Without exactly making excuses, I’m sort of pleased that I procrastinated so much today. It’s not that I didn’t have work to do. I have a crapload, to use the french translation. The issue for me is similar to many babies and children, “I don’t want to.” But, on the other hand, I also have a lot on my mind. I’m feeling fairly vulnerable lately with all the changes in community life (both positive and negative). And I’ve started to take stock, research my thoughts, feelings, and desires related to community. It’s a hard process. Heart surgery, so to speak. I’m opened up to a deep incision and am still finding that there is always further to go and more to reveal. It’s hard to live in a canyon. But anyway…
Paul Munn describes himself and fellow followers of Jesus as “strangers and exiles.” Of course, he wasn’t the first one to use that kind of language or communicate that kind of thing. Jesus said similar types of things and, quite obviously, experienced profound loneliness and a whole array of societal rejections and misunderstandings. (Or am I reading myself too much into that story?) Nevertheless, I took it upon myself to add some good ol’ Christian disillusionment to the post (as if there weren’t enough already out there!). Here’s what I said:
I used to think that the marriage metaphor Paul uses to describe Jesus’ bride might, in a way, also imply a marriage-like commitment/vow to a specific group or community (i.e., the benedictines). But I’m not so sure now. I still desire a deep experience of God’s family and to “grow old together” with its members, just as some communities aspire to do. I guess it’s kind of strange for me, though, to understand how this could be possible, either within or with-out a familiar communal life, when we have as our primary identity the destiny of “strangers and exiles.” If it’s a matter of perpetual not-knowing or fleeting moments of actual deep community, I’m ok with that…but I confess, I don’t understand why.
Paul’s reply:
Yeah, I can understand that desire. But I think the reality is that communities change a lot over the years (if they last). People come and go, even when there are “life-long” commitment expectations, and the nature and purpose of the community usually shifts quite a bit. The changes are sometimes the reason certain people end up leaving. So the ideal you talk about is not the reality (at least not the reality I’ve seen or heard about).
Marriages can change quite a bit, too, I suppose. And people sometimes leave.
I guess I’m saying that our deepest desires for community are often good (and God-given), but humanly-defined societies never can satisfy that. I think it’s really a desire to be part of the community that is God, the body of Christ, and anything short of that will ultimately leave us disillusioned.
My reply back:
“I think it’s really a desire to be part of the community that is God, the body of Christ, and anything short of that will ultimately leave us disillusioned.” That’s a good point. Especially the disillusioned part. Maybe I’m just in a dark mood today, but I keep thinking that the reality for human beings (the ones I know, at least) trying to follow Jesus isn’t much better. I believe God wants us to know Him directly, especially in those we know and receive who are part of His body. But I’m still struggling to remember what makes this message (”strangers and exiles”) good for us, His children?
Never one to let a smart response fall by the wayside, he replies:
I’m not sure what you mean by “good for us”… I think it’s the truth, so it’s good for us to know. Jesus warned his followers that they would encounter widespread rejection and persecution, not because he wanted it to happen, but it helped them to know it was coming and so not get too thrown when it did happen.
And I do think there is a big difference in how much we are disappointed when we trust people (especially in powerful groups) and how much we are disappointed when we trust God.
Now, before I read his response, I had decided to ride the bus home from work. Julissa took the car, because the car she drives had a flat. (I really enjoy public transit, fyi. It’s like a free nap; you know, the kind you don’t have to feel guilty about when others around you are awake.) So, while I studied the rain, people, and slow city views, I began rereading a chapter from Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. This beautiful passage (below) stood out to me–a corrective, if you will. Here’s a few lines from it and then my last comment to Paul:
The serious Christian, set down for the first time in a Christian community, is likely to bring with him a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and to try to realize it. But God’s grace speedily shatters such dreams…
Bonhoeffer plants this idea to the community in his book Life Together: “Just as surely as God desires to lead us to a knowledge of genuine Christian fellowship, so surely must we be overwhelmed by a great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and, if we are fortunate, with ourselves.”
I like that. I think he hits the nail on the head. I also like the distinction you made about disappointment which develops from trusting people or groups and the disappointment unleashed when we trust God. The latter seems to be a certain mercy which responds to our innermost need–more than anything. Like you said in an earlier post, it is “a better prayer” for us to pray and receive.
Even though this may seem like a good place to end a rather piecemeal post like this, I’ve actually got one more link to throw in the mix. Jason Coker posted the beginnings of a chapter by chapter review of Dallas Willard’s new book, Knowing Christ Today: Why We Can Trust Spiritual Knowledge. I liked the topic. It’s related, it seems, to this feeling I’ve been struggling to identify for myself. So, I wrote a comment:
I’m new here (to the blog), but this caught my attention because I’ve been thinking through the implications of knowledge in relation to the Body of Christ. I haven’t looked at Willard’s book yet, so I’m not sure if he will touch on it. But it’s a rich topic, eh? For example, if we cannot completely identify with any human society (including Christian community) as Christ’s body, in what way can we avoid the temptations to idealize/idolatrize the social power of groups, movements, institutions, or even community? In other words, I am wondering if knowledge of Christ’s actual body is in any way possible or if we must accept the somewhat shoddy and disappointing versions personafied to us by our experiences of them. You might tell by my tone or question that this is one of those areas where I’ve had “experience with the belittling of faith as true knowledge.” Nevertheless, I view knowledge (religious or otherwise) as the substance of human faith. It’s the way we know the world. However, Jesus seems to know things about the world that I will never understand, put faith in, or believe. Peter Rollins, I guess, would want to call me an atheist. But I’m a Christian, a leader, and part of a faith community. This is not the comment I was thinking it would be. Alright, enough typing…
And Jason C. responds, offering this gentle reassurance/reminder:
Jason - Welcome. Your contribution is appreciated! I’m with you, but I suspect that we’ll have to find the real thing in the midst of the “somewhat shoddy and disappointing” version we have. : )
What can I say? It’s been a fruitful day, even in the midst of some “shoddy and disappointing” productivity percentages at my work desk. But thankfulness is key, right? I’ll finish my post here with Bonhoeffer’s final sentence from the overall passage I quoted above:
The more clearly we learn to recognize that the ground and strength and promise of all our fellowship is in Jesus Christ alone, the more serenely shall we think of our fellowship and pray and hope for it.
May it be so.
February 5th, 2010 at 11:35 pm
oh my friend…
I just caught up on all your blogs from when you moved into the new place on out… you had that huge space where you really didn’t blog and I stopped checking… that was a mistake
Your post tonight sounds like such a culmination of frustration and angst. I feel for you, and yet I’m not sure all of your disappointment is well-placed. Though I’m becoming more convinced that perhaps your expectation may be the farthest thing from well-placed.
I’d be interested to hear how you imagine this idea of community could/should play out in your life.
Maybe this goes all the way back to the difference in our backgrounds, but it may surprise you to know that I am still a more or less semi-postmodern or perhaps post-postmodern calvinist.
The thing about calvinism (and yes, I just invoked the thing), is it severs the normal view of causation that Hume critiqued with something much less knowable.
Perhaps thats more fatalism, but whichever label, the sweeping result is the same.
Have a look at my most recent blog. It is a reflection on how our meal this evening played out. This is the true riddle. I don’t know that I did anything different than normal. I’m not sure I “led” in any varied way. So far as I can tell, I rolled the dice the same way I always do… and you know what?
I got a very different result.
What if you’re expecting your efforts to have some greater effect on the result than they really ought to? I am completely convinced that everyone around you knows how sincerely you believe in the work of creating community that sets out to restore all things as partners with the Creator.
If your resulting feeling is something less than what you’d hoped, maybe it has nothing to do with you?
I remember the first few times I rode an elevator. Obviously, I was very young and I’m not super fond of heights so it was a little daunting to imagine what was really happening just outside of those thick metal doors. When I rigged up a four year old’s model of elevator physics in my head, it occurred to me that weight was the enemy pulling us back to the ground and putting stress on the chains and cables struggling to bring us upward.
I would do my part to help lighten things in the elevator. I’d try to exhale and then hold my breath so there wasn’t any air in my lungs. That way, I’d be at least a little lighter, right?
It must have worked because I have never been in an elevator accident.
Not once.
But maybe a more apt metaphor is the roller coaster. I could imagine holding my breath so it would pull up the first big hill a little easier and I guess I could push really hard on the seat in front of me with my feet as if it was a giant imaginary brake going down the big scary hill, but would that really effect the outcome?
Maybe the course is already set for us. Maybe it’s not. If it’s not, maybe the outcome has nothing to do with our striving anyway. All I know, is often, the harder I work, the more my thing sucks. Many times, the more I phone it in, the more I’m stuck trying to explain how things went so well.
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body.
If we could effect it, then it would appear that the work, and ultimately the glory, was our own. This is all for something far grander than our own internal sense of loneliness.
If I were a betting man, and it appears that I am, I would bet it all on this:
That ours is to pay the ticket price, sit in the seat, keep our arms and legs inside at all times, pray like hell and hold on.
If we endure the ride, then it is all to His glory.
If we scream like little girls and puke on the back of the guy in front of us, well, at least it wasn’t our fault, right?
February 8th, 2010 at 9:11 pm
I think I agree with your working metaphors here and the point your trying to make: in other words, it’s not up to us to “build” or “achieve” something on God’s behalf. It’s a bit like the relationship we have with our children, right? God doesn’t “need” us, though, like most parents, to imagine a life without His children would mean terrible suffering and grief. He desires us to voluntarily give ourselves to Him, to be on his side, doing His will etc. In that, it is clear that he takes a lot of pleasure (Philippians 2:13).
Now, I’ve also got one minor disagreement. There is a difficult to see difference between what you might mean by an unfruitful “striving” and the disappointment/grief associated (expected) in following Jesus. I make this point because I wouldn’t want the actual cost to be minimized unwittingly in an effort to afford God his due. In effect, I think God can appreciate how difficult it is for us and might even bless us as we mourn our losses. Our various expectations can be in error, for sure, but expectations in and of themselves are not our enemies. You know more about my expectations for community life than most. If you aren’t sure what I mean by now, my friend, what can I add to it?
February 8th, 2010 at 9:31 pm
I know this is going to sound ridiculous, but is it possible there are different sets of expectations at work here?
I think I usually have some idea of how I’d like something to take place or turn out, but there is also some slowly dying concept of “success” that I imagine is something different for me.
Does that make sense even a little bit?
When I walk away from here, I think there will be an over-arching sense of whether or faithfulness (or failure) brought about the kind of fruit I dreamed of. But that doesn’t feel like it has anything to do with the day to day stuff.
And maybe that is what I’m getting around to asking.
I think I know how you’d like to set up your community and I have some kind of picture in my head of how you’d like the day to day rhythms to follow, but how would you identify a point of completion in terms of your work?
And which of those sets are causing all the heart ache?
Are you frustrated with the things you have before you each day, or are you frustrated because you don’t feel as if you’re progressing at all toward a sense of completion?
I guess I’m talking about the difference between a microscope and a super wide angle lens.
Like I said, I think I know your microscope, but funny as it may be, I’m not sure either one of us has ever explored with the other what the end all here might be?
Am I wrong?
February 9th, 2010 at 8:50 pm
Ahhh, ok…I think I know what you’re getting at now. Bonhoeffer refers to this “slowly dying concept of ’success’” as “wishdreams.” Here’s his take on it:
Now, I’m not sure if this is a contradictory point or not. But Paul Munn just posted this additional response to his point about “strangers and exiles.” He says in one part:
Anyway, the end all here is actually something quite spectacular (maybe Bonhoeffer would have a problem with me saying this?) and yet so widely missed: the communion of saints.
February 9th, 2010 at 9:07 pm
By the way, I’m sure it’s really annoying to get large quotes thrown at you, especially when you asked me a fairly simple, direct question. And now I just realized that I forgot to answer the main thrust of the question you asked. Sheesh. Ok. Let me try again.
Yes, it is mainly the lack of a visible sign toward that all encompassing end that frustrates me. So…sigh…I’m kind of tired of working professionally or participating ecclesiastically in areas that seem devoid of that end (communion of saints). I really am trying to be thankful, though, for God’s body wherever I experience His gift or even in areas that seem to lack it. And I’m asking God to show me how my own sin is the real issue here. In other words, I am closer to the core hindrance of faith than I may want to believe. What else am I missing?
March 5th, 2010 at 4:07 pm
Do not enough cash to buy a car? You should not worry, just because that is achievable to receive the credit loans to resolve such problems. Therefore get a short term loan to buy all you require.