N.T. Wright’s Parable [editor]

…let me end with a little parable. Returning one more time to the story of the two on the road to Emmaus and barring in mind something Jeremy mentioned in Matthew Arnold’s poem about Dover Beach with the sea of faith once full which had now retreated leaving ignorant armies clashing by night.

Two serious minded unbelievers are walking home together, trying to make sense of the world of the mid 1990s. The dream of progress and enlightenment has run out of steam. Critical post-modernity has blown the whistle on the world as we knew it. Our two unbelievers walk along the road to Dover Beach. They are discussing animatedly how these things can be. “How can the stories by which so many have lived, have let us down?” “How should we replace our now deeply ambiguous cultural symbols?” “What should we be doing in our world now that every dream of progress is stamped with the word Babel?”

Into this conversation comes Jesus incognito. It’s a good job they don’t recognize Him because modernism taught them to disbelieve in all religions and post-modernism rehabilitated so many that Jesus is just one guru among many. “What are you talking about?” He asks. They stand there looking sad. Then one of them, we better call him Jack, says, “You must be about the only person in town who doesn’t know what a traumatic time the 20^th century has been. We had a war to end wars and we’ve had nothing but more wars ever since! We had a sexual revolution and now we have AIDS and more family-less people than ever before! We pursued wealth but we had inexplicable recessions and we ended up with half the world in crippling debt! We can do what we like but we’ve all forgotten why we liked it! Our dreams have gone sour and we don’t even know who we are anymore. And now even the church has let us down, corrupting its spiritual message with talk of cosmic and political liberation.”

“Foolish ones,” replies Jesus. “How slow of heart you are to believe all that the Creator God has said. Did you never hear that He created His world wisely and that He is now active within His world to create a truly human people? And that from within this people He came to live as a truly human person… and that in His own death He dealt with evil once and for all? And that He is even now at work by his own Spirit to create a new human family in which repentance and forgiveness of sins are the order of the day… and so to challenge and overturn the rule of war and sex and money and power!?” And beginning with Moses and all the prophets and now also the apostles and prophets of the New Testament, He interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning Himself.

They arrived at Dover Beach. The sea of faith, having retreated with the outgoing tide of modernism, was full again as the incoming tide of postmodernism proved the truth of Chesterton’s dictum that when people stop believing in God they don’t believe in nothing, they believe in anything. On the shore there stood a great hungry crowd who had cast their bread on the retreating waters of modernism only to discover the incoming tide had brought them bricks and centipedes instead. The two travelers wearily began to get out a small picnic basket totally inadequate for the task. Jesus gentle took it from them. And in what seemed like moments he had gone to and fro on the beach until everyone was fed.

Then the eyes of them all were open and they realized who He was and He vanished from their sight. And the two said to each other, “Did not out hearts burn with us on the road as He told us the story of the Creator and His world, of His victory over evil?” And they rushed back to tell their friends what had happened on the road and how He had been made known in the breaking of the bread.

The part of Jesus in that story is to be played by you.

That is the so what?... that is why we have been given the Spirit. That is why we have been given the scriptures… that is where they find their truest authority. We are so to tell the true story of the world that God’s puzzled children find their hearts burning within them. We are so to act symbolically from breaking bread to healing the sick that we will be recognized as Jesus’ people. This is the so what? that results in our being found by the light and truth of God.

Comfort, comfort my peoples, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her that her warfare is accomplished, her iniquity pardoned. Lift up your voice with strength, lift it up. Be not afraid. Say to the cities of Judah, “Behold – your God.”

Transcription from part of N.T. Wright’s lecture, So What?, found on the Veritas Forum. - jB

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Art in Action [jana]

Last time I posted, all I came up with was a rushed explanation of how I had been invited to travel to California to paint during a church service focused on Daniel chapter 2. For putting up with that sort of cop-out, you at least deserve some pictures of the process. Reading, studying, and praying over Daniel 1 and 2, brought out some core ideas I wanted to focus on within the project.

1) Throughout scripture, God is working to reveal himself and his character. This revelation often takes different forms, but what is miraculous is not necessarily the (sometimes super-natural) form the revelation takes, but the loving and consistent character and passion for the salvation of humankind that is revealed; everything points to the resurrection and the everlasting kingdom of heaven, even Nebuchadnezzar’s crazy dream.

2) Daniel, under the king’s “Tell-me-my-dream-or-die” edict, has the dream and the interpretation revealed to him in a vision. He didn’t immediately jump up and run to the king’s chambers to save his skin by blurting out the dream, instead, he stopped and sang a hymn of thanks and praise to God first. This idea of “praise from the pit” is important…and comes in later in the book of Daniel as well. The timing of Daniel’s praise and thanksgiving is crucial. He is not praising God from the hindsight of standing on the top of Mt Everest, looking back down at the trials he’d already gone through; he was presenting an offering of Thanksgiving knowing that he could very well be executed within the next day.

These thoughts that came out of my initial meditations on the idea of visually presenting the scripture influenced the final products. I did not do a lot of planning, other than a few initial sketches. Each painting, I think, reflects some elements of the ideas above, even though they all worked out differently. The experience of painting in a limited time frame was unique…once I stepped out on the stage and had all my tools and a blank canvas at my fingertips, it was an experience in faith and action. I simply had to keep on making the choices that would shape what was happening on canvas…I had to be fully absorbed in what I was doing…and trust that at the end of the sermon, it was complete.

A few weeks later, my friend Andy used some of the paintings in a Prayer Room installation at the church. You can view the installation here. http://www.flickr.com/photos/andymadsen/sets/72157600470072330/

Listed below are the paintings, each accompanied with an artist’s statement.

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Daniel 2: Acrylic paint and Silver Leaf on Canvas.

In this painting, I was thinking about a sense of rain—as a darkness or a mist that pervades the atmosphere. This is a persuasive type of muddiness that can keep us bound by a sense of powerlessness to change.

Daniel and his friends were constantly surrounded by the mist of a dark environment. Their vision was constantly clouded by the necessities of surviving in their current position. Coexisting without compromising, they kept their focus on the constant they could not see…the blue sky that lay behind the darkness, trusting in God to reveal himself in his time through them.

Therefore show me the dream and its interpretation.

This time, I focused on Daniel’s hymn of salvation in verses 20-23. After God revealed the dream to Daniel in the vision, Daniel’s first response was first, before being assured of his salvation, to break into this song of praise to the God who reveals mysteries. Daniel’s song goes out after the dream is revealed but before the actual salvation, which is a foreshadowing of our own place…after the revealing of Christ, but before the final fulfillment of His kingdom. Again, the praise rises not from a clean, perfect, whole and safe place, but from the pit. Daniel has not been saved from death yet; praise from the pit in hope of deliverance must be desperately beautiful to Christ.

he reveals deep and hidden things;

he knows what is in the darkness,

and the light dwells with him

Similar elements to the first two paintings are present here. The constant elements are the clouds and darkness, and the blue sky hidden behind the silver leaf. The silver will tarnish, growing more transparent as it ages, gradually revealing what is behind it on the canvas.

there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries

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Why Can't the Church Be More Like a Pub [james]

A few of us got to the pub early-ish Friday night before the place filled up. We got a drink, played some darts, and then stuff happened. And it happened more than once.

If you go, it may happen to you, too: “Some random guy” is going up to the bar to get a drink, or maybe he is standing in line to play darts. He just starts talking to you like you’re a friend or acquaintance. It’s almost like he knows you, but he has momentarily spaced on your name. You’re not a threat to him; he sees you as someone against whom he holds no grudge and from whom he asks for nothing but courteous conversation. He’s just waiting for his beer or his turn at the throwing line. He’s not asking for a life story, but if you gave it, he might not mind too much. This is a pub, and this is where you can talk about such things. A “Cheers!” here, a glass clink there, and now you’re buddies.

Not being a regular patron of bars or pubs, this activity throws me for a loop. If there’s any place I’m not sure I want to “mix,” it’s in the pub. It’s as if I might be afraid to get someone else’s unholiness on me or something. (Either that, or I’m not much of a mingler. I’m sure the truth is in the middle).

I’m more familiar with the restaurant attitude of “my table is an island”: if a nearby table makes too much noise, other folks start to get a little uneasy. Imagine a stranger at a restaurant sitting down at your table and just start talking about stuff. You would think him mad or creepy. You just don’t do that.

In the pub, noise doesn’t matter. Table territories have soft borders. People don’t care as much about keeping others out. If you’re not a complete weirdo, then you’re like everyone else who happens to be enjoying an evening out in the company of 100 of your closest Guiness-loving friends.

If the pub people were at a restaurant, they’d all be at one, big, loud table. Maybe you don’t know everyone at the table, but that’s just because it’s so big that you haven’t been able to talk with everyone. Didn’t talk to ‘em all yet? No worries. These same jokesters will be around the next time you visit.

I saw this happening on Friday, and I instantly thought of the church. Why was it that in this night that I could feel more welcome in a pub than in a ‘holy’ place? Why are strangers, who don’t know whether I’m a visitor to this place or not, more apt to chat me up in this pub setting than in the foyer outside the Worship Centre?

The pub has its spirits, sure, and they affect how people act. Certainly not everyone will be as friendly as I describe here. But the church has her Spirit, too, and this Spirit is infinitely more interesting, more powerful, and more significant than the pub’s once you recognize It. And It’s supposed to affect how people act, and in a very good way.

Somedays I wonder if the pub is more welcoming and has a better view of “come as you are” than the church.

I see this as a problem and the solution starts with me. The next time I go to a church potluck, I'll bring the 6-pack. We need to start building some real community.

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Moriah [guest]

by Elizabeth Olwin

The approach is grim. Low gray clouds threaten rain, and the foot of the mountain rises sharply from the wasteland that you now travel. Your steps feel ponderous and slow, yet the terrain speeds by as if hastened by the horror of the task ahead of you. You wish that you were not on this path, but you were commanded to climb, and His commands are not to be ignored. Somehow you reach the mountain and begin the ascent.

How do you climb Mount Moriah? I know, I know… before anybody points out the fact that I am most decidedly NOT Abraham and I most decidedly do NOT have to sacrifice my son… let me explain. I have no struggles that are not commonplace to humankind. But, every Christian at some point in their walk with God faces a call to sacrifice their heart on the altar of obedience. That altar lies at the top of Mount Moriah.

Moriah is a place where you go to give God the thing that you love most. That piece of your life that you believe is a keystone. Your most precious prize. Moriah is a place where faith meets action, and trust is acted out in a life devoted first and only to God. Moriah is a long climb with a dreaded summit and an agonizing decent. Moriah, to be quite blunt, is impossible.

The Bible doesn’t tell us how much Abraham cried or the intensity of heartbreak that he must have felt, but I can guess. Abraham had waited for over 100 years for this boy. This was his promised one from God, the baby that he and his wife had dreamed and hoped and prayed for longer than I have dreamed, hoped, or prayed for anything. This child was his flesh and blood, and was laughter and hope and legacy. His heart was breaking, but his faith remained unshaken.

Abraham had already seen how God operates; he was a dad after all hope of fatherhood was long since dead. His faith is described in Romans as follows: “…in the presence of Him whom he believed, even God, who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist. In hope against hope he believed…” Abraham simply took God at His word. He figured that his God knew what He was about and was not going to let him down. He understood that this relationship with God is not a guarantee of happiness or ease but of grace, strength, and complete faithfulness when life seems impossible.

How do I grasp that kind of faith? How do I obtain the kind of faith that believes that God gives life to the dead, the kind of faith that would bind my own heart to the altar and offer it as a sacrifice to the God whom I love? In fact, let’s take it one step further. How do I climb Mount Moriah, let alone climb it while teaching the ones that walk beside me that “God will provide the lamb for the sacrifice?”

Altars are tools meant to restore God to His proper place in our hearts. They hurt, and they require shedding of blood (be that literal or figurative). My true test of devotion lies in my struggle to reach the altar. I am not strong enough on my own but I know that my Father is pleased to see me try. Obedience is something only achieved by the grace of God. I am able to walk up the mountain only because He is leading me.

-- Elizabeth Olwin lives in Bellingham, WA. She is an Environmental Studies major; she wonders why grass is green and enjoys going boldly into forests where no man has gone before. --

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A Kafka Kick to the Face [matt]

My world was recently rocked by a strange man born nearly 125 years ago named Franz Kafka. Due to my typical lack of self-control, as well as a need to understand what literary theorists and philosophers were talking about when they said a work was “Kafkaesque,” I picked-up The Complete Stories a few weeks ago. Having devoured all of Kafka’s short stories, I feel pained in heart and mind and now need to bleed-out the nastiness he has infected me with, which would likely please him to hear. In a letter he once wrote the following;

I think we ought to only read the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we are reading doesn’t wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for? So that it will make us happy, as you write?... We would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need the books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we love more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us.

Franz Kafka has stabbed me, confused me, disgusted me, and, ultimately, challenged me. My desire is to write on a few of his stories in depth, but for this medium I will restrain myself and try to give a small glimpse into some writings that really can give quite a “blow on the head” just as much today as they did long ago. To do so, I will briefly comment on three stories; In the Penal Colony, The Metamorphosis, and The Burrow.

In the Penal Colony was by far the biggest smack in the face Kafka delivered to me personally. It is the story of an explorer’s visit to a certain penal colony. While there he is to be given a demonstration of a “remarkable” device that slowly kills condemned prisoners. It does this by continually stabbing them, the stabs slowly writing-out what the person has done onto his mutilated flesh. The officer who is showing this apparatus to the explorer is obviously quite fond of the machine; it is, to him, a thing of absolute beauty, dispensing judgment in an amazingly original manner. The machine is well made, immaculately clean, and “perfect” for the dispensing of “justice.”

This entire scene drips with irony. And blood. It is a story of the failures of the m/Modern world. The machine is amazing, but heartless. It is used on innocent, illiterate men who are never told what their crime is and obviously won’t have an idea what is written on their skin since they cannot read in the first place! Ultimately the officer takes his own life on the machine, sacrificing himself to his machine and his ideal of a mechanized world. The story ends with the explorer taking a boat away from the colony, but refusing to take with him a guard and prisoner that also long to escape. I believe Kafka is referring to the river Styx, implying that we live in a hell of our own creation. We have damned ourselves, loving machines and progress without ever asking bigger questions about justice, love, mercy, or right and wrong. Perhaps it is too late to ever cross back over the river, and we are stuck forever in our self-made hell. Maybe we can never cross the river.

We are given a glimpse of this m/Modern hell in The Metamorphosis. The strange story begins with Gregor Samsa waking up from a poor night’s sleep, only to discover that during the night he has become a giant insect. At first, the description of Gregor’s transformation is what disturbs the reader. But that quickly changes. The really disturbing truth is that Gregor is more concerned about how he is going to get to his dead-end job than the fact that he is now an enormous bug! Is it possible that in our bureaucratic, capitalistic, machine-ruled world our humanity is already gone? That we have freely given ourselves over to this sham of a world, never to be returned? I believe this is what Kafka is implying. Gregor is not surprised by his tranformation because his humanity was stolen from him long ago by the pressures of the m/Modern world. He hides away in his room, refusing more and more food or contact from the outside. Perhaps his long fast from human food and contact is the way he finally finds the redemption of his humanity, even if it does not equal freedom from the metamorphosis that has occurred.

The Burrow, like The Metamorphosis, is a foul story relating our lives to the lives of animals. It is told first-person by a man who seems more animal than human, living in a massive burrow he has dug into a labrynth-like maze. It is a place for him to hide from his “enemies,” and find safety and satisfaction in his own workmanship. The reality, though, is that the burrow and his enemies have become two sick obsessions. The narrator admires his “perfect or almost perfect structural devices,” which allow him to slip in and out without being noticed, though he recognizes that they are nothing more than “the mark of a restless nature, of inner uncertainty, disreputable desires, evil propensities.” This burrowing man is obsessed with his hole, so fearful of losing it that he even hates the burrow itself; “to be honest I cannot endure the place…with new anxieties instead of peace.” This man sits in his burrow, or outside of it, eating raw meat and worms and obsessing over his construction. After all of the work and obsession, this man is more animal-like and troubled than when he began. He suffers the anxieties and disconnections that are common to our troubled times. He is a disgusting parody of us; after all, I can think of no better desciptors of the men and women of the Western world than a people of “restless nature,” full of “inner uncertainty, disreputable desires, evil propensities.” It hits very close to home.

So I ask; are these not the problems of our own day? Some fight and struggle to overcome. Others live within, never wanted to truly question their societally-constructed reality. Either way, we are entrapped in a paradigm that simply does not fit who we were made to be. We cannot live without our machinations, yet so many turn out to be efficient but ethically dubious. We let meaningless McJobs (thank-you, Douglas Coupland) rule our lives and before stealing our very humanity. We become so obsessed with humanity’s stuff that we lose our humanity in the process. Kafka stories are grotesque, horrible tales that affect us like a disaster, especially when we realize they are about us and our (post-)modern condition. My hope is that Kafka’s literary axe can break into the frozen sea inside all of us. Perhaps it’s not too late…

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