seethrough

at my home group tonight we were discussing a metaphor from Brian McClaren’s book Everything Must Change.

He invites us to imagine someone trying to complete a puzzle using the picture on the lid of the puzzle box.  Except that the box lid somehow got swapped with another puzzle.  Doing the puzzle becomes increasingly frustrating because the pieces don’t seem to correspond with the picture and vice versa.  Eventually, the person either gives up or they decide to “go” with the box-lid picture, attempting to force the pieces to produce the picture on the box.  Or the person stops using the picture and focuses on the pieces themselves allowing the picture to emerge.

The metaphor is likened to our lives - and the journey of spirituality - to doing a puzzle.  The pieces are our lives, which are real and do reflect some intention and purpose, but this is not entirely clear to us yet.  We may have found a few pieces that seem to go together and so these fragments become our starting place.  The picture we have been given to use as a guide is the version of the Christian religion that passed down to us.  It is a narrow understanding of Jesus that reduces his life and teaching and his death on the cross to a divine plan to get us all into heaven.  This “evacuation” theology focuses almost entirely on saving souls for a life hereafter.  But it seems to have little to say to our present lives and the reality of suffering, the questions we wrestle with, and the purpose of this life.  This view of Christianity has become the “whole truth” and any suggestions that there is more to Jesus than this gets rejected as “liberal” or “new age” or worse.

What is more concerning is the fact that all around the world people are frustrated with the seeming impotence of this “gospel”.  War and genocide ravages countries that we are told were 80% “Christian”.  Poverty continues while “Christian” countries arm themselves with weapons that can destroy the whole earth 60 times over.  (and this is done in the name of “defense”.  what will be left to defend once they have used their arms against their enemies????)  And while a majority of people on this planet proclaim a belief in a benevolent and ultimate power who created the world (and called it “good”?) still humanity struggles to live in ways that is sustainable and respectful of the planet, the only source of oxygen, water and food that we all have at our disposal…

So, it’s not surprising that many have simply stopped using the lid of the puzzle as their guide.  They have rejected organised religion and have decided to live their lives as best they can without the restrictions and prescriptions of religion (they are just getting on with doing the puzzle piece by piece as best they can).  Many of them would say they are deeply spiritual, but not particularly religious.  Which is, if you think about it, a good observation.  Every person IS spiritual - having a spirit which was given to them at birth.  If they are doing anything, they are focusing on living meaningfully in the present, finding odd pieces of the puzzle that fit and putting them together.  These small discoveries might not get them finishing the puzzle, but reflect more good and positive progress than religion offered them previously.

Others are soldiering on faithfully trying to make the pieces fit the picture on the box.  The old story of Jesus has become a matter of life and death.  If you don’t accept that Jesus died on the cross to save us from the wrath of God which would put us in a fiery furnace for eternity to placate his(?) own sense of justice, but because blood was shed now he is willing to have us with him in heaven for glorious eternity providing we say we believe…  If you don’t accept this is the picture that should be guiding us, you’re basically a heretic unbeliever who is going to hell like all the other unbelievers.

And then McClaren suggests there are some who are suggesting we reconsider our “framing story” - our understanding of Jesus and his purpose - which in the metaphor would be like getting the correct picture so that the pieces begin to make sense and fitting them together begins to progress more positively.  For McClaren, the new (correct?) picture for the puzzle is given to us by Jesus when he talks about the Kingdom of God.  The Kingdom of God is the main theme of Jesus’ teaching and is a vision of life lived God’s way - according to God’s values and God’s way.  This new vision (picture) allows us to make better sense of our lives - their purpose and ultimate destiny - and will assist us to live more meaningfully in the present, on this earth, as well as prepare us for the eternal destiny that God has prepared…

Throwing away the old picture doesn’t mean giving up on Jesus or the church.  Although some of the things associated with Jesus and the Church may need to go.  But perhaps it means we see these things in a new way - with new eyes - and are able to live more healthily in our daily lives because of this new vision.

i recently watched For the Bible tells me so - a documentary which follows the stories of five christian families, coming to terms with having a gay or lesbian son or daughter.  I found it so moving and helpful that i invited members of the community of faith, of which i am a part, to view it during Holy Week (just before Easter).

About 50 people came to watch and I prefaced the movie by saying that I am tired of (and by) the debate about homosexuality in the church.  It has almost never engaged gay and lesbian christians.  they voice has been marginalised or ignored in favour of a debate about an issue, allowing the debate to remain impersonal.  This movie transcends the debate by allowing the debate to move into the context of family and parenting.  How should a good and faithful christian parent respond when their son or daughter comes out about their same-sex oreintation?

The movie focuses on people’s lives and asks what the bible has to say to people in very real life circumstances.

I recommend the movie to you.  I rate it as the best catalyst for helpful conversation on this issue that i hace found.  Mostly because it allows gay and lesbian people into the “debate”.  While gay and lesbian members of churches may not feel safe or ready to speak out, the movie allows their voice to be heard in a empowering way.

And then the moment of transformation - when i sense all the frustration and sturggle is worth it…

A few hard-liners attended the movie.  People from my community who have been fairly outspoken about the biblical position (i.e. that homosexuality is an abomination etc…)  I wondered how they would respond.

And then after the movie, i was standing by my car in the parking lot.  and one of the people who have tended to be quite conservative wound down his car window and surprised me.  He said: “I was so arrogant to judge them.”  A powerful moment of confession.  I resonated with his words, but I responded: “Not arrogant, just ignorant.”

I think that growing awareness is causing a revolution of love and acceptance that no power of rejection and hatred will be able to stand against…

take the story of David and Goliath for instance.  What does it teach readers about conflict resolution?  What should you do when you’re being taunted by an enemy that is stronger than you?  The answer is that God takes sides, uses violence to solve the problem and condones the ensuing plundering and slaughter of innocent philistine women and children.  nice.  especially good values to teach our children!  When your big brother is irritating you just have faith, trust God and ….

No wonder horrific violence continues in the middle east and all around the world.  The USA’s invasion of a sovereign state and the toppling of a democratically elected leader is all justified under a pseudo-religious banner of just war theory that presupposes that God use his trusty servants (and their technologically superior WMD’s*) to keep unruly arabs in their place!

which begs the question:  what are we teaching our children?  The values of Jesus or the values we trust and believe in.

The David and Goliath values of violence and elimination as a source of peace stands in striking contrast to the teaching of Jesus.  Jesus suggests “love your enemies” and “pray for those that persecute you”.  and when confronted by the ultimate monsters of roman military imperialism and the pious religious bigotary of the temple leaders Jesus fails to pull his sword or raise his hand.  Kind of practicing what he preached - so as to silence any who would want to suggest that his teaching was “metaphorical” or idealistic.

Anyone who takes Jesus seriously will have to read the scriptures the same way as Jesus did:  carefully, prayerfully, thoughtfully and selectively!  (”you have heard it said… but I say to you…”)

*let’s ask ourselves which country carries the most WMD’s?  (Weapons of Mass Destruction)

those who regard the Bible as a book that fell out of the sky, ready-made for Christians to read and obey - a “Manual-for-Life” as I’ve sometimes heard it called - are remembering the role of the Bible in a remarkable way.  They have edited out some inconvenient aspects of the history of the Bible and introduced previously non-existent ideas and concepts which I would argue can best be understood as a reaction to more recent historical developments (as opposed to a faithful ongoing witness from biblical times).  as i have said before, the work of re-member-ing is not just clarifying and reinforcing the dominant story.  it involves a challenging journey of investigation, in an attempt to recover lost threads - especially when those lost threads have been lost by a certain generation or season in history as they wrestled with their own context and circumstances.

a few thoughts to re-consider:

1. the Bible is not 1 book but a collection of books.  Recent Protestant and conservative christian movements (churches) seek to argue that God has determined exactly (i.e. verbatim, word for word) how the book appears to us today.  Of course this claim is impossible to deny - how can anyone prove that God didn’t do as they claim.  But this conviction that the Bible is verbatim “from God” overlooks a significant historical fact.  The church existed before the Bible as we know it today.  In fact the church existed and grew for nearly 300 years without the body of text that we call the Bible.  of course, fragments existed and were circulating - which suggests that scripture has a very practical origin and purpose - to teach and build the local church.  but it was only in the 4th century (from 367) that the 27 books of the New Testament as we know it today began to be regarded as the norm.  This list of 27 books was finally authorised by a Council (Carthage) in 397.  Trying to deny that this 400 year process of discernment was a product of partnership between the Holy Spirit and the authors is futile.  It’s impossible to convince someone that God didn’t intend it all to work out this way.  What is worth considering though is how the church survived for those 300-400 years (or even the first 50 years if you want to argue that “scripture” was still floating around and having an effect)…  i think it survived without a homogenous and finalised Scriptural TEXT because the Word of God is always first experienced by a hearer (not a reader).  It is a living dynamic spoken Word - and that Word is most clearly and dynamically experienced through Jesus.  Followers of “the Way” - the early Christians were a community of faith that represented faithfulness to the life, teaching, example, values, witness, death and resurrection of Jesus.  This “way” is obviously laid out in the New Testament - the Christian scriptures.  But before it was laid out - written down - is was still possible to follow Jesus.  the community held the tradition, values and stories and faith of their saviour and lord…

2. for more than 1500 years scripture was only available in a very limited way through the church - which had originally given birth to these texts.  scripture was painstakingly copied and recopied so that local church communities would have access to at least ONE copy so that they could follow the instructions offered to Timothy… to “pay attention to the public reading of scripture”.  this was the only “way” scripture could be accessed - through the community of faith.  it is only with the advent of the printing press and lower printing costs that followers of Jesus could enjoy their own “personal” copy.  seems that the call to “pay attention to the public reading” is more relevant than ever!  I find it interesting that some of the most individualistic expressions of the Christian faith arise in areas of the world with the greatest access to the Bible…

3.  during those first 1500 years of the church, followers of Jesus traced the thread of authority not through scripture, but through Peter!  It was the continuity of apostleship that provided confidence that the tradition of “the Way” was being upheld and applied in new and changing circumstances.  Always with reference to scripture.  But scripture was never the ONLY authority.  Neither was it regarded as a purely literal book.  The church acknowledged the diversity of it’s texts and encouraged a variety of different approaches to the scriptures.  The focus was always on listening and remaining open to the many layers of meaning in the text.  Along with all the effort required to guard and copy the scriptures, the church also encouraged dedicated scholarship.  Scholars studied scripture and applied their minds to the questions that were raised by new times and changing circumstances.

4. the common contemporary view that scripture is the ONLY authority for all teaching and ethical reflection is a very recent historical occurrence.  perhaps only in the last 150 years has this view really taken root.  As the excesses of the Roman Catholic Church undermined it’s influence, Protestants looked for another rock (other than the “Rock on which I will build my church”).  IN an (understandable) attempt to escape the authority of the Papacy Protestants and Evangelicals have raised the profile of the Bible so that it could take the place of the Church and Tradition in the quest for reliable authority.  Making scripture the highest authority hopes to avoid the pitfalls of the Papacy.  It tries to eliminate the problem of sinful humanity.  The Bible becomes the unquestioned authority - and supposedly the final word on everything.  Except, it doesn’t eliminate the problem.  Actually, ironically, it exacerbates it!  Now it’s not just a carefully chosen select group of human-beings (and their sin) that come into play.  Now the sinfulness of every reader comes into play…  We need to reflect deeply on the status of church unity since the Reformation (Protestants breaking from the Catholic church) and the easy availability of the Bible.  In the last 300 years there have been numerous splits, breaks and divisions in churches, both in main-line denominations and in informal church groupings.  Every person is free to read their own copy of the Scriptures, and interpret it how they prefer.  Of course, this is democratic.  But it’s alos contributed to judgement, division and a lack of united and peaceful Christian witness.  We fight more amongst ourselves than we do any significant evil in this world.

I’m not arguing for a return to Autocracy - the rule of the Pope.  But I am arguing that the Protestant Project of scriptural authority has failed.  What we need is a re-member-ing of the wisdom of Christian History - that reveals a much more rich and dynamic way of dealing with the questions of authority and influence.  We must value scripture.  The Bible has not continued to have influence by accident.  It is a powerful gift to the church.  Likewise, we must value the Tradition of the Church, when the community of the the faithful have witnessed passion and obedience to God’s living Word to them - in whatever context and circumstances they found themselves.  Could the church’s witness in previous difficult times provide insight for how we can begin to respond to contemporary overwhelming problems… like global warming, poverty…?  The church has needed thoughtful and prayerful reflection.  We prayerfully engage our minds - common sense must honour God when it applies the best knowledge available to everyday challenges and ethical dilemmas.  Finally, we will shoot ourselves in the foot if we fail to recognise the very practicality of God - the work of the Spirit in the secular - the ordinary of our everyday.  Our experience of life and God and of relationship and marriage and family and worship etc. will continue to provide helpful insights and wisdom that will most often find resonance in the text of scripture as well as in the wisdom of tradition and reason.

Christians are (by definition) followers of Jesus - followers of “the Way”.  How did we get side-tracked by this distortion of our common life of faithful witness?

some people like to remember Jesus like this…

He died on the cross to make it possible for us to go to heaven.  We (humans) have all sinned and angered a righteous God.  God is (presumably) not able to forgive us in the way he forgives numerous people throughout the previous ages - by just saying “you’re forgiven”.  A payment must be made.  A suitable sacrifice must be offered to placate all this pent up anger (that would send us all to a deserved place in eternal punishment).  So Jesus dies, takes our sin upon himself, and in so doing, frees us from guilt and shame thus enabling intimate relationship with God again.  Most importantly, with such forgiveness secured, our eternal place in heaven is assured.  Good news!

Usually people who present this summary have a fairly strong committment to the authority of scripture, which they usually regard as THE vital and inerrant revelation of God’s message to people on this earth.  So as I read said scriptures it seems to me that this sumamry is not properly in line with all that is said about Jesus in the Bible.  It’s not that forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with God is not mentioned.  Of course it is.  The difficulty I have is that forgiveness of sins doesn’t seem to be top of Jesus’ agenda.  In fact, he is so busy dishing out assurance of forgiveness (Mt 9:2-5, Mk 2:5, Lk 5:20, 7:48) that he seriously ruffles the feathers of the religious types of his time, who spent their energy (surprise!) carefully clarifying what EXACTLY was required to please God and earn sufficient atonement.  They are so offended by this generous display of absolution that they accuse him of the highest offence in Jewish Law (breaking the first commandment) - blasphemy.  see Mark 2:7 and John 10:33.  I would argue that it is on these very grounds - with this kind of self-righteous motivation - that the religious leaders of Jerusalem did whatever was required to have Jesus “eliminated” (to use a euphamism more common in political circles…)

Jesus’ great preoccupation was with trying to proclaim that Kingdom of God (Heaven) was already here/near/amongst you (some translations even render “within you”).  “To proclaim release for the captives, sight to the blind, good news to the poor…”

The greater evil in our world is not people who have not repented and confessed their sin.  (Many of them have, they simply don’t want to have anything to do with religion - an interesting distinction that religious groupings will need to consider carefully…)  The real evil is people who claim to have repented - who are openly religious - and yet continue to live without grace, perpetrating some of the greatest acts of injustice, hatred, oppression, cruelty and blindness.

Christianity (and I think Islam as well) must answer for how it has failed to honour the teaching of it’s own scriptures… “do not judge”, do not condemn”, “do not resist an evil doer”, “love your enemies”, “pray for those who persecute you”…

Religious people (so easily, and regularly, it seems) feel the need to delimit the boundaries of God’s forgiveness, allowing the “story” to beomce about who’s IN and who’s not.  Re-member-ing the story of Jesus, and the glorious good news that the Bible offers to a hurting and broken world, requires a re-reading of scripture, seeking to open ourselves to all that Jesus is about.  Jesus’ agenda is contained in John 10:10, life (in all it’s fulness).  Heaven is not so much the goal as it is the measure.  the measure of how well we are grasping and living the life that God has intended.  Eternal life is not worth considering draggin ourselves through until we’ve allowed God’s Spirit to bring us to life - to know what it means to really live!  Then eternal life will be something to look forward to…

if only we could forget all the limiting stuff we’ve heard about Jesus and be able to read the Bible again, as if for the first time…

if only we could forgive people as willingly, and quickly as our heavenly Father seems to…

if only we could catch a glimpse of the earth/world/universe transforming vision that motivated and guided all that Jesus said and did…

does Jesus point us to God’s Word in the Bible?

or does the Bible point us to Jesus, the Word?

Luke 24:17
Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.

i stumbled on a thought while reading Rob Bell - Velvet Elvis.  in a section entitled “yoke” he speaks about his conviction that the bible didn’t fall out of the sky.  he begs “us” to once and for all drop the “manual-for-life” analogy and recognise that the bible was written in a real time, in a real place, and by real people.

i like what  he’s saying.

that’s when i stumbled onto the thought…  we (in the christian community, usually called the church) struggle to get people to do the application part of the deal.  we’re good at talking.  our theology (read theory) is awe-inspiring in it’s comprehensive coverage of all things pertaining to the life of a christ-follower.  doctoral theses have been written about things that even Jesus doesn’t understand.  (in fact I think Jesus struggles to remember the correct spelling for ecclesiology, but anyway…)  as I was saying awe-inspiring theory.

but when it comes to application - to the integration of our theory into our lives - we often fall short.

could it be that the growing (and commonly held) perception that the bible is somehow a mysterious and magical book of timeless truths that just dropped out of the sky (i.e. NOT originating from real places, real times and real people) is actually at the heart of this problem with integrating biblical truth with everyday living?

i agree with Rob Bell that what makes the Bible valuable, significant and quite unique is that it records the stories of people seeking to live out their faith in the midst of the challenges of their particular times, circumstances.  Perhaps more importantly it also records the personal challenges of individuals in their journeys of faith - investigating their very particular and personal challenges - from anger and murder to sexual brokenness and adultery, from failure and faithlessness to weakness and hopelessness.

what may help people to marry theory and practice - biblical teaching and faithful living - is approaching the Bible with a fresh openness - trusting that it’s greatest gift is that it records the stories of faith honestly - fear and failure, hope and triumph.  But always - it’s a story about application.  It’s always about making faith work in everyday circumstances!!!

we need real faith for real life.  and we need to read the Bible in a way that encourages rubber meeting road.

For a child has been born for us, a son given to us;
authority rests upon his shoulders;

Without any announcement, one day he just arrived
No-one really knows where he came from…

and he is named
Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God,

…and he’s like, humble, ordinary
he’s a man of the people

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

consistent in his kindness, filled with compassion

His authority shall grow continually,

He has great influence among those who follow him

and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom.

and brings a measure of peace in this world filled with violence – all we can really hope for!

He will establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness

His Way is gentle – an invitation to follow him

from this time onwards and for evermore.

but without force, without violence,
without a qualification
not everyone is convinced he’s the real thing

The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

and the patient, Patient
God of all Creation
loves His gentle Way - and waits…