At the Margins

Jan’s been writing a lot about the Holy Grounds community the last few days. Her most recent post reminds me of a problem that I’ve heard many an institutional pastor talk about–that they are unable to worship with the congregation they serve.  Many even go to other worship gatherings in order to do so. What a shame!!!!

I’m blessed to be a part of a community where people have not only learned and accepted the responsibility to feed themselves (Note: not talking individualism here, it’s God who does the feeding), but have also learned and accepted the responsibility to feed others. It’s not up to me to feed everyone, rather it is a communal responsibility to find and share spiritual (and actual) food. We teach, bless, and encourage one another (as our gifts allow) in our pursuit of God.

It’s sort of a spiritual potluck. 

We each bring a dish.

Some people bring old favorites, others bring new recipes that they’ve discovered along the way. Sometimes people can’t bring a dish because they are too tired or overwhelmed. Sometimes people bring a few dishes or one giant dish. 

Some people eat a little bit from what every person has brought, others just get a massive helping of a handful of dishes. 

There is plenty for everyone to eat and certainly something that will fill the hunger each brings.

We don’t just leave with our hunger satiated, but, as with any good potluck, we share the recipes so that we can make them later for others.

The cool thing is that it’s not incumbent on me (or anyone else) to make sure that everyone is fed. It’s a responsibility we share. I don’t arrive too tired to eat from preparing a massive meal for everyone; I get to partake in the spiritual feast as well.

And we each depart with more than we brought.

While in Houston for my wonderful college friend Christina’s wedding, one of my other friends and I went to a couple of “church” services.  The first was Lakewood Church AKA Joel Osteen’s Church AKA Six Flags Over Jesus.  The next was Ecclesia, but I’ll leave that to a future post.

For those unfamiliar with Joel Osteen, he preaches a prosperity theology to, by many accounts, the largest church in the United States.  Essentially saying that being a Christian means that you will prosper.  Time Magazine did an article two years ago called “Does God Want You to be Rich.”

Coming into the stadium, there was a notable abscence of a cross (not that a cross can’t be an idol), but there was a large American flag displayed in the back (looking at later videos I think there were more than I could see from my vantage point) and a massive rotating golden globe emitting fog.

The problem with Osteen’s message isn’t that it is completely false (deception must always contain some truth), it’s that it is, at best, incomplete.  His message is at core, think positively (and give to Lakewood) and you will have your best year ever. Of course he talks about aligning oneself with God, but the only route to this provided is to think positively and recognize the God inside oneself.  He provides a false hope to the poor and greedy in the face of the other American churches which by in large provides so little hope it’s hardly worth mentioning.

Osteen’s narrative is not primarily that of Christ, rather it is the American narrative: work hard and you will prosper.  At core, it is a narrative of empire which makes the golden globe so appropriate.

While Osteen may be one of the most egreggious, most churches throughout the United States have traded the narrative of Christ with the narrative of America.  It is a narrative (familiar to Family Christian bookstores) of God’s favor and endorsement. Of the availability of an unquenchable river of cheap grace flowing with comfort, wealth, safety, and health.  In short, people get what they deserve, therefore I am entitled to that which I have and have no reason to share. I can have everything I desire and follow Jesus as well.  Sorry, but that’s simply untrue (see Luke 18:18-23 and Matthew 10:39 for a couple examples of the many times Christ rejects this Saducean viewpoint).

It is the narrative that says that God’s favor is on the United States, therefore our actions, whether the genocidal removal of Native American’s from their land or the exploitation of foreign labor, are unquestionably sanctioned, ordained, and blessed by God. What arrogance! What foolishness!

Quite simply put, that is completely against the narrative Christ offers.  Whether we like it or not, the United States is not the “new Israel,” the United States is the “new Rome.”

The September_October 2008 edition of Relevant Magazine features a wonderful story on community living by Matt Conner entitled “I Live With Another Man’s Wife.”  Unfortunately it is only available in print at this time (if this changes, I’ll put a post here), so pick up a copy of Relevant and take a look.

I spoke at a follow up discussion for the Jesus for President tour.  Here are the remarks I prepared for the conversation:

I should start off by letting you know that my hope is best described in Christ manifesting himself through the Church. I’ve gone the traditional political action path and it proved hollow to me. There is no legislation that can love. The checks and balances of programs whether governmental or church-based ensure that the least of these is never served. Programs are incapable of love, people of God love.

The average person walking down the street today sees Christians as hate-filled hypocrites who hate gays and want to outlaw abortion.

Christ says that they will know you are Christians by your love.

My call today is for us to die to ourselves and, instead, become a people of love—costly, difficult, wonderful, painful, relational, messy, uncomfortable, sacrificial, transforming, beautiful, unconditional, love.

We have become mesmerized by the power of this world—the hope of principalities and governments. We have done an analysis and figured out that we should best spend our resources in leveraging the government to coerce the world into behaving as if it were Christian. That goes for both the Christian right and the Christian left.

We have figured out that it is much less costly to comfort our guilt by having the government outlaw abortion instead of seeking to open our spare-bedrooms up and offering refuge to mothers and their babies. We have said that it is much easier to leverage the government to provide healthcare to those in need rather than to assume that cost ourselves as the people of God called to care for the poor. We would rather protest war than to go thousands of miles away from our homes to, as peacemakers of God, stand between oppressors and the oppressed.

We are more interested in proclaiming truth to government than living out truth as God’s people. And guess what? The world has called our bluff. Until we are willing to live by the call of Christ ourselves, we have nothing to say to our elected officials.

My call today is for us to be a prophetic witness of love, first to our brothers and sisters in Christ and then to the world. I don’t know about you, but I have a long way to go in this respect.

A few examples of how this might play out:

In the mid-1800’s, there was a similar amount of abortion per capita as there is today. The church saw that this was a problem and began to open up homes for women and their babies and even their spare bedrooms. The rate of abortion plummeted without any changes in the law.

Throughout the world Christians provide healthcare to those in need, in fact there is a history of similar action in the United States. Think of how many Methodist, Baptist, and Catholic hospitals you know of. These were originally founded by the church.

Christian peacemaker teams today choose the costly path of going abroad to stand alongside people being bombed and oppressed.

You see it is much more important what you do before and after voting than what you do in the voting booth.

If you are called to politics, do politics. Don’t however do politics because you believe that will maximize your impact. Be willing to seek after God and obey, even if that means you are called to do something that in your view will only help a handful of people.

The Holy Spirit deploying the people of God to do the work of God knows exactly where and how each of us fit in bringing the Kingdom of God to earth. It is up to us to make the decision to accept that call—the call that will cost us our life.

I’ve been at the Envision 08 conference the last couple of days.  I’ve had lots of great and challenging conversations which I’m still processing.  There’s a good overview of each session here.

While there I met some amazing college students.  We had some great conversations–needless to say, they all left with Irresistible Revolution in hand.  None of them knew what the emerging church was, so, at their request, I clumsily tried to define it.

 The neat thing was, though none of them knew the term “emerging,” our conversations revealed that the concepts spoke of most often in emerging circles were in no way foreign to them, in fact, they were givens in their conception and understanding of God.

Many people think of emerging as a movement to do something different and shift thinking in the church.  This tends to be less and less the point the younger the person is.

I didn’t have to introduce my new friends to the concepts of emerging.  I didn’t have to show them how to be emerging.  At core, they culturally are already emerging.

Emily of Casa Chirilagua sent me a link to a great Washington Post article today.

Greed in the Name of Green

It talks about how going green has become a new option of conspicuous consumption.  It’s something I and my friends struggle with.  One, Dawnille, also of Casa Chirilagua, is particularly interested in starting a business of fair trade clothing, but is working through how to do it successfully while not continuing the societal embrace of consumerism.

She sent me a wonderful website, the Story of Stuff.  It does an excellent job of addressing the history of consumerism in our society and the problems of our extreme resource usage.

Over the next few months Culpeper House will be losing some of the members of our community…  Josh and Sarah are returning to Florida to be with their families, Ryan is planning to move into an apartment with his brother, and Sarita will be leaving for Uganda.

Times of transition provide excellent opportunities to refocus.  Over the coming weeks we will be focusing on the vision that God has put on our hearts as a community and how to best structure ourselves moving forward.  This will help us better transition new people into Culpeper House as we move forward.

If you or someone you know is interested in exploring the possibility of being a part of Culpeper House, please e-mail us at info@culpeperhouse.org.

It’s an exciting time, but also a sad time as we will very much miss those who are leaving.

Another article about New Monasticism ran in the Boston Globe earlier this month, but I forgot to post it.

The Unexpected Monks

In John 13:34-35, Christ says, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

It’s funny to me that most churches today decide if you are a disciple by a “conversion” moment, baptism, a profession of faith, or agreement with a belief statement.

Being a disciple of Christ has NOTHING to do with a mental assent and everything to do with having Him as the decisionmaker in each of our lives.  The gage Christ has given us is love not law.

Too bad gaging love requires relationship instead of a few words on a form.  God forbid we waste church resources on truly getting to know people instead of building better and bigger programs and expanding our rolls.  The way of the Kingdom is always ineffecient and ineffective in the eyes of the world.

Ran across a wonderful article in the LA Times:

What chores would Jesus do?

It is well worth checking out!