Soulgardeners

Advent reflection

Winter can sometimes become tiring.  So whenever summer leaves her hints in the air and the blossoms around our home something primordial awakes within me. 

This weekend our community studied the apocalyptic text of Mark 13.  In it Jesus uses a fig tree to teach his disciples that “summer is coming”.  The hints of the universe’s summer is here through acts of selfless love and forgiveness, through creative communication and millions of small acts of grace.  

In Johannesburg, Spring starts on the 1st of September.  Through most of my adult life, these Spring days have usually been cold!  Invariably it would rain or be a day of chilly winds.  Yet Spring is the season that shows that ‘summer is coming’.

We currently live in the age of ‘summer is coming’.

But there are also still cold fronts like cholera in Zimbabwe, madmen in India and bitterness in my heart.  Advent is the season in which we remind ourselves that ‘summer is coming’!

Back from vacation

After a great week in the Drakensberg we're back in Johannesburg.
Yesterday our community had our yearly thanksgiving service. We hiked unto a hill and took an extended time to reflect on our year. As every member reflected on their thanks, they placed a rock on a pile and we created a small altar (will post a picture soon).

On another note, I read Eugene Peterson's latest book "Tell it slant" during the vacation ... and it was profound. Here is a quote to whet your appetite.

Life in the company of Jesus is not a discussion group but an act of becoming - "Eugene Peterson in tell it slant"

Liam's first steps

Liam started walking this week.  Yesterday he showed off his new skill.  We hung out at a restaurant next to a crafter’s market.  It had a double storey.  Five Zulu women saw Liam and started to cheer when he stood up and took his tentative steps.  The adulation of the crowd fueled him to bigger things and eventually he gave thirteen steps.  As he was cheered, he became more audible.  He waved his arms wildly and screamed with excitement.  When it started to rain his grandmother pulled him out of the elements and he started screaming and protested with every one year old fiber in his being.  He immediately crawled back and performed in front of his admirers.  His performance lasted almost twenty minutes.

It was one of the clearest examples of how we dance to the applause of an audience.  Liam’s audience were these five precious women.  All of us have an audience.  A famous phrase in Christian circles is ‘having an audience of One’ - I think it is Kierkegaard who coined it. 

The days of the ATM

I can still remember what a big deal it was to get money.  When I grew up in South Africa, before the days of ATM teller machines people had to queue at the bank to get cash.  Sometimes it was a brutally long process.  I can still remember the insides of quite a few banks, even some of the smells and especially the worn out furniture!
Then came the revolution!  An easy way to get money, and instant way, a decentralized way.  
Now one can get cash almost anywhere.  In grocery stores in pharmacies at petrol stations – to access cash has been made so much easier.  Now with internet banking, we almost never have to go to the physical bank anymore.  So what?  You might ask.
A few years ago I read a comment from the NT scholar NT Wright.  He likened Jesus’ ministry to an ATM.  Where people usually had to go to the temple (the bank) in order to obtain forgiveness (cash), they could now bypass the temple and its long queues and get it from the person of Jesus.  Jesus came to become the new temple and then later on Paul calls us (people following in Jesus’ footsteps) the temple.  So now we have this wonderful message of reconciliation.
I’m thinking about all of this today as I’m meditating on Luke 17: 11-19, the incident with the ten lepers.  Luke tells us that Jesus is on a journey in between Galilee and Samaria.  Nine of these lepers are Jews and their quite comfortable with an enemy (a foreigner, a Samaritan).  The fact that they’re all outcasts creates a community of inclusion.  The Jews allow the Samaritan to hang with them, and the Samaritan allows the Jews to be in his territory.  It’s amazing how hardship creates bonds that supersede superficial boundaries (or how those boundaries can become even stronger).  Jesus sees these lepers and tells them to go and show themselves to the priest.  The Samaritan (most likely) turns to the Samaritan temple and the Jews to the temple in Jerusalem.  The Samaritan’s temple is much closer.
We are then told that the Samaritan saw that he was healed, turned around, fell at Jesus’ feet and then thanked God.  The next phrase brings me to the thoughts on the ATM.  Jesus responds saying,
"Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?"
The word for foreigner, allogènes is a word that is only found here in all of the New Testament.  But it is not a word that was unknown to Jews of Jesus days.   It was the same word used to make a distinction between the court of the Gentiles and the court of the Jews.  Archeologists found an inscription in the ancient temple that states,
No foreigner may enter within the barricade which surrounds the sanctuary and enclosure. Anyone who is caught doing so will have himself to blame for his ensuing death.
Jesus uses this same word, “foreigner” to refer to the Samaritan.  I wonder if Jesus is not showing two things here:

1.    He is the new High Priest (remember he told all ten of the lepers to go to the priests)
2.    That he is the new temple where the wall of division is now obliterated – all are welcome.
Jesus becomes the person where temple and priest meets and unlike the degenerated Jerusalem temple with its divisions, Jesus welcomes all.  Now we’re invited to also be communities of welcome and openness.  Foreigners made well, inviting others into the adventure of the new kingdom!

Making a killing

The other day I heard this phrase as if it were the first time I’ve ever heard it : “we (or they) made a killing.”  This short sentence, more than most shows how the script of capitalism has evolved to the point where we use metaphors and images reserved for the brutal act of murder.  Competitive capitalism deems winning as a kind of killing. Losers die, they are killed. 

There is also the phrase "filthy rich".

This is a weird world we are living in!

A fantasy of mine

For most of my pastoral work I’ve been situated in Johannesburg.  It is the commerce center of the South African economy.  Like all cities, this one poses some unique challenges to the shape of the Jesus life.  The people I work with (for this city also has an influence on me) are influenced by the city’s business and busyness.  Also by the creative energy needed to keep some of our country’s main businesses on the cutting edge.

Our favorite idols are money, being busy and climbing the corporate ladder.  Not terribly unique but definitely unique in its totality.

Within this ministry milieu I harbor a secret desire.  It is fueled by one of Jesus’ more obscure parables.  It is the story of the crooked manager.  If you’re not to familiar with it, then you can read Luke 16:1-13 here.

The crux comes when Jesus says that,

... the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light.

So here is my pastoral fantasy.  I sometimes wish that the cumulative energy used in businesses and corporations (dealings with their own kind) can be transferred into kingdom endeavors.  Folk in my city who gather under the banner of Jesus spend hours of their energy enriching companies.  This is not bad (for the most part).  Yet I sometimes wonder what would happen if the same creativity and effort could be applied to kingdom matters; to AIDS, poverty and unemployment.

So I sometimes envision locking these fine folks in a room so that they can unleash the energy they expend for their bosses for the Boss that really matters.  Eugene Peterson translates the same verse quoted above like this,

Streetwise people are smarter in this regard than law-abiding citizens. They are on constant alert, looking for angles, surviving by their wits. I want you to be smart in the same way—but for what is right—using every adversity to stimulate you to creative survival, to concentrate your attention on the bare essentials, so you’ll live, really live, and not complacently just get by on good behavior.”

What would happen in my city and cities worldwide if people bring the same intensity of their work into the work of the kingdom?

A premature graduation

Since I became an active part of the Christ-following tribe, I’ve heard a certain line of thought repeated.  It is usually uttered by someone who can be described as a ‘seasoned leader.’ A person that has been around the block a few times.  The setting will usually be one of reminiscence.  It might go something like this:

“When I was younger I can remember how I served. I packed out chairs, helped with setting things up and I even cleaned some toilets (the toilet one is regularly mentioned).”

The person will then convey that they’ve put in the hard yards and that it is now someone else’s opportunity to take over.  The speaker has graduated from menial acts of servanthood.  If younger people are around, they will then be told that it is now their turn to serve and to start at the bottom.

When I hear thinking like this articulated I always wonder if it is still part of the shape of Jesus’ example.  Personally I can’t imagine Jesus taking this line of thought with his disciples.  Jesus as our example is the one who entered Jerusalem on a donkey and then washed his disciples’ feet.

Speaking of the donkey.  I’m alarmed at how many of my colleagues in ministry forgot that Jesus chose this lowly creature as his mode of transportation.  Jesus didn’t enter on a war horse.  What do we do when ministers (a softer word than servant) insist on flying first class to their destinations so that they can be ‘fresh’ to speak the word?  Can you imagine Jesus saying to his disciples, “Listen boys, in a few days I’ll be crucified so I need to be fresh - please get me better transportation, something that won’t drain my energy.”  It sounds ridiculous doesn’t it?

I don’t think we graduate or retire from servanthood.  If we do, then we’ve left the journey with Jesus and exchanged it for one of comfort and entitlement.  We (especially pastors) are also called to continue this journey.  We cannot outsource our servanthood.  Yet we can so easily think that we’re teaching so-and-so to serve and so by definition we’re serving through them, a kind of servanthood by proxy.  

At one point, Jesus’ disciples also engaged in the kind of thinking that wants to graduate and retire or outsource serving.  Luke gives us a window into this conversation:

Also a dispute arose among them as to which of them was considered to be greatest. Jesus said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors. But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves. Luke 22.24-26

Since I’ve been in ministry, I’ve usually been the youngest on the teams where I’ve served.  Younger people usually get nominated for menial tasks for no other reason than being the youngest.  So I find it interesting that now that I’m becoming a bit older, Jesus reminds me to continue with the attitude of being the youngest.  It is in this continual engagement on the downward journey that we become freed from our ever present egoistic desires to be in front.  I hope that the above mentioned speech won’t come out of my mouth.  That my life will speak of serving with a glad heart because the One I follow left me this pattern to follow.

Allowing others to wash our feet

With the foot washing there is the obvious implication that we should serve and wash other people’s feet but then there is also the invitation to be washed; to allow someone to stoop down and wash our feet.
It is my experience that it is this movement that is hardest for those who see themselves as ‘givers’.  Jesus’ stern words to Peter “unless I wash you, you have no share with me” should be a warning and an invitation to us. 

In always giving, we can easily mislead ourselves into thinking that we don’t need others.  We can also start to see ourselves as gods of the God we represent.  So we’re invited to be washed by Jesus, to become vulnerable and break through our dusty pride that can so easily collect when we’re busy accumulating ‘ministry miles.’

'A pathological condition of Christianity’

A friend of mine have been telling me for months that I should read Kenneth Leech’s books.  Last week I caved in and picked up his “Spirituality and Pastoral care”.  Yesterday I posted the opening paragraphs of that book.

His book focuses on the Foundations of Spirituality which he describes as:

Spirituality and the Word of God
Spirituality and Silence
Spirituality and struggle

For him Christian spirituality is about three movements which he describes as “confrontation, exploration and struggle”.

We are confronted by the Word, we explore the inner geography of our hearts through silence and solitude and we struggle against the inner turmoil of our lives and the external structures of oppression.  I find this lay-of-the-land helpful for pastoral work.

In His chapter on ‘Spirituality and the Word of God’ he notes that,

“In this process of spirituality, the Bible has a central place.  But if we are to begin a movement ‘back to the Bible’, we must recognize the formidable obstacles in our path ... [T]he misuse of Scripture takes many forms.  We see a meticulous study of the text combined with an utter incapacity to be challenged by the Word.  We see a fanatical adherence to the words of Scripture combined with a terrifying degree of intolerance and hatred.”

It is to the above-mentioned paragraph that Scot McKnight’s new book “The blue parakeet” gives some possible remedies. 

Then in a very funny interaction he spends some time talking about James Barr’s description of fundamentalism as ‘a pathological condition of Christianity’ he describes fundamentalism:

1. It is unintelligent because it doesn’t allow for an honest struggle and questioning within the reading of the Bible.  He quotes Coffin saying that’ if an ass peers in [Scripture], you can’t expect an apostle to peer out’.

2.  It is the religion of a crusading mind rather than a crucified mind.  “True spirituality involves a dimension of listening, of abandonment, of silent brooding, features which are conspicuously absent in most fundamentalist worship and life”.  This past weekend we celebrated a new baby’s birth and mourned a miscarriage - and it was good to worship God within the tension of those two movements.

3.  It is selective.  “It chooses those parts of Scripture which fit in with the dominant ideology.  So, for example, it often focuses more on issues such as homosexuality and abortion, on which the Bible say little or nothing, and ignores issues such as poverty and wealth, on which it says a great deal.  Being itself so entangled with the dominant ideology, it fails to see how conditioned and unfree - and therefore anti-spiritual - its biblicism is."

This description strikes me as so true and it helps me towards a more generous spirituality of the Word of God.  It invites me into honestly facing my and my community’s questions, of living with the tensions inherent in the text and in realizing that I’m biased when I enter in conversation with the text.  May I be healed of my pathological Christianity!

   

What is a Christian?

Christian spirituality is about a process of formation, a process in which we are formed by, and in, Christ: Christ who, sharing the form of God, assumed the form of a servant (Phil 2.6). In this process, we are transformed so that we come more and more to share the Christ nature. Spiritual formation, then, is not a process of self-cultivation by which we are helped to adjust, to conform to the values of the dominant social order. Spiritual formation is not about adjustment. It is a process of 'Christ-ening', of being clothed with Christ, and in this process we are transformed. It is a process that which involves confrontation, exploration and struggle, and its goal is maturity in Christ. Kenneth Leech, "Spirituality and pastoral care" p.5

I started reading above quoted book today.  Over lunch a friend of mine commented that he can work with a co-worker for 3 years and not know if he/she is a Christian or not.  He then asked, "What is a Christian today?"  This friend is not a Christian and asked a sincere question (which in itself is also a powerful observation).  The quote above centralizes the Christian journey on Jesus and becoming like Him in his servant capacity.  It also shows that Christianity is not an adaptive enterprise - it is foolishness and upside down.

So why is it so difficult for my friend to figure out who is Christian and who is not?