Peter Rollins did a twitter chat interview with Third Way Magazine yesterday. I put together a transcript for those who would be interested. It was fun to see Peter limited to short answers (twitter only allows messages to be 140 characters long), as he usually has long, detailed responses which bunny-trail in several different directions (and you wonder why I like him!). I cleaned it up a little to get rid of text-speak and possible confusion from the letter limit.
---------------------------------
Third Way: We should get this one in first. Someone asked: 'If I've never heard of you, can you sum yourself up in 140 characters?'
Peter Rollins: Orthodox heretic, a/theist, Christian in the non-Christian sense of the term, bluffer and lover of Columbo
We'll get to some of that but, first, 'Orthodox heretic' sounds like an oxymoron, or is that a false opposition?
Orthodox is often thought to mean 'right belief', but perhaps it is better thought of as 'right praise'... in this way one can be orthodox while being a heretic... i.e. living in praise while acknowledging that we get God wrong
So to be orthodox, or to be heretic, or to be an orthodox heretic – are these things we should have as ambitions?
Being a heretic is not enough. There are good and bad heretics. One must try to be an orthodox one. A heretic who tries to live in love.
Also, being orthodox is not enough... without acknowledging you are a heretic pride can enter
How can you authentically praise something if you know you might be wrong about what you're praising?
If I fall in love I may not know what would please the person, but I act with the best knowledge I have, & in fear and trembling. certainty is not needed in order to act... love is!
@rhull56 asks 'What convinces Peter that the idea of God is worth taking seriously?'
Philosophers take the question seriously. Not so sure Christians should... Christians should b more interested in Christ-living
Wow... its hard getting big concepts shoe-horned into twitter (good question BTW)
Then perhaps he'd add 'Why Christ?' In the book you adapt Buddhist tales, for example.
Because the life (of Christ) that we read of is a radical one that, if followed, could lead to the continued transformation of society... Christianity, I believe is a radical faith based upon a radical idea. But I think that much of the actually existing churches misses this...
Perhaps only Marxists are as guilty as Christians of misrepresenting their founder
The shoe-horn point: The Orthodox Heretic reminds us that Jesus spoke to uneducated 1st Century peasants. Should all theology be that digestible?
We need to distinguish between theology & the truth of faith. The former is intellectually demanding the later is life demanding. Jesus was mostly about the truth rather than theology.
Not that theology is wrong at all! Its just not true :)
When Jesus spoke of the Father, was that true?
Yes & No. God as a Father 'yes', but as any kind of Father we experience 'no'. This 'yes/no' operates in all theology. It reveals something which remains all the time concealed. Belief should not be read as empirical certainty. Belief is more than this, it involves doubt, commitment, hope, faith and desire
Where does that leave the creeds? The 'We believe'?
The creeds attempt to help re-orient our lives, so that those 'beliefs' become modes of being. We come to live the death and resurrection. When we say, 'I believe in the resurrection' we primarily commit ourselves to becoming the site of new life to those around us. It is not primarily a mere intellectual assent.
There's nothing simple about a fable, but this book is more accessible than the others. What was the thinking behind that?
Buddhism has koans to draw out Enlightenment, we have parables... I wanted to explore this. I think attempting to change how people think is limited. I want to transform who we are. Parables are a mode of doing this.
these fables will get used by preachers. If each reader is the writer, how do we build one united body of believers?
We are unified not by shared belief but by a love and commitment to the same source. Unity in difference. We are often not good at this.
How might that work in practice? Between, say, Bishops Robinson & Akinola?
The creation of suspended space in which liberal & conservative lay down their positions in the liturgical hour2encounter each other. This is the place of 'neither/nor'... neither Jew nor Greek, Gay nor Straight, liberal nor conservative.
It is a participation in the divine Kenosis (see Philippians 2:7: "Jesus made himself nothing...") in which God is emptied of all identity. We do this and take on the identity of Christ.
you suggest that Jesus' teaching was often audience-specific, changing according to context. So was he a moral relativist?
No, he was driven by love. The issue however is that love is not possible to pin down. When we make love concrete we distort love... but we must do this anyway. Love is what drives us, but when we put it in to action it will look different in different contexts
in some tales you, the writer, imagine new words into his (Jesus) mouth. But yet you also warn against personal conceptions of God?
Both under-describing and over-describing are strategies for making sure we do not reduce God to our understanding. The Bible does both. God is given various personalities (warrior, peacemaker, unchanging, changing) & also we are told God is un-nameable.
The point of these parables is not to describe something but to perform something... Parables are a performative discourse
Thanks very much Pete. One final question from @sch3lp: 'What's the dynamic between story, its teller and its hearer?'
hmmm Story is like the child, teller is like the mother and the hearer is like one who adopts the child
---------------------------------
Let me know your thoughts! I especially enjoyed the distinction he made between, theology and the life of faith, as well as the thoughts on belief and certainty.
Showing posts with label parables. Show all posts
Showing posts with label parables. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Friday, April 24, 2009
mewithoutYou (again)
I just love this band. Their new cd (it’s all crazy ! it’s all false ! it’s all a dream ! it’s alright) comes out at the end of May, but it got leaked early and is all over the internet, including on youtube. It's definitely a lot different from their style on previous albums, and could even be described as 'hippie', as my friend Ryan called it in disappointment! Several of the songs are from the perspectives of animals, insects, or vegetables, which truthfully isn't TOO big of a departure for mewithoutYou anyway... At the same time, despite the apparent disconnect from "reality", the songs ask such insightful questions that I can't help asking myself "Why have I never thought of that before?" You have to listen to this amazing song/allegory/parable, called 'The King Beetle on the Coconut Estate'! Yep, talking insects and fruits...
view lyrics in pop-up window
Leave your thoughts in the comment section. I'd like to hear what you think the song is trying to convey and what points you think the band is trying to make.
And also check out this pretty cool interview with Aaron, the vocalist and writer of the band.
view lyrics in pop-up window
Leave your thoughts in the comment section. I'd like to hear what you think the song is trying to convey and what points you think the band is trying to make.
And also check out this pretty cool interview with Aaron, the vocalist and writer of the band.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
questions from "The Orthodox Heretic"
Here are some of the questions that I draw from the story of "The Orthodox Heretic".
The first point the town leaders bring up is that they need to return the man to the government he escaped from so that the rest of the town is not endangered. They know that this man will be punished by the authorities, but they believe that it has to be done or the entire town will suffer. In their view, the good of many outweighs the good of one. The caretaker, however, is more concerned with the needs of this man he has rescued. His view is not a selfish one of "my good is higher than the good of all", but is completely unselfish in that he is willing to suffer to protect this criminal. He believes that as a community, the needs of the most vulnerable should be the concern of the entire town, and that nobody in the town is okay if even one member is not okay.
"The good of the many outweighs the good of the few" is a very dominant philosophy in the US, especially when it comes to the systems our country is built on. But these assumptions are currently under heavy discussion, from government to business to military to foreign aid. How does the circumstance of the few affect the many? What are alternative understandings of the relationship between the many and the few? As Christians, how do we find our position impacted by the Bible, both specific instances but also the larger story arcs of Scripture?
Another question that I find in this parable has to do with "truth" and "love". The town leaders seem to have political truth, Scriptural truth, and even God's audible voice on their side, but the caretaker appears to be completely motivated by love for this stranger, even at the cost of his own life. Now I'm not trying to create an artificial division between truth and love, but I can sure think of times where I've been stuck in a position similar to this. Is it better to have truth or love? Is there ever a time they can or should put placed "against" each other? Is it possible that both positions in this story (and in some of our daily stories) are "right"?
Finally, I think it asks the question of how to respond to people with completely different world views, especially when those world views can be backed up with the Bible. I am increasingly aware that anybody can make the Bible say anything they want, and I'm sure most of us have seen plenty of evidence for that too. Many people leave behind Scripture at this point, because they think it doesn't have anything solid or true to say and can too easily be abused or manipulated, or they cling to one interpretation of Scripture at the exclusion of any differing understanding. Take a look at the 20th century phenomenon known as "liberalism vs. fundamentalism" to prove my point. Both of these ideologies tend to be reactionary, angry, and violent (not physically (at least in the USA), but emotionally and verbally). I don't think either approach is sufficient or helpful for moving forward, and this parable forces us to address this roadblock head on.
The parable gives value to, and even supports, BOTH viewpoints, while leaving us with the awkward feeling that both parties are simultaneously right AND wrong. We can see the reason behind why each group acts the way they do, while not being completely satisfied with either group's choices. And this dis-satisfaction leaves us humble, looking for another way, open to new ideas from God, because we realize that even with the best theology and best actions, we desperately need God's help to understand and obey him.
The first point the town leaders bring up is that they need to return the man to the government he escaped from so that the rest of the town is not endangered. They know that this man will be punished by the authorities, but they believe that it has to be done or the entire town will suffer. In their view, the good of many outweighs the good of one. The caretaker, however, is more concerned with the needs of this man he has rescued. His view is not a selfish one of "my good is higher than the good of all", but is completely unselfish in that he is willing to suffer to protect this criminal. He believes that as a community, the needs of the most vulnerable should be the concern of the entire town, and that nobody in the town is okay if even one member is not okay.
"The good of the many outweighs the good of the few" is a very dominant philosophy in the US, especially when it comes to the systems our country is built on. But these assumptions are currently under heavy discussion, from government to business to military to foreign aid. How does the circumstance of the few affect the many? What are alternative understandings of the relationship between the many and the few? As Christians, how do we find our position impacted by the Bible, both specific instances but also the larger story arcs of Scripture?
Another question that I find in this parable has to do with "truth" and "love". The town leaders seem to have political truth, Scriptural truth, and even God's audible voice on their side, but the caretaker appears to be completely motivated by love for this stranger, even at the cost of his own life. Now I'm not trying to create an artificial division between truth and love, but I can sure think of times where I've been stuck in a position similar to this. Is it better to have truth or love? Is there ever a time they can or should put placed "against" each other? Is it possible that both positions in this story (and in some of our daily stories) are "right"?
Finally, I think it asks the question of how to respond to people with completely different world views, especially when those world views can be backed up with the Bible. I am increasingly aware that anybody can make the Bible say anything they want, and I'm sure most of us have seen plenty of evidence for that too. Many people leave behind Scripture at this point, because they think it doesn't have anything solid or true to say and can too easily be abused or manipulated, or they cling to one interpretation of Scripture at the exclusion of any differing understanding. Take a look at the 20th century phenomenon known as "liberalism vs. fundamentalism" to prove my point. Both of these ideologies tend to be reactionary, angry, and violent (not physically (at least in the USA), but emotionally and verbally). I don't think either approach is sufficient or helpful for moving forward, and this parable forces us to address this roadblock head on.
The parable gives value to, and even supports, BOTH viewpoints, while leaving us with the awkward feeling that both parties are simultaneously right AND wrong. We can see the reason behind why each group acts the way they do, while not being completely satisfied with either group's choices. And this dis-satisfaction leaves us humble, looking for another way, open to new ideas from God, because we realize that even with the best theology and best actions, we desperately need God's help to understand and obey him.
some thoughts about "The Orthodox Heretic"
A couple weeks ago I posted the video clip of a parable from Peter Rollins new book "The Orthodox Heretic". One of my friends, Matt, commented on the post and asked me to post some of my thoughts about the story. I didn't want to right away, for a few reasons. I didn't really know what I thought about it. That's kind of why I posted it.
I think the intention of the parable is not to declare some truth about God or people or religion, but to force us to think about something we otherwise probably wouldn't think about (or maybe even ignore because we don't WANT to think about it). I think the temptation is to dissect the story and try to place it into a category that gives us some form of stand-alone truth, or make it fit the mold we expect it to fit. But that's not what the story is about, and if we do that, then the story loses it's power.
I've listened to it a few times and I'm never comfortable with it. It doesn't resolve nicely. It doesn't offer a clear division between the "good guys" and the "bad guys". It doesn't try to give simple answers to complex questions. Instead, it asks questions that are difficult and frustrating. But at the same time, they are questions that align pretty closely with paradoxes I keep running into in my own walk with God.
Here's a couple observations:
He doesn't set the town leaders/religious people against the care-taker. Both disagree completely on how to handle the situation, but they treat each other with respect, civility, and love throughout. Both groups are shown to be people who honor God and take obedience very seriously (yes, even in the very last scene).
Notice that the "criminal" is charged with being critical of both the state and the church, and yet a God-follower takes him in and cares for him.
Peter has said in other places that the main question behind this parable (and his entire book) is (and I'm paraphrasing) "What do you do when in order to obey God, you have to disobey God? What do you do when in order to keep your beliefs, you have to betray your beliefs? What do you do when in order to remain "orthodox", you have to take a "heretical" position?"
The idea is that Christianity is constantly at odds with itself, because it is an institution that is against all institution and a religion that is against all religion. That Christianity draws a circle around who is in and who is out, and then immediately demands it's followers to leave the inside and go to the ones who are out, so in a sense those who remain "in" the safety of the circle become the ones who are now "out". It is full of what seems to be contradictions, and we Christians have caused immense amounts of pain and confusion because we try to ignore the contradictions and build a nice safe theology that tries to make everything okay. Now that in and of itself is worthy of a whole series of blog posts, but I don't want to get side tracked by spending any more time on that now.
I've got some of my own questions that were raised from this parable, and I'll post them next time in order to make this shorter and (hopefully) slightly more readable. The good news is that I've already written it all, so I'm not going to bail on you half way through like I did with the Great Emergence series...
I think the intention of the parable is not to declare some truth about God or people or religion, but to force us to think about something we otherwise probably wouldn't think about (or maybe even ignore because we don't WANT to think about it). I think the temptation is to dissect the story and try to place it into a category that gives us some form of stand-alone truth, or make it fit the mold we expect it to fit. But that's not what the story is about, and if we do that, then the story loses it's power.
I've listened to it a few times and I'm never comfortable with it. It doesn't resolve nicely. It doesn't offer a clear division between the "good guys" and the "bad guys". It doesn't try to give simple answers to complex questions. Instead, it asks questions that are difficult and frustrating. But at the same time, they are questions that align pretty closely with paradoxes I keep running into in my own walk with God.
Here's a couple observations:
He doesn't set the town leaders/religious people against the care-taker. Both disagree completely on how to handle the situation, but they treat each other with respect, civility, and love throughout. Both groups are shown to be people who honor God and take obedience very seriously (yes, even in the very last scene).
Notice that the "criminal" is charged with being critical of both the state and the church, and yet a God-follower takes him in and cares for him.
Peter has said in other places that the main question behind this parable (and his entire book) is (and I'm paraphrasing) "What do you do when in order to obey God, you have to disobey God? What do you do when in order to keep your beliefs, you have to betray your beliefs? What do you do when in order to remain "orthodox", you have to take a "heretical" position?"
The idea is that Christianity is constantly at odds with itself, because it is an institution that is against all institution and a religion that is against all religion. That Christianity draws a circle around who is in and who is out, and then immediately demands it's followers to leave the inside and go to the ones who are out, so in a sense those who remain "in" the safety of the circle become the ones who are now "out". It is full of what seems to be contradictions, and we Christians have caused immense amounts of pain and confusion because we try to ignore the contradictions and build a nice safe theology that tries to make everything okay. Now that in and of itself is worthy of a whole series of blog posts, but I don't want to get side tracked by spending any more time on that now.
I've got some of my own questions that were raised from this parable, and I'll post them next time in order to make this shorter and (hopefully) slightly more readable. The good news is that I've already written it all, so I'm not going to bail on you half way through like I did with the Great Emergence series...
Thursday, March 12, 2009
The Orthodox Heretic: A Parable
I want to share a parable from Peter Rollins, a leader of an experimental faith community in Belfast, Ireland called Ikon. He has a new book coming out in a few weeks called "The Orthodox Heretic: and Other Impossible Tales" that is made up entirely of parables. The video below is Peter reading one of the parables from this book. I think it's pretty interesting. Remember, the point of this parable is not to give an answer, but to ask a question. I have a feeling there will be many different responses to this, so I would love to hear your thoughts after watching this video and check out some of his other videos on youtube as well. He has 2 more parables and a couple other short videos with interesting ideas.
***I can't seem to get the video to work when it's embedded into this page, so watch it here. Let me know if you have any problems.***
***I can't seem to get the video to work when it's embedded into this page, so watch it here. Let me know if you have any problems.***
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Parables
Lately I've been thinking a lot about parables. I've always noticed them and enjoyed reading them, but often approached them like a story problem on a math test. You know, "A freight train leaves a station traveling at 30 mph. A passenger train leaves 1 hour later traveling at 50 mph. At what time will the passenger train overtake the freight train?" It looks like a story, but we all know there is a specific formula, you find a few important pieces of information, stick them into the formula, and then, (as every math professor I've ever had in college has said repeatedly), you "plug and chug".
It's viewed as a machine or a computer: You put the right pieces of information in the right place (what we call "input"), turn the crank or push a button or click the mouse, and "automagically" the machine processes the information and gives you a concrete, clear, concise answer (output). The entire computer world is build around this idea of input->process->output. Nearly everything you do on a computer is engineered around this principle.
For example, probably nobody here understands *exactly* what happens when we search for something on google. All we know (and care about) is that you go to google.com, enter some words you are interested in (this is the input), click "Search" (process), and then google comes back in a second or two with thousands or millions of matches (output). I don't know what google is doing during that time. I know that it has already searched billions of websites collecting information and storing it in databases and ordering it in special ways, so when I search for a few key words it only needs to look in it's own database for the information I want. It's not really searching billions of websites right then. But I have no idea what kind of algorithms it does in order to find out what pages are the ones that are most relevant to my search words, and I don't care. I don't understand very well the protocols that help my computer connect with a google computer through multiple other computers, all passing around 1's and 0's with perfect accuracy, and I don't need to know. All I care is that I get some websites that help me out, and then I go on with my life.
We have been trained to think like this. I used the term "automagically" earlier, which is sort of a computer joke. It's a cross between "automatically" and "magic". We use it to describe what happens in the time that someone clicks "Search" on google and gets back a list of links. We don't know what it does or how, we just know that it does it. Automatically and almost magically. Honestly, there are probably only a handful of people in the entire world that understand everything happening in those split seconds. After 14 years total of playing around with computers, 4 years of which were a university teaching me about computers and then 5 years of developing software professionally, I don't know what is happening most of the time. I have a high level idea of how a computer processes info and does math and appears to do multi-tasking and how graphics work and what the internet is and how it works, but there is simply too much detail to know everything about what my computer is doing at any time. NOBODY knows it all. And that's just computers.
I always get-annoyed-with/roll-my-eyes-at people who are know-it-alls, because they must be extraordinarily arrogant and also quite ignorant. They simply don't know how much they don't know, but they think it doesn't exist because they don't know about it! In our world, we have to specialize. And most of the time we understand this. Our entire culture functions this way. Most things are "somebody else's problem", but we learn how to use the things that somebody else figured out, and we are usually pretty happy with this.
Which is fine for computers, or cars, or microwaves, or light-switches, or showers, or bridges, or footballs, or McDonalds cheeseburgers (although maybe we *should* question the process that last one went through). But are there some things we shouldn't outsource? What happens when we don't think about the way we live or what we believe? Part of the problem is that we outsource our philosophy and theology. We assume that since these are such deep, important things that only the people who are highly trained with PhDs should even try to grapple with them. And then we just take what they tell us. But I think that philosophy and theology are the very things that make us who we are. We all understand them so deeply that we are all qualified to talk and think about them. My parents, for example, have never studied philosophy or theology and don't have advanced degrees- but they both have so much wisdom and awareness and understanding of what is happening in their lives. They may not be able to quote some famous thinker, but often when I read one of these "brilliant" people I see that my parents taught me that idea years ago through their actions.
And that's one of the things I love about Jesus. He *was* brilliant. He could debate with the leading theologians and philosophers and social activists of his time (pharisees and rabbis were a hybrid of all of these, because Jewish thinking doesn't try to separate what you believe about God and what you think and what you do). And these people were brilliant- they had memorized the entire Tanakh (the Old Testament) plus all the interpretations and stories and questions that stemmed from hundreds of years of studying the Tanakh, and then formed their own opinions and questions and stories. So Jesus could discuss these ideas with them, and understand exactly the point they were trying to make, and then turn their words upside down to make his own point. BUT, the people he spent his time with, he ate with, he talked with, he lived with, were the regular Jewish peasants. They all would have left school by the time they were 10, or maybe a few would have studied until they were in their early teens. But think about. They all would have had less schooling than any of us who completed high school, or even junior high. And yet Jesus is teaching them the deepest things of the Kingdom of God. And he did it with parables.
The beauty of parables is that they can speak to anyone. Yes, Jesus uses plenty of cultural references and it's helpful for *us* to learn that background to get his point. But, that's even more of a reason why parables are special: They use everyday phrases and pop culture so that EVERYONE who wants to understand can get them. Jesus doesn't attempt to express some high, logical, timeless truth for all the world (now, don't take that to mean I'm saying that we can't find value and beauty and truth in Jesus' words - that's NOT what I'm saying at all - stick with me). He speaks to anybodys on a dirty hillside by a lake in their language. And he doesn't attempt to teach right and wrong answers to some universal questions. He tells stories that are rooted firmly in daily life. Stories about water and dirt and farming and sheep and a faithful woman and a dad and his sons and the city dump. But at the same time, he tells stories that are so much bigger and deeper than an hour long discourse. He leaves the stories unfinished or unclear so that people have to wrestle with the ideas and ask their own questions. He doesn't want to teach people yes or no answers, he wants something to come alive in their hearts. He is okay with the ambiguity.
But most of the time we aren't. We study the parables and look into the Greek and Hebrew and Aramaic and read commentaries, and all of that is fine. It helps us to put our minds into first century Palestine. But we can't reduce these stories to formulas. We can't think of them like math problems or computers. We can't approach parables with the "correct" input, then hit the process button, then get back the "right answer".
That would be like trying to find timeless truth in the Lord of the Rings or Narnia or some other work of "fiction". There may be some bits and pieces of timeless truth in them, but they are not scientific documents. It might help to understand what was happening in England and the world when Tolkien wrote his books, so you can get into his head an see why he makes such a big deal about something (like Sarumon destroying the forest to build his underground-city/orc-breeding-ground), but if that's all you focus on you lose everything.
We love the Lord of the Rings because we all know what it's like to leave innocence behind and confront a confusing, twisted, broken world (like hobbits leaving the Shire). We all understand so deeply the burden of carrying a weight that seems too heavy for us (like Frodo and the Ring). We all long for friends to walk with us on our journey and carry us when we can't go on (like the Fellowship), and we know the pain that comes when our friends betray us or leave us. And we are inspired by these things to believe that somehow, even when it seems impossible, good will overcome evil and light will push out darkness, and we find hope and awe and joy in it. Though the actual characters of Frodo and Samwise and Aragorn and Gandalf aren't historically and factually real, they are true and real in a bigger, deeper way than reality or history can contain. They are stories that live and breathe and awaken our imaginations and invite us into something so much bigger.
And that's what Jesus does with his parables. When you hear the parable of the Prodigal Son, you are invited to find yourself in the story. Are you the younger son who betrayed your father and ran away? Have you returned in shame and fear only to find your father with arms outstretched running to you? Or are you the father who has been betrayed and embarrassed by the one you love more than anything? How will you respond when you have the chance for restoration? Or are you the older brother? Are you jealous of the forgiveness and grace given to someone else? Do you feel forgotten and unappreciated? Or are you a servant, watching the whole thing unfold in someone else's life? Can you celebrate with the father, or encourage one of the brothers? Have you been the younger son at one time in your life, and the father in another time, and the older son in yet another time of life? Have you been one of these characters over and over and over? Which one are you now?
Because, you see, these parables are works of fiction. Yes, I believe Jesus really taught them, but even then, he made them up. There wasn't *really* some son who ran away and a father who waited and an older brother who got mad. This didn't *historically* happen, but at the same time it's completely true and real and it happens everyday all around us. And it's just as true in Jesus day as it was 6,000 years ago as it is now as it will be in another 2,000 years. It IS timeless truth, but only if it is left alone. If it is processed and boiled into some one line sentence about who is right and who is wrong or the right way to live, it is brutally slaughtered and twisted out of shape and manipulated to benefit one person at the cost of another. Kinda like a cow turned into a Big Mac. I can't believe I just said that...
What would the news do today if Jesus were walking around Los Angeles?
Imagine the reporter: "So, Jesus, tell us about your organization. What is the Kingdom of God?"
And Jesus would respond, "Well, the Kingdom of God is like a tiny seed that grows into a giant tree, and birds will nest in it."
"Umm, so what are you trying to accomplish right now?"
"Well, there was a shepherd with 100 sheep, but he discovered one had wandered away. So he left the 99 and went in search of the one, and when he found it, he called all his friends and celebrated with them."
"Wow, uh, that's great, but how can people get more involved?"
"Only those who eat my flesh and drink my blood are-"
*beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep*
*We apologize for the technical difficulties. Evening News at 6 will return shortly*
Why then, today, are we so insistent on reducing Jesus into 3 easy steps, a "plug and chug" formula with a "right answer", or a slogan for our t-shirts and bumper stickers?
It's viewed as a machine or a computer: You put the right pieces of information in the right place (what we call "input"), turn the crank or push a button or click the mouse, and "automagically" the machine processes the information and gives you a concrete, clear, concise answer (output). The entire computer world is build around this idea of input->process->output. Nearly everything you do on a computer is engineered around this principle.
For example, probably nobody here understands *exactly* what happens when we search for something on google. All we know (and care about) is that you go to google.com, enter some words you are interested in (this is the input), click "Search" (process), and then google comes back in a second or two with thousands or millions of matches (output). I don't know what google is doing during that time. I know that it has already searched billions of websites collecting information and storing it in databases and ordering it in special ways, so when I search for a few key words it only needs to look in it's own database for the information I want. It's not really searching billions of websites right then. But I have no idea what kind of algorithms it does in order to find out what pages are the ones that are most relevant to my search words, and I don't care. I don't understand very well the protocols that help my computer connect with a google computer through multiple other computers, all passing around 1's and 0's with perfect accuracy, and I don't need to know. All I care is that I get some websites that help me out, and then I go on with my life.
We have been trained to think like this. I used the term "automagically" earlier, which is sort of a computer joke. It's a cross between "automatically" and "magic". We use it to describe what happens in the time that someone clicks "Search" on google and gets back a list of links. We don't know what it does or how, we just know that it does it. Automatically and almost magically. Honestly, there are probably only a handful of people in the entire world that understand everything happening in those split seconds. After 14 years total of playing around with computers, 4 years of which were a university teaching me about computers and then 5 years of developing software professionally, I don't know what is happening most of the time. I have a high level idea of how a computer processes info and does math and appears to do multi-tasking and how graphics work and what the internet is and how it works, but there is simply too much detail to know everything about what my computer is doing at any time. NOBODY knows it all. And that's just computers.
I always get-annoyed-with/roll-my-eyes-at people who are know-it-alls, because they must be extraordinarily arrogant and also quite ignorant. They simply don't know how much they don't know, but they think it doesn't exist because they don't know about it! In our world, we have to specialize. And most of the time we understand this. Our entire culture functions this way. Most things are "somebody else's problem", but we learn how to use the things that somebody else figured out, and we are usually pretty happy with this.
Which is fine for computers, or cars, or microwaves, or light-switches, or showers, or bridges, or footballs, or McDonalds cheeseburgers (although maybe we *should* question the process that last one went through). But are there some things we shouldn't outsource? What happens when we don't think about the way we live or what we believe? Part of the problem is that we outsource our philosophy and theology. We assume that since these are such deep, important things that only the people who are highly trained with PhDs should even try to grapple with them. And then we just take what they tell us. But I think that philosophy and theology are the very things that make us who we are. We all understand them so deeply that we are all qualified to talk and think about them. My parents, for example, have never studied philosophy or theology and don't have advanced degrees- but they both have so much wisdom and awareness and understanding of what is happening in their lives. They may not be able to quote some famous thinker, but often when I read one of these "brilliant" people I see that my parents taught me that idea years ago through their actions.
And that's one of the things I love about Jesus. He *was* brilliant. He could debate with the leading theologians and philosophers and social activists of his time (pharisees and rabbis were a hybrid of all of these, because Jewish thinking doesn't try to separate what you believe about God and what you think and what you do). And these people were brilliant- they had memorized the entire Tanakh (the Old Testament) plus all the interpretations and stories and questions that stemmed from hundreds of years of studying the Tanakh, and then formed their own opinions and questions and stories. So Jesus could discuss these ideas with them, and understand exactly the point they were trying to make, and then turn their words upside down to make his own point. BUT, the people he spent his time with, he ate with, he talked with, he lived with, were the regular Jewish peasants. They all would have left school by the time they were 10, or maybe a few would have studied until they were in their early teens. But think about. They all would have had less schooling than any of us who completed high school, or even junior high. And yet Jesus is teaching them the deepest things of the Kingdom of God. And he did it with parables.
The beauty of parables is that they can speak to anyone. Yes, Jesus uses plenty of cultural references and it's helpful for *us* to learn that background to get his point. But, that's even more of a reason why parables are special: They use everyday phrases and pop culture so that EVERYONE who wants to understand can get them. Jesus doesn't attempt to express some high, logical, timeless truth for all the world (now, don't take that to mean I'm saying that we can't find value and beauty and truth in Jesus' words - that's NOT what I'm saying at all - stick with me). He speaks to anybodys on a dirty hillside by a lake in their language. And he doesn't attempt to teach right and wrong answers to some universal questions. He tells stories that are rooted firmly in daily life. Stories about water and dirt and farming and sheep and a faithful woman and a dad and his sons and the city dump. But at the same time, he tells stories that are so much bigger and deeper than an hour long discourse. He leaves the stories unfinished or unclear so that people have to wrestle with the ideas and ask their own questions. He doesn't want to teach people yes or no answers, he wants something to come alive in their hearts. He is okay with the ambiguity.
But most of the time we aren't. We study the parables and look into the Greek and Hebrew and Aramaic and read commentaries, and all of that is fine. It helps us to put our minds into first century Palestine. But we can't reduce these stories to formulas. We can't think of them like math problems or computers. We can't approach parables with the "correct" input, then hit the process button, then get back the "right answer".
That would be like trying to find timeless truth in the Lord of the Rings or Narnia or some other work of "fiction". There may be some bits and pieces of timeless truth in them, but they are not scientific documents. It might help to understand what was happening in England and the world when Tolkien wrote his books, so you can get into his head an see why he makes such a big deal about something (like Sarumon destroying the forest to build his underground-city/orc-breeding-ground), but if that's all you focus on you lose everything.
We love the Lord of the Rings because we all know what it's like to leave innocence behind and confront a confusing, twisted, broken world (like hobbits leaving the Shire). We all understand so deeply the burden of carrying a weight that seems too heavy for us (like Frodo and the Ring). We all long for friends to walk with us on our journey and carry us when we can't go on (like the Fellowship), and we know the pain that comes when our friends betray us or leave us. And we are inspired by these things to believe that somehow, even when it seems impossible, good will overcome evil and light will push out darkness, and we find hope and awe and joy in it. Though the actual characters of Frodo and Samwise and Aragorn and Gandalf aren't historically and factually real, they are true and real in a bigger, deeper way than reality or history can contain. They are stories that live and breathe and awaken our imaginations and invite us into something so much bigger.
And that's what Jesus does with his parables. When you hear the parable of the Prodigal Son, you are invited to find yourself in the story. Are you the younger son who betrayed your father and ran away? Have you returned in shame and fear only to find your father with arms outstretched running to you? Or are you the father who has been betrayed and embarrassed by the one you love more than anything? How will you respond when you have the chance for restoration? Or are you the older brother? Are you jealous of the forgiveness and grace given to someone else? Do you feel forgotten and unappreciated? Or are you a servant, watching the whole thing unfold in someone else's life? Can you celebrate with the father, or encourage one of the brothers? Have you been the younger son at one time in your life, and the father in another time, and the older son in yet another time of life? Have you been one of these characters over and over and over? Which one are you now?
Because, you see, these parables are works of fiction. Yes, I believe Jesus really taught them, but even then, he made them up. There wasn't *really* some son who ran away and a father who waited and an older brother who got mad. This didn't *historically* happen, but at the same time it's completely true and real and it happens everyday all around us. And it's just as true in Jesus day as it was 6,000 years ago as it is now as it will be in another 2,000 years. It IS timeless truth, but only if it is left alone. If it is processed and boiled into some one line sentence about who is right and who is wrong or the right way to live, it is brutally slaughtered and twisted out of shape and manipulated to benefit one person at the cost of another. Kinda like a cow turned into a Big Mac. I can't believe I just said that...
What would the news do today if Jesus were walking around Los Angeles?
Imagine the reporter: "So, Jesus, tell us about your organization. What is the Kingdom of God?"
And Jesus would respond, "Well, the Kingdom of God is like a tiny seed that grows into a giant tree, and birds will nest in it."
"Umm, so what are you trying to accomplish right now?"
"Well, there was a shepherd with 100 sheep, but he discovered one had wandered away. So he left the 99 and went in search of the one, and when he found it, he called all his friends and celebrated with them."
"Wow, uh, that's great, but how can people get more involved?"
"Only those who eat my flesh and drink my blood are-"
*beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep*
*We apologize for the technical difficulties. Evening News at 6 will return shortly*
Why then, today, are we so insistent on reducing Jesus into 3 easy steps, a "plug and chug" formula with a "right answer", or a slogan for our t-shirts and bumper stickers?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)