painting behind the refrigerator

Today was one of those days as a teacher when it seemed to make more sense - logically - to simply not come to school.  I knew a week ago that I would not be teaching anything explicitly.  I had a speaker first period, and administrators had decided that the best use of third and fourth period would be watching navy seals jump out of an airplane onto our football field.  As a fellow teacher quipped, "I guess this must be this year's college fair?"

But as I weighed whether to take a day off, I thought back to last summer when I was completing a contract to paint a condo.  It was an open floorplan, and I was edging freehand, so by the time I had worked my way around to the kitchen, my arm was getting tired, my hand was cramping, and I began to wonder: do I paint behind the refrigerator?   It is in my best interest not to, and chances are that they never pull it out.  In any case, I certainly don't spend time painting well back there.   Why would I?

Obviously, this line of thinking is a slippery slope - why should anyone care about the quality of their work in general?  Particularly if it is not directly tied to financial incentive or career progression?  If the goal is not money, identity, power, or even productivity, why work?  Many of my fellow Christians had told me that work was merely a platform for evangelism - so why paint by yourself in an empty house?

Piper helps clarify below.  We work not so that other people might be inspired to give glory to God but to give glory to God ourselves, and as such, we should endeavor to present our fullest (albeit futile) effort.

"People make images of famous people to honor them.  God made man in His image so that He would be seen and enjoyed and honored through what man does."
~ John Piper, Don't Waste Your Life, p. 139 

experiencing easter

"[Jesus Christ] was not ashamed to be crucified for us as an evildoer.  It is nothing but our fellowship with Jesus Christ that leads us to the ignominious dying that comes with confession, in order that we may in truth share in his Cross.  The Cross of Jesus Christ destroys all pride.  We cannot find the cross of Jesus if we shrink back from going to the place where it is to be found, namely the public death of a sinner.  And we refuse to bear the cross when we are ashamed to take upon ourselves the shameful death of the sinner in confession.  In the deep mental and physical pain of humiliation before a brother - which means, before God - we experience the cross of Jesus as our rescue and salvation.  The old man dies, but it is God who has conquered him.  Now we share in the resurrection of Christ and eternal life."
~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, p. 114

I am easily distracted by shiny objects.  Or bright colors.  And sometimes furry animals.  So I have been fairly excited over the course of the last few weeks about my neighbor's kitschy seasonal lawn decorations.  But I also really have to be intentional if I am to focus on the meaning of Easter.  How can I today share in an event from two thousand years ago?

Bonhoeffer answers by linking the cross to confession; where most of the teaching I've heard has exhorted Christ's followers to imitate the sacrifice or suffering of the cross, Bonhoeffer suggests that we share in the shame associated with it, through confessing sin.  When I hear the phrase, "take up your cross" (cf. Mark 8:34), the images that come to mind are like those in The Passion, rife with suffering, and I begin to wonder what a call to suffer would look like.  But as my pastor, Ray Ortlund, has pointed out, "Suffering is universal, it's inevitable; walking in the light is not."  Confession is what distinguishes the Christian experience.  Confessing my own (specific) weaknesses to someone else would be the ultimate fulfillment of Christ's command in the same verse to "deny oneself."  Again, my first instinct is to try to follow this rule by being more sacrificial, giving up things for God.  But we can't earn our salvation, and we can't pay it back.  "We have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Christ, once for all" (Hebrews 10:16).  The only sacrifice we are commanded to make is to "put to death the deeds of the flesh" (Romans 8:13), which is done most effectively by admitting to fellow believers what/where we have done wrong.

We truly experience Christ's resurrection when we share in his cross, which we do by reminding ourselves, in front of others, of our specific actions that made his sacrifice necessary - and make it our salvation.

christian idioms, part iii

Confession:  I've definitely gotten worse at cocktail parties since college.  One of the few similarities between my wife's work in medicine and mine in education is the tendancy to become clinically detached.  It can be incredibly difficult to give context to the harsh realities that we see every day, and even harder not to become a political advocate in trying to explain them. 

I think that we face the same problem in our faith as Christians.  It is incredibly difficult to provide the context necessary for people to be able to hear that they are screwed up, and not take offense.  My pastor has recently described that context as a gentle environment with "more gospel + more safety + more time."

Shit Christians say, like, "The church is a hospital for sinners, not a country club for saints," is incredibly unhelpful in shaping this gentle environment.  Yes it is good that we don't self-identify as pious moralists who want to exclude others.  But the idea of a hospital implies that we are getting better - that we're working towards discharge, that we will leave better than those who didn't come - and this is still moralistic.  Or at least know-it-all.  Perhaps a better analogy is an asylum.  Or a halfway house.  There's no expectation that we will get better.  In fact, there should probably be some social stigma.  Which is exactly why we throw ourselves into the shelter of the gospel. 

"May God preserve me from a church of saints.  I want to be in the church of the faint-hearted, the feeble and ailing, who feel and recognize the wretchedness of their sins, who cry to God for comfort and help, who believe in the forgiveness of sins."  (Martin Luther)

christian idioms, part ii

HT: Ray Ortlund, "My church or the Kingdom?"

“My passion isn’t to build up my church.  My passion is for God’s Kingdom.” 

Ever heard someone say that?  I have.  It sounds noble, but it’s unbiblical and wrong.  It can even be destructive. 

Suppose I said, “My passion isn’t to build up my marriage.  My passion is for Marriage.  I want the institution of Marriage to be revered again.  I’ll work for that.  I’ll pray for that.  I’ll sacrifice for that.  But don’t expect me to hunker down in the humble daily realities of building a great marriage with my wife Jani.  I’m aiming at something grander.” 

If I said that, would you think, “Wow, Ray is so committed”?  Or would you wonder if I had lost my mind? 

If you care about the Kingdom, good.  Now be the kind of person who can be counted on in your own church.  Join your church, pray for your church, tithe to your church, throw yourself into the life of your church with wholehearted passion. 

We build great churches the same way we build great marriages — real commitment that makes a positive difference in practical ways.  And thus we build the Kingdom.

christian idioms

Ok, I couldn't resist.  I tried.  For at least 36 hours.  But being a (former?) spoken word poet myself AND a lover of good theological discussion, I caved and decided to chime in on an already over-popularized and over-reviewed video:  "Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus"

First, if you've not seen it, check it out - Jefferson Bethke actually does a good job talking about what Christianity is in a medium that makes definitions difficult.  (I've always struggled to express accurate theology perfectly in verse)  Things like "Religion says do, Christ says done" echo a friend's vision for his recent church plant, "Unfinished people resting in the finished work of Christ."  

But a whole poem whose focus is a trite idiom from evangelical subculture?  An alternate title for this post could be "Shit Christians Say" in a tribute to the popular YouTube video epidemic.  Such phrases as "I love Jesus and hate religion" or "love the sinner hate the sin" are unhelpful on several levels, including that they gain meaning and context from within the church and therefore seldom resonate with those outside.  So who is the audience for this piece? And towards whom is Bethke aiming his darts? 

1)  Unchurched?  If this piece does nothing else, I hope that it draws out the tension in the assumptions that many inside the church have about those outside.  No one outside understands the distinction between "faith & religion."  The distinction is rooted in twentieth century evangelicalism, and therefore it either assumes the context of a Christian subculture or comes across as inane.

2)  Dechurched?  I sense this is closest to the mark, trying to convince people that their previous experience of or interaction with Christianity shouldn't define it.  Implicit in this argument is that Christianity has changed .. how so?  Is it cooler?  More palatable?  I think Jared Wilson addresses this best in his response "Jesus Was Religious."  Go read it, it's better than this one.  A quick teaser:  

Some make a boogeyman out of the idea of "religious people," by which it becomes clear what they mean is "traditional people" or the uncool. My feeling is that the Bible-thumping, starched suit-wearing, hellfire and brimstone religious people taking the fun out of fundamentalism are becoming fewer and farther between, while the church is brimming with self-righteous hipsters and cooler-than-thous. The Pharisees look like Vampire Weekend now. I'm not saying Jefferson is one of those guys; I'm just saying he's offering them red meat.

3)  Churched?  Is it a warning to those in church to be less religious? Possibly a good personal reflection and distinction, but a dangerous accusation to introduce within the church.  As Jonathan Edwards noted in discussing the harvest of the First Great Awakening:  

They, therefore, do greatly err who take it upon them positively to distinguish and gather out the tares from amongst the wheat.  Many of the servants of the owner of the field are very ready to think themselves sufficient for this, but their Lord says, "Nay, lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them.  Let both grow together til harvest."  (Commentary on Mt. 13:28-30, taken from "Marks of the Work of the Spirit of God")

Perhaps the biggest problem is that the premise of comparing Jesus to religion assumes that Jesus needs to be rescued from religion.  In fact, it's the opposite - religion needs to be rescued by Jesus - that's why he came!  No matter what the audience, the piece seems apologetic in nature, and while apologetics (defense of faith) can be helpful, they aren't what ultimately convinces people.  Jesus convinces people.  If I want to see people changed, I need to talk about what Christ is - beautiful - rather than arguing about what he's not.  I can attest that I have won a lot of arguments, but never any converts though those arguments.  Again, as Edwards noted in his observations on revival,

"For persons to profess that they are so convinced of divine truths so as to esteem and love them in a saving manner, and for them to profess that they are more convinced or confirmed in the truth than they used to be ... are two very different things."  (Edwards, "Marks of the Work of the Spirit of God")

micro-darwinian comparative advantage

"We love the illusion of distance from death.  When we see a car wreck, we assume they must have been driving recklessly ... We distance ourselves by assuming bad things happen to other people because of some inferiority." 

~ Ray Ortlund, 4.dec.11

I watched "J. Edgar" last weekend, and was struck by the sketch presented of the man who shaped our country's federal police force.  The film draws heavily upon the discrepancy between the man and the myth, between his person and his image, which wouldn't be very curious at all except that he created his own image.  The movie highlights the idea that he personally provided the misinformation on which his legend was built.  Why?  We all have a reason for what we do ...

I believe it's the same reason that he is shown using "uppers" in the movie.  Here is the man who lived through Kennedy & King's death - and probably heard of both first.  He lasted through eight presidencies.  With all the misfortune he witnessed, how could he not have felt the imminence of his own, or at least felt the fragility of his life?  I think the director (screenwriter?  I am definitely not a hollywood expert) hits on a deep truth here: Hoover distanced himself from death in the same way we distance ourselves from tragic wrecks - by constantly reminding himself why he was superior to others.  First, through facts: "I'm not a lecher, like King & Kennedy. I'm a stronger leader than Nixon." And then embellishment: "After all, I've made important arrests - personally."  I think this same comparison - and delusion - drives me too.  If I can convince myself that I am better or more fit than the people around me, then I must be farther from death.  Micro-darwinian comparative advantage:  survival of the fittest meets pure capitalism on the scale of our individual lives. 

Jesus was the antitype of Hoover - and of us, I'd wager.  Christ did not fear death, and felt that death imminently, from his birth when the magi brought myrrh (an embalming agent) to his rebuke of his disciples when Peter claimed Christ would not suffer and die.  This is why survival of the fittest is such a dangerous thought - not because it threatens some creation narrative, but because it allows us to entertain a false reality, believing ourselves far more safe in our own abilities than we really are.  It doesn't challenge God's ability to create - it denies his sovereignty over our current fate.  It is not atheism - it is deism.  Darwinism enables us to maintain an illusion of distance from death, while Christianity drives us to our cross.  I fear my creation theology matters very little when my life is functional darwinism.  

where thanks are due

When Paul says, "If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink," (1 Cor. 15:32) he does not mean "Let's all become lechers."  He means there is a normal, simple, comfortable ordinary life of human delights that we may enjoy with no troubling thoughts of heaven or hell or sin or holiness or God - if there is no resurrection from the dead.  And what stunned me about this thought is that many professing Christians seem to aim at just this - and call it Christianity ... Am I overstating this?  Judge for yourself.  How many Christians do you know who could say, "The lifestyle I have chosen as a Christian would be utterly foolish and pitiable if there is no resurrection?"

~ John Piper, Desiring God, p. 261

Reflection is healthy, and the Thanksgiving holiday provides a great lens.  What am I thankful for?  I think too often I am thankful for the "normal, simple, comfortable, ordinary" that Piper describes above.

This year, I'd instead like to honor (Romans 12:10) some close friends - men that I admire - whose lifestyles would be "utterly foolish" without the resurrection.  John Nehme, who is leveraging his talents to raise awareness about human trafficking at Trade in Hope.  Kevin Turner, probably the most talented musician I know, who has dedicated his talent to advancing the kingdom locally through the church.  Justin Miller, who is using his business-IQ to leverage the church's resources to Care for AIDS and spread the gospel in Kenya.  Will Killmer, a true scholar, who has traded a chance at an elite, niche professorship in linguistics for training to bring the gospel to all languages.

I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus.  
(1 Cor. 1:4)