I've been thinking a lot lately. A lot about how we live, how living works, why we live, how we interact with God...
Like prayer.
I'm totally befuddled with prayer. I see the way the church prays (in America), and I see some references to prayer in scripture, but I don't see how we got from one to the other. I also know what kind of prayer feels right, and what kind feels wrong. Of course that's just my subconscious accessing all of my memories and then releasing chemicals to cause emotion based on previous results.
I've been dismantling of late, breaking down the old thoughts, and creating new ones. Deconstruction, they call it. I call it dismantling, my coworker calls it throwing rocks at the church, and he is too often right, in my case. There isn't anything wrong with throwing rocks at the church, but there is a problem when I don't rebuild what I destroy.
Prayer is one of these issues I haven't been able to reconstruct. In the end it all comes down to the way we interact with God, and the way He interacts in the world.
Let me get to the point. I'm tired of the 'It's in God's hands's and the 'God has someone perfect out there for you's and the 'God will open a door's, because frankly, its not (literally), and he doesn't, and he might not.
God created me, but indirectly. FIrst understand that I am in no way trying to limit God's power. The existence that I know through experience was entirely created by him. I believe in evolution. I'm not sure how it all worked out, I don't have gene maps plotted. But I believe in science... as much as science can be believed in. I believe science can tell us a lot, maybe nothing definitively, but a lot at least partially.
Some people think evolution takes away power from God, takes away from what He has done. I think evolution is intensely creative. I think that its more beautiful this way. I believe in redemption. And if God created us as static beings, then redemption doesn't really have space to happen. If we aren't static beings, and we change and grow over time (which is central in the message of Christ), then the amalgamation of all of the little redemptions in our life, plus the knowledge we gain from the generations before us, is evolution.
Back to the point, I absolutely do not see christianity as the memorization of Jesus' magic incantations. I think I've written before about how I hate the acronym Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. But there is some (albeit little) truth there. First and foremost scripture is the telling of man's part in God's story. (A brief side note: narrative is pretty interesting when God is involved because he both is writing/narrating, and taking part in the narrative) But scripture also is our prime resource for information about the meshiach, Jesus.
Now I do think Jesus came with instructions. This is the important paragraph in this post, if you just mindlessly skim my posts (which is more than I would do myself) take a moment and read this paragraph slowly.
Jesus was present at the creation of the world (thanks beloved disciple!) therefore he would know how the world was made, and how it works. Jesus had insider knowledge to how life works. Then the word became flesh and joined our miserable existance. But Jesus lived life the way that the system of this world is set up for. He wasn't magical (though he did possess great powers), but was connected with God. I'm not trying to say we can live just as Christ did, that would be impossible, after all, the man was God.
The point is (if there is one) that Christianity seems to have turned into a religion that just believes. And even that belief exists in something that takes any burden of action away from us. We are conditioned to leave things to God, when we should be seeking correct action. When we don't view the world as being God's supernatural playground, it doesn't allow us to place the burden of action somewhere else, it falls squarely on us.
Then as God's hands and feet we will affect the world. We will expand the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is not some far off distant other-worldly place (the commercialized heaven), it is wherever God reigns. A kingdom is as large as it's king's reign.
I want to be the kingdom of God. I want everthing I touch to be the kingdom of God. I want my neighborhood, the city of Houston, my faith community, my friends to all be a part of the kingdom of God.
May love, God's love, infect you entirely. May you infect your community, and then the world. Live and love in this world, knowing that it can (and will) be a better place.
Friday, April 06, 2007
Thursday, April 05, 2007
The Washing of Feet
Maundy thursday. An excellent part of holy week liturgy. The day we celebrate the last feast that the Liberating King shared with his disciples. In my faith community we have a service to celebrate this day, today.
The service revolves around two things, communion, in which we remember the last supper and looming crucifixion, and the washing of feet, when we remember how our Lord's authority system is the opposite of the worlds.
See my faith community is going through transformation right now, which I am grateful for. Transformation is a part of being redeemed. We are learning to buck the system. See, Christ preached a way of life that was very counter-cultural. It flipped the economic system on its head. It flipped the social norms. It flipped the definition of authority on its head.
Christ came himself as a servant, even stooping to wash the feet of his very disciples. The men who traditionally were underneath him. The men whom Jesus would have taught. The men who would have lovingly followed Christ around like dogs. The Liberating King flipped the reigning definition of authority over by doing something as dirty as washing the feet of his students. Feet which would have been caked with mud and smelled of wet leather.
Christ assumed the role of slave. He taught the disciples saying
"Do you understand what I have done for you?" he asked them. 13"You call me 'Teacher' and 'Lord,' and rightly so, for that is what I am. 14Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. 15I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. 16I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.
I guess the question here is, "Is Christ just flip flopping the role of authority?"
Our elders in my faith community wash the feet of the members present at the Maundy Thursday service.
I clipped my toe nails, washed my feet up nice, wore the socks without the holes.
But I didn't have my feet washed. Was Christ setting up a system of authority where those in authority serve others? It sure seems so, and maybe he does. If that is what he meant, then I didn't have my feet washed because I'm not sure if our elders know what that means.
See, it seems that the elders in my community view themselves as the decision makers. They are freed from responsibility of action because they are wise.
This is a problem for me, see... I don't separate action and wisdom, they go hand-in-hand for me. And how can you make decisions for a group of people that you are not involved in action with.
I don't want someone to wash my feet and not understand that from that point on I will be holding them accountable to serve me. I don't want them to be puffed up with false humility, washing the purposefully perfumed feet of those they do not know. I don't want my elders to wash my feet, and not follow through by serving me forever.
Christ isn't creating a new kind of authority, he is abolishing the system of authority. He doesn't say go and wash the feet of those below you. He says wash each other's feet. He says, stop the arrogance of hierarchy. He says know each other, care for each other, serve each other, love each other, be the body.
What we have is the abolition of hierarchical systems, and the creation of true community.
Community where we complete each other's weaknesses with each other's strengths. Where we each take the lead sometimes. Where none is above the other. Where we are all wise, and all active. Where we as a body we approach true Shalom.
May you love truly, living not above others, but with them.
Note: Since writing this post I realized that my lack of understanding of the elders in my community was because of a lack of effort on my part to know them as people. I want to leave this post as it is because that is honestly where I was at this point. I may still find most of this post to be true, but it will not be unfounded.
The service revolves around two things, communion, in which we remember the last supper and looming crucifixion, and the washing of feet, when we remember how our Lord's authority system is the opposite of the worlds.
See my faith community is going through transformation right now, which I am grateful for. Transformation is a part of being redeemed. We are learning to buck the system. See, Christ preached a way of life that was very counter-cultural. It flipped the economic system on its head. It flipped the social norms. It flipped the definition of authority on its head.
Christ came himself as a servant, even stooping to wash the feet of his very disciples. The men who traditionally were underneath him. The men whom Jesus would have taught. The men who would have lovingly followed Christ around like dogs. The Liberating King flipped the reigning definition of authority over by doing something as dirty as washing the feet of his students. Feet which would have been caked with mud and smelled of wet leather.
Christ assumed the role of slave. He taught the disciples saying
"Do you understand what I have done for you?" he asked them. 13"You call me 'Teacher' and 'Lord,' and rightly so, for that is what I am. 14Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. 15I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. 16I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.
I guess the question here is, "Is Christ just flip flopping the role of authority?"
Our elders in my faith community wash the feet of the members present at the Maundy Thursday service.
I clipped my toe nails, washed my feet up nice, wore the socks without the holes.
But I didn't have my feet washed. Was Christ setting up a system of authority where those in authority serve others? It sure seems so, and maybe he does. If that is what he meant, then I didn't have my feet washed because I'm not sure if our elders know what that means.
See, it seems that the elders in my community view themselves as the decision makers. They are freed from responsibility of action because they are wise.
This is a problem for me, see... I don't separate action and wisdom, they go hand-in-hand for me. And how can you make decisions for a group of people that you are not involved in action with.
I don't want someone to wash my feet and not understand that from that point on I will be holding them accountable to serve me. I don't want them to be puffed up with false humility, washing the purposefully perfumed feet of those they do not know. I don't want my elders to wash my feet, and not follow through by serving me forever.
Christ isn't creating a new kind of authority, he is abolishing the system of authority. He doesn't say go and wash the feet of those below you. He says wash each other's feet. He says, stop the arrogance of hierarchy. He says know each other, care for each other, serve each other, love each other, be the body.
What we have is the abolition of hierarchical systems, and the creation of true community.
Community where we complete each other's weaknesses with each other's strengths. Where we each take the lead sometimes. Where none is above the other. Where we are all wise, and all active. Where we as a body we approach true Shalom.
May you love truly, living not above others, but with them.
Note: Since writing this post I realized that my lack of understanding of the elders in my community was because of a lack of effort on my part to know them as people. I want to leave this post as it is because that is honestly where I was at this point. I may still find most of this post to be true, but it will not be unfounded.
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