"Experiencing God In His Kingdom"
Luke 9:10-17
This is the last sermon in the long “Experiencing God” series. I have appreciated how many of you have read the book, have been a part of one of the small groups, and how you stuck with this long, seven month study. Although we are done reading the book and you will have your final small group sessions this week, it doesn’t end here. As Alan said in the Minute for Mission, we have been listening to God and because of that we are starting to THINK BIGGER. With God, we are challenged to THINK BIGGER.
That’s what this last message is about, as we look at the story of the feeding of the 5000. We want to be a part of something that is way bigger than we ever thought was possible.
There's a certain progression, or factors, that make up this feeding of the 5000 incident. Let's go through them, in order, so we can pick out the differences between "thinking small" vs "thinking bigger".
First is the lateness of the day. Luke tells us that it was "late in the afternoon." Time is a resource. Sometimes it feels like time is going so slowly. While at others it feels like time is racing by. But the way we have divided up time, it goes by at the same rate, 24/7: one tick of the second hand at a time. Click, click, click, click. Every day it's the same.
As the day goes by, we have this sense in the back of our minds that time is a limited resource. Not for the history of all things. Time has been "marching on" for possibly millions of years. But for us, time is a limited resource. Each of us only has so much. How much that is, none of us knows. As we get older we begin to sense that there is less of it ahead of us, than there is behind us. Time, for us, is running out.
We can feel that same way with each day. We only have 24 hours in a day. The later into the day we get, the more we realize we just might not have enough hours in this day to get done what we wanted or needed to get done. When you're getting to the end of your day, do you look back and see how much you did or didn't get done? Or do you look ahead to the time you have left and what you can do with that amount of time, no matter how small it seems?
Time has slipped away from the disciples in their dealing with this large crowd of people. They didn't know how much time Jesus was going to spend with the people, or how long Jesus was going to teach them about how to deal with all their concerns. Jesus had been talking about God's Kingdom for most of the day. The resource of time was almost used up. The day had gotten away from them. Now it was nearing the end of the afternoon. Evening was upon them. What do they do now, thinking they had so little time left?
The next factor is the location. The disciples told Jesus, "There is nothing in this place. It is like a desert." The place itself, apparently had no resources. It wasn't that there were meager resources in which to take care of the crowd's needs. There were NO resources. "Nothing." They were all in a place where there was nothing available for the people, at a time in the day where the shadows on the sundial were getting long.
I've had people ask me why I'm living in a small town. "There's nothing to do there!" is the exclamation that I've heard a number of times. So I reply, "OK, I've lived in several big cities. You live in a big city. You have all these resources for entertainment and self-fulfillment. So what do you do with your free time? What, of all those resources the city has to offer, have you accessed? Have you gone to a play? A concert? A book signing? Listened to a lecture or speaker? Gone to a museum? A professional sporting event? What all have you done, of all the things you have available?" Their response: "Hardly anything. We just sit home and watch TV." Then I say, "There you have it."
The next factor in this story of the feeding of the 5000 is the need. This is what drives the tension in the story. The disciples recognize that people need to eat, and they are a long ways from nowhere. The place "like a desert" will provide no food, nor any kind of lodging.
At least the disciples recognize the people have needs. But evidently the people hadn't planned ahead. They didn't bring any resources for the things they needed. None brought a tent or some kind of make-shift shelter for the night. None had apparently planned ahead and brought some food with them. The attitude behind the disciples statement is that these people just weren't thinking and didn't come prepared. It's not the disciples fault--according to them--that the people came so ill-prepared. Nor is it the disciples responsibility to make up for the people's unpreparedness.
So send them back to some place where there were resources they could access. It's their own fault, the disciples were saying, for not having anything. Turn them over, Jesus, to the natural consequences of their meager supplies.
Next comes the retort to the disciples attitude expressed in what they were telling Jesus. Jesus' reply? "You give them something to eat." Evidently the disciples came prepared. They had food. They had something.
Rather than agreeing with the disciples and saying the problem was the people's because they didn't have anything to eat, Jesus was telling the disciples, the problem is yours because you have something but aren't willing to share. The disciples had food. The resource they were low on was compassion. Let someone else take care of it. Or, let them take care of themselves. They got themselves into this situation; let them get themselves out of it.
The fifth factor in this feeding of the 5000 story is the meager resources. Jesus quickly throws the responsibility for feeding all these people back on the disciples. "You give them something to eat." OK. Now they start scrounging in their bags. According to the story they only come up with five small flat loaves of bread and two salt dried fish.
The disciples tell Jesus what they came up with. Notice their wording to Jesus, "We have only five small loaves of bread and two fish." Notice the word, "only" in the disciples statement. They haven't just told Jesus what they have. They have made a judgement about how much they have: "only."
We were teasing Rod at breakfast a couple of weeks ago about his poor farmer talk. We asked him how the wheat was up north around his parents place. He gave us the characteristic poor farmer talk: "Oh, I don't know if we'll get much of anything out of this years crop. Probably just a few bushels here and there. It's going to be a bad year."
So we questioned further. "Not much rain up there, then?"
Rod says, "Oh they got a lot of rain. It's been good that way."
We say, "So even though they got a lot of rain, the crop's not looking good."
"You just don't know," Rod said. "All the heads could be empty; not much grain."
"'Could be,' you say," we ask. "So it could be good, too?"
"I suppose," Rod says. "You just never know. If it's like last year, we just may get nothing at all."
We shook our heads and teased him, saying even if he got 100 bushels an acre, it would still be a bad crop. I've sat in enough small town coffee shops, shooting the breeze with farmers to know they hold their truths pretty close to the chest, and won't admit to any abundance, or good fortune. I was told one time that farmers don't like bragging about an abundant crop, so they all just talk the "poor farmer" talk, so no one feels bad. I don't know if that's true or not. I do know the disciples were talking the poor farmer talk: All we have here are five small loaves, and two old dried fish.
The next factor in this story, after telling us about their meager resources, is the size of the need: 5000 men. 5000! And that's just the men. If there were women and children along, they weren't significant enough to add to the count. There could have been upwards of 10,000 people there. And the women may have not been counted, nor gotten anything to eat because of their low status. So there were probably more there than 5000. But at least the men were counted.
So the story's tension is set with those two opposing facts: five loaves and two fish vs. 5000 men to feed. Low resources. Big need. Little available. Huge possibility.
Between those two opposing facts are the disciples. The disciples who are feeling inadequate. It's not just that they don't think they have enough to meet the great need in terms of feeding all those people. The disciples were feeling another kind of inadequacy. An inadequacy of faith. Jesus was challenging them to exercise their faith. To have confidence in their faith. To think bigger than themselves and their assessment of their meager resources. The disciples were not only saying, "We just don't have enough stuff here to take care of all the people." They were also saying, "We don't have enough faith to make something amazing happen. We're just a bunch of guys trying to get by with what little we have."
My friend Alan Luttrell has asked me, and himself, the question, "If you knew you couldn't fail, what would you do?" It's an intriguing question about confidence and assurances. I want to turn that question into a faith question: "If you had such a strong faith, what would you do?" What would you accomplish? Looking at the, possibly, meager resources you are holding in your hands--at least by your evaluation--in the hands of a faith-full person, what would you be able to do? What would be your limits?
You see, when Jesus gave the disciples his challenge (You give them something to eat.) he was, in my mind, going against a lot of what Blackaby has been saying in this book. Blackaby has been saying you sit back and wait for God to act, for God to do something and then you get on board with that. But Jesus is saying here, "You do something. Don't look at me. You've got food. Supposedly you've got faith. Take care of it. Feed these people. Take care of their need. Take the initiative. See what happens."
The disciples stood there stuttering and stammering, "But, but, but, but..." All those buts were a result of thinking too small. Or small thinking. Small faith. Low evaluation not only of God but of themselves. But, but, but... "But what?" Jesus is challenging. "Give me the dang bread and fish," he finally tells them. "Tell everyone to sit down; groups would work good," Jesus says. At least the disciples can do that. Jesus shakes his head in frustration at them--at us.
Jesus "looked up toward heaven..." That's the next factor in this story. God. Looking to God as the one who thinks big, and sees big opportunities for witness about our big God. God--the one who can multiply something meager into something massive. All God needs are people with the kind of resources of faith, so that our big God can do big things through people who have big faith.
How does that happen in this story? Jesus breaks the bread and fish and hands it to the disciples. That's what most of the translations say happens. That Jesus broke the bread and fish and handed it to the disciples. But what the Greek says is that Jesus "...broke the bread and fish and kept handing them to his disciples..." In other words, Jesus kept breaking off pieces of bread and fish, and kept breaking and kept breaking, and kept handing and kept handing the pieces off to the disciples. The more he broke off, the more he kept having to break off. The more he had to give.
And that's the final factor in this story--the surprising abundance of 5 small loaves of bread and 2 dried fish. So much so, that everyone was filled, and there was some left over--12 small baskets full of leftovers. These would have been small baskets, about the size of a large grapefruit. But still. And not just 5 loaves and two fish, but 5 loaves and 2 fish in the hands of Jesus. Who just told the disciples--you feed the people. Which means they could have done what he did: breaking bread and giving bread until all were filled with extra to spare.
So here's the point, I think, of this story. It's only two words, so it's easy to remember. Here they are. Ready? Think Bigger. Jesus was talking to the people most of the day about God's Kingdom. And by the sign of this miracle, the main motto of the Kingdom of God is, Think Bigger.
The disciples were victims of their own small thinking. Small resources. Limited possibilities. Too little for too much need. Too many rationalizations that avoid taking compassionate action and responsibility: it's too late in the day; we're out in the middle of no where. You can't expect so much of us. We've got faith, to a certain point.
But Jesus is demonstrating that there is so much more. If only we would Think Bigger, or maybe, Faith Bigger. Jesus says, in the Gospel of John, "I tell you for certain that if you have faith in me, you will do the same things that I am doing. You will do even greater things..." (John 14:12). Whoa!! It's amazing that Jesus just says we will do the same things he does, if we have faith. That is mind blowing enough. But then to hear him say that we will do even greater things than he has done, is enough to knock us off our feet.
The only qualification is, "...if you have faith in me..." In other words, if we would only Faith Bigger. If only we wouldn't succumb so easily to small faith thinking, as the disciples did in this story. If only we wouldn't just look at what we think are meager resources, and think it's just too late, and think our situation is like being in a desert. If only we would take Jesus at his word, and Faith Bigger, and do unbelievably amazing things that Jesus says we can do.
That, I think, is the main point of this book, that we've been reading for seven months. If Experiencing God is about anything, it is about Faith Bigger. It's about giving ourselves over to God fully in faith, and Think Bigger. Paul wrote to the Corinthian church:
What God has planned,
for people who love him
is more than eyes have seen
or ears have heard.
It has never even
entered our minds. (1 Corinthians 2:9)
In other words, we cannot even begin to comprehend what we are capable of if we Faith Bigger. God is ready to make it happen with us. God, as Jesus did with the disciples, is simply saying, "You do it. Take charge. DO your faith; just don't sit around and think about your faith. Find out what God and you can do, when you abandon yourself into Faith Bigger. Don't think small. Think Bigger. Make it happen. Faith Bigger.
Monday, June 30, 2014
Sunday, June 22, 2014
Experiencing God In The Marketplace
"Experiencing God In The Marketplace"
Matthew 9:36--10:4
I wondered about something this week that I've never wondered about before in all my years of ministry. What I wondered about was why Jesus chose the disciples he did. Jesus chose the earlier disciples: Peter, James, John, Andrew. Andrew brought a couple of the others. But the rest of the 12 we don't know if Jesus chose them or if they were just tag-alongs.
Most of the time, if a Rabbi became popular, young men would follow the Rabbi around hoping he would choose them to be a disciple. And most of those who hung around a Rabbi, in order to become a disciple, did so because they, themselves, wanted to become a Rabbi some day. But Jesus was proactive, by going out and purposively looking for specific kinds of men.
Most of the 12 were fishermen: Peter, Andrew, James, John, Phillip. Matthew was a customs tax officer, working for the Romans. Simon was a Zealot, who was trying to overthrow the Romans. Conversations between Simon and Matthew must have been interesting. I would have liked to have heard some of those.
But the others in the group of disciples--it's just not known what their backgrounds were in terms of their occupation. Or if Jesus sought them specifically, like the others. Or if they just came up to Jesus and asked if they could sign up.
Maybe this isn't that interesting of a question for you, why Jesus chose the 12 men he did. But I wonder about what Jesus' choices of disciples means in terms of the kind of things he wanted to accomplish during his time on this earth. Why these 12 in light of Jesus' ministry goals? What was Jesus going to be able to accomplish with these 12 particular men that he wouldn't be able to do with 12 other kinds of men?
I'm going to do some surmising here. I'm not sure why Jesus chose the disciples he chose. I don't think anyone else knows either. So I'm going to make some guesses. Just wanted you to know they are my conjectures, and nothing else.
It appears that Jesus wanted working people rather than people who were on some religious fast track. Because Jesus chose people who were very familiar with the marketplace, there was something about these down-to-earth people that was strategic to Jesus' ministry.
Jesus didn't chose priests sons, or church acolytes. Jesus didn't choose choir boys. It's not even known if the men he did choose had a good church background, or went to Sunday School. It's clear by all the instruction Jesus had to give the disciples, and the constant inability of the disciples to "get it", that they weren't religiously indoctrinated as kids very well. But Jesus chose them nonetheless.
I want to tie in here a parable that Jesus told his disciples that has always bothered me. It's about the shrewd manager, in Luke 16. A rich man finds out that one of his managers has been running up huge personal debts on the company credit card, and has been mismanaging the master's accounts. The manager needs to find a way, so that when he's finally out on his ear, he'll have a place to stay. So he tries to get in good with those who owe his master, by lowering each of their debts significantly.
It sounds crooked and self-serving of the manager. And it is. But here's the surprise and the part that has always bothered me. Jesus then says to the disciples,
The master praised the crooked manager! And why? Because he knew how to look after himself. Streetwise people are smarter in this regard than law-abiding citizens. They are on constant alert, looking for angles, surviving by their wits. I want you to be smart in the same way... (Luke 16:8)
Doesn't that sound kind of un-Jesusy to you? But remember who Jesus' audience is for this parable--the disciples. These fishermen, tax collecting, rebel disciples. These non-religious types who work hard and play hard.
Based on the parable, and Jesus' choice of these 12, is that why he chose these men? He wanted "streetwise people," men who knew how to look after themselves, who knew how to fly by the seat of their pants, and survive by their wits. Jesus wanted people who were comfortable in the marketplace. These fishermen disciples, for example, not only knew how to catch fish, sail a boat, and mend nets. They knew how to market their fish, haggle the prices with people, talk the lingo, how to be shrewd and when to be soft. How to deal with everyday people as everyday people. To be an "average Joe."
That's what it appears Jesus is looking for in a disciple. Not an overly religious person who is socially awkward and unable to carry on a common conversation with regular people unless it had to do with theology. Jesus wants marketplace men and women, not holy temple types.
I think there are at least four qualities of marketplace disciples. Again, I'm not sure if these are the qualities that Jesus was, and is, looking for in disciples. But try them on and see how they feel.
First, a marketplace disciple is willing to keep their eyes open in order to see a connection between their daily work and it's place in a wider sense of purpose. If your vision is only allowing you to see a part of the horizon of your work--like blinders on a horse that only allows the animal to see a small piece of straight ahead--you will miss the larger picture of how what you are doing fits in with a larger picture.
With blinders on, and not seeing a larger view of what your work is in the whole of God's marketplace, you can quickly succumb to a feeling of bitterness, a sense of futility, and if nothing else, sheer boredom about what you are doing. When the bigger picture is missing, we tend to resent work a lot more than we enjoy it. If we allow God to open up our blinders and see more of God's horizon--more of God's larger picture--we will see how our part of that horizon fits with the larger wonder of God's panoramic work.
I wonder, if you see your place in the marketplace as futile and boring, causing an inner bitterness, that maybe God isn't behind those feelings, trying to urge you on to get you to find a better way to fit what you're doing with God's larger purposes. When we are able to fit our work, out there, in the marketplace within God's larger purposes, that work feels productive, creative, stimulating.
So, being a marketplace disciple means seeing what you are doing out there in that marketplace and how it fits in with God's wider purpose.
The second characteristic of a marketplace disciple is to understand the inner effort that being in the marketplace for God will take.
What I mean by that is understanding that there is an inner and outer dimension to everything we do in life. The outer dimension is what people see of us--how we work, how we act, what we say, our behavior, the way we exhibit our habits--those kinds of things.
The inner dimension is the spirit of a person, their core beliefs, their perspective on life, their emotional selves, their inner thought processes, their passions.
In order to find not just satisfaction, but a deep inner happiness as a marketplace disciple, there has to be an alignment of these inner and outer dimensions. There has to be a congruity between your deep inner self and the work and behaviors you exhibit to the outer world.
If these two don't line up, then you get what you call dissonance. It's a musical term that describes how notes in a chord don't match up. Or a song that has discordant notes that are at odds with each other and don't create a harmony or pleasing music.
So think of that kind of dissonance between your inner and outer self. The bigger the gap, the more discord there is, the harsher and more grating your life becomes. The more frustrating your work becomes, as your core beliefs about your self and your work don't match up with what you're actually doing. Without that connection between your inner and outer dimensions, there will be no song in your work and place in the marketplace.
The poet Walt Whitman has written a poem titled, "I Hear America Singing":
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics
each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand
singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench,
the hatter singing as he stands,
The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the morning, or
at noon intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of
the girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows,
robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.
I think Whitman has caught some of the flavor of what life is like when the inner and outer dimensions are as close to synch as possible. There is little or no detectible dissonance. Life is a song, and we aren't just hearing someone else sing it--it is our voice that is heard in the marketplace, singing the song of witnessing life to our place in God's wider purpose.
Thirdly, to be a marketplace disciple means to value the people-making more than the product making or the bottom line. The real marketplace is driven by the bottom line. By the amount of product you make or sell. Your usefulness to the marketplace is gauged by how much you contribute to the productivity of that marketplace. Your value is determined not by who you are but by how much you contribute to the economy of the system.
But a marketplace DISCIPLE is someone who helps people value not the things they are making, but the ways they are making themselves. Theologian Jean Lacroix wrote that, "to work is to make oneself...producing an achievement, to perfect oneself while perfecting the world." The marketplace disciple helps people truly make themselves, rather than being used as a cog in the bottom line marketplace that doesn't care who you are as long as you are being economically productive.
In her book, Peoplemaking, Virginia Satir writes about the four aspects of what she calls "peoplemaking." The first aspect are the the feelings and ideas a person has about themselves. Another term for this is called self-worth. The second aspect are the ways people create meaning with one another. She calls this, communication. The third aspect are the rules people use for guiding how they should feel and act. And the fourth aspect is the way we relate to other people and institutions outside of ourselves. She calls this the link to society.
When people are having problems, Satir goes on to describe, the way to relieve their pain involves working on one or more of those four peoplemaking factors: self-worth, communication, rules, and link to society. This is what marketplace disciples are all about. We who follow Jesus are not about making people more productive to the economy. We are about helping them work to make themselves better, more faithful human beings. Boiled down, that was Jesus' work.
And lastly, what it means to be a marketplace disciple means overcoming the false duality between the sacred and the secular. We are great compartmentalizers, we human beings. We have a compartment for our work self, another for our family self, another for our spouse self, another for our playful self, and on and on.
And one of the most common compartments we create is the sacred and the secular. We have a compartment for things we think are of God, and a compartment for all the stuff we decide is not of God. But the truth is, God is over all, in all, and in control of all. There is nothing where God is not involved. Therefore there is no division between secular and sacred.
So a marketplace disciple not only sees the holiness in all things, but also helps others see that same holiness. The marketplace disciple keeps others from making the judgements that go along with dividing up what is supposedly sacred and what is supposedly secular. All is God's, and all is of God's. That gives us a whole new perspective on others and things.
OK. So I started out talking about the 12 disciples and why Jesus chose them. I think he chose them because he saw the qualities of men of the marketplace that I've been describing. And then he transformed their marketplace perspectives so that they weren't just men of the marketplace, but marketplace disciples. Men who were out there in the real world and new how to deal with that world as marketplace disciples: constantly alert, looking for angles, surviving by their wits. Helping Jesus in the work of peoplemaking.
Matthew 9:36--10:4
I wondered about something this week that I've never wondered about before in all my years of ministry. What I wondered about was why Jesus chose the disciples he did. Jesus chose the earlier disciples: Peter, James, John, Andrew. Andrew brought a couple of the others. But the rest of the 12 we don't know if Jesus chose them or if they were just tag-alongs.
Most of the time, if a Rabbi became popular, young men would follow the Rabbi around hoping he would choose them to be a disciple. And most of those who hung around a Rabbi, in order to become a disciple, did so because they, themselves, wanted to become a Rabbi some day. But Jesus was proactive, by going out and purposively looking for specific kinds of men.
Most of the 12 were fishermen: Peter, Andrew, James, John, Phillip. Matthew was a customs tax officer, working for the Romans. Simon was a Zealot, who was trying to overthrow the Romans. Conversations between Simon and Matthew must have been interesting. I would have liked to have heard some of those.
But the others in the group of disciples--it's just not known what their backgrounds were in terms of their occupation. Or if Jesus sought them specifically, like the others. Or if they just came up to Jesus and asked if they could sign up.
Maybe this isn't that interesting of a question for you, why Jesus chose the 12 men he did. But I wonder about what Jesus' choices of disciples means in terms of the kind of things he wanted to accomplish during his time on this earth. Why these 12 in light of Jesus' ministry goals? What was Jesus going to be able to accomplish with these 12 particular men that he wouldn't be able to do with 12 other kinds of men?
I'm going to do some surmising here. I'm not sure why Jesus chose the disciples he chose. I don't think anyone else knows either. So I'm going to make some guesses. Just wanted you to know they are my conjectures, and nothing else.
It appears that Jesus wanted working people rather than people who were on some religious fast track. Because Jesus chose people who were very familiar with the marketplace, there was something about these down-to-earth people that was strategic to Jesus' ministry.
Jesus didn't chose priests sons, or church acolytes. Jesus didn't choose choir boys. It's not even known if the men he did choose had a good church background, or went to Sunday School. It's clear by all the instruction Jesus had to give the disciples, and the constant inability of the disciples to "get it", that they weren't religiously indoctrinated as kids very well. But Jesus chose them nonetheless.
I want to tie in here a parable that Jesus told his disciples that has always bothered me. It's about the shrewd manager, in Luke 16. A rich man finds out that one of his managers has been running up huge personal debts on the company credit card, and has been mismanaging the master's accounts. The manager needs to find a way, so that when he's finally out on his ear, he'll have a place to stay. So he tries to get in good with those who owe his master, by lowering each of their debts significantly.
It sounds crooked and self-serving of the manager. And it is. But here's the surprise and the part that has always bothered me. Jesus then says to the disciples,
The master praised the crooked manager! And why? Because he knew how to look after himself. Streetwise people are smarter in this regard than law-abiding citizens. They are on constant alert, looking for angles, surviving by their wits. I want you to be smart in the same way... (Luke 16:8)
Doesn't that sound kind of un-Jesusy to you? But remember who Jesus' audience is for this parable--the disciples. These fishermen, tax collecting, rebel disciples. These non-religious types who work hard and play hard.
Based on the parable, and Jesus' choice of these 12, is that why he chose these men? He wanted "streetwise people," men who knew how to look after themselves, who knew how to fly by the seat of their pants, and survive by their wits. Jesus wanted people who were comfortable in the marketplace. These fishermen disciples, for example, not only knew how to catch fish, sail a boat, and mend nets. They knew how to market their fish, haggle the prices with people, talk the lingo, how to be shrewd and when to be soft. How to deal with everyday people as everyday people. To be an "average Joe."
That's what it appears Jesus is looking for in a disciple. Not an overly religious person who is socially awkward and unable to carry on a common conversation with regular people unless it had to do with theology. Jesus wants marketplace men and women, not holy temple types.
I think there are at least four qualities of marketplace disciples. Again, I'm not sure if these are the qualities that Jesus was, and is, looking for in disciples. But try them on and see how they feel.
First, a marketplace disciple is willing to keep their eyes open in order to see a connection between their daily work and it's place in a wider sense of purpose. If your vision is only allowing you to see a part of the horizon of your work--like blinders on a horse that only allows the animal to see a small piece of straight ahead--you will miss the larger picture of how what you are doing fits in with a larger picture.
With blinders on, and not seeing a larger view of what your work is in the whole of God's marketplace, you can quickly succumb to a feeling of bitterness, a sense of futility, and if nothing else, sheer boredom about what you are doing. When the bigger picture is missing, we tend to resent work a lot more than we enjoy it. If we allow God to open up our blinders and see more of God's horizon--more of God's larger picture--we will see how our part of that horizon fits with the larger wonder of God's panoramic work.
I wonder, if you see your place in the marketplace as futile and boring, causing an inner bitterness, that maybe God isn't behind those feelings, trying to urge you on to get you to find a better way to fit what you're doing with God's larger purposes. When we are able to fit our work, out there, in the marketplace within God's larger purposes, that work feels productive, creative, stimulating.
So, being a marketplace disciple means seeing what you are doing out there in that marketplace and how it fits in with God's wider purpose.
The second characteristic of a marketplace disciple is to understand the inner effort that being in the marketplace for God will take.
What I mean by that is understanding that there is an inner and outer dimension to everything we do in life. The outer dimension is what people see of us--how we work, how we act, what we say, our behavior, the way we exhibit our habits--those kinds of things.
The inner dimension is the spirit of a person, their core beliefs, their perspective on life, their emotional selves, their inner thought processes, their passions.
In order to find not just satisfaction, but a deep inner happiness as a marketplace disciple, there has to be an alignment of these inner and outer dimensions. There has to be a congruity between your deep inner self and the work and behaviors you exhibit to the outer world.
If these two don't line up, then you get what you call dissonance. It's a musical term that describes how notes in a chord don't match up. Or a song that has discordant notes that are at odds with each other and don't create a harmony or pleasing music.
So think of that kind of dissonance between your inner and outer self. The bigger the gap, the more discord there is, the harsher and more grating your life becomes. The more frustrating your work becomes, as your core beliefs about your self and your work don't match up with what you're actually doing. Without that connection between your inner and outer dimensions, there will be no song in your work and place in the marketplace.
The poet Walt Whitman has written a poem titled, "I Hear America Singing":
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics
each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand
singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench,
the hatter singing as he stands,
The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the morning, or
at noon intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of
the girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows,
robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.
I think Whitman has caught some of the flavor of what life is like when the inner and outer dimensions are as close to synch as possible. There is little or no detectible dissonance. Life is a song, and we aren't just hearing someone else sing it--it is our voice that is heard in the marketplace, singing the song of witnessing life to our place in God's wider purpose.
Thirdly, to be a marketplace disciple means to value the people-making more than the product making or the bottom line. The real marketplace is driven by the bottom line. By the amount of product you make or sell. Your usefulness to the marketplace is gauged by how much you contribute to the productivity of that marketplace. Your value is determined not by who you are but by how much you contribute to the economy of the system.
But a marketplace DISCIPLE is someone who helps people value not the things they are making, but the ways they are making themselves. Theologian Jean Lacroix wrote that, "to work is to make oneself...producing an achievement, to perfect oneself while perfecting the world." The marketplace disciple helps people truly make themselves, rather than being used as a cog in the bottom line marketplace that doesn't care who you are as long as you are being economically productive.
In her book, Peoplemaking, Virginia Satir writes about the four aspects of what she calls "peoplemaking." The first aspect are the the feelings and ideas a person has about themselves. Another term for this is called self-worth. The second aspect are the ways people create meaning with one another. She calls this, communication. The third aspect are the rules people use for guiding how they should feel and act. And the fourth aspect is the way we relate to other people and institutions outside of ourselves. She calls this the link to society.
When people are having problems, Satir goes on to describe, the way to relieve their pain involves working on one or more of those four peoplemaking factors: self-worth, communication, rules, and link to society. This is what marketplace disciples are all about. We who follow Jesus are not about making people more productive to the economy. We are about helping them work to make themselves better, more faithful human beings. Boiled down, that was Jesus' work.
And lastly, what it means to be a marketplace disciple means overcoming the false duality between the sacred and the secular. We are great compartmentalizers, we human beings. We have a compartment for our work self, another for our family self, another for our spouse self, another for our playful self, and on and on.
And one of the most common compartments we create is the sacred and the secular. We have a compartment for things we think are of God, and a compartment for all the stuff we decide is not of God. But the truth is, God is over all, in all, and in control of all. There is nothing where God is not involved. Therefore there is no division between secular and sacred.
So a marketplace disciple not only sees the holiness in all things, but also helps others see that same holiness. The marketplace disciple keeps others from making the judgements that go along with dividing up what is supposedly sacred and what is supposedly secular. All is God's, and all is of God's. That gives us a whole new perspective on others and things.
OK. So I started out talking about the 12 disciples and why Jesus chose them. I think he chose them because he saw the qualities of men of the marketplace that I've been describing. And then he transformed their marketplace perspectives so that they weren't just men of the marketplace, but marketplace disciples. Men who were out there in the real world and new how to deal with that world as marketplace disciples: constantly alert, looking for angles, surviving by their wits. Helping Jesus in the work of peoplemaking.
Monday, June 16, 2014
Experiencing God In The Church
"Experiencing God In The Church"
Acts 4:32-35
I read about a man who owned a variety store. The store had been, at one time, a successful business. But during the owners later years, he spent all of his time arranging and rearranging the goods in his store. He never unlocked the doors so that customers could come in to buy things. Making sure that the merchandise was well organized and attractively presented became more important than selling it.
I thought, what a striking parable about the church. At some point in the life of any organization like the church, that organization is tempted to veer from its intended purpose. The bait and hook of the temptation are usually swallowed and the organization begins to forget its original direction and main aspirations. It becomes something it did not set out to be. It forgets its roots, and makes the attempt at growing some sort of trunk and branches without any form of nourishment or support.
You would think the church would be above that sort of aimlessness--that the church would always have a clear idea of what its purpose and direction should be. But the church, more so than any other organization I know, is probably the biggest offender of trying to be something that it never set out to be. The church of Jesus Christ is probably the most gullible, the most side-tracked institution on the face of the earth. I have never known another organization that is so unclear about what its identity should be, and what purpose that identity should serve.
The presbytery of Southern Kansas, that body of Presbyterian churches located and bound together within the length of the southern half of our state, has reorganized its internal committee and governance structure twice in the three and a half years I've been here. Jan Luttrell got to be part of the reorganization that was happening when I got here. It was an innovative and exciting plan. Slowly, that plan has been cast aside, and we are currently reorganizing back to what it was before the new plan was voted in. I say, "voted in" because the new plan, even though it was voted on and accepted by the presbytery, it was never fully enacted.
It's no different than any other presbytery I've served in. When I was in Colby, in the Northern Kansas Presbytery, in my 11 years there, that presbytery was reorganized from top to bottom three times. We are like the store keeper who gets side-tracked on his display and forgets how to do business. Or maybe forgets what business he's in. The more we are reorganizing, the less we end up actually doing ministry, because we are always preparing to do ministry, but never doing it.
That's why we constantly need to listen to the verses read from the Acts of the Apostles. These verses are not only about an idyllic community where everything is shared. There are deeper truths here. There are guiding, foundational principles that the church has to constantly hear and hear again.
Management expert, Peter Drucker, says that no non-profit, volunteer organization will last long if there isn't a clear idea amongst all those involved of what the mission of that organization is. Every organization has to have a mission--a clear and distinct purpose. I think in these verses from Acts we are given that mission and purpose for the church. It is what captivated the believers from the beginning, solidified them into a church, and then mobilized them for action.
The first purpose has to do with the Resurrection. We are told that, "In a powerful way the apostles told everyone that The Lord Jesus was now alive. God greatly blessed his followers..." (Acts 4:33, CEV). Our first and primary purpose must be this: to tell people, in a powerful way, Jesus is alive! Without that mission we are not the church. We may be something else, but we will not be the church.
In the 18th century, the U.S. Congress once issued a special edition of Thomas Jefferson's Bible. It was a simple copy of a New Testament, but it had any and all references to the miraculous eliminated. Jefferson, in doing this cutting and pasting, had confined himself solely to the moral teachings of Jesus. The closing words in Jefferson's condensed version of the New Testament were: "There they laid Jesus and rolled a great stone at the mouth of the sepulcher and departed."
If that's where the story ends, then we are faced with a big question: what caused the change in the disciples? The Crucifixion certainly didn't enliven the depressed followers of Jesus. Imagine going to the place where the disciples congregated the day after the Crucifixion. Compare that with what you would have seen with the mood in that same place the day after the Resurrection.
The greatest testimony to the reality of the Resurrection is the change that overcame and mobilized the disciples. They went from being cowering wimps into powerful witnesses. The Resurrection is the centerpiece of every sermon by the apostles in the book of Acts.
Without the Resurrection we can not be the church, because the church is at its most basic level a collection of people who are witnesses to the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are the ones who are here to tell the world that God has raised Jesus to life. That is our primary and fundamental belief as the church. And it is our primary reason for being. All of the church's organization and structure should be founded upon that belief.
President Carter was a faithful churchman, not only attending worship as often as he could while President, but he also taught Sunday School. One woman called the Pastor of the Baptist church in Washington, D.C. where President Carter attended. She asked, "Do you expect the President to be in church this Sunday?"
"I cannot promise you that," replied the minister. "But I expect the Risen Christ to be there, and I believe that should be sufficient incentive for your attendance."
The reason we come to church every Sunday morning, the first day of the week, the day Christ was made alive, is because we are Resurrection people. And we are resurrected people. We not only come to celebrate Christ's Resurrection, we also come to celebrate the ways God has also brought us back to life. Without the Resurrection we become a people without hope who have a message without hope. And the reason we go out from our worship each Sunday morning, out into the world, is to be witnesses of what we have seen and heard.
But there is more to the Christian community than celebrating this foundational belief that Jesus is Risen. One of the ways we witness to the Resurrection is by the way we treat each other. That's the other point of this story in Acts: "And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul...neither was there any among them that lacked."
What seemed to be happening at this point in the growth of the early church was a kind of circular pattern that fed itself. What I mean is, when the primary task of the church--witnessing to the Resurrection--was being done, the church was growing. As the church kept to its primary purpose, "...great grace was upon them all." Those blessings motivated the people to, in turn, be givers to each other, caring for each other's needs. That community of caring then encouraged the apostles go out and witness to the Resurrection all the more; and on and on the cycle continued.
The caring of this early Christian community was full of loving, active support. It wasn't just a pious word spoken here or there; or, the speaking of some religious sounding platitudes. It wasn't high sounding morals that appear to have no substance behind them. The caring of the early Christian community was defined by actual, hands on involvement of people with others. They formed their identity, not with a capital "I", but through a sense of unity--a unity that begins with Y-O-U: you-nity. The first believers, mobilized by the power of the Resurrection, said "you" before they said, "I."
When I was pastoring up in Colby, I got to teach a college class titled, "Christian Morality." I used the book, Money, Sex, and Power, by Richard Foster who used to teach at Friends University. If that isn't a provocative title to a book, I don't know what is. In one of the chapters about money, Foster told about how one man involved himself, similar to the involvement of the early Christians:
Someone I know who always has given of his resources generously is attempting now to give more of himself. He decided that he needed a closer personal tie to the poor, so instead of just writing checks to organizations that work among the poor, he decided to make a commitment to one family. This family has known little stability over the years, because of drugs and related problems. But with this man's help, the husband has secured a job and the family has learned to live by a monthly budget and weekly food menu. My friend meets with the family every week to review their budget with them and evaluate their goals. He also has had to invest some of his own resources in the family (none of which is tax deductible). This kind of giving is much more costly than writing a check, yet giving oneself along with money can produce dramatic results.
Imagine a whole church of people like Richard Foster's friend. As in the early days of the Christian church, it wasn't just one or two people, but "...they all shared with one another everything they had."
Remember when, back in the book of Genesis, God asked Cain where his brother Abel was. Do you remember what Cain's reply was? "I don't know. Am I supposed to take care of my brother?" Cain took care of his brother all right--murdered and buried him. But what happened in the early days of the church is the other side of care-taking. Yes, we are to take care of our brothers and sisters, in the best and most involved ways we can.
There was a woman who while taking a walk in the city, rounded a corner only to see a victim of a mugging. He was beaten up and bloody, lying on the sidewalk, half conscious. As she was later retelling the incident to her husband she said, "I was so grateful for the first-aid course I had taken at the YWCA. When I saw that poor man lying there I promptly put my head between my knees to keep from fainting."
As Christians, we are not to use our sympathies only to put our heads between our knees when we see some need. When a fellow believer is in a position of urgency, or lonely, or hurting, we are not to look the other way. We are not to hope that someone else will take care of them. We are not to look after ourselves only, but create unity amongst fellow believers by saying "you" not "I".
The church is not a place where something is walled in to be protected from the world. Instead the church exists to pour itself out to others as witnesses of the resurrected Christ. The church is not a fortress which simply defends the troops. It is rather a supply house from which we give of ourselves and our substance, daily and freely, to all those who are in need. If we can keep that purpose clear in our minds, then we will never lose sight of what it means to be the church.
Acts 4:32-35
I read about a man who owned a variety store. The store had been, at one time, a successful business. But during the owners later years, he spent all of his time arranging and rearranging the goods in his store. He never unlocked the doors so that customers could come in to buy things. Making sure that the merchandise was well organized and attractively presented became more important than selling it.
I thought, what a striking parable about the church. At some point in the life of any organization like the church, that organization is tempted to veer from its intended purpose. The bait and hook of the temptation are usually swallowed and the organization begins to forget its original direction and main aspirations. It becomes something it did not set out to be. It forgets its roots, and makes the attempt at growing some sort of trunk and branches without any form of nourishment or support.
You would think the church would be above that sort of aimlessness--that the church would always have a clear idea of what its purpose and direction should be. But the church, more so than any other organization I know, is probably the biggest offender of trying to be something that it never set out to be. The church of Jesus Christ is probably the most gullible, the most side-tracked institution on the face of the earth. I have never known another organization that is so unclear about what its identity should be, and what purpose that identity should serve.
The presbytery of Southern Kansas, that body of Presbyterian churches located and bound together within the length of the southern half of our state, has reorganized its internal committee and governance structure twice in the three and a half years I've been here. Jan Luttrell got to be part of the reorganization that was happening when I got here. It was an innovative and exciting plan. Slowly, that plan has been cast aside, and we are currently reorganizing back to what it was before the new plan was voted in. I say, "voted in" because the new plan, even though it was voted on and accepted by the presbytery, it was never fully enacted.
It's no different than any other presbytery I've served in. When I was in Colby, in the Northern Kansas Presbytery, in my 11 years there, that presbytery was reorganized from top to bottom three times. We are like the store keeper who gets side-tracked on his display and forgets how to do business. Or maybe forgets what business he's in. The more we are reorganizing, the less we end up actually doing ministry, because we are always preparing to do ministry, but never doing it.
That's why we constantly need to listen to the verses read from the Acts of the Apostles. These verses are not only about an idyllic community where everything is shared. There are deeper truths here. There are guiding, foundational principles that the church has to constantly hear and hear again.
Management expert, Peter Drucker, says that no non-profit, volunteer organization will last long if there isn't a clear idea amongst all those involved of what the mission of that organization is. Every organization has to have a mission--a clear and distinct purpose. I think in these verses from Acts we are given that mission and purpose for the church. It is what captivated the believers from the beginning, solidified them into a church, and then mobilized them for action.
The first purpose has to do with the Resurrection. We are told that, "In a powerful way the apostles told everyone that The Lord Jesus was now alive. God greatly blessed his followers..." (Acts 4:33, CEV). Our first and primary purpose must be this: to tell people, in a powerful way, Jesus is alive! Without that mission we are not the church. We may be something else, but we will not be the church.
In the 18th century, the U.S. Congress once issued a special edition of Thomas Jefferson's Bible. It was a simple copy of a New Testament, but it had any and all references to the miraculous eliminated. Jefferson, in doing this cutting and pasting, had confined himself solely to the moral teachings of Jesus. The closing words in Jefferson's condensed version of the New Testament were: "There they laid Jesus and rolled a great stone at the mouth of the sepulcher and departed."
If that's where the story ends, then we are faced with a big question: what caused the change in the disciples? The Crucifixion certainly didn't enliven the depressed followers of Jesus. Imagine going to the place where the disciples congregated the day after the Crucifixion. Compare that with what you would have seen with the mood in that same place the day after the Resurrection.
The greatest testimony to the reality of the Resurrection is the change that overcame and mobilized the disciples. They went from being cowering wimps into powerful witnesses. The Resurrection is the centerpiece of every sermon by the apostles in the book of Acts.
Without the Resurrection we can not be the church, because the church is at its most basic level a collection of people who are witnesses to the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are the ones who are here to tell the world that God has raised Jesus to life. That is our primary and fundamental belief as the church. And it is our primary reason for being. All of the church's organization and structure should be founded upon that belief.
President Carter was a faithful churchman, not only attending worship as often as he could while President, but he also taught Sunday School. One woman called the Pastor of the Baptist church in Washington, D.C. where President Carter attended. She asked, "Do you expect the President to be in church this Sunday?"
"I cannot promise you that," replied the minister. "But I expect the Risen Christ to be there, and I believe that should be sufficient incentive for your attendance."
The reason we come to church every Sunday morning, the first day of the week, the day Christ was made alive, is because we are Resurrection people. And we are resurrected people. We not only come to celebrate Christ's Resurrection, we also come to celebrate the ways God has also brought us back to life. Without the Resurrection we become a people without hope who have a message without hope. And the reason we go out from our worship each Sunday morning, out into the world, is to be witnesses of what we have seen and heard.
But there is more to the Christian community than celebrating this foundational belief that Jesus is Risen. One of the ways we witness to the Resurrection is by the way we treat each other. That's the other point of this story in Acts: "And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul...neither was there any among them that lacked."
What seemed to be happening at this point in the growth of the early church was a kind of circular pattern that fed itself. What I mean is, when the primary task of the church--witnessing to the Resurrection--was being done, the church was growing. As the church kept to its primary purpose, "...great grace was upon them all." Those blessings motivated the people to, in turn, be givers to each other, caring for each other's needs. That community of caring then encouraged the apostles go out and witness to the Resurrection all the more; and on and on the cycle continued.
The caring of this early Christian community was full of loving, active support. It wasn't just a pious word spoken here or there; or, the speaking of some religious sounding platitudes. It wasn't high sounding morals that appear to have no substance behind them. The caring of the early Christian community was defined by actual, hands on involvement of people with others. They formed their identity, not with a capital "I", but through a sense of unity--a unity that begins with Y-O-U: you-nity. The first believers, mobilized by the power of the Resurrection, said "you" before they said, "I."
When I was pastoring up in Colby, I got to teach a college class titled, "Christian Morality." I used the book, Money, Sex, and Power, by Richard Foster who used to teach at Friends University. If that isn't a provocative title to a book, I don't know what is. In one of the chapters about money, Foster told about how one man involved himself, similar to the involvement of the early Christians:
Someone I know who always has given of his resources generously is attempting now to give more of himself. He decided that he needed a closer personal tie to the poor, so instead of just writing checks to organizations that work among the poor, he decided to make a commitment to one family. This family has known little stability over the years, because of drugs and related problems. But with this man's help, the husband has secured a job and the family has learned to live by a monthly budget and weekly food menu. My friend meets with the family every week to review their budget with them and evaluate their goals. He also has had to invest some of his own resources in the family (none of which is tax deductible). This kind of giving is much more costly than writing a check, yet giving oneself along with money can produce dramatic results.
Imagine a whole church of people like Richard Foster's friend. As in the early days of the Christian church, it wasn't just one or two people, but "...they all shared with one another everything they had."
Remember when, back in the book of Genesis, God asked Cain where his brother Abel was. Do you remember what Cain's reply was? "I don't know. Am I supposed to take care of my brother?" Cain took care of his brother all right--murdered and buried him. But what happened in the early days of the church is the other side of care-taking. Yes, we are to take care of our brothers and sisters, in the best and most involved ways we can.
There was a woman who while taking a walk in the city, rounded a corner only to see a victim of a mugging. He was beaten up and bloody, lying on the sidewalk, half conscious. As she was later retelling the incident to her husband she said, "I was so grateful for the first-aid course I had taken at the YWCA. When I saw that poor man lying there I promptly put my head between my knees to keep from fainting."
As Christians, we are not to use our sympathies only to put our heads between our knees when we see some need. When a fellow believer is in a position of urgency, or lonely, or hurting, we are not to look the other way. We are not to hope that someone else will take care of them. We are not to look after ourselves only, but create unity amongst fellow believers by saying "you" not "I".
The church is not a place where something is walled in to be protected from the world. Instead the church exists to pour itself out to others as witnesses of the resurrected Christ. The church is not a fortress which simply defends the troops. It is rather a supply house from which we give of ourselves and our substance, daily and freely, to all those who are in need. If we can keep that purpose clear in our minds, then we will never lose sight of what it means to be the church.
Monday, June 9, 2014
"Experiencing God: Your Children's Lives
"Experiencing God: Your Children's Lives"
Proverbs 22:6
Point your kids in the right direction--
when they're old they won't be lost.
Train children in the way they should go;
when they grow old, they won't depart from it.
Most of the kids who were "preacher's kids" when I was going through school, were some of the worst kids, behavior-wise. It was like they had to prove they were just "normal" kids to everyone, but went overboard in the "normal" department, and quickly became abnormal. So I was more than a little nervous raising two kids wondering when the wild times would start. But I was fortunate in that neither Ryan or Kristin went through any kind of rebelliousness. They were both great kids and great fun to be with as a father.
Being "preacher's kids", Ryan and Kristin grew up in the church. They went to Sunday School every Sunday. They went to church every Sunday. I decided to wait till they were ready to accept Christ and then be baptized. It was a proud day for me, getting to baptize my own children. I was the one who taught Confirmation Class, and got to teach both Ryan and Kristin's classes. They were two of the rowdiest classes of 7th graders I've ever had. But they were also proud Sunday's when they each joined the church.
Their Christian faith took interesting twists and turns. Kristin took to the faith with a sense of excitement and adventure. When in high school, she got admitted into a select Christian choir and performing group that traveled all over the central states one summer. She had a great time, and wrote me several letters about how her faith was exploding and how she found, in her own way, that God is real.
She went to Azusa Pacific University, the second largest Christian university in the country. She had great Christian friends and grew into the depth of her faith in Christ. She volunteered as a tutor in the slums/Watts district of LA with a Christian mission team. She went to Australia one summer with another mission team. She was challenged more in her beliefs and grew a lot during those college years.
Ryan heard a different drummer. It all started when he was going through Confirmation Class. One of the assignments was to write a statement of faith and read it to the Elders and other parents, and then do the same during a worship service. Instead of writing a statement of faith, Ryan wrote a statement of doubt. He wrote about what he wasn't sure about, and wondered out loud if he believed certain things about the Bible and the church and God. He questioned his faith at an early age. And it wasn't that he was just tossing out different aspects of his belief system randomly. He was thinking deeply about his religious convictions, or lack thereof, and we talked a lot about that together.
I wondered, silently, if either of them was thinking about following their old man into the ministry. Or if they felt any pressure to do so. I tried not to even bring it up, and I think at one point we talked about it together, and I told them both I was not even going to say anything about it. It’s one thing to want to be like your parents and maybe take on their profession/vocation. But when that vocation is the ministry, there may be more guilt about feeling bad that they aren’t even remotely considering that profession. So I didn’t even want to broach that subject with them.
But, in the back of my mind, I felt like if either of them might do so, it would be Kristin.
Then they stopped going to church. I just thought it was that college/post-college aged thing that most kids go through. But it has stuck. Neither of them, and their spouses have returned to church. Kristin's husband, Nic, grew up in a strong Christian family, and I know his mother is constantly on them to go to church. Ryan's wife Amanda grew up in a Methodist church in Wichita.
Now, it's not a matter of just not going to church. Kristin has become interested in exploring Zen Buddhism. And Ryan is not interested in anything that has to do with religion, be it Christian or otherwise.
So, I guess I really don’t have to wonder about either of them going to the ministry.
So I wonder about this proverb in the book of proverbs:
Train children in the way they should go;
when they grow old, they won't depart from it.
There’s a couple of ways to look at this wisdom saying. It’s all in how you interpret the phrase, “…they should go.” If you look at it from a dictatorial, parental view, you are the one who is determining the “way they should go.” You decide how you think your children should end up, and make sure you force them in that direction. If you do your job well, according to the proverb, your children will keep going on the path you set for them.
But the proverb could be interpreted differently. “Train children in the way they should go…” In other words, know and understand your children so well, their inclinations, their gifts, their talents, their ideals, their wishes and dreams, that you help them grow in those directions—“the way they should go”—because it just makes sense. It fits, for them. You, as parents, help them become what they are individually inclined to be. That you take them into account, not just your own agenda for them.
I, of course, like the second interpretation of the proverb, and that form of parenting over the first by far. And in that way, I think I have been a good parent. Even though, at this point, neither Ryan and Kristin have decided to make the Christian faith a part of their lives, I feel like I brought them up to know what the faith is all about. It’s not like they are totally ignorant of Christianity, so they don’t even know what they are missing. They do know what they are missing, and now they get to make that decision, and accept the consequences. It’s not like I gave them the choice, when they were growing up, to decide for themselves about attending Sunday School and church, and youth group. I didn’t give them a choice in that matter. I upheld my part of the proverb: I “trained my children.” And a large part of that training was about the Christian faith.
And I like the rendering of this proverb in The Message Bible:
Point your kids in the right direction--
when they're old they won't be lost.
The important words here are “right direction.” What’s the right direction? As we’ve been reading in Experiencing God, the right direction is toward a relationship with God. The proverb, in this version, says that a parent’s responsibility is to do the pointing. That doesn’t mean your kids will eventually go the direction you’re pointing. But at least you have done your job.
As in the more standard version of this proverb, the parental responsibility is to “train.” When Ryan was really young he loved to hit balls with bats. As soon as he could stand, hitting something with a bat was one of his favorite things to do. So I started “training” him. I got him one of those fat bats. Then I’d pitch a balloon to him. The balloon came in slow enough he could get a good eye on it and whack it.
Then I changed to a beach ball. It came in a bit faster, but was still large enough and slow enough for him to get a good eye on, and whack it. As he became proficient with each type of ball, I just kept getting a smaller and smaller ball, until we were down to a wiffle ball the size of a softball. And I got a skinny plastic bat, so he had to keep a better eye on the ball when I pitched it to him. By the time he was two, he could hit an underhand pitched baseball nearly every time. I had trained him, and he had a natural aptitude for it.
When he got old enough for T-ball, they called him “Boomer” because he could hit a ball over the outfield fence into the cemetery on the other side. But when he got old enough to play little league, as good as he was, he decided he just didn’t like baseball. We had spent hours together, him pitching to me, and him hitting his booming home runs. But despite all that “training” he chucked it. It was a bit hard for me, but I had to listen and pay attention to what his passion was and the way he wanted to go. Baseball wasn’t going to be it.
And he did the same thing with the Christian faith. Something that he had an “aptitude” for ended up being put aside. Again, it was, and has been, really hard for me. It isn’t a pride thing, or an ego thing for me. I had to prayerfully ponder that one for a long time. Did Ryan and Kristin's choice for setting aside the faith hurt because it somehow made ME look bad? That here I was, a pastor, and my own son and daughter have left the faith? That it somehow reflects bad on me, so I should be all embarrassed? No. I wouldn’t go there.
Blackaby is understandably proud of his children and now some grandchildren, who have followed him into the ministry. And that they are strong in their Christian faith. But I am just as proud of Ryan and Kristin for all they are doing with their lives, even though, for now, it is outside the faith.
I have done my part. I have trained. And I have pointed. And I think I did my part well, in that respect. But at this point in their lives, this choice as to what they believe or not believe is up to them. What God has asked of me, as their father, is to train and point towards God every chance I got. That’s what God asks of any parent.
The other part of this proverb is also a great comfort. As The Message Bible has it, “…they won’t be lost.” One of the great things about being a Christian parent is understanding that it’s not all up to you. First, when a child is baptized, the congregation takes a vow to help the parent bring up the child in the Christian faith, to be a real part of their Christian nurture. All of you who have said "yes" to that question numerous times when a child is baptized, are promising to have a part in that child's Christian journey. Every one of you who has had a child baptized, also has the whole congregation to lean on in raising your children in the faith. I take YOUR promise very seriously--and hopefully you do too when it comes to the training and pointing for the children of this congregation.
But, even though you do your Christian training, and your God-pointing, if your kids choose otherwise, you still have hope.
“They won’t be lost.” What that says to me is that God is promising he has other resources. That to God, our kids will not be lost. God will not let our kids be lost, if we have done our job as parents.
I see this time and time again in Ryan’s life. God keeps putting people in Ryan’s life that are also part of God’s God-pointing work. One of Ryan’s best friends while he was a student at KU was also a PK—preacher’s kid. His father was a Lutheran pastor. When Ryan and Amanda got married, this friend was Best Man. I had a conversation with him at the wedding, and I found out he and Ryan talked a lot about God and what they believed or didn’t believe. I smiled to myself because I knew what God was up to in my son’s life. And it was a further affirmation for me that “…they won’t be lost.”
I’ve kind of realized, I probably won’t be the one who tips the balance when and if Ryan or Kristin choose to open themselves back up to a relationship with God. But I have been a large part of Ryan and Kristin's journey in the faith. I’ve done my part as their father. And I have faith that God is continuing that work.
Proverbs 22:6
Point your kids in the right direction--
when they're old they won't be lost.
Train children in the way they should go;
when they grow old, they won't depart from it.
Most of the kids who were "preacher's kids" when I was going through school, were some of the worst kids, behavior-wise. It was like they had to prove they were just "normal" kids to everyone, but went overboard in the "normal" department, and quickly became abnormal. So I was more than a little nervous raising two kids wondering when the wild times would start. But I was fortunate in that neither Ryan or Kristin went through any kind of rebelliousness. They were both great kids and great fun to be with as a father.
Being "preacher's kids", Ryan and Kristin grew up in the church. They went to Sunday School every Sunday. They went to church every Sunday. I decided to wait till they were ready to accept Christ and then be baptized. It was a proud day for me, getting to baptize my own children. I was the one who taught Confirmation Class, and got to teach both Ryan and Kristin's classes. They were two of the rowdiest classes of 7th graders I've ever had. But they were also proud Sunday's when they each joined the church.
Their Christian faith took interesting twists and turns. Kristin took to the faith with a sense of excitement and adventure. When in high school, she got admitted into a select Christian choir and performing group that traveled all over the central states one summer. She had a great time, and wrote me several letters about how her faith was exploding and how she found, in her own way, that God is real.
She went to Azusa Pacific University, the second largest Christian university in the country. She had great Christian friends and grew into the depth of her faith in Christ. She volunteered as a tutor in the slums/Watts district of LA with a Christian mission team. She went to Australia one summer with another mission team. She was challenged more in her beliefs and grew a lot during those college years.
Ryan heard a different drummer. It all started when he was going through Confirmation Class. One of the assignments was to write a statement of faith and read it to the Elders and other parents, and then do the same during a worship service. Instead of writing a statement of faith, Ryan wrote a statement of doubt. He wrote about what he wasn't sure about, and wondered out loud if he believed certain things about the Bible and the church and God. He questioned his faith at an early age. And it wasn't that he was just tossing out different aspects of his belief system randomly. He was thinking deeply about his religious convictions, or lack thereof, and we talked a lot about that together.
I wondered, silently, if either of them was thinking about following their old man into the ministry. Or if they felt any pressure to do so. I tried not to even bring it up, and I think at one point we talked about it together, and I told them both I was not even going to say anything about it. It’s one thing to want to be like your parents and maybe take on their profession/vocation. But when that vocation is the ministry, there may be more guilt about feeling bad that they aren’t even remotely considering that profession. So I didn’t even want to broach that subject with them.
But, in the back of my mind, I felt like if either of them might do so, it would be Kristin.
Then they stopped going to church. I just thought it was that college/post-college aged thing that most kids go through. But it has stuck. Neither of them, and their spouses have returned to church. Kristin's husband, Nic, grew up in a strong Christian family, and I know his mother is constantly on them to go to church. Ryan's wife Amanda grew up in a Methodist church in Wichita.
Now, it's not a matter of just not going to church. Kristin has become interested in exploring Zen Buddhism. And Ryan is not interested in anything that has to do with religion, be it Christian or otherwise.
So, I guess I really don’t have to wonder about either of them going to the ministry.
So I wonder about this proverb in the book of proverbs:
Train children in the way they should go;
when they grow old, they won't depart from it.
There’s a couple of ways to look at this wisdom saying. It’s all in how you interpret the phrase, “…they should go.” If you look at it from a dictatorial, parental view, you are the one who is determining the “way they should go.” You decide how you think your children should end up, and make sure you force them in that direction. If you do your job well, according to the proverb, your children will keep going on the path you set for them.
But the proverb could be interpreted differently. “Train children in the way they should go…” In other words, know and understand your children so well, their inclinations, their gifts, their talents, their ideals, their wishes and dreams, that you help them grow in those directions—“the way they should go”—because it just makes sense. It fits, for them. You, as parents, help them become what they are individually inclined to be. That you take them into account, not just your own agenda for them.
I, of course, like the second interpretation of the proverb, and that form of parenting over the first by far. And in that way, I think I have been a good parent. Even though, at this point, neither Ryan and Kristin have decided to make the Christian faith a part of their lives, I feel like I brought them up to know what the faith is all about. It’s not like they are totally ignorant of Christianity, so they don’t even know what they are missing. They do know what they are missing, and now they get to make that decision, and accept the consequences. It’s not like I gave them the choice, when they were growing up, to decide for themselves about attending Sunday School and church, and youth group. I didn’t give them a choice in that matter. I upheld my part of the proverb: I “trained my children.” And a large part of that training was about the Christian faith.
And I like the rendering of this proverb in The Message Bible:
Point your kids in the right direction--
when they're old they won't be lost.
The important words here are “right direction.” What’s the right direction? As we’ve been reading in Experiencing God, the right direction is toward a relationship with God. The proverb, in this version, says that a parent’s responsibility is to do the pointing. That doesn’t mean your kids will eventually go the direction you’re pointing. But at least you have done your job.
As in the more standard version of this proverb, the parental responsibility is to “train.” When Ryan was really young he loved to hit balls with bats. As soon as he could stand, hitting something with a bat was one of his favorite things to do. So I started “training” him. I got him one of those fat bats. Then I’d pitch a balloon to him. The balloon came in slow enough he could get a good eye on it and whack it.
Then I changed to a beach ball. It came in a bit faster, but was still large enough and slow enough for him to get a good eye on, and whack it. As he became proficient with each type of ball, I just kept getting a smaller and smaller ball, until we were down to a wiffle ball the size of a softball. And I got a skinny plastic bat, so he had to keep a better eye on the ball when I pitched it to him. By the time he was two, he could hit an underhand pitched baseball nearly every time. I had trained him, and he had a natural aptitude for it.
When he got old enough for T-ball, they called him “Boomer” because he could hit a ball over the outfield fence into the cemetery on the other side. But when he got old enough to play little league, as good as he was, he decided he just didn’t like baseball. We had spent hours together, him pitching to me, and him hitting his booming home runs. But despite all that “training” he chucked it. It was a bit hard for me, but I had to listen and pay attention to what his passion was and the way he wanted to go. Baseball wasn’t going to be it.
And he did the same thing with the Christian faith. Something that he had an “aptitude” for ended up being put aside. Again, it was, and has been, really hard for me. It isn’t a pride thing, or an ego thing for me. I had to prayerfully ponder that one for a long time. Did Ryan and Kristin's choice for setting aside the faith hurt because it somehow made ME look bad? That here I was, a pastor, and my own son and daughter have left the faith? That it somehow reflects bad on me, so I should be all embarrassed? No. I wouldn’t go there.
Blackaby is understandably proud of his children and now some grandchildren, who have followed him into the ministry. And that they are strong in their Christian faith. But I am just as proud of Ryan and Kristin for all they are doing with their lives, even though, for now, it is outside the faith.
I have done my part. I have trained. And I have pointed. And I think I did my part well, in that respect. But at this point in their lives, this choice as to what they believe or not believe is up to them. What God has asked of me, as their father, is to train and point towards God every chance I got. That’s what God asks of any parent.
The other part of this proverb is also a great comfort. As The Message Bible has it, “…they won’t be lost.” One of the great things about being a Christian parent is understanding that it’s not all up to you. First, when a child is baptized, the congregation takes a vow to help the parent bring up the child in the Christian faith, to be a real part of their Christian nurture. All of you who have said "yes" to that question numerous times when a child is baptized, are promising to have a part in that child's Christian journey. Every one of you who has had a child baptized, also has the whole congregation to lean on in raising your children in the faith. I take YOUR promise very seriously--and hopefully you do too when it comes to the training and pointing for the children of this congregation.
But, even though you do your Christian training, and your God-pointing, if your kids choose otherwise, you still have hope.
“They won’t be lost.” What that says to me is that God is promising he has other resources. That to God, our kids will not be lost. God will not let our kids be lost, if we have done our job as parents.
I see this time and time again in Ryan’s life. God keeps putting people in Ryan’s life that are also part of God’s God-pointing work. One of Ryan’s best friends while he was a student at KU was also a PK—preacher’s kid. His father was a Lutheran pastor. When Ryan and Amanda got married, this friend was Best Man. I had a conversation with him at the wedding, and I found out he and Ryan talked a lot about God and what they believed or didn’t believe. I smiled to myself because I knew what God was up to in my son’s life. And it was a further affirmation for me that “…they won’t be lost.”
I’ve kind of realized, I probably won’t be the one who tips the balance when and if Ryan or Kristin choose to open themselves back up to a relationship with God. But I have been a large part of Ryan and Kristin's journey in the faith. I’ve done my part as their father. And I have faith that God is continuing that work.
Monday, June 2, 2014
Experiencing God: As Couples
"Experiencing God: As Couples"
Ephesians 5:31-33
Marriage. Marriage is what brings us together.
It's hard to be a couple.
You're acquainted with all the statistics:
About 55% of first marriages end in divorce.
Approximately 80% of divorced people remarry within the first two years following their first divorce.
65% of second marriages end in divorce.
12 million Americans get divorced each year.
65 million Americans are single adults
The largest group of household configurations in the U.S. is one adult.
Divorce has increased by 700% over the last 100 years. (As long as our church building has been standing.)
And it's not just about the statistics. For example, if 55% of first marriages end in divorce, that means that 45% of first marriages don't. But that still doesn't mean it's a happy marriage, or that the husband and wife enjoy being a couple. Or find it easy to be a couple.
A man went in to see his banker. The banker said, "Your finances are in miserable shape. Your loan is always overdue, and your account is overdrawn. Why do you let your wife spend more money than you make?"
"Well, frankly," replied the man with a deep sigh, "because I'd rather argue with you than with my wife."
One husband was talking with a friend. He said, "For 25 years my wife and I were ecstatically happy."
"Then what happened," asked the friend.
"We met," said the husband.
A new bride came in to the drugstore to get a refill of sleeping pills. Thanking the druggist, she said, "I don't know what I'd do without these. I'd never get any sleep."
"Be certain not to take too many," warned the druggist.
"Oh, I don't take them," replied the young woman. "I give them to my husband."
Two single women were talking. One said she was so desperate for a husband, she got on one of those dating sites on the internet. She was discouraged, though. All the replies she got were from wives offering her their husbands.
So, I say it again. It's hard to be a couple. I wonder if it wasn't with a wincing kind of smile that God created Eve then brought her to Adam. God must have known how it was going to go with the first couple, and with every other couple thereafter. If only Adam had stuck to the animals.
I saw a bumper sticker once that read, "The more I'm around people, the more I love my dog." Certainly the sentiment behind that bumper sticker has as much to do with couples as with friendships. And the saying on that bumper sticker might be why God brought animals to Adam, first, for companionship, rather than a "spouse."
These verses read from Ephesians, come at the end of a paragraph in which Paul addresses Christian marriage, and the responsibilities of husbands and wives toward each other. It's almost funny that at the end of this marriage advice, Paul is basically saying, "Even though I've said all this, and quoted some scripture to make my point, I must confess, I don't get it. I'm not sure what this marriage thing is all about."
Paul is always trying to connect everything about everyday living back to his Christian faith, and his relationship with Christ. So the only thing he can mutter, here at the end of chapter 5, is, "It's all a mystery to me. The only way I can make sense of what marriage is all about is that it's a symbol for Christ's relationship to the church. That's it. That's all I've got."
It's assumed Paul had been married at one time. He was a member of the Jewish ruling council called the Sanhedrin. You can't be a member of that council unless you are married. So at some point, after he became a Christian, Paul had to agree to divorce her. And it's not known if children were involved. So even having been married, Paul wasn't quite sure what marriage and being a couple was all about. It was still a "mystery" as he called it.
Kind of like the guy who said that the only thing he and his wife had in common is that they were both married on the same day. It is a mystery, to me, sometimes, when I look at certain couples, and wonder what they have in common, and what it is that holds them together.
But just being a couple--being a partner in a couple--provides for a lot of needs. You find out what those needs are when you get divorced or your spouse dies. (Incidentally, as a side note here, I've led a few divorce recovery small groups. I've asked each group, "Would you rather be widowed or divorced?" Everyone, and I mean everyone, has said widowed.)
Let me go over one quality that you have when you are a couple, and how that might relate to Paul's "mystery" about what marriage is all about.
When you're part of a couple, you quickly begin to see how your identity is defined by your relationship. Who you are has a lot to do with who you are with as a couple. You are still an individual, of course. But who you are as an individual, over time, will be largely determined from being in a couple.
It's been said that, "Marriage is that institution which makes two one. The lifelong struggle is to find out which one." In some marriage ceremonies the couple lights a unity candle. Two tapers are lit, and those are used in the service by the bride and the groom to light the center unity candle. But now what do you do with the tapers, once the unity candle has been lit? Do you blow them out, symbolizing the end of your individuality so that you may be one as a couple? Or do you leave the tapers lit, symbolizing you have unity as a couple, but that you are still an individual?
Maybe that's one of the "mysteries" Paul picked up on in terms of couple relationships. There's a lot you gain, in terms of your identity, as a couple, that you couldn't attain if you were single. The other, in a couple, brings certain aspects of your personality out that you couldn't do on your own.
The same is true in our relationship with Christ. The more we try to be who we are, apart from Christ, the more we end up losing ourselves. In relationship with Christ, the best of who we are is brought out by Christ. The uniqueness of who we are is not found by being on our own. Singleness doesn't create uniqueness. Being in relationship does, because only by being played off another do we really see who we are. We certainly need our relationship with Christ to do that. And, I think we need to be a couple to really see and celebrate our identity and uniqueness.
Paul quotes, earlier in this chapter, a line from the creation story in Genesis: “For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.” Whether we want to admit it or not, as I’ve been saying, we gain a sense of identity, of who we are, from being in relationship with someone else. Prior to dating or being married—to becoming a couple—our identity is shaped pretty much by our relationship with our parents. For good or for ill, that’s the way it goes. We either become who we are because of our parents, or in spite of and in reaction to our parents. That parental relationship is primary to our identity formation.
It’s been said that Adam and Eve had an ideal marriage. He didn’t have to hear about all the men she could have married. And she didn’t have to hear about the better ways his mother would have cooked the meal.
Adam and Eve were the only couple who didn’t have all the parental identity formation that the rest of us have to go through. But as Genesis states, and as Paul quotes here, there comes a time when you leave that parental crock pot of identity formation behind. When you start dating, when you start thinking about being a couple, you begin to imagine what your new identity can be with this other person whose not your parents.
Maybe you’ve heard the adage that women often marry their fathers, and men often marry their mothers. In other words, we unconsciously go out and try and find a mate that continues the same identity we have forged with our parents. Rather than accept the challenge of transforming our identity with a totally different person than our parents, we choose the same old, same old. It depends how entrenched we are in that growing up identity of being in relationship with our parents.
One woman said to her husband, “If you really loved me you would have married somebody else.” That’s how it feels, some times, when we realized we have chosen to be in a couple with someone else who best fits with our old parental identity. We wish we would have chosen to forge a totally new identity with someone who could bring out a totally different person in us.
That’s part of what’s behind the saying that, “Opposites attract.” It depends on how willing we are, how adventurous we are, to choose to be in a couple with a mate who takes us way outside our previous parental box. To choose a mate who will bring forth from us a totally new identity as we are in relationship with that mate.
That is, I think, maybe what Paul is trying to say when he states that marriage is a mystery that somehow has something to do with Christ and the Church. Prior to knowing Christ, our identity is totally formed by being in relationship with sin and self-centeredness. Our “parents”, so to speak, up to knowing Christ, have been creating an identity in us that has nothing to do with God. Our relationship has been ourselves with ourselves. Me, myself, and I, have been in cahoots, creating an identity that is self-infatuated and self-destructive.
At some point we begin to feel anxious that we are stuck and some kind of change needs to be made. We need to forge a new identity, but we’re not sure how to do that. So we start looking around, poking our toes in the waters of a new relationship. We explore, riskily so, a relationship with someone other than ourselves. Behind all these little nudgings is the Holy Spirit, who is trying to help us forge a new identity, by being in relationship with God.
This is the difficult part, as in beginning all new relationships. Is the new relationship going to call us way away from the previous relationship we had with the self? Is the new relationship going to forge a very different identity than the one we had? Or do we try to search for a new relationship that won’t move us very far from our previous comfort zone?
God is calling us to move way beyond the identity we had created previously. God is a whole new “mate” so-to-speak, who will bring out of us a new self that we had no idea was possible. That’s the scary part of any new relationship. How different do I want my identity to be? Am I willing to let go of most of my comfortability with my previous identity, in order to move into something that is very attractive, but disruptive as well?
It’s the scary part of going through divorce, or losing a spouse in death. The identity you had, that was forged out of that relationship, is now disrupted and you have the opportunity to move into a whole new self. But all that depends on who you couple with next.
But like I said, I think the Holy Spirit is constantly nudging us towards God, and relationship with God, showing us how attractive God is. And it’s an attractiveness that has to do with who we can become, what our new identity can be, if we were coupled with God. The Holy Spirit keeps showing us not only a glimpse of God in all of God’s attractiveness, but also a glimpse of who we are and what we can be in a new identity if we were in relationship with God.
All that is a “mystery” as Paul says. But it is intriguing, isn’t it? Just imagine what your identity could be if you were coupled with God.
Ephesians 5:31-33
Marriage. Marriage is what brings us together.
It's hard to be a couple.
You're acquainted with all the statistics:
About 55% of first marriages end in divorce.
Approximately 80% of divorced people remarry within the first two years following their first divorce.
65% of second marriages end in divorce.
12 million Americans get divorced each year.
65 million Americans are single adults
The largest group of household configurations in the U.S. is one adult.
Divorce has increased by 700% over the last 100 years. (As long as our church building has been standing.)
And it's not just about the statistics. For example, if 55% of first marriages end in divorce, that means that 45% of first marriages don't. But that still doesn't mean it's a happy marriage, or that the husband and wife enjoy being a couple. Or find it easy to be a couple.
A man went in to see his banker. The banker said, "Your finances are in miserable shape. Your loan is always overdue, and your account is overdrawn. Why do you let your wife spend more money than you make?"
"Well, frankly," replied the man with a deep sigh, "because I'd rather argue with you than with my wife."
One husband was talking with a friend. He said, "For 25 years my wife and I were ecstatically happy."
"Then what happened," asked the friend.
"We met," said the husband.
A new bride came in to the drugstore to get a refill of sleeping pills. Thanking the druggist, she said, "I don't know what I'd do without these. I'd never get any sleep."
"Be certain not to take too many," warned the druggist.
"Oh, I don't take them," replied the young woman. "I give them to my husband."
Two single women were talking. One said she was so desperate for a husband, she got on one of those dating sites on the internet. She was discouraged, though. All the replies she got were from wives offering her their husbands.
So, I say it again. It's hard to be a couple. I wonder if it wasn't with a wincing kind of smile that God created Eve then brought her to Adam. God must have known how it was going to go with the first couple, and with every other couple thereafter. If only Adam had stuck to the animals.
I saw a bumper sticker once that read, "The more I'm around people, the more I love my dog." Certainly the sentiment behind that bumper sticker has as much to do with couples as with friendships. And the saying on that bumper sticker might be why God brought animals to Adam, first, for companionship, rather than a "spouse."
These verses read from Ephesians, come at the end of a paragraph in which Paul addresses Christian marriage, and the responsibilities of husbands and wives toward each other. It's almost funny that at the end of this marriage advice, Paul is basically saying, "Even though I've said all this, and quoted some scripture to make my point, I must confess, I don't get it. I'm not sure what this marriage thing is all about."
Paul is always trying to connect everything about everyday living back to his Christian faith, and his relationship with Christ. So the only thing he can mutter, here at the end of chapter 5, is, "It's all a mystery to me. The only way I can make sense of what marriage is all about is that it's a symbol for Christ's relationship to the church. That's it. That's all I've got."
It's assumed Paul had been married at one time. He was a member of the Jewish ruling council called the Sanhedrin. You can't be a member of that council unless you are married. So at some point, after he became a Christian, Paul had to agree to divorce her. And it's not known if children were involved. So even having been married, Paul wasn't quite sure what marriage and being a couple was all about. It was still a "mystery" as he called it.
Kind of like the guy who said that the only thing he and his wife had in common is that they were both married on the same day. It is a mystery, to me, sometimes, when I look at certain couples, and wonder what they have in common, and what it is that holds them together.
But just being a couple--being a partner in a couple--provides for a lot of needs. You find out what those needs are when you get divorced or your spouse dies. (Incidentally, as a side note here, I've led a few divorce recovery small groups. I've asked each group, "Would you rather be widowed or divorced?" Everyone, and I mean everyone, has said widowed.)
Let me go over one quality that you have when you are a couple, and how that might relate to Paul's "mystery" about what marriage is all about.
When you're part of a couple, you quickly begin to see how your identity is defined by your relationship. Who you are has a lot to do with who you are with as a couple. You are still an individual, of course. But who you are as an individual, over time, will be largely determined from being in a couple.
It's been said that, "Marriage is that institution which makes two one. The lifelong struggle is to find out which one." In some marriage ceremonies the couple lights a unity candle. Two tapers are lit, and those are used in the service by the bride and the groom to light the center unity candle. But now what do you do with the tapers, once the unity candle has been lit? Do you blow them out, symbolizing the end of your individuality so that you may be one as a couple? Or do you leave the tapers lit, symbolizing you have unity as a couple, but that you are still an individual?
Maybe that's one of the "mysteries" Paul picked up on in terms of couple relationships. There's a lot you gain, in terms of your identity, as a couple, that you couldn't attain if you were single. The other, in a couple, brings certain aspects of your personality out that you couldn't do on your own.
The same is true in our relationship with Christ. The more we try to be who we are, apart from Christ, the more we end up losing ourselves. In relationship with Christ, the best of who we are is brought out by Christ. The uniqueness of who we are is not found by being on our own. Singleness doesn't create uniqueness. Being in relationship does, because only by being played off another do we really see who we are. We certainly need our relationship with Christ to do that. And, I think we need to be a couple to really see and celebrate our identity and uniqueness.
Paul quotes, earlier in this chapter, a line from the creation story in Genesis: “For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.” Whether we want to admit it or not, as I’ve been saying, we gain a sense of identity, of who we are, from being in relationship with someone else. Prior to dating or being married—to becoming a couple—our identity is shaped pretty much by our relationship with our parents. For good or for ill, that’s the way it goes. We either become who we are because of our parents, or in spite of and in reaction to our parents. That parental relationship is primary to our identity formation.
It’s been said that Adam and Eve had an ideal marriage. He didn’t have to hear about all the men she could have married. And she didn’t have to hear about the better ways his mother would have cooked the meal.
Adam and Eve were the only couple who didn’t have all the parental identity formation that the rest of us have to go through. But as Genesis states, and as Paul quotes here, there comes a time when you leave that parental crock pot of identity formation behind. When you start dating, when you start thinking about being a couple, you begin to imagine what your new identity can be with this other person whose not your parents.
Maybe you’ve heard the adage that women often marry their fathers, and men often marry their mothers. In other words, we unconsciously go out and try and find a mate that continues the same identity we have forged with our parents. Rather than accept the challenge of transforming our identity with a totally different person than our parents, we choose the same old, same old. It depends how entrenched we are in that growing up identity of being in relationship with our parents.
One woman said to her husband, “If you really loved me you would have married somebody else.” That’s how it feels, some times, when we realized we have chosen to be in a couple with someone else who best fits with our old parental identity. We wish we would have chosen to forge a totally new identity with someone who could bring out a totally different person in us.
That’s part of what’s behind the saying that, “Opposites attract.” It depends on how willing we are, how adventurous we are, to choose to be in a couple with a mate who takes us way outside our previous parental box. To choose a mate who will bring forth from us a totally new identity as we are in relationship with that mate.
That is, I think, maybe what Paul is trying to say when he states that marriage is a mystery that somehow has something to do with Christ and the Church. Prior to knowing Christ, our identity is totally formed by being in relationship with sin and self-centeredness. Our “parents”, so to speak, up to knowing Christ, have been creating an identity in us that has nothing to do with God. Our relationship has been ourselves with ourselves. Me, myself, and I, have been in cahoots, creating an identity that is self-infatuated and self-destructive.
At some point we begin to feel anxious that we are stuck and some kind of change needs to be made. We need to forge a new identity, but we’re not sure how to do that. So we start looking around, poking our toes in the waters of a new relationship. We explore, riskily so, a relationship with someone other than ourselves. Behind all these little nudgings is the Holy Spirit, who is trying to help us forge a new identity, by being in relationship with God.
This is the difficult part, as in beginning all new relationships. Is the new relationship going to call us way away from the previous relationship we had with the self? Is the new relationship going to forge a very different identity than the one we had? Or do we try to search for a new relationship that won’t move us very far from our previous comfort zone?
God is calling us to move way beyond the identity we had created previously. God is a whole new “mate” so-to-speak, who will bring out of us a new self that we had no idea was possible. That’s the scary part of any new relationship. How different do I want my identity to be? Am I willing to let go of most of my comfortability with my previous identity, in order to move into something that is very attractive, but disruptive as well?
It’s the scary part of going through divorce, or losing a spouse in death. The identity you had, that was forged out of that relationship, is now disrupted and you have the opportunity to move into a whole new self. But all that depends on who you couple with next.
But like I said, I think the Holy Spirit is constantly nudging us towards God, and relationship with God, showing us how attractive God is. And it’s an attractiveness that has to do with who we can become, what our new identity can be, if we were coupled with God. The Holy Spirit keeps showing us not only a glimpse of God in all of God’s attractiveness, but also a glimpse of who we are and what we can be in a new identity if we were in relationship with God.
All that is a “mystery” as Paul says. But it is intriguing, isn’t it? Just imagine what your identity could be if you were coupled with God.
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