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Reading the Psalms 1

February 22, 2012 By lpmadmin Leave a Comment

I’ve had a LP request information on reading the Psalms for a Listening Post meeting.   I’m going to do a series of postings on reading the Psalms.   I’ll draw from several sources but one in particular that has affected my reading of the Psalms is Walter Brueggemann’s little book “The Spirituality of the Psalms.”

I like that book because it not only takes the Psalms into account but also the “season of life” in which one reads the Psalms.  I think his way of dividing the “seasons of life” makes a lot of sense because it accords well with how we experience life.

WB suggests that we move through a cycle of life, one marked by (1) Seasons of Order, (2) Seasons of Disorder, and (3) Seasons of Reordering.

We live through times when “God is in his heaven and all is right with the world” but then, and sometimes out of the blue, “life goes to hell in a hand basket” and it seems that God has somehow disappeared into the shadows.   That period of disorder, which may seem to be interminable, eventually gives way to a reordering of life.  We are stronger for the experience but happy to see it in the rear view mirror of our lives.

WB argues that the Psalms can be read according to those seasons, that there a Psalms that celebrate Order, Psalms that vent and rage in periods of Disorder and Psalms that celebrate Recovery.  He also distinguishes different kinds of Psalms within each of those seasons.

For example, during a season of Order one might read Psalms of Creation that celebrate the beauty and majesty of God’s creation or Psalms that celebrate God’s revelation in the Law or the word of God.

Just for the fun of it, take a look at these  Psalms that celebrate the good order of God’s creation:

Suggestions for Reading

Read them slowly.  Even better, read them aloud.   Read them daily, even repeatedly.  Read them outdoors.  Read Psalm 8 outside at night!

Questions for Reading

How do they express your experience of God’s good creation, especially here on the cusp of Spring?

Which of your senses does the Psalmist appeal to?  Why do you suppose the Psalmist is so sensory?

What do you find in these Psalms that surprise you?

Of what do they remind you?  How do they encourage you?  How might they help you to encourage someone else?

How do they lift your spirits or even transform your heart?

Think about a time when you were moved by the beauty of God’s creation and be ready to share that in your group.

What is something you might do to show gratitude to God for the beauty  and order of God’s creation?

A Little Related Inspiration

Take a look at this….  (just skip the ad)

Hope this helps…More later!

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A New Way

February 17, 2012 By lpmadmin Leave a Comment

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned in my 40 years of ministry is this: “If you want people to change you need to provide them a means to do so.” In other words, it is much easier for people to move from A to B if they have a way of getting there.

Think about it this way. I could say to you: “You really need to leave Cincinnati and go to San Francisco.” Even if the person to whom I say that agrees he will only be able to do it if he has some means at his disposal to make the journey.

This morning I visited the web site of Richard Rohr’s “Center for Action and Contemplation” and was reminded of that lesson I learned over the years. A tag line of his web site reads: “We do not think ourselves into new ways of living. We live ourselves into new ways of thinking.”

Part of the reason that churches are not more missional (or even more evangelistic!) is because we have settled for trying to talk people into being more missional/evangelistic rather than providing them a vehicle to do that or get there.

How many times have I said, “Let’s go out this week and share the good news” only to have people “Amen” that and forget about it? We are all for it. We are just not that great at doing it.

Listening Posts are a vehicle to help people get out into the marketplace (or wherever) and put themselves into position to meet strangers. Because the emphasis is upon listening rather than talking, people are less reticent to give it a shot. Because it is done in the company of friends, it feels less intimidating.

Listening Posts are a vehicle, a means to help people get from A to B. They provide an excellent means to ‘live ourselves into a new way of thinking!”

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A Spiritual Gift

November 26, 2011 By lpmadmin Leave a Comment


“I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong- that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith.” (Romans 1:11-12)

Many years ago I stood in the parking lot of the church I served and conversed with Dr. Dean E. Walker, a venerable gentleman widely known among the churches in which I grew up.  At the time I was in my 30s and Dr. Walker was in his late 70s.

We had just come out of a meeting where we had a discussion about the direction of the church when I said something to him about “creating the kind of church that would take us into the next century” or something similar.  Dr. Walker, who could stop you in your tracks with a glance and a carefully chosen question (he was known for his Socratic style), asked: “And what makes you think it is up to us to create the church?”

I sputtered some reply.  All the while I spoke he shook his head and narrowed his eyes with that look that reminded me of an eagle.  He cleared his throat as was his habit before he spoke on matters profound and said, “We do not create the church; we receive the church as gift.”

I cannot read the words of Paul in this text without remembering that story.  “We do not create the church; we receive the church as gift.”

Paul tells the Christians in Rome that he yearns to see them so that he can impart to them some spiritual gift that will make them strong, that will establish them, but then corrects himself in mid-sentence.    Rather than saying that he will impart a gift to them in a one-way exchange, he says that they will impart a gift to each other.  The faith of each will encourage the faith of the other.

He characterizes this coming together, where each is encouraged by the faith of the other, as a “spiritual gift”.

Charisma

The Greek word Paul uses that is translated into English as “gift” is “charisma”.   A “charisma” is a manifestation of grace.  (The word “charis” is Greek for “grace”)  A gift in this sense is a favor extended by God, a manifestation of grace cutting itself into the world.

Paul uses the word six times in Romans.  In addition to this text, he uses it three times to speak of the gift of the redemption brought by Jesus  (Romans 5:15; 16; 6:23) , once to describe the gifts in general that God gives (Romans 11:29)  and once to describe the manifest gifts God distributes for the building up of the Body of Christ.  (Romans 12:6)

He employs the word seven times in I Corinthians.  In five of the seven times he uses the word to describe the specific gifts that are to be used to build up the Body. (I Corinthians 12:4;9;28;30; 31)   In one of the remaining two cases, he uses the word to describe the gift that enables one to be married or single (I Corinthians 7:7) and, in the remaining case, as part of his introduction to the letter as a way to express his desire that they not find themselves “lacking in any spiritual gift.”  (I Corinthians 1:7)

He uses the word only once in II Corinthians to offer thanks for the favor bestowed upon  him and his ministry team by means of the prayers of many. (II Corinthians 1:11).  He uses the word twice in the letters to Timothy, once when he cautions the young preacher to “not neglect the spiritual gift within…” (I Timothy 4:4) and once when he reminds him to “kindle afresh the gift of God” that Timothy had received through the laying on the apostle’s hands.  (II Timothy 1:6)

Charisma, these manifestations of grace, is always presented in a positive light, as a good thing, as something that empowers, enables, and edifies.  Indeed, part of what makes a gift a “gift” is that it contributes in some positive way to the building up of the Body.  That is how Paul uses the word in Romans 1:11.   The spiritual gift he longs to impart, or rather to enjoy in mutual giving,  is intended to “establish”, that is to strengthen, to stabilize, to make firm.

The encouragement that Paul expects in the mutual sharing of faith with the faithful in Rome is a gift of God, a manifestation of grace, intended to build up the Body.  Whenever believers get together, whether in the large assembly of worship, in a small group around food and prayer, or in a Listening Post in the back corner of a coffee shop, encouragement happens because grace is received, extended and received.

(Next: “Why a ‘Spiritual Gift’?”)

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Encouragement Happens

November 24, 2011 By lpmadmin Leave a Comment

“I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong- that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith.” (Romans 1:11-12)

Not long ago Jaynie, our worship leader for the day, began our worship by telling a story about how Cynthia, one of the other women in the church, had stopped her that very morning to tell her that she had been praying for her, how they sat for a few minutes of conversation and how encouraged she felt by it all.

After sharing that story, Jaynie told another story about how Loretta and Jaye had given her a hand-knitted prayer shawl, which they had made as part of a ministry that provides shawls, coverlets and hats to anyone but especially nursing home residents and newborn babies.

I smiled to myself as I listened to those stories.  I would stand in less than 15 minutes and preach the sermon I prepared, a sermon entitled “Encouragement Happens.”   My text for that sermon were to be the words of Paul to the church in Rome:

“I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong- that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith.” (Romans 1: 1-12)

Those words appear in the introduction to the letter to the church in Rome.  They are words that remind us that part of the reason the church exists is to encourage.  However, they are written in such a way that suggest that whenever the church gathers “encouragement happens.”

Expectation

Paul does not write to the church in Rome and tell them to prepare themselves for his visit by creating an “encouragement committee” whose job it will be to write up an  “encouragement strategy”.   Paul seems to expect that he will be encouraged when he visits them because whenever the church gathers “encouragement happens.”

Part of the reason that he expects to be encouraged in his visit is because the church in Rome was known “the world over” for its faith. (Romans 1:8)  He longs to visit with them because he believes that their world-renowned faith will encourage his own faith just as his faith will encourage theirs.

The church in Rome gathered in the shadow of the imperial palace of Caesar who held himself out as a god.   They met in the company of Roman power brokers and armed Roman legions in a city which thought of itself as the very city of god. If Caesar was a god, then Rome was the city of a god, the Roman legions were the soldiers of a divinity and the people of Rome the subjects of a god.

The church in Rome had to display a resilient faith to continue in such a place.

Likewise, the Apostle Paul himself had to cling to a resilient faith.  His life and his ministry was one of hardship and persecution.  Constantly undermined by so-called “teachers”, dogged by authorities, riding herd on difficult churches, “…in troubles, hardship and distresses; in beatings, imprisonments adn riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger…” (II Corinthians 5), Paul had learned, by God’s grace, to live a resilient faith.

So, it was small wonder that when Paul wrote to the church in Rome that he wrote with the expectation that both he and the church in Rome would be encouraged, that is, that they would encourage one another by their faith.

Moreover, Paul expected to be encouraged for other reasons as well.

Anytime…

Any time followers of Jesus get together, “encouragement happens.”  Whether in the larger gathering of a church or the smaller gathering of a Listening Post meeting, anytime disciples can get together, face-to-face and shoulder-to-shoulder, encouragement happens.   There are three reasons why “encouragement happens.”   The first two are simply “human”.  The third is particularly Christian.

First, encouragement happens anytime people with shared convictions gather. Part of what draws us together, shapes us, and sustains us is our gathering with others who share our way of life and ways of thinking.  We need the presence of others who share our convictions to help us maintain our convictions.  Indeed, we might even go so far as to claim that we know what our convictions are by noting who are friends are!

Second, encouragement happens anytime people with shared convictions gather, especially if those convictions are counter to the convictions  of the larger society. If our convictions are not those of the larger community in which we find ourselves, we are likely to feel even more drawn to the gathering of those who share them.

Christians, like any other people who share convictions, benefit from those simple human reasons for gathering.  However, Christians also benefit from the encouragement derived from gathering for Christian reasons, which takes us to our third point.   Encouragement happens in the church because mutual encouragement  which derives from our gathering is a gift of the Holy Spirit.

As Paul helps us see, any time the church gathers, whether in a large or micro assembly, encouragement happens.

We are encouraged by the resilient faith of our friends, especially when the convictions we share are not those of the dominant culture in which we live.  However, we are also encouraged when we gather with fellow believers because such gathering  is itself a gift of the Spirit of God.

More on that later….

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Lectio Divina

August 3, 2011 By lpmadmin Leave a Comment

One of the central practices of Listening Posts is the practice of reading scripture.  The reading of scripture is so central to LPs that I when I teach or train on them I call it a ‘scripture reading movement.”   More and more people are reading large swaths of scripture as a result of the Listening Post movement.

Standing Under the Word

We speak of “standing under the word” in LPs. We put it that way so as  to encourage participants to not approach scripture in the usual “Bible study” way.  We are certainly not opposed to studying the Bible, that is actually analyzing the contexts and texts of scripture to understand them.  (That in itself is a spiritual practice that shapes our hearts and our minds!)   However, we do think there is a time when we are to simply read scripture, large portions of scripture, so that its words can wash over us and penetrate our hearts and minds.

As I like to say: “Simply because a biologist dissects frogs does not mean that she does not enjoy sitting by a pond in the cool of the evening to listen to them chirp and croak.”

Lectio Divina

The practice of reading or hearing scripture in an open and meditative way has a long history in our faith.  Read Psalm 119, a poem to the blessedness of soaking in the word of God.  Read Romans 10:8 “…’The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart.”   As Eugene Peterson has put it in the title of a recent book, we are to “Eat This Book!”

One ancient practice that can help us as to meditate upon the scripture is the practice called “Lectio Divina.”  That Latin phrase means “Holy Reading.”    Forms of it have been practiced for centuries.   It appears to have been formalized by Saint Benedict and utilized in the monasteries he founded.   A monk by the name of Guigo II is credited with formalizing it into 4 steps.

Here are Guigo’s 4 steps to Lectio Divina:

1.  Lectio (Read)

Read the text. Read it several times if possible.  Read it silently.  Read it aloud.  Let the words roll off your tongue.  Let them wallow in your mind.  Listen to the rhythms of the text.  Pay close attention to the words you read.  (This is not reading on the fly!)

2. Meditatio (Meditate)

Think about the words of the text.  What are they saying to you?  Let  your eyes, your mind, your heart range freely over the words.  Does any particular section of the text seem to be addressing you?  Does any particular phrase or word seem to be asking for your attention?  If so, think a bit about that.  Ask yourself why it is that that section, that phrase, that word seems to require your special attention.

(3) Oratio:  (Speak)

Allow the text or those portions of the text that seem to be speaking to you to become a prayer within you.  In other words, assume that God is speaking to you in the text, how might you speak back to God in prayer?  How might what you are reading become a prayer you speak back to God?  Such a prayer may be a prayer of thanksgiving or of petition.  ”Thank you God for showing me this.”  ”Help me God to implement this?”  ”Show me what obstructs me from living this.”  That sort of thing.

(4) Contemplatio (Contemplate)

Having heard from God through the word  and spoken with God in a prayer that is shaped by his word, simply rest in the presence of God.  This is a ‘sabbath’ moment, not simply of ‘rest’, but of repose, of ‘delighted repose’ that you can dwell in the presence of the God we call “Abba”.

Preparing

Lectio Divina requires that you take time with God.  Some practitioners set particular times during the day for Lectio Divina.  It is sanctified time, time that you ‘set apart’ to hear from God, speak with God, and enjoy being in God’s presence.   Of course, it is a time when distractions are kept at a minimum.

It also a prayerful time.  Before beginning it is always advisable to invite the Spirit of God to be with you, to calm you, to assist you in entering this time of contemplation.   And, it is always wise to simply pray: “Lord, by the power and presence of your Spirit, speak….your servant listens.”

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The Exponential Growth of Listening Posts

August 2, 2011 By lpmadmin 1 Comment

Last night I taught a class at Point University (formerly Atlanta Christian College). The class is one in which we are thinking about how we might help foster a missional movement, one that grows “outposts of the Kingdom” in an exponential way.

I used an example of how Listening Posts could help in this. As you know, LPs are tiny missional communities of disciples of Jesus. Under the best circumstances LPs are no larger than 2 or 3 members at a time. They are designed to divide with the addition of a 4th member and those 2 groups of 2 seek to add a 3rd member. (It doesn’t always work that way for a host of reasons but that’s the plan.)

One day I started playing with numbers. That’s all I was doing. However, the outcome of my playing got me to thinking. Here’s what I did….

Playing with Numbers

I started with a 3 member group and asked what would happen if after one month of meeting (let’s say it’s November) those 3 members started 3 new groups by each finding 2 new members. So, the November group split up and started 3 new groups of 3 in December. Got that?

Okay…

Let’s say the December groups did the same thing in January and that the January groups did the same thing in February.

In other words, each group practices one month and then disbands and each member starts new groups month after month.

At the end of 12 months how many groups and members would you have?

The answer? 531, 441 groups with 1, 594, 323 members!

Of course that is absurd, right?

Okay, what if you did only 1% of that?

You would have 5,314 groups with 15, 942 members.

Now, I readily admit that is just “fun with math”. However, it did set me to thinking.

Why could there not be 5000 + groups started within one year if every group remained consistent with the add, subtract, multiply and divide of LPs?

After all, what are we asking people to do: read scripture, gather, share their lives and pray for the lost and hurting. That’s it….

Oh Atlanta!

I live in the Atlanta area, which has a population of 5 million or so people. Given where we are it should not surprise you that many of those folks are church folks.

Why couldn’t there be 5000 LPs in the Atlanta area within a year?

What difference might it make?

You tell me! Over 15,000 people per week immersing themselves in scripture…over 15,000 people per week meeting in public places and opening themselves to coming to know the people they befriend in those public places…over 15,000 people praying implicating prayers for the lost and hurting of the Atlanta area?

Salt. Light. Tiny cities set upon over 5000 hills?

Movement Figures

I shared with my class some of the numbers associated with movements in the past. Some of this I derive from Alan Hirsch’s wonderful book The Forgotten Ways.

Early Christians: 25,000 or so around 100 A.D. 20 million within 210 years.

Percentage of Methodists in the U.S. in 1776: 2.5% of the population…34% of the population by 1850,a short 75 years.

Pentecostal Movement: Half a dozen folks meeting on the porch of a house on Bonnie Brae Street in Los Angeles in 1906. Had to move when the porch collapsed as they grew. Moved to Azusa Street. In 2025, there will be an estimated 1 billion Pentecostals in the world.

China: 2 million Christians in China in 1949 when Mao’s reign of terror on Christians came into being. Later, after Mao’s death in the mid-1970s there were something like 80 million Christians in China. Underground churches exploded and that without Bibles, pastors, seminaries, theologians, etc.

Phillip Jenkins writes that Christianity is booming in the world (although not in the West…Europe/North America). South of the equator it is exploding. Christianity is on track to becoming the largest ‘religious movement’ in the world.

So, tell me…is a movement absurd in the American context? Is it ridiculous to think we could have over 5000 new LPs in the Atlanta area, not to mention the rest of the country or the rest of the world, within a year?

Hmmm…maybe not.

I wonder if it’s not impossible what the biggest obstacle is?

Filed Under: Exponential Growth Tagged With: ,

Confessing Our Fallings and Failings

April 13, 2011 By lpmadmin Leave a Comment

“Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.” (James 5:15)

Not long ago I realized something during our Listening Post meeting.  I realized that we were confessing our sins to one another.  That moment came as something of a shock since I had typically thought of the confession of sin as something more formal and involving the admission of guilt over some profound failing.

Of course the confession of sin can be like that.   Confession of sin can involve a formal meeting and one called because someone has a church shattering confession to make.  We have witnessed plenty of those in the past few years and sometimes by some very prominent people in churches.

My “aha moment” came during causal conversation between the four of us over coffee. We had been talking about our lives in light of the scripture we had read and, in the process of conversing, simply laid out our failings.  We spoke of frustrations expressed, moments of anger, times when we gave way to fear and worry.   We admitted some prejudices and our tendencies toward cynicism.

Some of our words were spoken in general terms and others were spoken with specific references.  Some addressed ongoing struggles, habits of heart with which we struggle and some, couched in stories from the previous weeks, delineated specific moments, times, places and circumstances.

Those kinds of conversations are typical for us.  We do not announce those moments as “confession of sins”.  They emerge in our casual conversation in part because we have spent time the week before reading the word of God.  They emerge in the midst of the companionate affection we have for one another and, yes, even the companionate love we have for and from the Lord.

Our almost casual confession of sin fits closely with what James advocates: that we own up to our “fallings and failings” in the company of faithful friends in Christ.

I admit that we are not as good at praying for one another as we should be.  We have to work on that.  The word from James is that we should confess our sins to each other and pray for each other.  We will have to work on that. (Was that just a causal confession of sin?)

Listening Posts are particularly suited for the ongoing, even casual confession of sin to one another.

Because we meet regularly over an extended period of time we come to know and trust one another.

Because the groups are tiny, no more than three or four members gathered at a time, one does have to feel that he or she is on public display.

Because they are divided by sex- males meet with males and females meet with females- sensitive issues can be addressed and the wisdom of one’s peers can be offered and received.

Because they are centered around Jesus and oriented by the regular missional reading of scripture no one is surprised to hear someone open up about how the word addressed them during the week.

Because they are oriented by implicating prayer, members are more attuned to prayerfully engage in the lives of the lost and hurting even when the lost and hurting, at least this week, may include the members of the group.

Filed Under: Community, Missional Tagged With:

The Necessity of Keeping Close Quarters

March 24, 2011 By lpmadmin Leave a Comment

“Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another- and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” (Hebrews 10:23-24)

Spurring one another on to love and good works requires that we continue to enter into close quarters with one another.   We cannot phone in this motivation.  We need to stay close to one another to lift one another’s spirits, to help each other maintain our hope in God who is faithful.

The need to meet together regularly is underscored in two ways in this text.  First, the writer provides a direct admonition to that effect: “…not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing…”   Apparently some had decided that they did not need the company of fellow travelers to keep their hope.    The writer of Hebrews discourages that possibility.

Second, the writer tells his readers that rather than giving up on meeting that they are to encourage one another.   The word translated “encourage” literally means “to come alongside of.”    With our contemporary technology we can encourage one another from a distance.  However, no technology will ever replace all that comes with the warm presence of a companion on the journey.

Our modern technology is skewed toward the exchange of information.   We can text one another, update our status lines, drop emails and make phone calls and keep one another apprised and reminded.  However, we must be careful lest our minds construct for us the illusion that the exchange of information is the same thing as physical presence.  It is not.

We need companionship.  We are made for friendship.   So, let us continue to gather together in close quarters.  Let us spur one another on to love and good works and let us encourage one another.

The time is short.  We must be as faithful to God and to one another as God is to each and all of us.

One of the great values of Listening Posts is that they provide a means for us to do just that.

Filed Under: Community, Missional Tagged With: , , ,

A Community of Butt-Kickers

March 23, 2011 By lpmadmin Leave a Comment

A Community of Butt Kickers

“Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another- and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” (Hebrews 10:23-24)

The image of the disciple of Jesus being a “follower” of Jesus is a good one.  It reminds us that we are a people who are on a journey, that we are on a pilgrimage people.  The life to which we are called ought to be characterized then not by passive sitting but by movement and growth toward maturity.

Not only is this life a journey, it is a journey together.   Followers of Jesus travel in groups and, far more often than not, they are sent out in groups.  There are no lone travelers behind Jesus.

Anyone who has ever travelled with others knows that conflict is inevitable.  As enjoyable as even a family vacation can be there are frequent moments of conflict.  People who love each other get on each other’s nerves and that is all the more so when they are on a journey, in close quarters and in strange places.

That fact is not lost on the writer of Hebrews, a book which has “the journey” as a central theme.  As he encourages the people to “hold unswervingly” to hope, he also reminds them that if they are going to be provoking each other they may as well provoke one another on to love and good works.

“Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds….”

The writer reminds us to “spur” one another on.   The word “spur” is a good one because in Greek it carries with it the idea of motivating one another but also with a certain kind of intensity.

The only other time this particular word appears in the New Testament is when Luke tells us that a sharp disagreement broke out between Paul and Barnabas over John Mark. (Acts 15:39)  In that case, the “spur” motivated a separation between those two but one that resulted in the expansion of the mission.

So to “spur” one another is to sharply motivate.  It is not to gently encourage or to plead or to cajole.   The force of the word is on the order of a swift kick in the pants.   It is to provoke but to provoke in a positive direction toward love and good works.

The writer tells us that we are to continually give ourselves to contemplating spurring one another.  (The word “how” is not in the Greek text.)  We are not to simply sit around generating lists upon lists of how we could deliver a swift kick in the pants.  We are contemplate and deliver, contemplate and deliver.

Yet why does it require all of this effort?   Well, because  we often take our leisure and let other people do the work.  It’s the old 80/20 Rule.  “80% of the work is done by 20% of the people.”

It’s just a sad fact of group life that many members of any group- work groups, families, churches- engage in what social psychologists call “social loafing.”  When we are part of a group of people who are pulling together we all pull a little less than we would if we were pulling alone.

Given that each of us is prone to social loafing in this community of followers each of us is to take responsibility for each of us and be contemplating how to kick each other in the pants so we can get on down the road toward more love and more good work for our neighbors in need.

Filed Under: Community, Missional Tagged With: , ,

Contemplating ‘The Good”

March 16, 2011 By lpmadmin Leave a Comment

“Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else.” ( I Thessalonians 5: 15)

We like to think that the “good” is just obvious and that it is only a matter of us getting busy doing good to our neighbor.   Sometimes that is the case.  We need to do the good we know to do.  However, sometimes what is good for our neighbor is not always obvious.

I can think of many instances in my years as a pastor and a follower when I have had to puzzle over the good I might do for my neighbor.  Sometimes that has been because I have wondered whether the good I might do for them would only contribute to their dependence.  I have wondered whether the good I might do would only enable them to continue in some form of irresponsibility.

Sometimes I have felt torn between competing goods.  In my experience tensions around moral and ethical choices  are seldom derived from the choice to do good versus evil. The tension is around competing goods, the good and the gooder as it were.)

Sometimes I have felt torn because the good I might do for person A might only prolong the misery of person B.    For example, a young mother whom I know to be living in highly irresponsible ways comes to me seeking financial help to buy food for her child.  I certainly want to help the child but I do not want to do so in a way that only prolongs the irresponsibility of the mother, which also, in the long run prolongs the misery of the child.

The question of what makes up “the good” is a far larger question than I can address in a blog post.  It may be a far larger question than I can even handle.

Notions of the good cannot be separated from the stories and communities from which those ideas of the good are derived.  There is no “free floating” idea of the good, one that is unmoored from history, communities and stories.   Even if we insist that there is an “absolute good” we only do so as a people who have been storied by and shaped by moral communities that teach us what is the absolute good.

That may sound odd coming from a follower of Jesus.   Am I not supposed to insist that there are moral absolutes when it comes to the good?  I do believe that there are absolute goods but I believe they are absolute goods because I am a follower of Jesus.  I don’t snatch free-floating notions of the good from the air like butterflies.

That which I understand to be good for neighbor is derived from my stumbling attempts to walk behind the one who teaches me and shows me the good.

None of us can step outside our moral universes and enter into Plato’s heaven to see from an a-historical, non-storied, non-communal place to see anything “as it is” in itself.

Further, even if we could lasso an unmoored good I do not think we could demonstrate that we have an absolutely clear vision of that good.  I am not unmoored. I am a finite creature who is prone to get it wrong.  Worse, left to myself, “…there is no  one who does good, not even…” I. (Romans 3:12)

The good that I am to do for neighbor is the good that is derived from my limited understandings of who God is, who my neighbor is, who I am, the formative communities of which I am a part.   All of those things and more are shaped by my participation with others in a way of life that is not of this world.   It is a way of life that can only be understood in light of the God I worship through Jesus Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit.

The good I do is the good that I have been taught by God to do.  It is the good that is taught and modeled for me by Jesus Christ.  It is the good compelled by the Holy Spirit.

It is the good that the church teaches me to do.  It is the good that is derived from careful, communal consideration of the good and from historical practice.

It is good that is in keeping with what I understand to be the purpose of God for God and for my neighbor.  It is the good that coheres with my ever growing understanding of what is necessary to help my neighbor come to completion in Christ, apart from whom there is no completion.

It is the good that is taught to me directly and indirectly from scripture. It is the good of scripture that comes in conversation with the saints.  The good that comes via the Spirit who works through the word to reveal me to myself, to speak good news to me, to transform me, to focus me, and to prepare me for servanthood.

It is the good that is ‘of a piece’ with “already and not-yet’ reign of God, the good that reflects in “the now” in light of  “the then” that is coming.  It is the good that derives from the worship of God.  It is the good that expresses the love of God, the good that is a sign, foretaste and herald of the greater good that is coming.

It is the good that comes from contemplating the other-centered cross of Jesus.  It is a cruciform good, one that is shaped by the cross and considers the good of the other over the good of myself.

It is the good that comes from eating the Body of Christ and drinking the Blood of Christ.

It is the good of the resurrection community who is learning to walk in a new quality of life, the community of those who have died, been buried with Christ and raised to walk in a new kind of life that is lived in an utterly transformed creation.

It is a good that flows from grace that makes one whole, one that transforms the eye so that each and the other is seen as created in the image and likeness of God and the subject of God’s eternal love, that transforms the hand so that it delivers on the promise of compassion, and that transforms the feet so that they take us into places we would not have previously gone.
It is a good that seeks the completion of whole people in whole contexts after the order of God.   It is a good that delivers the happiness for which all long.

“He has shown you, O man, what is good…”  (Micah 6:8)   He has shown you… The good I know to do for my neighbor is the good that has been shown to me by God.   I have nothing in myself to recommend myself or the good that I might derive from my own ruminations.  Right now I only “see through a glass darkly”.  I see “enigma.”

“He has shown you…He has told you…He has modeled for you…He has repeated to you…”

And what has he shown me?  What is good and what good is.   He has shown me good in words and stories and practices and the examples of those who are better at the good than I am.  He has shown me good by the ways he has done good for me.

And what is good: “to do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with God.”  Humbly with God as I “strive” to do justice, to love mercy, to love the making and keeping of covenant, and to do good for my neighbor and for everyone else.

Toward that we strive….together.

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