Relevance, Part 3

A couple of things have happened in the last few weeks that inspired me to begin this series on relevance.  This will be the concluding post - but you may find this theme throughout much of what I write (both in the past, and in the future).  When I preach, when I write, when I do just about anything, I ask myself, what is the point?  And this becomes the question I have to ask about God, His Word, and His Church - what is the point?

For me, I've found meaning in God.  The Bible was a little more challenging - but once I moved past the cultural distortions, I have found great relevance in those words.  I'm still wrestling with the Church though.  I'm wondering, what is it that people are trying to do there?

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Relevance, Part 2

Image by Lawrence OP via Flickr

When I look around at others, and I try to understand people's motives for church attendance, I am often baffled. I don't really understand why people choose to attend a weekly church service – or get involved at a deeper level. But my not understanding probably says more about me, then it does about the people I'm trying to understand.

Typically, I am not a joiner. I tend to not just go along because everyone else is doing something. As a certified introvert, I tend to prefer my own company over that of others. So, when I see groups of people gathering – for anything, not just church – I am left a little confused as to what their motives, or intentions are.

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Change

Assimilated

By Bill Colburn

The doc said he had good news and not so good news - depending on my perspective. What?
Several years ago I had to endure a series of unflattering medical tests related to a health issue. The doc suspected something was awry in my head - something folks have been suggesting to me since I was a kid - and strongly suggested an MRI. I was game.

Well, the good news was that the suspected problem, the one that had initiated the need for an MRI, turned out not to exist. However, while in my head, something was discovered they hadn't anticipated. Funny how one thing often unexpectedly leads to another. Is this providence at work?

My brain scan revealed a growth on the very narrow, but quite important 'stalk' that held the pea-sized pituitary gland at the base of my brain. It seemed that this growth was or would begin to compress the passage of some very important substances, hormones to be more specific, essential to the well being of the rest of my body - and, in consequence, my mind.

Ok, doc, I spent four years as a pre-med student. I think I catch the drift of all this. So what is the prognosis?

"Well", he said, " we are going to keep a close eye on this for awhile. We aren’t going to make any interventions - yet. We'll need to take another MRI in a year. Meanwhile, we suspect that you may experience some changes over the next few months. Let‘s just see how this plays out. Don‘t worry."

"Like what kind of changes", I asked, already suspecting his embarrassing answer. "Am I going to become a girl?"

"Well, you may gradually take on more female attributes. Absence of facial hair, alterations in your voice , a new bump here, another symmetrical bump there, etc. If you look at it rightly, this can really be a fun, novel journey - especially as an Adventist pastor in a conference that doesn't hire women as preachers!"

Funny, doc. Where’d he get his medical license from any ways. Smile.

What came to my perennially twisted mind was an episode of Star Trek. I was about to be assimilated by forces beyond my control. All resistance would be futile - unless, of course, there would be some professional outside intervention. But, maybe I'd enjoy this assimilation.

So, what’s this have to do with the church? The fact is, in my opinion, that we have all been unwittingly and unimaginably assimilated, through our nature, into a way of being in this world that shows no mercy. Resistance is futile. The real issue is that we refuse to admit the obvious.

We tend to want to think we are better than others. We exalt our choice of culture, religion, politics, education, and even our race, gender, and age as the evidence that we are not like everyone else. Kind of like the Pharisees and Sadducees of biblical times. Yet all these notions - including Christianity as a religion - are merely superficialities. There are no differences in our human ‘essence‘. Our religious traditions are merely a parody of godliness. Our constructs effectively divert us from the truth, sucking us deeper into denial. We are addicted to that which has cruelly assimilated us. There is no escape.

No amount of healthy eating, working out at the gym, higher educational degrees, political correctness, immaculate pedigree, cultural niceties, or religious profession will bring release. We have all - without exception - been fully assimilated into Babylon, or as Jeremiah so pejoratively stated, we have ‘become women!’ (Jer. 50:37). Sorry ladies. Just quoting the word here.

Our help comes from the Lord, wrote the psalmist (Ps 121). God must take the initiative in our deliverance - we cannot, wrote Paul (Rom 3). We need a new birth, a new nature. We need to hear the very voice of the Father and make our confession like Peter, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God" (Mt 16). This alone, though, is not a one time deliverance. How quickly the ‘rock’ Peter was sucked back into the quicksand 'Borg' of his birth nature.

Within our natural assimilated selves we 'see' only as man sees. Like the Pharisees and Sadducees, we exalt our 'seeing' as divine right. Yet, Jesus called all that evil and adulterous. All our pretensions to glory are self-deceptions, small box thinking, mere variations of the same old Hollywood scripts. Being the depository of the oracles of God has never sufficiently nauseated the 'Borg' to spew us out. We aren’t that special.

Adventism today is again, (still?), wrestling with this reality. We've existed within our bubble of self-righteousness long enough to nauseate ourselves. We are, functionally, no different that the child of Islam, Buddhism, Catholicism, or even atheism. All that we practice and preach and traditionally cherish is being exposed for what it really has always been - meaningless, even dangerous, non-sense apart from the indwelling power of the living God. We have been deceived by our own cleverness. We remain assimilated. We need help. Divine intervention or all that we are as a community of faith is without purpose.

Only when we confess that we are an evil and adulterous generation can we begin the twelve-steps that lead to genuine serenity. Will we have the humility necessary to grasp the hand of the Almighty and allow him to push the reset button on Adventist Christianity or will we continue to trust in ourselves?

The verb 'to be' and identity

Hi everyone.

I want to thank Marcel for the invitation to contribute to this very thought-provoking blog.

____________________

I have great difficulty in saying any sentence that begins "I am ..." (e.g. "I am a teacher"; "I am poor at mathematics"; "I am a Seventh-day Adventist") when it is about my identity. The reason is that the verb 'to be' and its variations (I am, you are, he/she/it is) have enormous potential to be totalising — to become the exclusively defining feature of our identity.

We can hear a similar aversion to this type of language when people who have a disability object to such language as "I am disabled" or "I am dyslexic". Frequently using this type of language about oneself can lead to becoming defined by the characteristic which is part of the phrase.

It is dangerous for others to use this language about another person. If I think of another person in terms of "she is disabled" or "she is aboriginal" we become tempted to stereotype the person and overlook other characteristics that richly define who they are.

It is an interesting exercise to deliberately change language like this about ourselves and others. Changing our language can change our perspective. Consider these examples:

I am a teacher --> One of the things that I do is teach

I am a bad speller --> There are some words I find difficult to spell

I am disabled --> There are some things I am not able to do

I am Australian --> I was born and raised in Australia

Stereotyping is a well known temptation for all of us. We tend to make quick judgments based on one characteristic of a person that becomes the box into which we force them. Deliberately avoiding the verb "to be" when talking about ourselves or others can liberate us from narrow views.

I sometimes wonder whether God was preventing us, as humans, from falling into the same trap when God answered Moses' question about God's name:

13 Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” 14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I am has sent me to you.’” 15 God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations. Exodus 3:13-15
(ESV)

God resists saying, "I am ..." and filling in the phrase with something specific. God just says, "I am who I am. You can't define me. You can't squeeze me into a box of your own making. You can't pin me down." God is willing to identify Godself as the same God that communicated with Israel's "fathers" — Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Clearly, we do not come anywhere near any equivalence with God. But, as humans made in the image of God, defining ourselves with any sort of categorical box is simplistic, reductionistic, and totalising. I challenge everyone to practice the discipline of avoiding the verb "to be" when talking about self-identity and, instead, celebrate the richness of each one of us that makes it impossible to put us into any box.