The full range of human experience
| Written: | 12/26/11 |
| Published: | 12/26/11 |
| Bibliography: | “Dear Mars Hill”, Rob Bell’s farewell sermon/letter to Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, MI |
In the eight months since we’ve moved to Kenya, the fabric of our day-to-day lives has had some new threads woven into it as we’ve been exposed to more suffering, pain, death and poverty than we previously thought bearable. This is just part of the reality of life here, where most people live on less than $2 USD per day, and so we’ve had to adapt.
Our theology (our understanding of God and his ways) and our hearts have had to change and expand in order to have a real flesh and blood good news story (the ‘gospel’) that can be brought to bear in every situation we encounter; one which doesn’t tend towards the theoretical and abstract, but can handle the grittiness and granularity of specific situations. One which doesn’t ignore the bleeding, dying, painful, and dirty, or only offer those people a tract or a five step plan to salvation instead of a cup of clean water, but which is actually good news for them, wherever they are at. This process of change and expansion has required humility, a willingness to think well and deeply, and an understanding that we are literally God’s hands and feet on earth in everything we do.
Rob Bell gave his farewell sermon to Mars Hill Bible Church last week, and if you want a taste of heaven on earth in the here and now, listen to it or read it here.
I was particularly moved by a lesson he reckons he’s learned since founding Mars Hill, as it is also one that is near and dear to our hearts. In his words, he has learned “not to fear the full spectrum of human experience”. From his farewell sermon:
…for many people, the simple dualisms of right and wrong and good and bad are the sole prism, the lens, through which they look for God in the world. so if things go well, then ‘God is good’ is how the thinking goes, and if things don’t go well, all kinds of questions arise about God and hope and faith and was it all just a grand illusion in the first place?
the life we’ve found together, however, is far more subtle, nuanced, and complex than those simple dualisms, and i’ve seen you discover this deep well of insight as it shapes you in profound ways. i’ve seen you get cancer and struggle with infertility and attend funerals of people you love and get let go from your jobs and lose tens of thousands of dollars and get sued and find out your kid is using drugs—and at the same time i’ve watched you find God in the mess. in the tension. in the chaos. i’ve seen you find peace and joy and calm and rest in situations in which everybody else is convinced that peace and joy, much like Elvis, have left the building.
there’s an ancient midrash about jacob who wrestles the angel. they say that he walks with a limp afterwards, but at least he’s experienced God.
i’ve watched many of you walk with a limp. it’s a deeper wisdom you have attained, a higher level of consciousness,
a more refined and ultimately more enduring way of seeing that you have acquired. it’s a spirituality that doesn’t need quick and easy answers, it shuns the trite and cliché, it understands Christ is here somewhere in this mess, and no matter how dark or foreboding it gets, we will at some point see him, friday will give way to sunday and while there are blood and tears and heartache and at times we’re barely holding on by our chiny chin chin when we do stumble into the daylight, when we do find a little respite, a sliver of shalom, when we eventually do meet the resurrected Christ it will be real and it will matter and it will be true and it will satisfy.
i’ve seen you lament and laugh,
cry and celebrate,
weep and wail
and then whoop it up,
pull your hair out from pain and frustration
and then dye it bright colors because someone’s throwing a party.
you have taught me not to fear the full spectrum of human experience but to embrace it, to celebrate it, to wallow in it and soar with it. many Christians are eager to point out that Jesus said he was the son of God and that’s the wedge issue, the crux of the faith, the divisive point you have to take a stand on. i believe he is. and in the same breath, i remind you that he also referred to himself a shocking number of times as the ‘son of man.’ you know what ‘son of man’ means?
human.
now that’s shocking.
take a stand on that
From the bottom of my heart, here in Kenya, Amen.
Why many good leaders struggle to deliver results: a missing trait
| Written: | 10/6/11 |
| Published: | 10/6/11 |
| Bibliography: | Peter Drucker, “Managing Oneself”, Harvard Business Review, 1999. |
I have worked with many different leaders during my time as a submarine officer, in the business world, and in the church–a fair range across the spectrum from excellent to incompetent.
One thing I have observed many times is someone who is a gifted leader, but struggles to execute a plan or deliver the results they were expecting. Drucker notes when one is gifted/competent in a certain area (leader, engineer, planner, etc), it is natural for that person to not understand why it is that at times their giftedness/brightness does not translate to measurable results. In these cases, Drucker suggests they:
”…discover where your intellectual arrogance is causing disabling ignorance and overcome it. Far too many people – especially people with great expertise in one area are contemptuous of knowledge in other areas…First-rate engineers, for instance, tend to take pride in not knowing anything about people…
…a planner may find that his beautiful plans fail because he does not follow through on them. Like so many brilliant people, he believes that ideas move mountains. But bulldozers move mountains; ideas show where the bulldozers should go to work. This planner will have to learn that the work does not stop when the plan is completed. He must find people to carry out the plan and explain it to them. He must adapt and change it as he puts it into action. And finally, he must decide when to stop pushing the plan.”
Insert ‘leader’ for ‘planner’ in the paragraph above, and Drucker has answered for me why sometimes even very gifted leaders can’t execute and deliver a plan or project effectively.
“Bulldozers move mountains; ideas show where the bulldozers should go to work.”
This also suggests for me something I have observed many times: the very best leaders I have worked with are also competent managers–they understand that ideas are not enough, what matters is what you deliver. One must inspire others and execute a plan to deliver the results that the idea assumes.
My gulf between theory and practice
One of my spiritual springs of life here in Kijabe is listening to Rob Bell’s sermons online from Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids…he’s been preaching 1 John for a few months now, and it’s been a brilliant series.
I’ve been deeply moved this week as I’ve read and mediated on 1 John 2:3-6:
We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. The man who says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.
In John’s view, there’s an inseparable link between what we say or think, and what we do–the two must not be separated. In other words, I shouldn’t draw a distinction between what I believe and what I do…if I think something is ‘true’, but do not do it, then it is, in fact, not ‘true’ to me.
Or, in theological terms, John’s view (and the ancient Hebrew worldview) is that orthodoxy (right belief) and orthopraxy (right practice) shouldn’t be separated. There’s no value in it. And, in fact, if we spend all our time “believing” the right things without an equal amount of doing the right things, John calls us liars.
Jesus tells us that we should not be angry with others (Matt 5:22) and that we should love those who are difficult to love (Matt 5:44)…I find it easy to give verbal and mental assent that this is right and true. I have sometimes prided myself on the fact that I think I ‘get’ Jesus’ very difficult commands in the Discourse on the Hillside (Matthew 5).
But what has smote my heart this week is the gulf between what I believe is right and good, and what I do; my natural responses when the chips are down. This has been a very difficult year for many reasons, and in a lot of ways I am grateful for it–because it has been in my natural responses to the year’s events (changing cultures, my parent’s divorce, changing vocations) that the Lord has exposed to the light of day some deeply ingrained habits, emotions, and character traits he is working to transform.
It’s painful. And deeply, deeply convicting to read John’s words.
I say I believe Jesus, and that I trust Him. But do I walk as Jesus did? Do I really think that Jesus was the smartest, wisest, most capable person to walk the face of the earth? Do I therefore order my entire life around trying to live my life as Jesus would if He were me?
Or am I content to live in my 21st century, Western mindset where theory can quite comfortably be divorced from practice?
On being broken
| Written: | 6/5/06 |
| Published: | 7/11/11 |
| Bibliography: | Gleanings, by Douglas Steere |
As we approach month #3 of our time here in Kenya and I work through my parent’s recent divorce, changing vocation, and changing cultures, being broken and humbled seem to be almost a daily occurrence…were I back in Australia or the States, I might be tempted to view these as sufferings to be avoided, or an attack of the Enemy…but my perspective is starting to change.
I came across this short writing on being broken several years ago. It is by my great-uncle, Douglas, who was a leader in the Quaker church in the 20th century. I have found simultaneous comfort and challenge in his words:
Each of us has snatches of the 23rd Psalm that come back to us in the crises of life, snatches that repeat themselves in our minds in the sleepless hours…’he maketh me to lie down’…’he restoreth my soul’…these are not statements of creed or of dogma, but are instead the Jewish psalmist’s reports of personal experiences out of the depths of life’s turbulent struggle. For me, these experiences are not things that happened 3,000 years ago, but are experiences that take place again and again in our lives today if we will attend to their promises and be willing to yield to them.
These 2 confessions our of the Psalmist’s depths belong together, for there are few of us who can have our souls restored until we have been brought to lie down. Clover seed has to be scarified, driven over sharp, sandpaper-like surfaces that break open the hull, before it germinates well when planted in the earth. We human beings seem to require the same treatment, and life does not hesitate to provide it.
Florence Allshorn, a British saint of a generation ago, had returned from a stiff missionary assignment in Uganda with tuberculosis that, while ultimately healed, prevented her return to Africa. She spent the years after her recovery teaching prospective missionaries in a training college in Britain until it became clear to her that theoretical instruction prior to some baptism by fire in the mission field was unreal and ineffective. As she put it, ‘They have not yet come to the end of themselves.’ Instead of teaching, she set up a rural hostel in Sussex…where missionaries weary and ‘torn open’ by work in the field could live for a sizable part of their furloughs.
How much the same it is with us all. Until life compels us to come to the end of ourselves and to stop, often to be shattered, to be searched in our most mysterious depths, even to be taken beyond the possibility of coming to terms with our new situation by our own means; until life pushes us out into the depths where we cannot, hard as we may try, touch bottom with our feet, there is little likelihood of our turning to the mysterious Other, the one the Psalmist calls our Lord and Shepherd, for the restoration of our souls.
…when life is smoothly going along according to plan, especially when it is according to our own plan, how easy it is to forget either the Restorer or the need for restoration. When I am made to lie down in life’s unfolding, I am being given another chance, if I could only know it. For when I am made to lie down, when my public image is shattered, when my assurance of health and strength and companionship from those I love most is cut off, when I may even have lost the very image of my own destiny in my falling and my failure, I may be given a peek into the very womb of God where a rebirth is possible, where a fresh regrouping of all that my life has been comes sharply into focus. This does not mean that I shall be restored to where I was or that I may not have been bidden to a condition that I cannot reverse. But there is even such a thing as dying inwardly healed, and such a thing as the Inward Restorer’s giving me again a peek in to the image of what my life is really meant to be in this life and beyond.
[So can we point to God as the cause of our being brought low?] …Neither you or I know enough about human freedom, about the relative autonomies of life, and about the operation of divine providence to dare to charge God with causing some specific act of intervention in order to bring us low and to lower our thresholds to a new awareness of God’s healing, restoring presence. Nor do we know enough, however, to exclude God’s profound and continuous involvement in our lives! Perhaps it is enough to say what W.H. Auden says, ‘It is where we are wounded that God speaks to us.’
Faith as works
| Written: | 6/25/11 |
| Published: | 6/25/11 |
| Bibliography: | The European Reformations, by Carter Lindberg |
Growing up in middle America in the 1970s and 1980s, I was fortunate to be brought up in a conservative Pentecostal tradition through the churches my father pastored. I was also exposed to ‘fringe’ elements of Pentecostalism and some charismatic offshoots of major denominations, including the prosperity gospel (God wants you to be rich and healthy, and if you aren’t, its because you just don’t ‘have enough faith’) and ‘faith’ healings (if you ‘believe’ hard enough for your healing, you will get it).
I wonder if these fringe elements, however incorrect in their theology, aren’t a natural result of the re-formation of our understanding of the nature of salvation and our justification before God that was initiated by Martin Luther in the 1500’s.
One of Luther’s great theological insights, resulting from years of deep agony about his own status before God, regarded the nature of sin. Luther understood sin theologically rather than ethically—Sin is not doing bad things, rather it is not trusting God. Carter Lindberg writes, “Sin is the egocentric compulsion to assert self-righteousness against God; it is the refusal to allow God to be God.”
Or, as a friend of mine, Flint McGlaughlin puts it, “Your primary problem isn’t sin. It’s faith. You don’t trust God.”
This is the heart of the matter and deeply moving to me, and another of Luther’s profound re-discoveries of the gospel: the Greek word translated usually as into English ‘faith’ in Romans, pistis, is better translated as ‘trust’ in the Romans context.
For Luther, and for the writers of the New Testament, faith is trust and confidence in God’s promise of acceptance and salvation in spite of our being unacceptable…it is a relationship with God based on trust in God. It is not belief in certain doctrines (reference the debate in evangelical circles on Rob Bell’s book, Love Wins), or particular interpretations of certain Bible stories…it’s trust in God.
Lindberg notes that “The tendency among Protestants to speak of ‘salvation by faith alone’ can lead to the misunderstanding that faith itself is an achievement. The confusion of faith with intellectual belief in particular doctrines or in biblical stories may lead to a kind of ‘can you top this’ contest in which the person who believes the most unbelievable things is considered the most Christian. Then faith becomes the intellectual or psychological equivalent of medieval good works. This is far afield from Luther’s understanding, who wrote that ‘Faith is not a paltry and petty matter…; but it is a heartfelt confidence in God through Christ that Christ’s suffering and death pertain to you and should belong to you’ (LW 22: 369)”.
So…we’ve come full circle. Luther railed against the medieval church’s abuse of good works and acts of penance, and 500 years later, here we are, distorting faith itself as a sort of good works–something you must do in order to reach God’s standard for acceptance. Believe hard enough…and you will be healed. Believe in a miracle…and God will give you a Ferrari.
Our problem isn’t sin…it’s trust. Do I trust God? Not, do I trust in certain things God will do, or that he will behave in a certain way, or that I will realise certain things that I hope for…but do I trust God?
