wonders and reflections in God's presence

(This post was written last week, Wednesday, February 1, saved but never posted )

Because of the news lately, I’ve added a blog-search feed to my blogwatcher that looks for blogs containing references to Faith Harbour, Randy, Eklektos or … well, me. Today, after the Christianity Today article was published this morning, two new blog postings appeared, The Prodigal Sheep, and A Classical Presbyterian. They each raised the issue of the church to enforcing its “rules”.

It’s true that Christians need to hold each other accountable. And the Churches needs to hold congregations accountable. But, to what or whom are we accountable? Church rules, specific interpretations of scripture, traditional doctrines? In a church that acknowledges that “there are truths and forms with respect to which men of good characters and principles may differ” (G-1.0305 of the Book of Order of the Presbyterian Church (USA)) our strength comes in our ability to hold each other accountable to growing, learning, praying, reading scripture, studying, and discerning the will of the Spirit.

Accountability and discipline is not about punishment. It’s not about control. It’s not about keeping the right rules. It is about learning and practicing a way of life. When I discipline my daughter, I do so not to “keep her in line” or to be sure she grows up to be just like me, but to help her learn appropriate ways of living according to the values our family lives by. A community of believers also have a responsibility to hold each other accountable to a specific way of life — Christ’s way. And we do that, not by shunning or judging or excluding, but by entering into relationship with each other as we encounter the living Christ.

I think the church needs to hold its members and leaders accountable to the marks of discipleship … daily prayer, Bible reading, spiritual friendships, significant giving, regular worship, and meaningful ministry or service. When we hold each other accountable to that … when we hold ourselves accountable to that … the rest will fall in line. I think many of the problems our churches have faced are because we are not paying enough attention to how we live the path of discipleship, and, instead, we attempt to “discipline” good, faithful people for not following the rules.

Shae’s comments on Brian’s A Generous Orthodoxy about orthodoxy and orthopraxy reminded me of what I read in Marcus Borg’s The Heart of Christianity about the meaning of faith.  If I can put it simply … he said that christianity is as much (or more so) about the way of Christ as it is about intellectually affirming certain beliefs about Christ.  It is more about practice than belief.  It is more about where we place our heart than about what we think in our mind (though, hear me and Borg clearly … our mind matters, our thoughts and understanding matters … we just need to be careful that our thoughts are not separate from our heart and our actions.)

Too many people are too concerned with what we believe … do we believe homosexuality is a sin, for instance … than in how we live and act and have our being.  My faith is not about affirming one set of doctrines over another, but in trying my best to conform my life and my ways to the way and life of Christ.  And by understanding the truth of all of the many strands of Christianity, we get the benefit of all of those perspectives on the one Christ.

Shae, I’m in the final chapters of A Generous Orthodoxy … and I have to say that it’s great to hear all the different nuances of faith that have a real impact on how we live ours. 

Technorati Tags: http://shaeman-x.com/blog/2006/01/30/orthodoxy-and-orthopraxy/

Technorati Tags: http://shaeman-x.com/blog/2006/01/30/orthodoxy-and-orthopraxy/

I wish God spoke to me as clearly as God seems to speak to others. I pray, I listen, I read scripture, and I listen to trusted spiritual leaders. But I am constantly aware of the complexities of life and relationships. I don’t see black and white, I see shades of gray. I see God’s Truth as beyond our limited thinking … and that means our ideas and our understandings of that truth are ALWAYS distorted, blurred, limited, and shallow.

I am angry about that. I don’t want to be looking through a mirror dimly … I want to see God face to face. I want to know what Christ knows, I want to be certain that what I do is ALWAYS right. But I guess that’s what faith is … stepping out into dangerous waters and doing your best to keep your eyes on Jesus through the fog.

God doesn’t speak to me face to face, and even if I were to receive those direct words of wisdom I long for so much … as soon as I held on to them, they, too, would be distorted by the limitations of language itself. That’s why I can’t read the Bible literally … words are limited … the communication of an idea from one person to another is very difficult to portray through words alone. Those words are shared along with a relationship of past experiences, feelings, intuitions, facial and bodily expressions, and inflections. The Bible has to be experienced the same way … and the truths expressed there are often misinterpreted even as the words shared between intimate partners can be misinterpreted.

That’s why I belong to a church that hold high the motto … reformed and always being reformed. I was born questioning. My mother says I drove her craze as a toddler asking “How come?” about everything. And my mom and dad, to their credit, would always welcome my questions and answer them to the best of their ability.

I see homosexuality as being a “gray area”. I have asked questions … and the biggest is “why?” Why would God consider love between people of the same sex as a slight against him? Why would expressing that love sexually be so dangerous to their souls? I don’t see it. I DO, however, see how the hostility, hatred, and judgementalism that is shown to GLBT people IS HARMFUL. I can see its destructiveness. I can see its evil. I can see lots of harm and destruction in sexual expression … but I see the same sin in both gay and straight relationships. Our sexuality itself is, in my opinion, morally neutral; how we express it … and the relationships that are hurt and encouraged by it … that’s where the goodness and evilness is discerned.

I realize, though, that I could be wrong. I wish … I only wish … that people who disagreed with my stance on homosexuality could only admit that they, too, could be wrong. Or does God really speak more clearly to them?

I took the spiritual gift inventory and “hospitality” was NOT one of my gifts!  But there were people in my church who were off the charts in hospitality!  You know who they are – the ones who are always preparing table decorations for the next church dinner.  They are the ones who love to cook, bake, decorate, and entertain – the Martha Stewarts of your church.  Now, I love being with people; and I actually love to host parties at my house.  But, for me, hospitality amounts to the following: “There’s the refrigeration, and there’s the pantry; when you’re hungry, help yourself.”

Most recently I’ve been reading that hospitality is a key to successful church growth.  The experts make a distinction between merely being a “friendly church” and a church that shows “real hospitality.”  We’ve all heard of the jokes about the frozen chosen.  Perhaps you’ve even visited a church one Sunday and had no one say a word to you the whole time you were there.  Even churches that consider themselves “friendly” are warm and open to each other, but relatively cold to the stranger.  You know that a sanctuary that is only 60% occupied on a Sunday morning, can still feel “full” and closed to an outsider.

To our credit, most of our churches have become much better at appearing friendly.  We have greeters are placed strategically at the door to meet visitors with a smile.  Information desks and Welcome Centers are geared especially for newcomers who are seeking information on the church.  We wear nametags so we can greet each other by name.  More and more, there are genuine smiles and welcomes come from people in the pews, and sometimes even invitations to join new groups in the church.  But real hospitality, radical hospitality, is even more than that … and it doesn’t have much to do with table decorations either.  Radical hospitality has to do with making room in your life for someone.  To be a growing church, we need to make room not only in the church, but in our lives, for new people.

For centuries (even millenniums) hospitality has been a moral mandate.  It involved welcoming the stranger.  Not just smiling at them and saying how happy you are to meet them, but really welcoming them into our homes and offering them food, shelter, and protection.[1]  Remember the condemnation God had for the city of Sodom when they were not hospitable to the strangers in their midst.  As Christians, too, we are called to welcome the strangers into our homes.

Are you the type of person who, when traveling, is more concerned about getting there or enjoying the ride?

I was driving to Circuit City yesterday to drop of Katie’s car for her stereo installation; Katie was following me in her car … and I realized I was going much too fast for a 16 year old driver on I-10. I can afford another ticket, but she can’t. So I knew I had to slow down. Why was I such a hurry? And why was it so difficult for me to drop 10 mph? Because I’m much more interested in getting there than in the process. I don’t like it. I’m so future oriented that I have a very difficult time just enjoying the ride.
Today I led mid-day prayers for the staff at work. We read the story of the wise men traveling to Bethlehem to visit the newborn King of the Jews. In The Message, it says,

“They could hardly contain themselves: They were in the right place! They had arrived at the right time!”

I thought … right place, sure, but right time? It took months, possibly years, for them to get there! They went to Jerusalem first … out of their way … they should have mapquested first.

But perhaps, God’s timing was in the journey as well as the getting there. Perhaps God’s timing was in the patience, the trekking, even the wrong turns. They arrived at precisely the right time.

I want to learn to be focused in the moment, not consumed by later. In the Dewitt Jones video, Celebrate what’s Right with the World, he interviews a world-renowned weaver in Scotland who projects an aura of wisdom. Jones asked her what she thought about as she weaves, expecting a profound reply. “I wonder if I’ll run out of thread,” she answered. She noticed his look of disappointment and added, “when I weave, I weave.”

(from my xanga)

It’s not that I don’t like Christmas. I love Christmas! Even the secular stuff … my favorite is seeing the lights on the houses … I remember getting bundled up in my pajamas as a kid, packing into the car with a jug of hot chocolate … and we’d go out for the evening looking at the lights on the houses. Please don’t hear me as a “bah humbug” sort of person. I like singing Christmas carols the day after Thanksgiving.

But I want to raise awareness about the fact that most of what we do around Christmas is NOT really related to the birth of Christ … it’s a cultural celebration of goodness and mystery (at its best) and consumerism (at its worst).

I feel the same way about most of the religious/political controversies these days. They are more cultural issues than Christ issues. A few years ago the paper called to ask me my opinion on prayer at football games … they were surprised by my answer and didn’t publish much of what I said (they already had the story written and were just looking for quotes that fit their thesis). I am not in favor of it … partly because I don’t care for football (sorry, I’ll never be a real Texan) … but, really, it’s because I think prayer is being used for the wrong reasons in that context. It often comes down to “pray so God is on our side”. And it seems trivialized to me. Do we really mean, Christ enter into our playing so that all players treat each other with compassion and kindness, generosity and sacrifice … of course not. How is the prayer at football games really Christian? It’s the same with prayer in school, the Bible or ten commandments at the courthouse. We’re fighting the wrong battle. These things are merely facades which keep us thinking we are a Christian nation. And that’s why they are such hot political issues. As long as we keep thinking we’re a Christian nation, the church loses its prophetic voice in society.

This is why it is so vitally important that we continue to fight for the separation of church and state; that we fight for all marginalized voices to be given the right to be heard and respected. Christ speaks through those marginalized voices.

This was all written in response to Anne’s post … canceling worship on Christmas Day because it happens to fall on a Sunday … that is the epitome of the Church acclimating to culture and giving up its power and influence on one of the most holy days of the Christian calendar.