As a Christian, should you give according to your abilities? Consider Jesus's parable of the widow who gave her last two mites to the church and was considered a bigger contributor than all the rich men. Think of His words in Luke 12 that remind us, "To whom much is given, of him much is required." Remember all those parables about stewards who were entrusted with their masters' investments. It's reasonable to say that we would do well to give or contribute our finances, time, and efforts in accordance with our abilities.
As a Christian, should you take according your needs? Jesus spoke often about how a preoccupation with personal wealth and possessions could distract a person from enjoying the riches of a relationship with God. Paul set an example of working for his daily sustenance and living simply. Our central story is about the Son of God who forwent his rightful place in heaven for a lower-class existence on earth. It seems reasonable to say that with the eternal inheritances of heaven on our minds, we shouldn't be preoccupied with excesses here in this temporal life, but yes, should take according to our basic needs.
The above two conclusions seem pretty logical, but also neatly affirm the classical definition of communism: "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." And with the patriotic people I work with, the label of communism changes everything. Complaints and fears about the prospect of Obama's ever-expanding bailout, about taking everyone's hard-earned money and redistributing it to the poor, lazy, and undeserving. Re-affirmations of capitalism and self-reliance as bastions of American society, hallmarks of the American way. Apparently, there are things that we would agree with on principle about communism, but with the introduction of the label and in light of how the ideology has played out in practice, nobody wants to be a communist. Which is not unlike how I feel about the emerging church and whether I want to call myself a member.
I am usually behind the curve on the nuances and variations of Christian denominations and factions, so most people are probably more aware of the term "emerging church" than I am. A very simple definition would be the segment of Christians whose theology and vision of the church is more adapted to 20th and 21st century postmodern culture. The Wikipedia article for "emerging church" is helpful in outlining its main characteristics, but highlighted with multitudinous caveats about subsections prone to "weasel words," "biased or unverifiable information," and "clarification needed," which seems entirely appropriate for an ideology adapted to postmodernism. A lot of my friends hate the subjectivity of postmodernism, but I have never been a pomophobe, at least as far as literature and abstract ideas are concerned. Where does true meaning lie in a piece of media or text: in the intent of a usually-long-dead author, in the sensory perception and experience of the reader, or somewhere in between? It seems like an important question to ask about the nature of literature, and it seems like an important question to consider theologically. If there is a God trying to send an important message to me through a 2000-year-old book of historical chronicles, poetry, and epistles, how should I go about interpreting it? And clearly people have answered that question because they do choose to go about interpreting it in various ways that have manifested into a thousand different denominations, but few stop to think about the process by which they decide how to answer the question.
But to return to the other question of how to respond to the emerging church, it's intriguing to observe that some of its elements have caught on like wildfire, becoming as universal as the emerging church's best-known dare-I-say-manifesto Blue Like Jazz. During my time at Campus Crusade for Christ, a lot of brochures and ministry literature showed a lot of artistic and aesthetic emphasis: there were a lot of colorful, over-exposed images as backdrops and crazy trendy music videos inviting you to "encounter" God at the Fall Retreat. The new tool "Soularium" evangelism tool offered a few dozen over- or under-saturated photographs that were supposed to prompt an experiential discussion or dialogue about what truth, love, and God were all about. Words like "authentic," "organic," "not-prepackaged," and "holistic" began to replace the suddenly clunky, traditional "Christian-ese" in describing our faith. And these changes aren't simply cosmetic: a lot of the emphasis on social justice, third world concerns, sincere spiritual dialoguing in lieu of evangelistic presentations, and narrative theology has really burgeoned in the last decade or so, and these changes are great changes that have done a lot of great things to distill Christianity down from its hierarchical systems and legalisms to the central (yet decentralized) precepts of unconditional grace, love, and forgiveness. I love the concept of a decentralized, grassroots sort of Christianity because it seems more Jesus-like to me. I believe in all these things, and I believe that Jesus does too.
So in light of these significant positive aspects, why wouldn't I identify completely with the emerging church? The answer lies in my initial reaction to Blue Like Jazz. I hated it because I felt like it was a petulant response to conservative Christianity. As the Wikipedia article articulates, "Christian scholar, D. A. Carson, has characterized the emerging church movement as primarily a movement of protest in which participants are reacting against their more conservative heritage. Carson has pointed out that emergent books and blogs are more preoccupied with this protest than they are with any genuinely constructive agenda." In a certain sense, D. A. Carson has a point. There is sometimes a definite underlying push to set Jesus up as some sort of heroic everyman opponent of the religious establishment, which I don't think was the point of Jesus's time on earth. Also, a lot of newly "authentic" Christians seem like they're simply exchanging their hymnals for baseless, trendy pluralistic mysticism. Catechism for coffee shops, gospel tracts for grainy film clips. And one noticeable feature about reading literature in a postmodern way is that it emphasizes the reader's experience at the expense of devaluing the text itself. Sure, you can read Hamlet a thousand different ways and even turn it into The Lion King, but does the same hold true for Scripture, words that we have always taken to be divinely inspired by God? I wonder ambivalently about the limits of postmodern narrative interpretation because I like translations from King James to more culturally relevant language, but I don't like the idea of someone grasping the retelling of Old Testament from the NBC show Kings as reliable theology. Maybe it's possible that God preserved His meaning across the errata of different English translations, but it's a pretty extreme postmodern stretch to suppose He would grant the same legitimacy for our narrative re-imaginings. It seems to me that in a postmodern sense, we partially become the Authors of our faith, conform God to our image, and in that sense make ourselves gods.
To put it in other terms, here is another excerpt from the Wikipedia article:
"The movement appropriates set theory as a means of understanding a basic change in the way the Christian church thinks about itself as a group. Set theory is a concept in mathematics that allows an understanding of what numbers belong to a group, or set. A bounded set would describe a group with clear "in" and "out" definitions of membership. The Christian church has largely organized itself as a bounded set, those who share the same beliefs and values are in the set and those who disagree are outside. The centered set does not limit membership to pre-conceived boundaries. Instead a centered set is conditioned on a centered point. Membership is contingent on those who are moving toward that point. Elements moving toward a particular point are part of the set, but elements moving away from that point are not. As a centered-set Christian membership would be dependent on moving toward the central point of Jesus. A Christian is then defined by their focus and movement toward Christ rather than a limited set of shared beliefs and values."
The idea of Jesus as the singular epicenter of the paradigm is a true and compelling vision, but if Jesus is the center, unfettered by tradition and belief sets, how do we find and point to Jesus? Through experiential means or through Scripture? Does Scripture validate our experiences that lead us to Christ, or do our experiences validate the Scriptures that tell about Christ?
"O Timothy!" urges Paul at the end of his first letter to his beloved disciple, "Guard what was committed to your trust, avoiding the profane and idle babblings and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge -- by professing it, some have strayed concerning the faith." I identify with the sentiment: in the uncertainty of the world and mysteries of ontology, Scripture serves as the definitive lifeline and basis for truth. Of course, a significant contingent of the emerging church discredits the writings of Paul as errant third-party interpretations of the message Jesus really meant to present.
I think a short way to put it would be that I love some of the progressive aspects of the emerging church: the promotion of dialogue, the re-discovery of the poetic and aesthetic aspects of our Scripture, the emphases on social justice and applied grace, the decentralized grassroots style. And I love some of the harder questions raised by the postmodernist perspective. But I don't like the departure from solid Scriptural teaching coupled with a more syncretistic interpretation of the Christian faith: its effect does too much to make us the authors. I can't stand this indecision, married with a lack of vision: everybody wants to rule the world. I realize that Christmas and Easter are inherently syncretistic, but maybe we should question Christmas and Easter too. Sometimes when you mix too many colors, you don't get a jazz-like blue; you get a big, brown mess.
It's certainly worth appending, though, that I really liked Blue Like Jazz on the second read-through, and if there were one branch of Christianity I would identify myself with, it would decidedly be the emerging church.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Shorts, Part Two
Most drivers check their blind spots and side mirrors to clear the lane or turn before they change lanes or turn, but sometimes they have a lapse and forget to do so. The large majority of collisions are decidedly preventable by the vigilance of the other drivers in the vicinity. Therefore, for drivers {x, y, z...} let {X, Y, Z} represent the probability of their respective situational awareness. Is the probability of collision therefore (1-X)(1-Y)(1-Z)...? The only variable that appears outstanding is the relative positioning of the vehicles. Let {xy, xz, yz...} therefore represent the coefficient of relative positioning that determines proximity to collision. The probability of collision would therefore be (xy)(xz)(yz)(1-X)(1-Y)(1-Z). Everyone should go home and determine their own probability of paying attention at any given moment on the road. We could then program the probabilities {X, Y, Z...} into transponders that would transmit to computerized radar detectors that could then output the probability of collision at any time during a drive based on the other drivers in the vicinity. Would that be more or less helpful than a CBDR output?
Second verse of "Amazing Grace": "Twas grace that taught my heart to fear." How, specifically, was this accomplished?
I have gained 30 lbs in the last 5 years. That averages to 6 lbs per year. Somehow I still look manorexic. If I live to be 80, I will rest with 489 lbs in my coffin. I can't imagine still looking manorexic at 489 lbs. I should look into finding more than the standard six pallbearers.
In the song "Single Ladies" by Beyonce, the main refrain is "If you liked it, then you shoulda put a ring on it." Let's focus on the pronoun and its possible antecedent. "If you liked [], then you shoulda put a ring on []." You'd expect to "put a ring on" [the lady's ring finger], but typically guys don't especially like [the lady's ring finger]. Take it from the other end: if you liked [the lady], then you're objectifying "it" to the point of not even granting "it" a "her" status. So for all the listeners who hail "Single Ladies" as the new female-empowering classic in the style of "Respect" and "I Will Survive" -- please, girlfriend.
Why would Miley Cyrus put Taylor Swift in her Hannah Montana movie? Taylor Swift is better looking and a better singer. That's like inviting Heidi Klum to be a bridesmaid at your wedding.
A lot of people do superficial things like check Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter excessively. A lot of people write superficial articles and columns about those aforementioned people doing superficial things. You are reading a superficial statement about those people writing superficial articles about people doing superficial things. It's almost as bad as getting RickRolled.
If the noun form of "artificial" is "artifice," the noun form of "superficial" should be obvious.
Strangers who normally wouldn't make eye contact suddenly walk across rooms to pat a woman's stomach once she becomes pregnant. Uncanny, but I wonder if there's some form of alternative energy to be harvested from the perpetual motion of fawning pregnant-stomach-patters.
If it weren't for great expectations, everyone could get married for under $10,000.
Most people, even if they haven't seen the movie, are familiar with the plot of Weekend at Bernie's: two young insurance executives discover that their boss Bernie has died in his sleep and over the weekend, to avoid trouble with the police and with certain hitmen, they have to convince everyone that Bernie is alive by dragging the corpse around, sitting it up, posing it, making its arms wave and head nod, and doing Bernie's voice from behind the corpse. Hey, I just thought of a way to make a sequel to The Dark Knight!
I think a good way to heckle someone named Mary would be to ask if she had Maryngitis, but unbelievably, I have never heard anyone use that.
It would make sense if Keats liked steak, especially since Keats had a turn for words.
Those Somali pirates could have definitely had much better PR if one of them had renamed himself Jack Sparrow.
Someone should write an algorithm that codifies the unspoken rules for selecting the optimal available urinal in the men's room. This algorithm could turn on a light over the correct urinal to use, based on which units are occupied and which are available. Not that the choice isn't typically intuitive and evident, but someone needs to teach boys to be men.
I recently went to England and visited three huge and beautiful edifices: St. Paul's Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, and Yorkminster. Each was awe-inspiring and engendered wonder and reverence for what would cause men to build such a structure of size and beauty and presence. In that way, giant cathedrals testify to the glory of God. Our hearts are also supposed to be temples for the Lord, but I wonder what specifically in my heart inspires that sort of awe and glorification of God.
I went to a beautiful wedding recently where the couple wrote their own vows. One of them said, "I will always give you the benefit of the doubt," which is a very loving thing to say. There are a lot of things about God that don't make sense to me, but if I love Him, I should always give Him the benefit of the doubt.
Second verse of "Amazing Grace": "Twas grace that taught my heart to fear." How, specifically, was this accomplished?
I have gained 30 lbs in the last 5 years. That averages to 6 lbs per year. Somehow I still look manorexic. If I live to be 80, I will rest with 489 lbs in my coffin. I can't imagine still looking manorexic at 489 lbs. I should look into finding more than the standard six pallbearers.
In the song "Single Ladies" by Beyonce, the main refrain is "If you liked it, then you shoulda put a ring on it." Let's focus on the pronoun and its possible antecedent. "If you liked [], then you shoulda put a ring on []." You'd expect to "put a ring on" [the lady's ring finger], but typically guys don't especially like [the lady's ring finger]. Take it from the other end: if you liked [the lady], then you're objectifying "it" to the point of not even granting "it" a "her" status. So for all the listeners who hail "Single Ladies" as the new female-empowering classic in the style of "Respect" and "I Will Survive" -- please, girlfriend.
Why would Miley Cyrus put Taylor Swift in her Hannah Montana movie? Taylor Swift is better looking and a better singer. That's like inviting Heidi Klum to be a bridesmaid at your wedding.
A lot of people do superficial things like check Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter excessively. A lot of people write superficial articles and columns about those aforementioned people doing superficial things. You are reading a superficial statement about those people writing superficial articles about people doing superficial things. It's almost as bad as getting RickRolled.
If the noun form of "artificial" is "artifice," the noun form of "superficial" should be obvious.
Strangers who normally wouldn't make eye contact suddenly walk across rooms to pat a woman's stomach once she becomes pregnant. Uncanny, but I wonder if there's some form of alternative energy to be harvested from the perpetual motion of fawning pregnant-stomach-patters.
If it weren't for great expectations, everyone could get married for under $10,000.
Most people, even if they haven't seen the movie, are familiar with the plot of Weekend at Bernie's: two young insurance executives discover that their boss Bernie has died in his sleep and over the weekend, to avoid trouble with the police and with certain hitmen, they have to convince everyone that Bernie is alive by dragging the corpse around, sitting it up, posing it, making its arms wave and head nod, and doing Bernie's voice from behind the corpse. Hey, I just thought of a way to make a sequel to The Dark Knight!
I think a good way to heckle someone named Mary would be to ask if she had Maryngitis, but unbelievably, I have never heard anyone use that.
It would make sense if Keats liked steak, especially since Keats had a turn for words.
Those Somali pirates could have definitely had much better PR if one of them had renamed himself Jack Sparrow.
Someone should write an algorithm that codifies the unspoken rules for selecting the optimal available urinal in the men's room. This algorithm could turn on a light over the correct urinal to use, based on which units are occupied and which are available. Not that the choice isn't typically intuitive and evident, but someone needs to teach boys to be men.
I recently went to England and visited three huge and beautiful edifices: St. Paul's Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, and Yorkminster. Each was awe-inspiring and engendered wonder and reverence for what would cause men to build such a structure of size and beauty and presence. In that way, giant cathedrals testify to the glory of God. Our hearts are also supposed to be temples for the Lord, but I wonder what specifically in my heart inspires that sort of awe and glorification of God.
I went to a beautiful wedding recently where the couple wrote their own vows. One of them said, "I will always give you the benefit of the doubt," which is a very loving thing to say. There are a lot of things about God that don't make sense to me, but if I love Him, I should always give Him the benefit of the doubt.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Broken For You
"Just as many were astonished at you, so His visage was marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men; so shall He startle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths at Him; for what had not been told them, they shall see, and what they had not heard, they shall consider." -- Isaiah 52:14-15
I'm not alone in realizing that I'm pretty obsessed with my own body. I work out religiously, sometimes with more faithfulness and discipline than I apply to studying God's Word, and not for the purpose of helping to serve others or doing my job well, but to be good at sports and to appear impressive without a shirt. And sometimes I watch The Biggest Loser to marvel at the spectacle of the fat kids trying desperately to lose weight and regain a physical normality. I'm always impressed with the amount of effort and attention they put into their on-camera project, and no matter who wins, everyone seems elated and gratified at the end of the show and swears that come hell or high water, they will never let themselves regress to the throes of obesity. Would anything, any cause, compel them to sacrifice their new-found health, appearance, confidence, and approval? Because they seem pretty attached to their healthy bodies. Physical health is something most people prioritize and invest in significantly and constantly.
Consider the following hypothetical examples:
If given the choice, would you accept severe facial acne and a lazy eye for the rest of your life if it meant that your father would never face unemployment?
Would you stick your arm into a wood chipper if it meant that a child in Africa would never go hungry again?
Would you allow your eyes to be put out if it meant that you could have your pick of a mission field to be sent to?
Would you make all three physical sacrifices if it meant that all three resultant goods would come to pass?
Two observations stand extant from pondering those questions. One is that the questions are completely unreasonable because the sacrifice and the resultant good are seemingly unrelated: there is no foreseeable cause and effect. And the other is that they seem completely unreasonable because the resultant good might seem small or cheap compared to the thought of spending the rest of your life with facial acne, an amputated arm, and two detached eyes, both presumably made lazy through the process of removal. But if the resultant good of your sacrifice were high enough, worth enough, valuable enough, then the hesitation and regret about the physical sacrifice would pale in the face of the good consequences, and the questions would not seem so far-fetched.
I say these things because Jesus's face was "marred more than any man." Isaiah 53 predicted that in the midst of His crucifixion, He was the sort of man that people hid their faces from: either from shame and shock at the depth of His unmerited suffering or horror at His physical grotesqueness. It only takes a passing glance at the details of a Roman crucifixion or a viewing of The Passion of the Christ to imagine what Jesus gave up physically for us: a horrible, painful death so terrifying that He sweat blood in anticipation of the event in the Garden of Gethsemane. And He gave up so much more than His body: He gave up the rest of His human life and relationships that we treasure so highly. Time with His earthly family, His beloved disciples, His created and chosen people. Time spent with Mary and Martha and Lazarus. And before all that, He gave up His exalted status in heaven to dwell in abject humility as a homeless earthbound man.
My hypothetical scenarios were ridiculous and irrelevant because there was seemingly no connection between the sacrifice and the resultant good and because the resultant good may have seemed too petty for the accompanying sacrifice. And a lot of people might consider the story of Good Friday and Easter in the same way. What is the connection between a good man dying slowly and an eternal reconciliation with God? And what did He come to die for so horrifically: a chance to go to heaven for harp-playing and cloud-sitting tranquility?
The story of Jesus's death and resurrection becomes relevant and powerful when we address and dispel the two roadblocks. In today's Easter sermon in church, the pastor pointed to "substitution" as the ultimate distilled principle of Christianity: that if we understood nothing else, that if we never had the chance to absorb all the nuances and wisdom from the volumes of a Christian bookstore, we should definitely understand that Jesus Christ came to die in our place, that He substituted His fate for ours, and ours for His. It seems very simple, but with all the buzzwords and dogmas out there, I think a lot of people that we pass in life have only a vague notion of what specifically was accomplished by Jesus's death and resurrection.
The other half is thinking about what Jesus died to accomplish. It's decidedly silly to think about sacrifice your life, your hopes, your future for something small. It's silly to think that you would die if you could only see the Hannah Montana movie on opening night. It's more noble to think about sacrificing your life for the cause of your nation, but that's still an earthly cause, and governments are ultimately temporary. If you're going to give your life for something, let it be epic, let it be of ultimate importance. Let it be for the long-awaited restoration of a perfected, glorious relationship between a perfect Father and His beloved children, for the return of peace, love, and joy for all eternity, for the vanquishing of death and fear and loneliness, for a triumph that resounds throughout a vast created universe. And if that's what you're dying for, then even the ghastliness of a crucifixion seems like a worthwhile sacrifice, something not ridiculous, but perfectly obvious in its necessity.
"Let us not be deceived on this point nor misled by those who, when they announce Christ as the deliverer, think they have preached the gospel. If I throw a rope to a drowning man, I am a deliverer. But is Christ no more than that? If I cast myself into the sea and risk myself to save another, I am a deliverer. But is Christ no more? Did He risk His life? The very essence of Christ's deliverance is the substitution of himself for us--his life for ours! He did not come to risk his life; he came to die!" -- Horatius Bonar
These things to recall and rejoice in about the body of Christ, broken for you.
I'm not alone in realizing that I'm pretty obsessed with my own body. I work out religiously, sometimes with more faithfulness and discipline than I apply to studying God's Word, and not for the purpose of helping to serve others or doing my job well, but to be good at sports and to appear impressive without a shirt. And sometimes I watch The Biggest Loser to marvel at the spectacle of the fat kids trying desperately to lose weight and regain a physical normality. I'm always impressed with the amount of effort and attention they put into their on-camera project, and no matter who wins, everyone seems elated and gratified at the end of the show and swears that come hell or high water, they will never let themselves regress to the throes of obesity. Would anything, any cause, compel them to sacrifice their new-found health, appearance, confidence, and approval? Because they seem pretty attached to their healthy bodies. Physical health is something most people prioritize and invest in significantly and constantly.
Consider the following hypothetical examples:
If given the choice, would you accept severe facial acne and a lazy eye for the rest of your life if it meant that your father would never face unemployment?
Would you stick your arm into a wood chipper if it meant that a child in Africa would never go hungry again?
Would you allow your eyes to be put out if it meant that you could have your pick of a mission field to be sent to?
Would you make all three physical sacrifices if it meant that all three resultant goods would come to pass?
Two observations stand extant from pondering those questions. One is that the questions are completely unreasonable because the sacrifice and the resultant good are seemingly unrelated: there is no foreseeable cause and effect. And the other is that they seem completely unreasonable because the resultant good might seem small or cheap compared to the thought of spending the rest of your life with facial acne, an amputated arm, and two detached eyes, both presumably made lazy through the process of removal. But if the resultant good of your sacrifice were high enough, worth enough, valuable enough, then the hesitation and regret about the physical sacrifice would pale in the face of the good consequences, and the questions would not seem so far-fetched.
I say these things because Jesus's face was "marred more than any man." Isaiah 53 predicted that in the midst of His crucifixion, He was the sort of man that people hid their faces from: either from shame and shock at the depth of His unmerited suffering or horror at His physical grotesqueness. It only takes a passing glance at the details of a Roman crucifixion or a viewing of The Passion of the Christ to imagine what Jesus gave up physically for us: a horrible, painful death so terrifying that He sweat blood in anticipation of the event in the Garden of Gethsemane. And He gave up so much more than His body: He gave up the rest of His human life and relationships that we treasure so highly. Time with His earthly family, His beloved disciples, His created and chosen people. Time spent with Mary and Martha and Lazarus. And before all that, He gave up His exalted status in heaven to dwell in abject humility as a homeless earthbound man.
My hypothetical scenarios were ridiculous and irrelevant because there was seemingly no connection between the sacrifice and the resultant good and because the resultant good may have seemed too petty for the accompanying sacrifice. And a lot of people might consider the story of Good Friday and Easter in the same way. What is the connection between a good man dying slowly and an eternal reconciliation with God? And what did He come to die for so horrifically: a chance to go to heaven for harp-playing and cloud-sitting tranquility?
The story of Jesus's death and resurrection becomes relevant and powerful when we address and dispel the two roadblocks. In today's Easter sermon in church, the pastor pointed to "substitution" as the ultimate distilled principle of Christianity: that if we understood nothing else, that if we never had the chance to absorb all the nuances and wisdom from the volumes of a Christian bookstore, we should definitely understand that Jesus Christ came to die in our place, that He substituted His fate for ours, and ours for His. It seems very simple, but with all the buzzwords and dogmas out there, I think a lot of people that we pass in life have only a vague notion of what specifically was accomplished by Jesus's death and resurrection.
The other half is thinking about what Jesus died to accomplish. It's decidedly silly to think about sacrifice your life, your hopes, your future for something small. It's silly to think that you would die if you could only see the Hannah Montana movie on opening night. It's more noble to think about sacrificing your life for the cause of your nation, but that's still an earthly cause, and governments are ultimately temporary. If you're going to give your life for something, let it be epic, let it be of ultimate importance. Let it be for the long-awaited restoration of a perfected, glorious relationship between a perfect Father and His beloved children, for the return of peace, love, and joy for all eternity, for the vanquishing of death and fear and loneliness, for a triumph that resounds throughout a vast created universe. And if that's what you're dying for, then even the ghastliness of a crucifixion seems like a worthwhile sacrifice, something not ridiculous, but perfectly obvious in its necessity.
"Let us not be deceived on this point nor misled by those who, when they announce Christ as the deliverer, think they have preached the gospel. If I throw a rope to a drowning man, I am a deliverer. But is Christ no more than that? If I cast myself into the sea and risk myself to save another, I am a deliverer. But is Christ no more? Did He risk His life? The very essence of Christ's deliverance is the substitution of himself for us--his life for ours! He did not come to risk his life; he came to die!" -- Horatius Bonar
These things to recall and rejoice in about the body of Christ, broken for you.
Friday, April 3, 2009
A Run in the Rain
No resolution or structure or guidance to this post. Just going to let my fingers go. Sorry in advance if you get confused, weirded out, or put off. No one is making you read my writing.
I ran 6 miles today, a 3 mile there-and-back. The first 3 miles are unremarkable and mostly downhill, which implies the uphill incline of the last 3 miles. I run to my friends' house on Outlook Avenue, ask for a drink of water, chat for a while, then turn around to resume the run, to make my return trip. It starts raining and that's when I have a glorious excerpt, an epiphany, of life at the edge.
I duck out of the rain as it picks up, duck into a covered porch, walk inside the door, ask for a bathroom. I pee and look at myself in the mirror. I am sweaty and grizzled. I haven't shaved in a week, and I am covered in sweat and grime. A wild man is staring me down in the glass. I exit the bathroom and look around, realizing I am in a nursing home for the elderly. I wonder what they think of the wild man, wonder if they know I am a philosopher at heart and in mind. I find a rocking chair on the front porch and sit down to wait out the rain, which is now pouring heavily on the pavement of the parking lot in front of me. It is windy and about 40 degrees out, though the part of me that longs for symmetry wishes it were -40 degrees, so it would rest on the intersection of the Fahrenheit and Celsius spectra.
I think about the times I've been caught in the rain running, and I think I recall the feeling of being alive very poignantly. The rain is not letting up, and I have to eat sometime. Fuck it, I say to myself, and I get out of the chair and begin running uphill in the cold and the rain.
I run steadily uphill, my legs churning and pounding rhythmically and forcefully like the work-hardened pistons of a diesel engine. The rpm's have to increase to gain any traction, to achieve any progress on the uphill. The pace is slower, time slows down, the beauty of motion comes into higher resolution. The rain falls on my head, occludes the transparency of my glasses, and in my head, there is music, not one, but two songs dueling in an oddly functional syncopation: the "Training Montage" theme from Rocky and "A Little Fall of Rain" from Les Miserables. I am Rocky, willing himself up the hill, all heart barely caged in a bundle of muscle and bone and coursing blood, but I am also Marius and Eponine, oblivious to the falling rain, ignoring Cosette pining in the background.
As I power myself up the hill, pain begins to creep up my legs, starting with the burgeoning blisters in the arches of my soaked feet, stretching higher up my legs with each impact, like the mud splashing onto my calves, like the puck in the strong-man hammer game at the carnival, bouncing higher and higher until the puck hits the bell every time, ding, Ding, DING! The cold and the rain and the pain and the mud and the stab of the air into my lungs reminds me powerfully that I am very much alive, and I laugh scornfully at my friends who wouldn't be out here in the rain, who would've stayed indoors, who sit on the couch and watch their televisions and miss out on the carnal knowledge that they are gloriously alive. Cars and trucks scream by on the road, 60 mph, and as each careens by me, the warning sounds rising exponentially with Doppler waves until the closest point of approach, I hope desperately that their brakes don't lock up, that they don't break into a hurtling skid, fishtailing the car around at 60 mph to paste me into the passenger door like a bug. I'm running just off the paved shoulder of the road, mud splashing, each step a probabilistic mystery as to how far down my foot will sink into the next consecutive puddle.
Let the cars scream by me, let the drivers gawk from their warm, dry, steel-enclosed cabins at the grizzled crazy runner who has forgone such shelter. Let them wonder, what specimen is this -- man or beast -- who runs through the elements and forces of nature so recklessly? I am a Spartan, I am sprinting across the battlefield, I am a wolf bounding through the woods, hungry. As the uphill and the strenuous pace force the breath from my chest, I stop controlling my breathing and let my exhalations escape in ragged, noisy bursts. Eee-HUHHH, Eee-HUHHH. I sound like a woman giving birth, but to run yourself through the soaking cold rain and mud is to be reborn, a scene like Tim Robbins in The Shawshank Redemption after he crawls through the drainage pipe and stands free, arms raised, in the thunderstorm.
As I cross under the final overpass and begin the final steep hill to my driveway, my body tells me, no, No, NO, but I am alive, God made me alive, and I need to live (what's the point in being alive if you're not going to use it?). And my legs protest, but my heart will go on. Cliches and quotations fly through my head, boring prose suddenly brought to life by my electric experience. Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war! Though my heart and my flesh fail me, God is my strength and my portion. And most prevalently, from Macbeth, his final words, my final words as I run headlong up the final hill, Damned be he who first cries, "Hold, enough!"
I arrive at my front porch. I shake my soaked shoes off of my blistered feet. I stumble into my garage, find a plot of concrete, and knock out 100 pushups and some abdominal exercises for good measure. I put away half a sandwich and a protein shake. I sit down at my keyboard, think for a second about whether people will want to read my self-centric ramblings, don't care, and begin to type. It occurs to me that I am writing while stark naked and high on endorphins. I let my fingers go.
I ran 6 miles today, a 3 mile there-and-back. The first 3 miles are unremarkable and mostly downhill, which implies the uphill incline of the last 3 miles. I run to my friends' house on Outlook Avenue, ask for a drink of water, chat for a while, then turn around to resume the run, to make my return trip. It starts raining and that's when I have a glorious excerpt, an epiphany, of life at the edge.
I duck out of the rain as it picks up, duck into a covered porch, walk inside the door, ask for a bathroom. I pee and look at myself in the mirror. I am sweaty and grizzled. I haven't shaved in a week, and I am covered in sweat and grime. A wild man is staring me down in the glass. I exit the bathroom and look around, realizing I am in a nursing home for the elderly. I wonder what they think of the wild man, wonder if they know I am a philosopher at heart and in mind. I find a rocking chair on the front porch and sit down to wait out the rain, which is now pouring heavily on the pavement of the parking lot in front of me. It is windy and about 40 degrees out, though the part of me that longs for symmetry wishes it were -40 degrees, so it would rest on the intersection of the Fahrenheit and Celsius spectra.
I think about the times I've been caught in the rain running, and I think I recall the feeling of being alive very poignantly. The rain is not letting up, and I have to eat sometime. Fuck it, I say to myself, and I get out of the chair and begin running uphill in the cold and the rain.
I run steadily uphill, my legs churning and pounding rhythmically and forcefully like the work-hardened pistons of a diesel engine. The rpm's have to increase to gain any traction, to achieve any progress on the uphill. The pace is slower, time slows down, the beauty of motion comes into higher resolution. The rain falls on my head, occludes the transparency of my glasses, and in my head, there is music, not one, but two songs dueling in an oddly functional syncopation: the "Training Montage" theme from Rocky and "A Little Fall of Rain" from Les Miserables. I am Rocky, willing himself up the hill, all heart barely caged in a bundle of muscle and bone and coursing blood, but I am also Marius and Eponine, oblivious to the falling rain, ignoring Cosette pining in the background.
As I power myself up the hill, pain begins to creep up my legs, starting with the burgeoning blisters in the arches of my soaked feet, stretching higher up my legs with each impact, like the mud splashing onto my calves, like the puck in the strong-man hammer game at the carnival, bouncing higher and higher until the puck hits the bell every time, ding, Ding, DING! The cold and the rain and the pain and the mud and the stab of the air into my lungs reminds me powerfully that I am very much alive, and I laugh scornfully at my friends who wouldn't be out here in the rain, who would've stayed indoors, who sit on the couch and watch their televisions and miss out on the carnal knowledge that they are gloriously alive. Cars and trucks scream by on the road, 60 mph, and as each careens by me, the warning sounds rising exponentially with Doppler waves until the closest point of approach, I hope desperately that their brakes don't lock up, that they don't break into a hurtling skid, fishtailing the car around at 60 mph to paste me into the passenger door like a bug. I'm running just off the paved shoulder of the road, mud splashing, each step a probabilistic mystery as to how far down my foot will sink into the next consecutive puddle.
Let the cars scream by me, let the drivers gawk from their warm, dry, steel-enclosed cabins at the grizzled crazy runner who has forgone such shelter. Let them wonder, what specimen is this -- man or beast -- who runs through the elements and forces of nature so recklessly? I am a Spartan, I am sprinting across the battlefield, I am a wolf bounding through the woods, hungry. As the uphill and the strenuous pace force the breath from my chest, I stop controlling my breathing and let my exhalations escape in ragged, noisy bursts. Eee-HUHHH, Eee-HUHHH. I sound like a woman giving birth, but to run yourself through the soaking cold rain and mud is to be reborn, a scene like Tim Robbins in The Shawshank Redemption after he crawls through the drainage pipe and stands free, arms raised, in the thunderstorm.
As I cross under the final overpass and begin the final steep hill to my driveway, my body tells me, no, No, NO, but I am alive, God made me alive, and I need to live (what's the point in being alive if you're not going to use it?). And my legs protest, but my heart will go on. Cliches and quotations fly through my head, boring prose suddenly brought to life by my electric experience. Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war! Though my heart and my flesh fail me, God is my strength and my portion. And most prevalently, from Macbeth, his final words, my final words as I run headlong up the final hill, Damned be he who first cries, "Hold, enough!"
I arrive at my front porch. I shake my soaked shoes off of my blistered feet. I stumble into my garage, find a plot of concrete, and knock out 100 pushups and some abdominal exercises for good measure. I put away half a sandwich and a protein shake. I sit down at my keyboard, think for a second about whether people will want to read my self-centric ramblings, don't care, and begin to type. It occurs to me that I am writing while stark naked and high on endorphins. I let my fingers go.
John 14-16
Here starteth the commentary.
14:2: "In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you."
An intriguing hypothetical: if there were no mansions in heaven, Jesus would have told us so. I wonder what that would've looked like. "Sorry, guys, you'll have to share this celestial duplex." And what does it mean that Jesus goes to prepare a place for us? Is He going to physically prepare the mansions? Is He referring to His ensuing death and resurrection that opens up a means for us to enter His Father's house?
14:5-7: After hearing about heaven, Doubting Thomas asks how to get there, and Jesus responds that He is the way, and not only the way, but the truth and the life. A lot of Christian theology centers around either Jesus being the nexus to God or Jesus Himself being the epicenter of the faith, and here Jesus equates the two with Himself.
14:18: In fact, when Jesus reassures the disciples, "I will not leave your orphans; I will come to you," He implies that He is their father, again equating Himself with the Father.
14:28: Jesus states, "My Father is greater than I." It's hard to say whether this sentence is a theological inequality or a statement of submission to and worship of the Father. We usually like to put Jesus and the Father on the same plane, if not merge them together as an Echad, but clearly there are separate roles that Jesus identifies.
14:11: If we don't believe that Jesus and the Father are one, then, Jesus says, at least "believe Me for the sake of the works themselves." This reasoning is reminiscent of the case where he healed the blind man, who commented afterward, "Whether He is a sinner or not, I do not know. One thing I know: that though I was blind, now I see." (John 9:25) What a powerful personal statement! Even if we don't grasp salvation in all its theological complexity and mystery, we can definitely grasp the understanding that once we were dead and blind, and now we've been granted life and vision.
14:19: "Because I live, you will live also." Foreshadowing of the truth of resurrection.
14:10, 11, 20, 30: Several times, Jesus uses the preposition "in" to describe relationships: "I am in the Father and the Father in Me." "At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you." It sounds like a wacked-out game of Apples to Apples. Jesus explains the "in" relationship in more detail in the first half of John 15, describing Himself as the vine and His disciples as branches and reminding us of how the two collaborate to bear fruit.
15:14: "You are My friends if you do whatever I command you." Exactly how I feel about my own friendships. No one seems to appreciate the sentiment.
15:15: "No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father, I have made known to you." And then, 16:12: "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now." Confusing and seemingly contradictory statements. Probably shouldn't read too much into the antithetical; just take them for the sentiment that each conveys: the fact that Jesus calls us friend and confides in us, and the fact that He doesn't want to give us more than we can bear.
15:16: "You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you." Score one for the Reformed Christians.
15:19: "Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you." A good reminder that conflict and friction with the culture and society around us is not something gone awry, but a consequence expected with following Christ in a world that rejects Him. Not that we should seek conflict and suffering, but we shouldn't shy away from it.
15:22, 24: Jesus points out that if He had not spoken to the evildoers, "they would have no sin," but "now they have no excuse for their sin." The reflexive reaction of the reader is, well, why did You come into the world if we wouldn't have had sin otherwise? But the question misses the point: the point of Jesus coming into the world isn't that He revealed our sin, uncovering our disparity and distance from God, but rather the reconciliation and redemption and grace He came to offer.
16:3: "These things they will do to you because they have not known the Father nor Me." Rumored to have been Al Gore's quoted favorite Bible verse.
16:7-16: Jesus gives His disciples some explication as to what exactly the Holy Spirit (the Helper) will do and what His role is: to convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment; to guide us to all truth; to glorify both Jesus and the Father; and to take what is Jesus's and declare it to us. It seems that what we commonly term our "conscience" can be encompassed in the role of the Holy Spirit that is supposed to indwell in Christians.
16:25: Jesus notes that up to this point, He has spoken in figurative language, but the time is coming when He will speak plainly about the Father. Since the remaining chapters in John are about His crucifixion and resurrection, we can conclude that this time has not yet come. Jesus mentions that the disciples will not see Him for "a little while" because He will have gone to the Father, and when asked what "a little while" means, Jesus compares the timeline to a woman giving birth: first a period of anguish and pain and then a time of joy and exultation. The timing of Biblical events and prophesy is one of the most stupefying aspects of reading the Bible.
What a crazy set of chapters. The reader is constantly challenged to either look for consistency or look for Jesus.
Here endeth the commentary.
14:2: "In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you."
An intriguing hypothetical: if there were no mansions in heaven, Jesus would have told us so. I wonder what that would've looked like. "Sorry, guys, you'll have to share this celestial duplex." And what does it mean that Jesus goes to prepare a place for us? Is He going to physically prepare the mansions? Is He referring to His ensuing death and resurrection that opens up a means for us to enter His Father's house?
14:5-7: After hearing about heaven, Doubting Thomas asks how to get there, and Jesus responds that He is the way, and not only the way, but the truth and the life. A lot of Christian theology centers around either Jesus being the nexus to God or Jesus Himself being the epicenter of the faith, and here Jesus equates the two with Himself.
14:18: In fact, when Jesus reassures the disciples, "I will not leave your orphans; I will come to you," He implies that He is their father, again equating Himself with the Father.
14:28: Jesus states, "My Father is greater than I." It's hard to say whether this sentence is a theological inequality or a statement of submission to and worship of the Father. We usually like to put Jesus and the Father on the same plane, if not merge them together as an Echad, but clearly there are separate roles that Jesus identifies.
14:11: If we don't believe that Jesus and the Father are one, then, Jesus says, at least "believe Me for the sake of the works themselves." This reasoning is reminiscent of the case where he healed the blind man, who commented afterward, "Whether He is a sinner or not, I do not know. One thing I know: that though I was blind, now I see." (John 9:25) What a powerful personal statement! Even if we don't grasp salvation in all its theological complexity and mystery, we can definitely grasp the understanding that once we were dead and blind, and now we've been granted life and vision.
14:19: "Because I live, you will live also." Foreshadowing of the truth of resurrection.
14:10, 11, 20, 30: Several times, Jesus uses the preposition "in" to describe relationships: "I am in the Father and the Father in Me." "At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you." It sounds like a wacked-out game of Apples to Apples. Jesus explains the "in" relationship in more detail in the first half of John 15, describing Himself as the vine and His disciples as branches and reminding us of how the two collaborate to bear fruit.
15:14: "You are My friends if you do whatever I command you." Exactly how I feel about my own friendships. No one seems to appreciate the sentiment.
15:15: "No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father, I have made known to you." And then, 16:12: "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now." Confusing and seemingly contradictory statements. Probably shouldn't read too much into the antithetical; just take them for the sentiment that each conveys: the fact that Jesus calls us friend and confides in us, and the fact that He doesn't want to give us more than we can bear.
15:16: "You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you." Score one for the Reformed Christians.
15:19: "Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you." A good reminder that conflict and friction with the culture and society around us is not something gone awry, but a consequence expected with following Christ in a world that rejects Him. Not that we should seek conflict and suffering, but we shouldn't shy away from it.
15:22, 24: Jesus points out that if He had not spoken to the evildoers, "they would have no sin," but "now they have no excuse for their sin." The reflexive reaction of the reader is, well, why did You come into the world if we wouldn't have had sin otherwise? But the question misses the point: the point of Jesus coming into the world isn't that He revealed our sin, uncovering our disparity and distance from God, but rather the reconciliation and redemption and grace He came to offer.
16:3: "These things they will do to you because they have not known the Father nor Me." Rumored to have been Al Gore's quoted favorite Bible verse.
16:7-16: Jesus gives His disciples some explication as to what exactly the Holy Spirit (the Helper) will do and what His role is: to convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment; to guide us to all truth; to glorify both Jesus and the Father; and to take what is Jesus's and declare it to us. It seems that what we commonly term our "conscience" can be encompassed in the role of the Holy Spirit that is supposed to indwell in Christians.
16:25: Jesus notes that up to this point, He has spoken in figurative language, but the time is coming when He will speak plainly about the Father. Since the remaining chapters in John are about His crucifixion and resurrection, we can conclude that this time has not yet come. Jesus mentions that the disciples will not see Him for "a little while" because He will have gone to the Father, and when asked what "a little while" means, Jesus compares the timeline to a woman giving birth: first a period of anguish and pain and then a time of joy and exultation. The timing of Biblical events and prophesy is one of the most stupefying aspects of reading the Bible.
What a crazy set of chapters. The reader is constantly challenged to either look for consistency or look for Jesus.
Here endeth the commentary.
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