Day 5 - Poverty

What do you think when you read the word poverty? Most likely you recall a person, a situation, or a country where the people live in economically destitute circumstances. You may recall the homeless people you see walking and laying about town on the sidewalks and under the bridges. You might even recall a period of your own life.

When one begins to understand poverty by getting up close, one realizes that poverty is as easily defined.  Some people say economic poverty is a relative thing (e.g., Ruby Payne). You’ve probably heard a person say they did not know they were poor until someone told them. My Dad said that.

At its deepest meaning, poverty is a state of lack, a scarcity or dearth, famine. People who have traveled the globe in outreach to the economically distressed, especially to those who have lived in poverty for at least a generation, find an eye-opening discovery.

Regardless of where impoverished people live, they describe themselves with words and feelings such as shame, inferiority, powerlessness, humiliation, hopelessness, social isolation, and having absolute despair, living in the fear of immediate death and personal disintegration.

Such is the description of poverty. Look again at those words and the deep meaning of poverty begins to emerge. Those words describe spiritual poverty.

We resist admitting it is a spiritual problem. We like to think if someone wants to get out of poverty all they have to do is get a job. Those who see the world through lofty, wealthy eyes may be as impoverished as the ones with a lack of monetary means.

We can’t escape this reality. There is an intimate connection between spiritual and economic poverty.

Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert (in their book, When Helping Hurts) ask, “Why did Jesus come to earth?” Jesus understood that economic poverty is symptomatic of soul-destroying spiritual poverty. Poverty does not reflect one’s station in life. 

He entered the Hebrew temple to make his first public declaration. That temple symbolizes the tradition and heritage of the flight from Egypt and the beginning of a new life in the Promised Land. The worshipper in the temple knows these traditions and that they are framed by these words:

“If there is among you anyone in need, a member of your community in any of your towns within the land that the LORD your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your needy neighbor. Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.’” (Deut. 15:7,11) 

 “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest… you shall leave them for the poor and the alien for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.” (Lev. 19:9-10, 33-34).

The slavery and captivity by Assyria, Babylon, Alexander and the subsequent brutal heel of the Roman conquest also framed an impoverished people who failed to heed these commands written in Deuteronomy and Leviticus.

As Jesus faced these economically and spiritually impoverished people and their history and declared this:

“He stood up to read and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

            ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

            because he has anointed me

                        to bring good news to the poor.

            He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

                        and recovery of sight to the blind,

                        to let the oppressed go free,

            to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’

And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’”  (Luke 4:16-21)

Remember this the next time you see an impoverished person, perhaps you will see them and yourself in a new light.

Day 4 - The story of 1 Corinthians 8

In the days of Paul just as now people worshipped idols and offered meat as a sacrifice.  It might be a big celebration where they sacrificed the meat to the idol and then ate it in a big feast.

Some Christians who were strong in their faith were invited by their non-Christian associates to join them at the temple during these celebrations. Now they might think, “This is a good socializing opportunity, and, hey, I’m a Christian, I know that the food sacrifice is as meaningless as the idol.  I might as well go and have a good time …and solidify my friendships over a meal. I might even have an opportunity to be a Christian witness to them.”

Well, some of the people who see you partying at the temple might have been a Christian only for a short time and recall when they ate at that temple of the idol as a form of worship themselves. We might say they are new students of the Good News. Maybe their resolve and conscience is still weak and they look to us as examples of good Christians and leaders of the faith.

We know eating the meat is harmless and the idol is futile, neither can bring us any closer to God. But what if seeing us eating at the temple convinces our friends that they should partake of the food of the idol and perchance slip back to their old ways?

If we strong ones do this, our knowledge of good and evil may destroy the weaker brother or sister without our knowing it. In fact if this happens, we have sinned against Christ and become a stumbling block to them. Nobody needs a millstone around one’s neck.

So the better way is if the meat causes my brother or sister to fail, I should avoid the meat.

Now, we all know that Paul was talking about a real situation in his letter with the meat and the idols, but Paul was a skilled pastor and writer, he is offering also a lesson about life.

What do you think might be some of the “food for idols” we encounter?

Here are some examples to think about:

1. I go to the 7-11 with my new buddy at the Shelter to buy an 6-pack of soft drink. They are on sale for $2 plus the 19 cents tax. I give the cashier a five expecting $2.81 back. By accident the cashier gives me $3.81. Now, we all know the guys who own these 7-11 stores are milking us with overpriced stuff, so I keep the extra dollar.  What lesson am I teaching my buddy?

2. We get a job painting a room in a house. The owner gives me $50 to go to Ace to pick up tarps, primer and rollers expecting me to bring back the left-over change. I take my new buddy along and pick up everything. I see a painter’s coat for $10 that would help me keep clean and I can use it later, so I pack the coat with the other stuff I’m buying with the $50 and bring back the change.  What lesson am I teaching my buddy?

Nobody needs a millstone around their neck.

Day 3 - Getting your feet wet

James 2:14-17   “… Can faith save you?  If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. “

How do we understand this passage about faith and grace?

I was reading a part of a book by Richard R. Niebuhr I picked up a time ago, Streams of Grace - studies of Jonathan Edwards, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William James, The Second Neesima Lectures, May 10,14 and 28, 1980. Kyoto, JP: Doshisha University Press, 1983. The book is out of print and good copies may be hard to find.

Dr. Niebuhr in a scholarly way seeks to explain that on its deepest level the way we perceive and understand grace is fundamentally connected to the way we perceive meaning in the world.

He observers, “Each one of us is like a mother who carries the world as a child. The world lives in us according to the purity and fidelity of our imagination (and as such) we become…living symbols of our world. If we imagine faithfully and critically, then the world comes to new life in ourselves; and we in turn give something of ourselves to the world.  (This is) the great responsibility we all have on this green earth…the responsibility of seeing…of imagining.”

In this view, God’s action is identical to individual action. One cannot distinguish in a human God’s action from the human action. (Sounds pretty much like Calvin.) God or any religious discernment, even grace, can be known and experienced (in this human action) but not be quantified.

Grace then is an individually perceived thing, it cannot be defined externally, one simply receives it. Therefore fundamentally, knowledge of grace comes by experience and tradition (more on tradition later).  If one seeks some objective content about grace, one must accept that only history and sheer immediacy of experience are available for communicating the objective context of grace. 

William James opposed the two worlds of scientism (all that is known is known by science) and rationalism (all that can be known is that which is rational, i.e., can be sensed by reason.) James offered a parallel thought (to RRN above) that bears on grace, it can be known only by experience.

Religious experience remains human emotional experience that can be described and analyzed. Thus for James, religious experience is another emotion. Grace is real, it is a human emotional experience. When it happens, it must be manifested in the specific temperament of the person experiencing it.

In other words to know grace is to act and live in the world with imagination that we are symbols of the world. Knowing God's grace is walking in the world as Christ walked - as a mother carrying the world as a child.  One must accept that only history and sheer immediacy of experience are available for communicating the objective context of grace.

As John Ortburg said, "If you want to walk on water, you have to get out of the boat."

This is how you know grace: Get your feet wet!

Day 2 - Everything I learned, I learned before I was five

(This is actually the post for Tuesday Dec. 11, but I was distracted and saved, not posted yesterday.)

Have you ever thought about your "social language?" Social language is what you learn before you are 5. In fact, were I to ask you to tell me when you learned the method you deal with people, you likely would not be able to offer a good answer. You learn it before you are even aware of "being taught."

Let's consider an example.

You are in the office at your desk and the boss calls you to his office. He begins by lighting into you about some action you did that he/she feels was a mistake. You hear it all, outrageous allegations that raise the hackles on your back, but you reply, "I understand your point, but I'm not too sure you have all the information. Can I collect some data and get back to you?"

Or, you respond, "That is so much crap! I kill myself to make this company work and here you come to me and give me crap without ever thinking the guy who gave you that information is out to get me. Man, this is so over the top, you see what I do, don't give me any more of this, or I'm out of here!"

If you were raised in a nice, middle class or wealthy family, you might well have learned that a little dose of restraint backed up by facts illustrated in the first response is the best way to resolve a conflict between what one person says and another claims. You might even decide to start looking for a better job to take in due time.

If you grew up on the street, you might well realize that any challenge to your standing carries a threat to your well being, especially if you project weakness. You learned before you understood it, that the appropriate  response to an in-you-face attack is aggression.

Unfortunately direct aggression that may preserve your life on the street may in the work place lead to loss of your job and re-entry into the slide to despair and alienation. To learn controlled assertiveness may well make you the boss some day.

This is the nature of our learned social language. To move from one economic/social status to a "higher" one  and comfortably live in it it requires learning and using a new language.

New Time: Day 1 - An Old Friend

I have left an old friend. My blog, Down in Mississippi catalogued a profound experience for me with the wonderful people of Mississippi and from across the country who changed me more than I can possibly describe. They changed my life and hopefully those words will continue to be a learning experience for all who read them.

The experience was what for some lucky ones may be trivial, the realization, revelation or what you wish to call it, that grace is found in action, not in the stasis of inward pious contemplation.  Now that I’ve completed seminary and am back in Chattanooga working towards a plan of action, it seems appropriate to bring that blog to a close with the ruach seemingly pushing me on.

It is fortuitous (Can a Presbyterian say such a thing?) that my url, knockatthenarrowgate.blogspot.com
is actually more apropos now. I am calling this continuation, The Narrow Gate. I look forward to reading your comments there.

Day 786 Evangelicals – The “E-word”

I was in a long discussion today in our philosophy/ethics after-hours group, I call it “philo-after hours.”

We meet every other Friday for an hour or so of discussion. Actually it all started the week before when we met to discuss the reaction of some segments of our church to Margaret Miles who gave three highly stimulating, well thought out lectures in the Union PSCE Sprunt Lecture series.

Just so you know, Dr. Miles grew up in a highly conservative and fundamentalist Baptist tradition and is now a member of the Anglican Church. She is retired but has been Dean of the Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley, CA, and a faculty member at Harvard. She is well read and the author of a number of historical books dealing with the role of women, religion and values in the early church and today.

Dr. Miles wrote a very insightful book that is completely historically founded, well worth reading regardless of where one stands on women and sexuality in the church. To reduce a book to a capsule, always an unfair thing to do, Dr. Miles discussed how up until the late middle ages, Christian art and image represented salvation in the female nursing breast, in particularly Mary’s. The breast (the only method of sustenance of children in that time) carried great import as a symbol of nurture and sustenance, not as a sexual object. For a number of ecclesiastical and societal reasons, the woman’s breast became secularized and turned into an object of erotic interest while the cross became a primary object of significance in Christian imagery.

While some highly opinionated writers in the Layman claim she proposes to substitute the female breast for the cross, this is a complete fabrication of her position. (She also was highly offended to be called a "radical feminist," something I assure you she is not.) She states because of the secularization of the breast and change of culture it is not possible to recover that original symbolic imagery (If you chose to comment I encourage you to be informed first and read her book, “A Complex Delight: The Secularization of the Breast, 1350-1750”). For this book she has been vilified to the extent some of her religious critics, if it were lawful, would be the first to light the bonfire at her burning as a heretic.

In the course of our philo discussion of Dr. Miles book and the negative reaction of the more conservative element of our church, evangelism came up. I had just finished two papers on the nature of the African Brazilian and Asian Christian churches, as well as the growth of Christianity in the slave culture and the mission movements in America in the 1800’s. One thing that stands out in a fair reading of the history of these situations of rapid church growth is the evangelical nature of those churches.

A couple of my colleagues were quite put-off by my mention of Evangelism. They were put-off because I used the “E-word” that carries so much baggage. When I used the word “evangelical” everyone stopped, and the reaction was as if I had farted in the church pew on Sunday morning during the Great Prayer, or as a Caucasian man, used the “N-word” at an NAACP meeting.

I was perplexed but really understood the reason. The word carries so much very negative baggage to some because it is associated, perhaps unfairly, with the mean-spirited part of our church that is usually conservative (not a crime) but so highly opinionated and intent on forcing their beliefs on others that they alienate all but the few who are swayed by their rhetoric. The reaction of my liberal friends to its symbolic meaning to them was ironic, wasn't it.

That discussion started up again this afternoon, leaving a couple of us a “little” inflamed because I maintained we need a more evangelical perspective. We never got past my use of the word "evangelical" to the substance of the discussion because it was so polarizing to some of us. This is my take on the issue.

It is a profoundly bad reading of the New Testament not to conclude our Church was charged from its first days with the task of evangelism of the Word. To deny, delimit or circumscribe its meaning, obligation and practice is ethically and morally flawed. The issue though really lies at the heart of the several problems with our mainline protestant denominations, particularly many in the Presbyterian Church, even the conservative branches.

For some reason, Presbyterians are not comfortable with the idea of evangelism, at least in current times. We go to church, worship, pray, give of our money and abilities but usually do it using the Presbyterian Hymnal (Blue or Red), the organ, a chancel choir and an orderly, emotionless worship service where we sit quietly in the pew listening to the minister’s sermon. You’ve all heard it, the “frozen chosen.” We serve vicariously by supporting some missionaries who tend to adopt our own frozen style in a foreign country, which is not very effective.

Well, we are frozen and most everyone who seeks warmth in the church is looking elsewhere and leaving if they are members. For practical purposes, evangelism is dead in the Presbyterian Church. We are too quick to say defensively, “Oh, we can’t evangelize to an empty stomach. We have to feed them first.”

Yes, we have an obligation to feed the hungry, help the helpless and the prisoner. Yes, they should “know we are Christians by our love.” But the bottom line is, we should be carrying the message of salvation to the world, including next door. We can do it as it is so successfully done in Africa, Asia and South America, an active mission movement that seeds new churches and educates new local pastors. It worked once in America, you know.

The so-called “Evangelical Church” and the Pentecostal Church worldwide is growing by leaps and bounds. In the South (Africa, South America, Asia) it is the primary theological force. Ask the question, “Why is this?”

I propose the reason is that these Southern churches have so greatly succeeded in evangelism is that they have connected the spiritual feeling and emotion of the worshipper to the theological message of transcendent, saving grace. It may be personal testimony of a pastor or layperson to God’s grace in action, it might be things we are very uncomfortable with: guitars and drums, popular melodies and new lyrics, video projectors. It might be vocalization by church members during the sermon, an “Amen!” or “Yes!” or even more, even new words for our traditional beliefs and creeds.

“Oh, but that is all just emotion," one might object, "there is not any rational change in belief, it is all just the emotional pressure of the crowd of witnesses. What about the Apostle’s Creed, or the Westminster Creed? Or the Bible, we have to read their translations very carefully to be sure they don't slip some weird word in into it. But they believe in ancestors... It isn't real Christianity.”

Put-off by the E-word or not, or by new words for our older tradition, I suggest we get used to it and co-opt the word ourselves in our practice of evangelism and stick to the essential tenets of Christian faith. We ought to learn the lessons in the Southern World Church. Particularly we need to understand the Southern Church has “invaded” America. If that invasion serves no other useful purpose than to renew our attention to the great ends of the church, it has done its job. I am in the minority as a Presbyterian, a very small minority.

I am a victim of my past. I butted heads with family members, associates, and many tears over the left and right wing politics and racism of the 60’s, we all ended up bloodied by it. I learned one thing in all that. People do change their minds, not everyone, but enough do. They don’t do it because we beat them with a club. That tends to force people into more dogmatic, refractory positions. Radicalizing does not work well. People change their minds because of personal experience and the freedom of choice to think and do so. But those are not our focus, our focus is the unchurched.

Evangelism is a big word, it means more than just preaching revivals and handing out tracts. It means living a good life and inviting other to follow.

It means taking uncomfortable (for liberals) stands on things like pornography, excessive and improperly used wealth, consumerism at the personal level.

But it also means actually being excited and joyful to be a Christian and having people see and know that fact. That means changing.

It may mean being uncomfortable personally (it will for me!) for the greater good, to change our worship service to bring back the youth and people who left or never stepped foot in our church because it puts them to sleep. It may mean experimenting with worship styles, not just doing it so we can say we did it, but so we are participating. We might even find out we enjoy it.

As I said, my problem is, I am a child of the 60’s and some old memories will not get out of my head. Eldridge Cleaver was a little too far over the top for most when he said if you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem but Bob Dylan came close to what faces us today in the lyrics of Times they are a changin’:

“Your old road
is rapidly agin’,
please get out of the new one
if you can’t lend a hand.

I’ve given no recipes. I don’t have any yet, maybe you do. I hope I painted a picture of our evangelical obligation. Christ’s church lives it, so should we.

Peace and Grace