Rod White's Blog, page 47
September 19, 2011
I need to build. I need to care. I need to build with care.
September 12, 2011
It's a Fracking Outrage
September 5, 2011
The Tantric Propaganda in Green Lantern and Elsewhere
August 29, 2011
The Hurricane, the Nanny State and Katniss Everdeen
August 22, 2011
Spiritual Clogs
August 15, 2011
Thoughts on Unmet Relationship Expectations
But to the one who had told him this, Jesus* replied, 'Who is my mother, and who are
my brothers?'And pointing to his disciples, he said, 'Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.' Matthew 12:48-50
A lot of commentators have a lot of reasons why Jesus appears to be so cold to his family when they show up outside the house where he is teaching. But let's be honest, the main reason for this awkward scene is that Jesus is a very difficult child and a puzzling brother. Like so many of our loved ones, Jesus does the unexpected – or he keeps doing what we have come to expect and we still don't like it. Like I had to quit in the middle of that last sentence because Nat, in the next room, started having his predictable one-year-old issues – predictable, but still not what I had in mind.
I just spent the weekend with a house full of my children and their children and three grandchildren have come home with me; so I know what I am talking about. During our nice time together, we were all kind of difficult in our own way, because we are all kind of difficult in our own way. According to my siblings, I was a spectacularly weird part of their family (and I get the idea that they are being kind to talk about things in the past tense).
So let me reiterate what I think Jesus was getting at, as he was being difficult: If you are looking to your relationships, even your blood relationships, to get you through, you are probably in trouble. If you are going to spend your whole life waiting for loved ones to do what is expected or to fulfill what you need, you will be waiting a long time. Mary's son and her children's brother was God-with-us and they could not rely on him to fulfill their expectations! If you are looking to your friends and family to sustain you, you are probably disappointed right now. Who knows? Maybe we are friends and I am disappointing you as I write this sentence!
Even your dear friends and family need to get their worth from God, same as you, if
the relationships are going to be sustainable. Their worth cannot be in the quality of the relationship. Their value cannot be merely in what they mean to you. No matter how many times the movies tell us that all we need is family and friends to get by, we don't get by that well even when we have the family and friends. Someone is always in the next room complaining about what they aren't getting as quickly or as completely as they think they need.
My lesson: If I desire wonderful relationships (and I do) I need to keep my eyes on my primary relationship with Jesus. My desires, my neediness, my unfinished stuff, my general weirdness clutters up my relationships until all they feel like is inadequate. And the same thing is happening on the other side of each relationship! Being a brother to Jesus, is my deepest hope for my other relationships, as well.
When Jesus asks, "Who is my family?" I intend to say, "Me!" That is my first step in
realigning myself with God. If any other unaligned pieces are to come into place, like all those wonderful relationships I cherish, answering "Me!" daily is my best hope of making that happen.
That seems very simple, until the baby starts crying, or the spouse starts complaining, or the friend moves away. Jesus can end up in the middle of our "house," where everyone is clamoring after what they need or what they think should happen and end up wondering out loud, "Who are my mother and brothers?" He is difficult like that, thank God!
August 8, 2011
Low Hanging Fruit
All definitions seem to require some relationship to sex these days. The "urban dictionary" defines low-hanging fruit as" "Girls who are somewhat hot – but not too hot, and who often work in positions of high public interaction but with low-barriers-to-entry, thus making them open and attractive targets on the one hand, but often self conscious and/or harboring self esteem issues on the other. This, as a whole, makes them susceptible and quite receptive to any overtures from the opposite sex. I.e., They are the easiest of fruit to pick." The use of the phrase: "Salty just can't stop picking that low-hanging fruit; he just brought home his fifth receptionist this month."
I love the postmodern democracy of truth demonstrated in the Urban Dictionary, even though it is frightening. It is sort of like an intellectual horror movie. I can see what is going to happen to the thinking, but I keep watching anyway.
The more traditional way I want to use the phrase 'low hanging fruit" relates to farming (of course!). It means that when I stray off my running path in Southern California and steal oranges from the grove (not that I ever did this!), I will be able to reach the fruit that doesn't require that I also steal a ladder. In marketing terms, "low hanging fruit" are targets or goals that don't require too much effort to achieve.
Circle of Hope's "low-hanging fruit" appear to be mostly picked. This may also be true of your personal missional "grove."
When we first started out in mission, we were sort of the only game in town. Urban
church planting was not so popular — and, to be honest, just living in Philadelphia was not as popular as it is now. We had the "marketing niche" (if I dare say that to some of you) mostly to ourselves. These days, we can throw a rock in every direction from Broad and Washington and hit a church plant sponsored by all sorts of denominations, some from within Philly and many from without, especially by the branches of the fractious Presbyterians. There is plenty of room for everyone's mission and we love them all. But the proliferation of church plants has depleted the stock of low-hanging fruit that made our mission somewhat easy – at least easier than most missionaries face when they are on a mission. Just the young, semi-Christian people fleeing Lancaster could fill a few new church plants, it seems. We have our own contingent at 19G. Now they are spread out among a lot of good opportunities for growth and service.
So what we need to do now is come up with strategies and methods for reaching the fruit that is beyond our normal, easy reach. This is very good, since that is the crop we were planted to reach in the first place. We are slowly but surely figuring out how to do that. We have great infrastructure and general methodology for incorporating new people into our new kind of church. But we need to perfect the specifics of picking that individual "orange" that just happened to get ripe at the top of the tree.
We hope our methods are incarnational, not merely attractional. But we always use a mix of methods. One example of this is the recent discussion at BW about how to relate
to teens (fruit that often can't sit still long enough to be picked!). We have some nice specimens in our basket already, but their friends are not going to fall into our laps because we have a meeting and make fliers. Events might be part of our plan, but the biggest part will always be people in mission who are loving and who see themselves as harvesters all the time, and who can't rest until that farthest orange is in hand.
Some people will always see farming as violence done to a tree, I think. I see it as our role in God's spiritual garden.
August 3, 2011
Last Twelve Weeks of Shalom House?
[The ShalomHouse Guidance Team has posted this a couple of places -- why not here, too? You might be a future member, or someone who will help!]
In 12 weeks Shalom House might end and its function distributed among the Circle of Peacemakers. We don't want that to happen. So we are going to tell you our story for twelve weeks to see if your convictions and prayer can keep the flame burning bright.
We have a great idea for proactive peacemakers — SHALOM HOUSE. We are trying to become excellent promoters because we have a do or die opportunity: we can either find the people who are called to do this great work, or we can close it down.
Before I go any farther, let me remind you that we live in the middle of the biggest war machine the world has ever known. The cost in lives and dollars of the Afghan and Iraq wars is staggering (unless you can't stagger anymore, you're so used to astounding numbers!). Just think of this one fact — the United States maintains troops at more than 560 bases and other sites outside our country! Unless we close our eyes to it, that is what our country is, primarily — a persistent warmaker. If you are 21 right now, half your life has been associated with wars in Afghanistan and Iraq!
Christians need to talk and act about this situation. We do talk and act as a church. Shalom House leads us to keep our minds and hearts open to what our country is and what we can do about it. As an intentional community devoted to proactive peacemaking they make the big difference a group can make when they concentrate. The house doesn't just speak out against things, they act to build the alternative way of life, not death, that Jesus inaugurated with his resurrection.
We have had great people found the house and live in it for the past four years. Really, we are just now ready to build on what they organized! Even when a few people lost their commitment and even lost their faith, the house was a great witness for peace and has lead the church in all sorts of things we would not have normally done. Right now, our mainstay, Mimi Copp, is about to complete her final term. Another house member is considering leaving. A new house member is considering joining. But we are up in the air because the house is not sustainable as a community and a mission with too few people in it. We have one in, one maybe-in, and one maybe-coming. That won't do it. The Guidance Team is unsure we should keep the house going if we do not have enough people who want to be a part of it. The thought of closing it breaks our heart, so we are making sure we have tried everything can do before we move on to other things.
There is room for 3-4 people in the house. They make one, preferably two year commitments. They make a huge difference just by being there, much more as they get good at proactive peacemaking. You can be young or old, married or single, male or female, from Circle of Hope or not — all sorts of people are welcome. You just need faith, a commitment to proactive peacemaking, and a willingness to live by the simple rule that aids the community life and mission of Shalom House.
If you are interested, read through our blogsite, or talk to the Guidance Team Leader, Jane Clinton. If you know of someone who should be interested, even if they don't live in Philly, please let them know about us! And please pray about our future. We are writing you with our plans and progress because we trust that whether we are on a particular team or not, we are all in this together and we all care about each other.
August 1, 2011
Zeki and the Strings Attached
Istanbul is one of those places that has always been a big bazaar. Looking out from Topkapi Palace at the ships moving through the crossroads of Asia, it is easy to see why it has always been a good place to shop. Gen and I are not great shoppers, so the Grand Bazaar was sort of lost on us And we really did not consistently do well with being asked to buy something every few steps along our way through the historic old city.
So when Zeki spotted us at the Blue Mosque we were a bit wary. He assured us he "worked for the mosque" and was not going to ask us for any money. He just wanted to give us a tour. We knew there were strings attached someplace, but we decided to go with it, since I didn't mind taking him at his word and not giving him any money. The fact is, he gave us a great tour! The mosque would have been much less interesting and much harder to navigate without him. At one point he asked Gwen for her camera (which is a pretty nice camera) and went into the "restricted" area where women and infidels cannot go so he could get some pictures she would not get. They are good pictures. But he was gone so long that we thought we were never going to see the camera again, or I thought I would have to charge into the restricted area and see what happened. He reappeared, so we did not have to wonder, "Why did I give Zeki my
camera?"
By the end of the tour we were quite good friends with Zeki, so he told us that all he asked was that we come visit his family's shop. It was a little way distant and on a second floor. We realized that Zeki was a recruiter for the shop and it was undoubtedly the camera that made us look like possible rug buyers. We went with it because he told us the shop was air conditioned. It was cool and we got apple tea. (If you stick around in a shop you'll get something to keep you there even longer. One day we had a three-apple-tea day!). The poor rug thrower flipped out all sorts of Kurdish rugs that were very beautiful and which we had no intention of buying.
Fervent Christians often feel like they are Zekis. Their idea is: If you really love God, you will be out recruiting people to come to the store where the pastor will give them the pitch and they will buy Jesus, whether they want him or not. In some ways that has been an effective model. But it is not like God.
In my new favorite book, The Tangible Kingdom, Hugh Halter talks about this. "We think God tells us to serve in order to get people to respect us or like us so that they'll accept our God. The real essence of biblical blessing is that it's done with no strings attached. Hopes, desires, fervent prayer, yes – but no strings at all attached…Learning to receive God's free, no-strings attached offer and then graciously living a life to extend blessing to others without charge and without expectation is different [than being a recruiter]. When we become comfortable with unconditional love, I think we will find that it does witness correctly to who God is. And it's a power that naturally draws people in." (p. 143)
Zeki blessed me, but he had strings attached. Apart from his striking Kurdish blue eyes, I will remember him for his clever hoodwinking. In our present-day spiritual environment in the megalopolis, which is very skeptical about Christians and their myriad claims to truth, being a blessing makes more missional sense than ever. If you are stuck being a recruiter for the church or for your cell and are frustrated that no one is "buying," maybe it is time to change your mind about how God works. Be a blessing as you have been blessed. For the people you hope will connect with God, meeting up with an incarnation is a lot more alluring than buying an abstraction; being loved right now is better than the promise of good things that could happen if they come to your neeting or join your cause.
July 25, 2011
Incarnation is the Answer to Bad News Church
I was in Turkey last week. My body still thinks I am there. My mind is definitely still there. It was a difficult pilgrimage in some ways. But it was a very stimulating one in almost every way.
For the first week, Gwen, my dears friends, and I fulfilled a long-held vision of taking one of the famous sailing cruises through the Aegean. I had very little idea of what I was getting into, especially since I let my friend do most of the planning. When I showed up in Bodrum, I met the people with whom I would be sleeping and eating on our little boat: two Belgians, four Dutch, two South Africans, four Americans, including me, and four Turkish crew members. They were nice people.
What I want to tell you about today is the small experiences I had of introducing myself to people whose English leaves a little bit lost in translation. Being the pastor of Circle of Hope is odd enough in the religion-saturated United States. Explaining it to the post-Christian Belgians and Dutch is even odder.
For instance, my now-new-Belgian-Facebook-friend was very puzzled about my very existence. In Belgium the national government still owns the church buildings for the state-subsidized religious groups. My new friend was very interested (as a former mayor) that the people of my congregation actually pool their money to support my work. Belgium is still highly influenced by the Catholic church, even though in 1967 about 42% of the population attended mass weekly and now it is only about 5%. My friend was also a bit shocked that I was married. When the subject of church came up, the first thing she had to talk about was celibacy! She was very concerned about the sex life of priests, since there has been a major sexual abuse scandal in Belgium for the last several years. I was meeting another person telling me the bad news about the church.
I think we forget that people are not necessarily antagonistic toward faith in Jesus; they really have no idea about faith in Jesus. They think it is about connecting to the bad news church. It is hard to imagine an intelligent person in Belgium signing up for the state-sponsored Catholic Church, run by deviant, politically-savvy priests holding meetings in empty, historic buildings. The only "issue" my friend had to offer when religion came up in our conversation was about celibacy! How unusual that I can have a wife! A sexually-active being, serving a community that supports his leadership — revolutionary!
More poignant, perhaps, was my small conversation with a Dutch passenger. She had some Christians in her background, so she was more in the know. Apparently, there is a "Bible belt" in Holland. She had ancestors from there and even knew about Mennonites, who got their start in the Netherlands. As soon as we started talking about Christianity, she made it plain that she was not happy about how churches judge others and hold to their bizarre convictions. Her first thoughts revealed her feelings about the notorious time there was a breech in the dike and people from the Bible belt would not come to help with saving the land because it was Sunday and they would not work on the sabbath. It was the bad news church, again. But when I described to her what we were living as Circle of Hope, she almost immediately softened up. It struck a chord with her. She smiled at me and said, with a Dutch accent, "I would come to your church."
Honestly, I think she is hungry for something. It is like she has been deprived of the church by a bunch of numbskulls who somehow took it over. I hate to be so negative, but the Catholic church still marching around in medieval costumes and the revival of Calvinist propositional-legalism is disastrous for evangelism. I know I am not supplying a lot of evidence for that, but I keep running into the bad news. What self-respecting Dutch person is going to ally themselves with people with so little love in their hearts that they would rather be "right" than serve their neighbor?
On one hand, I have nothing to prove. A person who wants Jesus can find him in the least likely places. We don't worship the Christians or their churches. I am not the church's history. On the other hand, we have a lot to prove. We are an incarnation of the kingdom of God, the presence of the future, as the Holy Spirit lives in us. If someone bumps into me, they should meet the love of Jesus. If they talk to me, they should hear some truth that resonates in some empty place in them prepared for God.
The old church is about gone in Europe and it is quickly disintegrating in the United States. Praise God! But do we have the followers who have the courage to incarnate what is next? Do we people who can demonstrate the Lord's truth and love to hungry people? I hope to be among them.
