Musings: Notes From My Daybook

Gordon MacDonald has a thoughtful piece about Christian maturity posted here.  He quotes Martin Thornton:  "A walloping great congregation is fine and fun, but what most communities really need is a couple of saints. The tragedy is that they may well be there in embryo, waiting to be discovered, waiting for sound training, waiting to be emancipated from the cult of the mediocre."

Indeed.

Yet most of the time we are more worried about bills, building and grounds, and the class party, than we are about discipleship.  Paul seemed to be quite interested in it. He says that the task to for "all of us to come to the unity of the faith and knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ" (Eph 4.13).  But the question I ask is how?

How do I grow up?  (My wife has been asking that one for years!)

Maybe it has to do with diet and exercise?  Feeding and exercising the soul makes sense.  Of course, that might mean having to make some choices about how I spend my time and money and then I might have to make some sacrifices alonge the way.

Maturity, in part, is having lived and survived--arriving each day with a sense of hope and being a little light on our feet.  The old people I know that I believe to be most mature are people who can laugh and who can cry and who can encourage others.  They are people who have known suffering and have endured, allowing for some transformation to occur within.

Here is MacDonald's definition: "The marks of maturity? Self-sustaining in spiritual devotions. Wise in human relationships. Humble and serving. Comfortable and functional in the everyday world where people of faith can be in short supply. Substantial in conversation; prudent in acquisition; respectful in conflict; faithful in commitments."

Either way you slice it, maturity is less about being in church three times a week and more about being church seven days a week. 

So I guess I am asking myself what I am doing today that is shaping me to be more like Jesus?  And how am I engaging with the events that come my way today that reflects that I am being more like Jesus? 

To take another look at the way in which our language can limit our understanding of God’s activity and God’s call to discipleship, consider the way the word conversion is used.  Normally, we think of conversion as when a person gives up one set of beliefs or ideas for a new set of beliefs or ideas.  For example, “I used to believe that salmon was the best seafood ever, but ever since I tried mahi-mahi I converted.”  And when it comes to faith, it is not uncommon to think about a person having a conversion “experience.”  Some radical event has occurred that has brought about a change in what a person thinks.

So it often happens that persons connect “getting baptized” with the idea of conversion.  And not without reason, since baptism and conversion have a lot of connections.  But it is important for a healthy perspective about baptism to have a healthy perspective about conversion.  And to do that we might well begin with the practices of the early church.

A number of years ago, Michael Green wrote a wonderful book called Evangelism in the Early Church.   He notes three important dimensions to how the early church understand conversion—and why many pagan people would have been astonished at the really radical call that coming to be Christian actually is.

First, conversion requires belief—real belief.  That is to say, that a person believes so completely and thoroughly that she makes choices about her life based on the conviction that Jesus lives and that the Christian faith is actually the right way to live.  This was, for people of the ancient world, more than a little odd.  For first and second century pagans, you could worship any number of different gods and practice any number of rituals, but not really believe, much less act on the claims that those gods made.

Second, conversion requires a change in ethics.  Here again was a surprising move.  To become a Christian in the ancient world meant that your behavior changed.  You no longer sought after self-interests, but rather sought out the interests of others.  In today’s terms, to be in the Georgia Tech Booster’s Club does not require that you seek the well-being of the poor or extend hospitality to the stranger.  Nor do they ask whether you act with integrity in your business dealings.  However, becoming a Christian meant those things—and a whole lot more.

Third, and here comes the real rub, conversion requires accepting the exclusive claim that Jesus is Lord.  As Green writes: “Christians were expected to belong, body and soul, to Jesus, who was called their master. . . and was said to have redeemed them from alien ownership into his own.  Henceforward they were to acknowledge no other ‘Lord,’ be he emperor or pagan deity.  This all seemed very strange, for ancient religion was never exclusive.”   To belong exclusively, totally to one Lord and to the community of that one Lord made for a decidedly robust understanding of conversion.

Thus, with these three dimensions of conversion in front of us—belief that realigns life, an ethic that demands a new set of behaviors, and an exclusive belonging—we need to ask how conversion should be construed.  Is conversion something that can happen in a moment?  Or, is it possible, even in the many examples in the New Testament, that conversion is a process that engages a person’s intellect, emotion, experience, and very soul?

In an attempt to address the many flaws in my knowledge, I began reading in William Abraham's The Logic of Evangelism this afternoon.  Though nearly 20 years old, I haven't read it (or about 2.3 million others).  But now it is the time!

Let me share a quote.  After exploring the vital nature of the kingdom he states:

" What is especially striking is the way in which the gospel of the kingdom initially spread.  It did not spread because of a carefully designed program of evangelism; nor did it start because the early disciples meditated on the Great Commission and felt that they had better obey it to assuage their feelings of guilt.  The church did not begin its evangelistic activity because it was terrified about the prospects that faced those who died without hearing about Christ; the Christian movement was not initiated by a band of professional evangelists eager to sign up a public relations firm and get the show on the road.  Rather, the gospel spread and the church grew because the sovereign hand of God was in the midst of the community that found itself surrounded by people who were puzzled and intrigued by what they saw happening. . . .   In other words, evangelism was rooted in a corporate experience of the rule of God that provided not only the psychological strength and support that was clearly needed in a hostile environment but that also signified the active presence of God in their midst." (38-39)

I received a request yesterday to answer three questions for a person who is seeking to understand the way of Christian life.  I thought others might like to interact and consider the same questions.  As always, I would invite you to respond as these basic questions as well!

Dear friend,
Such questions are important questions as you know.  And I am glad that you are asking such things.  In fact, you are already exercising some of the elements of faith in the asking of these questions.

So let me just jump in and give it a go:

What is faith?
Faith is a commitment a person makes to someone or something who is perceived to be reliable or consistent.  Every day, in the ordinary living of our lives we practice this  kind of commitment.  We drive on roads believing that other drivers will observed the rules of the road.  We are dropped of at school or work, believing that our friend or parent will return to pick us up at 4pm.  We have faith that, even though I have never made a Triple Fudge Brownie Cake before, that if I follow the directions given to me by a well-known chef, that I should be able to make a great cake.

Faith is believing and acting out of and in relationship to our conviction about another's reliability.
When it comes to faith in a Christian context, we are now exploring what it means to live out a life believing and living in relationship to the reliability of God as we see and observe God in Jesus.  To say that I have faith in Jesus, is to say that I believe that Jesus is reliable or that he is worthy of trusting in his counsel and leadership.

This kind of faith is different than looking at stars and moon and the wonderful earth and then declaring that I believe that there is a God.  I can say I believe that God created the earth or lives in heaven, but that does not necessarily mean that I will trust his leadership and guidance for my life.

For Christians, faith is an active response to the reliable, trustworthy actions and words of Jesus.  It is not merely saying that Jesus' words are true or that his actions are wonderful.  Rather, faith is when a person acts on those words and actions of Jesus--just like I might do in following the recipe for the cake.

How does one acquire faith?
Interestingly enough, in some respects you really don't "acquire" faith at all.  It may be more likely that faith "acquires" you.  Think about how faith develops in other relationships for a moment.  For example, I was at a conference in Detroit earlier this week and met someone for the first time.  Can I have faith in him upon our first meeting?  Probably not--or at least, I didn't!  However, I did share a meal with him and got to know him a little better.  The next day I had enough faith in him to share a little more of myself with him.  He had proved trustworthy with the little I had offered on the first day and so I was prepared to risk a little more upon the second.

This is the way in which we build relationships.  Little by little, we take risks, testing the reliability of the other.  Over time, if our tests have come along well, then we one day discover that we have "faith" in another.

Of course, I need to acknowledge that we also discover that some people we meet we regrettably discover that they are not reliable or trustworthy.  Such discoveries can be painful and difficult; they can even deter us from trying again.  However, for most of us, we learn that taking risks are important and even necessary for our lives.  Indeed, meaningful life requires us to live with faith.

So to acquire faith or to have faith acquire us, we take little risks with Jesus.  We get to know him.  We read Scripture and listen for his voice.  We learn to hear Jesus through the stories of other believers.  And, of course, we begin to speak to him.  Faith comes from doing and living and risking.  Christian people throughout the ages have learned that the finding faith is like a journey.  We get up and put on our walking shoes and we begin to head down the path.  And as we move down the path, listening for Jesus' voice, we will have the opportunity to exercise faith--to take some risks with Jesus.

Out of this sort of journey, faith grows and matures.

How do you keep your faith?
I would think that our metaphor of faith as a journey might be helpful here as well.  The way of faith means staying on the road.  Faith is formed through the interactions and engagement we have with Scripture, with other people, and with God.  So we keep walking--even when there are times when we are uncertain.  This, of course, happens in all dimensions of faith.  After standing for an hour after school waiting on my friend to pick me up, I may well begin to wonder whether my friend has abandoned me.  But when he finally does arrive, I discover that she was detained by another friend who had just lost a parent.  And, to my surprise, that while I was waiting for my friend, that I was able to complete an assignment that I had forgotten about. 

Of course, we will encounter times of great disappointment in life.  There will be times that abandoning faith seems like that best thing to do.  And with humans, we will discover that no other person is perfect and some people are simply not to be trusted all.  But that does not mean that God is the same way.

What we learn from Scripture is that God is always reliable and trustworthy.  The thing we must remember is that he will likely not demonstrated his faithfulness to us in a way that we might envision or desire.  Afterall, he is God (and we are not)!

So how do we keep our faith? Faith remains alive and viable as long as I exercise it.  Like a muscle, without exercise, it will languish.  And for Christian people, practicing faith is a vital practice.  We exercise faith every time we open the Bible and read with our hearts open to God's teaching.  We exercise faith whenever we take a risk with service in Jesus' name.  We exercise faith every time we pray.  We exercise faith when we give a little more of our money, our time, our heart to God and his work in the world.  But it is the exercise that keeps faith strong.  Otherwise, faith diminishes--just like my ability to shoot free throws (Alas! I haven't been on a real basketball court in three or more years!!)

I hope this is of some help to you as you ask what it means to live with faith.
 

I’m attending a seminar at Rochester College on preaching and the various offerings have been strong.  But what has been particularly encouraging is to see old friends and make a few new ones as well.  In particular, was the trip to Olive Garden (a traditional haunt of the past) with Kent, John, Max, Rex, and Sam.
As I looked around the table and thought of the things that I have shared with three of these good brothers I felt a great sense of gratitude and connectedness.  Short of my own family—and even here I was blessed today by a phone conversation with my cousin Matt, these guy’s lives have intersected my lives at various significant times in life.
One lecturer, Gail O’Day, working on the seminar’s larger theme of the gospel of John, chose to engage the gospel through the framework of friendship.  Setting aside present day casual notions of friendship as someone that you hang out with, O’Day introduced the robust concepts of friendship of the Greco-Roman world.
In the ancient world friendship reflected commitment to one another, a willingness to do for another, even to die for another.  Friendship meant honest, open speech.  A friend was one who spoke truth to you.  The opposite of a friend was a flatterer—who spoke to your vanity.
Using this robust concept of friendship, the gospel of John begins to take on a new hearing.
Listen to the gospel of John:
Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.  –John 15.13-15
What Jesus is doing, according to John’s gospel, in going to the cross, is simply doing what friends do.  And, in so doing, he embodies the ideal of friendship.
In a world where relationships are fleeting and multiple diversions distract us from even our families, it might do us good to take Professor O’Day’s lead and think again about the way of Jesus.
. . . .And what would happen wherever a congregation of people take up such a lens for understanding community?