When I ended my review of "Hunting Magic Eels" I wondered aloud if there might be a way to square Luther's explanation of the Lord's Prayer with Beck's insights about perception. Here is a first try, a hymn/prayer.
When I
told people that I was going to read Jordon Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life I received
a lot of strong responses. One group of
people were convinced I was about to have a near transcendent experience;
reading the book would forever mark my life as before Jordan Peterson and after,
this book is enlightenment itself. Another group of people were convinced
merely putting my eyes to the page would damn me. Some recommended only looking
at secondary sources about the book, it was so dangerous. People treated this
book like the One Ring from Lord of the Rings, filled with a strong, wicked, overwhelming
and corrupting power.
There was usually a caveat by the second
group; if you are going to read it, please write something up about it
so we don’t have to read it ourselves. So, consider me your Samwise; I’ll do
the heavy lifting and take you to Mount Doom, where you can cast the Ring into
the fire.
What He’s up to Intellectually
Peterson’s overriding concern is
totalitarian violence. He is exploring the question: How can we be human after
the Holocaust and the Khmer Rouge? He regularly points to the book The Gulag
Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as a cautionary tale of the type of
people and society we wish to avoid, and Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for
Meaning as a way out.
When giving his 12 pieces of
advice, Peterson turns to several thinkers and ideas on a consistent basis.
He is a Jungian psychologist, and
as such he relies heavily on Carl Jung, and with that, he describes human
experience using mythical archetypes, and when he interprets Christian scripture,
he does so in a Gnostic-like manner.
He also leans heavily on the idea that our
hind/reptilian brain is the main driver of human actions. For example, in the
opening chapter he traces most human behaviors to lobsters sorting themselves out
as winners and losers.
Finally, he has a propensity to cite
Nietzsche to diagnose a problem and Dostoyevsky to fix the problem. For
Peterson The Brother’s Karamazov can fix most of what ails the human
soul.
So, just to name what a typical
chapter feels like. 1. Here’s a self-help proposition along with a folksy
example from rural Canada or a description of a problem of one of Peterson’s
patients. 2. Here’s a reductionist description of human behavior, ignoring that
we are more complex than lizards. 3. Here is a Jungian archetype illustrated
with Disney or Marvel, and the Bible or Egyptian myth. 4. Here is a larger
social critique with a quote from Archipelago followed by Meaning.
5. Nietzsche problematizes things and Dostoyevsky fixes it. 6. Finally, he ends
with an expanded riff on the self-help proposition.
The Juicy Bits
I know,
some of you just want to read about Peterson being weird. So here you
go.
I was not ready for how Woo-Woo he
is. I mean, I went to the University of Oregon and have seen a thing or two… Dead
Heads protesting while silent and naked, their only form of communication
grunting, and shamen at the Country Fair, regularly commanding crowds to look
into the eyes of your neighbor and ask, “What gives you bliss?” until you fall
in love. But if Peterson started talking about his ideas to folk there, he
would be taken to a time-out tent. It’s the Jungian stuff, I get how it can be
moving, but not everything is part of our hero’s journey. If you want a feel of
the Woo-Woo aspect of Peterson’s writing, just read the “Coda” of the book,
where he reflects on what to write with his pen of light.
He
hates Elmo, with a passion.
He’s
delt with some mental health challenges. 1. He had a period where he
disassociated from himself and had an internal and external voice, one that
told the truth and the other that manipulated people for fun and profit. 2. He was
plagued with terrible violent and antisocial impulses at one point in his life
and had to learn to control them.
Peterson
is a Gnostic and some sort of Marcion (Marcion was a heretical Christian who believed
in two gods, a good God who sent Jesus and an evil God who created the world
and was faithful to the Jewish people)—ultimately it is the whole Jungian
project of shoehorning the Christian story into an archetype system.
He believes Christianity as
currently practiced is a pale shadow of an unrealized true form of the faith.
True Christianity, as he expresses it in at least one place, is a Christianity
that acknowledges that God is the Cruel Father but embraces Jesus, whose genius
is that he pretends God is the Kind Father, even while knowing God is not. Peterson
sums up the totality of Christianity in these words: “The Word that produces
order from chaos sacrifices everything, even itself, to God.”
To be clear, the God who was
faithful to the Jews and the God found in Jesus are one in the same God. For
that matter, God is not a cruel father; we call God Father because it gives us boldness
and confidence that God loves us. The good news of Jesus Christ is not wishful
thinking or gaslighting. Peterson’s false description of God should be a big
deal to at least some of his readers!
The 12 rules
ONE: Stand up straight with your shoulders back
Sensible:
Embody self-confidence. Know that
conflict can be necessary. Get enough sleep and eat a nutritious breakfast.
He lost me:
Hierarchy is fused to our being on
a DNA/biological level. Any attempt at creating equality is unhinged and
dangerous. Whatever system exists there will be winners and losers, so embody
being a winner.
TWO: Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for
helping
Sensible:
Care for yourself. As a parent you
should want your child to grow up. Recognize that everyone struggles. Be aware
of your worst impulses and aim yourself elsewhere.
He lost me:
“Heaven is built, immortality is
earned.” I know this is a self-help book, so doing things is of primary
importance, and this phrase sounds uplifting, but it is worth stating that in
the Christian tradition immortality is unearned and heaven comes about on its
own without our building of it (in fact, that is kinda the point of Genesis chapter
11). Jordan Peterson’s way of viewing the world leaves no room for grace.
THREE: Make friends with people who want the best for you
Sensible:
Friends should
want what is good for you. Find people who support you.
Codependency is
a thing! Don’t try to rescue people who don’t want to be rescued.
Groups are often
shaped by their weakest link.
He lost me:
“Not everyone who is failing is a
victim.” Only those who really are in need should be helped.
FOUR: Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not who
someone else is today
Sensible:
Winning
at everything is impossible, so try out multiple activities. Know that winning
isn’t what’s going to make you happy, but aiming for the goal of winning, that is
what makes you happy.
Our goals determine what we notice
in life. Sometimes, if you are unhappy, just changing your goals can make a big
difference. Even a goal of “I want things to be better” can be a good goal; it
is the start of a journey and may help you perceive a way out of unhappiness.
He lost me:
The odd
Marcionism I described above. Jesus pretends God is good, but actually God
isn’t, and it is our actions that are good. Describing God as evil should be
a big deal.
FIVE: Do not let your children do anything that makes you
dislike them
Sensible:
Saying
no to children gives them boundaries within which they can explore. Addressing
issues, even small ones, is worth it, after all they can take up a lot of your
time. A parent’s goal should not be to be their child’s friend.
Parents should give children a
limited set of rules and enforce them using the least amount of force that will
get the desired result. Also, it is good to parent with at least one another
adult, as parents can get tired and frustrated, which can lead to bad parenting.
There should be a second responsible person who can step in when fatigue sets
in.
He lost me:
Social harm
experienced by minorities are really just private troubles. As such, altering
society for the sake of difference is detestable, as it can lead to revolution,
which is the gravest of dangers.
SIX: Set your house in perfect order before you criticize
the world
Sensible:
Before
you criticize others, fix yourself.
When your conscience tells you that
something you are doing is wrong, stop doing it. That might even set you on a
trajectory toward doing good things.
He lost me:
If you
really think about it, manifestos by school shooters and those of environmental
activists are both anti-human. In some ways, the shooters follow through more
logically than the environmentalists.
SEVEN: Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient)
Sensible:
Perhaps
sacrifices to gods are really enacting delayed gratification, the idea that
fate can be bargained with.
He lost me:
The
future is a Judgmental Father and Socrates “took his poison like a man.”
Experiencing vulnerability will
lead to a desire to torment other people.
EIGHT: Tell the truth—or, at least, don’t lie
Sensible:
Having
boundaries can be healthy. It is important to know yourself well and live
authentically. Lies build upon one another, and are unmasked during a crisis,
usually making the crisis worse.
He lost me:
Tailoring
a message for an audience is always a manipulative and political act.
NINE: Assume that the person you are listening to might
know something you don’t
Sensible:
Learn
how to listen. Develop active listening skills. The best way to ensure that
you’ve listened to someone else is to summarize what they’ve said and make sure
you got it right.
There are a variety of types of
conversations you’ll run into, they have different purposes.
He lost me:
Peterson’s
example of listening well is listening to a patient who thinks she’s been raped
multiple times and deciding that she’s just such a nothing person that she
hardly has a self with which to consenting to sex.
TEN: Be precise in your speech
Sensible:
Notice
and name an issue as early as possible, so it doesn’t get out of control and becomes
the proverbial elephant in the room.
He lost me:
You get
the impression that Peterson takes this advice much further than a reasonable
person would.
ELEVEN: Do not bother children when they are
skateboarding
Sensible:
When
confronted with an undesirable behavior, it is a good idea to start with the
assumption that the person is acting that way out of ignorance not malevolence.
When mastering a skill, the goal
shouldn’t always be safety, but competence; competency can lead to safety.
A well-run society should offer
multiple ways to win, as there are multiple types of people.
We should seek to make our children
independent adults.
He lost me:
This
chapter! Oh my gosh, Peterson just goes off into irrational frothing mode!
On the Left:
Labor activists don’t care about
justice, they just hate the rich. Universities are political operations that
advocate the demolition of the culture that supports them.
Derrida is a Marxist, he just critiqued
power instead of capital. The Khmer Rouge is Marxist. The Khmer Rouge committed
mass murder. Therefore, Derrida is responsible for mass murder.
Peterson offers an alternative
theory to Marx and Derrida about how society works. He does not think capital
or power shape hierarchy. Instead, competency shapes hierarchy. So, all the
winners in society are highly competent people, it doesn’t have to do with
inherited wealth or finding an unjust role from which they can exert power.
They’re just more competent people than the losers.
On Women:
Girls like winners. Women do not
want a spouse who would be dependent on them. Instead, women want someone to
struggle against them. Educated women will be alone and ultimately will yearn
for bad boys.
On Men:
Man-code
can be summed up using one famous phrase, “Don’t be a girlie man.” No matter
what, don’t be dependent on anyone else.
If society makes men compassionate,
they will seek reciprocity, which inevitably leads to resentment. Ultimately,
such men will be either naïve or whiny. Trump and fascist movements in Europe
arise because society has made a virtue of being soft and harmless. Men demand
toughness.
TWELVE: Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street
Sensible:
Limitation is what allows each of
us to be who we are and gives us our story. We ought to be thankful and
observant, noticing the unique good in our life in the face of fragility and a
limited world.
Conclusions:
I
imagine the folk who expected me to have a revelation reading this book will
feel I didn’t express Peterson’s thoughts with enough nuance, while those who blanch
at the book’s existence will be shocked that he does, in fact, engage
with some deep thinkers and draws from a particular intellectual tradition.
Peterson’s
formulaic fusion of Jung, Frankl, Dostoyevsky and all the rest is compelling.
It kept making me think about one of the unnamed big questions of junior high
and high school humanities curricula for my generation—how do you read poetry/interpret
history/live, after Auschwitz? Instead of leaving young people with a question
mark, Peterson gives them a bold exclamation mark. For some, I bet, it feels
like a capstone to that rather disturbing question.
I can
imagine myself in junior high, or again my freshman year of college, or maybe
even the first three years of ministry, those alienating years with more
questions than answers, grasping onto this book as a lifeline. Not because it
was right, but because it offered clarity.
I also
have to name the elephant in the room, Rule 10. Peterson’s own mental health
challenges very clearly color his rules. He struggled with self-control:
control of his violence and control of the stories he tells others. Even as he
gives general rules for everyone, the advice that gets repeated no matter the
particular rule he’s focused on, tends to be about corralling violence and
encouraging truth telling.
A good
bit of Peterson’s advice are life skills that should be shared with people:
Self-care, goal setting, delayed gratification, making friends, the art of
conversation, and how to listen… and yet, that last one sours the whole
batch—his example of active listening was pathologizing a potential rape victim,
it just makes the whole thing untenable.
And that
kind of thing is weaved through every chapter: lauding the status quo, essentializing
hierarchy, subtly and then not so subtly transforming responsibility into self-aggrandizement,
and a screech of grievance that feels simultaneously primal and petty.
To return to the Lord of the Rings metaphor,
as Samwise, it is my duty to warn you that Peterson is Smeagol/Gollum. The
tension within his character is palpable and infuses his rules with irredeemable
elements. As such, it is, ultimately, Smeagol himself who causes the Ring to be
destroyed.
pristine things untouched by the world in which they were written. Quite the contrary, Scripture is always compiled in a context.
The early Christian scriptures, the Greek New Testament, were written in large part in response to the destruction of the 2nd temple in 70 at the hands of the Romans and the dispersion of the faithful out across the empire. Out of distress—Gospel.
Similarly, the Hebrew Scriptures were formed during the Exile some 650 years before the New Testament —the time after Jerusalem was burnt, the temple sacked, the King and his sons all killed, everyone who could read or write in Judean Society kidnapped and taken away to Babylon.
Off in Babylon these people tried to write themselves into freedom… the priests codified the Torah, the Prophets collected their writings that stood the test of time, the Court Wisemen penned Proverbs and the Musicians scored the Psalms in a final form.
And the Historians… (these historians we’ll be looking at for the next 3 weeks) They compiled a series of Holy Histories looking back at the way of life the Babylonians had eradicated —The King and his Prophets, the Priests and their Temple.
And they grasped at some profound questions:
-How did we get here?
-What were things like before our system exploded? -What was it like before that system existed?
-What was it like to live at a hinge of history—between one way of life and another? Because what we’re doing here in Babylon seems just as important!
With the hindsight of history, what should we be looking for, now?
Prayer
How did we get here?
There was a strange way of being a people, before the monarchy. 12 tribes loosely allied with one another from Dan and Asher in the North, and Judah and Simeon in the South.
They had a pattern (which you can find reading the book of Judges) of struggling as small separate tribes in a crisis, God calling forth a Judge: A charismatic leader, who united the tribes, and then when the crisis was dealt with, they all returned to a decentralized, Tribal, norm. Some people describe this as a Kin-dom instead of a Kingdom.
By no means was this a good system of government —just read Judges —but it was a system that trusted on God for deliverance.
Then along came a Judge named Eli, who had corrupt sons; sons who tried to take over his Judgeship from him, as if they were princes inheriting a Kingdom… and God thwarted their plan by sending Samuel as Judge, in place of them.
And then, as we read today, Samuel’s sons too were corrupt, accepting bribes and embracing injustice, seeming to inherit Samuel’s position, as if they were princes.
And to this, the people say, “Give us a King!”
You can hear the logic of it, if Judgeship is already an inherited position akin to Kingship —they let’s do it right, let’s be a people in the same way as our neighbors! It’ll be stable, we’ll know who governs us,
we’ll know who is going to ride out to fight our battles for us.
In their fear, or valid attempt to keep Samuel’s sons from the throne, the elders of Israel break with their decentralized, tribal, way of life.
Instead of waiting for God to topple Samuel’s sons, trusting that God would act as he did with Eli’s sons before them… They instead embrace a centralized powerful figure as their sovereign. A decision with lasting consequences —conscription of sons, taking of daughters, requisitioning of property and people —all that.
But more importantly, the one who governs them, the one who fights their battles —will no longer be God.
God will no longer be the one who travels with them through the desert, but will be confined to a temple in Jerusalem.
God’s prophets will no longer wander the highways and byways of the land whimsically popping up as unexpected and powerful ways, but will serve at court.
Never again shall God call forth a Judge for the people.
“How did we get here?” Wonders the Holy Historians. “Was it rotten from the beginning? Were we chosen kidnapped few, the elites sequestered in Babylon, supposed to ever exist? Or are we an appendage of an institution God that never wanted our people to embrace?
With the hindsight of history, what should we be looking for now? How can we be faithful in a strange land, off in Babylon?” Asked those Holy Historians.
Our ancestors were looking for surety and sameness, instead of the uncomfortable strangeness of the Holy.
Their fear overcame their ability to trust in God.
Perhaps we ought to trust God goes with us, even now, even here.
Perhaps we ought to make peace with being different, embrace the plain truth that holiness means sticking out, being a little weird.
That holy wrestling with the past, naming more clearly how we got here, even when it stings, or uncovers where we’ve fallen short. That is not a task for holy historians alone.
How did we get here? What was there before the loss, before everything exploded? In hindsight what should we be looking for now? How is God at work in our midst now?
These are questions worthy of any nation, or denomination, or congregation, or family, or individual.
As any longtime reader of this blog
knows I believe Christians need to do ministry in a way that takes into account
the 3Ds: Disestablishment, Decentralization, and Demographic Shift. I’ve been pointing
to this reality now for about 10 years, and
recently pointed to this dynamic in my Lenten Devotional.
I bring all this up because I think
there is a fourth D, Disenchantment. The book that recently convinced me of
this is Hunting
Magic Eels by Richard Beck. This book essentially popularizes Andrew Root’s
work on the
Church and Secularism, which is an application of Charles Taylor’s “A
Secular Age” to the life of the Church. What follows are some of Beck’s big
ideas:
Perception:
Citing the famous Selective Attention Test in which most people will literally miss the gorilla in the room if you tell them to focus on a moving ball, Beck affirms that what we seek is what we see. In this context, most folk don’t see God at work in the world, because we’re not looking for it. The narratives and habits of our secular society focus our attention elsewhere. And this makes belief unbelievable. Belief needs to be connected to some sort of experience, it needs to correspond to actual reality, otherwise it is a series of unproven propositions.
Beck
proposes that “Enchantment thrives when it is made visible.” That religious
beauty captures the attention. Icons, crosses, sacraments, are all visual
nudges that allow us to notice the gorilla in the room. These types of things
that retrain our perception Beck calls Enchantments.
The Reformation & the Enlightenment:
Beck argues that the present disenchanted way
of looking at the world, the secular focus, comes from two sources, the
Enlightenment and the Reformation.
The
Reformation was in some ways a religious parallel to the Renaissance, a return
to classical sources, including original languages, to determine meaning of
texts, namely the Bible, over and against relying on traditions and authority. Out
of this impulse, multiple reforms to the Roman Catholic Church were attempted,
and gave birth to a variety of Protestant Churches. Beck argues that the
Protestant Reformation shifted the focus of Christianity from the mystical
to the moral. Religion is now about one’s individual conscience (for
example Luther’s famed “I can not go against my conscience; here I stand, I can
do no other”) and being a good person, instead of continually engaging with enchantment.
The Enlightenment
was an intellectual movement and period of time where European thinkers responded
to the religious wars in Europe by turning from religion towards rationalism
and observation. The important thing Beck takes from this is that we still have
an enlightenment era fixation of that which can be scientifically measured,
to the detriment of our ability to focus on sacred meaning. Consequently,
goals and values are now seen as subjective things, instead of objective ones.
As a
student of the Enlightenment (My History degree focused on Voltaire and
Rousseau, two founding thinkers of the Enlightenment) and formed within one of
the traditions of the Reformation (I am Lutheran and have a Master of Divinity
from a Lutheran Seminary) I think Beck gave a fairly flat, not to mention a
little warped, reading of both eras, but he wasn’t looking to give a history
report, instead he was nodding at the origin of relevant things in the present.
A few things to tease out from his
assessment:
The Reformation shift from the
mystical to the moral means that if Christianity isn’t producing good people,
or if there is a better way to produce good people, it isn’t true.
Also, if the only things that
matter are measurable and we’ve determined that goals and values are subjective,
then the stuff of faith are simply matters of taste and determined by
whim.
Absent enchantment, all religion
boils down to a battery to power other things, be it a justification for a
moral vision or shibboleths for a political movement or the glue that holds an
ethnic group together. Humans become the only actors on the stage of life, God
is at best an object.
The best we can hope for, for
people living in a disenchanter world, Beck says, is that they notice the
absence of God and ache for God. “Notice the ache for God; if you can’t
believe in God, at least desire God.”
Enchantment:
Beck
laments the loss of enchanted: time—namely sabbath and feast days, space—places for pilgrimage, Churches that are religiously beautiful as
well as function as places to preach the word, sacraments, and thin places, people—saints.
If we have no models of holiness, no place to experience the strangeness of
God, and we don’t have time to contemplate the goodness of the world around us,
no wonder we have a hard time believing holiness exists! A disenchanted church
can offer nothing more than abstract ideas.
As an
analogy for what disenchantment has been doing to western society Beck points
to the experience of retirement; retirement often leads to a deep loss
of identity and meaning. People often drift after retirement. Retirement is a
radical reordering of time (when do you have to get up for work, weekends have
a different meaning), space (work is no longer a place you go), and people (a
bunch of people are no longer your fellow employees, that relationship I gone).
The disenchantment of the world feels like a collective retirement from God.
4 Styles of Enchantment:
As a way
to re-invest our attention, so that we can again see the sacred, Beck offers
four examples of Enchanted Christianity.
Liturgical Enchantment: Much of this style of
enchantment comes from Beck’s experience of Roman Catholicism (he was the lone
protestant in his Catholic grade school). Marking time with a liturgical
calendar re-enchants time, the sacraments make matter matter, and
there is an artistic beauty to Catholic Churches that reaches beyond the
glorified auditorium that Beck experienced as Protestant sanctuaries.
Contemplative Enchantment: Contemplative Christianity
tries to live ordinary life, but aware of the presence of God, or to say it
another way, it seeks to find the presence of God in the world as it is. Habits
can either enchant or disenchant the world, so contemplatives practice the
later. For example, using the Ignatian Examine, or naming “Roses and Thorns”
from the day, to reflect on where God was at work that day; another holy
habit is to pray before taking an action, be it small or large.
Charismatic Enchantment: The third type of
enchantment Beck points to is found in the Charismatic and/or Pentecostal movement
of Christianity. The focus of this type of enchantment understands faith as a romance,
refusing to amputate the heart during worship. There is an assumption that God
is going to act. When God is the main actor it leaves humans in a posture of receptivity—waiting
for God, encourages a hermeneutic of gratitude—wow, God continually is doing
good things in my life, and leads practitioners to testify—hey everyone,
this is what God has done for me!
Celtic Enchantment: The final place Beck goes for enchantment
is the sort of Christianity that flourished in the British Isles from 430-870CE,
Celtic Christianity. He points to reverence toward “Thin Places”—where heaven
and earth seem to be closer to one another, the practice of Holy Poetry,
a particular fusion of fasting and hard work, and an emphasis on Sacred
Friendships, as all unique enchantments offered by Celtic Christianity.
How might we Reenchant our world?:
Richard
Beck’s book planted many seeds in my soul and mind. Here are a few things that
have started to sprout.
1.When engaging with the secular world we need to be
careful never to offer the faith as a battery for this cause or that.
2.We ought to
be bolder in naming the ache, both for ourselves and when we are sharing our
faith with others.
3.Holy time can capture the imagination. Sabbath
is a time good for nothing, celebrating particular saints opens up past ways of
being faithful, and marking time with the Christian calendar places our life in
the rhythm of the story of God we confess with our lips.
4.Closing a day reflecting on highs and lows
(roses and thorns) and reflection on what God might have been up to is surely a
wholesome practice.
5.Breaking down some of the charismatic ways of
being Christian to their essence: Pathos and sharing the faith, feels a lot
more faithful and accessible than the essentials many practicing Charismatic
Christians I’ve met focus on.
6.There was something especially beautiful about the
Celtic idea of Holy Friendship. In a society with an epidemic of loneliness,
truly this is good news!
A Lutheran Enchantment?:
One final thought, in Luther’s explanation
of the Lord’s Prayer he describes the first four petitions, parts of the
prayer, as being about our perception of God’s work in the world.
-God’s name is Holy, we pray so that it may be holy
in and among us.
-God’s kingdom comes, we pray that it comes to us.
-God’s will is done, we ask that it comes to and
among us.
-Everyone receives daily bread, we ask that we might
recognize it.
Luther too,
in a way, is teaching us to notice: notice Holiness in our engagement with
scripture and the way we live our life, notice God’s kingdom in our way of
trusting, notice God’s will when we are kept steadfast in the faith in the face
of other powers, notice all that makes this world good and very good and giving
thanks for it.
I think
there is something more to this last point, maybe a uniquely Lutheran contemplative
prayer, a new framing of Luther’s explanation of the Lord’s Prayer?
I bragged on my congregation in the above video; that in a 20-month
period we had 112 God Conversations. Friends, colleagues and people on the
internet wanted to know more, particularly what we did and how.
First off, I need to acknowledge this wasn’t my idea; when
the ELCA announced our goal
to “Share the story of Jesus and the ELCA by engaging with 1 million new
people as we grow the church together” there was a webinar for pastors that
offered this marble exercise as a way to do this.
Two
clear pretty containers—Make sure the containers can hold all 112 marbles.
Place them in a noticeable place in the sanctuary. During the week congregants
tell the Pastor or worship leader when they have a God conversation. Then on a
Sunday (in our case as part of the Children’s Message) the marbles are moved
from one container to the other. Seeing that progress is really exciting! It
points to the faith we practice in worship being lived out in the world.
The Challenge
I have to admit I was pretty open ended with how I
challenged my congregation, perhaps even too much so.
At based, I encouraged my congregation to notice and have
God conversations with their neighbors and tell me about them—or at least that
they had them. Then as a part of the Children’s Sermon I reported any God
conversations in the last week to my people by counting together the number of
marbles moved into the second container.
My challenge included the word notice, because folk are
often having God conversations with their neighbors, but they don’t realize it,
and by not realizing it they miss out that the Holy Spirit was at work. So much
of the God Conversation Challenge was really an exercise in noticing, seeing how
we speak and listen in Christ for our neighbors. We regularly have
conversations with people about their values and goals, their fears and hopes—those
are God conversations!
On one hand, I did strongly encourage folk to talk about God,
tell their stories, testifying to God’s work in Jesus Christ, confess their
faith. After all, “Lutheran Laryngitis” the observation that the average
Lutherans shares something about their faith once every 23 years, is a tragedy.
We’re ceding the Gospel to folk who are more outspoken about their faith, and
often times misrepresent Christianity in ways that are anti-evangelical;
instead of Christ’s message being good news, they offer bad news! The Lutheran
understanding of the Gospel is freeing, why wouldn’t we share it?
On the other hand, I took a cue from Bonhoeffer:
“Many people are
looking for an ear that will listen. They do not find it among Christians,
because these Christians are talking where they should be listening. But he who
can no longer listen to his brother will soon be no longer listening to God
either; he will be doing nothing but prattle in the presence of God too.”
We have two ears and one mouth for a reason. Part of this
exercise was to listen, really listen, to what folk are saying about God’s work
in the world, about, as I said above, their fears and goals, their hopes and what
they value most.
Additionally, we were listening to language, learning to
speak in the vernacular of our neighborhood. What does God talk look like in
the 08826 zip code?
Finally, we listened because the Book of Acts continually
attests to something amazing; the Spirit goes out ahead of the Church. God is
already at work among our neighbors, and sometimes the best thing we can do as
a congregation and a Church is pitch in, catch up to God’s actions. Perhaps,
because of what we know about the God revealed in Jesus Christ’s life, death
and resurrection, we can be helpful discerners and interpreters; we can point
and say to folk already experiencing the Spirit, “Wow! Did you see it? God is
doing something here!”
Results
It took 20 months.
Early on having God Conversations felt inauthentic, or at
least uncomfortable.
There were worrying dry spells when marbles didn’t move for
months at a time.
Several people were shocked by how prevalent neo-Paganism is
in our area.
Folk had the opportunity to listen to what extended family
members thought about forgiveness.
People helped friends wrestle questions about healing and
hospice and what ought to be prayed for.
By the end, people were noticing these deeper conversations
when they occurred; we began to come to worship anticipating that at least one
person would report a God Conversation each week.
When the last marble moved, there was a sense of
accomplishment, also some people worried that their God Conversations wouldn’t “count”
going forward.
There are a lot of places to put your energy at in ministry,
I would say having 112 God Conversations and marking them with marble movement
is a worthwhile investment.
When we read the letters of John, or the Gospel of John for that matter —there is a different tenor to it—a different accent, when compared to the rest of the New Testament.
John’s Letters return again and again to a theme, circling around the point again and again like a merry-go-round —it’s a dizzying thing, like a tilt-a-whirl, returning again and again to a few key points. Like a cat or dog circling around and around their bed, until they find a comfy position upon which to rest.
And, when you untangle 1st John chapter three’s winding words, you find a very important, and very basic, message: God’s Children, Love, Boldly!
Prayer
God’s Children Love Boldly.
God’s Children Love Boldly. We are God’s Children!
Ours is not a God far off! God is not unsympathetic to our being, or unaware of our doings. No!
Nothing can separate us from God!
God is closer to us than breathe, or heartbeat, or the hairs on our head.
Jesus Christ is the invisible God made visible —we don’t need to speculate or make up a god of our own minds, there he is in the flesh! The Word made Flesh, the Logos in the flesh, the Blueprint of Creation before us —wow! He’s our Brother! Do you not know, the Resurrected Lord is seen in us!
The Father abides with you. You are born of God! You are in relationship with the living God through Jesus. You have an Advocate—the Spirit of God, right there at your side!
Didn’t you know they had to create a new word when they translated scripture into English —At-One-Ment —every breach bridged, every wrong being righted through Jesus Christ. Our identity is our Baptism, brows wet with our adoption into God’s family.
God’s Children Love Boldly. Love!
God’s Children don’t hate. God’s Children aren’t indifferent! God’s Children are not mean! No! Those who hate abide with the Devil! Those with hate in their hearts are murderers!
Love does not stop with words or emotional flutter! Love is the embodiment of the Gospel —as Francis of Assisi was supposed to have said, “Preach the Gospel, use words if necessary.” Have you not heard, “they will know that we are Christians by our love.”
Love like Jesus! Love in a Maundy Thursday kind of way! A last supper kind of way! A washing the disciples feet kind of way! A giving them a new commandment kind of way! Stripped, kneeling as a servant. A love enacted, a love that is concrete, a love that is sacrificial, a love that is generous!
Sometimes people tell me that I preach a weak Gospel —just love all the time. “Real Christians,” they say, “add something more to make it harder —a more muscular kind of Christianity.”
I don’t think these folk have the first clue about Love! To love, when it is hard, as well as when it is easy, that takes real muscles! Ongoing sustained love! That’s the only commandment Christ gave, and it is enough!
God’s Children Love Boldly. Bold!
Christian love is not timid or guilty. Nor does it fear, or counts the costs. No! For shame would stifle the Spirit’s work, we just don’t have time for it! Love is not afraid of loss —for in Christ all is gain!
In Christ the hidden is revealed, the empty is filled, the dead are raised!
Once Philip Melanchthon, the Robin to Luther’s Batman —Melanchthon, was worried about what to do at the congregation he served, he had a serious choice to make, and he desperately didn’t want to get it wrong… he was stuck in analysis paralysis, and asked Luther’s advice, and Luther responded, “Sin boldly!” “Sin boldly, but trust that Christ is bolder still, rejoice, for Christ is victorious over sin, death, and the world.”
Be of good courage! Make mistakes, because that means you’re alive! It means we’re stumbling forward! Fail forward, in love! If your choice is between loving imperfectly, or not loving at all —make the mistake!
After all, you can be reassured, it is never a mistake to love!
God’s Children Love Boldly.
God’s Children Love —that’s no small statement, in fact, many who claim the title, Child of God, in the public sphere, are observed to be anything but loving. Yet, if your noun is Child of God, your verb will be Love!
They Love boldly. Love is a big word —or at least should be. Love is not a small or sentimental thing, but concrete and extravagant! The experience of loving and being loved —it is out of this world! Love can be risky, dangerous, necessary!
This Boldness comes from beingChildren of God —because we are grounded and rooted in the Love that we ourselves first experienced —the concrete awe-inspiring Love of our Father expressed by our Brother Jesus. Be confident not in your work, but that God works in you.
James: It wasn’t solely my idea, you wanted to ask too. You
wanted it as much as I did.
John: Yes, I guess I
did. To be at his right hand and his left. To rule, to reign, with him. To be
his cup bearer—secretary of state or VP of Miracles.
James: It was why we became Apostles. Why we wandered with
him for three years. At times we thought of it like it was a junior management
training program. That’s what being a disciple was.
John: I never put it that way.
James: *Side Eyes*
John: Okay. Maybe I did… we did.
James: How could we have known what was in store for him?
How he both disappointed and surpassed every expectation. We all got it wrong,
what Jesus was up to. Remember how Judas and Simon both thought they’d joined
the Jesus insurrection?
John: That was how the Romans eventually saw it.
-
James (sadly): That’s who the crowd chose—instead of him—the
Insurrectionist Bar-Abbas.
John: And how they killed him.
James: A cross.
John: A cross, the tree of traitors.
James: Dead beside two criminals… criminals, not us, at his
right and at his left.
John: That wasn’t just.
James: That wasn’t great.
John: That’s what we were asking for, though. How’d we not
hear it? To be crucified with him. We just didn’t know that’s what we were
asking for. Thomas was the only one who saw that coming…
James: Lot of good that did him. He was just like the rest
of us when it happened. He didn’t handle it when it happened. Jesus crucified
with the criminals.
John: Drinking the last drop of the cup offered to him by
his father, even sour vinegar. A strange kind of cup bearer for a strange kind
of king.
James: If we’d been crucified with him… That would have been
an honor—in retrospect of course—we now know it, though then we didn’t—instead
we ran… only the women saw the whole thing… us guys all left.
John: The guys.
James: Yeah. The twelve.
-
John: The twelve… or rather the other 10… were shocked by
our request.
James: Yeah they were. “Just great!” they said, “Those
sons of thunder, making noise again, trying to get ahead of us all again.”
John: But he explained what we were… what we should…
should have been asking for. It wasn’t about getting to the front of the line but
about greater acts of service.
-
James: We were right to ask, in so far as we weren’t looking
for recognition or to be little tyrants.
John: Not to be served, but to serve.
James: The only kind of greatness that matters, is Kingdom
of God Greatness. Service is great!
John: Goodness is great. Humility, washing feet of friends,
seeking the least, the last, and the lost; that is great.
James: Justice… just greatness, that’s what we should
have asked for. A chance to serve, to love, to care. He re-defined it for us.
Greatness.
John: All of us. Everyone who follows Jesus must at least
know that. What greatness is, the greatness of Jesus Christ.
But how many people participated? As near as I can tell from
the statistics blogger gives me, approximately 30 people followed along every
day. The bulk of the people came from the USA, but there were also regulars
from the UK, Ireland, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Sweden. Additionally, I had occasional
readers from Australia, Canada, India, Germany, Japan, and Poland.
Alleluia. Christ is risen!Christ is Risen Indeed! Alleluia! (2x)
…Was not the triumphant cry of the women at the tomb, that first Easter. No, instead they ran away, seized by terror and amazement —they said nothing —for they were afraid.
There is a reason the earliest church added extra verses to Mark’s Gospel later on. There is a reason Matthew, Luke, and John all re-told Mark’s terse verses. It is an unsettling ending, abrupt and anxiety producing —not so much a Resurrection Appearance, but a Resurrection Absence, then silence.
Mark’s ending is, as Rev. Dr. David Lose describes it, “a resurrection scene without Jesus, that ends in failure.” And yet, beloved in Christ —it is very much good news!
Let us pray.
These women are the last link between Jesus’ joyous ministry in Galilee and the fierce horror and finality of Good Friday —they were with him back home and at the cross, and now, the women come early Easter Morning, intent on doing right by Jesus’ body. But this final act of devotion, becomes a moment of panic.
Fear… terror, grip them. They are overawed by this news. “He has been raised, death does not have the last word!” He’s waiting for you in Galilee! The Risen One!
Two things Mark’s Gospel is known for are: -the short, shorn even, Resurrection appearance… or absence rather… -and the Markean secret —that whenever someone stumbles upon Jesus’ identity as Anointed Lord, Son of God, Holy One —he commands them to, “Tell No One!” Don’t even consider it at all, until you’re on the other side of the story… and now we are!
Imagine it! The women’s aha!-confession! He is the risen oneof God! —we need to go back and see! Back to Galilee to honestly know him! Return to the Gospel again!
God raised from the dead the one who was flooded by the Spirit in Baptism, called to do a new thing, to be the reign of God for a chaotic and death oppressed world!
He is raised! The Son of God and Son of Man. The one whose ministry of teaching, healing, and confronting all the forces that defy God and damage relationship, pointed to a new and better way of life.
He is raised! A gentle humble man who in deed and word announced the Kingdom of God; Getting Justice not as the world wills it —he does not ride a war horse, but a donkey (and the Donkey… Makes all the Difference) the righting of wrongs by wooing the world to a life of devotion, intense moral awareness, and compelling witness to God!
He is raised! The one who planted parables like seeds, and himself was a seed —his suffering, rejection, and rising from the dead, a seed planted and sprouted —fruit coming in full!
He is raised! At the empty tomb Jesus is revealed, the cross IS God’s way in the world!
At the empty tomb, these women are possessed by alarm and terror —how could you not be struck? seized by the enormity of the scene before you! And the young man says what angels always say, “Be not afraid!” Be possessed not by fear, but by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, for he goes on ahead of you to Galilee —Go to Galilee! Go! Follow him!
Follow him! Dear Christians, follow him! Our faith is not a hobby, or product to be sold, but a life of following the one who is making the whole world right!
Follow him! Christ into whom you are Baptized —that is an ongoing call to the four Rs —A life of Repentance (Continually crawling back to the font as we Lutherans are fond of saying), and living in a way that honors Christ in all of our roles, relationships, and responsibilities.
Follow him! By pointing to him, speaking about him, preaching Christ crucified and raised! After all, that’s what Mark is saying with his slim ending: The fear and silence of the tomb is a space for you to finish the story —break your silence, for you are empowered by Jesus to do so! Go and tell!
Follow him! Be a seed of the kingdom, a repairer of relationships, practice gentle justice, live a life beyond death! Ours is not simply a grand encounter with God —but a calling and a journey! Follow him!
They followed him all the way —from beginning to end, to a new beginning, these women. There at the tomb, shocked by all that has occurred, astonished that the rock is rolled away, alarmed by an empty tomb and angelic encounter, amazed by the news of the resurrection —a future is possible! It doesn’t seem like it, but it is, there is reason to hope —you will see him again! Look, not where they laid him, but where he promised he’d be —ahead of you in Galilee, “There you will see him!”
They are amazed —(Ekstasis)… ecstatic, literally thrown out of themselves, or as authorities on the Greek much more accomplished than I, interpret, they are now “standing in a different place.”
They faced the cross and tomb —and they’re still there—those instruments of death, but the women are now in a different place.
They’ve been invited deeper into the mystery that we call Easter. They found themselves at the base of failure, only to discover that “the Gospel does its work in the midst of failure!” The Gospel is with us in our rock bottoms, Jesus is buried with us there, Jesus rises with us there! The stone rolls away there!
There are all kinds of places folk find themselves in life, a literal ABC of awful, and yet you need to know there is hope there! —Uncontrollable Anger, Addiction, abandoned by community, there is hope there! Bedridden or behind in school, there is hope! Cancer or Covid there is hope! Unexpected diagnoses, physical decline, divorce, distance from loved ones, dissension and disagreements in families, yet there is hope there!
Missing those who’ve died, mental illnesses of all sorts, malaise, still there is hope.
All of it, life can be hard. And yet, Christ is there, buried with us. All of it, a reality even as the resurrection transforms it, spits us out in a different heart and head space, there is a different sense of gravity on the other side —there is hope on the other side. Hope in this new place, outside the tomb, standing present with the absence of the risen Lord.
There they stand, in the midst of “a resurrection scene without Jesus, that ends in failure.” There the women appraise afresh the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Wow! He is the Risen One of God!
There the women continue to follow our Lord, wherever he may go, even beyond death.
There the women are thrown out of themselves and land in a world where hope is again possible.
There, at that tomb, they, and we as well, can say, “Alleluia. Christ is risen! Christ is Risen Indeed! Alleluia! (2x)
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