Redemption not just Salvation

The work of God is one of Redemption.  Sadly we often replace this with a cheap salvation.  God's redemption is relational, but it is also one that involves all of creation becoming like God intended.  This salvation that we too often speak of is personal, but it ends there, with the individual.

The pitfalls of a God who is only focused on individuals are many. We may become focused on comparing ourselves to others, judging their actions while excusing our own.  We can become focused on rejoicing in our own perceived ends and fail to see God asking us to help in the struggles of our world.  We might see this world as nothing more than that which is here for us, personally, as reward for being "God's chosen."  All of these have a commonality - a focus on self.

We must realize that Jesus tells us time and again that it's not about us, but about Love and service.  The call to love others and serve them as if they are God is what Jesus speaks of when he speaks about separating sheep from goats. Of course none of us always see everyone and treat them as we would if they were God incarnate.  This means we're all goats, aiming to be good goats, but goats covered by grace regardless.  So, if we are all goats, and if all are to be seen as God incarnate as well, then we end up right back at Redemption.  We're all working as God, for God, covered by God, who is working to redeem and renew everything through our labors and God's grace. This is the core of our faith, the work of redemption as seen in Jesus Christ, God incarnate and continuing through us who are called by that name.

Missing the Mark of Faithfulness

Those who know me know I think Pistis is best defined as faithfulness, which I understand as being the act of discerning what God wants one to do and the willingness to do it. So what does that mean for Hamartano?

Hamartano is understood to be "missing the mark" initially in archery, but then applied to other aspects of life, and in faith became "Sinning."  So if the mark we miss is Pistis, then Sin becomes either "not discerning God in what we do" or "not acting on what we have discerned."  Both of these options are things that would be hard if not impossible for anyone but the primary party to fully know.

Thus when we focus on the personal "Sin" of others, we ourselves are missing the mark of faithfulness that points throughout gospel and all stories of scripture to Justice as our primary call.  Only in a just world may we even begin to be able to see others actions through shared lenses of faithfulness.  As long as the world is not just, we can never clearly see the movement of God in another.

So if we are to believe God's grace is limitless, we must seek that which makes it up within ourselves: justice, love, peace, and mercy. Seeking those things of God and then acting upon them is at the core of Pistis and thus we must place them first in all we do.  We may never fully accomplish this and avoid Hamartano, but when we realize this tension is inherently personal, it allows us space to more clearly see God acting in the world and seek to join in that work of bringing about God's kingdom today that is so central to our faith.

Frisbee and Faith

Tonight while playing Ultimate Frisbee there was a moment that reminded me a lot of what I've seen going on through social media with my the PCUSA.  In this blog I want to present a series of quotes (as I best remember them) that I heard there and how I've seen them at play in my denomination recently.

First some background: I've played with the same basic group of people for the last 5 years.  Some members have come and we've added some new ones but there has always been a core group that had come together just to have fun and play.  We've had a few come in with different views of what "fun" was but they tended to come and go fairly quickly.  Recently the always open invite has brought a large group of diverse points of views, and tonight the core group was certainly a minority.  A number of college and club players were there as well as others who "want" to fit into that world. 

So that is where we start.  And it doesn't take long for tensions to increase and interactions such as the following to begin. (all expletives are adjusted out)

"You can take it out and bring it back in"
"Sorry, that's not how we play here"

"Cut IN, Why won't you cut?"
"Because that's a normal throw to make."
"Not if you're REALLY playing"
"Well that's how we play"

"Stack"
"What's that?"
"UGH!"

These types of interactions I find common in the PCUSA.  It's like we're speaking two different languages and the longer we don't feel like others are getting what we're trying to say, the more agitated we get. 

Finally after some comment that I did not hear one of the core group (we'll call him Kurt) started picking up the cones (his) and running off.  The rest of the core group also slowly faded to the sidelines.  As Kurt ran away from the field he yelled "Who do they think they are, they came to play in OUR game!"  One of the other players yelled back "We're just trying to play the right way."  At that point the rest of the core group outside of me left as well (mostly just uncomfortable with what happened). 

I again see this time and again in PCUSA.  Take our toys and go home? Sure.  Tell people that they need to get with the "right" way to do things or to think?  Sure.  Yell it back and forth because both sides have decided to hold their ground at all costs? For Sure! 

As they left, a series of questions and comments came my way as we made use of waterbottles and hats as cones. 
"You've played with them the longest, what was that about?"
"Let them go, let's just play"
"Seriously, are they always like that?"
"I've never seen them that way, what's going on?"
"That was uncalled for"

I wasn't sure what to say.  No one really wanted the answer it didn't seem ("You've taken what they saw as fun and made it something they don't recognize without really including them in the changes."  "Why they are here doesn't mix with this well without first feeling like you respect who they see themselves as")

Yet, so often I feel like that's what I'm called to try to explain within my church and denomination.  Why does one side not see the world the way another side does on an issue or as we tend to camp together with like thoughts as a general worldview. 

Both sides didn't want to dialogue, they didn't want to work together, they wanted what they wanted and wanted it now because they both felt like they had the "right" answer and the "right" to dictate how things should be.  They wanted to poke holes in what the other side wanted and prove to them why they should change.  They didn't want to hear a different viewpoint and then find a way to move forward and find what would be what things "should" be for the good of all.  Yes, the good of all may have ended the same way, but really there was no desire to do so. 

So often this is exactly what I hear.  I work with a conservative Head of Staff who really wants to dialogue but gets defensive because he's been attacked so often.  I tweet regularly with people who consider themselves progressive and liberal who likewise take up defensive stances from the attacks they've suffered.  I can't blame either side for being defensive honestly from a cultural point of view, but I feel we're called to be counter cultural as the church.  So how do we begin to actually dialogue, discern, and live faithfully together into whatever the future will bring?  We're far from it, our current GA thus far seems to be pointing to a culture much like our Frisbee game.  Some are tired of fighting, some are very much standing their ground, some are stuck and unwilling or more likely unable to help anyone move forward.  Regardless of what you want for the church, we need to move against the culture of "us" vs "them" and show another way to struggle with things that are divisive and with worldviews that just do not match up. 

In Acts 10, Peter sees a vision of a sheet and it is filled with things that he correctly labels as unclean, yet God gives him a new way to interpret what he sees.  It is not a simple revelation, it is one we see many struggle with over time: "Do Not Call Common (Unclean) What God Has Purified."  I believe we all have sheets, some of them include people we disagree with, some include actions we find unforgivable, some include things we don't understand in others lives, but we all have a sheet.  We need to realize that God has created all of us in God's image and God is always working towards unknown ends.  That will always leave us with a certain uncertainty, and it is that uncertainty that we need to focus on.  We don't have the answers, we're just asked to struggle together towards that distant, hazy goal that is beyond all the stuff that we have to get through to get there.  Let us focus on struggling together, realizing we don't KNOW anything about what is going to happen or how it is going to happen and live at peace with the uncertainty of "What's Next" or even "What Now."  If we are able to do that we may have a chance to do discernment together and be something more than people fighting over how to play a game.

What makes a good neighbour?

“Which one of these was a neighbour to the man in need?” This question is the conclusion to Jesus' answer to another question “Who is my neighbour?” Note that Jesus doesn't answer the question asked, Jesus doesn't say “Those in need are your neighbor.” Jesus asks who acted as a neighbor, he really answers the question “Why be a neighbor?” with “Be a neighbor because you see ones in need.” Everyone is our neighbor in this world, it honestly may be the best term we can use for others. The Greek term used here literally means “the one nearby” and has the implication of “a person I know of.” We all know people in need, either specific people who we know by name, or people who we know exist even if we don't happen to see them everyday because of how our world is sometimes divided. We can all talk about places where there are struggles and people who are in need, and because of that we should call them neighbor.

One of the ministries we worked with this past summer was the Urban Ministry center in Charlotte. They call all who come to see them neighbors, and often over time by name. They care about the homeless who have need of medical care, food, clothing, shelter, help getting paperwork so that they can be employed, and just love from another person who has the ability to help. Our youth were touched by one of these neighbors, Gary. As Gary told his story, you could see the stories of others we had met over the week flood through the minds and hearts of our youth. They saw someone who they could help and could love, and made a decision that they weren't leaving without finding him again and giving him a gift. This isn't because it was the right thing to do, but because he was a neighbor. One in need.

It doesn't matter who our neighbors are, we will know them when we see them, because the Spirit that lives within us sees others spirits and feels their needs. This is God at work in this world, caring for others and fighting for justice. But more than that it is building a relationship and being that neighbor, a neighbor who doesn't separate from others, whose concern, like the Samaritan in scripture is for the “other” the “neighbor.” There are no walls, no rules, no laws, no expectations that keep him from being a neighbor. Likewise we must question the things that divide us, do they likewise keep us from seeing each other and our needs, from letting the Spirit of God act among us as it wishes, bringing all together in God's love. In The Mending Wall by Robert Frost we see a narrator who questions the walls that are built between neighbors, and a neighbor who seems to the narrator to walk in a sort of darkness, protecting self interest and not sharing love, even as he is unable to understand the need for such a divide and just clings to it because it's always been there. May we be ones who question the walls in our lives and in the world. Thus may we become the neighbors to all that we are called to be.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

Growing or Transforming

I will not forget the words of my late seminary professor Cecil, he would always say: "Your job as pastor is to take care of the church, and taking care of the church is assuring it's health and long life.  You do this by bringing in young families.  Those are the most important people to a church."  I thought then it was a bunch of bull, and I still do.  Yes, that is now, has been, and will probably continue to be the way to assure that the church goes on functioning for yet another generation, but it misses the importance of actually being church. 

The congregation I work with is undergoing a revisioning process, and it has been hard to stop the talk of "how do we grow the church" within that conversation.  I agree we shouldn't just focus on what our church is but on a picture of what it could become in this process, but really transforming the church is different than just growing the church.  Cecil is right, if you want to grow a church get focused on your youth, children, and families, but if you want to transform a church, then everyone is involved. 

I was talking with one of the children at the church recently and asked the question "What is church here for?"  Her answer: "To take care of those who can't take care of themselves."  Do to the nature of the conversation we didn't get much deeper than that, but it is true, we are here to be community, to carry one another in a way that is healing and creative.  We're not just here to bring other people in, we're here to be part of what goes out and changes the world.  We must then focus not on those who can help us, but on helping those who can't help themselves.  We are transformed by interacting, and I would hope that we're trying to be transformed into people with a larger vision.  That means discovering new things about God, the world around us, and ourselves through relational experiences. 

I took a group of youth this summer on their first mission trip.  I watched them put together thoughts about inequality, human rights, and God's plan for all creation in ways that I'd never heard before.  They connected with people, and then made bigger connections.  We so often miss this in our normal church lives.  We disconnect what we're up to in a building or through our programs from the bigger picture.  Yet I truly believe that the reason it is essential for us to gather together is so that we can be transformed by one another. 

This then extends to the church as a whole.  If the church is going to be transformed it has to truly interact with the world around it.  It can't be just a bubble with programs to draw in, it has to be a living moving creation that goes out and interacts with the world around it.  It has to take care of those who are part of it that can't take care of themselves in order to be able to take care of all.  It has to visit, it has to love, it has to be with the world,  walking with the world and hearing the issues, and then working to help those who hurt, who are unable to help themselves, just as Jesus did. 

We are the hands and feet of Christ.  If we believe this, believe ourselves to be God's body, we need to be about God's work.  Jesus did not worry about washing himself, he served and washed others.  It was not about how many people were following him, but about what he could do for those who did.  Jesus transformed the world by doing the work of God.  The children came to him not because he created an environment that was child friendly, but because children recognize true friendliness and are attracted to it naturally.  If we want our churches to be transformed, to continue to be relevant in generations to come, we must act as friends to the world.  We must go and do God's work, and trust that God's love and grace is truly as irresistible as we claim it to be.

Can one depart a relationship graciously?

I heard the term again today . . . Gracious Departure.  I can't tell you how uncomfortable that term makes me.  It's like a CIA coverup, let's work out a deal and then it'll be done and all go our separate ways.  Before you know it, it'll be like nothing ever happened.

For people that's BULL.  For churches that's BULL.  It is the nature of relationships that some end.  Many when they end, need to end, and when both parties recognize that it does become easier to move on.  Those in that situation though are few and far between, and even then division of shared identity is problematic.  This best case scenario then recognizes the irreversible change that we create on one another and the links created.  This does happen, but it's never quick and painless.

A truly gracious ending to a relationship though is more complicated and happens only 1 of 2 ways in my opinion:

1. A recognition that a relationship needs to end from 2 parties, with a full recognition of mutual connections and commitments, and an understanding of the continuation of these apart, leaving open the potential for forming a new relationship in the future.
2. A realization that a relationship is not, nor was it ever as both parties may have interpreted it, with an agreement to continue to work and define said relationship for what it is, not what either side thought it was.


Of course to read between the lines there, many would argue that neither is an actual departure from said relationship.  I would argue from a Human Communication viewpoint they are actual departures, just outside of what we view as the norm.

Yet, at this moment it seems though that this split that is happening within the PC(USA) is not amicable, much less gracious.  Both sides have put a claim on parts of the shared identity as solely belonging to them.  This means that we're not looking at a Gracious Departure, but a Violent Disassociation.  I've been here done this in the Baptist world, some churches there had packed their bags more than a decade earlier and were already out the door, just playing house with the denomination.  Their exit was expected, but they still thought that it would "prove a point."  It didn't.  Other churches still cling to some form of dual identity, but really have hacked off a leg or 2 in the process in order to feel comfortable with their decision.  The problem for these churches is they realized the bond that was already formed and didn't want to lose it, there was value in the relationship they had fought for, and they still wanted to be heard. . .on some things.  On the other issues, they'd take their ball and play elsewhere until their partner (SBC) made them take the rest of their stuff from the house as well.

I see both of these things happening in PC(USA).  The "Fellowship" group is seemingly trying to do the latter, while a number of churches are willing to just take the bags they packed and leave.  There though are many churches who haven't committed to either of these approaches, but feel the tugs of one or both.  It is for these that I fear the consequences of what we choose to do with the others in regards to a "Gracious Departure."

I will use a circumstance I know for an example.  I know 3 churches in an area who are all currently restless due to the passage of 10A.  They all have sessions that are "examining the options" or have examined them.  Given the right set of circumstances they may all take a chance at a "Gracious Departure."  The pastors and sessions have tired of fighting with the denomination.  So let's assume they agree to make a "Gracious Departure" would it really look like Grace?

Church 1 - Leads the Hispanic ministry in the area, without them this growing ministry collapses within the PC(USA) for the area.
Church 2 - Is more theologically diverse than their Session believes.  Their pastor is honestly struggling to work through issues he's having, but is committed to the denomination, if they leave his turmoil becomes worse.  The other staff member would quit immediately.  The church would lose people and probably go under in the resulting turmoil.
Church 3 - Again, an active church in community outreach, heads up many presbytery wide initiatives (school and clothing drives, education events, etc). 

Regardless of how both the church and denomination handled the departure of any of these churches it would be less than gracious because the connections are too deep.  Termination of these relationships couldn't be done cleanly and quietly. No relationship termination is without explosive collateral damage when disassociation is involved.

I admit that I do not desire for there to be a mass exodus of conservative congregations, I feel denominations are stronger and better able to grow faithfully when there is pushing and struggling together rather than moving to places of ideological agreement.  This also goes for efforts to name churches according to ideological stances on any certain issue (fellowship, more light, etc.) but as long as we don't use these tags to disassociate with one another, it would be a smaller price to pay in my opinion.  I do not believe that in all cases the fight should be to keep those who have been out the door for years, they're going to go anyway, but let's not encourage others to go that way because we're acting as we feel we've been acted towards.  I don't think this denomination would be stronger if the chopped off all that feel uncomfortable, don't fit.  To say that it would is as fundamentalist as one may claim those who now feel like leaving are.  This has been and will continue to be a complex journey of faith we take together.  This is not the end nor is it a beginning, it is just another moment in the journey and the journey together is what I think it is really all about.

So maybe there is a way still to redefine these existing relationships, maybe though there does need to be some sort of "break."  I don't know the answers, but I feel we're not doing enough to truly be a people where ALL are welcome when we're too willing to let the uncomfortable, the misfits walk (regardless of who these misfits are).  This is a hard issue for our church, just as it is when friends, lovers, or any other relationship becomes strained and difficult for a long time.  Let us journey together in God's grace.