The Best Laid Plans

Tina Lips led the discussion on Matthew 6:19-34 today at Evergreen as we continue to go through the Sermon on the Mount.  There was a lot of good discussion on the whole passage, talking about what treasures we set our hearts on and where we leave our priorities.  The section of the passage that got me thinking the most was this:

²⁵ Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? . . . ²⁷ And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? . . . ³⁰ But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? ³¹ Therefore do not be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' ³² For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. ³³ But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. ³⁴ Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble (Matt 6:25, 27, 30-34).

I am not a worrier really.  I tend not to worry about problems in the future, though that fact may not be so much from godliness and doing a great job of living by this passage so much as it is from mental necessity.  If I worry about things in the future that I have no solution for and at this point have no way of fixing, I stress and freak out.  So in order not to meltdown, I mostly don’t think about such things until I have to.  Unfortunately, I don’t know that that really falls in line with what this passage is saying either.

Someone pointed out that the point of this passage isn’t so much to chastise people who worry and say, “Stop doing that!” and leave it at that.  The point is that we should be trusting in God to meet our needs.  We don’t have to worry about tomorrow because God already has it figured out for us.  In light of that more complete picture, my method of ignoring future problems is not really the same thing as trusting God with my future.  That’s something I need to work on, but I think it isn’t too much of a stretch to move from where I am the trust aspect.  It’s mostly a matter of thinking intentionally and approaching it through a filter of faith rather than emotional expediency.

Where I do encounter more difficulty is in trusting God with my future when I’m not worried about it.  While this point isn’t explicitly dealt with in the passage, I think the underlying idea is there.  I don’t worry about things in the future much of the time because I have my plans in place.  The problem is that if my security about the future is grounded in life going according to my plan, I’m in trouble.  I’ve experienced many times before the fact that life just doesn’t respect the fact that I have certain expectations.  The universe is quite rude, in fact, totally disregarding the work and mental effort I have put into figuring how I want to structure the course of my life. 

Since the universe centers on me so much less than I would like, I have to trust God.  When those moments come where something shatteringly big changes the course of my life when I liked it just fine how it was going, I have to realize maybe God knows what he is doing, and taking this detour is way better than the route I had mapped out.  When I plan a big change and shift that I think will totally enhance where I’m headed, and the bottom falls out of my plans and I’m stuck right back where I was, I have to acknowledge maybe I’m getting ahead of God, and he has a purpose for keeping me right where I am.  Sometimes life, and God, foiling our plans is really frustrating, even devastating.  I have to believe that he knows better than I do though.  Maybe he knows a much more effective (if radically different) approach to achieving what I was trying to do.  Maybe he knows a much better goal to try to achieve.

Plans have a way of changing, and if God’s plans never fail, and if he always grants us his precious and very great promises, even though it may be anything but comfortable, I have to trust that his ends are better than my means. 

Following Jesus: A Beginning (Part 2 of 2)

“When we are called to follow Christ, we are summoned to an exclusive attachment to his person.  The grace of his call bursts all the bonds of legalism.  It is a gracious call, a gracious commandment.  It transcends the difference between the law and the gospel.  Christ calls, the disciple follows: that is grace and commandment in one.  ‘I will walk at liberty, for I seek thy commandments’ (Ps. 119.45).”

I have started this second part of this blog with another quote from The Cost of Discipleship because I think Bonhoeffer has really nailed the foundational ideology underlying what I am trying develop into a way of approaching life in Christ.  Following Jesus isn’t about obeying commands, as if the point were to keep a list of rules, but it is composed of obeying Jesus, making obedience the means to the goal of unity with Jesus.  Fortunately for us, Jesus sums up his commands as “The most important is, 'Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. ³⁰ And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ ³¹ The second is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these" (Mark 12:29-31). He put it another way in John: “³⁴ A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. ³⁵ By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:34-35).

While these commands from Jesus are beautiful and wonderful, they are abstract enough not to be very helpful for people who want more specific guidelines on what were are supposed to do as disciples (followers) of Jesus.  They are more of a broad approach to life rather than a structured instruction manual.  This, I believe, is on purpose for two reasons.  The first is that as soon as you set down a concrete command for life, someone will create a heartless law out of it.  The second is that the details of a life characterized by love will play out different in every individual to one degree or another.  Nevertheless, I think for the person hearing Christ’s call, a pragmatic outline of what answering the call is like will be welcomed and helpful, perhaps necessary for some to know how to move forward.

“Christianity without the living Christ is inevitably Christianity without discipleship, and Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ.”

This powerful and difficult quote from The Cost of Discipleship sets the framework for how to embark on a life of following Jesus.  Using Bonhoeffer’s terms, following Jesus incorporates two parts: discipleship and the living Christ.  I see it as two streams of thought or two sides of the same coin.  On the one hand, we have obedience.  On the other, we have immersion in Christ. 

Having faith, we must set out to obey, to live the Christian life.  But how?  Another way to ask this is “What is God’s will for me?”  This question has the power to move us on to great things or to paralyze us in doubt.  The first step is not to wait for some manifestation of God in power and glory before we obey, but simply to obey what we can already see clearly.  All of us have some aspects of our life we can quickly identify as not quite in line with God’s character or the command to love.  Whatever it is, whether bitterness toward someone, an addiction, some continued act of selfishness or disregard for someone else, we can clearly see that we must move to correct it.  We may not have a complete picture of what our life is to become, but we can take these steps (whether large or small) toward obedience.

At the same time, we will ultimately not get very far if we neglect the other side of the coin.  The other side is where the living Christ plays into our lives.  Fortunately for us, Jesus is not dead but alive, and able to interact with and transform us.  Immersion in Christ is the key to making the whole thing work.  This is where my thoughts on monasticism come to into play.  What we call spiritual disciplines are the primary means to immersing ourselves in Christ, unifying us with the Spirit of God.  Consistent prayer, reading and meditating on Scripture, solitude, self examination, being in and seeking God’s presence.  These are all integral parts of connecting with God so that the Spirit can transform our hearts and minds into being like Jesus.  These are the individual practices, but there are necessary community practices as well.  We are commanded to “love one another,” which is logically impossible if we never come in contact with others.  We need to serve each other, speak into each other’s life, and allow trusted fellow disciples in so they can help us along the way.  The spiritual practices that shape this part include communion, worship, confession, encouragement, generosity, and honesty both when it’s pleasant and when it’s hard.

Once again, these practices are the tools we use for the goal of immersing ourselves in Jesus.  Chris Leonardo once said this to me regarding these practices: “Making the effort to maintain spiritual practices carries little cost, for when we fail, we learn, and when we succeed, we find God.”  We might struggle to keep these disciplines, and we don’t need to feel guilty.  We just need to keep trying, and when we succeed, we encounter Jesus in a way that transforms us, empowering us to keep going.

By immersing ourselves in Christ through these practices, we are transformed, which gives us a heart and mind that are closer to Jesus’ heart and mind.  The result of that change is that we will see more of what needs to change in our lives, adding to the list of clearly seen things to obey.  In this way the two streams inform each other.  Obeying clears away some of the hindrances to immersion in Christ, and immersing ourselves in Christ clarifies our sight with regard to ourselves and our lives.  Of course, these processes are not alternating endeavors.  I don’t obey so that I can then experience Christ, then experience Christ to help me obey.  They have to happen simultaneously.  If you wait to do one before you undertake the other, you will never get anywhere.

While I have attempted to give some practical principles, the details remain abstract because each person has different struggles and places for growth in which to obey.  Each person will find God in slightly different ways and through different spiritual practices, though we all ought to participate in some of them, others may only be helpful for some people and maybe only for a time.  I could also go further into what kinds of obedience and how the various disciplines connect with this whole process, and maybe I will later on, but these are the basic ideas of what I have been thinking about.  I hope this discussion (which has turned out longer than I anticipated) makes sense and is helpful for taking the next steps for someone.  I know that it has helped me make an important transition in my own approach to following Jesus, and though I have certainly not mastered the process, it is a beginning for me as I attempt to be a more complete disciple of Jesus.

Be sure to read up on Aaron's perspective on our conversation here.

Following Jesus: A Beginning (Part 1 of 2)

Following Jesus is beautiful in its simplicity and stunning in its complexity.  Jesus lets loose his call, and we can either answer it and follow, or ignore it and go on down the road our lives were headed before.  This is where the simplicity lies: it is an either/or decision.  There are only two options.  Many people who self identify as Christians attempt to find a middle ground of following Jesus in some of what they do and think, but I think they deceive themselves, for this middle ground does not exist.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer describes three biblical examples of such people in The Cost of Discipleship:

⁵⁷ As they were going along the road, someone said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." ⁵⁸ And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head."

 ⁵⁹ To another he said, "Follow me." But he said, "Lord, let me first go and bury my father." ⁶⁰ And Jesus said to him, "Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God."

 ⁶¹ Yet another said, "I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home." ⁶² Jesus said to him, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God" (Luke 9:57-62).

In each of these cases, the men who spoke with Jesus wanted to follow him, but only if it were on their own terms, meaning ultimately, they wanted to follow themselves and receive the benefits of association with Jesus.

Additionally, Bonhoeffer asserts, “only he who believes is obedient, and only he who is obedient believes.” At first we may be reticent to assent to both of these truths at once (particularly the second), fearing that we add a requirement of works for salvation, but I don’t think it changes the requirements for salvation at all.  We are saved by God’s grace, through our faith in Christ.  Yet, to have faith is an act of obedience in itself, and true faith will certainly continue to produce obedience after the first moment a person declares his faith. 

Typical language trying to reconcile a spiritual life grounded in faith and grace with the impetus for godly lifestyles involves the language of gift and response.  It goes something like this: God has given me salvation through the gift of grace and undeserved love; I have accepted that gift through faith in Jesus; as a result of my faith, I begin to love Jesus and am grateful for all he has done for me; that love I have for Jesus motivates me to express it through obedience to his commands and conformity to his ways.  I have little argument with this way of thinking.  I think it is helpful, even beautiful, and ultimately, biblical.  Where I want to push back a little is that it may not offer much in the way of practical application.

The practical life application I have come to is a product of several weeks’ worth of thinking, particular about the topics of discipleship and monasticism, and they came together through reading the first couple chapters of The Cost of Discipleship.  However, I didn’t really draw it into a coherent thought process until I was trying to discuss the bits and pieces of my thoughts with Aaron Smith.

I’ll share what I came up with in another post, which I will create shortly.

Love and Rejection, A Tale of Missional Living

This morning I went to church early to rehearse with the band, and Chrissy went to do homework at a nearby coffee shop until it was time to join us at the Lab.  While she was there she overheard a conversation involving the two baristas and a patron that came in for a few minutes.  If you don't know anything about our church community, here are some of the salient aspects that have relevance for their conversation:

• The Evergreen Community is self described as a "missional, holistic, Christian community"
• We meet in the Lucky Labrador Brew Pub at two locations before the pubs open on Sunday mornings
• We are a church community that seeks to guide people in a relationship with Jesus that leads to growth and transformation, from whatever stage of their spiritual journey they may currently occupy
• One of the key goals is to be a place that is safe particularly for people who may be wary of attending a more traditional church in a church building, whether because they have never been part of a church body before, they have had previous bad experiences with other churches, or any other reason

The conversation Chrissy overheard was disappointing to say the least.  The third member, the patron of the coffee shop, as it turned out was a staff member of the Lucky Lab. He was telling the baristas about the ridiculous situation he had to put up with, namely working in a pub that hosted church that morning.  The baristas were incredulous, and they all shared a good laugh at the stupidity of such a phenomenon.  They even joked about checking it out, much the same way one would talk about wearing a frying pan as a hat. 

This painful conversation was disappointing for a number of reasons.  First of all, it seems that people of the very group we most desire to reach find us not only unappealing but even laughable.  Second, one of the people involved in the conversation was a member of the pub's staff, in which our gatherings have been happening for years, and though we knew they were never excited about our presence, we would have at least hoped they might have become less hostile through direct observation and some personal contact with us.  Finally, if a church like ours that is designed to be gentle and welcoming to those who might normally feel like outsiders, how is it that we seem to have failed so miserably with these three people, and is it even possible for any church community to accomplish this goal?

Chrissy told me about her experience just before the gathering started, so I had it running through my mind as Dustin began to preach about the Sermon on the Mount, specifically Matthew 5:38-48.  Particularly relevant was when he began talking about loving one's enemy and praying for those who persecute us.  He pointed out that if we are not supposed to hate, but love, our enemies, what makes them enemies is not how we feel about or treat them, but how they feel about us.  He told us about a previous church where he had ministered.  They had been the first church in their area to meet in a public school, and there was some serious hostility.  The lead pastor was on the school board and was faced with one other board member in particular who simply hated him and the church, but the pastor always treated the other man like a friend.  What a perfect example of obedience to Jesus' words, and it seemed effortless for him!

While this story is encouraging, it didn't end with him winning over the hostile board member.  He simply obeyed and loved the man because that was the Christlike, loving thing to do.  God doesn't promise us that living like Jesus will make everything better, and everyone will love us for it.  On the contrary, he promises that people will hate us for it and treat us badly.  But what makes it worth it is pleasing Jesus and being able to show Jesus' love to everyone, some of whom just might accept it and turn to Jesus because of it!

I will begin and continue to pray for those who work at the Lucky Lab and have to put up with our admittedly strange customs each week, as well as for the baristas and everyone else in our sphere of influence who may love us, hate us, or fall somewhere in between.  I hope that our whole church community, including me, grows so much like Jesus that loving everyone around us, including those who think we are ridiculous, becomes our natural response.