Eugene Peterson’s The Message captures the essence of what it means to live generously in his paraphrase of Jesus’ words in the fifth chapter of Matthew's Gospel.
43 "You're familiar with the old written law, 'Love your friend,' and its unwritten companion, 'Hate your enemy.' 44 I'm challenging that. I'm telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer, 45 for the you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. He gives his best—the sun to warm and the rain to nourish—to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty. 46 If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that. 47 If you simply say hello to those who greet you, do you expect a medal? Any run-of-the-mill sinner does that. 48 "In a word, what I'm saying is, Grow up. You're kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you. Matt 5:43-48 (MSG)
According to this text, living generously is living responsively. We live in a way that we have experienced life. It is hard for us to do otherwise. That is it is hard for us to be generous when we have not been taught generosity.
Being taught generosity does not necessarily mean that someone has been generous to us. Rather, it might be just as true that we have never been on the receiving end of someone’s generosity. Reflectively, we decide to “not be like them.” It’s almost as if our generosity grows out of dislike for the way someone has behaved toward us. How common is this?
It is more likely that we became generous when we realized how another has been generous toward us, especially God. At some point we become aware that everything we have, our life, even our very breath, is a gift. This outward look is part of our maturing, part of what teaches us that we are not the center of the world, only part of it.
Living generously begins when we begin to respond to the generosity we have experienced. Such an experience is a maturing one. We are growing up when we begin to live generously rather than protectively. A kindergartner’s concept of sharing is “You have it. I want it. Let’s share.” Such behavior is distressing when it is seen in adults. We teach kindergartners the value of sharing. It takes time for them to learn it. At some point— we hope –they get it. Even more importantly, we hope they practice it.
Worship in the real world is dependent on believers living generously, not only in an economic sense. In fact, it almost is a fault of many Christians that they are more ready to give help by giving money than they are to go help by giving themselves. Sometimes the former is the best way to help. However, not always. Churches which allow Christians to only develop as financial supporters and not also as hands-on servers miss the heart of the Gospel.
Living generously is living toward the other. We do not live generously so that we will feel better about ourselves. Christians live this way because one cannot be Christian and live otherwise. Worship finds its outflow in service. The gathered service is meant in every way to be preparation for scattered service. Scattered service without gathered service sacrifices its root. The gathered body of Christ is where Christians plant themselves so that they can extend out as a living limb of the body.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
A Trinitarian Benediction
A Trinitarian benediction for worship is found in the writing of H. Orton Wiley. “The Aaronic benediction uses the word Jehovah [JHWH] in a three fold sense. Jehovah bless thee and keep thee. Jehovah makes his face to shine upon thee. Jehovah lift ups his countenance upon thee and give thee peace (Num. 6:24-27). The three members of this form may correspond to the love of the Father, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the communion of the Holy Ghost (cf. II Cor. 13:14)” (H. Orton Wiley and Paul T. Culbertson. 1954. Introduction to Christian Theology. Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press, p. 112).
This “love of the Father, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the communion of the Holy [Spirit]” becomes the good words to be used for blessing those who scatter from the gathered convocation of the worshipping body of Christ. These are words which suggest that God neither precedes the dispersal of gathered worship nor leaves it behind, but rather goes with those who go to worship through the life of the spirit lived through attitude and actions of daily life. It is the one God who goes with the body of Christ who departs to live in and out of the Spirit. In each element of the life of the body the presence of God is found to be hovering, encouraging, influencing, calling to be, and enlivening the work of the scattered body. This trinitarian picture of God in the real world is an essential in push against individualism over community, against human initiation in favor of divine prevenience, against favoring existential living over eternal life. These are good words that are to be shared in all of the gatherings to which God calls the body in the great commission to “Go into all the world….”
This “love of the Father, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the communion of the Holy [Spirit]” becomes the good words to be used for blessing those who scatter from the gathered convocation of the worshipping body of Christ. These are words which suggest that God neither precedes the dispersal of gathered worship nor leaves it behind, but rather goes with those who go to worship through the life of the spirit lived through attitude and actions of daily life. It is the one God who goes with the body of Christ who departs to live in and out of the Spirit. In each element of the life of the body the presence of God is found to be hovering, encouraging, influencing, calling to be, and enlivening the work of the scattered body. This trinitarian picture of God in the real world is an essential in push against individualism over community, against human initiation in favor of divine prevenience, against favoring existential living over eternal life. These are good words that are to be shared in all of the gatherings to which God calls the body in the great commission to “Go into all the world….”
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
The Role of the Holy Spirit in Worship
What is the role of the Holy Spirit in Ordinary (or extraordinary) Worship? How is the Spirit’s influence in worship a “real world” experience? Or, what difference does worship make anyway?
Without a real world approach and expectation, worship is irrelevant because of its lack of connection to the real world. Determining the real world is more than a purely human exercise. Such a determination, like worship, is under the influence of the all pervasive, ubiquitous Holy Spirit of God. Real world determination based only on what appeals to culture is too self-centered to be a holistic evaluation of what is real. Relevance, then, is not solely determined by human thinking and experience, but these certainly cooperate in the process.
How do people become part of the creative process of Christian worship which engages people with God who is worshipped in the power of the Spirit? By observation, Christian worship can often be less than an engaging exercise of the whole person (body, mind, and spirit) which is enlivened by the Spirit of God.
The spirit of a person is in no way to be understood as being the same as the Spirit of God. In that God is wholly other than human beings (though human beings bear the “image of God”), likewise God’s Spirit, being very God, is also wholly other. Nonetheless, it is possible for the human spirit and God’s Spirit to be in an on-going cooperative relationship thanks to God’s initiative work of grace in all people. God’s Spirit is at work enlivening people on a continual basis (“In him we move and live and have our being,” Acts 17:28). At the same time we should remember that a person’s spirit is influenced by many outside forces. Even a born again Christian is non-consciously influenced by the culture that surrounds them. Culture is not necessarily sinful. However, it is other than God’s holy influence which works through people to influence culture toward actions like the lovingkindness of God.
As in the creation story of Genesis 1:1-2:3, the Spirit continues its creative role as the generative breath of life. Like the brooding of the Spirit over the primordial waters, the Spirit of God works to draw people from the chaos of what is purported to be the real world through the re-centering influence of God, an influence which moves us from a self-centered existence to other-inclusive awareness and care. This influence is the unifying act of God upon people. God desires that all should become one in Christ. The Spirit’s work is particularly noticeable in the result. Our spirit’s are joined with the Spirit of God in testimony to Christ’s work among a worshipping body and through the loving work performed as the gathered worshipping body scatters to their daily life as the representatives of Christ. Worship, then, becomes a larger communal event through their daily lives. This too is made possible by the ever-present Spirit. The Spirit is at work in the daily life of each Christian believer, and is preveniently at work in the life of non-believers, so that it is possible for the Spirit flow to and out of all of life. The Spirit can make all of life a community event, and all of life sacramental, as people respond to the influence of God’s Spirit.
That there are non-engaged people present in worship is not necessarily a sign that the Spirit is not at work even in these non-engaged people. Rather, it speaks more about their response. Being gathered for worship is not the same as worshipping. The defining element of Christian worship is response, and to become worship that response must be positive, must be a “yes” sung in response to the Spirit’s call to come and worship. Without response, worship is like students in a classroom who hear what the teacher says yet fail to learn the subject. The teacher cannot stuff information into them. Students only learn when they engage with the subject. Likewise, worship is not done by osmosis. Worship is response. It is action. It is what people do in response to God’s loving influence upon them through the Spirit. Apart from the Spirit, apart from human response, there is no such thing as Christian worship. This suggests, as is often the case in gathered worship, that the influence of the Spirit at work can be ignored to the detriment of everyone in the community. The same can be said of daily life as the body of Christ scatters to be God’s influence in the world. Apart from the Spirit, life is going through the motions but not real living, not real life.
Engagement in worship is not the work of gimmicks or the embracing of style, something which seems to predominate much Christian worship practice. Neither is it remaining steadfast to a faded glory of historic experiences. Engagement in worship is people who are actively remembering the work that God has done in them, and/ or people who are actively responding to the loving influence of God to do the work of God in the real world. This work is the work of worship. This work moves ordinary worship into the realm of the extraordinary. This work makes the real world the real world. This work is only possible because of the influencing Spirit of God.
Without a real world approach and expectation, worship is irrelevant because of its lack of connection to the real world. Determining the real world is more than a purely human exercise. Such a determination, like worship, is under the influence of the all pervasive, ubiquitous Holy Spirit of God. Real world determination based only on what appeals to culture is too self-centered to be a holistic evaluation of what is real. Relevance, then, is not solely determined by human thinking and experience, but these certainly cooperate in the process.
How do people become part of the creative process of Christian worship which engages people with God who is worshipped in the power of the Spirit? By observation, Christian worship can often be less than an engaging exercise of the whole person (body, mind, and spirit) which is enlivened by the Spirit of God.
The spirit of a person is in no way to be understood as being the same as the Spirit of God. In that God is wholly other than human beings (though human beings bear the “image of God”), likewise God’s Spirit, being very God, is also wholly other. Nonetheless, it is possible for the human spirit and God’s Spirit to be in an on-going cooperative relationship thanks to God’s initiative work of grace in all people. God’s Spirit is at work enlivening people on a continual basis (“In him we move and live and have our being,” Acts 17:28). At the same time we should remember that a person’s spirit is influenced by many outside forces. Even a born again Christian is non-consciously influenced by the culture that surrounds them. Culture is not necessarily sinful. However, it is other than God’s holy influence which works through people to influence culture toward actions like the lovingkindness of God.
As in the creation story of Genesis 1:1-2:3, the Spirit continues its creative role as the generative breath of life. Like the brooding of the Spirit over the primordial waters, the Spirit of God works to draw people from the chaos of what is purported to be the real world through the re-centering influence of God, an influence which moves us from a self-centered existence to other-inclusive awareness and care. This influence is the unifying act of God upon people. God desires that all should become one in Christ. The Spirit’s work is particularly noticeable in the result. Our spirit’s are joined with the Spirit of God in testimony to Christ’s work among a worshipping body and through the loving work performed as the gathered worshipping body scatters to their daily life as the representatives of Christ. Worship, then, becomes a larger communal event through their daily lives. This too is made possible by the ever-present Spirit. The Spirit is at work in the daily life of each Christian believer, and is preveniently at work in the life of non-believers, so that it is possible for the Spirit flow to and out of all of life. The Spirit can make all of life a community event, and all of life sacramental, as people respond to the influence of God’s Spirit.
That there are non-engaged people present in worship is not necessarily a sign that the Spirit is not at work even in these non-engaged people. Rather, it speaks more about their response. Being gathered for worship is not the same as worshipping. The defining element of Christian worship is response, and to become worship that response must be positive, must be a “yes” sung in response to the Spirit’s call to come and worship. Without response, worship is like students in a classroom who hear what the teacher says yet fail to learn the subject. The teacher cannot stuff information into them. Students only learn when they engage with the subject. Likewise, worship is not done by osmosis. Worship is response. It is action. It is what people do in response to God’s loving influence upon them through the Spirit. Apart from the Spirit, apart from human response, there is no such thing as Christian worship. This suggests, as is often the case in gathered worship, that the influence of the Spirit at work can be ignored to the detriment of everyone in the community. The same can be said of daily life as the body of Christ scatters to be God’s influence in the world. Apart from the Spirit, life is going through the motions but not real living, not real life.
Engagement in worship is not the work of gimmicks or the embracing of style, something which seems to predominate much Christian worship practice. Neither is it remaining steadfast to a faded glory of historic experiences. Engagement in worship is people who are actively remembering the work that God has done in them, and/ or people who are actively responding to the loving influence of God to do the work of God in the real world. This work is the work of worship. This work moves ordinary worship into the realm of the extraordinary. This work makes the real world the real world. This work is only possible because of the influencing Spirit of God.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Is Christian worship an intelligible response or an instinctive one? Does one choose to worship, or is one graced with the ability to rightly respond to the influence of the Holy Spirit?
To be sure the worship of God is not solely a human invention, though anthropologists report worship as a practice in almost all cultures. There is something within human beings that calls for response to something outside of human beings, the other, the wholly other, the divine, the Creator of all, etc.
Scripture records that God seeks worshippers (John 4). This is a turn around from the often touted worship developments which suggest that the gathered worship of the Christian community should be seeker sensitive. The latter focuses on the human part of the worship equation. That God seeks worshippers and generously and graciously enables the free response of people in recognition of God's goodness suggests that it is God who initiates worship. Human beings enabled by God-given grace respond, and that response in positive praise of God is deemed worship. Apart from God's initiative, apart from God's grace, apart from God's wooing Holy Spirit, the can be no Christian worship. Without these that which poses as worship is empty ritual, instinctive cultic practice. Such worship does not bear the transformative qualities of Spirit-driven worship.
Human beings bear the imprint of God, being created in the image of God. Their ability to respond intelligently sets them above creaturely life which, at least for now, can respond only instinctively. (Who knows how this may change in God's eschatological future?) Though human intelligence is affected by the fall, God's on-going gracious activity calls people from self-centered, self-abegnation to loving response to the Creator and loving care for the created. God initiates what human beings can join, a shared fellowship with the One who seeks true worshippers. Thanks be to God.
To be sure the worship of God is not solely a human invention, though anthropologists report worship as a practice in almost all cultures. There is something within human beings that calls for response to something outside of human beings, the other, the wholly other, the divine, the Creator of all, etc.
Scripture records that God seeks worshippers (John 4). This is a turn around from the often touted worship developments which suggest that the gathered worship of the Christian community should be seeker sensitive. The latter focuses on the human part of the worship equation. That God seeks worshippers and generously and graciously enables the free response of people in recognition of God's goodness suggests that it is God who initiates worship. Human beings enabled by God-given grace respond, and that response in positive praise of God is deemed worship. Apart from God's initiative, apart from God's grace, apart from God's wooing Holy Spirit, the can be no Christian worship. Without these that which poses as worship is empty ritual, instinctive cultic practice. Such worship does not bear the transformative qualities of Spirit-driven worship.
Human beings bear the imprint of God, being created in the image of God. Their ability to respond intelligently sets them above creaturely life which, at least for now, can respond only instinctively. (Who knows how this may change in God's eschatological future?) Though human intelligence is affected by the fall, God's on-going gracious activity calls people from self-centered, self-abegnation to loving response to the Creator and loving care for the created. God initiates what human beings can join, a shared fellowship with the One who seeks true worshippers. Thanks be to God.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
One Life of Worship
My upcoming book, The Worship of God in the Real World: the Interlacing of Gathered and Scattered Worship, needs to consider Jesus as an example of one who lives out a life of daily worship on earth. As a Jewish man he attended the local synagogue. Did Jesus allow the worship practices of this gathering to be reflected in his everyday life? It seems that he did, and Scripture seems to support this.
Jesus regularly gathered with people and seemed to do so with the intent of engaging them with the message of God. We know nothing of his singing, though it is likely that he joined in the singing of the gathered congregation at the synagogue. We do know that before he left with his friends to go to pray in Gethsemane that they all sang a hymn. We do know that he prayed and taught his followers to pray. We know that he read and recited Scripture. We know of his preaching through both his words and his deeds. We do know that he praised those who lived generously, though we do not know that he gave money to any cause other than taxes that were due. Of course, he instituted the rite of Communion with plans to celebrate it again in a great day that is yet to come. We do know that he left good words for life�s journey that were meant not only to commission his followers, but to comfort them as well. It would seem that as a person who went to the synagogue, as a person who gathered for worship, Jesus allowed his worship practice to be reflected through his daily life.
How can follow his example? Perhaps the apostle Paul�s notion our being �in Christ� could be helpful here. Paul�s call is for all people to be in Christ, even as Christ is in us. This relationship defines the meaning of the word Christian.
Is it possible to somehow be �in Christ? According to Scripture it is. The seventeenth chapter of the Gospel of John declares Christ�s oneness with God the Father, and that Jesus prayed that this same oneness would be realized in all who would later come to believe in him. This oneness with God was to extend from those who would come to believe in Christ through those who shared the message of Christ. Then, this oneness extends from God though Christ by the Spirit to those who believe, and it is reflected back to God from those who hear the word through those who share the word by the Spirit who proclaims the Son to the glory of the Father. By this all who believe in Christ become one in Christ.
Why is this oneness so important? Because Christ the Son does the work of God the Father in the power of the Spirit, and Christ calls all people to join in this work of God. Rather than fighting among ourselves -- or within ourselves -- we are to be doing the work of God. And what is that work? Jesus comments throughout the Gospel of John regarding his call to do the work of God, and how that this was the reason he was sent to earth. He came to complete the work of God. When people asked Jesus, �What must we do to perform the works of God? Jesus answered them, �This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent�� (John 6:28-29).
Human division fights against the work of God. It fights against the oneness that God is calling all human beings to embrace in order to enjoy the real world. The oneness of God is not some idealistic common agreement on all things. God created diversity. Creation rails against homogeneity. Oneness is found in the response that comes from all of the diversity of creation as it worships the One who created all things. The worship of God is only possible by the Spirit of God. The Spirit calls us to life in Christ and enables all life to offer worship to God.
One way to be one in Christ is to allow the actions of our lives to be reflective of the worship of our lives. Our worship is offered to God in Christ by the power of the Spirit. Our lives should reflect our belief and practice. Our lives should become the practice of our belief.
Gathered worship provides us with an overview of life and how we are to live it. It should be a template for how we live: gathering, singing, reading, hearing, sharing, receiving, all going in a continuous cycle of gathering and scattering, scattering and gathering, in order to integrate a cycle of life built on the purpose of knowing and enjoying real life which is enjoying our relationship with God and each other in the real world.
The connection of these �two parts� of our �one life� is the connection between the life we find inside of us and life we experience outside of us. Much of humanity ignores what is going on inside of them. This often seems true particularly for men. They seem to stay purposefully unaware of their feelings, a sort of non-conscious form of living. Perhaps women do the same. The integration of these two parts is sometimes referred to as spiritual formation, making our many selves one. This is often part psychological, part philosophical, part spiritual, part physical, and perhaps other parts as well. All of these make up the �us� that we are in two parts, one body and one spirit, and even these are totally interlaced: body in spirit, spirit in body.
Joining all these parts into one is a holistic understanding of the real world of life as it is supposed to be lived. Lived apart, each of these parts is a nice discussion point, points that we sometimes objectify. This �objective� distance is an attempt to stand back and look at these parts, ponder them, talk about them, and treat them as if we can stand outside of ourselves and see ourselves �objectively� apart from the very things that make us us. However, all of us is bound together in our bodies in this present moment. We are not only material, we are also spirit. Scripture reminds us that we are but dust and vapor, thought and action, cause and result, all of these wrapped into what we call a person. Sadly, there are 6 billion plus us-es who tend to live in isolation alongside each other until we discover that it is God�s plan to unite us into one family in Christ, an interdependent family of God.
We are called to be one people, called to worship God, the One who created us to be one with God and one with each other. This making our many selves one is big stuff comprised of lots and lots of little stuff, all interlaced through each other. This is the stuff of the real world. And it is all to be found �in Christ.�
The basis for life in the real world is interrelatedness with the One who created and sustains all life and who calls all life into relationship with the Creator and with the created. On a biological level, all created things are interrelated. It is intended by God that all things would also be related on a spiritual level connecting all life holistically. The best way to do this is through living a life of worship.
My upcoming book, The Worship of God in the Real World: the Interlacing of Gathered and Scattered Worship, needs to consider Jesus as an example of one who lives out a life of daily worship on earth. As a Jewish man he attended the local synagogue. Did Jesus allow the worship practices of this gathering to be reflected in his everyday life? It seems that he did, and Scripture seems to support this.
Jesus regularly gathered with people and seemed to do so with the intent of engaging them with the message of God. We know nothing of his singing, though it is likely that he joined in the singing of the gathered congregation at the synagogue. We do know that before he left with his friends to go to pray in Gethsemane that they all sang a hymn. We do know that he prayed and taught his followers to pray. We know that he read and recited Scripture. We know of his preaching through both his words and his deeds. We do know that he praised those who lived generously, though we do not know that he gave money to any cause other than taxes that were due. Of course, he instituted the rite of Communion with plans to celebrate it again in a great day that is yet to come. We do know that he left good words for life�s journey that were meant not only to commission his followers, but to comfort them as well. It would seem that as a person who went to the synagogue, as a person who gathered for worship, Jesus allowed his worship practice to be reflected through his daily life.
How can follow his example? Perhaps the apostle Paul�s notion our being �in Christ� could be helpful here. Paul�s call is for all people to be in Christ, even as Christ is in us. This relationship defines the meaning of the word Christian.
Is it possible to somehow be �in Christ? According to Scripture it is. The seventeenth chapter of the Gospel of John declares Christ�s oneness with God the Father, and that Jesus prayed that this same oneness would be realized in all who would later come to believe in him. This oneness with God was to extend from those who would come to believe in Christ through those who shared the message of Christ. Then, this oneness extends from God though Christ by the Spirit to those who believe, and it is reflected back to God from those who hear the word through those who share the word by the Spirit who proclaims the Son to the glory of the Father. By this all who believe in Christ become one in Christ.
Why is this oneness so important? Because Christ the Son does the work of God the Father in the power of the Spirit, and Christ calls all people to join in this work of God. Rather than fighting among ourselves -- or within ourselves -- we are to be doing the work of God. And what is that work? Jesus comments throughout the Gospel of John regarding his call to do the work of God, and how that this was the reason he was sent to earth. He came to complete the work of God. When people asked Jesus, �What must we do to perform the works of God? Jesus answered them, �This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent�� (John 6:28-29).
Human division fights against the work of God. It fights against the oneness that God is calling all human beings to embrace in order to enjoy the real world. The oneness of God is not some idealistic common agreement on all things. God created diversity. Creation rails against homogeneity. Oneness is found in the response that comes from all of the diversity of creation as it worships the One who created all things. The worship of God is only possible by the Spirit of God. The Spirit calls us to life in Christ and enables all life to offer worship to God.
One way to be one in Christ is to allow the actions of our lives to be reflective of the worship of our lives. Our worship is offered to God in Christ by the power of the Spirit. Our lives should reflect our belief and practice. Our lives should become the practice of our belief.
Gathered worship provides us with an overview of life and how we are to live it. It should be a template for how we live: gathering, singing, reading, hearing, sharing, receiving, all going in a continuous cycle of gathering and scattering, scattering and gathering, in order to integrate a cycle of life built on the purpose of knowing and enjoying real life which is enjoying our relationship with God and each other in the real world.
The connection of these �two parts� of our �one life� is the connection between the life we find inside of us and life we experience outside of us. Much of humanity ignores what is going on inside of them. This often seems true particularly for men. They seem to stay purposefully unaware of their feelings, a sort of non-conscious form of living. Perhaps women do the same. The integration of these two parts is sometimes referred to as spiritual formation, making our many selves one. This is often part psychological, part philosophical, part spiritual, part physical, and perhaps other parts as well. All of these make up the �us� that we are in two parts, one body and one spirit, and even these are totally interlaced: body in spirit, spirit in body.
Joining all these parts into one is a holistic understanding of the real world of life as it is supposed to be lived. Lived apart, each of these parts is a nice discussion point, points that we sometimes objectify. This �objective� distance is an attempt to stand back and look at these parts, ponder them, talk about them, and treat them as if we can stand outside of ourselves and see ourselves �objectively� apart from the very things that make us us. However, all of us is bound together in our bodies in this present moment. We are not only material, we are also spirit. Scripture reminds us that we are but dust and vapor, thought and action, cause and result, all of these wrapped into what we call a person. Sadly, there are 6 billion plus us-es who tend to live in isolation alongside each other until we discover that it is God�s plan to unite us into one family in Christ, an interdependent family of God.
We are called to be one people, called to worship God, the One who created us to be one with God and one with each other. This making our many selves one is big stuff comprised of lots and lots of little stuff, all interlaced through each other. This is the stuff of the real world. And it is all to be found �in Christ.�
The basis for life in the real world is interrelatedness with the One who created and sustains all life and who calls all life into relationship with the Creator and with the created. On a biological level, all created things are interrelated. It is intended by God that all things would also be related on a spiritual level connecting all life holistically. The best way to do this is through living a life of worship.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Hospitality in the early Church
We are strangers in this world. This was a world view that many early Christians held. In Ancient and Postmodern Christianity: Paleo-Orthodoxy in the 21st Century (2002. Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity Press) Amy Oden wrote a chapter titled “God’s Household of Grace: Hospitality in the Early Church.” She wrote: “Many Early Christian texts insist that Christians understand themselves first as strangers in order to then extend hospitality as strangers in the world” (39).
Christians today should be sharing fellowship in homes where they show up as guests but end up serving as hosts. This is the way Christians should behave. If so, why is this often not the case? What forces or influences push against such notions? Jesus shows us the way in stories like the one found in John 2. Here we read that he shows up at the wedding in Cana as a guest and ends up providing an important element for the wedding celebration, an element that is the best of all that is served up until the point when Jesus provides this best wine from common water.
Oden notes that this practice of hospitality, this gracious way of living, “is sometimes accomplished through the deliberate confusion of roles of host and guest” (39). This “stranger” notion in Christianity has its roots in biblical history, not the least of which is that the people of God once found themselves as strangers in Egypt. This history made them more conscious of the stranger, made them more aware of the needs of the stranger, and called them to be the agents of God who were to provide for the stranger. Some of this call to provide for the stranger is found in Leviticus 19.
Perhaps, the Church in contemporary practice has forgotten this, or at least has moved away from such a notion. I believe it has. Current worship practice often displays this as its creates worship services for “home” folks, almost mindless of guests in the midst, strangers who are present. This needs to change. None of this is done without the gracious initiative of God, but it also needs the gracious response of God’s people.
We are to be strangers who recognize the needs of others who can only be provided for through the cooperative venture of God and God’s people. We are called to be servants in the household of God, strangers in this world who purpose to host the stranger to the feast. Oh that we might become stranger hosts who are responsive to the leadership of the Holy Spirit who are living out the example of Jesus.
Christians today should be sharing fellowship in homes where they show up as guests but end up serving as hosts. This is the way Christians should behave. If so, why is this often not the case? What forces or influences push against such notions? Jesus shows us the way in stories like the one found in John 2. Here we read that he shows up at the wedding in Cana as a guest and ends up providing an important element for the wedding celebration, an element that is the best of all that is served up until the point when Jesus provides this best wine from common water.
Oden notes that this practice of hospitality, this gracious way of living, “is sometimes accomplished through the deliberate confusion of roles of host and guest” (39). This “stranger” notion in Christianity has its roots in biblical history, not the least of which is that the people of God once found themselves as strangers in Egypt. This history made them more conscious of the stranger, made them more aware of the needs of the stranger, and called them to be the agents of God who were to provide for the stranger. Some of this call to provide for the stranger is found in Leviticus 19.
Perhaps, the Church in contemporary practice has forgotten this, or at least has moved away from such a notion. I believe it has. Current worship practice often displays this as its creates worship services for “home” folks, almost mindless of guests in the midst, strangers who are present. This needs to change. None of this is done without the gracious initiative of God, but it also needs the gracious response of God’s people.
We are to be strangers who recognize the needs of others who can only be provided for through the cooperative venture of God and God’s people. We are called to be servants in the household of God, strangers in this world who purpose to host the stranger to the feast. Oh that we might become stranger hosts who are responsive to the leadership of the Holy Spirit who are living out the example of Jesus.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
On Friends and Friendships
In the book Christian Friendship in the Fourth Century, Carolinne White serves up a basis for understanding what may have been what the early Church thought about the concepts of friend and friendship. Along with this, we may accept from White’s book, and in particular her chapter on Aristotle’s concept of friendship as found in Nicomachean Ethics (Chapter two of White: “Classical Theories of Friendship”), that Greek culture would not have prohibited self-love as a valuable part of friendship. From this, then, we can support a view that includes the notion of love of self along side of and as a valuable part of loving God and loving people. Such a view would likely have been part of the understanding of the early Church in regard to friendship with God and other people.
Aristotle’s influence on early Greek culture affected the culture into which the early Church was born, even though its birth was almost four centuries later. It is easy to accept that the culture in which the early Church began was part of the shaping influence of the Church. It affected the way the members of the early Church thought and behaved. We may conclude that these concepts included an understanding that self-love was retained as a value in the way the Church lived out how to love God and other human beings. Such a view holds that self-love is healthy, as it is proportional to love for the other.
The Scriptural context for a view of Christian friendship can be found in the law of love as provided in the Gospel of Luke. The lawyer of Luke 10 summarized for Jesus what was found in the Law regarding the answer to the question of how one might “inherit eternal life” (Luke 10:25). The lawyer’s answer included the co-alignment of texts from Deuteronomy 6:5, “You shall love the Lord Your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might,” and Leviticus 19:18b, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself,” and along the way added the phrase “with all your mind” into one verse that now reads: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27). This verse became and remains the standard for holy living.
In current practice, as perhaps it has been in the past, the last phrase of this verse, “as yourself,” often seems to struggle in a tension of being over emphasized or under emphasized in the life of the Church. Self-love is not a concept of constant, equal proportions. It should be understood as a continuum in which love for the other is sometimes greater than love for the self – promoting sacrifice – and at other times love for the self is greater than love of the other – promoting health, which can lead to life! To love God is to love the other (Matt 25:40). To love God without the love of the other is empty ritual and life which is unacceptable to God (Rom 12:1). To love the other without loving God is idolatry – loving the created apart from loving the Creator (Ex 20:2-6). The interlacing of these three is life lived abundantly.
This tri-parte way of living – living lovingly toward God, others, and self – is the form that Jesus offers as the pattern for the Church to live in the real world. It is a pattern in which human beings are to be shaped in order to be conformed to the image of the Son as they experience and live out the love of God. For Christians, living out this loving pattern is done through the rituals of their daily life. These rituals are reflections of the very pattern of the gathered worship of the Church. This worship is meant to be extended from the gathered experience as the Church scatters and becomes a benefit to the world as well as a benefit for those who live these patterns.
A daily worship which is lived is composed of the various elements of gathered worship. These become the rituals of the daily living. It is living out the creative worship of God. This is a pattern to which all humanity is invited to join every day throughout the day as the Spirit of God incessantly woos all people everywhere, inviting all to join in response to the love and friendship that God offers to all, love that is best exemplified in Christ who came to be our friend even while we were yet enemies of God! How can the Church do less than offer such daily, scattered worship, and in the process offer friendship both toward those in its ranks, as well as to all who fall under its influence?
Aristotle’s influence on early Greek culture affected the culture into which the early Church was born, even though its birth was almost four centuries later. It is easy to accept that the culture in which the early Church began was part of the shaping influence of the Church. It affected the way the members of the early Church thought and behaved. We may conclude that these concepts included an understanding that self-love was retained as a value in the way the Church lived out how to love God and other human beings. Such a view holds that self-love is healthy, as it is proportional to love for the other.
The Scriptural context for a view of Christian friendship can be found in the law of love as provided in the Gospel of Luke. The lawyer of Luke 10 summarized for Jesus what was found in the Law regarding the answer to the question of how one might “inherit eternal life” (Luke 10:25). The lawyer’s answer included the co-alignment of texts from Deuteronomy 6:5, “You shall love the Lord Your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might,” and Leviticus 19:18b, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself,” and along the way added the phrase “with all your mind” into one verse that now reads: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27). This verse became and remains the standard for holy living.
In current practice, as perhaps it has been in the past, the last phrase of this verse, “as yourself,” often seems to struggle in a tension of being over emphasized or under emphasized in the life of the Church. Self-love is not a concept of constant, equal proportions. It should be understood as a continuum in which love for the other is sometimes greater than love for the self – promoting sacrifice – and at other times love for the self is greater than love of the other – promoting health, which can lead to life! To love God is to love the other (Matt 25:40). To love God without the love of the other is empty ritual and life which is unacceptable to God (Rom 12:1). To love the other without loving God is idolatry – loving the created apart from loving the Creator (Ex 20:2-6). The interlacing of these three is life lived abundantly.
This tri-parte way of living – living lovingly toward God, others, and self – is the form that Jesus offers as the pattern for the Church to live in the real world. It is a pattern in which human beings are to be shaped in order to be conformed to the image of the Son as they experience and live out the love of God. For Christians, living out this loving pattern is done through the rituals of their daily life. These rituals are reflections of the very pattern of the gathered worship of the Church. This worship is meant to be extended from the gathered experience as the Church scatters and becomes a benefit to the world as well as a benefit for those who live these patterns.
A daily worship which is lived is composed of the various elements of gathered worship. These become the rituals of the daily living. It is living out the creative worship of God. This is a pattern to which all humanity is invited to join every day throughout the day as the Spirit of God incessantly woos all people everywhere, inviting all to join in response to the love and friendship that God offers to all, love that is best exemplified in Christ who came to be our friend even while we were yet enemies of God! How can the Church do less than offer such daily, scattered worship, and in the process offer friendship both toward those in its ranks, as well as to all who fall under its influence?
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