Vulnerability: Newtown and Nouwen
Last week's tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut hurts. It hurts badly, troubling us at multiple locations of doubt, hope, fear, and love. Survey the landscape and see what has been scorched: the innocence of children, the space of the schoolhouse, our duty (and capacity) to protect children, our general sense of security in the midst of community, a myriad of assumed rights and responsibilities, ideals of parenthood and the resiliency of children, our blind spot toward mental illness, perhaps even our tacit acceptance of public risk.In the destructive wake of the violence, many voices have rushed in to offer solutions–a not unhealthy impulse, even though many of the solutions are misguided, I think. Many of them reflect views that are not new judgments, but old commitments given new urgency, and these have been immediately met by other old commitments fueled by the urgency of any defense played at critical junctures. Political pundits, theologians, pastors, social scientists and community leaders are all having their say, and I suppose that some of those discussions may well bear fruit, if they are pursued with honesty, courage, and wisdom. In the end, now that the idea of this type of violence has been seeded in our communities, it may not ever be eradicated from the consciousness of those deeply broken people who might consider it a live option. Becoming more intentional about addressing that deep brokenness, addressing the systemic devaluation of human life in our society, limiting how well-armed such individuals might come to be, and making sensible decisions about security and emergency procedures may well combine to save lives—I would hope many—but eliminating the seed itself may be beyond our grasp. (This is not to say that such pragmatic conversations should not be pressed forward! Even if we can spare but a few families this sort of deep horror, I hope we will courageously engage the questions.)Beyond the immediately pragmatic, the deaths in Newtown have again exposed a conversation that we are scarcely willing to pursue, namely our extremely fragile ability to experience community with other humans. When we join in others for any public endeavor or experience of community, we always experience danger, whether that be in the market or workplaces, in the schools or mass entertainment venues. Such events raise our awareness of the willingness of others to abuse our trust and do us harm in exceptional ways, although we most commonly encounter such abuse and harm in mundane, petty things. Whether they do so out of rage, greed, or some other vice, our experience of such danger threatens our willingness to be full participants in community, and in exceptional moments of violence, even at the hands of madmen, we can be pushed further into retreat mode.I say "retreat", but as I mean that, the impulse to ratchet up security and devise better schemes for protection, and to make ourselves stronger is also a "retreat" from community, in its own way. Those impulses are a way of insulating us from the sense of vulnerability that we have in encountering "strangers", people who are really our neighbors, but who have become "estranged" from us. Whether they have become strangers to us through their own failings or ours, through the broader directions of culture, or through some innate human "fallenness" is one of the central questions of theology, as is the cure. Put simply, these questions ask, "How did we become this broken?" and "How can we be fixed?" And so, moments like this can be deeply theological moments, because we experience in an acute way the condition of humanity, They strip away the illusions that we hold of ourselves, whether those illusions reflect to false invulnerability, a cavalier sense of immortality, or the pretenses of faux community.All of this has called my mind back to Henri Nouwen, one of the most formative influences on my own life. I think Nouwen has a lot to say to our world in this time, particular in his great theological insight that honestly owning and living in our vulnerabilities is a more fruitful way to live with God, other people, and ourselves than our endless maintenance of the illusions of security and strength. Nouwen writes about the roots of our loneliness, a symptom of our estrangement from each other, when he writes, "The roots of our loneliness are very deep, and cannot be touched by optimistic advertisement, substitute love images, or social togetherness. They find their food in the suspicion that there is no one who cares and offers love without conditions, and no place where we can be vulnerable without being used."For Nouwen, the way to deal with that suspicion was to avoid the natural impulse of adding layers of security around it, and to confront it head on through radical hospitality—creating space in our lives for others despite the real danger that they would somehow harm us. Creating free spaces inside our perimeters of supposed invulnerability allows us to discover community with each other because it allows us to be honest and free, despite being "threatened". Dealing with our sense of vulnerability also helps unmask the illusions of immortality and invulnerability which, being idols, stand between us and any relationship with a free and loving God. For Nouwen, God's own actions in the story of Jesus represent just this sort of radical hospitality, and thus create space for us within the story of God within which it is possible for us to inflict harm upon God, but also to freely know and be blessed by God.As a framework for policy, radical hospitality sounds like a recipe for disaster. As a framework for really building community between broken people, it may be the only way forward.
Faith: Active and Passive Voices
If you'll forgive the grammatical terms, I've been living lately in the tension between faith lived in the passive voice and expressed in the active voice. Everywhere I turn, whether in my prayer life, the life of service, my preaching, or in thinking about our church's mission, the tension between the two voices reveals itself and challenges me. As tempting as it is to believe that reality is one way or other, and that either God does all the work or leaves it all to us, I am learning to speak in the truthful tones of both the passive and active voices.
Faith in the Passive Voice
On one hand, our faith is the result of God working in us. It comes as a result of God breaking into the world with a revelation, the imposition of the divine into exposition. By the Spirit, God sustains and extends the work of the initial revelation, sending the Word to us that brings conviction, hope, and the word that recreates us, just as it is working towards the recreation of the world. As that Word does its work in us, we are drawn into the story of God, formed into the image of Jesus, and are utilized in God's redemptive mission for the world.But enough with vagaries—this really does mean stuff in the actual world. It means that when I pray, I depend on the work of God's spirit. If I grow through prayer, it is not because of some automatic exchange, as though I followed a formula and that just yielded a spiritual result. When I serve my neighbor, I believe that the Lord is at work in the service, that God's spirit will work in me to create a servants heart. When I preach, I speak believing that the Lord will speak through the sermon, that God is at work in the text and in the act of the sermon, that people may, by the work of the spirit, hear a word from the Lord. When we think about the church's mission, we are really talking about the Lord's mission, and discerning what God is doing through and in the Church.
Faith in Active Voice
But on the other hand, I believe that there is a very real sense in which we choose to join God and participate in his working, or not. We actually have to take on activity, we really become agents in God's work. I actually do take physical action, string words together, and place myself in contexts in which I believe God will work.Though it will be the Lord who makes the prayer effectual, we still pray. Though the Lord will be the one who uses service to refine us, we still choose to serve, and we still work hard while we're doing it. Though the Lord speaks through the sermon, I still have to work hard to develop and deliver it. Though it is the Lord that is at work in the church's ministry, the church must choose to join the Lord, must choose to participate in God's mission or to pursue its own.Ultimately, the tension between the two is real, but not destructive. We have to learn to speak in both voices. The passive voice of faith reminds me that I am not all on my own, that is not all up to me. However, there is also an active voice of faith, one that may never speak on its own, without being coupled with a passive voice, but which is still essential to how God's purposes become fulfilled in the world. God chooses to work with us, to partner with us, and we must choose as well.
The Story (As Told by Steven, at This Moment, in This Place)
I've been thinking a good bit lately about the nature of scripture, and particularly the grand narrative of the biblical text. There are a lot of synopses of the story, but I've been tinkering with my own, a task that might not be a bad idea for most believers to work on every now and then. Recognizing that such a synopsis necessarily leaves things out and focuses on some elements at the expense of others, I'd love a little feedback on where I'm at with this version. I mean "Version" pretty intentionally, recognizing that it reads a little differently than it would have a year ago, or likely will a year from now. What's here is a reflection of the story I see myself in right now. What do you see as missing or distorted here?
The world and humanity were created by God, but became estranged from God because of human sin, and thus the world became broken. As a result, God set about revealing Himself to Abraham and his descendants, forming them into a people whose destiny was the blessing of the world—God would reconcile himself to humanity through Israel, and thereby heal what was broken.Although it appeared God’s plan would at times be thwarted by Israel’s unfaithfulness and resulting exile, God continued to pursue his plan through Israel, and eventually was victorious in creating the possibility of true reconciliation in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. After his resurrection, God began using Jesus’s followers to proclaim the message of his reign, and to exemplify that reign within a new form of human community which we know as church. The church carries out that mission today, while trusting the promise that at some point God will assert his ruling authority over the whole earth, and thus bring the world back into its proper state. At that time there will be a resurrection of those faithful to Jesus, what was broken will be made right, and God's reign will be fully realized.
I'd love to hear your feedback on this!
Naming the Elephant: Worldview as Concept by James Sire
Lately I've been writing and thinking about how reading the Bible works as a formative practice, and it's led me to think about the concept of worldview. I found James Sire's Naming the Elephant helpful in thinking about the concept, both as an abstraction and in terms of the worldviews I see at work in our community. Personally, Sire's book helped me come towards a better articulation of my own worldview.Sire has been interested in worldview studies for a while. I know his book The Universe Next Door was used at Harding while I was there, and having gone through several editions, it's probably been as influential in the way evangelicals think about worldview as anything else, particularly in how we see the differences between ourselves and other faith traditions. As you would imagine, that has some intense missiological implications, and thus Sire has probably been read mostly in that context.This shorter book is particularly interested in teasing out the worldview concept itself, and Sire is candid about places where he felt his earlier definitions and examples have perhaps fallen short. Here, he surveys of perspectives on the worldview concept from philosophical, theological, and sociological sources to give a better articulation to what he means by this root concept. Ultimately, he comes the following well-thought definition:
A worldview is a commitment, a fundamental orientation of the heart, that can be expressed as a story or in a set of presuppositions (assumptions which may be true, partially true or entirely false) which we hold (consciously or subconsciously, consistently or inconsistently) about the basic constitution of reality, and that provides the foundation on which we live and move and have our being.
Most of the book, which is a quick read at 160 short pages, is the work of setting up this definition and giving it substantial nuance. He teases it out against the backdrop of worldview thinkers over the past two centuries—this is not a casual definition. Sire's work on critically thinking through the implications of his definition is evident throughout the book, and the little book is quite worthwhile for that reason. The descriptions of Sire's wrangling with the philosophical decision between the priority of ontology over epistemology is interesting, as is his writing about his growing recognition of the importance of story as a vehicle for worldview.Less satisfactory are the questions Sire offers as a mechanism for teasing out particular worldviews. He sticks to his guns with the following seven questions, although through the text he expands the questions as including more than they seem to on the surface.
1. What is the prime reality—the really real.2. What is the nature of external reality, that is, the world around us?3. What is a human being?4. What happens to a person at death?5. Why is it possible to know anything at all?6. How do we know what is right and wrong?7. What is the meaning of human history?
Sire has used these same questions for years, and in Naming the Elephant he interacts with questions posed by different authors and compares them to his own. There are a couple of places where I still think better questions exist.
For instance, Sire discusses a set of questions posed by Walsh and Middleton,"Who are we? Where are we? What's wrong?" and "What's the solution?". Sire wishes to subsume the first (Who are we?) within question 3 above, which seems fair, as does his inclusion of "Where are we"? within number 2 above. However, he also wishes to include the last two (What's wrong? and What's the solution?) within questions 6 and 7 above, and it really seems to me that as a set they function importantly enough to merit their own place in worldview analysis.Another criticism of the book might be that Sire's assumptions about the Christian worldview seem to me to bypass critical theological issues. Of course, that's not a fair criticism, since Sire isn't really doing formal theology here, but implicitly doing practical theology, and his assumptions probably do reflect a good bit of ground level theological thinking in the sort of folk Christianity that exists in America. Beyond that, Sire recognizes that when he talks about a "Christian worldview" he is really thinking about his own worldview, which he perceives to be Christian. By and large I think he's correct, and articulates the main parts of what might be fairly called Christian worldviews accurately.This is a fantastic little book. Sire is, for the most part, fair and measured in his analysis, and recognizes his own commitments as they come up within his argument. Ultimately I think Sire moves the concept of worldview forward in helpful ways, and provides a good resource for anyone wanting to understand themselves, or the world around them, with greater clarity.
Shepherds and the Story—A Sermon about Elders
I've been thinking about how our understanding of elders and their roles as shepherds relates to the big picture, the story the church has been brought into by Jesus. With elders, as with many other parts of church life, it's too easy to think about them in isolation, as though we can simply turn to the proper chapters of scripture that address them and retrieve the list of rules that will tell us what to do. A much healthier approach is to start with the larger story in which we live, and let our understanding of the church's shepherds grow out of that context, out of that story.That larger story announces the reality of God's reign in the world and his willingness to love and redeem the world. It is the story of how the creator God remains concerned with his creation, and is active within it. It is the story of how that God made for himself a people, by making covenant with Abraham, and with his rescued descendants at Sinai. It tells of God's pursuit of Israel even when the covenant was broken. It tells how, in Jesus, God has made a new covenant with his people and opened the door for men and women of all nations to join Israel in becoming the covenant people of God. That story offers a way for humans to live within God's reign, and warns of judgment for those who continue to live in rebellion against God's reign. That story brings humans into participation in God's plan to fight the darkness that has corrupted the world, and announces that his victory is certain, and what is wrong will be made right.The church exists because of that story. It exists in that story. And it exists as an expression of that story.When we talk about shepherds and elders, we can't jump out of that story and imagine that we're just dealing with a simple fact of ordering religious life. The shepherds actually function, like the rest of the church, within the context of that larger story.As God's announcement of his reign became known in the world through the ministry and resurrection of Jesus, it was made known concretely to a group of disciples who became apostles, carrying the word into new territories, establishing colonies of disciples who took on the story of God and began to live it out in community together, and in relation to their neighbors in the cities and towns where they lived. Those apostles and their coworkers were charged with delivering the story to the world around them, and were highly mobile. Because of that, as they founded new communities, it became clear early on that within each new community of disciples there would need to be people who could function as "stewards" of the story, who could take responsibility to oversee how the community of faith lived out that story as "church". Those overseers (elders, bishops, pastors) became shepherds of the church, and bore several responsibilities in regard to the story that was driving the church. They still bear those responsibilities.Shepherds tell the story. That means they should be able to share the gospel, be able to articulate the gospel story, and teach others what it means to live that story. Both 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 refer to the need that those who become elders should be able to teach. That doesn't mean they're required to have great class management skills, but that they understand the gospel and are capable of sharing that story. Shepherds are storytellers, because the story of God's work isn't something we hear once and are done with, but we hear it over and over again, the church has to be immersed in the story, understanding the big picture and learning over time the finer points of what it means to live with God.One of the reasons the shepherds have to be continually telling the story is because the story is always vulnerable to distortion. People subvert the christian story for a lot of different reasons, replacing it with stories of gods who are legalistic, absent, only interested with the spiritual, spiteful, or apathetic to sin. Therefore, beyond being tellers of the story, shepherds guard the story. When scripture uses the language of guarding the flock, and defending the truth, it says the church needs people who can make sure that the alternative stories that threaten to draw people away from the one true gospel story are challenged and defeated. There is a definitive story that defines the church. That story can't be changed at whim.The relationship between the shepherds and the story goes much further than the types of things they might say about the story, though. Perhaps one of their most important roles as stewards of the story is being an example to the flock of what it means to live out the story—shepherds display the story. They extend the story by showing what it means to live in God's kingdom in work and play, within family and within a neighborhood. To say they are stewards of the story doesn't mean they hold an abstracted truth within their minds, but rather it means that the story has become enfleshed in them. they are committed to living faithfully in family life, to restraining themselves in terms of greed or argumentation, and living fully aware—refusing to drunkenly numb themselves or lose control of their lives to anything but the will of God. In all of this and more they put on display what it means to submit to the reign of God, and what it means to walk in God's presence and grace.Good shepherds understand as well that it's not all about them. they play a part in the story, but they are also mindful of what it means for the rest of their community to find its place in God's story. They are aware of doing the work God places in their hands, but also of helping the other disciples discern what it means for them to play a part in the story. Shepherds draw their flock into God's story. They can do that in some surprising ways.When shepherds encourage someone among us to find their ministry, equip them to do the ministry, and entrust them to do the work God has prepared for them, they help draw us into the story, into participation with God's work.When shepherds stand with us in crisis, they are a reminder that God is with us and active in our lives, they draw us out into the story, helping us interpret the crises and their places in our lives as part of God's story.When shepherds mourn with those who mourn, they help that mourning be placed in context and draw people into God's story—in which death loses its power.When shepherds celebrate with those who celebrate, they help interpret the moment as having holy significance, like all moments do. In so reminding us, they draw us into the story which is not yet finished, but ongoing.Shepherds are storytellers. they guard and defend the story, and display the story by living in such a way that the story is enfleshed in them. But they also draw us out with them into the story, so that it might be enfleshed in us as well. May it ever be so, for the sake of God's glory. Amen.