Geoff

One of my favorite poets is George Herbert.

One of the most important spiritual disciplines is practicing God’s presence (in the sense of calling God and the things pertaining to him to mind throughout the day).

Thus, one of my greatest delights is this poem:

The Elixir

TEach me, my God and King,
        In all things thee to see,
And what I do in any thing,
        To do it as for thee:

        Not rudely, as a beast,
        To runne into an action;
But still to make thee prepossest,
        And give it his perfection.

        A man that looks on glasse,
        On it may stay his eye;
Or if he pleaseth, through it passe,
        And then the heav’n espie.

        All may of thee partake:
        Nothing can be so mean,
Which with his tincture (for thy sake)
        Will not grow bright and clean.

        A servant with this clause
        Makes drudgerie divine:
Who sweeps a room, as for thy laws,
        Makes that and th’ action fine.

        This is the famous stone
        That turneth all to gold:
For that which God doth touch and own
        Cannot for lesse be told.

 The power of this particular poem is that it brings Christian mysticism (of the good kind, not some of the weird stuff) to everybody by describing it in brief, easy to remember instructions. It is, in this respect is wonderful commentary on Paul’s instructions concerning being mindful of the Spirit (Romans 8:1-7). The only problem with the poem is that it is not very Christ centered. This makes sense though, because in Herbert’s day, concepts of God were thoroughly Christ oriented and Trinitarian. I would suspect that today this poem might need to be appended with advice such as: when you call God to mind as you work, do so as God is revealed in the gospel stories about Jesus.  

In a previous post I proposed the gospel message (or the kerygmatic traditions) as the center of New Testament theology, not as a theme but as the historical reality behind the rhetoric and theological reasoning found in our New Testament. Now I propose a helpful distinction within the New Testament itself:

Gospel Saying vs Gospel Describing

In our New Testaments we have the four gospels, the sermons in Acts, and the brief allusions to the gospel’s actual content in Paul’s letters. But we also have sections wherein the gospel is not referred to by name, but is nevertheless the referent.

1. The word of life (Philippians 2:16 and 1 John 1:1)
2. The word of God (Acts 6:2, 1 Thessalonians 4:13, and Hebrews 4:12
3. Treasure in Earthen Vessels (2 Corinthians 4:7)
4. The gospel of the glory of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 4:4)
5. The gospel of salvation (Ephesians 1:13)
6. The message of God having no darkness in him at all (1 John 1:1-5)
7. The message that God wants us to love one another (1 John 3:11)

These descriptions of the message of the apostles are very important because they show us what the gospel is like, what the gospel entails, what the gospel means, and what the gospel includes. But these phrases are more like descriptions of a a favorite song or novel. They are not the novel, but they may be important for understanding the novel. If I say, “‘A Study in Scarlet’ by Conan Doyle is an important introduction to the most compelling fictional friendship of all time,” I have given you important information about the book, but that is not the book. What I have said is thematically significant, but it is not even the main plot line. So, when the gospel is called “the word of life,” we might be tempted to think, “Ah, the content of gospel is that God gives us significance, saves us from death, and teaches us how to live.” When in reality, what that phrase means is that, “The message about the Jesus that we preach is the message that God uses to give you significance, save you from death, and teach you how to live.” The gospel narrative/history can be told, described, and applied with various emphases, but these emphases are not the same as the message. For instance, telling about how God is good the maximal sense (1John 1:5) is very important, but neglecting to show how that fact is demonstrated by the Jesus story (which John goes on to do) is not quite the same as saying the gospel.

Why point this out? Because in modern evangelical though we often mistake trees for the forest or the other way around.

We might reason:

1. The gospel is the gospel of our salvation, I’m pretty sure that’s what happens when Jesus dies, so that’s the part that’s the gospel.
2. The gospel is the word of life. Jesus preaches about life in the Sermon on the Mount, that should be the main part I preach about.
3. John the Baptist preached about the Holy Spirit when he preached the gospel, therefore when I preach about the Spirit, I’m preaching the gospel.
4. Jesus said that his good news was about freedom for the captives, therefore when I preach about political causes, I am proclaiming the gospel.
5. The gospel message fulfills the Old Testament, therefore I am discharging my evangelical duties when I talk about prophecy.
6. The gospel is contrary to certain philosophies, therefore when I refute them, I am doing none other than preaching the gospel.
7. The gospel is about eternal life, so when I tell people that if they want to go to heaven instead of hell, they can, I am preaching the gospel.

All of these descriptions are caricatured except maybe for the first one. But it seems to me that the whole gospel can be proclaimed, explained, and applied from any of the vantage points used in the New Testament and perhaps from many vantage points used in church history. But let it be remembered that gospel descriptions are lenses, they are not the thing itself.

 

One gets the impression in the vigor of youth, that growing up is a restless evil and filled with meaningless trivialities. And while certain versions of growing up like growing weak-willed, being obsessed with sports, or having an unhappy marriage really are silly and should be avoided, other parts really aren’t all that bad. It’s almost as if, in the absence of certain evils that destroy the beauty of life for many around the world, that growing up is wonderful.

Ben Meyers posted about apocalyptic thought and creation a few days ago, which in a strange coincidence I had been thinking and writing about myself (the few paragraphs of scratch I have produced share only one or two lines of thought with his own). But one of his points was that certain forms of genuine progress can be made in the world through institutions that exist in the world. Ben’s point here is trivially true if you haven’t been to grad school for theology. And what’s hilarious is that non-theology graduate students also believe change can come into the world, but they often believe that it can come only through institutions and especially through the institutions that they love the most.

Anyway, I don’t think Ben means permanent progress or even progress as equivalent with God’s kingdom. Over all, I agree with him. For instance, by helping a group of kids learn to read you have made progress in the world. This does not mean that evils far worse than the good you assisted in do not happen. It also does not mean that your motives included evil and that you never abused your power as a teacher. It means that people who could not do a good thing (read), now can do that good thing and if they were taught to read at a church or a school, then good occurred through the institution.

I’m as pessimistic about human nature as anybody. I have a natural tendency to be misanthropic and my belief in total depravity gives me several reasons to hold no hope for anybody. But, there are not only humanistic but theological reasons for thinking that genuine good can be done in the world through institutions and for people. Ben has realized that.

What’s hilarious though is that he has received several critiques of his motivations. I suppose its because he teaches in the super-duper influential field of theology and as theology professor and has so much authority and power to protect. Ben was essentially criticized because he had become friendly with institutions because institutions help ensure the future for children and though fallen are a part of the created order. Predictably, his critics think, “He is like totally the man, dude.” While I do believe that the context of others can assist one in interpreting said others’ motivations, it is too difficult to do other the internet. Seeking to divine the motivations of others is fun, but I’m not Father Brown and I don’t work on Baker Street.

So I just want to note that when you leave grad school, become a real pastor, build things with your hands, see people overcome their addictions, write computer programs, help hungry people find food and work, all the while still believing Romans 5-8, seeing the horrors on the news, and burying the young, seeing old friends leave the faith, and dealing with people who won’t make simple decisions to solve a problem they’ve had for decades, etc.  You notice some things and one of them is that being a citizen of God’s kingdom can happen in the very human world of institutions like your job or the church. Yes, institutions are fallen and many (all?) are opposed to God in various ways, but Jesus doesn’t tell everybody to literally sell everything and follow him geographically.* Many people who are his disciples by self-identification (they want to go with him), he leave in their towns.  Neither then do the apostles ask everybody to follow them about. They, instead, instruct them in being the church where they converted and some of them become a part of the traveling circus of ancient Christian mission work. My wife wrote about the very issues Ben deals with, but without the Marxist over-tones, because the same anti-creational rhetoric is used in college ministries in the United States: don’t bother with studying, getting enough sleep, or your personal future, your finances, or the well-being of civilization, proverbs and Genesis 1 are for total noobs!

My concluding thoughts:

1. It’s okay to grow up. Most of Jesus’ disciples were grown-ups.
2. Jesus loved children and grown-ups can make children.
3. Apocalyptic thought does affirm creation precisely by promising that the restless evils therein are not features but defects. Thus, it always comes with a call to some sort of transforming life. The apocalyptic of sin and powers being ineffective against God’s grace in Romans 5-8, still concludes with the ethical norms of Romans 12-15.
4. Experiencing the evils of the world, while still doing good and doing good work is perhaps the precise point of creation-affirming apocalyptic in Scripture, like Jeremiah’s letter to the exiles.

 

*In the following passage of Scripture we see Peter tell Jesus, “We’ve left everything to follow you.” This isn’t true on a literal level in the story. We know Peter still had possessions, he went right back to being a fisherman after the crucifixion. Also, after he is named as a disciple in Mark, he still has a house. Jesus does not chastise him for having a house. The point being that Jesus does, and he can do this, ask different things of different people in the gospels. So the part that is addressed to us is what must be discerned. It is also important to note that the very human pleasures of family and property are precisely what Jesus and the gospel writers assume will lure people into following Jesus.

Mat 19:27-30  Then Peter said in reply, “See, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?”  (28)  Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. (29)  And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life. (30)  But many who are first will be last, and the last first.

I propose that at the center of New Testament Theology, descriptively, lies the gospel about Jesus.

This means that though the gospel message is expressed differently among the NT authors or even is not mentioned by name in some books, it is the controlling narrative or central notion of all of the books in the New Testament. Here’s how it looks:

1. The four gospels are the gospel of the early church in biographical format.
2. Acts is a summary of how the apostles spread the gospel of Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit. Also, Acts contains several sermons that follow the same outline as the four gospels (despite how weird John is).
3. The epistles and the apocalypse are all, in some way, a call to show fidelity to the message of Jesus and his apostles.

This has several advantages:

1. It connects the documents of the New Testament not only my their internal themes, but by the purpose of the collection itself.
2. Instead of making a theme like Christology, Theology Proper, God’s glory, wisdom, or even discipleship itself central, it makes the message preached by the early church central (regardless of the individual expressions of foci of various authors).
3. It can be demonstrated with ease that the gospel functions conceptually in most books of the New Testament as: revelatory, salvific, the common confession of the church, and a a structure and source for ethics. Thus it holds together several other emphases of the New Testament.
4. Even books that do not utilize the word “gospel” refer to the word of life, the word preached, the word of Christ, the word of God, or the word of truth, as the source for the group identity or of the individual Christian experience.
5. Rhetorical and conceptual moves made by Paul and other authors can be seen as moves meant to express, clarify, apply, or defend the gospel (or the apostleship of Paul…which means defending the gospel). Thus, we do not have to assume a fundamental contradiction between James’ view of the Christian life as a life of wisdom and Paul’s view of the Christian life as being “in Christ.” Both are true ways of expressing the truth of the gospel. Both might even be true beyond metaphor and rhetoric, but ontologically, but this isn’t the place for that discussion.
6. If we take the gospel story as it is expressed in the gospels as primary then we do not have to look for idiosyncratic themes in some of Paul’s letters (justification by faith alone) as though they are central to all of New Testament thinking.

 

I am writing, when time allows, a longer essay on this topic, but these are my thoughts.

Last night we held my great-grandfather’s memorial service. Here’s his obituary.

He made it to 101. I got to officiate the service, though his Catholic funeral will be held this morning.

We had time for members of the family and community to express their fond memories, but I asked especially for stories of Grandfather’s service to others after a reading from Mark 10. He had a tendency to keep his service to others quiet. A legend even circulated in my youth, that turned out to be true, that he gave land to the school system, but didn’t want the school named after him so he deeded it to a friend in secret so that he wouldn’t be named. His friend spilled the beans, but it was a noble effort.

1. Grandfather helped my aunt by caring for my cousin and taught him how to care for the homeless.
2. He and Grandmother always invited the town never-do-wells to dinner. Thus everybody in the family remembers strangers at holiday dinners and lunches.
3. He fastidiously opposed all television except for the news and the discovery channel because “it’ll rot your brain.”
4. He let “an old wino be buried on the family plot because he died with nobody.”
5. He did a tremendous amount of pro-bono legal work for the poor.
6. He fought in WWII.
7. He “never left a place without making it better.” Examples: always took a trash bag or a bucket and picked up garbage. Would often bring a rake, mower, and/or shovel and clean up various properties and teach grand kids to do the same.
8. Also, not so much service as hilarious, if you didn’t finish your dinner he would cook it into your pancakes the following morning to make sure you ate all your food.

There were many more stories, but these stick out in my mind.

http://avery-reflectivejourney.blogspot.com/2014/08/re-thinking-ordinary.html

Here’s my favorite bit:

I’ve had to re-think how I view the Christian life and one thing I’ve had to admit to myself is that my desire to do big things and have an impact was driven in large part by the desire to feel significant. And the motivation to feel important and significant is drawn towards words like radical and runs from words like ordinary. The desire to make an impact might have more to do with boosting my self-esteem than it does with calling or vocation or long-term commitment. It’s not that these desires are wrong. They are wired into all of us.

No go read it. Quickly, before you’re trampled by tiny lizards or you meet an alien who gives you super-powers and you get caught up in some crazy adventure and then you forget!