I walk through about one hundred and fifty yards of commuter parking on my way to the gym. One day I noticed a bumper sticker which I particularly liked: “Come the Rapture, can I have your car?”
I’m not a person who puts stickers on cars, but I do survey them a bit, and mostly I am disappointed. Whether political or not, on the main they tend toward simple declarations, and I have a soft spot for the ones which say more and get me thinking.
I’m pretty sure that Rapture bumper sticker was spawned by another sticker which I’ve seen a lot more often: “Warning: when the Rapture comes this car will be unoccupied.”
When I see that one I feel an impulse to motion that person over and give ‘em a hug. It doesn’t sound like they’re finding much joy in the here and now of faith. Sounds more like they’re looking forward to being liberated, at last having their exalted status recognized in horror by all those folks who went on having a good time. I’m not totally dismissing the possibility of the occasional reader who will see that bumper sticker and think something along the lines of ‘that person knows something I want to know’, but it seems more likely that the reader will begin to form an impression of a faith that exults at the hope of being vindicated, a resolution with winners and losers, rather than a faith where the first shall be last and the humble lifted up.
I fear there is a thread of Christian community which wishes to find justification for exercising a good old-fashioned smote. You know, hell fire, total destruction as a definitive rebuke. We have a societal remnant of that in the death penalty: you are so bad we’re going to end your life. But hear this: we don’t think ending a life is right, unless it is the ultimate statement of societal disapproval. Don’t do this at home. But I digress...
Unconditional love, grace, compassion, mercy, these are counter-cultural words at the center of understanding God’s love for us. These are practices which must be embodied by followers if we are to fully live faith, and pass on faith rather than cultural bias. Unconditional love, grace, compassion and mercy must be practiced as counter-balances to any of our opposing impulses.
Formation in God’s methods is foundational those who seek to follow the will and way of God. Ours is not a faith which calls us to be ready to act faithfully at some future moment, not after we have prevailed, but rather to employ faith qualities and practices as a means to witness whose we are, in the midst of all moments; when we do this beautifully it is very persuasive.
And it just might become a faith which never wants to operate a car without filling the car’s seats with new friends.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Middle-Class Morality
I’ve been away from church responsibilities now for two months. I'm taking in new things in a new place.
The K.S.U. campus community is diverse, it may even be more apparent in summer when some who have traveled furthest to participate remain. My dog, Coco, and I have retrieved balls for international students playing cricket, we’ve exchanged greetings and nods with all sorts of people, we’ve visited university staff members during breaks from their preparations of the campus for another year.
One day a few weeks ago a line from a movie came to mind, it’s from G.B. Shaw’s Pygmalion (and it’s more recent adaptation, My Fair Lady). Shaw has written them as the words of Alfred P. Doolittle, a man bewildered by a change in his fortunes:
“Who asked him to make a gentleman out of me? I was happy. I was free. I touched pretty nigh everyone for money when I wanted it, same as I touched him. Now, I'm tied neck and heels, and everybody touches me. A year ago, I hadn't a relation in the world except one or two who wouldn't speak to me. Now, I've fifty, and not a decent week's wages amongst the lot of 'em. Oh, I have to live for others now, not for myself. Middle-class morality.” (quotation courtesy IMDb)
‘Middle-class morality’, Alfred’s concluding words, the phrase has been sticking with me. I’ve been wondering just how much of what we present as faith is really middle-class morality, more a reflection of our place in local culture than our place in God’s wider community.
There are targets which for me which are easy: preferences for church music and church decor, much of what is familiar in the particular sanctuary experience with which we have become most familiar. I suspect we compromise the broad invitation issued by Christ, by inserting the particular specifics which have become comforting to us.
Here in Kent I’ve found another interesting place to watch people. As I’ve watched others I’ve been thinking about faith in God, and the possibility that my own conceptions of middle-class morality may unduly influence understandings of what it is to seek to walk with God. Wondering to what degree perceptions then affect what I as an individual disciple invite others to.
God gave us something simple to do: to love God and others. Yet to invest in God’s purpose and method of love is humbling. It seems against human nature to be humble; we want credit for being humble, perhaps even to have others notice how well we do humble, introducing a destructive compromise at a fundamental level. There is virtue in the practice of humility. The humble withdraw from outsized self-importance to see themselves in context of interrelatedness and interdependence. But the realization is only apparent to those who draw close to humility.
Humbly serving God, recognizing the ‘other’ as God’s receptacle for love right before us, broadcasting love is our central task. The task of establishing a local ‘footprint’ of outward-radiating love should take a higher priority than perpetuating local church practice, in many instances our form of middle-class morality.
I’m suggesting there are unintended layers we followers attach to following.
Jesus distilled the commandments to two: loving God with all one’s heart, soul, mind and strength; and loving neighbor as self (Mk. 12:29-31). The charge is both simple, and in the idealistic practice of love, totally consuming, as is the nature of the whole of faith. We are to be people who are known by love, who set the stage through loving acts for still others to find abundant discovery and growth in God’s unconditional love. We may believe that others prevail by taking advantage of love, but better that should happen than we become proponents of methods that are not of God, and in so doing, compromise the message of the One we represent.
Should we expect others to experience God as we do? How can we introduce them to a path which reflects God’s love above all else? Must they be effectively ‘circumcised’ into our conventions and practice?
How much of our current practice is about providing comfort to our selves, how much to expanding the circle and loving?
The K.S.U. campus community is diverse, it may even be more apparent in summer when some who have traveled furthest to participate remain. My dog, Coco, and I have retrieved balls for international students playing cricket, we’ve exchanged greetings and nods with all sorts of people, we’ve visited university staff members during breaks from their preparations of the campus for another year.
One day a few weeks ago a line from a movie came to mind, it’s from G.B. Shaw’s Pygmalion (and it’s more recent adaptation, My Fair Lady). Shaw has written them as the words of Alfred P. Doolittle, a man bewildered by a change in his fortunes:
“Who asked him to make a gentleman out of me? I was happy. I was free. I touched pretty nigh everyone for money when I wanted it, same as I touched him. Now, I'm tied neck and heels, and everybody touches me. A year ago, I hadn't a relation in the world except one or two who wouldn't speak to me. Now, I've fifty, and not a decent week's wages amongst the lot of 'em. Oh, I have to live for others now, not for myself. Middle-class morality.” (quotation courtesy IMDb)
‘Middle-class morality’, Alfred’s concluding words, the phrase has been sticking with me. I’ve been wondering just how much of what we present as faith is really middle-class morality, more a reflection of our place in local culture than our place in God’s wider community.
There are targets which for me which are easy: preferences for church music and church decor, much of what is familiar in the particular sanctuary experience with which we have become most familiar. I suspect we compromise the broad invitation issued by Christ, by inserting the particular specifics which have become comforting to us.
Here in Kent I’ve found another interesting place to watch people. As I’ve watched others I’ve been thinking about faith in God, and the possibility that my own conceptions of middle-class morality may unduly influence understandings of what it is to seek to walk with God. Wondering to what degree perceptions then affect what I as an individual disciple invite others to.
God gave us something simple to do: to love God and others. Yet to invest in God’s purpose and method of love is humbling. It seems against human nature to be humble; we want credit for being humble, perhaps even to have others notice how well we do humble, introducing a destructive compromise at a fundamental level. There is virtue in the practice of humility. The humble withdraw from outsized self-importance to see themselves in context of interrelatedness and interdependence. But the realization is only apparent to those who draw close to humility.
Humbly serving God, recognizing the ‘other’ as God’s receptacle for love right before us, broadcasting love is our central task. The task of establishing a local ‘footprint’ of outward-radiating love should take a higher priority than perpetuating local church practice, in many instances our form of middle-class morality.
I’m suggesting there are unintended layers we followers attach to following.
Jesus distilled the commandments to two: loving God with all one’s heart, soul, mind and strength; and loving neighbor as self (Mk. 12:29-31). The charge is both simple, and in the idealistic practice of love, totally consuming, as is the nature of the whole of faith. We are to be people who are known by love, who set the stage through loving acts for still others to find abundant discovery and growth in God’s unconditional love. We may believe that others prevail by taking advantage of love, but better that should happen than we become proponents of methods that are not of God, and in so doing, compromise the message of the One we represent.
Should we expect others to experience God as we do? How can we introduce them to a path which reflects God’s love above all else? Must they be effectively ‘circumcised’ into our conventions and practice?
How much of our current practice is about providing comfort to our selves, how much to expanding the circle and loving?
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