Why I'm a Broncos Fan

My wife teases me about my devotion to the Denver Broncos. She can't understand that when you've sat in Mile High Stadium, felt the building shake with the rhythmic stomping of the crowd, watched John Elway lead the team from certain defeat to unbelievable victory, and jumped around and high-fived with your dad, you develop a certain emotional attachment to a sports team. When a boy and his dad and a stadium of 75,000 people share the exultation and suffering of cheering for the Broncos together, a strong, lasting bond is formed.

She also doesn't understand why I cry at some movies. "It's not real," she complains, "why do you care?" Well, it's not that I care overmuch about the characters in a movie or book, but they have the power to evoke potent memories, both positive and painful, that overwhelm my emotional capacity and overflow the body in tears.

She would have been truly befuddled if she witnessed me reading this article from ESPN about a 13-year-old whose visit to a Broncos game helped him heal after the death of his father. What can I say? Sometimes its good to be a fan of the Broncos and John Elway. Pride in my Broncos and memories of cheering for John Elway with my dad welled up in my chest and, yes, a tear or two squeezed out.

As soon as I finished the article, I e-mailed it to my Dad.

An Ideal Constellation of Friends

Here's another installment from the Robinson Church of Christ's recent study based loosely on Darryl Tippens' book, Pilgrim Heart.

* * *

After Saul’s experience on the road to Damascus, his baptism by Ananias, and his preaching in Damascus, the Christians in Jerusalem were still afraid to accept him into their community. And for good reason! As Paul himself tells us, “I intensely persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it” before being called by God’s grace (Gal 1:13-15). But God provided Paul an advocate: “Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles. He told them how Saul on his journey had seen the Lord and that the Lord has spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had preached fearlessly in the name of Jesus. So Saul stayed with them and moved about freely in Jerusalem, speaking boldly in the name of the Lord” (Acts 9:27-28).

Have you ever “taken up for someone” like Barnabas did for Saul? Were you rewarded or burned?
Has anyone ever vouched for you when your abilities or character were in doubt? How did you respond? Did you reward their faith in you?

Barnabas didn’t stop at merely vouching for Saul. When the church in Antioch begins to grow, the leaders in Jerusalem send Barnabas to nurture the young Christians. After encouraging the believers in Antioch for a short while, he takes a brief detour: “Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people” (Acts 11:25-26). Saul’s preaching in Jerusalem had made some dangerous enemies, and the church had sent him back to his home town of Tarsus to hide out. But Barnabas isn’t satisfied to leave him there. Presented with a growing and encouraging work in Antioch, he seeks out Saul and invites him to join in his ministry.

Do you have “yoke-fellows” in the areas in which you serve? How did you come to work together? Did one of you seek out the other?
How does having a co-worker affect the success of your ministry? How does it affect your satisfaction with the ministry?
In what areas are you trying to go it alone? In what areas are you hording the encouragement and blessings of ministry? Whom can you invite to join you?

Barnabas and Saul continue to allow their ministry team to grow. When the church in Antioch sends them on a mission to Jerusalem to relieve those suffering from a famine, they come back with a helper, John Mark. And when the church sends them on missionary journey to the west, they bring John along. At this point, Saul enjoys an ideal constellation of friends. He has an advocate/mentor in Barnabas and a helper/mentee in John Mark. He has both someone to raise him up higher and someone for him to lift up. Can you identify these same types of friends in your life?

One last point about mentoring: As a mentor, you should long for your student to surpass you one day. Mentoring should not be an “ego trip” that inflates your sense of self-importance. You cannot feel threatened by the success of your student and be a good mentor. Mentoring is an act of humility in which you recognize gifts in another that you want to help develop in order that he may surpass what you have accomplished.

Barnabas is again an excellent example. At the beginning of their ministry together, the pair is always called “Barnabas and Saul,” clearly placing Barnabas in the position of importance. He leads the team. A transition takes place in Acts 13:9, however, and it corresponds with the alteration of Saul’s name. Saul, filled with the Holy Spirit, boldly confronts a Roman official and blinds him. The proconsul is convicted by the powerful demonstration, and the ministry team is never the same. What was once always “Barnabas and Saul” becomes in 13:13, “Paul and his companions.” Barnabas isn’t even named! Thereafter, with only a couple of explainable exceptions (14:14; 15:12, 25), the ministry team is always called “Paul and Barnabas.” Paul has gone from being the student to the “chief speaker” (14:12), but their ministry continues to flourish. Barnabas must have been an exceptional man.

How many preachers do you know who would stick around after being supplanted by a young up-and-comer? Probably only those that embraced the green preacher as a mentor and hoped and prayed that “he must become greater; I must become less” (John 3:30).

Three Stones Support the Pot

(Photo by Michael K. Nichols, http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/places/photos/photo_congo_congo.html)

I mentioned in a previous post that Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible had influenced my thinking about our recent church survey. Read on to see how.

Kingsolver's novel imagines the clash of cultures that occurs when a Georgia preacher intent on saving Congolese souls drags his wife and four girls to the village of Kilanga on the Kwili river. Nathan, a tireless proclaimer of the gospel with a forehead of flint, stubbornly insists on imposing his understanding of the world on the Congolese villagers. From his first attempt at a garden (which is promptly washed away by the first rain because he refuses to use the Congolese method of mounding his seed beds), Nathan tries to raise the Congo to his higher, American standards. As his daughter notes, however, "It's like he's trying to put rubber tires on a horse" (284).

Of course, Nathan's struggle with the Congo is a microcosm of what happens on a much larger scale when the Congo is opened to the West. As the West, blinded by cultural elitism, imposes its ways of thinking and acting on the Congo, its people must decide to resist or acquiesce. Both decisions yield dire results.

In the novel, "elections" are a flash point for this conflict. When the Belgians grant independence to the Congo, they organize an election so that the people can choose their new leader. But Belgium's idea of a fair election defies Congolese sensibilities. "To the Congolese," one of the daughters narrates, "it seems odd that if one man gets fifty votes and the other gets forty-nine, the first one wins altogether and the second one plumb loses. That means almost half the people will be unhappy, and in a village that's left halfway unhappy you haven't heard the end of it. There is sure to be trouble somewhere down the line" (265).

The Congolese system of reaching consensus through extensive dialogue could never adequately decide nation-wide elections, of course. But the Congolese don't think in nation-wide terms; they think on a village-sized scale.

In one scene, the chief of Kilanga, Tata Ndu, tries to use Western ways to achieve his ends. He opposes the missionaries' attempts to convert his village to Christianity. He worries that their actions are angering the gods and prolonging a deadly drought. So, he appears in church one Sunday, interrupts the sermon, and announces, "Now it is time for the people to have an election." The subject of this impromptu act of democracy? "We are making a vote for Jesus Christ in the office of personal God, Kilanga village" (330).

Nathan objects to the blasphemy, but the villagers respond, "you thatched your roof and now you must not run out of your house if it rains."

While the "parishioners" are casting their votes by placing pebbles in voting bowls, one for Jesus and one against, Tata Ndu drives home his point:

"Our way was to share a fire until it burned down, ayi? To speak to each other until every person was satisfied. Younger men listened to older men. Now the Beelezi tell us the vote of a young, careless man counts the same as the vote of an elder."

In the hazy heat Tata Ndu paused to take off his hat, turn it carefully in his hands, then replace it above the high dome of his forehead. No one breathed. "White men tell us: Vote, bantu! They tell us: You do not all have to agree, ce n'est pas necessaire! If two men vote yes and one says no, the matter is finished. A bu, even a child can see how that will end. It takes three stones in the fire to hold up the pot. Take one away, leave the other two, and what? The pot will spill into the fire" (333).

* * *

I suppose you can see why my interest in the whole idea of a "church survey" soured after reading this. We needed to make a decision: would we have Bible class first or worship first? And we choose to address that decision with a "vote," a survey that would determine what the majority of people wanted and thereby what the proper decision and course of action would be. That seems to me a gross misapplication of a nation-wide system for a village-sized issue.

A 2-to-1 result in our survey would be a substantial majority. So, do we follow the will of the majority, make the decision, discard one stone, and watch the pot spill? I've seen decisions happen that way in churches. In this case, I think we have something to learn from our "unsophisticated," un-industrialized, un-democratized brothers in the Congo. Having long talks until the fire burns down, giving weight to the words of our elders, and waiting for consensus to build seems like a wise course of action.

Of course, that calls for patience atypical of "a young, careless man." I see a problem, a way to make it better, and I want to act immediately. Waiting only allows the problem to persist! Ponderously discussing the problem only delays the remedy. I must realize that I may be wrong about the solution, however; and even if I am right, swift action may leave half the village unsettled and unhappy.

I hope our "church survey" results in the best possible outcome (more on this in the next post). For now, we've made an initial decision. It's a decision that defied the majority, and maybe that's a good sign (though I wouldn't want to make that a rule!). But the decision also encouraged further conversation, and that's probably the best sign. Our little village will continue to talk and argue together, balancing the pot in the fire, and I suppose that's even more important than agreement.

Little Rivers

I apologize for the paucity of posts this week, but I have had my nose buried in the aforementioned surveys we conducted at our church on Sunday. The idea of a church survey is becoming increasingly strange to me, and I have more to say about that (including a an insight from Barbara Kingsolver's beautiful novel, The Poisonwood Bible). Today, however, I pause to remind myself not to take myself too seriously.

I came across the following paragraphs in a collection of Henry van Dyke's essays, Who Owns the Mountains? Classic Selections Celebrating the Joys of Nature. Van Dyke was a Protestant pastor at the turn of the twentieth century who produced theological works, poems, hymns, and essays. The book I have been reading is a collection of his nature essays. I know next to nothing about van Dyke, but the title of the book resonated with me.

In "Little Rivers," an essay celebrating the unique beauties of little, local streams, he closes with the following meditation.

"It is not required of every man and woman to be, or to do, something great; most of us must content ourselves with taking small parts in the chorus, as far as possible without discord. Shall we have no little lyrics because Homer and Dante have written epics? Even those who have greatness thrust upon them will do well to lay the burden down now and then and congratulate themselves that they are not altogether answerable for the conduct of the universe. 'I reckon,' said a cowboy to me one day, as we were riding through the Badlands of Dakota, 'there's someone bigger than me running this outfit. He can 'tend to it well enough while I smoke my pipe after the round-up.'

"There is such a thing as taking ourselves and the world too seriously, or at any rate too anxiously. Half of the secular unrest and dismal sadness of modern society comes from the vain idea that every man is bound to be a critic of life and to let no day pass without finding some fault with the general order of things or projecting some plan for its improvement. And the other half comes from the greedy notion that a man's life does consist, after all, in the abundance of the things that he possesses and that it is somehow or other more respectable and pious to be always at work making a larger living than it is to lie on your back in the green pastures and beside the still waters and thank God that you are alive."

I don't think that I typically fall into the trap of taking myself too seriously, but I have of late. I needed to hear van Dyke's poignant reminder. May we all be protected from the twin sources of dismal sadness: being a critic of life and greedily accumulating possessions. May we also enjoy the remedy for such sadness: resting in the green pastures beside the still waters in the care of the Good Shepherd.

The Prophet Speaks of Marriage

For a Valentine's Day meditation, I offer the passage from Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet. For the setting of the book, Gibran imagines a prophet leaving a city to sail back to the island of his birth. Before leaving, Almustafa, the prophet, answers some last questions from the city's inhabitants. Find below his comments on marriage. Gibran does not write from a Christian perspective (and that will be obvious at points), but his prose is beautiful and his insights have the ring of truth.

Then Almitra spoke again and said, And what of Marriage, master?
And he answered saying:
You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
Aye, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together, yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.

I thank God that he has given me someone I can love my whole life. I pray that the sea of love will never stop moving between our souls and the winds of heaven will never cease dancing between us. I pray above all, however, that God himself will ever remain our first love.

Walking in the Light

Below is another installment from our current series at the Robinson Church of Christ based on Darryl Tippens book, Pilgrim Heart.

1 John 1:5 – 2:11

The elder asserts that we cannot walk in darkness and have fellowship with God, who is light.

We’ve discussed the metaphor of light and darkness in a past lesson, what do you think walking in darkness means to this particular author? Committing evil actions? Hiding from God?

The rest of the passage gives us a pretty clear idea of what walking in the light (and conversely walking in darkness) means and what it yields.

What it means: 2:6, 9-10
Obedience in the form of loving one another marks the person who “walks in the light.” Those who “obey his word” and walk as Jesus did stroll in the light (one should hear here echoes of Jesus’ command in John 13:34: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another”), and those who hate one another stumble in the darkness.

What it yields: 1:7, 2:5-6
Those who “walk in the light” live in God (and his love is made complete in him). The blood of Jesus purifies their sin and they enjoy fellowship with one another.

So, how do we go from one camp to the other? How do we cross the threshold from an isolated, stumbling through the dark to a shared fellowship in the light? The central part of our passage (1:8 – 2:2) holds the key: “If we confess our sins . . . .” Don’t deceive yourself and claim to be sinless. Instead, confess and rely your advocate, the same one who has already died for you.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer explains in Life Together: “In confession the light of the Gospel breaks into the darkness and seclusion of the heart.” Sin withdraws a person from the community and isolates him, and the isolation only strengthens the destructive power of sin. “Sin wants to remain unknown. It shuns the light. In the darkness of the unexpressed it poisons the whole being of a person. This can happen even in the midst of a pious community.”

On the other hand, “in confession the break-through to community takes place.” The sinner can confess and find true fellowship for the first time. “The sin concealed separated him from the fellowship, made all his apparent fellowship a sham; the sin confessed has helped him to find true fellowship with the brethren in Jesus Christ.”

Does your church enjoy true fellowship? Why or why not?
What keeps us from confessing to others? To whom should we confess?
What would your church look like if you started being confessional people?

Weekly Challenge:

Since Bonhoeffer warns that confession as a “pious work” or “routine duty” is spiritually harmful, the weekly challenge can’t simply be “Confess to someone.” Forced confession is hardly confession at all. Instead, engage in the following challenge that hopefully leads to healing confession at some point in the future.

This week, find some time to practice “journaling.” Prepare like you are entering into prayer: find a place where you can focus and allow for some time of silence to transition from your daily activities. Take as much time as needed to write your response to or meditation on the following statements:

Everyone who lives is deeply hurt by others.

Everyone who lives has deeply hurt others.
I have wounded and offended my God, the one who loves me and created me.

Respond to only one statement at a time. Feel free to spend multiple “sessions” (be they five or fifty minutes) on one statement.

After completing the journaling activity, ask yourself, “Is there something for which I need to confess? Is there someone to whom I can confess?”

NPR's "All Songs Considered"

I recently discovered a treasure trove of free music, and it's not right that I keep it to myself. NPR's "All Songs Considered" posts complete, live concerts on their website, and you can download them for free. Of course, not all the shows fit my musical interests, but there are some gems. I recommend the Fleet Foxes concert, and I also enjoyed Jim James at the Newport Folk Festival. Radiohead, Sigur Ros, and The White Stripes are next on my list; but even if you don't share my taste in music, I'm sure you can find something to please your ears. And you can't deny that the price is right!

Just the Facts

Our church is preparing to conduct a survey in order to help make decisions about changes in our worship and Bible class format. The goal, it would seem, is to gather objective data ("facts") that will aid the leadership is making an objective decision. As I prepared the survey (yes, I am involved and therefore complicit), I couldn't help think of what G. K. Chesterton might say about such an endeavor.

In The Club of Queer Trades, Chesterton relates the adventures of the mysterious Basil Grant. The tales fit within the detective story genre, but Basil is the anti-Sherlock Holmes. He is a one-time judge who "lost his interest in the law" and started talking "more like a priest or a doctor." He started ignoring the legal crimes of the criminals in his courtroom and instead accused them of things like "monstrous egoism, lack of humor, and morbidity deliberately encouraged." He even tells one defendant, "Get a new soul. That one's not fit for a dog. Get a new soul."

Most people assume Basil has lost his mind, and he retires from public life. The rest of the short book asserts, however, that Basil is afar from insane. With his satirical wit, Chesterton drives home a favorite theme: in this insane world, the most sane people will appear insane. Chesterton playfully explores that theme by tweaking the detective story genre. He replaces the fact-worshipping detective character typical of the genre with a mystic poet who solves impossible mysteries that baffle his companions.

When he makes a snap judgment about a man on the street, for example, his partner complains, "this is very fanciful--perfectly absurd. Look at the mere facts. You have never seen this man before."

"Oh, the mere facts," Basil interrupts. "The mere facts! Do you really admit--are you still so sunk in superstitions, so clinging to dim and prehistoric altars, that you believe in facts? Do you not trust an immediate impression?"

Early in the book, Basil offers a short soliloquy on his unique approach to mystery solving. When Basil concludes that a suspicious letter is not criminal in nature, the following interaction ensues.

"It is. It's a matter of fact," cried the other in an agony of reasonableness.

"Facts," murmured Basil, like one mentioning some strange, far-off animals, "how facts obscure the truth. I may be silly--in fact, I'm off my head--but I never could believe in that man--what's his name, in the capital stories?--Sherlock Holmes. Every detail points to something, certainly; but generally to the wrong thing. Facts point in all directions, it seems to me, like the thousands of twigs on a tree. It's only the life of the tree that has unity and goes up--only the green blood that springs, like a fountain, at the stars."

The content of this speech indicates what I think Chesterton might say about our church survey. Even if the survey is well written and the sample is large enough and the results clear, what will we do with the "facts" it yields? They'll likely point in all directions, and they might even obscure the truth. At the very least, the results of the survey, those neat little objective facts, should not be given undue authority. Wise leaders will need to interpret the facts and try to access the truth behind them. In order to honor that truth, they may even need to make decisions that seem to contradict the facts. Then, how will those wise leaders be viewed? As despots and tyrants pushing an agenda and ignoring the people? Or as mystics and poets straining for truth?

When we analyze the survey, may we humbly look through the thousands of twigs pointing in different directions to see the life of the tree behind them.

(P.S. I certainly recommend reading The Club of Queer Trades. The puzzling mysteries and Chesterton's satirical wit make it a joy to read.)

A Modest Proposal

Below is the brief proposal which I will submit to the New Testament faculty today. Should it be approved, I will then put together a longer proposal which includes an outline for the dissertation and a lengthy bibliography. It seems some small bit of productivity slipped through a crack in my wall of procrastination.


In 1 Pet 2:21, the author encourages servants to remain faithful through the suffering they endure at the hands of unjust masters, “because Christ also suffered on your behalf, leaving an example for you, so that you might follow in his footsteps.” The metaphor of “following in his steps” receives a warm welcome in popular Christian thought,[1] but it is often kept at an uncomfortable distance by exegetes and theologians who perceive a dangerous path toward Roman Catholic imitatio piety hiding in the image.[2] Some overcome the discomfort by claiming 1 Pet 2:21 speaks not of “imitation” but of “discipleship.”[3] Thus, they attempt to save 1 Peter from possible accusations of legalism and restore the theological standing of this exegetical step-child.

I do not fault the theological and exegetical inclinations of writers who resist the legalistic connotations of imitation language: neither 1 Pet 2:21 nor the letter as a whole supports a legalistic pattern of religion. Elliott rightly reminds the reader of 1 Peter that “Christ the enabler is Christ the exemplar.”[4] The latter proceeds from the former in 1 Peter, and the two should not be separated. The metaphor of imitation need not be avoided, however, in order to protect 1 Peter from slipping into “works righteousness.” I propose to salvage the metaphor of imitation in 1 Peter by placing it in its proper first-century setting and then hearing the metaphor anew.

In antiquity, pictures of imitation were colored with the language of enablement. Students of a philosopher were enabled to imitate their teacher by being with him.[5] When they gazed upon their deities, devotees of the gods were transformed and empowered to imitate them when they returned to daily activities.[6] Those who studied carefully the lives of great men had implanted in them the desire to copy those worthy patterns in their own lives.[7] The imitation language in 1 Pet 2:21 fits within this milieu.

The metaphor should not be limited to this one unique passage in 1 Peter, however. The whole letter subtly builds a case that the narrative of the believer’s life is a type of the archetypal narrative of Christ’s life. It is a life enabled by the God who calls, and a life sustained by the God who gathers, heals, and shields. The metaphor of imitation in 1 Peter provides both the pattern to be copied and the power by which it can be accomplished.


[1] See as evidence Charles Sheldon’s bestseller In His Steps and the ubiquitous WWJD? paraphernalia based on the central question of his book, “What would Jesus do?”

[2] See John Elliott’s short survey of the reception of 1 Pet 2:21 in “Backward and Forward ‘In His Steps’: Following Jesus from Rome to Raymond and Beyond. The Tradition, Redaction, and Reception of 1 Peter 2:18-25” in Discipleship in the New Testament (ed. Fernando F. Segovia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 200.

[3] For example, Paul J. Achtemeier, 1 Peter (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996), 199.

[4] “Backward and Forward,” 202.

[5] Xenophon, Memorabilia 1.2.24-28: “So long as they were with Socrates, they found him an ally who gave them strength to conquer their evil passions.” See Charles Talbert, Reading the Sermon on the Mount: Character Formation and Decision Making in Matthew 5-7 (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2004), 39.

[6] Seneca (Ep. 94.42) cites Pythagoras: “our souls experience a change when we enter a temple and behold the images of the gods face to face.” See Talbert, Reading the Sermon on the Mount, 39-40 for other examples of transformation by vision of the gods.

[7] Plutarch writes in the introduction to his life of Pericles that morally good acts are a stimulus to the reader, and the intellectual perception of virtue inspires and impulse to imitate it.

Jack London, meet Iris Murdoch

I'm currently working through an omnibus of Jack London short stories, and I came across the following gem in one of his stories about Hawaii, "The House of Pride." The main character is a self-absorbed, self-righteous, self-assured land baron who has just learned that the free-spirited, ukulele-playing, village playboy is his half-brother. When the image he has constructed of his father crumbles, his own self-image is threatened. London captures the moment of weakness.

"And in that moment, flashing and fleeting, it was given him to see his brother tower above him like a mountain, and to feel himself dwindle and dwarf to microscopic insignificance. But it is not well for one to see himself truly, nor can one so see himself for long and live; and only for that flashing moment did Percival Ford see himself and his brother in true perspective. The next moment he was mastered by his meagre and insatiable ego."[1]

For a brief moment, the light of truth peeked through a crack the fantasy he had constructed about himself and his family, but the power of self-deception is not easily overcome. He quickly spackles the crack and stabilizes his delusion.

The passage from Jack London immediately called to mind another writer who explored the power of the "fat relentless ego."[2] Iris Murdoch was a novelist and philosopher who spent a career writing about the human propensity for self-delusion. Her novels regularly feature protagonists who live contentedly in consoling fantasies. The challenging of these fantasies is the main conflict of the novels, and the shattering of them the climax. For one of the best examples, see her Booker Prize-winning novel, The Sea, the Sea.

What her novels show, her philosophical essays explain. "The chief enemy of excellence in morality," she writes, "is personal fantasy: the tissue of self-aggrandising and consoling wishes and dreams which prevents one from seeing what is there outside one."[3] Self-knowledge isn't necessarily the answer to the problem, as we might think. "Self-knowledge" is itself usually a delusion, and so what one needs is to truly see what there is outside oneself.

For Murdoch, seeing properly is essential to moral action (while fantasy, on the other hand, clouds vision and leads potentially to immoral action). "True vision occasions right conduct," she asserts. And elsewhere: "Freedom is not strictly the exercise of the will, but rather the experience of accurate vision which, when this becomes appropriate, occasions action."[4] When one sees others as they really are, she is free from the shackles of fantasy and thereby free to act rightly.

London and Murdoch agree on the importance of true sight as a ground for right action. And they also agree that such vision is nearly impossible for humans to sustain. I'm not sure about London's religious leanings, but I know that Murdoch remained a (very Platonic) atheist her whole life. They both see clearly the human condition, however, whether they're grappling with the "meagre and insatiable" or "fat relentless" ego.

I might give it a different name--the old self, the flesh, or Adam--but I would affirm the clarity of their vision. And I appreciate their powerful, insightful, and beautiful expressions of that vision.

May we be people who keep our eyes fixed on Jesus (Heb 12:2) and attend to the true and noble things (Phil 4:8) in order to clarify our vision.

[1] Jack London, "House of Pride" in Short Stories of Jack London (eds. Labor, Leitz and Shepherd; New York: Macmillan, 1991), 307.

[2] Iris Murdoch, "On 'God' and 'Good'" in Existentialists and Mystics: Writings on Philosophy and Literature (ed. Conradi; New York: Penguin, 1997), 342.

[3] "On 'God' and 'Good,'" 347-8.

[4] "On 'God' and 'Good,'" 353 and 354.

A Free and Friendly Space

Below is the third installment from the current series we are doing at the Robinson Church of Christ. My posts have not followed the order we covered the material at our church, but hopefully, dear reader, you can still glean something from them.

For the following lesson, the focus was on "Welcoming," and our class members were challenged to follow up the lesson by inviting someone into their homes, either someone from the church whom they do not know well or someone from their neighborhood whom they expect could not return the favor.

Luke 14
In the parable in Luke 14:15-24, Jesus uses the biblical imagery of a great banquet to describe how God welcomes us into his presence. A certain man has prepared a great feast, and now that it’s ready he eagerly sends out his servant to call the invited guests. He receives surprising responses, however. It seems the guests are all too busy with fields and family to attend the banquet. They simply can’t squeeze table fellowship with the master into their cluttered calendars.

Maybe you've tried to identify the “fields” and “oxen” and “wives” that press on you with their urgency and pull you away from what’s truly important. Maybe you've tried to reprioritize so that you don’t miss the precious time at the banquet with our Lord. And yet . . .

Can you identify one or two things that consistently distract you from being with God? They don’t have to be meaningless things like TV watching or Internet surfing; they can be important things like managing your livelihood and attending to your family. What in your life continually challenges your commitment to seek first the kingdom of God?

The material that precedes this parable reveals that Jesus is concerned with much more than our coming to the banquet. Those who have been welcomed should themselves be welcomers. As Jesus enjoys a Sabbath meal at a prominent Pharisee’s house, he makes various comments about “feasting.” Along with parable, he also calls his hearers to a radical hospitality: “when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind” rather than your friends, family, or prestigious neighbors. Offer hospitality that honors the root of the word: philo-zenos, “love of strangers.” Henri Nouwen defines hospitality as the “creation of a free and friendly space where we can reach out to strangers and invite them to become our friends” (Reaching Out, 55).

When we practice “hospitality” is it typically “love of strangers”? Who is the “stranger” to us?

What is our goal for hospitality? To be a good Christian? To minister to someone? Or to open ourselves to the blessings of genuine relationship?

Nouwen also warns, “As long as someone feels that he or she is only an object of someone else’s generosity, no dialogue, no mutuality, and no authentic community can exist” (Gracias, 21).

Have you ever felt that you were the object of someone’s ministry duty? How did that feel?

Now we are getting to the real point in Luke 14. It isn’t just about feasting with God or showing hospitality. It’s about humility: don’t seek the seats of honor (14:7-11); don’t throw a party to enhance your image (12-14); don’t assume your salvation and the other’s damnation (15-24); give up everything and take up the cross (25-33). Humility of this kind is an essential element of hospitality; otherwise, it can slip quickly into condescension and self-aggrandizement. You aren’t opening your home to the stranger because you are in a superior position from which to dole out blessing; you are opening yourself to be blessed because you need the stranger as much or more than he needs you.

Jesus welcomed you just as you are, one of the poor, lame, crippled, and blind, into a place of safety, healing, and genuine relationship. Dare you do the same?

A Pedagogical Trick

I discovered that dry-erase markers will not erase off of Scotch tape, and that discovery led to the following Bible class illustration.

Before the students arrived, I stuck Scotch tape to the white board in the shape of a cross. The tape was not totally invisible on a white board, but it wasn't readily visible either. Nothing a little misdirection couldn't cover, anyway.

Then, during class I drew a big box on the board (around the hidden cross) to signify the amount of time we have in a given week. I then asked the students to brainstorm all the many things they do in a week. I prompted them when necessary by giving them some categories of activities to think about. "What kind of activities go into playing a sport?" (practice, working out, games) or "What kind of activities are connected to school?" (clubs, homework, college applications) or "What do you do when you're just hanging out?" (TV, video games, Internet, texting) or "What kind of activities are connected with church?" (worship, Bible class, devos, retreats).

As they named activities, I would write them inside of the box, taking little care to write them in a neat or orderly way. When we were done, I had a box filled with words that I then scribbled on to indicate how we go from one activity to another to another to another with little time for rest. I made the point that even though many of the things on the board are good activities in which to be involved, we have to beware of over-filling our schedules. We need the rhythm of rest and work in our lives. Sometimes we need to declutter so that we can focus on what's most important. At this point in the lesson, I wiped the eraser through the box on the white board. The words were all wiped away, and the shape of the cross remained.

The trick accomplished its goal. The students were surprised and impacted, and I hope it will be something they remember long after they've forgotten who was even teaching class that morning.