I'm a pacifist. I'm conflicted about this day. Some people did some things they felt were honorable and needful and good for their country. And they all payed dearly for those things - even if they remained alive and unhurt, fighting in a war is costly. Or, maybe their country forced them to fight by way of an odd and violent lottery. And still they payed the cost. And, though I thoroughly disagree that war or violence is ever honorable or needful or good - and honestly - that it is ever okay for a Christ-follower to look on other bearers of God's image as enemies we might kill because they are a part of a differing man-made political system (that they likely have as much control over as those unlucky lottery-chosen-soldiers did) - though i thoroughly disagree with the honorability of any violence and especially war, I still feel like today is a day to honor people who made tough decisions and payed dearly for them. But, how do we do that in a way that gives honor to those people while depriving violence of all pretense of honor? ...So...yeah, conflicted about today. How will I deal with that conflict? I'm going to play pinball and watch x-files with my boyfriend. True story. Avoidance is a good way around feeling conflicted :) But, I also write and post a prayer or liturgical piece for people who are seeking to live the Gospel in a way that's rooted in neighborhood every Friday. So, I won't completely avoid the conflict :) My thoughts on living the Gospel in neighborhood and Veteran's day are these: 1) Neighborhoods lose a lot to war. They lose people who are shipped distant places to fight them. They lose infrastructure if the wars are fought in or near them. They lose revenue as political entities require them to pay for the violence they may or may not support. They lose compassion for others living in other neighborhoods around the world as our political system labels them enemies. They often lose connection even at home across race and nationalities living in a single neighborhood. They lose focus on their own neighborhood as media and politics diverts attention to an enemy they may never see face to face - while the myth of independence, isolation, poverty, domestic violence etc. goes unchallenged as a real and present enemy to the neighborhood. And 2) If we were all to be rooted and linked, there would be no war. If we were rooted in our own neighborhood and not looking to expand our territory past its borders. And if we were linked across neighborhoods - sharing resources we have that others need and asking for the resources we don't have but others may have in excess. Idyllic. Of course. So much so that it seems silly to mention. But, truthfully, if we were all rooted and linked, war would end. And, as much as I'd regret the loss of a day off to go play pinball and watch x-files, Veteran's Day would be irrelevant. Maybe there would be a new holiday. Celebrating shalom in our neighborhoods? Maybe it would be less a nationalistic day smothered in stars and stripes and more of a Kingdom day - smothered in compassion and hope? Anyway, with those two pressing trains of thought, I spend a few hours this morning contemplating what to write today. And, in contemplating, I stumbled upon this prayer: O Almighty Lord God, who neither slumberest nor sleepest; Protect and assist, we beseech thee, all those who at home or abroad, by land, by sea, or in the air, are serving this country, that they, being armed with thy defence, may be preserved evermore in all perils; and being filled with wisdom and girded with strength, may do their duty to thy honour and glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (from the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer 1928 - military edition). My first thought, of course was, "How on earth is there a military edition of a book of prayer with 'this country' quite possibly referring to both sides of a military conflict?" Still struggling with that - as a pacifist and as a Kingdom-seeker in general. But my second thought was, what would this prayer look like if it grieved the loss that war means for neighborhoods? What would it look like in that idyllic rooted and linked world of Shalom? Here's what I came up with: One: O Almighty God, Who does not slumber or sleep All: Who created this neighborhood and every neighborhood in both exalted and abandoned corners of our world One: Protect and assist all those in our neighborhood or in others - by land, by sea, or in the air, who are serving You That they, being armed with Your peace, may persevere in works of grace, compassion and justice. And, being filled with wisdom and girded with strength, they may live their shalom-waging Gospel duty in presence and place to Your glory and honor. In your mercy Lord All: Hear our prayer. One: O Gentle God, Who is near to the broken All: And who is comfort to those who mourn One: Comfort our neighbors and neighborhoods who have lost sons, daughters, safety, home, and focus on Your Kingdom that is rooted in place and linked across political borders.That they, being secured in Your peace, may mourn their losses, be restored to hope, and be made whole again. And, being armed with your shalom-waging Gospel, we may all return to lives of passionate peace and compassionate justice in the neighborhoods you have given to us and given us to.In your mercy Lord,All: Hear our prayer. Amen. I hope you'll join me in this prayer today - but more importantly, I hope you'll join me in joining Yahweh's local and global work of Shalom. Add Comment there is a long, long, looooong list of things i really hated when i worked at a christian book store. a long list. a nigh infinite list. but one of them was bringing the christmas tree (pagan fertility symbol that has nothing to do with jesus) out before thanksgiving...and even before halloween - as though christ-followers really need to be affronted with the pressure to purchase chincy crap made by children in china with crosses or bible verses on them that make them patently christian and therefore patently acceptable to stuff in a stocking in a manner that tells people: "i care about you enough to buy you an impulse item without having too much knowledge about what you would really like...happy Jesus' birthday!" for two months rather than the normal one month. i could go on. but, in the decade and change since i worked there, i've put more energy into how i hope a holiday about God coming close enough to touch in a vulnerable and impoverished way should be celebrated than into ranting about how it ought not be celebrated. (though, depending how sarcastic or cynical i am on any given day, i can still rant quite well. :) anyway, one thing i believe about Christmas is that it is about God caring for neglected people, about God coming close, and about freedom. so, while shopping ad nauseum two months in advance is probably not the best way to celebrate - shopping for things made by neglected under and unpaid workers is probably the worst way to celebrate christmas. so three years ago i started a movement for a slave-free christmas. buy local. buy and cook fair trade. make things. give your time and presence. invest in charity rather than chincy ornaments no one really needs. my first year, my christmas was about 90% slave-free and the last two years, it has been 100% slave-free. it's been good. it's been transformative. it's recentered the holiday on Jesus. it's been hopeful. ...and one thing i've learned? if you want to have a slave-free christmas, you have to start early. soooo...here i am. it's not even halloween yet. and i'm encouraging you to begin thinking about/making/commissioning/searching for slave-free ways to celebrate and give at christmas. forgive me for jumping the holiday gun - but i think spending two plus months contemplating how to spend and give and celebrate in ways that make the world better, more free, and more hopeful is probably not an all together bad thing...and you may even take some time to contemplate where the chocolate and sugar you're using this halloween came from? here's a couple of resources to make a slave free christmas (and halloween?) easier: get not for sale's smartphone app: free2work and visit orangechristmas.com ...more resources to come, but here's a good starting place! please feel free to comment with thoughts, questions, suggestions, and hopes for a more free and just holiday season! I’ve been doing some research on children in worship and how faith is best developed in kids. i have a love/hate relationship with all things christian for children. for one, when i first felt called to ministry, several people attempted to corral me to corral me toward children’s ministry - because, clearly, God could not have called a woman to anything else. I must simply have misunderstood God - and if I only experienced leading VBS, I’d know that I’d found my vocational home. When, in truth, leading VBS made me want to run away from all things church and need an extended vacation to recover. So, as a woman in ministry, I tend to shy away from anything that might fall under the heading of “children’s ministry” because...I guess I don’t want to give my grandparents and the people at my parents’ fundamentalist church that deep sigh of relief that I’m finally starting to obey God after those three tumultuous and rebellious years of church planting. I also have a love/hate relationship with children’s ministry because i feel like the Sunday School movement made sense in the modern era. When we were attempting to instruct faith to people who were primarily viewed as thinking minds, it made sense to mirror school on Sunday mornings and teach at age-appropriate levels. However, as WWII Germany first showed us and more recently, droves well-taught Sunday School graduates turned ardent atheists or at least church-avoiders has taught us: educating a mind does not produce a healthy, whole, just, committed, or passionate person; it produces an educated person. And, if this educated person does not see and experience faith as James describes it outside of the educational walls of Sunday School rooms, it will eventually be as much use to them as my advance placement math classes in seventh and eighth grade are to me after years of theological study: I can barely add now. Because I don’t care about math. I learned it well. I was excellent at it. But I don’t care. So I forgot all but how to calculate a tip and get a strange feeling when I’m being over or under charged for something. Also, despite all their good intentions, most people involved with my childhood education in following Jesus did more scarring, scaring, and shaming that forming. So....I don’t want to talk about children’s ministry. But it’s important. An emergent/missional/ progressive/whatever-buzz-word-you-currently-prefer-for-trying-to-do-things-differently-and-possibly-better movement that has a terrible distaste for children’s ministry of the past but doesn’t deeply, intelligently, discerningly, and prayerfully dream and attempt a children’s ministry of the present to form a more healthy and just future will of course only be a fad and the beginning of the movement our children will hate as much as we hated Sunday School. Faith won’t be passed on unless we take the passing seriously. So, how do we care for children in the faith community. Ivy Beckwith’s text “Postmodern Children’s Ministry” is one that I regularly recommend. She does some excellent work at laying a foundation for something more holistic and formative. (Not to mention, she did some spectacular things at Solomon’s Porch!) Here’s a few things she has to say about caring for the souls of children: “those of us who care for the souls of children in church may need to think about how what we do helps children be children. we need to provide them respite from the daily push to be the best, which they face in every other arena of their lives.” “spiritually forming children means we help them see that in the economy of the kingdom of God being successful is loving others, showing mercy, fighting for justice, and walking humbly with God.” “what i want [children of privilege] to know and to practice is not that it’s wrong or sinful to go on a Caribbean vacation but that because they have privilege, they also have great responsibility to use that privilege to further the Kingdom of God on earth.” As I re-read this book yesterday, what struck me was this: as a generation, our childhood souls were not often carefully tended. We were not taught these things. We rarely saw them modeled. So, in many ways, we’ve been spiritually malformed. However, if we don’t want to pass that deformity along to the next generation, we need to grow up. We need to become people that believe and model that “being successful is loving others, showing mercy, fighting for justice, and walking humbly with God.” As people of privilege (which almost anyone reading this is), we need to live as though that privilege is a responsibility to further God’s Kingdom of love and justice on earth. We can work on the perfect postmodern program for kids. We can dream up a philosophically flawless way to serve them. We can study how their brains work at the same time as reaching back in time to the ancient Hebrew ways of faith formation - but all of this will be like putting together a perfect advanced placement math program: ultimately pointless....unless we learn to live as though “being successful is loving others, showing mercy, fighting for justice, and walking humbly with God.” ...and if we manage this, while we still need to diligently steward the soul care of our children, we could almost have any kind of “children’s ministry” and be guaranteed some level of success...as a passionate life for God’s Kingdom of love and justice is contagious to children! ...And I guess this still leaves me with a love/hate relationship with children's ministry...because blaming crappy curriculum is a lot easier than really truly living a Kingdom life in a way where children observe and learn and catch. a benediction 08/28/2011
i left my little missional community in sacramento three weeks ago. it was hard to leave. i have total confidence in the people who have taken over. but it was hard to leave. and every sunday it has been hard not to be with them. but, for those who are curious, great things are happening in their future. and i left because God was calling me back to Seattle to start something new in the city i love. anyway, when i midtown friends, i wrote them this letter of benediction. (benediction meaning blessing not ending - because they are certainly not ending!) Dear Midtown Friends Community, It’s odd that we’re a liturgical Quaker church. That’s something I brought to the table. And it’s something I hope to leave at the table. Honestly, in saying that, I do hope that you continue to worship weekly through this odd combination of call and response and art and simple conversation and listening. I do hope that you continue to worship in a way where everyone has the opportunity to speak. And I do hope that more of you speak during that time. I doubt God’s Spirit is quiet – so we shouldn’t be either. And I do hope that you continue to worship by integrating issues of justice that have been important to our Quaker mothers and fathers in faith. I hope literally that you remain a weird liturgical Quaker church. But I hope those things on a much deeper level as well. The word liturgy means a lot of things to a lot of people. And, philosophically, words mean what people agree they mean. So, maybe liturgical means a high church call and response kind of thing. Or a service with communion in the middle. Or a service where the priests are all dressed up and do a bunch of things that a lot of people don’t understand. If so, then maybe I don’t want you to be liturgical. But, personally, I am into the actual definitions of words. I think they should be pronounced how they are spelled and they should mean what the dictionary says. Liturgy is a rich word. It comes from the Greek roots laos and argon, meaning people and work. The fact that worship services are called liturgy is profound. It means that worship is the work – not the passivity – of the people – not the priest. Liturgy is about you doing something to glorify God. It is about you being one body that works together toward God’s Kingdom and God’s glory! Taking this a step further, I think we’d all agree – or at least I’ve been careful to teach – that worship is not something that happens for an hour or possibly two on a Sunday night, or morning or a Wednesday. Worship is the lives we live. It is found in the exquisitely ordinary beauty of the everyday. Worship is a life we live. The time we spend together as a community “worshiping” is simply a rehearsal of that life. A theologian named Donal Hustad says, "The worship service is a rehearsal of the everyday life or worship." He’s right. Therefore, a liturgical church is a church that works together for the Kingdom through a worshipful, sacrificing, celebrating life – lived every day and every minute. So may you continue to be a liturgical church…And may you continue to be a Quaker church. Like liturgy, Quaker means a lot of things to a lot of people. And, philosophically, words mean what people agree they mean. But, let’s agree: Quaker does not mean oatmeal. It does not mean black clothes. It does not mean silence. It does not mean the EFCSW (our denomination). It does not mean whatever we want it to mean. It does not mean weird. It does not mean no baptism or communion. It means Friends. And by “Friends,” it means “Friends of God.” And by “Friends of God,” as John 15 shows us, it means we are people God died for – meaning, we are people who begin and end with grace: from God, for each other, for ourselves, as a community when we fail. We are Friends. Quakers. Again, as John 15 says, it means that we are people of love, who bear obvious fruit, know what work God is doing in the world, and join in that work. We are Friends. We are Quakers. One of the most amazing things about the Quaker faith is that we don’t have a set of doctrine. Or, we do, but we don’t call it a catechism or dogma or anything like that. We call it “Faith and Practices.” We are a James 2 kind of people. We believe that faith is dead if it is not put into practice. For this reason, our faith and practices states something we believe and follows it up with how we should live. For example: “We don’t believe in slavery; so we shouldn’t buy things made by slaves.” “We don’t believe in divorce; so we should fight for marriages.” At the same time, we do believe in grace; so when we fail at these things we should respond with grace. I love this about our Quaker faith. Though Quakers are often seen as the least liturgical of the faiths, when we understand liturgy as the work of the people and worship as a daily, moment-by-moment, whole life kind of thing, Quakers are the most deeply liturgical embodiment of the Christian faith I have found. So may you continue to be a liturgical Quaker community. Working for the Kingdom and living for God’s glory. Daily. As a community. As one body. As I’ve prayed over you as a community, there are several areas that I especially hope for you to continue and continue to grow as a liturgical Quaker community. Here is my benediction to you. If you love me, if you are thankful for the work, blood (literal), sweat (literal), tears (again, extremely literal), and life that I have poured into you and into this church, please receive this benediction with attentiveness, seriousness, and hope: May you be a liturgical church. Meaning, may your whole lives be lived – worked – together as worship. May you worship through the work of creativity. Art. Nonprofit organizations. Songs. Families. Meals. Hiking trips. Stories. May you worship through the work of creativity…together…as one people. May you worship through the work of justice. Fighting slavery. Helping the downtrodden. Feeding the hungry. Sharing food with people who live outside. Listening to the marginalized. Welcoming those who are unwelcomed. Defending the defenseless. Giving grace to the ashamed. May you worship through the work of justice…together…as one people. May you worship through the work of raising children. Your own. Your neighbors. Children orphaned by any number of tragic circumstances – AIDS abroad and tragedies at home - or metaphorically orphaned by absent or under-involved parents. In what Yahweh calls true religion, may you care for children. May you worship through the work of raising children…together…as one people. May you worship through the work of unity amid diversity. May you disagree – with love. May you abandon debate for genuine transformative listening. May you genuinely love others while they are different and not wait for them to change first. May you love them so deeply that you are willing to honestly but compassionately disagree rather than silently and in passive violence tolerate them. May you worship through the work of unity amid diversity…together…as one people. May you worship through the work of hospitality. Receiving it from God. Sharing it with one another. Extending it to all people - especially the excluded ones. May you worship through the work of hospitality…together…as one people. May you worship through the work of peace. Not pacifism. Certainly not passivism. Through the hard work of being honest, caring, fighting for one another, sharing differing opinions, sharing differing visions for this community, sharing wounds you’ve inflicted on one another – or wounds received from the community. Not shirking away from a difficult conversation or relationship – but seeking God’s Shalom that is peace made through conflict. Armed with the confidence that Jesus Christ accomplished peace through the greatest of conflicts: the cross. May you worship through the work of peace…together…as one people. And may you worship through the work of seeking and following Yahweh. Listen. Read the scriptures. Pray. And act. With courage, conviction, and the type of love that can and must only overflow from Yahweh. May you worship through the work of seeking and following Yahweh…together…as one people. May you be a liturgical church. A church where the people work at the daily lived life of worship…together…as one people. With Deep Peace, Hope, and Love, Rebecca Tucker i wanted to be smart. i wanted to be acknowledged for being smart. i'm not generally a fan of myself. but i do know i'm smart. so i run with that. i do my best to shine and maybe even stretch and pose and pretend to be even smarter than i am. i wanted to be smart and acknowledged for being smart over five years ago when i wrote an article for the prestigious scholarship my school awarded me in stanley grenz's name. then life interrupted. someone i loved died. violently. senselessly. unexpectedly. devastatingly. and i couldn't bring myself to be smart. for one of the first times ever, my soul was louder than my intellect and i was broken and incapacitated to be smart. i still had to write the article. and i had to give up on being smart and settle with being honest. transparent. vulnerable. i gave up on the laud for my intellect i craved like a beauty queen after a tiara. it's been over five years. then norway happened. violently. senselessly. unexpectedly. devastatingly. and on sunday i found out that emergent village reposted the article i wrote - the article i suffered and struggled through five years ago - as a response to norway. and since sunday, i've been blessed with facebook message after facebook message and email after email of people who were touched by it. people who see Yahweh differently now. people who are entering back into conversations with Yahweh and people who follow Yahweh because of the words born more of a broken soul than a working intellect. one woman told me the article is already changing her life. but it's not the article that's changing her life. it's a new and a different glimpse of Yahweh. and as i've read each of these responses to my article, i've cried. sometimes a little. sometimes a lot. in part, i've cried because i'm humbled and happy that Yahweh is using my words and my friend's senseless death to touch people all over the country five years later. that is beautiful. that is a glimpse of the hope i preach about almost every week. but i've also cried because i'm ashamed. far far too often i write because i want to be smart - i want to be acknowledged for being smart. far too often i write about Yahweh and what it means to follow Yahweh so that people will be impressed with me. so that i can get a good grade. so that i might become micro famous in the dying emergent scene. and then, even though i'm not a fan of myself, someone else might be. and then there are the times when life crashes in on my intellect and forces my soul to speak louder, and somehow a new picture of Yahweh and life with Yahweh appears. and it changes me. and it changes people. and it is healing or redeeming or a seed of some new life. and none of this is because i'm smart or wonderful - it's because Yahweh is beautiful and is bent on being known more and more fully - to the point that Yahweh will use a pretentious, over-educated, sometimes self-important person like me to be known. and so, i am humbled and ashamed. and in that, i hope i will write and think more out of a desire to know Yahweh more deeply and to make Yahweh be known more deeply than to be smart. i hope that i write from the kind of love that - because of Yahweh - is bent on redemption rather than the kind of self-love that seeks to soothe a limping ego. i hope we all do. imagine a prophetic voice in the church that doesn't seek applause or the easy cynicism of tearing down the churches we came from - but instead loves Yahweh and Yahweh's world so deeply that we write and debate and utilize our curiosity and intellect - the curiosity and intellect Yahweh plants and cultivates and prunes and inspires in us - to see the world change and broken hearts heal. that sort of emergence could never die. that conversation would never end until Yahweh was fully known - which is to say, it would never end. the crescendo of God 07/09/2011
at midtown friends community, the ever-so-small quaker church Yahweh used me to start almost three years ago, we try to live life together. to help us do this, we have five words that define how we live together. one is story. this month at our meetings for worship, we're exploring our commitment to story. tomorrow, we're going to survey God's whole story - start to unfinished finish...
that's what we talk about tomorrow. we fly by the story. the next week, we'll talk about what it means to live in the story. we'll talk about where we live in the story. the heart of that is that we live a crescendo. we live in between. we live in between Jesus' death and resurrection that defeated brokenness and the day when brokenness is banished. we live in a time when the song of redemption is getting louder and louder - but can sometimes still be overpowered by the chaotic sounds of sin and death. but life is crescnedoing. it's getting louder. it's getting more powerful. more moving. more enrapturing. more inescapable. this is why i crush on hope. because it's where we live in the story. we live in a place where - if we pay attention - at any moment, the passionate melodies of redemption will snap us out of ignorance, apathy, distance and cynicism and draw us into the new song God is writing - the new song we'll never stop singing along with and dancing to. we live in the crescendo. we live in hope. that's what we get to talk about next week. and i can't wait! aaand...here's an old prose i wrote about how the crescendo draws us in: the beat begins. it is slow. i tap my foot gently on the cheap painted concrete floor of the dirty, rustic venue as the residue of millions of hipster cigarettes from before the two-year-old smoking ban still flood my nose, as though the standard grey cloud of nocitine bi-product still hung just above the crowd. i almost miss the cloud. it seemed appropriate – the grey skies of seattle unresponsive to the barriers of concrete walls followed us into the building and took up carsonogetic residence. but, it’s still there in scent and in spirit. the band continues to play as my mind drifts to the not-so-absent cloud. unattentive to the music, i begin to look around me at all the hipsters. i used to be one. i used to be at every show. i used to spend 50% of my income on all the right clothes – and the other 50% on being at all the right shows. as i look down at myself, i realize i have neither the energy nor the funds for that life any longer. i become ambivilant – self-conscious yet glad to be free of the constant pressure to be cool. still somewhat disinterested in the band, and wondering why i left a meeting early and spent $12 to be there, i examine the poster-clad walls. years and layers and stories and lifetimes of stories are fixed to the walls through the medium of show posters. i remember when slick shoes came. i remember taking some youth to a show and having to leave early and sit in a car with an asthmatic girl who didn’t treasure the grey cloud so much as i did. i remember pedro the lion, and minus the bear, old friends, my first 21 and over show, my first drink at a show, standing outside in line waiting for the doors to open when pedro played their first show here in months. my life seems to be laid out infront of me, as though in some near death experience, through these out-dated concert advertisements. the rhythm continues and i realize it is a waltz. i wonder if i am dancing – 1-2-3-1-2-3-1-2-3 – in a circle – 1-2-3-1-2-3-1-2-3 – going nowhere, but lost in the music – and i wonder if this is good enough. then, the music begins to build. i find my wandering eyes and thoughts returning to the band. it grows more and more intense and suddenly the music that even the band seemed disintersted in captures everyone. toes that tapped lightly become whole body movements, heads nodding as though in agreement with the growing volume and intensity. Those that know the words sing along. 1-2-3-1-2-3-1-2-3 this waltz is no longer going in a circle. it is growing and going somewhere. one band member falls to his knees, nearly destroying his guitar as string after string breaks under the pressure of his intense strumming. he lifts it to the microphone to squeeze out every ounce of volume because his amp goes to eleven and even that is not enough. in the matter of a glorious minute, the audience has gone from apathetic to anticipating every beat and feeling their hearts and blood pulsing with the beat. and this is crescendo. this is the kingdom. are you enraptured? are you tapping your feet? are your eyes wandering the walls? are you waltzing in circles? is it building? can you feel it pulsing through your veins? oh to be lost in it. oh to strain to make it as loud and as intense at it could be – and to let it still be a dance, a song, a work of art and a playful joy. gracious Lord let it be so and let me be forever lost in the eternally growing crescendo – let me sing and never, ever stop singing. a couple of things that happened in the last few weeks have had me thinking about theodicy or the problem of evil or basically, the questions the book of job asks...like, if God's good how do all these terrible things happen.
and, this has reminded me about an article i wrote for the seattle school of theology and psychology several years ago...right after a kid from the church where i was the youth pastor died in a massacre. and, i thought i'd repost it. in case it helps anyone. or maybe in case it helps me. here it is: A Trinitarian Re-Imagination of Theodicy in Ministry The Named God and Massacre on Capitol Hill (this article owes pretty much everything to one of the greatest theologians ever, stanley grenz - who now gets to hang out with Jesus in person!) God exists and this happened. God exists. This happened. Looking at those two sentences, though I oft reconciled them before, lost all of its easy escapism on the morning of Sunday, March 26th, 2006. When I arrived at church, I was met with the news that one of the young people in our church was murdered. What is worse, he was one of six, plus the murderer’s own suicide. The massacre in Seattle’s Capitol Hill had, and still has, no explanation. It appears to be a random act of evil. I thought to myself, “God exists. This happened. These two sentences are at odds.” Is this not the age-old question? It is the question at the heart of the oldest book in the Bible: Job. Often, before this event, when my students would ask me about suffering and the existence of God, I would reply, “We don’t get to know.” Somehow, now drawn into one of the greatest tragedies in Seattle’s history, this was trite. Is that really the best answer we can give “We don’t get to know?” I come to a place where I review every event in my life and even in the history of the world and hear the words “I am” pounding in my head. The holocaust happened; “I am.” My cousin was murdered; “I am.” My family fell apart; “I am.” 911; “I am.” Darfur; “I am.” AIDS pandemic; “I am.” Stanley Grenz died; “I am.” In the present, the Capitol Hill Massacre happened; it happened to someone I know and care for; “I am.” In the face of every evil, the voice booms; “I exist.” At this point, I want to destroy the voice. I don’t care if it is God; it is absent, authoritative, unapologetic, and untrustable. However, the question dawns, what if I have not heard the voice right? What if I have not listened well because of so much background noise? What if the voice does not say, “I exist,” “I am,” but rather “I am with.” What would this mean to me in my suffering and loneliness? What would it mean for my identity as one in the image of God? What would the calling be as a leader in mourning? Same Old Theodicy The problem I found myself tenaciously wrestling with, in the days and weeks following the massacre, was the problem of evil, or the problem of pain. Essentially, this theologically ancient issue asks the question: How do God and evil co-exist? This is the problem pastors often theorize about and plan out our reactions. We write and deliver sermons to prepare and aid our communities through mourning. However, when tragedy strikes, none of these answers, strategies, or sermons holds water. There is no explanation, no words to enable a person to hold the depth of evil in one hand and the existence of a perfect God in the other. “I Am,” indeed, seems to be a taunt rather than an invitation to worship and relationship. The deeper problem of suffering is suffering alone. The bind we end up in is that we want desperately not to be alone in such an evil world or in the depths of such suffering. And, having narrowly defined God as self-existent, omnipotent, and good, we cannot stand for that God to be with us. What is worse, this God feels distant. We laugh at the lyrics, “God is watching us from a distance,” but where else can God be watching from if God is impassible (or unchangeable and essentially incapable of emotion). So, we are at a standstill because of God’s name: I AM. Or, we would be, but for God’s name: I AM with. Theodicy Re-Visioned The answer to these two tragic problems of pain, suffering and suffering alone, comes not through more philosophy, but through stripping away Greek definitions to Hebrew ideals and reclaiming the essence and story God gives us. In short, Stan Grenz’s last work The Named God and the Question of Being invites us to a new question: how do a relational God and God’s relational image-bearers together exist in the face of evil?, in light of an ancient name I AM with. Through the following journey into both the old question: how do God and evil co-exist, and the new question: how do a relational God and God’s relational image-bearers together exist in the face of evil, we will explore many faces to these deep questions. As we explore these questions, we will first briefly survey the problem of evil, then transition to the theo-anthropology of relational humanity imaging a perichoretic God. From the vantage point of a relational God and relationally suffering people, we will explore the Greek ontological captivity of God’s name. Here we will fully see the beauty Grenz re-captures in his exploration of God’s self-revealed name and explore the story that fills the vast space of I am, especially regarding tragedy. Finally, with a new understanding of who our relational God is in the face of tragedy, we will explore what it means that God shares God’s name with us. That is, we will begin to ask what it means to become Christ-like – to become human – in tragedy and will re-imagine the role of pastor in the face of suffering, as we learn to say, “I am with” even as our Creator has said to us. The Problem of Suffering We begin with the presenting problem: theodicy. Basically, this question asks, if God is good, why is there suffering in the world? More simply put, theodicy asks, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” There are two aspects to the problem of evil: 1) the question of sin. 2) the problem of suffering. Both of these fit under the heading theodicy (or the problem of evil). Both of these also bear on the types of evil discussed in the opening of our discussion. However, for the sake of this paper, we will focus on the latter: How do we say, “God exists and this tragedy happened?” How can we speak of a good God and good creation when evil enters our lives? More practically, what does the church offer those suffering the effects of evil? Pannenberg summarizes this age-old difficulty: There is apparently senseless suffering of creatures and the entrance and at least temporary success of evil in creation. This fact makes it difficult to postulate of a Creator who is both omnipotent and good. A belief in creation has to assume that the work of creation is good according to the creative will of God. But suffering and evil cast doubt on this conviction. (2) Lewis Smedes speaks of this in more personal terms as he recalls interacting with God after the death of his son: Everything good, everything bad, everything triumph, everything tragedy, from the fall of every sparrow, to the ascent of every rocket, was under God’s silent, strange, and secretive control. But I could not believe that God was in control of our child’s dying. (3) In response to this, many arguments can be made. Pannenberg suggests that Christian theology does not necessitate an original state of perfection but an eventual one (4). Job tells us evil happens without reason. Whatever the answer, philosophical postulations to a hurting heart are like spitting on a bleeding wound, believing there is some healing to be had through bacteria-ridden saliva, but ultimately only adding infection to hurt. It is here, in response to this wound, as we genuinely seek healing, that The Named God and the Question of Being takes on new importance and we begin to ask the new question: how do a relational God and God’s relational image-bearers together exist in the face of evil. Trinitarian Theology of Imago Dei & Relationality As we examine relational beings, caught in the problems of evil and pain, we need to understand who we are. Primarily this question is answered as God answers it: we are in God’s image and likeness. This can be interpreted many different ways. In his previous book, Grenz suggests a deep integration of relationship and imago dei or personhood; “Triune life becomes the final touchstone for speaking about personhood.”(5) Barth similarly sees Imago Dei as capacity for relationship: The relationship between the summoning I and in God’s being and the summoned divine Thou is reflected in the relationship of God to the [humanity] whom [God] has created, and also the relationship between the I and the Thou, between male and female in human existence itself. (6) Looking at Grenz’s posthumous work, our main text, The Named God and the Question of Being, we see a forming philosophical dichotomy in the understanding of being. As Grenz explores this dichotomy in the first chapter of our text, he summarizes Plato’s theory of the world of being and ofbecoming. Everything in the world of being reflects something intangible in the world of becoming. Within this framework, a thing is good in so much as it reflects that which it represents. Grenz connects Plato’s understanding of being to his understanding of good and wisely applies it to the human condition: Plato’s thesis that everything in the world of becoming exemplifies its corresponding form also leads naturally to his understanding of good. ‘Good’ means simply ‘exemplifying the corresponding form.’ Hence a particular tree is ‘good’ if it exemplifies the form of Tree or Treeness. A good chair is one that exemplifies Chairness. Similarly, the good human consists of exemplifying the human form or Humanness. (7) If, as thought at the time and often since, humanity is intellect and God’s logos - God’s intellect - is theimage we are in, then the sharper the mind, the more developed the philosophy, the more human and the more good we become. However, if God is primarily relational, eternally co-existing with God’s triune self, then we, as image bearers are not good in so much as we are intelligent, but are good, in so much as we are relational. Can this engrained desire and hardwiring for relationship be diminished in suffering? No! It can be heightened no more than when evil and the depth of relational disharmony and separation from our relational God is made inescapably clear through the depths of evil. In these times, we long for the two relationships mandated by the two great commandments – the two relationships given at the dawn of time: relationship with God and relationship with humanity. So, the nature of the God whose image we bear and to whom we cry out in times of suffering, is the relational God who created us to be relational. In this understanding, of God theodicy is re-invented. In this view of ourselves, we begin to re-vision our response to evil. Ontology’s Captivity of I AM Our assumed and to-be-developed understanding of a relational God is not historically - or even currently - a theological given. As our subtitle suggests, ontology has held God’s name captive, changing our perception of an intimate and self-named God. Grenz begins his discourse on the topic of God’s being by exploring the Greek captivity of God’s name. Ontology - or the philosophy of being (or existence) - was birthed as an alternative to a superstitious understanding of life at the whim of multiple Gods. Grenz explains, “Being was the product of the reflections of those thinkers who sought to shift the task of making sense of life away from the commonly followed method of attributing faith to the decisions and antics of a multitude of whimsical deities.”(9) As the importance of being - of ego, of the statement: I am - grew, the connection to God’s self-given name, I AM, became clear. Here was a natural bridge to join Greek philosophy to Christian theology. Grenz astutely bears witness to this phenomenon: From Augustine to Aquinas, theologians have connected the God of the Bible with the Greek conception of Being. Moreover, in their estimation, the link between Christian theology and Greek philosophy was forged by the biblical assertion that the God of the Bible is the great I AM. (10) Grenz continues, naming some of the conceptual implications this has brought to Christian theology: Under the influence of Greek philosophical thinking, theologians understood this designation as indicating that the biblical God is characterized first and foremost by philosophical traits such as self-existence, eternity, unchangeability, and, consequently absolute being. (11) Further, Grenz cites George Rowlinson and John J. Davis who both - in contemporary times - highlight the ontological implications of God’s eternal existence in the name, I AM. Here, the import of God’s name is God’s independence (as dramatically opposed to our thesis of God’s relationality or inter-dependence). So it is that the God, self-named I AM, became distant and unchangeable. So it is that we can sing, “God is watching us from a distance.” So is created the God who the mourning soul questions and shrinks from relationship with. I AM With What, though, if this is a misinterpretation of I AM? What if we have missed something in God’s self-given name? The voices explored above paint an ontological God. Other voices, Grenz included, stand against this strictly ontological and inherently Greek understanding of this Hebrew theological term: I AM. Noth, Von Rad, and Hyatt see a dramatically different interpretation of I AM. It does not mean I exist, instead, its implication is I AM with. As Grenz states, “the heart of the divine name disclosed to Moses points to Yahweh’s be-ing present with Israel.”(12) What is more, this name invites story and development, “Consequently, the story of the burning bush anticipates that the yet-to-be-disclosed content of the divine name will be closely tied to the ongoing presence of I AM WHO I AM in the journey with the people of covenant.” (13) Further, Grenz expands I AM to “I am [I will be] there (for you).” This, as Grenz proposes, suggests God’s covenant and faithful presence. In our suffering, then, as much as we appreciate the warm embrace of a friend who says, “In this, I will be there for you.” So much more, the very voice of God supports our shaking hearts as God speaks, “I AM there for you.” Somehow, in God’s embrace, theodicy fades to the pale background of relationship. What’s in a Name? Were God’s name, in itself, not relational, the mere act of God’s self-naming would yet reveal God’s relationality. This begs the question: What’s in a name? Grenz asks this obvious question and answers it with Ernst Pulgrum’s words: The name of a man is like his shadow. It is not of his substance and not of his soul, but it lives with him and by him. It’s presence is not vital, not its absence fatal. If a man were to move in perennial darkness, he would have no shadow, and if her were content to dwell in solitude, he would need no name. (14) Names are used for reference. They are, therefore, relational. God’s self-naming is God’s moving toward us. As Pulgrum suggests, the need of a name revokes a solitary existence and reaches out for something different: for relationship. Thus, as Grenz suggests, the weight is in God’s self-naming act; “The import of biblical witness is not that the God of the Bible is unnamed, but that God is self-named." (15) As we enter into our suffering, then, the God who speaks I AM is not the distant God who watches from a distance. This God is the God who took a name for the sake of relationship, and who, in that name, covenanted to be with as our journey unfolds. The God whose name is I AM with waits in our suffering to say I am with you. The Saga of the Weeping God Grenz’s text takes the reader through three sagas. The first is the saga of being, or the story of the ontology and its heavy-handed union with theology. The second saga is the Saga of the I AM. Here Grenz interprets the name and moves further to interpret the story of this name. In this section of our discussion, we will trace this named God’s presence in the saga of suffering. First, we know that God is relationally grieved. We know that Jesus weeps. In Job, the theodicy of scripture, God weeps for the troubled. Perhaps the most tender and explicit interaction between God and a mourning soul comes in John 11, when Jesus comes to raise Lazarus. Jesus knows that Lazarus will rise. Still, as he sees Mary’s grief, the God-Man is moved and troubled. It is here that Jesus weeps. (16, 17) This same God, who says I am there for you, is also the God of tragic abandonment in the darkest time of suffering in the history of the world: on the cross. (18) As Jesus, God and God’s Son, hung, punished for our sins, he cried out the saddest words ever uttered, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The Greek word translated forsaken is egkataleipo (eng-kat-al-i’-po). This means to abandon or desert. It connotes that Jesus is left helpless and totally abandoned; he is left in straights. This term is unseen until this moment. After this, it is used to describe what I AM with will not do. Previously, we examined how God’s act of self-naming was a movement toward relationship. Here, the God whose nature is bound up in being with abandons God’s own Son – even God’s own self – in order that because of this desperately dark moment of abandonment in suffering, God might be united to us. So it is that, in our suffering, we look to the cross and know that. It is because of this scandalously exquisite abandonment that we are not alone in our suffering. While we find no clear answers to the question of theodicy in scripture, we do find that God sacrifices all in order that God might be with us. This, then, is how we re-vision theodicy. Conclusion: Becoming Human in Tragedy So it is that we enter into the world where “this happened” and “God exists.” We do not have an answer to the problem of evil. We have not, in anyway, engaged theodicy. Then again, if the height of being human is Jesus – the relational I AM, then work becoming human is becoming with – with God and with humanity. Where the Greek understanding of humanity was based on intellect and the problem of evil requires intellectual engagement, we have chosen a different path. We have, instead, sought out a relational God to be with in suffering. We have sought to share a name, and therefore a calling, with the Jesus who is with both God and humanity. To become human, then, is to enter into that eternal being present of the sovereign God. We are human as we inhabit our suffering and do so relationally, sorrowfully and gladly sharing that divine name – the glorious I AM. My story revisited From this vantage point, let’s revisit that dark day. Let’s return to the moment I found out about the murders and began to ask how God and evil can co-exist and what my calling might be as a minister in this dark time. In the midst of the tragedy that faced my church, I began to wonder how to lead in mourning. I struggled, as our discussion has revealed, with God’s goodness and existence. I searched for God’s words in this time of suffering. When I let go of debate and propositional definitions of God, when I stopped searching for God’s words and began to long for God’s presence, I remembered Grenz’s work and opened my heart to the God named: I am with. When I gave up piety and the pastor’s role in order to be and to be in search of God’s communal presence, I was met as I was: a little girl, lost and fearful in an evil world: I see myself like a little girl in her father’s arms. She is angry and pounding his large, sturdy chest with her small, weak fists. “I hate you! Don’t hug me. Leave me alone. You did this. Why didn’t you stop him?” My fists slow and the intense embrace of my father grows tighter. I continue as the intensity of my voice dies. “Why didn’t you stop it? Why didn’t you protect him? Why didn’t you protect me? You didn’t protect me. I’m scared because you didn’t protect me. My fists come to a stop, nestled in his chest as his arms clamp even tighter around me. Yelling turns to sobbing as my tears pound him with the same smallness and weakness of my fists. “I’m scared. I’m scared Daddy. It’s so dark. It’s so evil. I’m scared. I’m alone and scared.” My fists release their grip and I gently push my father away enough to see his face. He is crying. His tears intertwine with the residue of mine. His large, powerful hands grip my small arms as he pulls me close again. My arms rap around him and his encircle me. Together we cry. He says to me: “It is dark out there. It is evil. They shot him in the face. They shot my son who deeply love. You are scared. You are not alone. Hope is here. Redemption will come…but today, let’s cry together. He rests his weighty head gently on mine as his tears anoint my head like a calling, like a balm, like cleansing water. I am baptized in his grief. He holds my hand – so small in his that I hold only his index finger, like a baby learning to walk. Together, we sob and walk into the lives of others, so desperate not to be alone in the darkness, the evil, the fear. So, I was met, not only as a little girl longing for her Father, but also as one with a calling to be withGod and with humanity, drawing them into the intimate union of the God whose name is I AM with. And so is our calling – to lead as children – to grieve and wail and to invite all God’s children to be bathed in God’s tears and clothed in God’s embrace. If we believe I AM means so much more than I exist, if we hold that we are in the image of the God who is named I AM with, then we become humanas we share Christ’s name. Our answer, in the face of suffering, is to be with the God who is with. We share our tears with God. Then we wear God’s tears as our glorious crown as we are with our brothers and sisters in humanity, inviting them also to mourn with the God who is with. sources: (the foot notes got messed up when i copied and pasted this...and i don't have time to fix it...sorry)
so, father's day was hard. harder than i expected. several difficult things teamed up to make it about as bad as i could imagine it to be. and hope became too annoying and too painful and too much like a cruel and taunting abuser. my relationship with hope, over the last two years, has increasingly - crescendoingly - felt like a relationship that just doesn't work. (like the vast majority of relationships i've had with men) i've felt more alone with hope than without it. i've felt more cynical every time i've fought for some quality time with hope. and when hope finally decides to hang out with me, i have't been able to hold hope's attention. video games seem more interesting. other girls seem more interesting. anything seems to be more interesting to hope than really being with me, supporting me, holding me when all i want to do is give up. hope seems evasive and adulterous. never there when i need it. constantly ignoring the days that i especially need someone or something or some God or some. small. amount. of hope...days like father's day. when i've most needed hope, it's sent a cheap and harmful substitute: fear. another trial i'm not ready for. my dad leaving. friends' marriages struggling. my church not getting enough tithes or enough people to be sustainable. people not caring about slavery. a broken heart. a friend who lets me down. a planned distraction to make it through a hard day getting cancelled at the last minute. hope has been difficult to love. over the last two years, i have struggled deeply and regularly to stay with hope. like in a lot of relationships i've had, i've fought with little encouragement. i've fought despite the fact that fighting is breaking me. and i was broken to start with. so...father's day. hope was a no show. and i broke up with hope. what followed was one of the oddest weeks of my life. on sunday i broke up with hope. on monday i woke up like the guy from office space: numb. apathetic. sarcastic (more than usual). cynical (more than usual). not interested in trying anymore. like in a lot of relationships, breaking up with hope meant losing something of myself. except this felt more like actually losing all of myself. not just a part. all of me. i was gone. had not idea what to do. was exceedingly glad i didn't have to write a sermon this week. we read psalms. Yahweh had already written the teaching. so...i could be lost for a few days. and i was. i was lost. gone. it was weird. as far as i could tell, there was no end in sight to this callous cynicism and complete detachment from hope - which had been everything to me - as painful as living with hope can be. dan allender says you can't hope unless you can grieve. such a ridiculous thing to say. terrible. mean. true. far too true. so, thursday, i'm walking. thinking. pondering hope. pondering how hard i fought for it. pondering everything that's happened since i made the huge sacrifice to leave seattle and come to sacramento. pondering all the things i've given up to seek God's Kingdom of love and justice...because of hope. and i got angry. and angry turned to sad. and sad turned to crying...ever so slightly...in public. and crying ever so slightly in public turned into weeping at home. and weeping at home was grief. and i cried myself to sleep. and...when i woke up, hope was there. and as hope followed grief and nestled back into my heart...i wasn't lost anymore. the truth is, what i broke up with was grief. grief comes when things aren't what they should be. when dads don't love us. when they leave us. when people learn about children abused and beaten so they can have cheap chocolate and then go but a hershey bar because...well, it's been a bad day and what difference does it make anyway? when marriages fall apart and children get hurt in the mix. grief comes when something inside us - something Yahweh made and placed so deeply in our hearts that we can't possibly shake it...only try to ignore it...maybe...something unshakable in us says this isn't right. and knowing it isn't right is the scant beginning of hope. and grief has to come for hope to be there. because hope follows grief. hope says, these things are broken. but Yahweh's about redemption. so...tomorrow may be better. or if tomorrow's not better, some day will be better. and in the mean time, we'll pray and work and wait for redemption of those things we're grieving. so, on father's day, i was done with grief. spent. and the only way to get rid of grief was to let go of hope. but hope is buoyant. it's written in us. in our dna. and re-written in us as Yahweh's Spirit of faith, hope, and love makes us Her home. the only way to escape grief is to escape hope. the only way to escape hope is to escape our own hearts. and then we're lost. hope isn't an abusive or absent lover. hope wasn't a no show on father's day. i was. because i was done with grief. hope comes part and parcel with grief. and it was me - not hope - that ran away. because i didn't want what comes with a relationship with hope. but...in the end, hope's worth it. sooo....all this to say, hope and i are back together. but it's complicated. one of my married friends, despite a wonderful and fully-functional marriage, recently changed his relationship status on fb to: it's complicated. he did this because all beautiful and worthwhile and transformative relationships are complicated and heart breaking and hopeful. and if they are hopeful, they involve grief. so...it's complicated. and i hope your relationship with hope is complicated too. meaning, i hope it's beautiful and worthwhile and transformative. if it is, it will regularly break your heart. regularly leave you in tears. regularly leave you seeking and praying for and working toward and waiting for Yahweh's redemption of every nook and broken cranny of our world. may your heart be broken. may you grieve. may your relationship with hope be relentlessly complicated. and in that complication, may you witness true joy and long awaited redemption. today is father's day. i am fatherless. a lot of us are. sort of a tragedy. lots of theories for why there is such an epic global pandemic of fatherlessness. the theories don't matter. the numbers don't matter. at least not today. today's just hard. so i - and a lot of my friends - find today to be a hard day. it's a day for suffering. it's a day for feeling alone. abandoned. abandon-able. i'm emo today. a little unapologetically so. today is a day of suffering for the fatherless. and, facing the suffering of others is hard. it's a sacrifice. it's beautiful. but it is hard. a lot of people can't handle it. and, as people who either believe or heart or crush on the Bible, most of us have adapted it as this awesome tool for keeping the suffering of others at bay. it has platitudes. tons of them! it is filthy with them if you rip them out of context and apply liberally as bandaids. if you use them, you can quickly become a miracle worker like the missionaries in the tony award winning musical "book of mormon." it's like telling AIDS patients that if they have sex with a magic frog, they'll be cured. you can tell the fatherless that God is all the father we could possibly need. you can feel warm. some of the fatherless will feel ashamed enough that God doesn't feel like enough that we'll fake a smile. hide our pain. sing a song about God as father and ignore that deep ache for a physical dad to hold us. to care for us. to protect us. to be there. physically. but...frogs don't cure AIDS. and platitudes don't ease suffering. God is a Father. but God never - NEVER - intended to be all the father any of us need. God very intentionally gave us fathers. physical fathers with arms to hold, audible words to speak, present love to share, the ability to protect - and simple presence to comfort and anchor us. God gave us those people. and when they somehow failed or left us - they failed God as well. God does not want to be all the father you need. this is one of the most beautiful things about Yahweh. Yahweh is certainly capable of being all we need. but when Yahweh created us, He confidently and lovingly created in us a need for someone other that Yahweh. Yahweh has no desire to be enough. this is beautiful. and...when the people God's given us to be enough fail or leave...this beauty is painful. deeply painful. recently, i even had one friend who got married right out of highschool suggest to me that God can even be all the spouse a person could need. seriously? really? not biblical. not honoring of the Bible. not honoring of the God who beautifully, courageously, audaciously created us in a way where God would never be all we need. not honoring of Yahweh. at all. simply cheap. and hurtful. God does not intend to be enough father. God certainly does not intend to be enough husband/wife. God absolutely does not intend to be a trite bandaid applied to the suffering of abandoned people. so...all this to say, if you are fatherless and God does not feel like enough, it is not because you are unspiritual. it is not because you don't spend enough time alone with God. it is not because you don't believe enough. it is not because you ask too much. it is because God - Yahweh - designed you to need more. do not feel shame that God as Father doesn't fill that void. and do not allow others who fear your suffering to silence it with God as a platitude - when God loves you far far too much to be a bandaid-like platitude in your life. God wants to be your Comfort - like a balm to an aching wound. not a pretend cure like a frog to AIDS. and, if you have friends who are fatherless and hurting today, please stop. sit. listen. be with them. let them hurt. maybe even hurt with them. or, if their hurt is too much to hold...try being honest about it. it hurts to hear my suffering is too much for another. but it hurts more to hear that God should be father enough - when God has no intention of being father enough. God, actually, intends to stop. sit. listen. be with me in my hurt. let me hurt. and even hurt with me. and that's much more healing than a platitude. loving presence and suffering with is a cocktail of life-sustaining drugs to an AIDS patient where platitudes and judgment are a magic frog. loving presence and suffering with is beautiful and life giving. platitudes and judgment are cheap. dirty. harmful. and only pretend to help. i am feeling entirely cynical today. cynicism is the prophet's sin. God gifts us with a sense that something is dreadfully wrong with our world and rather than choosing the hope that God will do something about it, we smirk in cynicism, make a sarcastic joke, and possibly quit whatever group or mission or whatever it is that we know has somehow gone awry. we leave early. it's a failure of hope. it's terribly prideful. and it's willfully selfish. God gives us a deep knowing that something is wrong and rather than speaking it or dreaming of a new way, we shrink away to the safest place we know: our own cynicism. we smirk. cross our arms. lean back. check out. violently judge the brokenness God revealed and revel in our own superiority. we leave early. and i am entirely cynical today. i spent the last two days at a pastors conference. jokes were made about the women back home and pastors wives. assumptions were made about me, as a young(ish) tattooed, hipster looking (looking! i'm not a hipster ok!) woman who claims to pastor a church that integrates art into worship. per usual, people who don't know me wanted to fix me. per usual, the conference touted some formulaic way of reading the Bible and being with people that would solve all of your church's problems if you just invested time (and money) in their two-year-long formula. gimmicks were grasped at while people were ignored. and when i brought up, in good Quaker fashion, the concept of listening and waiting quietly on God's Spirit, the leader glossed over that and said "yes, you see 'discernment' is already a step in our six step process. you should really buy our book..." so...i left early. and i am entirely cynical. and i feel like quitting church in general. but can one body part just decide to quit the rest of the body because of it's insanity and propensity to cause pain? my hands right now are terribly cut up. i work too hard. i ignore pain when i'm working. my hands are terribly cut up. but they can't quit my body because it stupidly puts them in harms way and leaves them there to get battered and bruised. in fact, the only thing they can do is tenderly communicate the pain to the rest of my ignorant, self-seeking body and hope there might be some rest, restoration, and healing for them. because, here's the heart of the truth: the pain i'm feeling isn't mine. it's God's gift to the church. and, as a part of that body, the pain isn't for keeping, building impermeable calluses, or running from. it's for sharing to the glory of God and the growth of the church. so...i left early. but i'm going to try not to leave the conversation early. i feel entirely cynical, but i'm going to struggle toward tender hope. and i feel like quitting church in general, but i'm going to find a way to tenderly share my wounds with the body that so regularly seems to put me in harms way. and maybe the world will be better for it. i certainly can trust that i will be better for it. God doesn't call prophets so we can be beaten and bruised. God doesn't call us so we can sinfully shut down in a cocoon of cynicism. God calls us so God can prosper us. (jeremiah 29.11) |
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