No Words

When I was a freshman in college, I found myself in the cafeteria of one of the largest jails in the United States. Staring at me were about 150 fairly rough looking incarcerated women in matching orange scrubs. As I had entered this room, I saw the dejected eyes of those who had just been admitted and stripped of their dignity and individuality. When it came my time to speak, I felt their eyes fixed upon me as my heart pounded loudly.

Before we went to this jail, I was told to prepare a short sermonette to share with the inmates. Although I considered myself to have fairly adequate knowledge of the scriptures, I had a hard time mustering a relevant message for these people. I am not sure if there exists another group of people in the world to which I shared less experience. At some point during my preparation, God must have led me to the first chapter of Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth.

In this chapter, Paul encourages the Corinthians that God has chosen the weak to shame the strong, the despised to displace the heralded, and the foolish to outwit the wise. According to what I have read, this message would have been particularly pertinent to the inhabitants of Corinth. Only seven years before Paul’s first visit, the Romans had re-established Corinth as a Roman city. Upon re-establishment, Corinth was re-populated largely with disparate freed slaves from all over the lands that had been conquered by the powerful Romans. The church in Corinth was likely made up of peoples who knew what it was like to be on the bottom rung of the social ladder.

As the words of Paul coming from my lips echoed through the linoleum of that Californian jail, I felt a sudden surge of confidence. Although this bony eighteen year-old white kid had no words for these people, God did have something to say. I think I was seeing firsthand what Paul was describing in the verse I was reading. 

In the end, the only person I know who was changed that day was me. I learned that the truth of God is larger than both my strengths and my weaknesses. It permeates through the deepest and darkest regions of all creation, seeping through the cracks of the most impenetrable barriers.

In Tents

One of my professors from college once told our class what he thought was a description of maturity. He addressed his comments to the ladies in the room and told them that if they were looking to date, that they should look for a man, not a boy. He said that boys are interested in getting and playing, while men are interested in giving and working. 

At the time his words were pretty convicting to me, because I realized that as a legal “man” of 19 years, I more closely fit his description of a boy. I had very little direction and was not contributing much to the world around me. I even started wondering if it was this type of life orientation that was stifling my ability to be successful in the dating world. If you want to motivate a 19 year-old toward self-examination, tell him that it may impact his dating life.

In the Apostle Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonians, Paul warned the church in Thessalonica against becoming idle. He reminded them of how he chose to earn his keep when he was with them. Tradition has it that in addition to being a preacher and intellectual, Paul made tents from goat skin.

I guess I could argue that 19 year-old me did not really see how the world needed me to contribute. At least then my professor’s words inspired to start seeking. As my professor suggested, may be learning to find joy in contributing is a sign of maturity that only comes when it is ready. 

At the same time, once we are on the other side of maturity, I think we still need an occasional reminder. We need to be reminded that this broken world does need Christians to comfort the broken, feed the hungry, and give to the poor.

Flaming

I tend to be an early morning person. I have a hard time sleeping in even if I try. My mother says that she would have to fight tooth and nail to wake up my brothers for school, but I would often already be awake when she came in to wake me. I think I just do not sleep very deeply.

A scientific explanation is that it seems are bodies are largely created to be more active in the day and rest at night. We do not regularly use awesome raccoon night vision or dolphin echolocation to navigate our environment. We rely on the light to keep us from running into things or other things from running into us. Our bodies also intake necessary vitamin D from the sun’s rays.

In first Thessalonians, Paul wrote about being children of a different kind of light. He says that being in this light implies awareness and alertness. This light helps us to not be afraid of others knowing us and knowing others. It also involves being vigilant of our role in the world. 

Living in a pre-electricity world, I can imagine that Paul’s concept of night and day was probably much more potent to him and his readers in Thessalonica. Night may not have been considered a time when people necessarily I have read that people who lived in cities before electricity rarely ventured out of their homes after dark because doing so was not very safe.

As much as I find myself attracted to physical and metaphorical light, I know that I am not always living in this reality. My life rhythms get out of step and I find myself running and hiding in the dark. Usually it takes another person to notice it, someone says “Where have you been?” Then I know, then I see a flickering flame in a dark room. I hope you people in your life that may speak such truth to you, and I hope you feel the need to speak it to others.

Admirer

I once received an awkward love letter from a secret admirer. I found it in my college mailbox, covered in red hearts, written in red ink. Although I must admit that my inner 12 year-old received an ego boost, while my 19 year-old logical cortices were introducing some skepticism. I had received a prank love letter some years before and I was wondering which current friend of mine was riddled enough with cruelty to take the time to orchestrate such a prank.

The content of the letter seemed pretty standard for an anonymous love letter. It suggested that the author was really impressed with me. She gushed about my personality and how she found me attractive. She said she thought we would be a good match for each other, but she was afraid to divulge her identity. Even though I was in disbelief regarding the author’s authenticity, I still blushed. 

In reading the second and third chapters of the apostle Paul’s letter to the church in Thessalonica, I could not help but notice how it also sounds like a gushy love letter. Paul said that the Thessalonians were his “glory and joy,” he also described an “intense longing” to see them again. He also mentions overflowing love for them.

It seems to me that this type of outpouring is a largely unrecognized benefit of spiritual mentorship. Because Paul had taken the time to teach the Thessalonians and modeled a Christ-focused life, he had invested effort in their success. He had watched them slowly progress and cheered them on. This sounds like a lot of work, but as the letter suggests, the result was overflowing love for them.

What would happen to the Church if we looked beyond our own navels and opened ourselves to this kind of love? What if you gave your heart to spiritually mentoring someone else? To whom would you write a Thessalonians-type love letter? Could you be an admirer like Paul?

P.S. The love letter I received was not a prank, the author did reveal herself to me. It was so awkward that I just kind of laughed and we never spoke about it again.

In Step - New Series for 2012

It has been a while since I have studied and blogged about a book of scripture in order, which is what I have previously enjoyed doing. This morning I have a new idea. I am going to read the Pauline Epistles in step with the order in which Paul is said (by Wikipedia) to have written them. I think this might result in some interesting insights, as reading scripture usually does. Here is the order:

• First Thessalonians (ca. 51 AD)

• Philippians (ca. 52-54 AD)
• Philemon (ca. 52-54 AD)

• First Corinthians (ca. 53-54 AD)

• Galatians (ca. 55 AD)

• Second Corinthians (ca. 55-56 AD)

• Romans (ca. 55-58 AD)

Would you like to join and contribute to the discussion? I think it would be awesome to get multiple perspectives on the same text. 

Would Jesus Occupy?

It seems to me that the occupy movement has brought into the limelight political polarities among Christians because of the different reactions. One side seems to view the Occupy movement as a righteous crusade seeking justice for the poor. Other perspectives seem to suggest that the movement is a sad result of our increasingly entitled generation. Both sides have produced at least some Biblical evidence to support their views. 

In my view, the real question is this: What did Jesus do in response to the economic and religious injustice of his day? 

It seems to me that Jesus’ primary response was to take his message of love to both the perpetrators and the victims of economic injustice. For example, those who were entrusted with collecting taxes for the Roman government were known to be perpetuators of economic injustice. Therefore, Jesus spent time with them (such as Zaccheus) and sometimes chose them to be in his small group of apostles (such as Levi). Jesus also encouraged these people to be generous (such as the Rich Young Ruler). Finally, Jesus spoke to the rich and poor alike about the difficulties and meaninglessness associated with greed.

I am not sure what this type of ministry would look like in this day and age. Even though you might not see it on the news, I have no doubt that God is at work in our world to bring about his kingdom of justice. I think our task is to find how we can follow Jesus’ example in taking part in his work.

An Open Letter to the Closed Mind

Dear Friends,

I know that I may like you as a person or love you as a brother or sister, but I struggle to love your closed-minded thinking. It is that arrogant disposition you exude when you think you have everything figured out. You see no room for debate, new evidence, or alternative explanations. You are likely very politically minded. You have decided that this particular issue is of the utmost importance and your particular solution is the only possible solution. I may admire your passion and dedication, but I find it difficult to ignore alternative points of view.

I know that I am not immune to such thinking. This might be why I can see it in you. At different points in my life, I have been sure about things, only to have my misconceptions blasted away by a much more complicated truth. I know in the future that many of the things I think I know now will likely go through a similar process.

In Matthew 13, Jesus did not speak well of closed-minded thinking. He quotes Isaiah who spoke of those who “hear, but never understand” and “see, but never perceive.” Actually it seems to me that Jesus did this quite often. Jesus also discussed how those who hear the gospel but do not understand it are vulnerable to their faith being robbed by evil. Then Jesus told his disciples that their eyes and ears are blessed because they were open to hear and see him.

I am sorry that people around you have not always encouraged you to open your mind. It seems unfortunate to me that the Church in the last century has largely not been in favor of open-mindedness. This is sad to me because it was not always the case in the first ten or so centuries of the Church. Now we tend to band together around people who think the way that we do, which is often very different across different church bodies.

I would like to suggest to you that you are missing out. You are missing the joy that comes from learning about the world. Although your canned explanations help you sleep at night, I pray that you will someday learn to embrace the complexity and simplicity of the God who created a world that is simple and complicated. I also pray this prayer for myself.