Appearing Great and Being Great Aren’t the Same

On the surface, I’ve always looked like a great dad. I’m good with Robbie, he loves being around me, and it’s not uncommon for me to be found on the floor with him at church, in a store, or where ever we might happen to be when we’re out and about. The problem is that “out and about” part. Last week I had this sudden revelation that, all too often, I only do those things when we’re “out and about”. At home I’m always working, or reading, or watching the game, or doing whatever else. In other words, I’ve looked great, but all too often, I haven’t been great, because I was only great when others were watching. Last week forced me to be great because there was nobody else to spend that time with him, and I refused to just park him in front of the TV all week.

This brings me to my second point.

SAHMs Get the Cultural Shaft

What’s SAHMs, you ask? I said the same thing the first time I saw the acronym mentioned on Twitter. It stands for Stay At Home Moms, you know, that dying breed of women who’ve decided to focus on being great at raising their family and managing their home rather than focusing on career or trying to juggle all of the above.

I use the term “dying breed” with some hesitancy because it implies a tone that will raise the ire of many, so let me clarify a bit. I realize that some women need to work, primarily single mothers. While I’m sure there are some other cases, I struggle to buy the argument most of the time. Sure, the extra income might be needed to pay the mortgage or make the car payments, but does the family really need a house of that size or cars that new? Let’s just be honest and say that most of the time, the extra income is to fulfill monetarily obtained wants, to try and get rid of debt, or is part of the woman’s quest for personal fulfillment. Now, there’s no judgement here towards dual income families, I get the wants, I get the debt, and I get the quest, I just think we should be honest about the why of the second income.

Now that we’re being honest, let me highlight the why of the tone behind “dying breed” … the hostility towards the women who chose to be SAHMs. I don’t get it, and I get it even less after last week. For years I’ve heard various forms of the expression, “Just a housewife.” or “Just a stay at home mom.” and, based purely on what I witnessed as the child of a woman who decided to stay at home, thought, “There’s nothing ‘just’ about it.” Now, after having lived it for a week, I’ll say it with far more fervor, because I’ve never had a week at work (with the possible exception of when I was student teaching) that was as challenging as the one I spent exclusively being a great dad … not the weeks I’ve written and preached three or more sermons, not the weeks I’ve put in 100 pus hours, not even the week I was woken up at 4am to consol children whose father had just died.

Think about it, here I was, for a single week, doing nothing more than what hundreds of thousands of moms have done year in and year out for generations with virtually no recognition or appreciation, and yet I think it’s so novel and such a big deal, that I’m compelled to share clips from throughout the day with the world (and, if I’m going to be totally honest, feeling like I deserve all kinds of kudos for it). Being a great parent, all day, every day, is the hardest job I can imagine and SAHM’s get grief for doing it. Talk about the cultural shaft.

I’m Not Built to Be a SAHMM (Stay at Home Mr. Mom)

As I finish up this post I’m sitting in Denver International Airport getting ready to head to England and Germany for two and half weeks so I can begin my doctoral work. While I already miss both Anita and Robbie, part of me feels like I need these next couple weeks to not only recover from last week (I could tell this morning that my patience was completely worn out), but also, in some way, to exert a tremendous about of creative energy that had little outlet last week because all of my time was spent with Robbie (I say little because, when Anita got home, I did have a chance to do a bit of work).

In other words, God’s gifted me to do certain things, and many of those things, like preaching, teaching, and writing require extensive amounts of time spent in study and creative thought. However, those things can’t happen when you’re spending all day, every day, being a great parent. If I’m going to use the gifts God’s given me, well, it makes being a SAHMM impossible. That being said …

I Can Still Be A Great Dad (and Husband) Without Being a SAHMM

Now, at a far greater level than me, Anita is built to be an all day, every day, kind of parent, but that doesn’t preclude her from having other gifts that are simply impossible to use while watching Robbie (music would be a prominent example). Now, if, after a single week of SAHMM I felt like I needed two and a half weeks of intensive gift usage just to balance out the scales, how must Anita feel when she’s not able to use her variety of gifts that demand some “her time” week in and week out?

As I think about this, I now see opportunities to love and serve two people rather than one. First, Robbie needs to be loved and served by a daddy who is a great daddy, not just in public, but in private as well. He needs a daddy who will turn off the game and play, or do a puzzle, or read a book. Moreover, Anita needs time away from Robbie so she can focus on using her other gifts, gifts that will, in turn, bless others, which means, by being a great daddy and spending quality time with Robbie, I’m also, at least in one way, being a great husband by giving Anita a chance to use her gifts.

I wish it hadn’t taken a week of Mr. Mom to make all these connections, but there they are. By the way, here are some pictures from my adventures with Robbie last week. Enjoy.

First, we had two possibilities that were in the works, so let me fill you in a bit on what we decided against:

• Uganda: While we were in South Africa, we had a chance to spend some time with the head of LCMS World Mission for Africa, who asked us to send in applications as career missionaries with the goal of placing us in Uganda, an East African country on the northwest corner of Lake Victoria. If offered the position, I would have been doing theological education for the Lutheran Church in Uganda, equipping lay leadership for ministry in a country that has some 10,000 Lutheran Christians and only 4 ordained pastors.
• South Africa: The main reason that we went to South Africa was so I could be a guest professor at the Lutheran Seminary there. Things went really well and they thought I’d be an ideal fit for a position that would have me teaching the beginning students at the Seminary, doing campus ministry at the University of Pretoria, and working on a PhD. As time went on, there were also some really attractive and prestigious possibilities that I could have naturally moved into.

Now, typically, when people here that we’re not heading back, they assume it’s for one of the following reasons:

• Safety: While this might have been part of the reason my parents wanted their grandson staying stateside, especially after the bombings in Kampala (where we would have been living if we’d gone to Uganda), for us, this was really a non-issue. Our faith essentially calls us to trust that God is caring for us and so, while being responsible in our choices (aka, not living with a death wish), we make a point of not letting this issue be a factor (even after two incidents of theft in South Africa).
• Robbie: Other people assume that we decided to stay stateside because of Robbie. Typically, this reason alludes to issues like education, social opportunities, or similar considerations. Personally, I think these reasons point to American ignorance about the rest of the world, after all, in both Pretoria and Uganda, Robbie would have the opportunity to attend a world class international school where he’d be exposed to a wide variety of cultures and receive an overall experience that would unquestionably surpass anything that a public or parochial school in the the US could offer. In other words, if this had been the deciding factor in our decision making, we’d be moving back to Africa right now.
  
• Promotion: This one hasn’t come up, but since I talked about it on my previous post, I thought I should bring it up here as well. Again, like the Robbie issue, if this had been key in our decision making, we’d be on our way to South Africa, where there’d been talk about me eventually taking up a very prestigious post (at least in the Lutheran world) in an internationally recognized university. But, as tempting as Africa is on this front, it ultimately wasn’t a factor for us.

So, what was it that did matter in our decision making process that resulted in us deciding to not return to Africa full-time?

• Direct vs. Indirect Ministry: This was one of the key factors in our decision not to go to Uganda. Direct ministry is what people typically think of when missionaries come to mind. It’s going out and working with the people to start churches, engage in mercy ministry, or do whatever else that helps at a ground level. Indirect ministry is ministry that involves raising up local leadership so that they can do direct ministry. One of the things that I really missed while teaching at the Seminary was direct ministry, which was essentially limited to conversations that I would have with the street prostitutes or when I would occasionally get to spend time with someone in the local congregation. In the end, while I love indirect ministry, I really missed getting my hands dirty and engaging with people of all stripes, and, at least in Uganda, opportunities to do that would be severely limited (which is a good things, as I tried to express in my Trash Cans post).
• The Parable of the Talents: In the end, this was the key factor. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the biblical parable, which is found in Matthew 25:14-30 and Luke 19:12-28, it concerns a man who goes on a journey and entrusts large sums of money to three servants. Upon his return, the man then sees what the servants have done with the money entrusted to them, and they are rewarded or punished based on their faithfulness or unfaithfulness. A quick interpretation would have Christ be the one who leaves, entrusting his work to his followers, and when he returns at the Second Coming, he expects that we have faithfully used the gifts he’s graced us with. So, the question we had to ask was, “How has Christ gifted us, and how can we best use those gifts?”

Obviously, we concluded that we can be more faithful with our gifts here than in Africa. This isn’t to say that we wouldn’t have used our gifts in Africa, it just means there is a greater use here, and decided to pass good in favor of great. So, what gifts are we looking to make the most of?

• Anita’s Music: While Anita would be able to use her gift of hospitality no matter where we ended up, in South Africa, her gifts in music wouldn’t be fully utilized. God has blessed her with an amazing ability to speak to people through music. True she’s an amazing performer, but during worship, she disappears and the one people remember afterwards is Jesus.
• Joe’s Preaching: While I’m often uncomfortable with this gift because I feel like there’s too much of me and not enough Jesus, after years of trying to minimize my gift in preaching, I’ve finally decided that I need to be in a ministry setting that allows me to preach week in and week out so I can not only proclaim God’s grace, but also lead his people in mission (which includes the faithful use of their gifts) through preaching.
• Joe’s “Apostolic” Nature

Now, let me address that last one a bit more, after all, if anything in this process was the single deciding factor, this was it, so I can’t really leave it out of this discussion, however, I use the word apostolic with great trepidation because I know many Lutherans will have issues with the word choice because it’s not part of our standard vocabulary. However, since I don’t know another term to use for what I’m trying to describe, and it’s a term that others have used to describe it, I’ll go with it.

Let me try and explain a bit more, first, by pointing to what I’m not saying, namely, that I’m an apostle. In Galatians 1 and 2, the Apostle Paul argues his apostleship on the basis that he, like the other 12, was taught personally by Christ (Judas was replaced according to this same criteria). I haven’t been taught directly by Christ, so I’m going to make no claim to being an apostle.

However, in 1 Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4, Paul list off a series of gifts that Christ has given to grow his Church, and in 1 Corinthians, he layers them in a clear order, beginning with the apostle. Now, we know from the broader context Paul isn’t saying that one gift is more important than another, but I believe he is saying that, for the Church to move into new territory, there’s a process that begins with those who have an “apostolic ability” to read a culture, figure out how to proclaim the gospel in a new context, and pave the way for the work that will follow.

As I’ve engaged in various ministry contexts over the past 12.5 years, the one consistent piece is people looking to me to try and make sense of the world we find ourselves in and how to be the Church in it … and, more specifically and increasingly, how to do it in a way that’s faithful to the Lutheran tradition. Looking back, it wasn’t something, at least initially, that I intentionally sought out, but something I fell into. It’s a journey that’s resulted in me spending countless hours trying to figure out the what and why of increasingly secular America, but also how the Church can faithfully be the Church in this new world … hours that will only continue as I begin my doctoral work next week.

After 12.5 years of both student and adult ministry, time in suburban and urban environments, and a variety of settings that range from the traditional congregation to “organic church”, Anita and I found peace in the decision that God has gifted us for, and placed us on a journey here that we haven’t finished yet, and until we do, we’re not ready to move onto something new … like Africa.

Now, no matter what, I’m going to keep the Posterous site and have everything posted there, however, I’m not sure if I should drop this site (which runs on WordPress) and just use Posterous (which would become joeburnham.com).

I’d like to get your thoughts via the poll on the right. Should I:

• Keep this site as is, meaning this is the place you go for weekly articles, and the only thing that shows up in the RSS or email feed from joeburnham.com are the articles from this site.
• Put everything in Posterous because, well, if it’s something I recommend, find funny, or think it worth a gander (and there’s quite a bit of that stuff), then it’s worth getting in your RSS feed or inbox.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

Obviously doing this involves a whole lot more than just picking up my Bible and reading it. Rather, I need to dig into history, the study of ancient culture, and, depending on the text, either Greek or Hebrew. One of the tools that helps me in this process is Logos Bible Software, and they’re just about to release the 4.0 version for Mac. I’ve been running the beta for about 8 months now and I love it. Check ‘em out and sign up to win a bunch of free stuff as they celebrate the launch of Logos 4 for Mac.

Logos Bible Software is giving away thousands of dollars of prizesto celebrate the launch of Logos Bible Software 4 Mac on October 1. Prizes include an iMac, a MacBook Pro, an iPad, an iPod Touch, and more than 100 other prizes!

They’re also having a special limited-time sale on their Mac and PC base packages and upgrades. Check it out!

• Pineapples
• Vuvuzelas
• Laundry
• Trash Cans

When we first landed in Nairobi, I didn’t see it, but only because it was dark. However, the next morning, when we began our journey into the city to see some of the sites, I couldn’t help but notice the trash that was everywhere. At first, I thought maybe it was a just a consequence of having been in one of Nairobi’s poorer estates, but as we moved in towards the city, the trash didn’t go away.

A few hours later, as we were wrapping up our day of tourism, our driver, who’d picked up a coke, chucked his empty bottle into the bushes as we walked towards the attraction’s visitor’s center. My natural impulse was to pick it up and put it in a trash can, but, wanting to avoid offense, I decided to be discreet and seek out a trash can first. I quickly realized that there wasn’t one, so the bottle remained on the ground. But a short time later, I found myself looking for a trash can again while holding a small scrap of paper. More determined than before, I held onto the scrap and went looking for something that would allow me to throw it away without littering. A trash can, a dumpster, a fire pit … anything! Problem is, there was nothing.

The following day we left Nairobi and made our way to Accra, Ghana, where we were set to meet my friend Kwaku who would take us to Lome, Togo. In Accra, like Nairobi, trash was everywhere, a reality the driver of our cab contributed to on multiple occasions while taking us 60 miles to the boarder. As you can guess by now, Togo too was trashed (as are many parts of South Africa).

About three weeks into our trip we left Togo for a weekend in Ethiopia. Once again, we arrived in the evening so we didn’t get to see much, however, the next day, as we set out from our hosts’ home to explore Addis Ababa, we found ourselves amazed at the cleanliness of the city … and yes, trash cans were available in abundance. But there was something else that stood out in Ethiopia, the pride of its people. Where as my friend Kwaku had talked about African’s generally being people without hope who felt they lacked the ability to face challenges, Ethiopians, even though they live in one of Africa’s poorest countries, are confident in themselves and are determined to better their future. In an odd way, for Anita and I, trash cans became a symbol of Ethiopian pride.

As we talked with numerous Ethiopians that weekend, and then again as we spent time with our Ethiopian students at the Seminary in South Africa, I noticed two common points of pride. First, Ethiopians like to talk about their long-standing Christian tradition which links back to biblical events like the Queen of Sheba visiting Solomon (1 Kings 10) and the Ethiopian eunuch whom Philip baptized on the side of the road (Acts 8), and second, Ethiopia is one of two African countries that were not colonized, the other being Liberia, which was largely founded on former American slaves who returned to Africa.

At first, it was the second of these points that stood out, after all, it makes sense that there would be no hope after years of colonial occupation followed the Europeans moving out and leaving massive power vacuums to be filled by warring tribal leaders. It made even more sense as I came to understand how Western charity has worked to create a culture of dependence that has stripped Africans of their dignity. No wonder so many Africans feel hopeless, and no wonder that, because of it’s different historical path, Ethiopia is somewhat immune.

The more I thought about this the more I wondered how the Church, as people who have had their lives reoriented by the gospel (see the “laundry post“), could approach charity differently so that our works of service, rather than robbing Africans of their dignity and leaving them waiting for the next check or group of workers to arrive, would empower and enable Africans to address the challenges they face. The obvious example, and the first one I thought of, was what I found myself doing in South Africa as I focused, not on doing the actual ministry, but raising up Africans to be pastors in their communities. This then stemmed into thoughts on all kinds of mentoring and training, be it in construction, healthcare, digging wells, governance, or whatever else. But for the most part, this isn’t anything specific to the Church, and it’s becoming a widely adopted approach and a way to provide Africans with the “trash cans” that they need.

But what about something distinctly Christian? It wasn’t until last week when I saw this article by Matthew Parris, a self-proclaimed atheist, that I fully linked Ethiopia’s Christian history to how it understands itself today. As Parris points out, the gospel changes the way people understand themselves, and it’s a change he can see in their faces as he travels Africa. In a previous post, I described this change as happening in multiple tenses … the gospel frees you from your past, offers confidence as you face challenges today, and gives hope for the future. Freedom, confidence, and hope … “trash cans” for Africans and all the broken in our world.

To say the least, I’m in a funk right now

So, about a month ago, I was reading through my RSS feeds and I ran across a post from Donald Miller, talking about an opportunity to win a trip for two to his Living a Better Story seminar (this post is our entry in the contest). Here’s an overview:

Living a Better Story Seminar from All Things Converge on Vimeo.

Given my current funk I thought just trying to submit something would be helpful in a variety of ways:

• it would give me something to work on that had a clear due date
• given that our life stories are intertwined, I thought Anita and I could work on this together, which would double as some quality time and create some healthy conversations
• most importantly, because of the nature of the seminar, it could really help in getting my life on track by helping me find some clear direction

As Don explains in the video, the seminar is an extension of a book he wrote called, “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years“. As I read up on the book, I discovered that it is Don’s story of how he broke through a funk and found himself in a place where he was living a great story. Given where I am, it seemed like a good place to start, so I ordered the book and read through it in about three days. Then I ordered the audio version (which includes some stories not in the book) so Anita and I could listen to it while on a road trip. Then Anita read the book and we talked about how it impacted each of us. In my case, I realized that there’s more to my funk than being back from Africa and not having a job. Here’s a few thoughts:

• My life has really just been a series of memorable scenes. We just spent five months in Africa, I’ve been a keynote or sectional presenter at a slew of conferences and special events, and I’ve done a ton of traveling because people wanted my opinion and advice. I’ve done all kinds of cool stuff that’s resulted in those big moments where everybody stands in awe and then later on your name gets mentioned because, well, you’ve got memorable scenes. The problem is, the real story is what happens between those moments … and that’s where my life’s been lacking. It’s like my life has all the dots, but no lines connecting them to make a picture.
• I haven’t finished anything. A church plant in downtown Denver, the follow-up on The Elemental Life, the fshbwl, glocal family, and I’m sure there are a plethora of other projects that haven’t been finished, or done as well as they should have been. It’s hard to live a great story when nothing gets done.
• My narrative arc is weak. I think this is part of the reason behind the other two points. I don’t finish because I don’t have a focus, an end, a bigger picture that I’m working towards. Instead, I get caught up in the thrill of starting something and the glory of those memorable scenes. I find myself living out of those experiences rather than working towards and completing something. I have great ideas, a multitude of skills, and an amazing network of connections, but I have never pulled them all together to tell a really great story. I need a narrative arc so I stop wandering aimlessly from project to project and memorable scene to memorable scene.

Now, I should pause and emphasize the word “weak”, as in, “my narrative arc is weak”, because there is something there, it just needs to be shaped, refined, and sharpened. And since reading the book, Anita and I have been trying to work with what we do have and move forward with purpose. For example, we recently made the really difficult decision not to move to Africa full-time because we believe our narrative arc involves helping individual Christians and congregations to be, well, what I describe here. Moreover, that’s something we’ve already started at many levels, and rather than say I quit something else, I’d like to think the project has just been delayed.

What struck me as interesting, is that Anita’s response to the book, while very different from mine, blends right in with this narrative arc, but where my focus has been on the pastoral side, for Anita, it’s about how we live it as a family, and truth be told, if we can’t live it, we can’t lead others in doing it. For example:

• Getting fit. While listening to Don talk about the fitness journey that lead to his hiking the Inca Trail and riding his bike across America, Anita was inspired to start working out again and has recommitted herself to running a marathon before she turns 40. Moreover, knowing that I have back issues, she recently grabbed a pilates video aimed at developing core strength and declared that we should work on it together. This ties directly into our Christian calling of caring for our bodies (and what we do with our bodies and how we care for them is a place where Christians can and should stand out in the world).
• Revamping glocalfamily.com. While Anita’s decided that she’s not enough of a talker to do a podcast, she has a plethora of ideas on parenting, relationships, creation care, health, and other topics, so she’s plotting out how to revamp the site and use it as a means to not only share our story, but invite others to join us in life that serves the greater good. Again, it’s us living it and then placing our lives out there as a way to serve others.
• Stop playing it safe. Anita is a fantastic singer, and when I tell people that, most of the time they think I’m biased and bragging, and while I might be, when they hear her, they realize that my accolades will never do her voice justice. Seriously, we’re talking a professional musician, a “she should be recorded” type of singer. However, outside of churches and a few weddings, nobody’s ever heard her. She loves music, she wants to make use of her amazing gift, but she’s been fearful of stepping out. Her corners of the world are safe, but making full use of her talents means taking risk. Again, how many Christians spend their lives playing it safe, and in the process, deny the world the gifts God has given them to bless others?

At this point, I think you get the basic idea, and while I see the big picture and Anita looks at the details, when you put us together there’s one story there, one narrative arc, just waiting to be discovered and lived. We have a ton of potential and make a great team, the problem is, we often lack a unified and clear  story that’s going somewhere and brings all of the pieces of our lives together. It would be great if the Living a Better Story Seminar would help us unearth our narrative so we could move along the arc together.

We’d love to hear your thoughts about the story we’re trying to figure out, the story you’re living in, or whatever else you thought about while reading this post.

• Pineapples
• Vuvuzelas
• Laundry
• Trash Cans

“Joe, can you do some of the laundry, I really need to lie down for a while?”

“Sure. Are you feeling okay?”

“No, I’ve got a migraine coming on.”

“No problem.”

Anita’s request struck me as very reasonable, and the idea of me doing laundry isn’t anything new, after all, when I used to come home from college with bags full of dirty clothes, my mom was always quick to say, “Great, I’ll make sure I get all our laundry downstairs so you can do ours while doing yours.” So, at Anita’s request I went outside and began pulling out the laundry buckets and filling each with water, just as I’d observed my friend Kwaku’s domestic help do when she did laundry a few days earlier. In a way I was looking forward to the new experience of doing laundry by hand, if nothing else, for the novelty of it. But everything changed when Consua appeared in the backyard.

Consua is a twenty-something girl from a local village that Kwaku had hired to manage the house. I’m not sure what prompted her to see what I was up to, but the site of me preparing to do laundry prompted a flurry of words in her native Ewe combined with series of hand gesture that I couldn’t misinterpret. While she’d regularly laughed at me when I stepped into the kitchen to see how they were preparing dinner, the thought of me, a man, actually doing laundry was completely unacceptable. She was chasing me away. While I felt bad that she was taking over and doing the work Anita asked me to complete, I felt even worse when she drug Anita out of bed to help her with the task.

As I look back on it, both of us experienced a bit of culture shock in those moments, her at the idea of me doing laundry, and me at the concept of a man doing laundry as unacceptable. This is just one of many instances where cultures collided while we were in Africa. Be it eating fish bones in Togo, walking a goat home and slaughtering it on the back porch in Nairobi, or having Ethiopian adults seeing nothing wrong with grabbing Robbie as we walked by (I’m thinking a small white person was a new experience for some of them). Over and over again during our five month adventure we discovered, delighted in, and found ourselves puzzled by new cultural experiences.

All of these events came to mind one day as I read a bit of David Bosch’s, Transforming Mission. In it, while discussing the Early Church, he quoted a bit from an apologetic work from around 200:

Christians are not distinguished from the rest of humankind either in locality or in speech or in customs. For they dwell not somewhere in cities of their own, neither do they use some different language, nor practice an extraordinary kind of life … While they dwell in cities of Greeks and barbarians … and follow the native custom in dress and food and the other arrangements of life, yet the constitution of their own citizenship, which they set forth, is marvelous, and confessedly contradicts expectation. They dwell in their own countries, but only as sojourners … Every foreign country is a fatherland to them, and every fatherland is foreign … They find themselves in the flesh and yet they live not after the flesh. Their existence is on earth, but their citizenship is in heaven. They obey the established laws, and they surpass the laws in their own lives … War is waged against them as aliens by the Jews, and persecution is carried on against them by the Greeks, yet those who hate them cannot tell the reason for their hostility. In a word, what the soul is in a body, this the Christians are in the world … (they) are kept in the world as in a prison-house, and yet they themselves hold the world together. – Letter to Diognetus (emphasis mine)

Now, without a doubt, there’s a certain level of romanticism to this, but what it describes isn’t all that different than the life that Peter calls congregations in Asia Minor to live out:

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. (1 Peter 2:9-12)

As Peter goes on, he describes how the gospel reorients our everyday vocations, addressing topics like how we live in relationship to our spouse, our employer or employees, and the government. Then, as chapter 3 comes to a close, he declares that the people of God will be challenged by the world around them because the world around them won’t be able to comprehend why they live the way they do. In other words, the world isn’t annoyed by the blowing of vuvuzelas, rather, the world finds itself experiencing culture shock, and sometimes, the only way to deal with the confusion is to lash out in hate.

In the end, I’m convinced that our Christian faith should prompt the world to look at us with the same curiosity as these Ethiopian children who gathered around Robbie trying to figure out this strangely colored child:

• Pineapples
• Vuvuzelas
• Laundry
• Trash Cans

I have to admit it, I was somewhat surprised to see how much attention the World Cup was getting when I made it back to the States. While it wasn’t quite at the same levels as what I witnessed in South Africa, and really, how could it be, the amount of merchandising and media coverage surrounding the event surprised me. But what takes the cake, at least in my mind, is the amount of television coverage the games have been getting, something I never thought I’d see because soccer does the most unAmerican of things … it doesn’t allow for frequent commercial timeouts.

However given all the coverage, one thing that doesn’t surprise me is the general response to the vuvuzelas, also known as the freakishly annoying horns that buzz incessantly during every match. You see, for most of the last month that we were in Pretoria, the vuvuzelas were just as much a part of the World Cup build up as they are the event itself. For the first few nights, I felt like I needed to hide as I slept to avoid being stung to death by impending attack from the killer bees, but as the month wore on, and now for the games themselves, it’s become more of a background annoyance, sort of like a dull headache that just won’t go away.

Now, matter how you view the constant buzzing, it’s interesting to note how the lips behind the horns view themselves. For those armed with vuvuzelas and blowing as if their life depended on it, the horn isn’t an annoyance, rather, it’s their way of participating in the game … it’s part of what it means to be a fan. This strikes me as interesting, because the exact same action is perceived two entirely different ways, depending on who you are, and in one case, it’s an important part of your identity as a fan, while on the other side, it’s foundation to people’s rejection of you.

As I see it, this parallels an incident that happened about a year ago on the streets of downtown Denver. A fully legal Christian unity even called the Marcha de Gloria took place in a section of downtown where parades, fairs, and other such events typically happen. While I learned the details of what happened at the event the next day on denverpost.com, I’d gone looking to find out what was happening because of the posts that showed up in my Twitter stream during the event itself, posts that complained about Christians shutting down the streets and creating traffic problems. So, while the Christians marched, sang, and other otherwise celebrated their faith (you know, blew their vuvuzelas), what the world around them heard was a long, annoying, buzzing drone that said, “We don’t respect your time.”

In some of the discussions that followed, my family and friends had reactions that fell into one of two basic camps. One one side you had those who defended the Christian’s constitutional right to gather, march, and do all of the things they did. It’s their right, as Americans, to blow their vuvuzelas, after all, just a few weeks earlier, one of the largest gay Pridefest gatherings in the nation took place on the same grounds, blocked off the same streets, and blew their vuvuzelas just as loud (actually, during the four years I lived five blocks from where these events happen, I can say that Pridefest tends to be the event where they’re blown the loudest), so it’s only fair that a Christian gathering receive the same time and consideration.

Then there was the other side, which also happens to be were I reside. Now, I don’t disagree that in the United States, Christians have just as much of a constitutional right to gather, march, sing or blow their vuvuzelas, however, I don’t see that as being the main issue at hand, because I don’t believe Christians should ever base on argument for their actions, be it the Marcha de Gloria or anything else, on their constitutional rights. I hold this position for two reasons, one theological and the second contextual.

First, my theological argument. The simple point is that, for Christians, our lives are no longer about our rights, rather, the Apostle Paul describes us as slaves to Christ, or, as Luther said in the second half of his summary of the Christian life, “A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all” (On the Freedom of a Christian). So, rather than asking if it’s our right to do something, Christians should be asking, “Does this love and serve my neighbor, or will I just be annoying people with the buzz of my vuvuzela?”

Second, at least in the United States, Christians are not historically some fringe group that’s been marginalized, rather, Christianity has always held a significant role in American public life, a role that’s even greater if you argue America to be a Christian nation (read my thoughts on this here). Certainly Christianity is loosing the foothold that it once held, but this is a largely conscious decision by the broader culture. In other words, people are saying, “Christianity had it’s time, we don’t like what we’re seeing, so let’s try something else.” As a result, when Christians press for their rights, they come across like the once popular girl in high school who took her social status for granted, lost her popularity, and is now begging for attention and insisting that she be made Prom Queen … to jump analogies, what’s heard is the annoying sound of never-ending vuvuzelas.

Now, some might read this and hear me saying, “We should just conform to the culture around us not allow our beliefs to cause offense.” But that isn’t my argument at all, but I’ll expand upon that next week when reflecting on laundry.

• Pineapples
• Vuvuzelas
• Laundry
• Trash Cans

As I sit here this morning writing, my mind is drawn back five months. I was sitting at the dining table in my friend Kwaku’s home in Lome, Togo. Earlier in the day Anita and I had told him all the wonderful things we’d heard about fruit in Africa, and how we were anxious to taste some of the local treats, so he’d gone out and purchased a pineapple, an acquisition he was now showing us.

Quite honestly, I wasn’t all that impressed. The fruit was sort of a short scraggly tube with a few browning leaves poking out of one end, and, for a moment, I wondered if this was one of the farmer’s rejects, the runt of the pineapple litter. After all, in my experience, pineapple were supposed to be much larger at the base and narrow slightly towards the top before a beautiful array of leaves crowned the fruit. However, not wanting to be rude to my host, I tried to show great joy on the surface, perhaps overly so, because I was trying to disguise the disappointment underneath.

When it came time for the meal itself, the pineapple was the final item placed on the table. Once again, I found myself less than impressed. Rather than having that beautiful yellow color that I was accustom to, this pineapple was white. If I wasn’t so curious, my disappointment might have prevented me from trying any, but the wonder lingered as, earlier in the day, Kwaku had talked about this being pineapple that was grown in the wild … no hybrid seeds, no carefully managed farms, no chemicals, just pineapple as God intended it.

So what does “pineapple as God intended it” taste like? It’s magnificent. It’s the most amazing pineapple I’ve ever tasted. The pineapple taste is more pure and the fruit is so incredibly sweet. Even the core of the pineapple, the piece that Dole cuts out when they sell it to you in cans, is edible. No, it’s not just edible, it’s the best part of the pineapple, and when you bite into it, your mouth is filled with the most incredible sweetness, unlike anything I’ve experienced in the States.

While other pineapples win a beauty contest, all-natural African pineapples reign supreme where it matters most … taste.

This pineapple reality parallels something I’ve notice in Christianity, a religion with a plethora of denominations that have some broad similarities, typically that they use the Bible and talk about Jesus, but also with a wide range of differences, including how they use and interpret the Bible and how they understand the person and work of Jesus.

Some of these variants of Christianity, like the pineapple I’d find in the grocery store down the street, is rather appealing to the eye. Be it Jesus as a sure route to health, wealth, and happiness; the Bible as the world’s largest depository of self-help tips; Jesus as the champion of whatever cause I’m associated with; or just an affirmation that I’m better than (insert one or more of the following: the gays, the pro-choicers, the Democrats, etc. … or if you’re part of the liberal or emerging factions: James Dobson, Pat Robertson, the Republicans, the environmentally unconscious, etc.). I mean, in the end, no matter who I am, there’s a brand of Christianity out there that’s attractive to you.

Then there’s this other story, the all-natural African pineapple version of Christianity, the one that doesn’t look good to anybody. It’s ugly because it starts with humanity being fallen, not in the sense that we’re incapable of civility, compassion, and concern directed towards our neighbors, but in the sense that we have no ability to reach a God who is the very essence of good on our own, and therefore an inability to grasp what is truly good … a reality that chides our independent, self-sufficient nature. It’s a Christianity that would call us to say, “I’m a sinner.” as we speak our core-being, a statement that’s far more offensive than saying, “I’ve committed sins.” when talking about our individual actions.

But the ugly doesn’t stop there, rather, it only increases. This faith doesn’t promise us riches or comfort, rather it tells us that life will be about death to self and sacrifice for others. To make it uglier still, there’s no room for self-help in this faith, because it boldly declares that we can’t help ourselves, rather, we’re dependent upon Christ coming to us and save us from ourselves. As if that wasn’t enough, it’s even uglier to our eyes because it’s a Christianity that gives us no reason to be proud or to disparage others, because even our faith that clings to Christ’s promises is a gift from God … we’ve done nothing, so we have no room to boast.

Oddly enough, it’s for the same reasons that it’s ugly, that I find this version of Christianity to be so very sweet. Because it’s all about Jesus, his faithfulness to me, and the trustworthy nature of his promises, there’s never any doubt. There’s no question on my part about being good enough. There’s no wondering when life gets difficult if God has somehow abandoned me. I never have to wonder why we can’t seem to get it right. Moreover, there’s an incredible freedom that comes with it, freedom to live and act and serve and love knowing even when I fail, Christ is there.

That’s the Christianity I cling to, and it’s the Christianity I teach … it certainly looks ugly on the outside, but once you bite into it, there’s nothing sweeter.

I remember as we drove along the N1 freeway we came to a sign informing us that Cape Town was 175km away. Given that the slow traffic runs along the N1 at about 140km an hour (85mph), I decided I should call our hosts in Cape Town and let them know we’d be there before too long. Moments after I hung up the dullness of the Karoo was broken by a family of baboons that were playing near the top of a hill we were about to crest. I glanced at them and when I looked up again, before me, was huge valley surrounded on all sides by rugged mountains. The valley floor, it was filled with a multi-colored patchwork of vineyards.

While both Anita and I found ourselves in awe at the site before us, we soon realized that was just the beginning, as an hour later, we arrived on the outer edges of Cape Town and Table Mountain began to appear in the distance. As we pulled closer, we found ourselves increasingly amazed by the collision of perfect beaches with the rugged mountains that wrapped around a thriving city. I turned to Anita and said, “I’ve died and gone to Cape Town.” A couple hours later, she looked at me and added, “I don’t care where we live between now and then, but when we retire, we’re coming here.” We spent the next few days exploring the city, the mountains, and the surrounding coast, continually finding ourselves amazed at the beauty of God’s creation.

Did you catch that last line? We were amazed at the beauty of God’s creation. It’s a statement that implies that Somebody had a hand in the beauty before us. If you’re a Christian, odds are, you’ve had a similar experience at some point in time. Be it watching the sunset while sitting on a beach, looking at the vastness of the stars on a mountain top, or finding yourself overwhelmed by the way a body can heal itself. Whatever it is, chances are good, as a Christian, you’ve had one of those moments, seen God’s handwork, and found yourself struggling to believe that some people deny the existence of the Creator.

Along these lines, not too long ago, there was a video being passed around the internet and people, especially those of an atheist or agnostic bent, were asked to watch with an open mind because, as the clip below suggests, it proves that God is the one holding our lives together, I could say more, but I’ll just let you watch it:

Now, I’m not going to deny the emotional appeal or the impact that a presentation like this can have on a Christian, but to suggest that because the molecule that holds your body together is cross shaped somehow proves that Jesus is who the New Testament claims he is, doesn’t hold water. In fact, it really doesn’t mean anything unless you’re susceptible to any emotional appeal or you already believe that Jesus is who he says he is … and if Jesus is in fact who he says he is, the molecules that hold your body together could just as well be pentegram shaped and it wouldn’t make a difference because they’re just molecules that hold your body together. The same holds for the beauty of Cape Town, a sunset, the Milky Way on a dark clear night, or the way our bodies do what our bodies do. The reason these things impact you the way that they do, is because Jesus has impacted you the way he’s impacted you, and for that atheist or agnostic friend, well, Jesus hasn’t changed the way they see the world yet, so why would they see God’s hand in everything around them?

The idea for this article came together the week before we left South Africa. I took Robbie to the park one morning and, given that it’s Fall in the southern hemisphere, there were huge piles of leaves that had been pulled together by the gardeners. Wherever we go, he has this obsession with picking up leaves so, he was in absolute heaven. At one point he insisted that I pick up my own leaf and, when I didn’t decide on one quickly enough, he handed me the one below. Now, for most people, I’d expect them to see a leaf, but I saw, well, I’m sure you get the point:

Now, just because my leaf looked like a cross, or at least it did in my mind, I don’t expect anyone else to see it, let alone believe it. But you know what I can do? As I live out my everyday life and see the world the way I do, I can share the way that Jesus, that his cross and empty tomb, that his gift of forgiveness of all that I’ve done wrong, that his love that comes in spite of my unworthiness, that his promise of resurrection life, so radically impacts my everyday, that when I see a leaf, or Cape Town, or a sunset, or a star, or a molecule, I can’t help but sit in awe of him. Moreover, as I share about my experience, I can point others not to a leaf or molecule or any other magical proof, but to the Word of God, which declares that this sight-altering gospel isn’t just for me, but it’s for all people.

I don’t expect others to see things the way I see them, but I can invite them to hear the promise of the one who makes me see things the way I do. Jesus is why I see what I see. How about you?

Think of all the “American” things that I’ve missed over the past five months. Pat Robertson’s response to the Haiti earthquake, the consumer event of the year with the release of the iPad, the conclusion of the healthcare debate, the final seasons of both LOST & 24, Glenn Beck telling people to run away from churches that talk about social justice, and the Arizona illegal immigrant law. For each of these things, the bulk of my contact with them is what I picked up off of my Facebook wall and a bit here and there during my 30-minutes a day with the BBC global news. While some of my blog content reveals a certain level of wrestling with these things from afar, being back in the States pushes the question of how to live as a Christian who also happens to be an American to the forefront of my everyday living.

Now, before I say more, let me offer a few thoughts so you know where I’m coming from. First, I’m an Eagle Scout. Now, that might not seem relevant to some people, but for those of you who know Scouting, you realize that there’s a huge emphasis on patriotism within the Boy Scouts of America, or at least there was when I was growing up. The formative impact of my Scouting experience still effects me today. For example, I get irritated whenever I see someone flying the American flag the wrong way (the stars belong on the top left), I can’t sing the Star Spangled Banner without choking up (or maybe, since I can’t sing, I should say I can’t attempt to do something that resembles singing the Star Spangled Banner without getting choked up), and I fully recognize the immense blessings and benefits that I’ve received simply because I was born where I was born (America’s impoverished have far more opportunity than the bulk of the world’s population). So, without a doubt, there is a deep seeded love and pride that I have in my country.

At the same time, I don’t buy into the theory that the United States was founded as a Christian nation. Yes, some of our Founding Fathers were Christians. John Adams is well-known as being a Calvanist. However, Thomas Jefferson is just as well-known (at least outside of Christian circles) for harassing Adams about his TULIP faith. Jefferson was a product of the Enlightenment who denied human depravity and the miraculous, to the point that in the version of the Gospels that he put together, he chopped out the virgin birth, Jesus’ miracles, and even the resurrection. Yes he held to a Judeo-Christian ethic, after all, he loved the moral teachings of Jesus, but holding a certain moral code doesn’t make one a Christian. In the end, I can’t help but agree that philosopher John Locke has more influence than Jesus in the founding of the United States.

Moreover, I don’t have any issue with that. After all, Jesus made it abundantly clear that his kingdom is not of this world, and Peter refers to Christians as sojourners and exiles on this side of eternity. Beyond that, while Paul repeatedly presents the Church as a place of proclaiming grace, he also affirms God’s hand in civil government which wields the law. In other words, with the founding of the Church, geography no longer plays a role in the people of God, therefore, even if we wanted to form for ourselves a Christian nation, good theology doesn’t allow for it.

Obviously, this stance alone creates a certain tension with the dominant form of Christian thought in the States today, one that I struggle with not only in my interactions with other Christians, but my engagement with those outside the church who, at least initially, want to lump me in with the masses. However, there’s more to it than that.

You see, while I said that I don’t have issue with the United States not being a Christian nation, I meant it more theologically than practically. Practically, there’s a tremendous amount of tension created by the reality that I live, hold citizenship in, and take pride in a country that is founded on the philosophical principles of the Enlightenment, principles that, when we take time to flesh them out undermine the Christian faith (click here for more on this). As a result, I have no choice but to wrestle with how I live out my vocation of earthly national citizenship while remaining faithful to my Christian faith. Let me offer two examples of this philosophical difference and how it plays out in actuality.

Individualism:
The Enlightenment is the age of the autonomous individual and it makes broad assumptions about the goodness of people, our rational abilities, and the importance of our own desires. While originally, much of this theory was a means to attack oppression and its abuse was to be refrained by the theory that pursuing your own purposes is valid as long as you don’t infringe on someone else in his or her pursuit, this theory has resulted in the American obsession with happiness.

Whether it’s the parent telling the child, “I just want you to be happy.” or the Christian trying to justify themselves with the question, “Doesn’t God want me to be happy?” Americans are fixated on themselves. It’s this fixation that leads to our culture of consumerism and the thrill that comes with the purchase, as well as the materialism that insists you’d be happy if you just had more.

Contrast this with the Bible which places far more importance on community than it does the individual, a group’s holiness over their happiness, and finding our collective joy in the salvation Christ won for us upon the cross.

As a result, while the society I belong to pushes me to pursue what I want, my faith calls me to deny myself, take up my cross, and follow Jesus in serving the greater good.

Liberalism:
Now, when I say anything with the word liberal in it, most people in the US automatically think of the Democratic Party. But that’s not the liberalism I’m talking about. Rather, philosophical liberalism is about liberty and equality, or, in John Locke’s words, the fundamental right to life, liberty, and property. As Jefferson wrote, this is because, according to liberalism, all of us are created equal. I for one, disagree with this presupposition.

Now, this isn’t to say I’m a fan of tyranny on inequality, rather, I believe that human beings don’t have a fundamental right to anything, rather, all that we have is a gift from God. As Luther’s explanation to the First Article of the Apostles’ Creed concludes, “All this [a list which includes things like life, liberty, and property] He does only out of fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in me.”

In the US today, this idea of rights is central to so much of what we do. Part of the issue behind the housing crisis was seeing home ownership as a right and trying to get people who couldn’t afford a home into one. The Democrats argued it was the right of people to have healthcare while Republicans argued it was the right of the wealthy to spend their money as they choose rather than have it taxed so the poor could be cared for. Some demand their reproductive rights, which, oddly enough, typically means they don’t want to reproduce. I’ve even heard people argue that it’s their right to drive the biggest, most luxurious, and most environmentally unfriendly vehicles they can afford. The list goes on and on. To be fair, while I strongly doubt our Founding Fathers would ever approve of where we’ve taken their ideology, when combined with a more realistic view of human nature, is the natural consequence of the ideas themselves.

So, while the world around me wants to debate which rights we’re going to uphold, I find the premise of the entire conversation faulty.

So, where does this leave me on my return to the States? Here are some of my practices as I engage in this struggle:

• I tie a string around my finger. Ok, so I don’t literally do that, but in theory, it’s a good way to remember something important. In this case, I think it’s important that we, as American Christians, don’t forget that none of us are “self made men” who have earned what we have. Every blessing, every opportunity, every break, and every breath hasn’t been of our own doing, but it’s been a gift from God. As we remember how we’ve been blessed, we’re reminded to be a blessing to others.
• Over the past 5 months, we’ve been around a TV for 21 days. You know what, I haven’t missed it (well, to be honest, I did miss 24). We’ve also been living off the generosity of others and therefore, have worked hard not to spend money on frivolities like going out to eat. You know what, I haven’t missed it. Moreover, I’ve come to believe that when we live minimally the everyday patterns of our life break us, as Christians, away from the society around us that aims for opulence.
• While I’m a firm believer in human depravity, I don’t think most of us are out to step on others while engaging in our own pursuits, rather, I think it just happens. Therefore, it’s important that we take time to listen. Have you ever stopped to think how others perceive your actions? Have you ever made a point of finding out the broader impact of your choices? Make a point of hearing beyond your typical sphere.
• Make time for individual confession and absolution. There’s no better way to beat down your enlightened self than to honestly look in the mirror and tell somebody else what you see … and then hear of God’s grace in Christ.

What else? How do you seek to remain Christian while living in America?

Almost 10 years ago I was leading a morning devotion at a Christian men’s retreat. While I’d only been engaged for a few months, having read a couple books on marriage, I was thoroughly convinced that knew how to have the ideal marriage, and I took it upon myself that morning to pass on my great insight and wisdom to the men who’d been either kind or foolish enough to get up and hear the 25-year old know it all punk kid who was out to enlighten them.

If I recall, my basic line of logic flowed out of Ephesians 5 and Paul’s exhortation to men that they should love their wives as Christ loved the Church. Having heard many men express frustration with their wives over the weekend, I took it upon myself to point out that, if they would just love their wives as Christ called them to, then the frustrations would end because the natural response of their wives to that love would be, well, the solution to all their frustrations … or something like that.

What was behind my argument was the belief that marriage was really about a popular understanding of romance. It was about the sentiment of a Meg Ryan movie, the passion of a book featuring Fabio on the cover, the words of a Hallmark card naturally flowing off the lips, and the sex of, well, a movie that you can’t find at Blockbuster. Of course, I’d Christianized the whole thing by putting it in the context of marriage, but I basically ran with pop-cultures understanding of what true love was all about … and the way to achieve true love was for me to sacrificially love Anita so she’d respond accordingly.

While I don’t remember exactly what I said that morning, I do remember the questioning looks, the raised eyebrows, the shaking heads, and the under the breath comments about my cluelessness. Sadly, I didn’t listen to what the men had to say, and instead, I held onto my romantic delusion that, if I would just sacrificially love Anita, she would love me as I desired in return, and we would have the ideal marriage.

Needless to say, the whole story is far too long and complex for any blog post, and while Anita would tell the story from a different perspective, given my starting point, let it suffice to say that I tried, as best as humanly possible, to love her sacrificially, but she didn’t respond in accordance with my expectations. At first I simply assumed that I wasn’t being sacrificial enough so I redoubled my efforts, but still she didn’t respond as I desired. As time went on, rather than questioning my romantic expectations, I grew bitter and distant. I thought I was being ripped off and that marriage had failed me. The two of us grew further and further apart. Thankfully, in time, God used some good friends to speak truth into our lives, open our eyes to the dysfunction we were living in, and bring about healing to us both individually and as a couple.

As I reflect back now on the thinking behind my actions, I shake my head in disbelief for a variety of reasons, the least of which is being generally oblivious when it came to my argument from Scripture, after all, when we think about the relationship of Christ and the Church, Christ loves sacrificially and the Church still runs back to sin … a reality that makes Christ’s love all the more amazing. But beyond that:

• My “sacrificial love” wasn’t sacrificial. The very nature of sacrifice involves the giving of yourself purely for the good of the other person. It’s a no strings kind of offering. This is far different from my attitude at the time, where I was giving with the mindset of getting … I was happy to give as long as Anita responded accordingly.
• My “sacrificial love” wasn’t loving. It’s very common in society today for people associate love with how another person makes them feel. The problem is, the realities of life will prevent the other person from always making you feel happy, so basing a relationship on how someone makes you feel, is setting them up for a tragic fall. Few things are less loving than placing such impossible expectations on your partner.
• My romantic ideals weren’t realistic. To put it simply, I’m a sinner and so is Anita. That basically means, in our own ways, each of us are selfish and self-serving. How could anyone truly expect two sinners to come together and have a fairy tale romance? Let’s just be honest and admit that there’s a reason they’re called fairy tales or, if you want to apply a theological term, a theology of glory.

Today, I have a different way of approaching married life. Oddly enough, my opening analogy hasn’t changed, but my expected response has. Everyday when I wake up, my goal in my vocation as a husband, is to sacrificially love Anita irregardless of her response and how she makes me feel.

This isn’t to say that life with Anita is miserable, to the contrary, I very much enjoy spending time with her. We compliment each other beautifully, we understand one another, we share common interests, we make an amazing ministry team, and, dare I say, we even have days that fit the popular understanding of romance. But rather than expecting those days to be the norm, I now view them as a gift, an unexpected blessing that invites me to live in the then and celebrate the grace of God.

But what about those days where I wake up, look at Anita, and think, “Ugh, it’s still you!” (a reaction I’m sure she has as well … and one I’d have more often than not if I was married to me). To be honest, the old romantic does rear his ugly head head at times like these. Be it because of something Anita said or did, or, more likely, something she didn’t say or do, that frustration, bitterness, or resentment will well up and invite me to become distant once again. But on those mornings, I seek to remember the destruction that acting on those feelings has caused in the past, confess my faulty views on romance, and sacrificially love Anita in spite of how I feel … and it’s then, when I’m loving even when I don’t feel like it or want to be, when the death of the romantic is the most loving thing I’ve ever done.

How about you? Have you had you to kill your inner romantic?

Upon my arrival in the parking lot, I was greeted by an armed guard who kindly informed me that parking in the parking lot wasn’t permitted without a certain kind of pass so, instead, I needed to head across the street and park at the city mall. While I was late and not in the mood to dart across six lanes of South African traffic, I decided that it was easier to dodge cars than bullets so I drove over to the mall.

A short time later, after finishing up at the consulate, I decided to check out the mall structure, because it was unlike anything I’d seen before. While there was a typical mall with a parking garage, there was a series of connected structures that, upon further exploration, revealed themselves to be residences … hundreds if not thousands of them, with everything carefully placed behind guards and fences armed with electricity and barbed wire.

On the way out I paid a bit more attention to my surroundings and noticed this wasn’t the only example of this kind of structure. Rather, there are a bunch of them, and subsequent drives in the Johannesburg area have revealed even more of these self-contained and highly fortified villages. In the end, it’s obvious to anybody who’s spent anytime in South Africa why these kinds of structures exist. They’re there to keep South Africa’s massive and infamous criminal element out.

As I’ve talked with people of the various ethnic groups that make up the rainbow nation, it’s become clear that, 25 years ago, these kinds of structures weren’t necessary because crime wasn’t the issue that it is today. Certainly the country had other issues, namely a minority Apartheid government that oppressed the majority black population (and anyone else who wasn’t white), but the dismantling of Apartheid and winning for blacks the right to vote, a victory largely attributed to the universally beloved Nelson Mandela, has yet to produce the desired effect … something even current President Jacob Zuma has been forced to admit.

Those who fought Apartheid had a dream, and while they won the victory, the dream hasn’t been fulfilled.

As I drove home pondering this my mind drifted back to the US and, of all things, the MTV Music Video Awards a number of years ago. The previous year 50 Cent had burst onto the rap scene and was being honored not only with awards, but with the opportunity to perform live during the awards. I remember the staging of the song that had him appearing on stage as he stepped out of a large pimp cup and rapped with scantily clad hip gyrating women all around him. The performance was, essentially a microcosm of America’s urban black culture and, as the song ended and the cameras shifted back over to host Chris Rock, he quipped with all the sarcasm he could muster, “You know, tonight’s the 40th Anniversary of Martin Luther King Junior’s, ‘I Have a Dream’ speech … ain’t it great to see that his dream has come true?”

Like those who fought against Apartheid, King fought for the civil rights of African Americans, and while he too in many ways he won the victory, as Chris Rock pointed out, his dream hasn’t been fulfilled.

These two examples got me thinking about the concept of leadership, after all, MLKJ and Mandela are considered two of the greatest leaders of the 20th Century, yet, if we look beyond what they desired to lead people out of and what they aimed to lead people into, neither saw the fulfillment of their dream. Now, as someone who is a leader, both in my profession and personality type, this is a rather depressing realization. If men like King and Mandela can’t bring about the fulfillment of the dreams they lead their people towards, how can I?

As my mind continued to wander on this topic, I found myself reflecting on Revelation 7 (something that’s happened more than once since I’ve been in Africa) and I couldn’t help but think that what’s described in the Apostle John’s heavenly vision, a vision includes “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” standing together in unity, is actually a fulfillment of what MLKJ and Mandela longed to bring about, but it happened on the other side of eternity and was brought about through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Suddenly the sense of inability that I felt when I considered the incompleteness of King and Mandela’s work faded as I reconsidered my place in the world of leadership. While the world around us calls leaders to have a dream and to bring that dream to fruition, for Christians who are leaders by vocation, there’s another road. Rather than having dreams, what if we simply pointed people towards the vision that God has revealed … a vision that he will bring to fruition in his time and through his chosen means? Here’s a few examples of how this might play out in various areas of life:

• If we talk about the issue of racism and discrimination, we can talk about texts like Revelation 7 and how Paul, throughout his epistles, calls the Church to live today as those who are one under the cross.
• Last week I talked about creation stewardship. While the dream would be saving the earth, the vision would be Christ making all things new, and us, as people who living in the now but not yet of his vision embracing today what he will bring about in eternity.
• Poverty and sickness are huge issues not only in the world today, but in the Bible as well. As scripture describes eternity, phrases like “they will hunger and thirst no more” are often at the forefront. Again, what would it look like not to dream of eradicating poverty or disease, but to talk about what God is going to when Christ returns, and then invite people to be a part of that vision today, knowing they won’t finish the job, but that Christ will. A similar offering could be made by healthcare providers, personal trainers, or nutritionists.

What other examples can you think of? What vision could you point people towards in your leadership vocation?

• How many SUV’s and other low mile per gallon vehicles are found in your church parking lot on any given Sunday morning? How many of those vehicles had multiple empty seats on the way to church and will remain empty on the way home? How many of them are non-essential for everyday life and work?
• What about energy usage? Churches are, because they typical have at least one big open space, are very expensive to heat and cool, but how many churches have implemented an energy saving plan? This ranges from shutting down computers, copy machines, and other technology at night, to setting up thermostats to only heat or cool certain parts of the building during the week, to encouraging people to shut off lights when they leave a room. Here’s 30 other easy ideas.
• The same for above could be said with water conservation and either dual flush or low flush toilets.
• How about a church that’s constructing a new addition? How many congregations out there have made efficiency a key factor in the design process?

While there are other examples out there, there’s a few to communicate my point. Why, once we step away from the political and trendy side of the issue, aren’t Christians more concerned with, and in some cases even opposed to, creation stewardship? Let me offer a few thoughts on why I see this issue as an important part of the Christian life. Creation stewardship is …

• … a calling from God to humanity. This one is perhaps the most obvious. In Genesis 1 there is talk of humanity being given the right to subdue and have dominion over the earth, which means that all of its resources are here for our good and benefit, however, in Genesis 2 we’re told to work and keep it, terms that indicate not just use, but care. Just as Anita and I give toys to Robbie so that he can enjoy them, we also emphasize that he takes care of his toys, so God calls us to use and enjoy the creation, but part of that use is its care.
• … a safety issue. In this increasingly complex world, the use of fossil fuels, particularly oil, has become a safety issue. Petropolitics will remain an issue as long as we have, as George W. Bush put it, an addiction to foreign oil. By removing Middle East oil from the equation, we take away the global power of those who control that oil, which all too often includes those who harbor and fund terrorists. In this sense, through creation stewardship, we’re looking out for our neighbor’s safety, and therefore honoring the 5th Commandment.
• … a health issue. Perhaps I’m more aware of this than some because I grew up in Denver in the 1970′s and 80′s when my city had some of the worst air quality in the nation. I remember days where the brown cloud rose a full inch above the horizon, and it wasn’t just a hazy translucent brown, it was a thick, dark, nasty brown color … and that was the air we were breathing.  Today, Denver has some of the cleanest big city air in the US, but it’s come because of changes in the fuel people put in their cars, and an increase in carpooling and the use of public transit. In other words, the city, before it was hip, promoted environmentally conscious practices to improve the lives of it’s citizens. In the 5th Commandment, we’re called, as Christians, to care about the health of our neighbor, and not doing our part to reduce pollution is a failure to love our neighbor.

However, beyond all of these reasons that others can hold for civil righteousness kinds of reasons, Christians have something to bring to the table that nobody else can. The gospel itself is green. Now, when we typically talk about what Jesus did on the cross we talk about our sin and Christ offering forgiveness, and that’s good, after all, justification by grace through faith is the doctrine on which the church stands or falls, but with all of the focus on our past, we rarely focus on the fullness of what Christ won for us on the cross.

Be it Isaiah talking about the lion laying down with the lamb, Paul talking about the day when the creation will stop groaning, Peter talking about the new heavens and the new earth, John writing about the new Jerusalem with what sounds like the Garden of Eden in its midst, or Jesus himself declaring that he’s come to make all things new, the ultimate result of our justification is eternal life in a world where we live in harmony with the creation around us.

Now, if that’s our eternal future, shouldn’t we find ourselves motivated to, in whatever small and limited ways that we can, live today as we will forever?

Back in 2005, Lutheran Hour Ministries invited me to write a booklet for them on suffering. Since I signed the writer’s contract just about the time Katrina struck New Orleans, the booklet “Where’s God in All of This?” begins with the story of me having to try and explain Katrina to the congregation I was serving the Sunday after the event. From this launching point I explore the reality of various kinds of suffering and the role of God in the midst of it. We look at typical reasons given, we consider Job, and we see in the lives of real people how God works good out of suffering, all before coming back to the question of Katrina.

On that Sunday some four and a half years ago, the answer I offered is the same one presented in the end of this book … we don’t know. Most of the time, Christians don’t have an answer to the why of suffering because God hasn’t given us one. So, rather than speculate on why things are happening, God invites us to look away from the suffering we see and towards the cross and empty tomb, where we once again hear of his good and gracious promise that stands over any suffering we can experience in this life. It’s a promise that gives us hope and life in the midst of our hurt.

Last night, Anita couldn’t sleep and decided to check out her Facebook wall. On it was a link from one of our California youth that directed her to http://postsecret.blogspot.com. On the page, she found this:

Like I said, it’s a promise that gives us hope and life … and in the case of somebody out there, it saved a life.

You can order the booklet here.

I offered a different angle on the discussion, and suggested that “free trade” is advantageous for the larger and stronger party, while “fair trade” begins by considering what’s best for the smaller and weaker party. Basically, I argued that, when you’re a large group looking to purchase a commodity that predominantly comes from the two-thirds world, you can essentially dictate the price because there will always be someone in the two-thirds world who figures that something is better than nothing. As a result, the little guy often gets the short end of the stick, even if the corporation doesn’t intentionally bully the market.

Of course, somewhere along the line I had to take the demonizing corporate America jab, but I don’t think demonizing is what I was doing. Sure there are companies out there who don’t care about anything but themselves, which is what we would expect if we take that whole sin nature thing seriously, but even for those who are just doing American-style business and looking for the best blend of product and price, there will always be a level of economic injustice when the industrialized and capitalized West meets the two-thirds world  … unless those in the West are intentional about doing something to serve their weaker trade partner. In other words, it’s not like corporate America is out to get the two-thirds world, it just happens. Those who practice “fair trade” recognize this, be it a non-profit like LCMS World Relief and Human Care, who produce Cafe Sola coffee and sell it through Concordia Publishing House, or a for-profit entity like Starbucks, understand this and seek to adjust their business practices accordingly.

But there’s more than just “fair trade” going on out there. For example, tuggl is a website dedicated to helping connect consumers to socially responsible businesses. They’ve come up with a series of metrics that rate the service itself (determined by you, the user) and their community impact (based on feedback from non-profits) and recommend services based upon their overall rating. You can even search for businesses who give to certain organizations that you like to support. It’s a way to find businesses that do more … business plus.

As I thought about “fair trade” and services like Tuggl, I began to think about how Christian business owners could engage in business plus. I think the whole plus side for Christians begins with an understanding of the petition in the Lord’s Prayer that says, “Give us this day our daily bread.” and to understand it in light of vocation, that is, it’s through the hands of people that God provides daily bread, which Luther understands as expanding out to home, clothing, health, and all the basic necessities of life. So, as a Christian who owns a business, God is providing others with their daily bread. So how does this shape your understanding of what it means to be the boss?

I mentioned in a previous post that Christian employees should consider the 5th and 7th Commandments on killing and stealing as part of their job selection criteria, but how could those same Commandments, which shape a Christian’s understanding of what it means to love our neighbor through service, guide a Christian employer’s understanding of fulfilling that vocation faithfully, something Luther also broaches in the Small Catechism’s Table of Duties? It seems to me that there are two primary realms a Christian business owner needs to think about when making decisions, employees and customers. Here are a few thoughts for each group.

• Employees: The 5th Commandment isn’t just about not killing, but promoting health so, with that in mind, what do you do, as an employer, to boost the health of your employees? How much vacation time do you provide? What kind of insurance coverage do you offer? Does it extend to the employee alone or are you creating an opportunity for the entire family to be covered? Do you encourage physical exercise and healthy eating? Do you make sure that office demands don’t steal away time from families? Do you make sure marital counseling is available for those who need it? How about helping already divorces employees learn how to co-parent? When it comes to the 7th Commandment and stealing, it seems that the dominant question is, “Do you pay a wage that is, at least, fair market value for the service rendered?”
• Customers: When it comes to customers, once again, the 5th Commandment should raise at least one serious question, “Do you produce a product that is known to cause cancer, obesity, or some other health issue?” At the other end of the spectrum, you could focus on how your product helps people live healthier lives, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. This might even play into how you advertise your product. Are you feeding consumerist and materialistic desires? Or, when it comes to advertising and the 7th Commandment, are you charging a fair price for the service or product rendered, or are you simply focusing on getting as much as you can? Do you produce the best product possible, or just enough to get by?

Now I’m well aware that not all of the above can be done, after all, if you cut the cost of your service or product, then there’s less income to increase product quality or provide wages and services to your employees. Moreover, I realize that all of the above will effect your bottom line, but what if you selected a few items and, in your annual report and highlights that you send out through social media, you don’t  just list your profits for the year, but also listed ways that you’ve been serving your employees and customers? Would the good that you’re doing counteract the bottom line with shareholders? Or maybe, if you’re just getting ready to start a business, you develop a business plan and attract shareholders based on your service and stewardship.

What other questions should a Christian business owner consider? Any Christian business owners out there? I’d love to hear what you’re doing in the realm of business plus!

Disclaimer and disclosure: Tuggl is based in Denver and isn’t nationwide … yet. Also I know and consider the co-founder / CEO, as well as the communications guy, and consider them friends, although I’m not compensated in any way for promoting tuggl.

A few years ago I was coming out of a Denver Bronco football game. Spirits were high amongst the crowd because the Broncos had just beaten the Pittsburgh Steelers on a last second field goal by Jason Elam. Then, amidst the cheers and comradery among strangers that only sport seems to generate, came voices of anger. The voices started from above the crowd, but the harsh words were soon returned by those who, only moments before, had been filled with merriment. What caused such a harsh transformation? A group of Christians who’d found an elevated area where they could stand and yell down at the crowd telling them to repent or they’d go to hell.

This isn’t the only time I’ve seen such boorish behavior by those who attach the name of Christ to their actions, and based on the words I heard from those in the crowd that night and the stories I’ve heard from others, this use of repent that implies hellfire and brimstone is the dominant use, or at least the dominant understanding, of the word today. Given that this site isn’t about hellfire or brimstone, I was hesitant to connect myself to what I’ve heard people describe as, “those kinds of Christians.”

So, what’s another option for the word, “Repent.” In all three of the synoptic Gospels, that is the gospel accounts of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, which seem to see Jesus through the same eyes, Jesus’ ministry begins with him coming onto the scene, declaring that the time had come for a new era, and an invitation for people to be a part of life under his reign. In both Matthew and Mark, this invitation to something new is wrapped around the word, “Repent.” Then, in Luke, Jesus gets specific and describes what the new era looks like:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18-19).

If this is Jesus’ way of calling people to repentance, then the word repent doesn’t come with a threat of hell and damnation, rather, Jesus’ call to repentance is a gentle and loving invitation to leave behind a way of life that’s broken, and embrace something beautiful and wonderful that only he can offer.

Now, this isn’t to say that the hellfire version of the word never appears in the Bible, but when it does, it’s either directed at a specific group with their specific sin pointed out (Sodom and Gomorrah, Nineveh, kings of a corrupt foreign nation, etc), or towards those who have taken a position of leadership in the faith community and are abusing their authority. This second use targets unfaithful kings of Israel, false prophets, the religious leaders of Jesus’ day, and even the Apostle Peter when he made it appear that obedience to Jewish dietary laws were necessary for Gentiles to be a part of the Christian faith.

Given that I hate the thought that a potentially beautiful biblical word, one that can gently and lovingly call people to a new life, has been co-opted by those who fail to hear it spoken to them and use it to abuse people rather than serve them, I decided to, in part, use this site to reclaim the word (at least among my limited readership).

In the end, this desire to reclaim words, to refresh their meaning and to break away from what people have heard in the past fits into my dream for this site. You see, through this site, I have two major goals:

• For those who are non-Christians, my prayer is that this site gives you a different vision of what Christianity can and should look like. This is true at multiple levels. My prayer is that I can, in some way, counter the angry, bitter, and “opposed to everything” form of Christianity that’s become so vocal in the United States. Moreover, I want to offer a Christianity that isn’t afraid to be intellectual and believes that engaging your brain in the theological task is what it means to love God with your mind. At another level, I love life and my faith feeds into my enjoyment of everyday moments. Given that so many Christians appear, at least publicly, to be miserable, this site is my offering that faith can make life fun. In other words, when you hear Jesus, I want you to hear what I hear rather than what you’ve heard from so many other Christians.
• For those who are Christians, be it the nominal type who just don’t see the connection to life or those who are trying to figure out how to live out your faith, this site is my way of encouraging you to develop a healthy eschatology (understanding of the end times). What does the end times have to do with repenting and believing? In his groundbreaking book Transforming Mission, the late David Bosch argues that when St. Augustine tried to make sense of the sacking of Rome just a short time after Christians rose to a position of dominance in the Roman Empire, he shifted Christianity’s understanding of the relationship between life in this world and life after Jesus comes back. Rather than joining the Apostle Paul and seeking to bring tangible manifestations of God’s reign about in this broken world while we anticipate the life to come, Christians began to operate with the mindset that life in this world sucks and we just need to trudge through until we die or Jesus returns. It seems to me that how we view our life in the world we find ourselves in, changes the way we approach our everyday, and if it’s our everyday attitudes that are making Christianity untenable for an unbelieving world, then we need an attitude adjustment of eschatological proportions. With this goal, rather than wishing you hear what I hear, I pray that you would see the world the way that I see it in light of what Jesus has done in and for it.

So, do you hear what I hear? Do you see what I see? Or has the abuse of the word “repent” left you too fearful to look and listen?

When being disciplined, Robbie has developed this habit of declaring our action, whatever it might be, as not nice.

So why do we keep doing it?

About a year ago I was talking with a friend who worked in schools as a consultant, and one of the challenges that he was beginning to hear about in schools is what’s known as entitlement disability disorder. Now, typically, when we think about disabilities and disorders, our minds go to genetically rooted physical or mental conditions that result in somebody struggling to function in everyday environments. However, when it comes to entitlement disability disorder, genetics have nothing to do with it, rather, these kids have been raised in such a way that they believe they are entitled to whatever their hearts desire. In other words, their parents decided, from day one, to be nothing but nice and loving, and in the process, they ruined their children.

You shall honor your father and your mother that it may be well with you and you may life long upon the earth. (Exodus 20:12)

Isn’t it interesting that, in the Fourth Commandment, there’s a blessing that comes with obedience, namely, you’d have a good and long life. Interestingly, this blessing linked back to the vocation, the calling, of parents, who, throughout the Old Testament, are admonished to raise their children in the faith, which not only had them trusting in the God who brought Israel out of slavery, but also living according to his Law. Having God’s desire being their desire was the key to blessing. However, if this wasn’t taught, if children from birth weren’t shaped for this kind of life, then they would grow up following their own heart’s desire rather than God’s. This is seen as early as Judges 2:10-12:

And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel. And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and serve the Baals. And they abandoned the Lord, the God of their Fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed down to them. And they provoked the Lord to anger.

Both the reality of entitlement disability disorder and the faithless generation of Israel serve as evidence that, without some kind of external intervention that shapes and molds young people, our innate selfishness will run amuck and we’ll grow up ill-equipped for life in this world. And that’s why we’re not nice to Robbie. We’re mean, because we know that, to truly love him and want what’s best for him, we first have to do something that is alien to our love … we have to discipline him.

I first heard this notion of alien work in a systematics class while at Seminary. The class was talking about how God works in this world, namely, that God kills someone so that God can make them alive. We see it in baptism which Paul describes as a drowning to self so you can be raised in Christ. We see it in a the way that God’s Law works as a mirror to reveal our sin so that God’s forgiving Gospel can bring us back to life in Christ. We see it in Jesus himself, who was killed so that he could rise as the first fruits of our resurrection life. When God engages in the work of killing, that’s his alien work, it’s a work that is foreign to his love, which is why we look at it and struggle to see how a loving God could do such a thing. And yet, without it, we’d be raised to the spiritual equivalents of those with entitlement disability disorder.

God’s wrath is mean. You’re right. God killing us isn’t nice. Very true. God crushing our dreams hurts. Yes it does. God ripping away what makes us happy is cruel. Absolutely. All those things are alien to a loving God. I couldn’t agree more. But if God never took time for alien parenting, it would mean that he doesn’t really love us.

I’m curious:

• Do you agree with the necessity of alien parenting? How did you come to that conclusion?
• How have you experienced God’s alien work in your own life?
• As you look back on times when God was being alien, can you now see how it was actually loving?

Wanting to get a better idea of what the standard input that goes into career decision making, I turned to Google and asked, “What job should I take?” I’d summarize the results in the following categories:

• Validation: The general question here is, “Are you appreciated for your work?” This makes sense, we all want others to approve of us and our work, so, when presented with two choices, give a plus to the one where you get your strokes.
• Promotion: Nobody wants to be in a dead end job or be in the same place they are now for the rest of their career, so look for a job that gives you an opportunity for promotion, be it within the company, by bolstering your resume, or by formally or informally enhancing your education.
• Compensation: “Show me the money!” Or maybe, given the impending demise of Social Security and the exorbitant costs of healthcare, it’s, “Show me the benefits!” I think this one is rather self-explanatory.
• Security: Given what’s happened the global economy over the past year and a half, job security is precious, so it’s important to consider whether one job will put you in a place where you’re more likely to be jobless sooner rather than later.
• Alignment: How does the job tie into your personal values and beliefs? Are you going to be put in a position where you’re asked to do something that contradicts what you believe or forces you to spend too much time away from loved ones?

But, the question I started out with was, “What should a Christian consider when making a decision?” What’s behind this question is the reality that, when you’ve been called by the gospel, when your sin is forgiven out of God’s grace and mercy, you are called into a new life, not one of seeking to earn God’s love and approval, but in response to the love and approval God has already given. Of the five categories above, much of this response would fall under alignment. So, what sort of characteristics would align with a Christian set of values? Here’s some initial thoughts:

• Does the job enable me to feed my faith by participating in the life of my congregation? This question falls under the 3rd Commandment on keeping the Sabbath Day holy, something that Luther argued was really about joyfully hearing the Word of God which makes everything holy.
• How will this job impact time with my family? Will it enable me to be a good spouse and parent? The doctrine of vocation isn’t just about work, rather, it’s about all of our callings in life, which begin at home (this is just one of the callings addressed in the Table of Duties in the back of the Small Catechism). You’re the only spouse your husband or wife has, and the only parent your child has, therefore, if you’re not fulfilling those callings, nobody will. It’s also from this place where I believe compensation comes into play, not in the sense of which job pays the most, but, “Does the job enable me to care for my family?”
• Since God calls me to love my neighbors by serving them, and the bulk of my waking hours will be spent at work, “Am I, through the work I do, serving my neighbor?” I think this question is particularly tricky if we read it in light of the 5th and 7th Commandments on killing and stealing. For Luther, anything that didn’t promote the health of your neighbors, was killing them, and he had harsh words involving theft for businesses who focus on making the highest profit over selling at a price and quality that looks out for the good of the customer.

However, beyond the alignment discussion, I think there are some other, specifically Christian questions to ask when considering a job. Here are two:

• Is there too much security? This might sound like an odd question, but if we consider the First Commandment which tells us to have no other gods, it makes more sense. As Luther fleshes out this commandment, he asks people to consider what they see as the source of their blessing and the refuge in times of trouble. If the answer is anything but the Triune God, then you’ve found an idol. Could the quest for the ultimate in security at work be a symptom of idolatry? Are you failing to step out in faith and trusting in God’s provision by taking the more stable job over something less certain but better in every other way?
• Then there’s the question that my friend Glenn, who’s spent the last 10 plus years in the African mission field, always asks, “What about the parable of the talents?” In Matthew 25:14-30 and Luke 19:12-28 Jesus tells a parable about the rule and reign of God. While there is an element of the parable that points to the distance of Christ’s full reign, the dominant idea is that God gifts people differently, and calls you to use your gifts for the good of his Kingdom. In practice, if you have a unique gift or ability that allows you to serve your neighbor in ways that most people can’t, then you need to find a job that allows you to use that gift. Glenn’s example is that very few people are capable of living in a foreign culture long-term, so, if you’re able to do so, then you belong in a foreign culture.

I’d love to hear what you think.

• What should the Christian do with the standard criteria of validation and promotion?
• Do you have other questions that fall under the alignment discussion?
• Are there other specifically Christian questions to ask?

The whole thing, from the beginning, is completely unlike trying to get a normal job. There is no board, online or otherwise, where you can find a list of openings and then apply as you’re interested, and those who are looking for a call aren’t out knocking on doors. Rather, you have a congregation that wants a pastor and pastors looking to serve a congregation, and trusting that somehow, someway, God will bring the two together. Moreover, a call isn’t like a typical job in that the congregation can’t just fire their pastor because they found a better or cheaper man for the job. Rather, once called, a pastor is there until he’s proven a heretic, engages in gross immorality, accepts another call, retires, or walks away. The entire process is filled with this trust that the Holy Spirit is in control, guiding and directing Christ’s Church, bringing the right man to the right place for the right season, and deciding when that season is over.

Now, what I’ve described above is the way the system typically works. Some congregations push it to the extreme in that they refuse to interview or bring a pastor out for a visit because it would be interfering with the Holy Spirit, while others, like the one I interviewed for, stretch things a bit in the other direction. Now, I shouldn’t say that they were the only ones who stretched this process a bit, after all, before I left for Africa, I contacted a number of friends, including the woman who put me on this list, and let them know that I was looking for a call (you know, something to do after Africa). I sent them a snazzy resume that talked about places I’d been and things I’d done in each place, as well as laid out my strengths as a pastor. It was a move intended to plant a seed in people’s minds so, when they saw something, they’d think of me … which is exactly what happened with this particular call. So, how’d they stretch the process? Between the “get the information I’d submitted” phase and the “interview” phase, they had me take a test. Because this call involves, depending on your preferred nomenclature, replanting, revitalizing, or resurrecting a church, they wanted to make sure that whoever was called had the skills of a church planter, someone who, humanly speaking, has the abilities to start a church from scratch.

Now, let me be the first to say that I like most of the stretching because I think it still trusts God’s hand to guide the process, but it also uses the reason that God has given us to use when making decisions, an idea most clearly framed by Martin Luther in his explanations of the first and third articles of the Apostles’ Creed. When explaining the first article, “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.” he writes:

I believe that God has made me and all creatures; that He has given me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my members, my reason and all my senses, and still takes care of them.

However, when he writes his explanation to the third article, the one on the Holy Spirit, he says:

I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith.

In these two quotes we see that, when it comes to reason, Luther operates in two realms, our relationship with God and everything else. When it comes to trusting the promises of Christ, our reason is, according to Luther, “the devil’s whore,” but, in everything else, reason is a gift from God to be used wisely. So, if a pastor is looking for a call, he contacts people who might know of something, and if a church needs a pastor with certain gifts, the test makes sure they’re getting what they need. This is especially important today, given the reality that Lutheran congregations are no longer homogeneous bodies placed in homogenous neighborhoods. In years past, it took pastors cut from a different bolt of cloth to be capable of living in the foreign culture of the overseas mission field, however, today, the foreign culture is no longer overseas, but can be found in every urban environment and many suburban and even rural settings. Largely, the plug-and-play days where every pastor fit in every congregation are over.

Jumping back to the test they had me take, it was a personality assessment put together by Gallop that is titled for church planters, but really explores an individuals attitudes and skills in relationship to entrepreneurial leadership. In my case, the test recommended me for church planting and revealed that, among other things, I’m highly motivated, have good people skills, and do well thinking things through, which all seem valuable for an urban church planter. So at that level, I’m all for the test and how it stretches the traditional call process.

However, if we think about the classic entrepreneurial leader, we have someone who, through shear willpower, has the ability to overcome obstacles and make something succeed according to a pre-established set of standards. This might be good and necessary in the business world, but what about the church? I mean, our entire process is designed to contrast the world’s way of hiring, so why would we use tests designed purely for what the world is looking for? This question is strengthened when we consider that the world tells us to look for leaders who brings about their vision, but if we repent of the world’s ways and believe that Christ reigns over a new kingdom, suddenly we find ourselves not needing leaders who pursue their vision, but servants who are more concerned with being faithful to the Father’s will. A few examples from Scripture:

• Isaiah it told by God to go and preach the Word until a tenth of a tenth of Israel remains. That’s right, faithfully ministry for Isaiah meant 99% attrition.
• The Apostle Paul, in the book of Acts, repeatedly has places he wants to go but the Spirit blocks him and sends him in a different direction. Wouldn’t a leader certain of his own vision drive his way through those obstacles?
• Jesus, when being tempted by Satan in the wilderness, is offered all kinds of worldly success, but bypasses it for a criminal’s cross. Like the example with Isaiah, God’s idea of success is often vastly different than ours.
• In the New Testament, pastors are referred to as under-shepherds of the Chief Shepherd, Christ, who laid down his life for his sheep, or, if you look to the Gospel of John, took on the lowliest of positions by washing his disciples’ feet.

In other words, rather than looking for entrepreneurial leadership, a church planter assessment needs to be developed that tests for entrepreneurial servantship, where the pastor is a servant in the congregation, the community, and most importantly, before God. It would be a test that mines for things like creativity, motivation, and the abilities to relate with people and see what isn’t there, but also identifies flexibility, humility, and a focus on faithfulness to God’s call over the tangible results. Here’s a few thoughts on how to test for these traits:

• Give the pastor a one page summary of the community (and the existing congregation, if there is one) and have him write a mission plan. Evaluate not only on the entrepreneurial elements, but also the theology behind the plan.
• Hand a pastor a completed mission plan that demonstrates strong entrepreneurial leadership and ask if he would change the plan and, if so, how.
• Ask the pastor to offer his metrics of success, along with reasons for each metric.
• Have the pastor write on how Christ’s statement, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9) applies to his life.

What am I missing on the characteristics list? How else would you test specifically for entrepreneurial servantship? Or is there something even better to look for in mission planters?

Before I get going, let me make two things clear. First, I’m not going to deny it, this post flows out of what I’ve read from Christians on my Facebook news feed as they respond to the Obama administration. While some of the statements made provide a clear and reasoned outline of concern over policy (which I’m all for), most tend to sound like something that would come off the lips of conservative politic shock jocks like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck (to be clear, yes, I just put Rush and Beck in the same camp as Howard Stern as they all say radical and outlandish things for the sake of garnering attention and increasing ratings). In other words, much of what I’ve read has been a vile betrayal of the 8th Commandment which reads: “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.” Now, while not everyone in Christianity would hold to Luther’s explanation, here’s how he understands the commandment:

We should fear and love God so that we do not tell lies about our neighbor, betray him, slander him, or hurt his reputation, but defend him, speak well of him, and explain everything in the kindest way.

Now, I don’t think it’s healthy for me to say something is a vile betrayal of the Eighth Commandment without offering at least an example, after all, that would put me in the roll of a shock blogger who’s out to say something outlandish so I can push my readership to new heights.

(While during my pre-post work I didn’t find anyone who used the phrase “government run healthcare” in a sense outside of hyperbole, some who commented on this post genuinely held that position, so, while I personally believe their opinion to be wrong, I’ll remove it as an example of breaking the 8th Commandment. For those who genuinely hold this position, I apologize for breaking the 8th Commandment myself by assuming your position to by hyperbole over a genuine statement.)

With that in mind, let me offer a couple thoughts on government run healthcare, a phrase that’s been appearing in various forms on my Facebook feed (note, I didn’t say socialism, because one definition of socialism would point to government regulation and therefore, under some definitions, socialism is an adequate term). There are two typical arguments that are tied government run healthcare:

• Our new healthcare bill is government run healthcare: No, while there is government regulation and subsidization, all doctors, hospitals, and health care providers still work in the private sector and get their money from (with the exception of Medicare clients) individuals or private insurance agencies. As for helping people get insurance, the plan has States setting up opportunities (called Exchanges) for individuals to pool their resources and, while remaining independent, function like a big company when it comes to buying their healthcare from private insurance agencies. In the end, the law we have is essentially the framework first proposed by Republican Mitt Romney and it keeps all healthcare in the private sector.
• Our new healthcare bill will lead to government run healthcare: I saw this as a possibility when there was a public option written into the bill, that is, a government run insurance option. The idea would be that the public option would offer care at such a low rate that private insurance agencies couldn’t possibly compete and would, eventually, be driven out of business leaving the public option as the only option. However, this point is now lost because the public option was replaced by the previously mentioned Insurance Exchanges, a move that, when combined with insurance being mandatory, bolsters rather than hurts private insurance agencies.

All this goes to say that calling the bill government run healthcare isn’t true, and therefore, to refer to the legislation that way is a violation of the 8th Commandment.

With that in mind, let me offer two examples that reject the notion that nobody from a country with government regulated medicine likes it:

• Back in the summer of 2009 when the debate was really heating up, a friend of mine who is originally from Canada and now lives in the US sent an email to a number of us on the issue of healthcare. As somebody who’d lived under both systems, he found it appalling that people in America were without insurance and was horrified that any Christian could be okay with the idea. For him, nationalized healthcare was a moral issue, and, even if there were other issues with the system (although he didn’t point any out), for that reason alone he liked it.
• In January of this year, I met a Canadian at a Guesthouse in Nairobi. Given all that was happening with healthcare at that time, it became a topic of conversation at the dinner table. When the Canadian was asked for her thoughts on it, she declared that she’d had opportunities to work in the US and passed on the opportunity because she didn’t want to deal with the US healthcare system. She loved the Canadian system and couldn’t understand why people in the US were so opposed to the idea.

These are just two of many examples (I chose these because they’re first person accounts as opposed to the plethora of stories I’ve read online) of people who love the government being involved with healthcare, therefore, to suggest that it been a failure everywhere and nobody likes it isn’t true, and therefore, to suggest otherwise is a violation of the 8th Commandment.

This doesn’t mean you have to like the new healthcare bill, and there are plenty of legitimate reasons to be opposed to it, but if you’re a Christian, as you talk about it, it’s a sin to not talk about it honestly (and if you haven’t been honest about this or other issues, might I suggest a repentance post for your Facebook status).

There’s opening point one. The second is, I’m not saying these things because I’m a Democrat, because, well, I’m not a Democrat. I’m not a Republican either. After looking at the agendas of both parties, I can firmly and honestly say that I’m not in either camp because my faith prompts fundamental issues with each. While I haven’t found it yet, my ideal party’s platform would be to serve as a curb on all forms of human sinfulness both nationally and internationally (for those of you who are Lutheran, I essentially view government as God’s way of imposing the first use of the Law). So, when society is doing well, you expand the curb and give more freedom, but when people start to take advantage of that freedom, you tighten the curb.

So, if I’m not a Democrat, why bother with this post at all? A few years back I heard sociologist Robert Putnum speak on the issue of faith and politics in the United States. The week before he spoke at the conference I attended, he was in the White House with then President George W. Bush. President Bush asked if there was in fact Christian revival happening in the United States. Putnum’s answer was, “In half of the country.” He went on to describe that the older segment of America was, generally speaking, both Republican and Christian, while younger generations was, on the whole, non-Christian and Democrat. Moreover, Americans are more likely to stick with their political party than they were their religious beliefs, so, if someone was a non-Christian Republican, odds are, they were more likely to become a Christian than a Democrat, and, if someone were a Christian Democrat, they were more likely to leave Christianity than become a Republican.

What’s my point? When Christians join the right-wing political shock jocks, they aren’t inviting healthy discussion and debate on the pros and cons of legislation, they only serve to further perpetuate the notion that, in order to be a Christian, you first have to be a Republican, a move that further builds up the wall that stands between Democrats and the good news of the gospel. But I don’t think it has to be that way. Furthermore, I don’t think Christians who are Republicans have to be quiet or change their views for the sake of Democrats they’d like to share the gospel with. Rather, I believe that if Christians would repent of joining in the politics of the debate, and instead, would step forward as people of faith who want to discuss the merits of the legislation with respect, gentleness, and love, from the perspective of faith, our very discussion of politics would, in and of itself, become a compelling reason to explore faith.

Here are a few thoughts on questions that should feed our political conversations. I’d love your thoughts on what I’m missing?

• How ethical is the current system? Is it conducive to white-collar crime? Does it promote oppression? In both the Old and New Testaments, God is concerned about the poor and the oppressed, how does this legislation impact them? Is there an alternative that would be better for those on the fringe?
• Both reason and our doctrine of sin teach us that handouts are not a helpful way to get the poor and oppressed out of their circumstances, rather, as the Habitat for Humanity phrase goes, we need to give people a “hand up rather than a hand out”. Does this legislation serve as a hand up to those who are hurting and help to establish their sense of human dignity, rather than feeding their sense of helplessness as it sustains them in their brokenness?
• What is the long-term impact on the nation? Are we mortgaging our future so we can have something today, or is the investment now a wise move that will reap returns in future generations?
• For those on the other side of the debate, what’s the philosophy and motive behind their actions? Maybe if we can understand their hearts’ desire and their end goals, we can find some common ground.

Care to join me in a new way of Christians talking politics?

I have an ongoing issue with the muscles in my back. Sometimes it’s in my upper back, sometimes it’s in my lower, but on occasion, the muscles will completely freak out and knot up so tightly that I’m immobilized for a few days. When this happens, I end up needing some form of treatment, be it physical therapy, massage, chiropractic, acupuncture, or cupping (another form of Traditional Chinese Medicine), to get the muscles to loosen up so I can return to my daily life.

Anyway, a few months ago my back had me out of commission and, on this occasion, because there seemed to be something going on that was more nerve based than muscular, I ended up going to a chiropractor who, after a couple visits, also added in massage treatment. Now I’ll be the first to say that I love alternative medicine, not only because I appreciate how the practitioners are focused on restoring health over eliminating symptoms, but also because those who work in these kinds of practices typically aren’t Christian and we get to have some really good conversations as God uses their hands to bring healing to my body … which is exactly what happened with my massage therapist.

I’m not sure what got the whole thing started, but I’m sure it began with a question about what I do for a living.

I’m a pastor.

You don’t look like a pastor.

What’s a pastor supposed to look like?

I don’t know, but not like you.

Well, I guess I’m not the kind of pastor you’re used to meeting.

I don’t think you’re the kind of Christian I’m used to meeting either.

While we had a number of conversations over the four or five massage sessions, one that sticks out in my mind concerned sin. I’m sure it began with her asking my thoughts about some specific sin issue and me, as I typically do, changing the flow of the conversation a bit.

You see, for the most part, I’m really not interested in creating a list of sins and then pointing fingers at people who are guilty of them. Yes, lists can be helpful if we want to discuss the formation of a healthy society, after all, killing your neighbor is worse than not returning his lawn mower, however, when what we do or don’t do becomes the basis of our relationship with God, and Christians begin to think they’re better off that the person down the street who does, well, whatever it is that they do, we’re in trouble. So, rather than making a list of sins and then ostracizing people who don’t see those things as sinful, I find it more valuable to talk about the nature of sin … or better yet, our sinful nature.

What do you mean by that?

Well, some people argue that we do certain sinful actions, you know, the stuff that shows up on “sin lists”, and those actions make us sinners. I think that’s the wrong order. I think there is something corrupt in our very nature and because we’re completely jacked up from the start, that we do any number of things that appear on people’s “sin lists”, as well as a whole litany of other things that aren’t on those lists, because we are sinful and self-serving.

So you think people, from the start, are completely messed up?

Yeah. Don’t get me wrong, I love people, I just think we’re innately selfish, so much so, that even the good things we do, are done so we can feel good about ourselves or so somebody else will think good things about us.

That’s kind of negative, isn’t it?

That’s kind of negative, isn’t it? I’m not sure where the obsession with being positive about everything began, and I’m sure it happened long before Oprah began pushing it to her millions of followers, but whatever the origins, I for one believe it’s time to reconsider our emphasis on always being positive about ourselves and our abilities. Let me offer a few reasons why:

• It devalues the gifts of others. Perhaps the easiest example of this was when schools stopped giving first place ribbons for kids at field day, and instead, gave everybody a ribbon for trying because they didn’t want kinds to think bad things about themselves. The truth is, some kids are good at sports and should have positive thoughts about their athletic performance. Other kids, like me, well, we suck in those kinds of competitions and to give us the same reward as the kids who are talented, well, it just makes a mockery of their skill.
• It promotes dishonesty. Just as the field day ribbons devalues the achievements of those who are truly gifted in a certain area, it also promotes dishonesty in those who are rewarded without achieving.
• It’s a setup for disappointment. You know those kids who audition for American Idol and they’ve been fed all kinds of positivity by their family and friends about their ability as a singer, only to get in front of the judges and become the nation’s laughing stock? That’s the extreme version of something that happens day in and day out where people do the best they can and think as positively as they can, only to fail. They get crushed by reality because they’d been told to just think and be positive, even if the objective was beyond their skill level.

For these intertwined reasons, I think our obsession with positive thinking has done a great job of creating a disillusioned and unhealthy society.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not supporting the idea of just giving up and walking away from everything, rather, as you might guess from above, I’m just talking about being honest, which begins with admitting that positive isn’t the right word for what we’ve been feeding ourselves, rather, the word to describe what we’ve come to believe is deception, and therefore the antonym isn’t negative but honesty. In theory, being honest shouldn’t be exceptionally difficult in areas like athletic prowess, intellectual aptitude, or vocal abilities, however, when it comes to who we are at the core, being honest means admitting that we are selfish, and that’s hard, near impossible.

To jump back to my conversation with my massage therapist, that’s the key issue in sin … as much as some people like their lists, it’s not about the specific things we do, it’s about who we are, and who we are will often have us doing things that outwardly look fine, but are inwardly all about us. Sin is about us putting ourselves in the center … it’s about us treating ourselves as if we are God, even if we’re too pious to be honest about it. Oddly, this is where the power part of the equation initiates.

In the beginning of Matthew 18 Jesus’ disciples come to him with the question, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” Now, if we still believed in lists I’m sure we could come up with a lovely set of characteristics and behaviors that would exemplify someone who’d achieve standing as the greatest, but we’ve already disbanded this notion, which is good, because if we were holding onto it, we’d find ourselves disappointed with Jesus’ answer. Jesus, as he does so often, answers the question through an illustration, one that begins with placing a child in the middle of the crowd, a move that must have prompted people to begin to wonder what was about to happen. Then come the immortal words from the mouth of Jesus, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” The crowd must have been in shock.

Become like children?

Did he really just say that?

We’re supposed to be dependent for everything?

Is he really saying that I’m weak and insufficient?

But children are incapable of doing anything on their own!

And that’s exactly Jesus’ point … and that’s exactly my point. Being honest, even if the world tries to convince us that it’s negative thinking, puts us in the position of being the child that Jesus is talking about. Being honest results in us admitting that, when it comes to our relationship with God, we have nothing to offer because even our best is an attempt to move ourselves into his throne. Being honest unseats us and puts us in a position to receive the kingdom of heaven and all the good gifts that God desires to give us. Let’s think through some of those gifts:

• Freedom from the past. We all have dirt in our lives. Regrets. Failures. Those disappointments that resulted from all our positive thinking letting us down. Jesus offers us freedom from those things by inviting us daily to leave yesterday behind and start anew. What’s happened is done, and in the cosmic picture it’s gone, so don’t let what happened then define who you are today. You’re free from your past!
• Confidence to live today. As you look at today, you don’t have to worry. Step out, do your best with what you’ve got, and know that Christ is in control. If something wonderful happens, something beyond your ability, praise him because he’s the one who made it happen. If you fail, in the grand scheme of things, Jesus has already won, so there wasn’t any pressure on you anyway. Just live today!
• Hope for the future. God uses the crap of life as fertilizer, so when things seem hopeless, trust that out of brokenness God will grow something beautiful … even if we never get to see it or understand its beauty. Beyond that, when things are good, enjoy it know that as good as it is, it’s nothing compared to what Christ has in store for you. Wherever you are today, God has perfection awaiting around the corner!

Think about that, a well-rooted and unshakable freedom, confidence, and hope. There’s the power of negative thinking … and the results are very positive.

After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen! (Revelation 7:9-12)

As I sat in the over-crowded tent with 2,000 other people, shaded from the hot African sun but not freed from it’s heat, I couldn’t help but think that I was sitting in the middle of a precursor to what the Apostle John witnessed in it’s full glory in Revelation 7. The languages being spoken around me included Zulu, Tswana, English, and German. Moments before, as we had marched through the streets of Mofolo North in Soweto, South Africa, the national flags of each country represented were held high … flags from South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, Nigeria, Liberia, the Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Germany, and the United States. We sang and we danced to the praise of our common God, we heard his Word spoken and proclaimed to us, and the Lamb who was slain gave to us his very body and blood in the Lord’s Supper as a foretaste of the feast to come.

When I think about what happened in the tent that morning, as Revered Doctor Wilhelm Weber, a white South African of German ancestry, was installed as the third bishop of the predominantly black Lutheran Church of Southern Africa by the outgoing bishop, the Reverend Doctor David Tswaedi, a black South African of Zulu ancestry, I can’t help but think that this was one of those moments where the Church on earth lived as those who have repented and believed … as those who are embracing today what they will have by virtue of their baptism for eternity.

To further emphasize the significance of what happened inside that tent, the rest of South Africa around us was remembering the 50th anniversary of the Sharpeville Massacre, where, just 50 miles south from where we sat under the tent, 69 unarmed blacks were killed by white police officers during a peaceful protest of apartheid laws (they’d actually gone to the police station with the intent of lining up and being arrested for not carrying their identification cards). As the tragedy of the sinful world was being remembered and relived around us, a world where hate and fear run rampant and people are dehumanized because of their skin color, their language, gender, or their country of origin, inside that tent, while we held many differences, in our standing before God we were equal and one as we will be for eternity; as the Apostle Paul writes:

For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise. (Galatians 3:27-29)

However, the story goes much deeper than just the brokenness of our world and the Church getting it right because, all too often, the Church has also gotten it wrong, and the backstory to the Sharpeville Massacre is just one of many examples of this. For those who don’t know the history of South Africa, the Dutch first established what is modern day Cape Town as a trade company refreshing station in 1652. In 1809, Cape Town was made part of the British Empire. In the 1820′s, Dutch, Flemish, German and French colonists (who together form the Boers), along with British colonists, began to expand their territory, bringing them into conflict with native Africans. This expansion was, in part, justified using Scripture. Slavery was seen as acceptable because there are slaves in the Bible. Killing natives to take over new lands was justified because Israel killed the Canaanites to take possession of the Promised Land. The dehumanizing of blacks was considered acceptable because their skin color was “the curse of Ham”. If nothing else, because colonization brought the Christian faith along with it, the Westerners considered their claiming of lands justifiable because they were saving the heathen as they went. All of these things, in varying levels, clash with the true message of the gospel.

So how did South Africa, at least this one small pocket of it, get from where they were to what happened inside a tent in Mofolo North on that Sunday morning? While there is still repeating to be done, the continual process is rather simple.

• For those who did wrong, be honest about the past.
• For those who were wronged, give up a legitimate right to revenge.
• Having learned from past mistakes, move forward together with God’s Word, correctly read in light of the Gospel, as your guide.
• Repeat … repeatedly.

How about in your own life, relationships, or congregation? Where do you see the disfunction of this world tearing people apart? What would it look like for you to be honest or to give up the right to revenge and move forward together with God as your guide? Could you too, someday, find yourself sitting in the future, even if it’s just a dim reflection and only for a moment?

One day in class we were discussing one of the biggest challenges for any Christian who seeks to be missional … syncretism.

syncretism – an amalgomation or attempted amalgomation of different religions, cultures, or schools of thought

The challenge stems from the reality that, while the gospel is timeless and above culture, it is always expressed in and through culture. This means that anytime you seek to take the gospel from one culture to another you have one of two options:

1. you take people out of their native culture and move them into a culture where you already have a faithful translation of the gospel
2. you learn a new culture and faithfully translate the gospel for that culture

For many years, missionaries chose the first option, much to the detriment of both culture and the gospel. Be it through colonialism in Africa or the early Lutheran efforts to reach out to Native Americans in Frankenmuth; imposing Western culture on non-Western groups not only created resentment towards the West (including Christianity), but it also resulted in indiginous people never fully taking hold of the gospel and remaining dependent on foreign missionaries. One example of this would be the aforementioned Frankenmuth outreach which lasted for decades but only resulted in only two Native Americans attempting seminary education (both dropped out) and the complete abandonment of the Lutheran faith when the Native Americans were forced onto reservations.

So, having learned from the failures of previous generations, missionaries are now working on option two. The problem is, whenever you try and explain something new, like the gospel, you have to work within people’s existing mental framework, in other words, you have to start with what they know and take them to what they don’t know. This brings us back to the challenge of syncretism, because what people already know often becomes blended in with the new gospel teaching.

Now, in Africa, syncretism is rather blatant, because it typically happens as the animistic tribal religions are blended with Christianity. So, for example, the rites of the liturgy aren’t something designed to point you to Christ and his work for you through the cross and empty tomb, but they are things that you do to appease God (which, oddly enough, has a Medieval Roman Catholic sacramental vibe to it). However, in the United States, syncretism is much more subtle because there isn’t a native religion (except for on the aforementioned reservations) to syncronize with Christianity, rather, various elements of popular philosophy have managed to penetrate their way into the Christian thought and left people clinging to something less than the gospel. Let me offer a few examples:

• Materialism: The most blatant expression of this would be your health and wealth preachers who boldly declare that, if you have faith and do the things that God wants, then you’ll be blessed with material wealth. In contrast to this, the gospel is intensely sacrificial in nature and isn’t about getting, but giving.
• Individualism: This version has God being all about you, your salvation, and being the best you that you can be. This stands in stark contrast to Scripture which doesn’t focus on the individual, but the community.
• Consumerism: By nature, consumerism views people as objects and works to get them to buy into your brand. Many churches have, in the name of Jesus, objectified people which devalues them and therefore stands in contradiction to the gospel.
• Conservative Politics: The Republican Party, especially under the leadership of George W. Bush, co-opted the Christian vote by highlighting select issues. However, in the process, many Christians wed themselves to the parties entire platform, including those elements that are contrary to the gospel.
• Liberal Politics: As part of a backlash to syncretism with conservative politics, some Christians who want to see an emphasis on care for the poor, disagree with Bush’s war philosophy, or want a government to serve as a check and balance against the sinfulness of corporate American, have now gone to the other extreme and embraced a pure liberal political stance.

So, how do Christians work to avoid syncing their faith with the very culture we are part of and seek to share our faith with? Here are a few guidelines I’ve come up with:

• Repent: The truth is, we’re all syncretists. Realize that there is no human culture that is in complete alignment with the gospel and we’ve all read elements of our culture into the gospel story. Admit this, ask God for forgiveness, and ask for the Spirit to guide you as you move forward.
  
• Get Out of the Water: Much like a fish doesn’t realize it’s in water until it finds itself on land, we don’t realize how much we are a part of our culture until we step out of it. Go somewhere and experience something that’s radically different … force yourself to look at home with new eyes.
• Stand Under the Bible: All too often, when we study the Bible, we read it through our cultural eyes and in such a way that it makes God like the people we like and hate the people we hate … we conform God and Scripture to our image rather than allowing it to transform us. You will never understand the Bible until you stand under it and allow it to change you.

So, what am I missing?

Now, the book of Ecclesiastes is one that puzzles most people who read it because the author is continually declaring that everything is meaningless under the sun. In words that could just as easily have been penned by Frederick Nietzsche, the narrator of the book who describes himself as the Preacher, argues the pointlessness of wisdom, self-indulgence, toil, wealth, and honor. While he deems some paths of life to be of greater value than others, in the end he declares we all die, so really, there’s no difference between the wise and the foolish, the rich and the poor. Rather, he urges all to make the most of what they’ve got while they have it. You could say that, through most of the book, the Preacher’s only valuable suggestion is for people to live in the now.

However, scattered among the dominate argument, the Preacher drops in hints that there is something more. One place we see a hint is at the end of Ecclesiastes 2:24-26:

There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat and who can have enjoyment? For to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to one who pleases God. This is also vanity and a striving after wind.

So, as these verses open, we have a bit that says, “Live in the now.” This is followed by a question on the source of all things and then the division of humanity into two groups, those who please God and sinners. For the sinners, life is spent gathering and collecting, but in the end, all that is earned will ultimately be passed onto someone who pleases God, and therefore that work and toil, even if it was enjoyed while it lasted, is rendered meaningless. However, to those who please God, there is not only the spoils of the sinners work, but “wisdom and knowledge and joy.” But what exactly does all this mean?

First, we need to distinguish the difference between one who pleases God and sinners. Now, typically, people tend to try and create the division between those who do good things and those who do bad things, however, there’s no reference to behavior here in Ecclesiastes, rather, as I pointed out earlier, the Preacher tends to see little difference between those who live a noble life and those who live a scandalous one because; in the end, the lives of both the honorable and the dishonorable end in death. This means that the Preacher must know of another means to divide the two groups, a knowledge that is made known in his question, “This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat and who can have enjoyment?” a question that sent my mind to the words of Martin Luther as he explained the first article of the Apostles’ Creed (this link goes to Luther’s Small Catechism, once there, click on the link to the Creed for Luther’s full explanation):

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.

What does this mean? I believe that God has made me and all creatures … He also gives me … all I have … For all this it is my duty to thank and praise, serve and obey Him. This is most certainly true.

So, what’s the litmus test to divide between those the Preacher categorizes and sinners versus those who please God? It’s not an issue of behavior, rather, it’s an issue of having faith, a faith that begins with the recognition that God in fact is the source of all that you have. But there’s something more, something that comes through more profoundly (although, given our penchant for viewing the Hebrew Bible as a book of laws, not more clearly) as the Preacher closes out his discourse in Ecclesiastes 12 and, as if speaking to his child, bestows fatherly wisdom with two key admonitions. First, the Preacher advises his readers to remember their Creator in the days of their youth, and second, to remember to fear God and keep his commandments. Another way of phrasing the Preacher’s advice would be to remember everything that God has done, which goes far beyond providing daily bread, and to respond by living in a way that both remembers and honors God’s grace.

This is where we need to return to the Creed, because when Ecclesiastes was written, the full scope of God’s gracious action had yet to be revealed. Certainly, for an Israelite reading Ecclesiastes, talk about what God had done and commanded was intimately tied to his gracious action as described in Exodus 20:2, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” but today, God’s gone even further by sending his Son into the world to not only die upon the cross, but rise as a prelude to our own resurrection, a resurrection that Isaiah 25:6 describes this way:

On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.

Oddly enough, this brings me back to my opening statement about our wine and cheese get togethers. If I took the route that Ecclesiastes describes as meaningless and vanity, then the highlight of our evenings together would be the friendship, the laughter, the flavors, and maybe even the gladdening of the heart that comes from splitting a bottle of wine with someone. However, because I have faith in all that God has done, because I know that all good things come from him and that, through his Son I’ve been invited to a resurrection life, then, on those evenings and throughout all of my life, I’m not living in the now, but living in the then. For me, the pinnacle of those evenings is that with every bite, every sip, every laugh, and every moment, I am, in a small way, experiencing the resurrection life that God has made available to me through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Okay, so I realize there’s a lot there, and most likely, quite a few questions that flow from assumptions I’ve made about how we read and understand Scripture. But the point of all this is to launch a dialogue, so let’s talk a bit.

• What questions do you have about my understanding of grace in the Hebrew Bible?
• Do you see any disconnects in my logic?
• How have you typically viewed social gatherings? Have I reshaped your thinking at all?
• Where else in your life can you see yourself living in the then?