flashes of greenish-neon light flickering just within reach - are one of the enchantments I remember most. The long, sticky summer days surrendered to the Tennessee evening air; and, just around dusk, the sky began to dance.

My friend Wil and I would chase a couple fireflies down and gently release them into our Mason jars, with a bit of grass stuffed in the bottom and tin foil (with air holes pencil-punched in) wrapped over the top. Even now, remembering, I feel a twinge of that boyhood mystery, when I was caught up in friendship and stories and twilight evenings chasing flashes of light across the backyard.

A few nights ago, we were in Tennessee visiting friends. As the sun began to settle, the fireflies appeared. And our boys, Mason jars in hand, entered the ritual. We were probably only thirty miles from the spot where my firefly memories are rooted, but I am aware that the years and experiences, the disillusionment and the knocks, the questions - and the joys too, have taken me a long way from those simple summers. Laughter comes a little harder, and cynicism a little easier. Friendship is harder work, love more fraught with danger and uncertain outcomes. The world can be scarier. I'm less naive, less trusting. I haven't run barefoot at dusk for quite a while.

But. A lot has stayed the same. I'm still drawn to twilight space. Our front porch, the sun setting over Carter's Mountain, tea in hand, is one of my favorite moments. Miska and I will talk or read or just sit together quietly and bid farewell to a good (or bad) day. Mystery is a friend of mine; whenever someone acts as though they've got life figured out, I find myself thinking they are full of the brown, smelly stuff. Thanks to Miska, I even like to dance (it isn't pretty but it's passionate). And friendship and love - those are high words in my book. I'm not sure I understand all that much about what they mean, but I've tasted enough to know I'll fight for them - and spend my days chasing their glimmer and life.

I'm also drawn to twilight spaces in the soul. I find myself pulled to people and to stories where light and dark are vying for attention. I just had coffee with a friend who shared his three-year journey of brokenness and heartache - and his turn toward hope. That's twilight, as I see it. And, amid our conversation, I almost swear I saw a few flashes of light dancing just within reach.

To Live {why the church.5}

2010-06-23T15:37:00.003-04:00

He felt...another kind of awake.
{Colum McCann, Let the Great World Spin}

Jesus is our shalom...creating within his body a new humanity, a new way of being human. {St. Paul}

In these bodies, we will love / In these bodies, we will die / And where you invest your love, you invest your life.
{Mumford and Sons}

Perhaps the plainest way to say it is this: the church exists because Jesus rose from the dead.

Easter happened, and Easter is the prototype for all God's intentions for the world. God did not raise Jesus into the spiritualized psyches of his followers. God did not raise Jesus by enshrining Jesus-ideals into an ethical philosophy for cultures to emulate. God raised Jesus' rotting, blood-crusted flesh from a dark, musty cave. Dead Jesus lay in the tomb, but alive Jesus walked out.

So now, whenever we hear the prophets and the apostles speak of God's cosmic project of New Creation, we know what they are talking about. Dead things coming back to life. Old things restored, new. Not ideals, but a reality. Physical. Present. Body, God's Body.

The church is what happens when resurrection gets to work. Humans are communal creatures. I feel a bit silly pausing to make this obvious point, but... Without friendships, we are lonely. Without a love or a child or an intimate relationship, we are not whole. When we call someone a hermit, we aren't passing a complement. We are hardwired for committed, intentional, sustained, I'm-with-you-even-when-I-don't-like-you relationships. Against this, though, we all have horror stories and vast mounds of disappointment. Maybe we've given up. Maybe we've settled for something shallow or cheap, imitations. Maybe we've grown cynical - perhaps the most damaging turn of all.

But resurrection happened, and now we're discovering what it means to be alive. In other words, we're learning anew what it means to be truly human. And to be human means, at least in part, to live a physical, particular, embodied life within God's physical, particular, embodied community, the church. If God were only trying to elevate disembodied souls into distant heaven, perhaps the church wouldn't matter much (other than to organize, strategize and get this work done efficiently - but I think I've sufficiently run that horse into the ground). However, if God is reconstituting (resurrecting) the whole of his good and beautiful creation, well then, the church (the physical, embodied people of God) becomes ground zero.

Knowing this, we could never act as though the community of God is merely a means to something God is doing. Rather, the community of God rests at the heart of what God is doing. And God is doing a heck of a lot. God's mission is to rescue and love and remake and welcome and forgive and embrace and basically overrun this whole sorry mess with the wonder of resurrection. The old Hebrew word works best: shalom. Wholeness. Well-being. Utter, comprehensive goodness.

This is God's mission. Not ours. God is doing resurrection. And God will resurrect in a God-way, a Trinitarian way - forming a people who begin to live in Trinitarian love and begin to embody resurrection in the tangible spaces, the streets and dining room tables and nursing homes. It's slow. It's messy. Most days, it looks like an absolute disaster. But if relationship and communities, if each and every individual story, matters - then this is the only way.

Here's the crux of why I need church. I need church because I'm selfish and cynical and proud and a shadow of my true self. I've lived among death for too long, and I want to live. I want to be a human alive, a human resurrected. And true humanity is physical, relational, with others, over the long haul. I need the church because Jesus rose from the dead, and I want to rise up from among the dead too. I want to learn "another kind of awake."

////

So, I'm not sure when I'll return to this series. Might be done. However, I would love to interact to any questions this raises for you - especially if you are struggling with finding your life and place within a physical community, a church. Why do you struggle with this? What questions do you have? Why do you think that maybe it isn't important? Email me (winn [at] winncollier.com) or post here. If it's the sort of question I could interact with on the blog, I will. If it is more appropriate just for email dialogue, fine too.

[previous why the church? posts: part one, two, three, four]

Writing Notes

2010-06-21T17:28:00.000-04:00

The past couple weeks, I've had a fresh burst of writing energy toward a new book project (coy look interjected here). I haven't felt this writing vigor for a while, and I receive the gift with open arms.

But today, once again, I've come up blank. Zilch. Nada.

Amid the vast blankness, I've been handed time to think again about this maddening art I love. My cursor over on my other page sits there, blinking at me, taunting me - so I defiantly move over here to write down what I want to remember - and, if you are a writer, what I hope you'll remember.

//surrender the quest for brilliance//

Most writers I know have flashing visions of receiving that gold-embossed envelope (okay, I have no idea if it is actually gold-embossed but that's the way I conjure the moment) acknowledging, with accompanying accolades, that we have won the National Book Award. However, most of my fantasies are slightly less ambitious (but only slightly). I'd like to receive a phone call from my editor, breathless, over this masterful prose of mine she has just read, singularly unlike the work from any of her other vagabond writers. I'd like for The New Yorker to get in line behind The Atlantic, wrangling to publish this writer (me) who, "writes with unparalleled grit and beauty - a new literary light." (And, yes, they are free to use my quote)

Dreams are fine things; I'm a fan. However, something gets twisted when we aim to write words that are monumental. Most of life is plain, simple, and most writers are plain, simple people. Our job is to give away what we have. Most days, that's going to be a little trace of life, a whiff of love. A story here. A question there. Maybe we will stumble upon something that opens up new terrain, or maybe we will just stumble. Whichever, our writing must be true. If we aim for brilliance, chances are we will only create dull fabrications - because most of our days (and most of our words) are not brilliant but ordinary.

We can hope for brilliance - that's a good hope, I think. But we do best to shoot for truthfulness and the hard work of simple, elegant craft - and then hold it out to the world with an open hand.

//read...but not like that//

Every writing advice I've ever seen says that writers should first be readers. True enough. However, we are tempted to read with a critical eye, comparing someone else's skill to ours. This is all the truer when we face the deep abyss of our own lackluster writing, sitting there with nothing but the reminder of someone else's "genius."

Here's the deal: every book you read, every article or blog post is not an indictment against you (but this blog post is, definitely). Seriously, we can't read others through the eyes of what their work says about us. We have to move through our jealousy over others' successes. Who can say why they succeed and we don't. Or why they turn a sharp phrase or have such an amazing quick wit or are so freakin' remarkable. Maybe they're just a better writer. Maybe the timing was right for them. Maybe the Green Publishing Goblins just have it out for you, and you will always and forever be screwed (well, probably not that).

None of that matters. Really. Though the Amazon rankings suggest different, we are actually on the same team. We are all artisans of beauty, truth and goodness. And, God knows, our world needs all the beauty it can get. Thank the cosmic muse for every good word that finds it way free. And pray that here and there, along the way, you set a few free as well. I bet you will.

//yeah, that//

Cliche alert: Writing is hard work. Annoying, I know. Book club legend has it that Cormac Mcarthy wrote The Road in a single sitting. I doubt it, though that would explain the whole no punctuation thing - the man was in a hurry. (And if it is true, and McCarthy did write The Road all at once, first draft, forget my previous paragraphs - Cormac is a grade-A literary punk and I hope he rots in the very, very bad place for...ever.)

I feel like there's much more to say here, but "hard work" pretty much sums it up. And my editors have always told me "less, not more."

Seeing on Father's Day

2010-06-20T15:18:00.004-04:00

It's Father's Day, and I respect the cracks about Hallmark-fabrication and commercialism and the bit. In our house, though, we have a motto: Any reason to celebrate. Miska says it something like this: "In our world, we have every opportunity to be sorrowful. We will seize every opportunity to throw a party." Mother's Day, Valentines, St. Patty's, Groundhog Day if we thought we could get away with it. If it invites a celebration, we're there.

Today I have been celebrated, and it feels good. I received new sandals and a new camping chair. The best part, though, was our stroll downtown. I talked with Seth most of the way there and then with Wyatt most of the way back. Seth, per the usual, was concerned about what kind of beverages he would have (the boy loves his drinks - we'll be watching out for that), and Wyatt has hit upon a fascination with the histories of World War I and II.

We had breakfast at Cafe Cubano and sat outside on the pavilion seating, under the shady trees. Miska had everyone share five things they loved about dad. I must say - that was rather enjoyable. I love it when the boys run out of things to say and resort to simply adding on multiple adjectives. By the end, I was the most awesomest, coolest, everest, bestest, in the whole, whole, whole, whole wide world dad - to infinity and beyond.

It's good to be a dad.

Here's the essence of my job, as I understand it: to see my boys, to truly see them. I don't mean merely acknowledging their presence - I mean seeing who they are, their deep, true self. I mean seeing the Wyatt and the Seth God is crafting way down in their bones, the Wyatt and the Seth God has in mind for them to be. The Wyatt who will be alive with courage and see the truth - and call evil to account. The Seth who will hurt with the broken and run headlong into the muck - and be a renegade of joy.

My job as a dad is, in the words of an old Christian apostle Paul, to "see with the eyes of my heart." I know there's much more to see, years to take in. These boys have a lot of texture, nothing quaint or shallow here. Many days, I will fight my own distraction and boredom and irritation and selfishness. Other days, I will run up against their lethargy or silence - or worst, their walking away. There will be stretches when I wonder if it matters or if they will ever care about a lick of it. It's going to take a lot of patience. A lot of love. A lot of Spirit. I'm in.

Because I see, I see...

Mumford and Sons

2010-06-17T18:17:00.002-04:00

Every once in a while, I stumble across a musician (or group) that captures me. It has happened again - I'm enraptured with Mumford and Sons. Four Londoners with an innovative yet old-time take on folk and bluegrass (and with just the right bit of British accent), these fellas were born to sing (or sang). With names like Marcus Mumford, Country Winston, Ben Lovett and Ted Dwane, what other profession could they take on, really? I guess they could have been Texas sheriffs or oil rig hands... I'm glad they chose music. Any band of friends that describes themselves as "misty-eyed men" is more than alright in my book.

They recently played at Bonnaroo, and you can listen to the concert below. Or you can purchase their album Sigh No More for $7.99.

God's Body {why the church.4}

2010-06-14T16:08:00.005-04:00

The church is not an ideal to be striven for; she exists and they're within her.
{Georges Bernanos, Diary of a Country Priest}

In retrospect, I can say that I joined the church out of basic need; I was becoming a Christian, and as the religion can’t be practiced alone, I needed to try to align myself with a community of faith. {Kathleen Norris}

Church is the core element in the strategy of the Holy Spirit for providing human witness and physical presence to the Jesus-inaugurated kingdom of God in this world. It is not the kingdom complete, but it is a witness to that kingdom.
{Eugene Peterson}

We are tempted to think of the church primarily as a human affair, our human arrangement to try to get religious stuff done. We believe God wants us to follow certain principles and directives, that God wants us to make our world better - but it's up to us to figure out how exactly to go about it. Church, in this paradigm, is the way we organize our religious activity for the greatest efficiency and broadest impact. God gives us the goal (sometimes articulated as getting to heaven or raising healthy families or transforming society), but the energy, the strategy, the humph -- well, that's all us. It makes sense then that when the church isn't "working," when it doesn't seem efficient (and it rarely is) or productive, we should take our leave. We cancel our membership in the club and go look for another, more productive stratagem. Or we just give up, dog-tired and disillusioned.

However, the church is not what we are making of the world. The church is something God is making in the world. The church is God's creation, not ours. The church is first an expression of what God is doing (and has been doing since In the beginning...). The church exists as this physical mystery crafted from the raw material, the timber and stone, of God's people -- those people whom God is "fitting in brick by brick, stone by stone, with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone that holds all the parts together."(Eph 2:21)

And this imagery of God as a master craftsmen fashioning a strong, sturdy abode is pitch-perfect for how Scripture describes what God is up to in and among us. God does not meddle primarily in theories or abstractions. God's core impulse is incarnation. God always goes physical. Christian faith is not ideals and principles and morals separated from the mortar and sinew of physicality and relationships. Christian faith is always embodied. This is why Paul would say, "we see [God's people, the church] taking shape day after day—a holy temple built by God, all of us built into it, a temple in which God is quite at home." (Eph 2:22)

We see it. We touch it. We live in it, with others. We experience it. We love (and are loved) within it. We are frustrated by it. We hope for it to be more. We are surprised by the grace it offers. We find it clunky. We find it strange. And we know deep down that we are missing something true whenever we are distanced from it...And, in those distant spaces, we often sense a yearning within us to return home.

It almost sounds like, well, a family.

Family is about right. Paul uses precisely this picture to help us grasp a sense of the church's essence (Eph 2:19). Scripture gives us multiple other images as well (one theologian counted ninety-six), all unique and varied, multi-faceted. However, what we will notice with almost every image is its physicality. It is something of substance, something tangible, something you can get your hands on, something you can live in or with. Something you see. The church is a city (Rev 21:2), a tribe/people (I Pet 2:9), fishermen (Mark 1:17), salt (Matt 5:13), branches on the tree (John 15:5), God's farm (I Cor 3:9), God's building (I Cor 3:9) and a letter (2 Cor 3:2-3), to name a few. The church is not a philosophy, an ethical system, a warm, gooey sentimental feeling. The church is flesh and bones.

It's popular to say we like Jesus but we don't like the church. I understand; I've said it myself. However, Jesus and the church are inseparable. The church is Jesus' body (I Cor 12:27). The church is how Jesus embodies himself in the world. The church is how God goes physical. To say we want Jesus but not the church is like saying we want love but not marriage. Or friendship without the tangible commitment of time and presence, desiring some vague notion attached to the concept of friendship without the hard work of actually being a friend.

My hunch is this: many of us give up on the church because we expect both too much and too little. We expect too much because we have been sold big jugs of grade C moonshine. It never tastes as good as promised. We've bought an ideal, what the church is supposed to be, a place where no one is lonely and everyone gets their God-fix and we are always fulfilled (or quickly moving that direction) -- and we are certain to see tangible, immediate results of how our life is better, our kids are clean and keen, and our world is being transformed before our very eyes. But we aren't an ideal. We are a family. And families have weird uncles and feuds and kids who get carted off to jail. Families have lots of love and rich stories, but there's always pain and disappointment and seasons where it's just plain vanilla, unexciting. Families need to forgive and to repent. And keep becoming more and more who God has in mind for them to be. However, there is something of profound beauty and value embodied in a family, even amid all its lunacy and disfunction.

At the same time, we expect too little of church. We miss the mysterious and everyday ways God takes on flesh and bone. We need eyes to see how we are being formed into a new kind of person, amid a new kind of community. These long stretches of commonness -- living with others, hearing each other's stories, discovering our vocations, working through the irritation of friendship with people who see the world differently than we do, raising our kids, loving (and being annoyed by) our neighbors, working through the joys and pains of our marriage (or singleness) -- are the necessary, mundane ways God has chosen to take up residence it this world.

Every bit of this is physical, every bit necessary. There is no other way.

[previous why the church? posts: part one, two, three]

All the Football Craziness

2010-06-11T00:43:00.002-04:00

I don't think I've ever mentioned football here - or any sport topic for that matter. But a little bit of Winn-trivia: I'm a big college football fan. I'm Texan, what can I say? All this chatter about the demise of the Big XII brings back nightmarish memories of when the Southwest Conference crumbled. And if you know nothing of this dark day, simply let me say - those were days when giants walked the land.

The most probable endgame scenarios I've read leave Baylor and their Golden Wave Marching Band out in the cold. The one kid completely left behind. It's a sad tale for the little university that could. Baylor is in Waco, Texas, my hometown. I spent many a Saturday at Floyd Casey Stadium hoping against hope for the Bears. I spent many a Saturday dejected and disappointed. Many.

Baylor is a Baptist university. It's relatively small. It has a cuddly Bear for a mascot. The administration didn't allow students to dance there until 1996. They've always had a couple strikes against them.

A few articles and favorite lines:

On whether Baylor's Baptist affiliation will hurt them finding a new conference:

"The last time we checked, the Baptists still scored six points when the ball crossed the goal line," said Lori Fogelman, a spokeswoman for Baylor.

//Yes, six points are the same. Only, no touchdown jigs that shake anything below the waist.//

"Pac-10 always has been allergic to Brigham Young, another church-based school," one sports writer said. "A Baptist friend of mine says Baylor actually is quite liberal in Baptist eyes, but I don't think that's a concept Berkeley recognizes, liberal Baptist."

//Yeah, probably not.//

And then a piece from Joe Posnanski on how the football conferences are built for ratings and dollars, end of story. Greed, says Posanski, birthed the Big XII and will end up killing it.

The conference was built for television sets. And Texas had the most television sets.

//All fine and good - so long as we all are clear that Texas has the most.//

Tadpoles and Sacraments {why the church.3}

2010-06-07T09:00:00.005-04:00

The church is a sacrament of the world's possibility.
{Luke Timothy Johnson}

The church is not ideal. {Eugene Peterson}

Queenlight shines through things, through everything.
{David James Duncan, The River Why}

Last Saturday, the Collier men hit a bike trail that, for most of its winding path, runs alongside the Rivanna River. The loop tracks a couple miles with meandering curves and a couple narrow passes, cutting back and forth between dense forest cover and green open spaces. One of the boys' favorite spots is where the trail dips under Free Bridge, creating a short, eerie stretch Seth has dubbed, "The Tunnel of Doom."

I enjoy these experiences. I appreciate the quiet and the wind in my face. I enjoy Seth and Wyatt, very much. Still, for me, it's fundamentally a bike ride. I mount my brown Specialized Hardrock, and I ride, there and back.

Wyatt and Seth understand these Saturday jaunts differently. Usually, we've only been on the trail a few minutes before our leader (Wyatt, most often) pulls over and, quicker than I can catch up, has his bike down, his helmet off, backpack undone. Time to snack. After a few rounds of Cheez-its and Fruit Roll-ups (indeed, dad supplies nutritious fare), we are back on the trail. But not for long. We need to stop under the overpass because the boys want to touch the water and jump in the mud and throw dirt. Later, they detour to pick up rocks for their collection. Rocks. And by rocks, I mean gravel.

The ultimate detour, however, is when we stop at Tadpole Pond. Pond is a bit generous. It's an 8 inch deep, 4 foot wide hollow in the bankside granite. More of a large dimple really. But this spot is magic because a couple weeks ago we discovered hundreds of tadpoles swimming there; and we spent a good chunk of time catching those fast, slick little boogers. Tadpole Pond is now the main attraction. So we stopped; and the boys renewed the chase. A couple they caught (all catch-and-release, of course) had sprouted micro-legs. A few were teeny-tiny frogs. Most were still just tad-poling around. For at least 45 minutes, the boys rollicked with their slimy friends. They even named a few (Charlie, Bob, Tim and Charlie.2).

Instead of chomping for them to hurry up, I made a choice (this once) to let the quest to get on with the ride recede for a bit. I laid back on a cool rock under the refreshing shade. I listened to my boys laugh. I watched the tree branches sway. I was present, and at least for the moment, I understood that getting there and getting back really wasn't the point. The ride and the river and those poor little tadpoles offered a generous invitation to experience the joys of being a father and the pleasure of having sons. My boys' detours are not a hurdle to my completing our ride. Our rides are an opportunity for me to be on detour with my boys.

What I've tried to say is that the church isn't only about "the ride," about getting God's stuff done. The church is God's invitation to experience, receive and participate in the messy, detourish ways that God is forming a new kind of community in his world. And this new community is not theoretical or abstract. It is physical, embodied. What does God want to do here, now, with us? Scripture tells us that God desires to form a people, a community, who enjoy and embody his very presence in the world (and we must remember, God is Trinity: perfect, divine community). God does not have a metaphysical philosophy for us to spread or an individualistic moral agenda for us to carry out. God wants us. God wants us as his people in his world.

And terms like these - us and people - are inherently, inevitably, always plural, communal, trinitarian. When we look for what God is up to, we find God alive, active and present among his creation. God amid God's community. To say we can enjoy God's hope for us without being bothered by God's community is like saying I can experience the joys of being Wyatt and Seth's dad without being bothered by tadpoles.

And this touches on what we mean when we say the church is a sacrament. A sacrament provides a place where heaven and earth meet, a physical moment of grace. A sacrament, by it's mere presence, mysteriously offers an encounter with the Trinity. A sacrament doesn't have to do anything, anything other than carve out a physical space where hope and life and God come to us. In the Lord's Table, we taste mercy. In baptism, we are drowned by God's love. In marriage and friendship and on crisp mornings above the timberline, God arrives amid words and kisses and sunrises. Physical. Present. Mystery. Sacrament.

So, in the church, amid laughter and repentance and relationship, amid works of mercy and justice, (all messy but all necessary) God touches us. God loves us. God is present. What the Eucharist offers each of us with bread and wine, the church offers to the world with presence and tears. And joy, lots of joy.

A note to my pastor-friends: If we sell the church on utilitarian terms ("God and church will make your life work" or "Our main purpose is to get busy doing God's work"), we shouldn't protest when people leave the church for utilitarian reasons ("it isn't working for me" or "I'm burned out"). We've spotted the consumerism rampant in the way people use the church, but have we owned up to the consumerism riddled throughout the ways we motivate and lead?

A note to my leave-church-behind friends: God's community doesn't always "work." I'm sorry if someone told you it did. And working isn't exactly the point. There's something there, for sure. But there's something else first. God is first, what God is doing in you - and in you with others. Sometimes, you really need a few detours. You need an afternoon of tadpoles.

_______

I have more to say, but I'm curious where this is taking you. Any push back or questions or brimming hopefulness? I'd love to interact and see where we might head next. Peace.

[previous why the church? posts: part one, two]

Healthcare for Dummies

2010-06-03T13:42:00.001-04:00

Miska has endured foot pain for a couple months now. Multiple appointments (and shots with very large needles) later, they've scheduled her for an MRI. We have a high-deductible insurance plan, and so we will be responsible to foot (sorry) the bill. Of course, this means I want to know how much it will cost. How much do I need to come up with by next Tuesday? Sounds reasonable, wouldn't you think?

However, after three phone conversations, no one - no one - can tell me what the charge will be. In the words of the last agent I spoke with, "We can't follow that paper trail. It goes too far."

Can you imagine anyone doing business with a Chevy dealer who said, "Just sign the contract. We'll tell you in a couple weeks, after you're home and have already put the first ding in your fender, what you owe us." Nothing good could come of such an arrangement, other than a fatter paycheck for Mr. Car Dealer.

I'm no economist (really), but I have enough brain noodles to know that this scenario has inflated prices written all over it. If I have no incentive to watch out for my costs and (more unbelievable) if medical providers have no responsibility to tell me what in the sweet name of Mary I'm going to be charged for something, no wonder my insurance rates go up 20% a year.

The next time I receive an insurance premium bill, I'm going to write them back: "Just keep providing me insurance. I'll tell you in a few months what I'm actually going to pay."

The Economy of Church {why the church.2}

2010-05-31T10:00:00.015-04:00

Not what a man is in himself as a Christian, his spirituality and piety, constitute the basis of our community. What determines our brother-hood is what man is by reason of Christ. Our community with one another consists solely in what Christ has done to both of us. {Dietrich Bonhoeffer}

We are part of God's great renovation project for human beings. We work, but we work resting. {Richard Foster}

Being a dad is a significant job. We have a crucial task to raise our children to be moral, virtuous adults. The world needs better people, more civic-minded citizens who will live and work to serve society. The most effective tool to change culture and counteract rampant violence and greed is to raise a generation who, when their time comes, will clean up this mess. My first role as Wyatt and Seth's dad is to instill good values in them so that they can in turn utilize their skills and influence to change their world for the better. If I properly leverage my fathering efforts, providing my sons with the correct mixture of affection, discipline, vision and training, I believe our world will improve.

******

What a bunch of rubbish. Are you repulsed by me reducing the wonders and joys of fatherhood to a formula to implement some cause, even a cause as noble as improving the world? Are you agitated that I would suggest maneuvering fatherly love for a calculated agenda rather than simply cherishing and nourishing ones God has given me to love and share my life with?

Many of us, perhaps unwittingly, think of church in these same sterile, exploitative terms.

Many of us talk about the church primarily in terms of what the church is to do. We know God has a vision for his world, to love and renew and restore it - and we understand the church sits at the nexus of how God intends to get on with this vision. Our response, however, often follows typical American entrepreneurial fashion. We see a job to be done, and so we roll up our sleeves and mastermind a strategy - and then push and prod to work it. In this schema, the church is primarily God's publicity arm. God tells us his action priorities, gives us a range of resources to utilize for the enterprise, and then we amass the energy and effort to make it happen. Essentially (perhaps this will sound familiar), God leverages his efforts, providing his sons and daughters the proper mixture of vision and affection and instruction - and then God watches for us to make the operation take shape.

Thankfully however, God's intentions for his people in his world do not begin with what we are to do but rather with who we are. Unfortunately, we are much better at arranging our activity than we are at knowing our identity. We are competent (in varying degrees) at exegeting culture and formulating (or critiquing) structures and adjusting both our theology and our praxis. We can start a movement or an anti-movement. We can organize a church's leadership flowchart and motivate people to works of justice and mission and mercy (and to opening their wallets). All good things, but they aren't the starting point. Or the ending point, for that matter.

Eugene Peterson recently shared his concern that many of us have "no ontology of church. It is all pragmatic - what we do for God." We prioritize our responsibilities and maneuver our tasks, but we have no comprehension of what our presence (just the fact that we exist in God's world) actually means. We don't know who we are to be, and we keep jumping to what we are supposed to do in order to make up the gap. This kind of activity will always be hollow. And, for many of us, it has worn us out.

In this way of things, the church is always looking for the next fix, the next idea, the next angle or inspiration or cultural sea change. Whether we are progressives with our social agenda or conservatives with our evangelistic blitzkrieg, what we share is our conviction that everything rises and falls on God's expectation that we make something happen. We are just trying to figure out what to do, dammit!

Of course, we can not talk about the church without talking about the church's work in the world; but we must talk about God's work within the church first. We are to live in community, but the Spirit has made us his beloved community first. We are to bring shalom to our neighborhoods, but Jesus has made us a people who receive and experience shalom first. We are to announce God's love to the world, but God has first made us a people drowning in his love. (This touches on my hesitation with some "missional church" language, where we define mission primarily in functional terms while we relegate other portions of the church's essence to serve as only a means to a "missional" task.)

This distorted vision of God's dream for the church falls flat, leaving us empty and disillusioned. I've lost count of the number of my friends who have walked away from Christian community because they felt as though they had been exploited and misled. Much of our church talk of creating meaningful relationships ends up feeling as though it is really only a ruse to keep people in the seats and writing checks (buns and funds). A lot of the strategies and ministry pushes lead to more activity but rarely to more life.

If we act as though the merits of church are ultimately defined by results and getting things done, we shouldn't be surprised when people pack it up. No one likes being used for results. And truthfully, on these criteria we don't always stack up that well against the competition. The church has its moments, but other movements have had their successes too (the ONE campaign has had better luck addressing third-world debt than any collection of churches I know). Depending on your concern, better bang for your buck might move you elsewhere...if results or bang for your buck is the name of the game. But perhaps we have irreplaceable, intrinsic value far richer and deeper than the bottom-line, more essential even than the results we churn out. Perhaps we should follow Peterson's advice and "eliminate success from our vocabulary."

Defining the church first and foremost as God's way of getting things done makes God the ultimate utilitarian. God cast as an industrialist, myopically focused on efficiency and production. No wonder we feel used. If we are merely commodities in God's economy, what is our inherent beauty? Thankfully, we are not merely economic units to fuel divine output. Chastened capitalism may be the best arrangement humans have cobbled together, but God does better.

God certainly has grand purposes for his world, and our vocation is certainly right smack in the middle of how God intends to set the world right. However, I'm pleading for us to work from first things before we move to second things. God has not placed a people in his world simply to carry out his agenda. God has placed a people in his world to embody and revel in - and serve as an encounter with - the Trinity's divine love.

What if the church's mere existence in the world is itself a central piece of God's work. What if God's people are a Trinitarian sacrament, a community whose presence offers tastes of laughter and righteousness and restoration, glimpses in the now of the new creation that is to come. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

[previous why the church? posts: part one]

Why the Church?

2010-05-25T09:00:00.008-04:00

"I like God; I just don't like organized religion."

"Why would I need to be part of a church? I can be a Christian just as well on my own, without all the headache and without all the hypocrisy."

I'm a pastor, so I hear these lines a lot. A lot.

And I get it, really do. Most of us have set in pews (or theater seats), bored out of our minds or steaming with anger. We've been shamed and manipulated and talked down to. We've heard sermons hyping the next cause, the next "vision," only to realize soon enough that the whole enterprise has way more to do with the pastor's ego or the institution's survival than with the truths we intuitively know - just know - Jesus would be about: compassion, justice, mercy, integrity. We've been burned by a church's political agenda or theological haggling or myopic culture or moral shortcomings.

Our hopes have been trampled by the many (many) relational disappointments. Often, we find more of Jesus among our friends who wouldn't be caught dead in any church than we find among our acquaintances who appear dead in just about every church.

So we chuck the whole thing. I understand; I've cycled around that block a few times myself.

Noticing this trend toward disillusionment with church, a fair number of us pastor-types kick into high gear, trying to prove how different we are from those churches, how relevant or authentic or organic or missional or postmodern or post-postmodern we are (and if you have no idea what a few of those words mean or why any church would label themselves such, I applaud you). Not your grandpa's church, we say (I jest not - I've been part of a church who thought this exact line quite clever). But still, it all seems huckster. We've been sold the same entree before, and the newfangled packaging doesn't make it any better this time around.

We feel used. Bored. Fatigued. Done. We may not even intend to walk away. We just drift - and there is nothing solid anymore, nothing of value or meaning, to keep us connected to this community of faith we once knew. So, we go about our lives. We are still moral. We love our families. We certainly maintain some kind of spiritual dimension. But church? Not so much.

Does it matter? I think so, and I'd like to take a couple posts to tell you why. I've wrestled with this a long while. I've been disillusioned too, thought perhaps the whole affair a farce. And yet here I am, and a big chunk of my life is spent among a small community known as a church. I've come to believe it really matters.

This is one of those blog moments that I especially hope would turn into a conversation, but that will of course be up to you. And for my friends who are not Christian or who claim no religion of any sort, please bear with me. I'd love for you to listen in - and interact too if you like. At the least, you'll understand more of why this exercise in Christian community has, against the odds, warmed my imagination and given me fresh belief that God really does intend good for this world.

[further why the church? posts: part two, three, four, five]

Billy Collins

2010-05-20T19:37:00.002-04:00

Because I love Billy Collins. Because I failed to herald April as National Poetry Month. And because writers and preachers also need to think about language that is just overdone.

Oh - and also because I like to share a laugh. And this, my friend, is a doozie.

Among the Paparazzi

2010-05-19T14:14:00.000-04:00

Amazing who you run into during international travel.

Obama seemed a little thinner than I imagined.

England in Review

2010-05-17T11:00:00.004-04:00

Saturday night, Miska and I returned from a wonderful week in England. We've both been to other spots in Europe, but never England - and both of us have long had a strong connection to things English: Miska with her Victorian writers and her fetish for scones and tea, me with my love affair with Oxford and fascination with European history. Thanks to a better than expected tax refund and the kindness of our friends Cory and Juli to watch the boys, we skipped over the pond for six fabulous days.

We spent most of our time in London, and I love this city. I could live there. Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, Parliament on the Thames and Big Ben and the parks - oh, the parks! St. James Park and Hyde Park and Green Park. Hyde Park was my favorite, bliss. They have a little path in the park called "Lover's Walk." Of course, Miska and I had to take a stroll. We were pretty cute, if you ask me.

My favorite moment was probably lunch at Eagle and Child on our day trip to Oxford. This, of course, is the spot where the Inklings (Tolkien, Lewis and co.) met each Tuesday morning for more than 25 years to discuss their writing, ideas and politics. With their ale and their pipes, they ventured into friendship and conversation in their little pub (which they nicknamed The Bird and the Baby). We lunched in their favorite spot, in the Rabbit Room, at the very corner where they sat. I'm a sucker for such things. It was great.

We also enjoyed a private tour of the Kilns, Lewis' home where he penned Narnia and where he and his brother Warren smoked so much the walls turned to solid black. Apparently, before Joy arrived to bring a womanly touch to the house, the Lewis brothers would pour their ashes into the rugs and stomp them in, insisting that it kept the beetles away.

I appreciate the way several of the curio owners at the Portobello Market (known in the U.S. because of the movie Knotting Hill), simply closed up shop for lunch. Amid all the potential customers and potential profits, they paused for a sandwich and a banana and a cup of coffee. I like that. I enjoyed the civility we experienced on the Tube (their subway). I was fascinated watching their election unfold, with their first coalition government since World War II (we were at 10 Downing Street on the historic day). Mostly, I was grateful for my wife Miska and the joy of sharing life and new experiences with her.

Good travels, a good week.

Parting Words {The Challenge of Easter}

2010-05-10T06:00:00.004-04:00

This shared experience has been a good one. Each author has given us something unique, and I have enjoyed the reading and the stretching. Thank you, all.

I keep coming back to the basic question: why the resurrection? When everything went haywire back in Eden, why didn't God just send in a new species to start over from scratch (maybe in a hovering ship, V-like). Why are we even having this conversation when it would have been so easy for us to simply never have been, for everything to have ended just as swiftly as it began - concluding with only an Adam and an Eve and a sly snake and a great dream gone wildly wrong?

Apparently, there is something about the sheer presence of life (even life that may seem insignificant at the moment) that God is resolutely unwilling to abandon. I imagine God understood the consequences of allowing this story to play out the way it has (and this is where we could offer the long litany of human evils), but still - here we sit. God would not abandon, never. Rather, God would rescue.

In this telling, resurrection is not the last-ditch effort of a God frantically flinging his final hope at his venture careening out of control. Rather, resurrection is the inaugural salvo of God's decisive endgame for the redemption of his original project. Resurrection is like Normandy. After D-day, it's only a matter of time. One day, God will again call all of his creation good. Very good.

Given this, Jesus' resurrection does not (contrary to many versions) primarily look backward, as if it's main function is to serve as shock-and-awe proof that we better listen to what Jesus has to say (though we should listen to what Jesus has to say). Instead, Jesus' resurrection mainly looks forward to all the resurrection that God intends to do all over the place. In my heart, and yours. On my street, and yours. In third-world red light districts and among nuclear arsenals and even - can we imagine it - on Wall Street.

Jesus' resurrection is not so much the exclamation point but rather the new beginning. Jesus' walking out of the tomb was like the opening line of a novel's climactic scene or the first note of a symphony's rousing crescendo. Resurrection is not just what God did in Jesus, but resurrection is the prototype for what God plans to do in us - and in every nook and cranny of his creation.

So, does it matter if resurrection is, well, real? Physical? It depends. We only need resurrection to go as much into life as our world has sunk into death. If Eden and all its beauties and bodies and joys and pleasures were truly, physically good - and if God really intends to call all that good again - then resurrection had best roll up its sleeves and (apologies to Olivia Newton John) get physical.

But maybe we fudge on this whole physical thing and opt for some disembodied hope because the straight forward version just seems too good to be true. Our longings hint that we are, as Wright said, "made for relationship, for stewardship, for worship - or, to put it more vividly, for sex, gardening and God." However, our longings seem too fanciful, too dreamy, too childish, too mythical, just too much, way too much.

Maybe. Or maybe "too much" is exactly what God has in mind.

The Challenge of Easter {5}

2010-05-03T06:00:00.004-04:00

Retaining and Forgiving Sins

{justin scott}

On this fifth Monday of Easter, our guide for the fifth chapter of The Challenge of Easter is Justin Scott. You can read the series introduction or read more about our writers. And you can catch up on the first chapter discussion here; second here, third here and fourth here.

*******

N.T. Wright spends the final chapter of The Challenge of Easter on two topics: the implications of the Easter story in our day-to-day lives and the epistemology of love. As a young Christian with a science degree and an overgrown quarter-life identity crisis, both topics are of profound importance to me. But in the interest of time I've chosen to focus on the former.

My journey into what it means to live the gospel in one's vocation began years ago with a nagging feeling that as a Christian, I am just not radical enough. I believe in a God who condemns my non-believing friends. I believe in his son, who said I should pluck out my eye if it causes me to sin. I believe in saints who died on crosses hung upside down for preaching about this God and his son. I have found myself awake at night trying to reconcile these things with my average, urban, American lifestyle. Why is it that most Christians seem called to pretty comfortable lives?

Many Christian teachers in my life have tackled this problem. The concoction of reformed Protestantism I grew up with went to great lengths to blur the lines between the sacred and the secular, to explain that all truth is God's truth, to convince me that the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever—which means doing my job and loving my neighbors as best I can to his glory. With this background I come to Wright's challenges: to bring to the world the shape of the gospel, to set up sign posts which say there is a new way to be human, to find new ways to tell the story of redemption.

And lo and behold in the third paragraph of chapter five, Wright speaks directly to me about how these things might be done:

"If you work in information technology, [I do!] is your discipline slanted toward the will to power or the will to love? Does it exhibit the signs of technology for technology's sake, of information as a means for the oppression of those who do not have access to it by those who do? Is it developing in the service of true relationships, true stewardship and even true worship, or it is it feeding and encouraging society in which everybody creates their own private, narcissistic, enclosed world?"

I will ignore what sounds like a swipe at the internet in that last sentence and say that I wish I felt that there are good answers to these questions for me, because it would mean a profession much more inspiring than the one I'm in. It's hard not to feel that at some level Wright doesn't get it. I design circuits for a living. These circuits and their purposes are not slanted toward power or love. Their technology does not oppress or free others. They do not encourage a closed or open society. It's just not that glamorous.

I wish it was. I want desperately to be a part of something bigger—something that really does erect a proverbial billboard for forgiveness and redemption. I've written pages upon pages on my personal blog about this, which may be just the work of a guy in his roaring twenties trying to make sense of his idealism. The truth I keep coming back to is that for many of us, our professions do not lend easily to creating symbols of redemption. What then are we to do? How then should we live?

In all my years of asking many, many forms of this question, I've come to only one real conclusion (which many days I still find a lacking appeasement for my restless ambition): obedience. It's summed up well in a quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, shared with me by this conversation's first writer, Nathan Elmore:

"We have literally no time to sit down and ask ourselves whether so-and-so is our neighbor or not. We must get into action and obey—we must behave like a neighbor to him. But perhaps this shocks you. Perhaps you still think you ought to think out beforehand and know what you ought to do. To that there is only one answer. You can only know and think about it by actually doing it. You can only learn what obedience is by obeying. It is no use asking questions; for it is only through obedience that you come to learn the truth."

If God calls me into some vocation which reflects the undercurrent of his redemption, it is he who must call me. It isn't my job to determine the course; it's my job to follow. My job to spend time with him, listening for his guidance. My job to serve those he brings into my life. My job to repent. My job to love and to serve. My job to make each decision he brings with an eye towards forgiveness and generosity. My job to obey.

Such ideas are not lost on Wright. In my favorite line of the chapter, he states: "The Christian vocation is to be in prayer, in the Spirit, at the place where the world is in pain, and as we embrace that vocation, we discover it to be the way of following Christ, shaped according to his messianic vocation to the cross, with arms out-stretched, holding on simultaneously to the pain of the world and to the love of God."

Amen.

Justin is an engineer who plays the piano. He lives with his lovely wife Erin in Washington, DC, and struggles to make sense of it all at guessworktheory.com.

Giving Away a Copy of ViralHope

2010-04-28T06:00:00.000-04:00

Ecclesia Press has just launched with its inaugural title, ViralHope: Good News from the Urbs to the Burbs. Last Easter, 50 authors took on the task of sharing how Jesus might be good news (gospel) for their city. I was a contributor, along with one of my cohorts at All Souls Charlottesville, Evan Hansen. ViralHope has released just in time to be pondered and enjoyed this Easter season.

I have a copy to give away. Per the usual, we'll do it with a drawing. The drawing will close Saturday at midnight. To enter, simply post a comment and give us three words that come to mind for you when you think of or hope for the gospel. If Jesus' gospel isn't something you buy into, then give us three words that, for you, would represent good news for our world.

Also, please check back to the comments section to see if you've won - our previous two winners never passed along their mailing information.

The Challenge of Easter {4}

2010-04-26T06:00:00.002-04:00

The Light of the World

{miska collier}

On this fourth Monday of Easter, our guide for the fourth chapter of The Challenge of Easter is Miska Collier. You can read the series introduction or read more about our writers. And you can catch up on the first chapter discussion here; second here and the third here.

********
Theology of Gender is a six week class I’ve led a number of times over the past eight years. I adore this topic, mostly because the redemption of my own femininity is a huge theme in my story. During our six weeks together, we look at Genesis 1-3 and discuss the creation of gender, the true design of the masculine and feminine, the Fall and the way the curses are still playing out in our hearts and lives. We close by talking about the journey of redemption and what it means to reclaim what has been lost.

I love sitting in Genesis 1 and 2 and talking about how God created this world—light and dark, stars, water, living plants and living creatures, the masculine and the feminine—and how all is as it should be. All of creation is living out its true design in a lovely harmony. There is beauty, wholeness, perfect intimacy. Adam and Eve were naked body and soul and were unashamed. No shame! Can you even imagine?

However, moving from Genesis 2 into Genesis 3 (the fall and the curse) is agonizing. A heaviness settles on us as we encounter the deep sorrow of loss, the fracturing of God’s great dream and of our very souls, and the separation (from God, each other, our world and even ourselves) that we wrestle with this very day, this very hour.

Chesterton wrote that “according to Christianity, we were indeed the survivors of a wreck, the crew of a golden ship that had gone down before the beginning of the world.” Genesis 3 details that shipwreck, and we are silenced with the heart-breaking and poignant picture of God walking through the wreckage, uttering his cry of lament: “Adam, where are you?”

But we are not left with desolation. There is another picture we have now, thanks to the “unique, climactic, decisive” act of Jesus’ death and resurrection.

It’s the picture of a different garden on “the first day of the week” (conjuring up images of “in the beginning”), and a woman named Mary who thinks she is talking to the gardener. . .which, in fact, she is. It is the resurrected Jesus, and something new, something cataclysmic, is taking place.

Wright says, “Just as in Genesis, so now in the new Genesis, the new creation, God breathes into human nostrils his own breath, and we become living stewards, looking after the garden, shaping God’s world as his obedient image-bearers.”

So our first garden--and the experience there—has been and is being redeemed.

And our new vocation, as Wright notes, is to bear the image of God in this world, which means participating in the “redemptive reshaping” of His creation.

And just how to we do this, you might wonder. Well, who can really say? It’s messy and mysterious and is, to borrow a phrase from another of my favorite theologians, a long obedience in the same direction. But the essence of bearing God’s image--and the high call of Christianity--is love, and Jesus is our teacher.

In the words of Thomas Merton: “To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence, for God is love. Love is my true identity. . .Love is my name.”

Miska is married to the best man she knows (which just happens to be the owner of this blog) and is the mom of two crazy and winsome boys. She also serves as a spiritual director at All Souls C’ville. She's a sucker for a good story, loves motherhood even though sometimes it makes her want to gouge her eyes out, and can consume vast quantities of Diet Coke and chocolate in a single bound. Miska blogs on a very irregular basis at forthesweetloveofgod.

Plain Ol' Names

2010-04-24T21:49:00.000-04:00

I'm happy to see that the name "All Souls" is nowhere on this list.

Rise Up and Live

2010-04-21T07:00:00.001-04:00

A Blessing from Easter Sunday, for Easter Season

Into every dark corner of your heart
Into loneliness and fear and shame
Into despair and greed and lust
Into ruin and hopelessness and everything death breeds

Receive this: Jesus crushed darkness and death, finished and done.
Rise up and live.

Into every hopeful place in your heart
Into your desire to be loved
Into your longing for true life
Into your desire to live free and bold in the Kingdom of God

Receive this: Jesus walked out of the tomb, trampling death by death and flooding resurrection and light into your heart.
Rise up and live.