An Ongoing Conversation

I once heard a story (the source, if I recall correctly, was Peter Rollins) about a pair of rabbis who had a long and passionate disagreement about a certain text of scripture.  The two argued about the text, year after year, point and counter-point, but neither ever changed his views. On and on it went until, at last, God decided to settle the debate.  "I've heard enough of your arguing," God said to the rabbis, "so I've decided to solve the matter.  I'll tell you the correct interpretation of the passage."  The rabbis stole a confused glance at one another and then said to the Lord, "Go back to heaven.  We're enjoying the conversation."

I love this silly story because it pokes fun of the seriousness with which many of us hold our differences.  All too often, a disagreement--whether it be about the interpretation of a text of scripture or the newest political hot button--sends us into conversion mode, where we expend all of our energies in our efforts to convert the other to our point of view.  What's troubling, of course, is that where this mindset prevails, the quality of community is diminished.  We are pressed into either/or thinking:  I'm right and you're wrong, and that's the end of the conversation.

I once knew a couple who had been married for something like 50 years.  As my first conversation with them was coming to a close, the wife said, "You know, pastor, we've canceled each other out at the voting booth every year of our marriage."  "That's true," her husband chimed in.  "Every year on election day I say to my wife, 'There's no sense in you voting today sweetheart, we'll just cancel each other out.'  She always says 'Alright dear, I won't if you won't.'  And then we both sneak off and do our voting."

I was struck by how playful this husband and wife had remained about their differences over those many years.  The differences were significant and each was passionate about their views.   Still, they had managed to keep a sense of perspective and respect and their marriage flourished. 

Over and again, the Bible tells us that where God is working, human community is formed.  It takes courage to be part of community, and to do it well requires the ability to take strong stands, to argue for truth, and to listen carefully and respect the perspectives of the other.

Would anyone care to disagree with that?

Surprisingly Simple Ways Congregations and Groups Can Avoid Adventure

It does, admittedly, require considerable ingenuity for churches to avoid being on an adventure together.  After all, Jesus Christ led his disciples on THE sacred adventure.  However, history has shown that if churches and church-related groups are strong-willed enough, they can remain in their comfortable ruts, and avoid adventure altogether.  Last week I tossed out some time-tested ways for individuals to avoid the adventure.  Today I take up the task of providing suggestions about how groups and churches can do the same.

1.  Develop an "us" and "them" mindset.  This is crucial.  We (the church) are the insiders, and those people out there are, well, I think you get the idea.  The "us" and "them" mindset is helpful in several ways.  It protects us from the challenge of having to welcome the stranger (and we all know how uncomfortable that is); it helps us to embrace a bit of 'holier than thou' (an insulation from adventure if ever there was one); and it protects us from the gifts of those outside our walls.  (We wouldn't want to be challenged by their poets, writers and artists now would we?)

2.  Insist on uniformity.  If we're to avoid adventure, we simply must all look and sound alike and agree about most everything.  If we can develop a 'herd' mentality, we won't have to face the challenge of really listening to persons who differ from us.  I'm sure you'll agree that makes for a great deal more comfort.

3.  Outlaw all words that tie us to our past, such as 'tradition' and 'ritual.'  It is a sad but true fact for those who wish to avoid adventure that the church's history is pregnant with examples of congregations that have stayed remarkable close to the adventure of Jesus.  Many of those congregations and their members passed down what they learned of the art of prayer, how to cooperate with the Holy Spirit and how to embrace the rhythms of worship and service.  If we can just toss out words like 'tradition' and 'ritual' altogether, we won't have to learn from those folks at all.  In fact, we'll soon forget that they ever lived.

4.  Become so heavenly minded that we are of no earthly good.  The following idea will be extremely challenging, but perhaps someone could find time to cut out all references to God's good creation and our lives in it from the pages of the Bible. If we could do that, we could quickly forget that our lives in this world are important to God.   Honestly, there may not be that much left of the Bible after we cut out all references to our lives here in the creation, but the holey Bible that remained (forgive the pun, please) might lack the power to call us to live deeply and well here and now.  Take this as your mantra: "Nothing here really matters."

5.  Avoid lament.  "Lament," as you probably know, is a complaint about our circumstances and lives that is brought before God in prayer.  The Psalms contain dozens and dozens of laments, so best to avoid the Psalms.  We want to avoid lament because if we learn to bring pain and disappointment to God, it won't be long before we realize that God shares our sufferings with us.  From there it's just a short step to realizing that God laments the present state of things in the world.  And then--brace yourself--we might find ourselves joining God's protest against the brokenness of the world.  And then--prepare to shudder--we might actually find ourselves joining our lives to God's love for the world.

6.  If we're to avoid being on the adventure together, we must focus on all things trendy.  It's better to stay in touch with today's fads than for churches to listen and think deeply about things like the preaching of Jesus, or learning to pray or serving the least of these.  Style is always more important than substance.

7.  Let's work very hard to maintain a sharp distinction between the pastors and the rest of our congregations.  We'll give them fancy titles like "the clergy" and "the laity."  We'll convince the laity that real ministry can only be done by trained professionals.  Pretty soon we'll forget that Christianity was, from the very beginning, a movement in which all people were joined to God's project of renewing creation.

8.  And finally (only because of lack of time, not because of a lack ideas...), let's forget that the faith of Christians is profoundly hopeful.  The resurrection of Jesus promises that God's renewal project which Jesus embodied and proclaimed is loosed on the earth so that one day, in God's time, life will triumph over all forms of death.  If you want to avoid adventure, it's best not ever to think about that.

Surprisingly Simple Ways Congregations and Groups Can Avoid Adventure

It does, admittedly, require considerable creativity for churches to avoid being on an adventure together.  After all, Jesus Christ led his disciples on THE sacred adventure.  However, history has shown that if churches and church-related groups are strong-willed enough, they can remain in their comfortable ruts, and avoid adventure altogether.  Last week I tossed out some time-tested ways for individuals to avoid the adventure.  Today I take up the task of providing suggestions about how groups and churches can do the same.

1.  Develop an "us" and "them" mindset.  This is crucial.  We (the church) are the insiders, and those people out there are, well, I think you get the idea.  The "us" and "them" mindset is helpful in several ways.  It protects us from the challenge of having to welcome the stranger (and we all know how uncomfortable that is); it helps us to embrace a bit of 'holier than thou' (an insulation from adventure if ever there was one); and it protects us from the gifts of those outside our walls.  (We wouldn't want to be challenged by their poets, writers and artists now would we?)

2.  Outlaw all words that tie us to our past, such as 'tradition' and 'ritual.'  It is a sad but true fact for those who wish to avoid adventure that the church's history is pregnant with examples of congregations that have stayed remarkable close to the adventure of Jesus.  Many of those congregations and their members passed down what they learned of the art of prayer, how to cooperate with the Holy Spirit and how to embrace the rhythms of worship and service.  If we can just toss out words like 'tradition' and 'ritual' altogether, we won't have to learn from those folks at all.  In fact, we'll soon forget that they ever lived.

3.  Become so heavenly minded that we are of no earthly good.  The following idea will be extremely challenging, but perhaps someone could find time to cut out all references to God's good creation and our lives in it from the pages of the Bible. If we could do that, we could quickly forget that our lives in this world are important to God.   Honestly, there may not be that much left of the Bible after we cut out all references to our lives here in the creation, but the holey Bible that remained (forgive the pun, please) might lack the power to call us to live deeply and well here and now.  Take this as your mantra: "Nothing here really matters."

4.  Avoid lament.  "Lament," as you probably know, is a complaint about our circumstances and lives that is brought before God in prayer.  The Psalms contained dozens and dozens of laments, so best to avoid the Psalms.  We want to avoid lament because if we learn to bring pain and disappointment to God, it won't be long before we realize that God shares our sufferings with us.  From there it's just a short step to realizing that God laments the present state of things in the world.  And then--brace yourself--we might find ourselves joining God's protest against the brokenness of the world.  And then--prepare to shudder--we might actually find ourselves joining our lives to God's love for the world.

5.  If we're to avoid being on the adventure together, we must focus on all things trendy.  It's better to stay in touch with today's fads than for churches to listen and think deeply about things like the preaching of Jesus, or learning to pray or serving the least of these.

6.  And finally (only because of lack of time, not because of a lack ideas...), let's work very hard to maintain a sharp distinction between the pastors and the rest of our congregations.  Well give them fancy titles like "the clergy" and "the laity."  Pretty soon we'll forget that Christianity was, from the very beginning, a movement of all people, in ministry to the world.  The sooner we forget that, the better!

Ten Ways to Sabotage Adventure

Very often I hunger and thirst to embrace life as a sacred adventure, but I've learned that there are hundreds of ways to sabotage that longing.  (I don't even have to look to others for help.)  Here are ten of my time-tested suggestions for disrupting the call to adventure. 

1.  Worry a lot about what others think of you.  Working hard to manage others' impressions of you is a full-time job and will surely distract you from your own adventure.
2.  Bury yourself in noise and activity.  In so doing, you never have to listen to the hungering and thirsting of your heart.  Keeping the radio in the car tuned to sports talk or news talk is a fabulous strategy.  And be sure to respond to every Facebook post and every email.
3.  If it is absolutely necessary to pray (best to avoid it, of course), be sure to avoid quieting your soul.  (Ignore Psalm 131 at all costs!)  Too many people have learned that becoming fully present to God regularly over many months lends itself to becoming less anxious about the affairs of the day and more open to one's sense of call.  Dangerous indeed!  
4.  When reading the Bible (again, best to avoid), focus on getting it right.  The key is to read the Bible to prove the Baptists, Lutherans, Orthodox, et. al. wrong.  Whatever you do, don't read the Bible as a narrative of which our lives are part.
5.  Related to 4, if you get caught up in the narrative of Scripture (sometimes it's bound to happen), put all of your energies into turning it into a system of thought.  For example, if you encounter God on a Tuesday morning at 6:16, make it a law that you and others should seek God's face every Tuesday at 6:16.  Remember, the law kills the adventure!
6. Guard the split of the sacred and the secular like your life depends on it!  Love only Christian music, Christian art and Christian beauty. 
7.  Remember, the adventure happens after you die.   
8.  Avoid your neighbor's pain.  You have enough of your own.  Many people have been dangerously tempted to live adventurously by paying attention to the intersection between their gifts and the world's pain.
9.  Know which box you fit in!  If you haven't yet taken a temperament analysis, do so right now.  Remember, those kind of tests determine who you are.  If your box says you're an extrovert, you don't ever have to try to learn how to be alone.  And if it says you're an introvert, relax, you don't have to try to be around people.  Your box determines you!
10.  Remember, old dogs can't learn new tricks.  Change is a myth.  People don't grow.  Life is much easier if you don't try.

Thinking of Egypt and Facebook and Authority

Earlier this afternoon (Tuesday), BBC News reported that "Egyptian protesters are holding huge rallies in Cairo and other cities as they step up their efforts to force President Hosni Mubarak from power." http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12331520  I hope you've heard the reports and seen some of the images.  These events are potentially earthshaking for Egypt and the Middle East.  Let's keep the people in these regions in our prayers.

One of the remarkable things about what's happening in Egypt today is that much of the impetus for these events has come from young people who are connecting with one another on Facebook and other social media sites.  Instead of moving from the 'top down,' as these things usually do, this uprising is swirling up from the grass roots, much as it did in Tunisia.  Once again, we're seeing how the internet makes an entirely different kind of connecting possible.  

In her recent book Reframing Hope, author Carol Howard Merritt describes some of the ways that web-based technologies are transforming the ways we think about authority and community.  Carol is a pastor in the Washington D.C. area who utilizes web-based tools like blogging (check out her blog, http://tribalchurch.org), Facebook and Twitter to connect with others who are praying and working for the will of God to be done on earth as it is in heaven.  She suggests that the grass-roots connecting that the internet makes possible (such as we are seeing today in Egypt) gives expression to a different kind of authority than that which is traditionally associated with churches.  Traditionally, authority in churches traveled from the top down.  In some churches this meant that the pastor told people what to do, and then they were supposed to do it.  In this new paradigm, authority is empowering and generative.  Whenever people connect around a powerful story or a great idea, energy and action is generated.

I can't help but think that this 'grass-roots' notion of authority lines up beautifully, in many ways, with the narrative of Jesus.  Because Christians have been confessing Jesus as 'Christ' and 'Lord' for some 2,000 years, it's easy to forget that Jesus was a lay-minister, an itinerant preacher who went about Galilee proclaiming to peasants that the reign of God was near.  Some who heard him said that he spoke 'with authority'--but they were quick to note that it was not like the authority of the religious leaders.  His authority did not come from the top of the religious hierarchy down to the masses, but rather generated and empowered a movement of men, women and children who in turn prayed and worked for God's will to be done on earth as in heaven. 

The authority I'm attempting to describe is one that authors us (think of the connection between 'authority' and 'authoring').  It is the authority of the vine that gives life to the branches.  It generates possibility and creativity.  It empowers people to become more authentic (note, again, the connections between authority/authentic). 

As you can see, I'm doing a good deal of thinking about authority these days. I'm trying to imagine what it might look like when this kind of authority takes root in faith communities.  I'd love to hear your thoughts about that.