My family is still fairly new to the Episcopal church, and having grown up in more evangelicalish churches, there are still a lot of differences that we are still learning to appreciate. The idea that throughout the service, all of the prayers are written down, predetermined, with only a few blanks to fill in specific to our congregation. This is a massive change from the church I'm used to, where a member of the congregation or a worship leader would lead a prayer coming from his own words that could last for several minutes, infused with many requests and oftentimes messages to the congregation. (Please note that I am not attempting to condemn or claim that this improvisational prayer is any less significant or correct, I am just comparing what I grew up with to what my church does now.) As such, we are having to relearn prayer.
I've also been dealing with a lot of conflicts about the nature of and purpose of prayer. Since Rachel Held Evans went into the hospital and everyone on Twitter started saying prayers, especially when we started to see things getting worse, my already skeptical views continued to solidify. If God answered prayers according to our requests, Rachel should have been healed. If God answered prayers according to the faith of those who prayed, Rachel should have been healed. If God answered prayers according to our persistence, Rachel should have been healed. Instead, Rachel died. If we view prayer as bringing our requests to God, but knowing that God is going to make his own decision anyway (or that he is impotent to do so), then it seems to be completely void of purpose. There has to be something different to it, and something different to why we pray.
We have a 2-year-old son who joins us during the latter part of service every week. While he spends most of his time on the pews playing with cars and drawing on paper, we really want him to have something to engage him in the service. Also, we want him to learn to pray, even if we don't know why or what it should look like, so we were already doing simple prayers at bedtime. Our church says the Lord's prayer every week, so we thought this would be a good entry point. We now do the Lord's prayer with him every night, having him repeat after us in bite-sized chunks. He surprised us a couple of weeks ago by suddenly saying the whole thing without any prompting. When we get to church and start saying the prayer, he enthusiastically joins in, albeit a bit delayed (which results in him saying "Amen" out loud after the rest of the congregation, which is unbelievably adorable).
The Lord's prayer was part of the lectionary this week, too, so it inspired me to write about it. I will concede that the passage in the lectionary also includes Jesus basically saying ask God and it will be given to you. I don't
know how to square this with the doubts that Rachel's death cemented in
me without doing a lot of mental gymnastics. Thus, I am going to ignore that point today, not because it is unimportant or wrong, but because I legitimately do not know how to handle it.
Taking all of the above into account, I decided to give my own take on it as an attempt to give the words a little more meaning to me. In writing this, I decided upon the "May we" format, mainly for the construct of expectation. If I say to
someone "may you find peace today," I tend to mean something along the
lines of "my desire is for you to find peace today." It comes across as
a more passive hope or desire rather than directly asking "Please do this." It's more of a conversation and a statement of mentality than it is a request. I also like the "we"
construct, as it indicates the desire is for all of humanity as well as
us individually to embrace these hopes.
So having said all of that, here is my attempt at doing the Lord's prayer in my own voice (which is a little more long-winded, as I'm already long-winded, and I'm doing my best to speak in plain terms).
Dear God,
You are divine and set apart from everything else in our life.
May we declare your presence and power on the earth the same as we do in the life to come.
May we enact your desires on this world to make it reflect the life to come.
May we be satisfied with enough to make it through this day, leaving worries about tomorrow to you.
May we have the wisdom and grace to forgive our oppressors and enemies in the same way we wish to have our own actions of oppression, hatred, and destructiveness forgiven.
May we be freed of the distractions and worries that attempt to take our focus off of your desires.
May we recognize that creation is yours, not ours, and may we treat it accordingly.
May we recognize that your power is great and trust in it when it seems defeat is inevitable.
May we recognize that victory over death is yours and live accordingly.
May all of these desires come to fruition.
Monday, July 29, 2019
Wednesday, July 10, 2019
An Analysis of the Rich Man and Lazarus
“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He
called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip
the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in
these flames.’ But
Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received
your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is
comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides
all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that
those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one
can cross from there to us.’ He said, ‘Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house— for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’ Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ He said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent. He
said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither
will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”
Luke 16:19-31 (NRSV)
This parable has always been interesting to me because unlike most parables, I have seen this one taught and referenced for multiple different reasons. It's an interesting passage because we can read so many things from it, but it's also a potentially dangerous passage because we can read so many things from it.
Heaven/Hell
In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.’
Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.
This is the primary reason I seem to come across this passage. I am somewhere between an annihilationist and universalist when it comes to my afterlife theology. I do not believe in eternal conscious torment (ECT). Whenever I read discussions about the afterlife, those that believe in ECT often come to this passage to support their position. Indeed, we have all of the elements needed here to see ECT. We have conscious torment, and we have an indication that no one can go from Heaven to Hell and vice-versa, which seems to eliminate any post-death reconciliation (which is a common approach to universalism). I will concede that this is a very effective passage for defending the ECT belief on the afterlife.
I do see ways to view this that don't necessitate adopting ECT, though. First, the purpose of this parable was not to teach about Heaven and Hell. Verse 13 in this chapter is where we get the famous You cannot serve God and wealth line. In verse 14, the Pharisees are called lovers of money. At the beginning of the chapter, we had a parable about a rich man with a dishonest manager. Money and wealth seem to be a theme that has been leading up to this.
Further, this view of the afterlife is not one found in the Old Testament. It, however, was developed during the Second Temple period of Judaism, so it was a common view held by the audience at that time. (See the wikipedia entry on Sheol). Jesus is likely just using a known construct to tell his story rather than try to describe the actual mechanics of the afterlife.
The last thing I'll mention on this is that my views of the afterlife are found throughout the Bible. I actually believed ECT until I read through the entire Bible, which converted me to annhilationism (and I've since drifted towards universalism). The truth of the matter is that there are passages in the Bible that seem to defend any number of afterlife views, and if we want to hold fast to a particular view, we have to perform some pretty hefty distortion of other passages. This is one of those verses that non-ECT believers have to wrestle with, but that doesn't mean that because this one passage seems to point towards ECT, that the whole Bible does. This passage does not necessitate adopting ECT.
Money/Wealth
There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores.
Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony.
These lines strike me as interesting because it doesn't explicitly charge the rich man with anything other than receiving good things in life. There are ways to read this that would indicate that the rich man should have cared for Lazarus, and that is why he is being punished, but that is never explicitly stated. It's just that their fortunes were reversed in the afterlife. I don't have a lot of analysis here, I just find the lack of explicit condemnation interesting. Were I telling the story, I would make a direct connection between his lack of mercy and his agony.
Of course, we do have to ask what he wants his brothers to be warned about and what he claims they will repent of. It's not any significant stretch to assume that this is indeed about living lavishly in their wealth while not taking care of the suffering in front of them.
My social justice side does love this part of the passage (if not the Hell part). My read on it is that this rich man and his family all live lives of riches and ignore the poor in front of them. Rather than give any mercy to the poor, they make the poor beg and scavenge for anything. As a result, the rich are now suffering, and those that they didn't have mercy on are now living lives in happiness. Their fortunes are reversed. Especially in light of our current political reality, that sounds nice to me (though if I think about it too thoroughly, I start liking it less, as my life is probably a lot closer to the rich man than to Lazarus).
However, the part that really resonates with me is this line:
If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.
I'll touch more on this in the next section, because I believe this part has been severely misused, but my take on it is that Moses and the prophets were abundantly clear on how important it was to care for the needy:
Isaiah 1:17:
learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.
Amos 5:11:
Therefore because you trample on the poor and take from them levies of grain, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not live in them; you have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine.
Ezekiel 16:49:
This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.
These are just a tiny sampling of passages all over the prophets. I could post whole chapters of Amos and Isaiah. The Levitical laws have many rules about caring for the immigrant and alien. The year of Jubilee was instituted to relieve families of permanent oppression (something that would be nice to see in present day). There were rules about caring for the immigrant and the alien. This concept of caring for the poor and needy was not new with Jesus.
So if we had enormous swaths of the Hebrew Scriptures that dictate caring for the needy, then all of the rich man's family should have been well aware of how important that mandate was. If they were able and willing to ignore all of it, then they weren't going to listen to anything. Their mind was made up, and nothing would change that. We see that a lot with the modern evangelical support of politicians and policies that demonize the poor, demean the needy, dehumanize the oppressed, and exalt the rich. Fox News and power has supplanted the Bible as the source of truth, and no amount of evidence seems to change that.
Belief/Doubt
If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.
When I have thought of this parable throughout my life, this part frequently comes to mind. The reason for that is that this portion has been weaponized against doubt. It wasn't until very recently that I even considered that this line could be referring to not listening to the prophets about caring for the needy. This passage has always been about doubt to me.
I'm honestly not sure how much of this is self-inflicted and how much of it has shown up in teachings over the years, but I've always read that as "if they didn't believe in God even with the words of Moses and the prophets, nothing will convince them." This has been used to support why non-Christians deserve to go to Hell (this is often coupled with Romans 1:19-20 ). This line has been used as a reason we don't see miracles today. It's been used as a way to question the salvation of someone with doubts. As a result of that, it has the effect of causing doubters to question their own salvation. It's a dangerous verse when used improperly, yet that's the only way I've ever heard (or read) it.
I feel like my approach in the previous section makes much more sense from a storytelling perspective, and it seems more consistent with how I perceive Jesus to teach. It has a lot more to do with acting according to what the scriptures teach than pure belief.
I would love to hear other thoughts on this parable. If you come across this, feel free to give your feedback in the comments!
Luke 16:19-31 (NRSV)
This parable has always been interesting to me because unlike most parables, I have seen this one taught and referenced for multiple different reasons. It's an interesting passage because we can read so many things from it, but it's also a potentially dangerous passage because we can read so many things from it.
Heaven/Hell
In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.’
Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.
This is the primary reason I seem to come across this passage. I am somewhere between an annihilationist and universalist when it comes to my afterlife theology. I do not believe in eternal conscious torment (ECT). Whenever I read discussions about the afterlife, those that believe in ECT often come to this passage to support their position. Indeed, we have all of the elements needed here to see ECT. We have conscious torment, and we have an indication that no one can go from Heaven to Hell and vice-versa, which seems to eliminate any post-death reconciliation (which is a common approach to universalism). I will concede that this is a very effective passage for defending the ECT belief on the afterlife.
I do see ways to view this that don't necessitate adopting ECT, though. First, the purpose of this parable was not to teach about Heaven and Hell. Verse 13 in this chapter is where we get the famous You cannot serve God and wealth line. In verse 14, the Pharisees are called lovers of money. At the beginning of the chapter, we had a parable about a rich man with a dishonest manager. Money and wealth seem to be a theme that has been leading up to this.
Further, this view of the afterlife is not one found in the Old Testament. It, however, was developed during the Second Temple period of Judaism, so it was a common view held by the audience at that time. (See the wikipedia entry on Sheol). Jesus is likely just using a known construct to tell his story rather than try to describe the actual mechanics of the afterlife.
The last thing I'll mention on this is that my views of the afterlife are found throughout the Bible. I actually believed ECT until I read through the entire Bible, which converted me to annhilationism (and I've since drifted towards universalism). The truth of the matter is that there are passages in the Bible that seem to defend any number of afterlife views, and if we want to hold fast to a particular view, we have to perform some pretty hefty distortion of other passages. This is one of those verses that non-ECT believers have to wrestle with, but that doesn't mean that because this one passage seems to point towards ECT, that the whole Bible does. This passage does not necessitate adopting ECT.
Money/Wealth
There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores.
Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony.
These lines strike me as interesting because it doesn't explicitly charge the rich man with anything other than receiving good things in life. There are ways to read this that would indicate that the rich man should have cared for Lazarus, and that is why he is being punished, but that is never explicitly stated. It's just that their fortunes were reversed in the afterlife. I don't have a lot of analysis here, I just find the lack of explicit condemnation interesting. Were I telling the story, I would make a direct connection between his lack of mercy and his agony.
Of course, we do have to ask what he wants his brothers to be warned about and what he claims they will repent of. It's not any significant stretch to assume that this is indeed about living lavishly in their wealth while not taking care of the suffering in front of them.
My social justice side does love this part of the passage (if not the Hell part). My read on it is that this rich man and his family all live lives of riches and ignore the poor in front of them. Rather than give any mercy to the poor, they make the poor beg and scavenge for anything. As a result, the rich are now suffering, and those that they didn't have mercy on are now living lives in happiness. Their fortunes are reversed. Especially in light of our current political reality, that sounds nice to me (though if I think about it too thoroughly, I start liking it less, as my life is probably a lot closer to the rich man than to Lazarus).
However, the part that really resonates with me is this line:
If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.
I'll touch more on this in the next section, because I believe this part has been severely misused, but my take on it is that Moses and the prophets were abundantly clear on how important it was to care for the needy:
Isaiah 1:17:
learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.
Amos 5:11:
Therefore because you trample on the poor and take from them levies of grain, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not live in them; you have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine.
Ezekiel 16:49:
This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.
These are just a tiny sampling of passages all over the prophets. I could post whole chapters of Amos and Isaiah. The Levitical laws have many rules about caring for the immigrant and alien. The year of Jubilee was instituted to relieve families of permanent oppression (something that would be nice to see in present day). There were rules about caring for the immigrant and the alien. This concept of caring for the poor and needy was not new with Jesus.
So if we had enormous swaths of the Hebrew Scriptures that dictate caring for the needy, then all of the rich man's family should have been well aware of how important that mandate was. If they were able and willing to ignore all of it, then they weren't going to listen to anything. Their mind was made up, and nothing would change that. We see that a lot with the modern evangelical support of politicians and policies that demonize the poor, demean the needy, dehumanize the oppressed, and exalt the rich. Fox News and power has supplanted the Bible as the source of truth, and no amount of evidence seems to change that.
Belief/Doubt
If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.
When I have thought of this parable throughout my life, this part frequently comes to mind. The reason for that is that this portion has been weaponized against doubt. It wasn't until very recently that I even considered that this line could be referring to not listening to the prophets about caring for the needy. This passage has always been about doubt to me.
I'm honestly not sure how much of this is self-inflicted and how much of it has shown up in teachings over the years, but I've always read that as "if they didn't believe in God even with the words of Moses and the prophets, nothing will convince them." This has been used to support why non-Christians deserve to go to Hell (this is often coupled with Romans 1:19-20 ). This line has been used as a reason we don't see miracles today. It's been used as a way to question the salvation of someone with doubts. As a result of that, it has the effect of causing doubters to question their own salvation. It's a dangerous verse when used improperly, yet that's the only way I've ever heard (or read) it.
I feel like my approach in the previous section makes much more sense from a storytelling perspective, and it seems more consistent with how I perceive Jesus to teach. It has a lot more to do with acting according to what the scriptures teach than pure belief.
I would love to hear other thoughts on this parable. If you come across this, feel free to give your feedback in the comments!
Monday, June 17, 2019
Worthy of God's Love
Rant time.
Today, I ran into a comment on an old Rachel Held Evans post where someone talking about their unique band of church misfits said "But the one thread that holds us together is the fact that we all recognize and accept the fact that we are unworthy of the love of God and His Magnificent Son but HE LOVES US ALL THE SAME." The comment may be 7 years old, but the sentiment is one I hear all the time, and it angers me so much, I felt compelled to write about it immediately.
As someone who struggles with depression, who grew up in a conservative tradition and attended an evangelical church as a young adult, I am incredibly familiar with the emphasis on how unworthy I am. I'm a wretch. I'm a worm. I'm a no-good sinner. I'm fundamentally broken. These types of phrases are prevalent throughout worship music, and they are frequent staples of sermons. I have a voice in me telling me what an awful failure I am already. I don't need an entire church emphasizing and reinforcing that perspective. It's fundamentally abusive, and I'm glad I no longer attend those churches because of it. This whole concept that we are unworthy of God's love is an insidious way of demeaning our very nature.
So God created humankind in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.
- Genesis 1:27,31
We are created in the image of God. God called his creation good. Beyond that, God is clearly worthy of love. Since we bear His image, we are worthy of God's love.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
- John 3:16
Again, we have God loving us so much that he gave us Christ. He wants us to know and understand how much he loves us. And Jesus doesn't seem to think that sinners don't deserve his love. Indeed, just as those that are sick are worthy of care, those in need of grace are worthy of Christ's love. We are worthy of God's love.
See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God;
- 1 John 3:1a
I have a young son. I love him with all of my heart. Does he do things that drive me up the wall? Yes. Do I need to discipline him frequently? Yes. Do I put a lot more into our relationship than he does? I would say so. Is he unworthy of my love? By no means! The idea that parents only love their children out of some benevolence that children don't deserve is an awfully bleak way to view the world. Children are worthy of love, and cannot thrive without it. We are God's children. We are worthy of God's love.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church
- Ephesians 5:25
The church as the bride of Christ is a metaphor that permeates the entire New Testament. If I ever hear a husband say that his wife was unworthy of his love, but he loves her anyway, or hear a wife say that she is unworthy of her husband's love, that's a clear sign to me of an emotionally abusive relationship, and the wife needs to get far away from her husband. Rather, husbands are called to love their wives as Christ loved the church. Christ loves us in the fullness of who we are, and he declares us his bride. We are worthy of God's love.
There is so much more exposition that could be done here. However, I think I'll end the rant with this: the idea that we should be groveling before God about how unworthy we are or that we need to continually reiterate that God's just doing us a favor by loving us is a message that carries intense harm and suffering, and I think it's flat wrong. We are worthy of God's love because we are His bride. We are His children. To argue against our worthiness is to deny our very nature as image bearers of Christ. We are worthy of God's love.
In case I haven't been abundantly clear on this: You are worthy of God's love. I am worthy of God's love. We are worthy of God's love.
Today, I ran into a comment on an old Rachel Held Evans post where someone talking about their unique band of church misfits said "But the one thread that holds us together is the fact that we all recognize and accept the fact that we are unworthy of the love of God and His Magnificent Son but HE LOVES US ALL THE SAME." The comment may be 7 years old, but the sentiment is one I hear all the time, and it angers me so much, I felt compelled to write about it immediately.
As someone who struggles with depression, who grew up in a conservative tradition and attended an evangelical church as a young adult, I am incredibly familiar with the emphasis on how unworthy I am. I'm a wretch. I'm a worm. I'm a no-good sinner. I'm fundamentally broken. These types of phrases are prevalent throughout worship music, and they are frequent staples of sermons. I have a voice in me telling me what an awful failure I am already. I don't need an entire church emphasizing and reinforcing that perspective. It's fundamentally abusive, and I'm glad I no longer attend those churches because of it. This whole concept that we are unworthy of God's love is an insidious way of demeaning our very nature.
So God created humankind in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.
- Genesis 1:27,31
We are created in the image of God. God called his creation good. Beyond that, God is clearly worthy of love. Since we bear His image, we are worthy of God's love.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
- John 3:16
When Jesus heard this, he said to them,
“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick;
I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”
- Mark 2:17
Again, we have God loving us so much that he gave us Christ. He wants us to know and understand how much he loves us. And Jesus doesn't seem to think that sinners don't deserve his love. Indeed, just as those that are sick are worthy of care, those in need of grace are worthy of Christ's love. We are worthy of God's love.
See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God;
- 1 John 3:1a
I have a young son. I love him with all of my heart. Does he do things that drive me up the wall? Yes. Do I need to discipline him frequently? Yes. Do I put a lot more into our relationship than he does? I would say so. Is he unworthy of my love? By no means! The idea that parents only love their children out of some benevolence that children don't deserve is an awfully bleak way to view the world. Children are worthy of love, and cannot thrive without it. We are God's children. We are worthy of God's love.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church
- Ephesians 5:25
The church as the bride of Christ is a metaphor that permeates the entire New Testament. If I ever hear a husband say that his wife was unworthy of his love, but he loves her anyway, or hear a wife say that she is unworthy of her husband's love, that's a clear sign to me of an emotionally abusive relationship, and the wife needs to get far away from her husband. Rather, husbands are called to love their wives as Christ loved the church. Christ loves us in the fullness of who we are, and he declares us his bride. We are worthy of God's love.
There is so much more exposition that could be done here. However, I think I'll end the rant with this: the idea that we should be groveling before God about how unworthy we are or that we need to continually reiterate that God's just doing us a favor by loving us is a message that carries intense harm and suffering, and I think it's flat wrong. We are worthy of God's love because we are His bride. We are His children. To argue against our worthiness is to deny our very nature as image bearers of Christ. We are worthy of God's love.
In case I haven't been abundantly clear on this: You are worthy of God's love. I am worthy of God's love. We are worthy of God's love.
Friday, June 14, 2019
The Law on our Hearts
But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.
Jeremiah 31:33-34 (NRSV)
For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. And the Holy Spirit also testifies to us, for after saying,
Jeremiah 31:33-34 (NRSV)
For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. And the Holy Spirit also testifies to us, for after saying,
“This is the covenant that I will make with them
after those days, says the Lord:
I will put my laws in their hearts,
and I will write them on their minds,”
after those days, says the Lord:
I will put my laws in their hearts,
and I will write them on their minds,”
he also adds,
“I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”
Hebrews 10:14-17 (NRSV)
The Church of Christ, which was my tradition for most of my first 25 years, has a significant portion of its conservative constituency that believe that the Holy Spirit is not active today, but was instead the guiding force behind the Bible, meaning that the Bible is essentially the embodiment of the Holy Spirit. I will admit that there is something endearing about the concept that we are completely free of the necessity of listening to the Spirit today, and instead have all we need in the Bible.
As such, I am very
well aware of how to use the Bible to determine right and wrong, looking
at it as a rule book of sorts. Further, I am very well aware of the
tension when I feel one thing is right while the Bible appears to say
something different. Historically, I've had to side with the Bible
because my conscience was part of my sinful flesh. I just had to submit
to the Bible. My conscience had no standing to protest. This is still a common refrain from conservative traditions.
I've spent a lot of time thinking about this passage from Jeremiah above. I am reluctant to put a New Testament meaning to the verses of the Hebrew Bible, as I'm sure Jewish scholars can give me another interpretation of this passage that may indicate more of its original intent. However, I make a rare exception for this passage, because it is quoted twice in the book of Hebrews (8:10-12, 10:16-17), and in the Hebrews 10 passage, the author specifically attributes its words to the Holy Spirit (or at least that's my interpretation). So given that the book treats these as the words of the Holy Spirit, I will approach that in the same manner.
What does the Spirit mean by putting the laws in their hearts and writing them on their minds? Frankly that sounds like reason and conscience to me. But what if our conscience seems to conflict with the Bible?
N. T. Wright has an old lecture where he discusses how a story can be authoritative. Though I'm sure I'm mangling is ideas somewhat, I really love when he starts discussing existence as a 5 act play, and we are living in the second half of act 5. In a 5 act play, by Act 5, you know the characters. You know what they're like, and you would know if they suddenly did something out of character. The history of the Bible and the stories therein serve as those opening acts. We get an idea of the character of God through the story we are told.
In light of this, we can look at the epistles as examples of those filled with God's spirit exhorting others. We can learn a lot about what it means to be a follower of Christ by reading the stories of those who started the movement. However, it is relevant to recognize the epistles as part of a story rather than looking at them as a rulebook written for us today. Where did these authors get their words and understanding of God's will? Through the Holy Spirit, who put God's law on their hearts. How did they know how to live out God's will without a New Testament to guide them? Through the Holy Spirit, who wrote God's law in their minds. The Epistles in the Bible show a demonstration of the Spirit through what he put on the hearts of the authors, as an example of this.
Indeed, all scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching, because it is useful to understand what it looks like to be a disciple of the living God. It is useful to know the stories of God working in the world. It is instructive to see how the early church used the wisdom of the Spirit to deal with unique circumstances. It's a valuable template for how it looks to live as a follower of Christ. And it allows us to be discerning when we want to know whether an action or posture is consistent with the will of God. It gives the setting for our part of Act 5.
Now we get to figure out what that looks to live out today, and it can look different than it did in Biblical times. We have our model to understand what concepts can be of God and what cannot be of God. We have the law on our hearts. So what do we do when our Spirit-filled conscience conflicts with something we read from the Bible? If we go against our conscience, we violate the very passage I quoted above. If we act with our conscience in seeming contradiction of what we see in a Biblical passage, then we've violated the passage in question. One way or another, we're going against scripture. So we have to make a decision as to which portion to violate. How do we make that decision? With the law on our hearts.
N. T. Wright has an old lecture where he discusses how a story can be authoritative. Though I'm sure I'm mangling is ideas somewhat, I really love when he starts discussing existence as a 5 act play, and we are living in the second half of act 5. In a 5 act play, by Act 5, you know the characters. You know what they're like, and you would know if they suddenly did something out of character. The history of the Bible and the stories therein serve as those opening acts. We get an idea of the character of God through the story we are told.
In light of this, we can look at the epistles as examples of those filled with God's spirit exhorting others. We can learn a lot about what it means to be a follower of Christ by reading the stories of those who started the movement. However, it is relevant to recognize the epistles as part of a story rather than looking at them as a rulebook written for us today. Where did these authors get their words and understanding of God's will? Through the Holy Spirit, who put God's law on their hearts. How did they know how to live out God's will without a New Testament to guide them? Through the Holy Spirit, who wrote God's law in their minds. The Epistles in the Bible show a demonstration of the Spirit through what he put on the hearts of the authors, as an example of this.
Indeed, all scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching, because it is useful to understand what it looks like to be a disciple of the living God. It is useful to know the stories of God working in the world. It is instructive to see how the early church used the wisdom of the Spirit to deal with unique circumstances. It's a valuable template for how it looks to live as a follower of Christ. And it allows us to be discerning when we want to know whether an action or posture is consistent with the will of God. It gives the setting for our part of Act 5.
Now we get to figure out what that looks to live out today, and it can look different than it did in Biblical times. We have our model to understand what concepts can be of God and what cannot be of God. We have the law on our hearts. So what do we do when our Spirit-filled conscience conflicts with something we read from the Bible? If we go against our conscience, we violate the very passage I quoted above. If we act with our conscience in seeming contradiction of what we see in a Biblical passage, then we've violated the passage in question. One way or another, we're going against scripture. So we have to make a decision as to which portion to violate. How do we make that decision? With the law on our hearts.
Tuesday, June 11, 2019
On Blogging
I have been blogging about various things over my first few posts. I don't really know what I want this to become. I started it when Rachel Held Evans passed away, and I felt like I needed to find a voice for myself, since I no longer had her voice to just say "ditto" to. However, I also feel like my blog to this point has been fairly guarded, throwing out random theological ideas without really giving a basis for where I'm coming from.
Depression is a major part of this. I struggle with chronic depression. I have for most of my life. The negativity and sadness that results from this tends to push people away. Who wants to hang out with someone who is always a downer? Because of that, in an effort to prevent rejection, I put on a happy face, or at least one that makes it seem like I have it together. That's part of how I became "Generic Guy #2".
I enjoy posting online or talking via email because I can curate what I say so carefully. I can analyze it over and over to make sure that what I'm trying to say is communicated the way I want it to, and to try to minimize offense or revealing too much of myself. I can present myself in a positive, measured, and thoughtful manner. I can filter out my emotions. That tendency is what makes this blog seem so sterile, which is not really what I'm going for.
In an ideal world, I'd have people on the blog commenting and reading and I'd get an idea of the kind of content that people wanted to read. In an ideal world, my theological posts generate discussion and debate, which is something I desperately crave. In an ideal world, I could actually approach the blog in a full "this is me" manner rather than "this is the way I wish to present myself". I'm going to try to make this a thing, as much as it depends on me.
Part of these first posts, though, are me just trying to find my voice and throw my thoughts out into cyberspace. I don't know what to focus on, and so I just pick whatever topics come to mind. Hopefully, I'll be willing to be more open in future posts. But for now, I'm just trying to figure out what I want to write about and why. Hopefully someday, people will visit and we can converse.
So that's the answer to what I'm blogging about and why. I don't know, and I don't know. I'm just going to keep trucking on until I figure it out, or I fizzle out. We'll just have to wait and see where this goes.
Depression is a major part of this. I struggle with chronic depression. I have for most of my life. The negativity and sadness that results from this tends to push people away. Who wants to hang out with someone who is always a downer? Because of that, in an effort to prevent rejection, I put on a happy face, or at least one that makes it seem like I have it together. That's part of how I became "Generic Guy #2".
I enjoy posting online or talking via email because I can curate what I say so carefully. I can analyze it over and over to make sure that what I'm trying to say is communicated the way I want it to, and to try to minimize offense or revealing too much of myself. I can present myself in a positive, measured, and thoughtful manner. I can filter out my emotions. That tendency is what makes this blog seem so sterile, which is not really what I'm going for.
In an ideal world, I'd have people on the blog commenting and reading and I'd get an idea of the kind of content that people wanted to read. In an ideal world, my theological posts generate discussion and debate, which is something I desperately crave. In an ideal world, I could actually approach the blog in a full "this is me" manner rather than "this is the way I wish to present myself". I'm going to try to make this a thing, as much as it depends on me.
Part of these first posts, though, are me just trying to find my voice and throw my thoughts out into cyberspace. I don't know what to focus on, and so I just pick whatever topics come to mind. Hopefully, I'll be willing to be more open in future posts. But for now, I'm just trying to figure out what I want to write about and why. Hopefully someday, people will visit and we can converse.
So that's the answer to what I'm blogging about and why. I don't know, and I don't know. I'm just going to keep trucking on until I figure it out, or I fizzle out. We'll just have to wait and see where this goes.
Thank You for Saying Nothing.
I hate driving. My wife is fine with it, so she is usually the driver of our family. When were off on our anniversary last year, she was having trouble parking our minivan nicely. I kept making jokes about it, thinking we were having fun, but it really started to weigh on her. The last day of the anniversary she let me know how much it was upsetting her and making her not want to drive. I didn't realize it was affecting her like that. I apologized and said I'd try to avoid making comments in the future.
Several months later, we went out for dinner, and she parked the car at a fairly crooked angle. When we were getting back into the car, she commented at how crooked it was, and I made some comment to the effect of "You didn't hear it from me" or something to indicate that I wasn't saying it. She thought about it for a moment and recognized that I hadn't said anything to her about her parking since that conversation. I've noticed it a few times, but decided it wasn't worth saying. It was nice to get affirmation that my silence was appreciated.
One thing I know from raising children and dogs is the importance of positive reinforcement. Children will often act out because it's the only way they get attention. Dogs can be unpredictable when they are punished when doing something wrong, but don't know what the right thing to do is. For both, they are often given praise when they obey a command, or exhibit an appropriate immediate action. However, rarely do they get praise for just behaving in general. One thing I've learned over the years is to praise them when they are just minding their own business or simply not misbehaving. It's important for them to understand when their lack of action is the appropriate behavior rather than just assuming it's good because they aren't getting reprimanded. They need to know their silence is appreciated.
I deal with this often as it relates to ally dynamics. As someone who fits almost every privileged demographic, I am typically relegated to the role of ally. However, as an ally, one thing that is important to learn is when to speak up and when to shut up and let the oppressed speak for themselves. I don't have a great concept of when to do which thing. I tend to err towards silence. If I do that when I should speak up, I can get called out for it, and it serves as a learning experience. However, I often feel that my silence shows that I don't care, which is not true. If I stay silent appropriately, though, I get no reinforcement. It would be useful to know when my silence is appreciated.
I have a pinned tweet on my Twitter profile: I find that the character limit on Twitter can make me a more thoughtful person. I start to write, try to edit it to get my point across as clearly as possible within those limits, and by the time I get everything polished, I come to my senses and delete the whole thing.
I have written a lot of tweets that I never published. I have a lot of questions that I've never asked. I have a lot of thoughts that I've never shared. For the most part, that's a good thing. However, I never get feedback on the things I don't say.
If I post something that gets a negative reaction, I learn from it, likely never to post something like that again, but also to listen to why it got a negative reaction. If I post something that gets a positive reaction, I learn from it, and I try to post more like it or learn what people liked about it. On the other hand, I don't know what reaction the post I didn't publish would have received. I get no feedback on if I should have posted it, and I get no feedback on if I was wise to delete it.
Sometimes it would be nice to just be told "thank you for saying nothing."
Several months later, we went out for dinner, and she parked the car at a fairly crooked angle. When we were getting back into the car, she commented at how crooked it was, and I made some comment to the effect of "You didn't hear it from me" or something to indicate that I wasn't saying it. She thought about it for a moment and recognized that I hadn't said anything to her about her parking since that conversation. I've noticed it a few times, but decided it wasn't worth saying. It was nice to get affirmation that my silence was appreciated.
One thing I know from raising children and dogs is the importance of positive reinforcement. Children will often act out because it's the only way they get attention. Dogs can be unpredictable when they are punished when doing something wrong, but don't know what the right thing to do is. For both, they are often given praise when they obey a command, or exhibit an appropriate immediate action. However, rarely do they get praise for just behaving in general. One thing I've learned over the years is to praise them when they are just minding their own business or simply not misbehaving. It's important for them to understand when their lack of action is the appropriate behavior rather than just assuming it's good because they aren't getting reprimanded. They need to know their silence is appreciated.
I deal with this often as it relates to ally dynamics. As someone who fits almost every privileged demographic, I am typically relegated to the role of ally. However, as an ally, one thing that is important to learn is when to speak up and when to shut up and let the oppressed speak for themselves. I don't have a great concept of when to do which thing. I tend to err towards silence. If I do that when I should speak up, I can get called out for it, and it serves as a learning experience. However, I often feel that my silence shows that I don't care, which is not true. If I stay silent appropriately, though, I get no reinforcement. It would be useful to know when my silence is appreciated.
I have a pinned tweet on my Twitter profile: I find that the character limit on Twitter can make me a more thoughtful person. I start to write, try to edit it to get my point across as clearly as possible within those limits, and by the time I get everything polished, I come to my senses and delete the whole thing.
I have written a lot of tweets that I never published. I have a lot of questions that I've never asked. I have a lot of thoughts that I've never shared. For the most part, that's a good thing. However, I never get feedback on the things I don't say.
If I post something that gets a negative reaction, I learn from it, likely never to post something like that again, but also to listen to why it got a negative reaction. If I post something that gets a positive reaction, I learn from it, and I try to post more like it or learn what people liked about it. On the other hand, I don't know what reaction the post I didn't publish would have received. I get no feedback on if I should have posted it, and I get no feedback on if I was wise to delete it.
Sometimes it would be nice to just be told "thank you for saying nothing."
Thursday, June 6, 2019
The Moment after Death
The night after the Rachel Held Evans funeral, my wife, who was only familiar with Rachel through my interests broke down in tears. She had just finished putting our 2-year-old to bed, and it broke her. I came over to comfort her, as I knew she was heartbroken over Rachel's children having to grow up without their mother, but she surprised me.
She told me instead her heart was breaking for Rachel. She couldn't understand how anyone could be happy with not getting to raise their kids. How could she be in heaven rejoicing knowing that she doesn't get to raise her two little children?
That perspective took me off guard, and after spending some time crying with her, I started to grasp for things I remember having heard in the past in some context. I remember somewhere once hearing the concept of Soul Sleep, which is essentially as I understand it the idea that after someone dies, they remain asleep and unconscious until the second coming. If that concept is true, Rachel isn't trying to somehow rejoice while knowing she can't be there for her children. Instead, she is just peacefully sleeping until she wakes up and immediately gets to see Dan and her kids again. That seems like a comforting thought in some respects and one that takes that paradox away.
I had never before considered the relevance in this life of Soul Sleep vs instant appearance in Paradise (both of which have some Biblical support - I'll not make a case for either here). It seemed like a random theological talking point. But after this conversation, I can see how each one offers a different type of hope. It's true that we talk about rejoicing forever in Heaven, but if we are aware of the people we left on the earth, it does seem difficult to imagine having no negative emotions relating to that. I don't know which one is true (or if either are), but it did get me considering the benefits of each perspective and why it might matter to us today.
I'd love to hear others thoughts or perspectives about this. What do you think about what happens the moment after death?
She told me instead her heart was breaking for Rachel. She couldn't understand how anyone could be happy with not getting to raise their kids. How could she be in heaven rejoicing knowing that she doesn't get to raise her two little children?
That perspective took me off guard, and after spending some time crying with her, I started to grasp for things I remember having heard in the past in some context. I remember somewhere once hearing the concept of Soul Sleep, which is essentially as I understand it the idea that after someone dies, they remain asleep and unconscious until the second coming. If that concept is true, Rachel isn't trying to somehow rejoice while knowing she can't be there for her children. Instead, she is just peacefully sleeping until she wakes up and immediately gets to see Dan and her kids again. That seems like a comforting thought in some respects and one that takes that paradox away.
I had never before considered the relevance in this life of Soul Sleep vs instant appearance in Paradise (both of which have some Biblical support - I'll not make a case for either here). It seemed like a random theological talking point. But after this conversation, I can see how each one offers a different type of hope. It's true that we talk about rejoicing forever in Heaven, but if we are aware of the people we left on the earth, it does seem difficult to imagine having no negative emotions relating to that. I don't know which one is true (or if either are), but it did get me considering the benefits of each perspective and why it might matter to us today.
I'd love to hear others thoughts or perspectives about this. What do you think about what happens the moment after death?
Monday, June 3, 2019
I'll believe on your behalf
On Saturday, I watched the funeral service for Rachel Held Evans. So many powerful words were spoken throughout the service. Rachel's sister, Amanda Held Opelt, with more courage than I can imagine mustering, gave an amazing Eulogy for Rachel. In one part of it, she was discussing how family lifts each other up, and in her words and in her song, I heard the words (I may not have them exactly correct here) "When you can't believe, I'll believe on your behalf." It was such an amazing thought, and perfectly in line with the way Rachel taught us.
I went to church the next day, and as part of the lectionary, we read this passage where something stood out to me:
When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted in a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them outside and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” They answered, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. At the same hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were baptized without delay. He brought them up into the house and set food before them; and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God.
Acts 16:27-34 (NRSV)
Right in the middle of that we see "Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household." In the past, I might have interpreted this passage that the "Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved" was a condition for each member of his household rather than a condition only for the jailer for the sake of his household. I don't know that it makes sense to read it like that anymore (though I admittedly don't know the underlying Greek). Look at the rest of the passage:
“Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house...then he and his entire family were baptized without delay...and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God.
It says that his family rejoiced that he had become a believer in God, not that they had become believers in God. Yes, Paul and Silas did preach to the entire household, but there is nothing to indicate that any other member of his household believed (unless we infer that from the fact that they were baptized). However, that last line seems to indicates to me that he was the convert, and his whole family was saved and baptized because he had become a believer in God. He believed on their behalf.
Granted the context there is different than the one Amanda was offering, but still, after reading that passage, I couldn't help hearing those lines again "I'll believe on your behalf." As someone who is almost reliant on others believing on his behalf right now, I found some modicum of comfort seeing an example in the Bible of someone who saved his entire family by believing on their behalf.
I went to church the next day, and as part of the lectionary, we read this passage where something stood out to me:
When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted in a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them outside and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” They answered, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. At the same hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were baptized without delay. He brought them up into the house and set food before them; and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God.
Acts 16:27-34 (NRSV)
Right in the middle of that we see "Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household." In the past, I might have interpreted this passage that the "Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved" was a condition for each member of his household rather than a condition only for the jailer for the sake of his household. I don't know that it makes sense to read it like that anymore (though I admittedly don't know the underlying Greek). Look at the rest of the passage:
“Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house...then he and his entire family were baptized without delay...and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God.
It says that his family rejoiced that he had become a believer in God, not that they had become believers in God. Yes, Paul and Silas did preach to the entire household, but there is nothing to indicate that any other member of his household believed (unless we infer that from the fact that they were baptized). However, that last line seems to indicates to me that he was the convert, and his whole family was saved and baptized because he had become a believer in God. He believed on their behalf.
Granted the context there is different than the one Amanda was offering, but still, after reading that passage, I couldn't help hearing those lines again "I'll believe on your behalf." As someone who is almost reliant on others believing on his behalf right now, I found some modicum of comfort seeing an example in the Bible of someone who saved his entire family by believing on their behalf.
Tuesday, May 28, 2019
A Posture of Humility
When I was in middle school, our poor science teacher had to teach the class about the origins of the universe. Growing up in the Bible Belt, this was no small task, and there were plenty of students ready to most righteously make a show of how false all of this talk about the creation of planets was, when we know God created everything 6,000 years ago. Students were ready to get an F on their test for daring to Speak the Truth, and then use that as some mark of pride. The passion and vitriol was real. The science teacher ended up in tears multiple days because of how cruel the students were being.
I went home after being caught up in that frenzy one day. I was worked up and going on and on to my mother about how I was going to be righteous too and stand up for faith! My mother calmed me down and explained to me that there was a better way. She said I didn't have to put my faith aside or hide it, but I could express it in a positive way. Her recommendation was that on the test, rather than give "God" as the answer to all the questions and fail the test, maybe I could write "The book says X, but I believe Y". I followed her advice and answered all of the questions in that style. I professed my faith proudly, but I did it humbly.
I remember that discussion. I remember taking it to heart. I remember answering the test questions using my mother's suggestion. I think I remember getting an A on the test. I don't remember much beyond that, but I do know that it always stuck with me. My mother's wisdom changed the way I approached these faith conflict issues. I still often get passionate and forget, but for the most part, my entire view towards faith challenges changed with that event.
At some point nearly 20 years later, I was recalling this conversation with my mother, expressing how much of an impact it had on me. She told me that after this whole ordeal, my science teacher came to me and asked me to pray for her cat. Apparently that posture of humility had a significant impact on her. Note that at no time did I apologize for my faith or give it up, I just professed it in a matter-of-fact context rather than a defensive or aggressive one.
As I grew up, I learned to believe in and accept the scientific research and consensus rather than a particular narrow interpretation of the Bible. I now believe in what the textbook said about the creation of the universe. What's interesting to me about this whole matter is that in no way am I embarrassed about that whole event even though I now view matters differently. The openness in speaking humbly allowed me to learn as well.
Now this is just a single anecdote, and I'm sure many people have stories where their combativeness was rewarded, but I can't help but shake that last part. I have had many, many arguments with people where I got aggressive or defensive. Sometimes I was right, but I felt awful about the way the conversation went, as it wasn't fruitful. Sometimes I was wrong, and I had to eat a massive amount of crow, while navigating whatever destruction I left in my wake. On the other hand, a posture of humility leaves me with a sense of peace regardless of the opinion I hold, and it appears to be more fruitful, too.
I went home after being caught up in that frenzy one day. I was worked up and going on and on to my mother about how I was going to be righteous too and stand up for faith! My mother calmed me down and explained to me that there was a better way. She said I didn't have to put my faith aside or hide it, but I could express it in a positive way. Her recommendation was that on the test, rather than give "God" as the answer to all the questions and fail the test, maybe I could write "The book says X, but I believe Y". I followed her advice and answered all of the questions in that style. I professed my faith proudly, but I did it humbly.
I remember that discussion. I remember taking it to heart. I remember answering the test questions using my mother's suggestion. I think I remember getting an A on the test. I don't remember much beyond that, but I do know that it always stuck with me. My mother's wisdom changed the way I approached these faith conflict issues. I still often get passionate and forget, but for the most part, my entire view towards faith challenges changed with that event.
At some point nearly 20 years later, I was recalling this conversation with my mother, expressing how much of an impact it had on me. She told me that after this whole ordeal, my science teacher came to me and asked me to pray for her cat. Apparently that posture of humility had a significant impact on her. Note that at no time did I apologize for my faith or give it up, I just professed it in a matter-of-fact context rather than a defensive or aggressive one.
As I grew up, I learned to believe in and accept the scientific research and consensus rather than a particular narrow interpretation of the Bible. I now believe in what the textbook said about the creation of the universe. What's interesting to me about this whole matter is that in no way am I embarrassed about that whole event even though I now view matters differently. The openness in speaking humbly allowed me to learn as well.
Now this is just a single anecdote, and I'm sure many people have stories where their combativeness was rewarded, but I can't help but shake that last part. I have had many, many arguments with people where I got aggressive or defensive. Sometimes I was right, but I felt awful about the way the conversation went, as it wasn't fruitful. Sometimes I was wrong, and I had to eat a massive amount of crow, while navigating whatever destruction I left in my wake. On the other hand, a posture of humility leaves me with a sense of peace regardless of the opinion I hold, and it appears to be more fruitful, too.
Thursday, May 23, 2019
Relational Learning: Questions are a Good Thing
When I was a young buck fresh out of college in the mid 2000s, I moved to South Dakota for my first job, far away from the South that I'd lived in for my entire life. I had no friends and no community there, and a small number of coworkers I had any meaningful interactions with. These coworkers introduced me to a game called World of Warcraft. For those unfamiliar, World of Warcraft (WoW for short) is a game that puts players in a big virtual world with monsters and factions and quests and treasure. The game also has guilds, which are basically communities with an in-game infrastructure for communicating and working together. I joined a guild and found a community to play the game with. I spent many hours on that game, as I didn't have a social life outside of it, and the guild became my community.
I have so many fond memories of playing back then. There were dungeons that were designed for groups to conquer, too difficult for one person to clear themselves. The guilds were often great at putting together parties of people to clear these dungeons. If you didn't have a guild, or if you didn't have enough people to put together a party at that time, you would go into big towns and shout out that you were looking for a group for that dungeon. It was challenging to pull together these pick-up groups, so you dealt with what you had. When you entered a dungeon, the team had to solve mechanics of various enemies in order to defeat them and obtain the valuable treasure they held. There was a lot of communal learning of what to do, what not to do, and a lot of educating new adventurers in this manner.
This was also in the early ages of google usage. People didn't spend a lot of time researching the game, watching videos, etc. I was one of the few in my guild that spent any time really researching various things, so my guild members frequently asked me questions about where to find certain things or how certain mechanics worked. I loved being able to teach them or have us discover together the mysteries of this giant world. When we explored a dungeon, at least some of the team was doing it blind, and we had to learn together how to tackle these challenges.
Around 5 years after the game launched, a mechanic called "Looking for Group" (LFG) was added that allowed a player to enter into a queue for a dungeon, and when enough people with the right roles queued up, a group was created to explore the dungeon in question. This eliminated a lot of the challenge of pulling together a group, which allowed people to frequently explore dungeons without needing a guild or a lot of effort. This also had the added effect that if someone didn't like the party they got stuck with through the tool, they could just leave and queue up for a new party, leaving the other players abandoned. There is a pretty overwhelming feeling among former WoW players that the LFG tool was the major negative turning point in the game's life cycle. Many people feel it destroyed the need for communities, leaving everyone to fend for themselves.
A couple of years after I started playing, I went to graduate school, and didn't have time to play anymore, so I canceled my subscription. The game underwent several expansions since then, and a lot of the original charm to me had been lost due to those expansions, so while I had fond memories and frequently desired to go back and play, I knew I couldn't ever really go back. Nearly a decade later, I found this place online where people had created a private server that was reproducing the game in its original state before all of the expansions. It meant I could play the game the way I remembered it, and I started playing again. So many memories came rushing back, and I was excited to find a guild and start exploring dungeons again. Without LFG to ruin everything, the value of community was back.
Except it wasn't. When someone didn't know something and would ask out loud how something worked, the answer would come back to them to google it. If someone didn't know how to fight a major enemy, they were told to go watch YouTube videos. No one seemed to have any interest in helping someone explore or experience the game. Questions or difficulties were ridiculed, and people would kick you off teams if you hadn't done your research first. This was when I realized that LFG wasn't what destroyed community in WoW, it was Google. It was the expectation that people wouldn't just play the game together, but rather you needed to educate yourself before you attempted to join with a group.
I find this to be a common problem in the real world today as well, especially online. There is a site called LMGTFY (which stands for "Let me google that for you"), that brands itself as "For all those people who find it more convenient to bother you with their question rather than search it for themselves." I have been directed there after asking questions several times. The idea that someone would ask another person a question that can be googled seems to be an affront to our modern sensibilities. Somehow the opportunity to teach has gone from a privilege to a nuisance*. The act of one person asking another rather than asking a computer is seen as a problem. Questions have become a sign of laziness.
It's a chicken-and-egg kind of thing, but I think a lot of our modern discourse is shaped by this dynamic. Learning through asking questions to others is frowned upon, so when a question is asked now, it is looked at as a challenge rather than an opportunity to learn. This results in a dynamic where discussion is now framed in debate terms. A look at responses to posts on Facebook or reddit or Twitter shows that people are willing to take anybody's thoughts as an opportunity to debate or argue. Any opportunity to show someone they're wrong is jumped on. In fact, there is a joke on reddit that if you want to know the truth about something, just make a post stating a false fact about it, and people will rush in to correct you and tell you the truth.
Google continues to worsen this dynamic, as people can search for resources to support their pre-existing viewpoint to strengthen their ability to debate and "win" against people with other viewpoints. It has a siloing effect that I think is amplifying this debate-centered discourse, as now anyone who sees things a little different just becomes an opponent. If we aren't parroting the same thoughts to each other, then we are enemies. There's no opportunity to learn from people that think differently, as they are no longer our community. It's now us vs them in a battle rather than it just being us side-by-side with room for disagreement. We've all become caricatures because we are entities to debate rather than people to relate to.
Recently, abortion bans passed in several states, and it caused quite a stir online (and rightfully so). Any time abortion comes up, you get pro-life people calling pro-choice people baby-killers and murderers, despite the fact that most pro-choice don't like abortions either, they just want them to be an option. On the other hand, we get pro-choice people painting pro-life people as anti-woman, completely ignoring that pro-life people are struggling with the fact that they consider the fetus to be a living being, and so abortion is a loss of life which should not be flippantly dismissed. I am pro-choice, but I have many pro-life friends and family, and I know they struggle with the balance and trade-off (or at least most of them do). These people that I know do not fit the woman-hating caricature. On the other hand, I hate abortion and wish we didn't have it. I do not celebrate it. I may be pro-choice, but I still recognize the fact that the fetus is a living being and should not be flippantly discarded. I just think a woman should have a choice given the toll a pregnancy takes on her body and life. I do not fit the pro-abortion caricature.
We see this in modern Christianity, too. People go to the Bible by themselves, determining for themselves what it says, and then use their pet passages and interpretations to argue with anyone else about it. I see this in conservative and evangelical churches, where anyone who doesn't agree with their interpretation is picking and choosing from scripture, ignoring what scripture "clearly" says. The truth is that progressive Christians read scripture too, and come to different conclusions, because scripture isn't as clear as we pretend it is (not to mention there is a lot of historical and linguistic context needed to understand some parts). I see a similar attitude from progressive Christianity, where people who hold to heavy dogma and detailed doctrine are considered judgmental and childish, ignoring that these people love scripture and Jesus and are just following what they think it says. I grew up in the conservative church, and the truth is that it is made up of so many people who give so much of their lives and love to other people because of their belief. I know several who would love to be more open, but feel like scripture (and thus God) is clear about a matter.
We are relational people, but we don't often learn in relationship anymore. We are expected to learn in isolation rather than in communities. Communities are viewed as spaces for argument and debate rather than joint education. We assume that all questions should be answered before the conversation starts, and if that's the case, there's no discussion to be had. Relational learning is a core Biblical concept, and for most of Christianity's history, scripture was learned in a communal environment. Questions should be welcomed and embraced, pre-determined answers should be viewed with caution. Academic answers are no replacement for personal ones. We need to be willing to educate each other and learn together.
*A caveat related to marginalization: I have heard the "It's not my job to educate you" response from people on the margins when they are asked to explain topics (related to the marginalized trait). I feel like this response is mostly justified for two main reasons. First, a lot of bad faith actors say some awful things under the guise of "I'm just asking questions". They want to turn the marginalization into a topic of debate rather than learning (this is a tactic called sealioning). Secondly, people who are marginalized are often on the margins because they are viewed through a specific lens related to the cause of the marginalization. When a person gets asked the same question over and over because they have a specific trait, it can have an othering effect. When people are expected to be a representative of their entire demographic, that implies that the questioner views people with these traits as the same rather than unique people with unique characteristics. As a person from a major position of privilege, it's important for me to acknowledge that there are legitimate reasons that people who are being oppressed might not want to answer these questions, so I am not referring to this particular case in the post.
I have so many fond memories of playing back then. There were dungeons that were designed for groups to conquer, too difficult for one person to clear themselves. The guilds were often great at putting together parties of people to clear these dungeons. If you didn't have a guild, or if you didn't have enough people to put together a party at that time, you would go into big towns and shout out that you were looking for a group for that dungeon. It was challenging to pull together these pick-up groups, so you dealt with what you had. When you entered a dungeon, the team had to solve mechanics of various enemies in order to defeat them and obtain the valuable treasure they held. There was a lot of communal learning of what to do, what not to do, and a lot of educating new adventurers in this manner.
This was also in the early ages of google usage. People didn't spend a lot of time researching the game, watching videos, etc. I was one of the few in my guild that spent any time really researching various things, so my guild members frequently asked me questions about where to find certain things or how certain mechanics worked. I loved being able to teach them or have us discover together the mysteries of this giant world. When we explored a dungeon, at least some of the team was doing it blind, and we had to learn together how to tackle these challenges.
Around 5 years after the game launched, a mechanic called "Looking for Group" (LFG) was added that allowed a player to enter into a queue for a dungeon, and when enough people with the right roles queued up, a group was created to explore the dungeon in question. This eliminated a lot of the challenge of pulling together a group, which allowed people to frequently explore dungeons without needing a guild or a lot of effort. This also had the added effect that if someone didn't like the party they got stuck with through the tool, they could just leave and queue up for a new party, leaving the other players abandoned. There is a pretty overwhelming feeling among former WoW players that the LFG tool was the major negative turning point in the game's life cycle. Many people feel it destroyed the need for communities, leaving everyone to fend for themselves.
A couple of years after I started playing, I went to graduate school, and didn't have time to play anymore, so I canceled my subscription. The game underwent several expansions since then, and a lot of the original charm to me had been lost due to those expansions, so while I had fond memories and frequently desired to go back and play, I knew I couldn't ever really go back. Nearly a decade later, I found this place online where people had created a private server that was reproducing the game in its original state before all of the expansions. It meant I could play the game the way I remembered it, and I started playing again. So many memories came rushing back, and I was excited to find a guild and start exploring dungeons again. Without LFG to ruin everything, the value of community was back.
Except it wasn't. When someone didn't know something and would ask out loud how something worked, the answer would come back to them to google it. If someone didn't know how to fight a major enemy, they were told to go watch YouTube videos. No one seemed to have any interest in helping someone explore or experience the game. Questions or difficulties were ridiculed, and people would kick you off teams if you hadn't done your research first. This was when I realized that LFG wasn't what destroyed community in WoW, it was Google. It was the expectation that people wouldn't just play the game together, but rather you needed to educate yourself before you attempted to join with a group.
I find this to be a common problem in the real world today as well, especially online. There is a site called LMGTFY (which stands for "Let me google that for you"), that brands itself as "For all those people who find it more convenient to bother you with their question rather than search it for themselves." I have been directed there after asking questions several times. The idea that someone would ask another person a question that can be googled seems to be an affront to our modern sensibilities. Somehow the opportunity to teach has gone from a privilege to a nuisance*. The act of one person asking another rather than asking a computer is seen as a problem. Questions have become a sign of laziness.
It's a chicken-and-egg kind of thing, but I think a lot of our modern discourse is shaped by this dynamic. Learning through asking questions to others is frowned upon, so when a question is asked now, it is looked at as a challenge rather than an opportunity to learn. This results in a dynamic where discussion is now framed in debate terms. A look at responses to posts on Facebook or reddit or Twitter shows that people are willing to take anybody's thoughts as an opportunity to debate or argue. Any opportunity to show someone they're wrong is jumped on. In fact, there is a joke on reddit that if you want to know the truth about something, just make a post stating a false fact about it, and people will rush in to correct you and tell you the truth.
Google continues to worsen this dynamic, as people can search for resources to support their pre-existing viewpoint to strengthen their ability to debate and "win" against people with other viewpoints. It has a siloing effect that I think is amplifying this debate-centered discourse, as now anyone who sees things a little different just becomes an opponent. If we aren't parroting the same thoughts to each other, then we are enemies. There's no opportunity to learn from people that think differently, as they are no longer our community. It's now us vs them in a battle rather than it just being us side-by-side with room for disagreement. We've all become caricatures because we are entities to debate rather than people to relate to.
Recently, abortion bans passed in several states, and it caused quite a stir online (and rightfully so). Any time abortion comes up, you get pro-life people calling pro-choice people baby-killers and murderers, despite the fact that most pro-choice don't like abortions either, they just want them to be an option. On the other hand, we get pro-choice people painting pro-life people as anti-woman, completely ignoring that pro-life people are struggling with the fact that they consider the fetus to be a living being, and so abortion is a loss of life which should not be flippantly dismissed. I am pro-choice, but I have many pro-life friends and family, and I know they struggle with the balance and trade-off (or at least most of them do). These people that I know do not fit the woman-hating caricature. On the other hand, I hate abortion and wish we didn't have it. I do not celebrate it. I may be pro-choice, but I still recognize the fact that the fetus is a living being and should not be flippantly discarded. I just think a woman should have a choice given the toll a pregnancy takes on her body and life. I do not fit the pro-abortion caricature.
We see this in modern Christianity, too. People go to the Bible by themselves, determining for themselves what it says, and then use their pet passages and interpretations to argue with anyone else about it. I see this in conservative and evangelical churches, where anyone who doesn't agree with their interpretation is picking and choosing from scripture, ignoring what scripture "clearly" says. The truth is that progressive Christians read scripture too, and come to different conclusions, because scripture isn't as clear as we pretend it is (not to mention there is a lot of historical and linguistic context needed to understand some parts). I see a similar attitude from progressive Christianity, where people who hold to heavy dogma and detailed doctrine are considered judgmental and childish, ignoring that these people love scripture and Jesus and are just following what they think it says. I grew up in the conservative church, and the truth is that it is made up of so many people who give so much of their lives and love to other people because of their belief. I know several who would love to be more open, but feel like scripture (and thus God) is clear about a matter.
We are relational people, but we don't often learn in relationship anymore. We are expected to learn in isolation rather than in communities. Communities are viewed as spaces for argument and debate rather than joint education. We assume that all questions should be answered before the conversation starts, and if that's the case, there's no discussion to be had. Relational learning is a core Biblical concept, and for most of Christianity's history, scripture was learned in a communal environment. Questions should be welcomed and embraced, pre-determined answers should be viewed with caution. Academic answers are no replacement for personal ones. We need to be willing to educate each other and learn together.
*A caveat related to marginalization: I have heard the "It's not my job to educate you" response from people on the margins when they are asked to explain topics (related to the marginalized trait). I feel like this response is mostly justified for two main reasons. First, a lot of bad faith actors say some awful things under the guise of "I'm just asking questions". They want to turn the marginalization into a topic of debate rather than learning (this is a tactic called sealioning). Secondly, people who are marginalized are often on the margins because they are viewed through a specific lens related to the cause of the marginalization. When a person gets asked the same question over and over because they have a specific trait, it can have an othering effect. When people are expected to be a representative of their entire demographic, that implies that the questioner views people with these traits as the same rather than unique people with unique characteristics. As a person from a major position of privilege, it's important for me to acknowledge that there are legitimate reasons that people who are being oppressed might not want to answer these questions, so I am not referring to this particular case in the post.
Tuesday, May 21, 2019
Examining Sin vs Self-Abuse
I have found in my journey that the messages I hear from the evangelical church is very focused on brokenness. I have heard message after message focused on understanding how unworthy and awful we are. The general idea is to emphasize God's grace and our need for Jesus. For someone like me who suffers from depression though, all that means is that I'm basically getting reinforcement of all the negative messages I already tell myself. It's not a healthy existence, and that constant barrage took quite a toll on me.
Beyond that, I had some people in the church telling me that the reason I was depressed was because I had sins I hadn't repented of. They encouraged me to pray to find hidden sins that I needed to confess. Fortunately for me, these particular people loved me and listened to me as I educated them about depression (and credited me later for teaching them), but I have heard many stories where people weren't so fortunate. Linking depression to sins is a dangerous approach.
Another interesting thing I've noticed from people in the evangelical church is this urgent need to create sin where there is none. I have had conversations with people where they were telling me of a relationship or a bible study or an event that they were really excited about, but then they would say that they are afraid they might be making an idol out of that event. Even in entirely spiritual endeavors, the idea that the focus might be off a couple of degrees was ever present and a concern towards idolatry. This kind of "surely I have to be screwing up somehow" mentality is quite common in evangelical environments. Repentance has value, but creating sins to repent of is problematic.
However, even as I find myself trying to break free of this mentality, I find myself afraid of the results. If I offer myself grace, how long until I start excusing myself for anything? There are ethics I still need to adhere to, and there are sins I still need to avoid and repent of. I don't want to fall into a mentality of allowing myself do things I shouldn't or avoiding things I should, so I remain excessively harsh on myself. This is not an uncommon facet of depression, but even knowing that, the truth of it still remains ever present in my mind.
So how do we hold ourselves accountable responsibly while not destroying ourselves in the process? What marks the line between examining sin and self-abuse?
Beyond that, I had some people in the church telling me that the reason I was depressed was because I had sins I hadn't repented of. They encouraged me to pray to find hidden sins that I needed to confess. Fortunately for me, these particular people loved me and listened to me as I educated them about depression (and credited me later for teaching them), but I have heard many stories where people weren't so fortunate. Linking depression to sins is a dangerous approach.
Another interesting thing I've noticed from people in the evangelical church is this urgent need to create sin where there is none. I have had conversations with people where they were telling me of a relationship or a bible study or an event that they were really excited about, but then they would say that they are afraid they might be making an idol out of that event. Even in entirely spiritual endeavors, the idea that the focus might be off a couple of degrees was ever present and a concern towards idolatry. This kind of "surely I have to be screwing up somehow" mentality is quite common in evangelical environments. Repentance has value, but creating sins to repent of is problematic.
However, even as I find myself trying to break free of this mentality, I find myself afraid of the results. If I offer myself grace, how long until I start excusing myself for anything? There are ethics I still need to adhere to, and there are sins I still need to avoid and repent of. I don't want to fall into a mentality of allowing myself do things I shouldn't or avoiding things I should, so I remain excessively harsh on myself. This is not an uncommon facet of depression, but even knowing that, the truth of it still remains ever present in my mind.
So how do we hold ourselves accountable responsibly while not destroying ourselves in the process? What marks the line between examining sin and self-abuse?
Thursday, May 16, 2019
How did Jesus feed the crowds?
There are multiple stories in the Gospels about Jesus feeding crowds. He fed the 5,000 in Matthew 14, Mark 6, Luke 9, and John 6. He fed the 4,000 in Matthew 15 and Mark 8. We look at these feedings as a miracle, which they certainly are. However, I'd like to look at these stories in a slightly different light.
For backstory: in the story of the 5,000, Jesus wants to feed the crowd. The disciples are trying to figure out how to purchase enough bread for everyone. Jesus asks them how much bread they have, and they have five loaves and two fish (in John, these come from a boy). In the story of the 4,000, Jesus expresses concern for the crowd as they have been following him for 3 days and have nothing to eat, and he doesn't want to send them away hungry. The disciples have 7 loaves of bread and a few small fish.
Here's how the four passages describe the ensuing events for the 5,000:
Matthew 14:
Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full.
Mark 6:
Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and he divided the two fish among them all. And all ate and were filled; and they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish.
Luke 9:
And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke them, and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd. And all ate and were filled. What was left over was gathered up, twelve baskets of broken pieces.
John 6:
Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.” So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets.
And for the 4,000:
Matthew 15:
he took the seven loaves and the fish; and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And all of them ate and were filled; and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full.
Mark 8:
he took the seven loaves, and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to his disciples to distribute; and they distributed them to the crowd. They had also a few small fish; and after blessing them, he ordered that these too should be distributed. They ate and were filled; and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full.
Turning 5 loaves of bread into enough to feed 5,000 people and turning 7 loaves into enough to feed 4,000 people is indeed miraculous. What always interests me is the mechanism of it. Did the bread regrow every time he pulled off a piece? Did he finish one loaf and another one suddenly appeared in the basket? Did the broken pieces grow into full loaves themselves? After the meal, they gathered up the remains and they were more than they began with. What happened to the pieces that remained? Why didn't they keep growing? Nothing in the above passages gives any indication as to that. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, he breaks the bread and fish and gives them to the disciples to give to the crowd. That's the extent of the explanation. Nowhere is the regeneration of bread actually described.
When Jesus goes into new cities or sees new crowds, he heals their sick and drives out demons. He tells his disciples to do the same thing. The gospels don't appear to say he goes to feed their hungry. As far as I can tell outside of these two stories, there is not another example in the Gospels of Jesus feeding anyone (at least not physically). I would think the miracle of self-reproducing food would be just as useful of a tool as miraculous cures in Jesus ministry, yet that's not a regular occurrence. That leads me to believe that there is something different with this miracle of feeding of the crowds.
Thus, I like to imagine these stories a little differently. There were people of all walks of life following Jesus. I'd imagine some of the wealthier followers probably still had enough food to keep them going or at least had the money to buy more food. In Mark 6, he orders the crowd to sit in groups of hundreds and of fifties. In Luke 9, he asks them to sit down in groups of about fifty. Maybe he did that as an opportunity to turn the mass crowds into small enough groups to become personal. Now imagine if this crowd watches the man they are following offer all the food he has to them, even if the amount of the food was laughably small.
When watching their leader offer all of what he had to try to feed the crowd, think of what the followers that still had food or had money for food may have been thinking. What if they used that example to give their food freely to the others in their groups? What if they used their money buy food to bring back to share? Imagine how every group could have people so generous that they not only fed their entire group, but offered so much that there was food left over.
What if this was a lesson of feeding the hungry and taking care of the poor? What if the actual miracle was Jesus' followers following his example?
Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food
For backstory: in the story of the 5,000, Jesus wants to feed the crowd. The disciples are trying to figure out how to purchase enough bread for everyone. Jesus asks them how much bread they have, and they have five loaves and two fish (in John, these come from a boy). In the story of the 4,000, Jesus expresses concern for the crowd as they have been following him for 3 days and have nothing to eat, and he doesn't want to send them away hungry. The disciples have 7 loaves of bread and a few small fish.
Here's how the four passages describe the ensuing events for the 5,000:
Matthew 14:
Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full.
Mark 6:
Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and he divided the two fish among them all. And all ate and were filled; and they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish.
Luke 9:
And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke them, and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd. And all ate and were filled. What was left over was gathered up, twelve baskets of broken pieces.
John 6:
Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.” So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets.
And for the 4,000:
Matthew 15:
he took the seven loaves and the fish; and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And all of them ate and were filled; and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full.
Mark 8:
he took the seven loaves, and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to his disciples to distribute; and they distributed them to the crowd. They had also a few small fish; and after blessing them, he ordered that these too should be distributed. They ate and were filled; and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full.
Turning 5 loaves of bread into enough to feed 5,000 people and turning 7 loaves into enough to feed 4,000 people is indeed miraculous. What always interests me is the mechanism of it. Did the bread regrow every time he pulled off a piece? Did he finish one loaf and another one suddenly appeared in the basket? Did the broken pieces grow into full loaves themselves? After the meal, they gathered up the remains and they were more than they began with. What happened to the pieces that remained? Why didn't they keep growing? Nothing in the above passages gives any indication as to that. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, he breaks the bread and fish and gives them to the disciples to give to the crowd. That's the extent of the explanation. Nowhere is the regeneration of bread actually described.
When Jesus goes into new cities or sees new crowds, he heals their sick and drives out demons. He tells his disciples to do the same thing. The gospels don't appear to say he goes to feed their hungry. As far as I can tell outside of these two stories, there is not another example in the Gospels of Jesus feeding anyone (at least not physically). I would think the miracle of self-reproducing food would be just as useful of a tool as miraculous cures in Jesus ministry, yet that's not a regular occurrence. That leads me to believe that there is something different with this miracle of feeding of the crowds.
Thus, I like to imagine these stories a little differently. There were people of all walks of life following Jesus. I'd imagine some of the wealthier followers probably still had enough food to keep them going or at least had the money to buy more food. In Mark 6, he orders the crowd to sit in groups of hundreds and of fifties. In Luke 9, he asks them to sit down in groups of about fifty. Maybe he did that as an opportunity to turn the mass crowds into small enough groups to become personal. Now imagine if this crowd watches the man they are following offer all the food he has to them, even if the amount of the food was laughably small.
When watching their leader offer all of what he had to try to feed the crowd, think of what the followers that still had food or had money for food may have been thinking. What if they used that example to give their food freely to the others in their groups? What if they used their money buy food to bring back to share? Imagine how every group could have people so generous that they not only fed their entire group, but offered so much that there was food left over.
What if this was a lesson of feeding the hungry and taking care of the poor? What if the actual miracle was Jesus' followers following his example?
Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food
Monday, May 13, 2019
Thomas gets a raw deal
For many years, I have railed that the apostle Thomas gets a raw deal. In John 20:24-29, we get the story where Thomas expresses doubt in the resurrection of Jesus, claiming “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” For this story he has earned the moniker "Doubting Thomas."
I don't know about you, but watching people rise from the dead doesn't happen to me very frequently. I would doubt anybody claiming a resurrection, and I would say the laws of nature would make me reasonable to do so. The other disciples had the luxury of having already seen the resurrected Jesus, and yet...
From Luke 24:
36 While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
37 They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. 38 He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? 39 Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”
40 When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. 41 And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?” 42 They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43 and he took it and ate it in their presence.
From Matthew 28:
16 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.
It sounds an awful lot to me like we had many apostles who had their doubts well after seeing Jesus in the flesh. Thomas believed as soon as Jesus appeared to him and showed him his wounds. Other disciples seemed to doubt well past that. But poor Thomas got an entry explicitly describing his doubt, so he gets to be remembered more for doubting than for his bringing the gospel to India.
Modern Christian culture (especially in the more conservative traditions) seems to recoil from doubt and claim lack of faith as a character flaw. However, if even the people who witnessed the events firsthand couldn't believe it, why shouldn't we have issues? Doubt is reasonable and it is certainly not disqualifying for belonging to Christ.
I know that every rational thought in my head scoffs at the idea of the resurrection. The brilliant Rachel Held Evans wrote a poem on her blog called Holy Week for Doubters which expresses the idea “What if we made this up because we’re afraid of death?” She also frequently said that the story of Jesus is one she was willing to risk being wrong about. It's a pretty unbelievable story.
How does Jesus respond to Thomas? He appears and shows him the holes in his hands and sides. How does he respond to the doubting disciples in Luke 24? He asks for some food. How does he respond to the doubting disciples in Matthew 28?
18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Yes, he wants us to believe, but Jesus doesn't appear to be particularly bothered by doubt. His response to doubt is to tell the world about him. That sounds like a vote of confidence to me.
I don't know about you, but watching people rise from the dead doesn't happen to me very frequently. I would doubt anybody claiming a resurrection, and I would say the laws of nature would make me reasonable to do so. The other disciples had the luxury of having already seen the resurrected Jesus, and yet...
From Luke 24:
36 While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
37 They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. 38 He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? 39 Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”
40 When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. 41 And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?” 42 They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43 and he took it and ate it in their presence.
From Matthew 28:
16 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.
It sounds an awful lot to me like we had many apostles who had their doubts well after seeing Jesus in the flesh. Thomas believed as soon as Jesus appeared to him and showed him his wounds. Other disciples seemed to doubt well past that. But poor Thomas got an entry explicitly describing his doubt, so he gets to be remembered more for doubting than for his bringing the gospel to India.
Modern Christian culture (especially in the more conservative traditions) seems to recoil from doubt and claim lack of faith as a character flaw. However, if even the people who witnessed the events firsthand couldn't believe it, why shouldn't we have issues? Doubt is reasonable and it is certainly not disqualifying for belonging to Christ.
I know that every rational thought in my head scoffs at the idea of the resurrection. The brilliant Rachel Held Evans wrote a poem on her blog called Holy Week for Doubters which expresses the idea “What if we made this up because we’re afraid of death?” She also frequently said that the story of Jesus is one she was willing to risk being wrong about. It's a pretty unbelievable story.
How does Jesus respond to Thomas? He appears and shows him the holes in his hands and sides. How does he respond to the doubting disciples in Luke 24? He asks for some food. How does he respond to the doubting disciples in Matthew 28?
18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Yes, he wants us to believe, but Jesus doesn't appear to be particularly bothered by doubt. His response to doubt is to tell the world about him. That sounds like a vote of confidence to me.
Monday, May 6, 2019
A whisper into the void
On Saturday, the world lost one of its greatest prophetic voices in Rachel Held Evans. She influenced the faith of so many people, keeping them from losing Jesus in the midst of doubt (the #PrayForRHE and #BecauseOfRHE hashtags are a testament to that). Personally, she is the leading reason why I'm even going to church anymore, and the sole reason I am attending an Episcopal church now.
I've spent time over the last couple of days trying to figure out my grief over this whole ordeal. I've only read one of her books, Searching for Sunday, and even that was only three weeks ago. I had only been on her blog from time to time over the many years. I followed her on twitter. That's it.
She left behind a husband and two little children. I've been aching for them and how massive their grief must be. I think of Sarah Bessey and Jeff Chu and Nadia Bolz-Weber and the many other people she was so close to and did so much good with, and I can't imagine the pain they are fighting. I read countless stories of women who became pastors because of her, people that gained platforms because of her, people who were given random encouragement of her, people who interacted with her on her blog. These are all people whose lives she directly touched because of her heart and her presence. These are people who deserve to mourn.
Me? I was just a twitter acolyte and occasional blog visitor. I didn't even know what Searching for Sunday was really about until my wife bought it for me. I've never met her, never been to hear her speak, never had any personal connection with her. Realistically, my day-to-day life isn't going to be any different than it was before she died. What right do I have to mourn? Why has her death affected me so deeply? This is what I've been pondering over the last few days, and I think I finally found an answer.
When I was young, I was a very lonely kid. I had a personality that drove people away. I had a temper, I had a loud, high voice, I had opinions, and I had the need to correct people. I had very few friends growing up because of this (and those that stuck around were saints in retrospect). I hated this loneliness, so as I grew up, I developed this shell. I wanted to stifle everything that pushed people away, and in response I outwardly became what I term "Generic Guy #2". I did nothing to push people away, but I was just a shell of a person, and didn't draw anyone in. I became a background character.
When I was a young adult and was looking for a wife, I felt stuck in an impossibility. I needed someone who could at least put up with my "crazy" ways of thinking, who wouldn't condemn me for the unique ways I might approach scripture, or for my progressive views, but still was someone who took their faith seriously. Even though I held both positions, I thought that as a general rule, progressive thought and serious faith were at odds with each other. I was willing to settle for someone who could at least put up with me. (Fortunately, I didn't have to settle, and I now have an amazing wife that fits a similar mold as I, but that's a different story).
I may have only been a twitter follower, but Rachel was the one and only theologian or Christian voice I followed on twitter (this has changed in the last 3 weeks). That's because for me, Christian voices were not ones I wanted to hear or amplify. I didn't trust anyone who claimed Christianity, as the voices I have heard all my life were those that were conservative evangelical voices, and especially after the most recent presidential election and the aftermath of it, I wanted nothing to do with those voices. Those voices that didn't fall under the conservative evangelical paradigm seemed to me to not really care about faith at all (though that may be due to my short-sightedness due to my church experience). Rachel seemed to be the one voice that violated both of those expectations.
As is evident in this post, I'm not a gifted writer. Rachel was. I can't organize or articulate my thoughts well. In the last three weeks, I have read over years of Rachel's blog posts, and frequently I come across posts that tell me what I believe. Not because I don't know what I believe or I just blindly agree with her, but because she is able to put into words what I believe better than I've ever been able to.
What I've realized over the last few days is that beyond mourning for everyone who lost a family member or a friend in Rachel, I'm mourning the loss of my voice. The background character who didn't know how to synthesize his doubts, progressive views, and his faith found a voice who not only articulated his thoughts better than he could, but amplified them to a wide audience and allowed them to see they weren't alone. Now that voice is gone, and I'm not sure how to speak.
Throughout these last 3 weeks, I have come to follow and listen to a wide array of brilliant Christian minds that I've been introduced to through Rachel. I have rapidly grown to respect and listen to these amazing people. I am immensely grateful for them, but they don't and can't speak for me in the same way.
I have to find my own voice now. And this is my first whisper.
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