Common Things?

Yesterday I mentioned this organization called Project Healing Waters. In short, it is a privately funded organization that aims to care for wounded soldiers by giving them an opportunity to fish. A retired Navy Captain started this program in an attempt to care for those around him who had suffered loss. I mentioned, too, that one of the men on this video was a former high school lacrosse teammate of mine. This video “stirred up” all sorts of stuff within me.

We’ve been saying for the past few weeks that historic Christianity has always asserted that Jesus of Nazareth was both fully God and fully man. Our series the past few weeks have focused on the human-side of his person. We’ve asked the question, “What does Jesus, by being human, tell us about what it means to be human?” The angle that we have taken in all of this was through the 5 senses.

Jesus ate food and, into ways that I am just beginning to tap, this seems highly significant for us. Sadly, some parts of the Christian church have left Jesus floating on clouds, throwing out platitudes to those who might listen, and shooting lazers out of his fingers at those who do not. And we have done this to a fault. But there is something about “seeing” him eat that puts him back on the soil. It seems to me, then, that Jesus is telling us something about being human, something about what being human is all about.

If Jesus was the human par excellence (and I believe he was), then he shows us what is normative about being human. And since Jesus ate, he seems to be showing us that to eat is good and proper. After all, when God put man in the Garden (Gen 2) He told him to eat. In other words, eating seems to have a “place at the table” regarding what central to being human. Perhaps when we get together and eat food and celebrate it as a good gift, we are returning—so to speak—to Eden, living as we were intended. Put simply, we were made to eat; and when we eat we are living out our human-ness before God as He made us. I realize that that I am not accounting for the general abuse that is associated with eating (and it needs to be addressed…but not here) and all the problems stemming from this abuse. Nevertheless, as we eat we are living as God made us…we are partaking in something that was Good, even before we ate (Gen 3) and things became sour (enough with the puns, Ryan!).

So on the lakeside, the day’s first catch and fresh baked bread—common things—were no longer devoid of value. Everyday, yes; trifle, no. These mundane things were not only enjoyable in themselves, they were the context in which neighbor love was carried out. I’ll say that again: neighbor love (mission) happens in the context of common things.

Now back to Healing Waters. On the river, a fly, a rod, and the company of friends were common things enjoyed unto the end that my friend “felt human again.” He had an understanding that something was lost about his human-ness when the roadside bomb went off. And in a boat, with a fly rod in his hand, and close companions at his side it was restored. Rhetorically, I'll ask, "Has mission happened?"

Maybe for the first time in my life I’m thinking about what Jesus shows us about being Human. I’m convinced that he lived more humanly than any other man or woman or dog that ever (really!) walked our sod. I believe to follow him will mean restoring what was lost in Eden as we make our way to the New City. 

If you care to share them, I’d love to hear your thoughts…

--Ryan

Ministry as a Human Being

It is not a sin to be human. I need not ask forgiveness from God or from another human being because there are some things that I cannot do. By definition, a human being is not God. Being human means that I am not omnipotent (all powerful). Only God can do everything. Nor do I need to ask forgiveness or shame myself because there are many things that I simply do not know. A human being is not omniscient (all knowing). Only God knows everything. Similarly, I am not sinning when I cannot be in more than one place at a time. By nature a human being can only inhabit one place at a time. Only God is omnipresent (everywhere at once). 

A dear friend of mine teaches classes at a local seminary. Sometimes he has his students stand up and say out loud to one another, "I am not the Christ." I'm thinking that when we say we are not God, we are positively declaring to another, "I am a human being." 

Part of living a life that makes much of God requires us to make much of our noble limits as human beings. To humble ones' self is not to shame one's self. Rather, we express humility when we surrender to our limits; when we live as if we are not God. Humility does not always feel very good. It is often less than pleasant to stand naked in my lack of knowledge, limits of power and local geography. It feels vulnerable for others to experience what I am not. 

Sometimes we require or demand others to know everything, be everywhere we want them to be or have the ability to do everything we we feel we need from them. In desiring them to do what only God can do we often wear them out with our demands or hollow them out with our flattery and their lustful desire to feel like God for another. Sometimes we refuse to surrender to our own limits and lacks because we too do not want to let go of the possibility of being God for another or for ourselves. 

The Apostle Paul reveals his humanity. In doing so, he shows us that ministry is human. In fact, surrendering to our limits is required if we desire to make much of God with our lives. Paul reminds us that he and his ministry are local (Macedonia), physical (our bodies had no rest), stressful (affliction at every turn), non-controllable (fighting without), and psychological (fears within) (2 Corinthians 7:5-7). 

What makes Paul's ministry powerful is that Paul declares that he cannot be everywhere at once, is not able to do all things that must be done, and cannot control or understand or know all things. What Paul does know however is that "God who comforts the downcast comforted us." Our effectiveness in ministry has more to do with the presence of God amid our ordinary lives than with our striving for perfection or amassing abilities. The fact that Paul has a body and feels its impact, that while in Macedonia those in other places must exist without him, that he cannot control the criticisms others level at him or that he feels deeply afraid and wrestles with the challenges he faces; none of these realities disqualifies Paul. Rather, surrendering to these limits shatters the illusions that others want to have of their ministers and that ministers want to cultivate about themselves. 

Only God is God. The rest of us must return to our places. In so doing, we learn the freedom of contentment, the knowledge of what we are not, and the grace to enjoy what we are with God. 

Zack

On Being Human: Seeing what Jesus Sees

I feel embarrassed that C.S. Lewis describes me so well. For what he seems to know of me is not flattering. Lewis once pointed out how difficult it is for us to remember our humanity when looking at one another and interpreting one another. In his Screwtape Letters, Lewis imagines how a senior devil might teach a younger devil to disorient Jesus followers. Referring to the Jesus follower as the "patient" the senior devil says this:

“When he [the patient] gets to his pew and looks around him he sees just that selection of his neighbours whom he has hitherto avoided….Provided that any of those neighbors sing out of tune, or have boots that squeak, or double chins, or odd clothes, the patient will quite easily believe that their religion must be somehow ridiculous.” (Lewis, Screwtape, 12)

I am prone to believe that categorizing and explaining is synonymous with knowing and understanding. I see a red bird. I call it a Cardinal. I may tell others that this bird is a Cardinal. Yet, I actually know nothing about the habits of Cardinals in general or the nuances on the body of a Cardinal that indicates its unique story. I am often tempted to treat human beings in this same way. I'm even prone to illusions about myself because I see myself more cruelly than Jesus does or less realistically than He does. Each of us, even those of us whose eyes work well, is partially blind when we look at ourselves and at one another. 

Most of us know what it is to have others look at us but not see us. We know what it is for another

to keep us tied to our worst moments. We feel used and fraud-like because only our best moments are valued.Jesus is different. Jesus does not look at us, at other people or the world in the same way as His followers, the secularists, the spiritualists, or the religious tend to. The religious and the common folk see Levi the tax collector; Levi the scoundrel. Levi the corrupt misuser of money. The thief. The bribe-taker. But Levi tells us that, in contrast to how others saw him, when Jesus looked at him, Jesus saw a man. "As Jesus passed from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth...." In contrast, "when the Pharisees saw this, they said . . .'Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?" 

Similarly, when the religious and the the indifferent saw the notorious woman. They saw her as the sinner she was. But Jesus pointedly asks them to see her humanity. "Do you see this woman?" he asks. (Luke 7:44) The way Jesus asks stuns us. He looks at her not them. He turns away from them and toward her. He leaves them in the shadow of His gaze. He places the full light and heat within his loving eyes upon her. He looks into her eyes. He touches her heart. Fully seeing her, he asks them, "do you see this woman?" He does not minimize her. He does not exaggerate her. He lets her be within His gaze as she is. 

I feel humbled by Jesus. Jesus does not blind himself to the wounds and rants and insanities of a person. He confronts such things with the love and payment of His life, death and resurrection. But Jesus confronts as one convinced of our human dignity. It was through Him after all, that we have been created. Others label you. But in Wendell Berry's words, they assume that explanations are more like buckets than wells. When Jesus sees you. He sees you as a human being. He does not reduce you to simple explanation. He enters the deeps and from there draws out the nuances of the tributaries within you.

So, as a an ordinary man, I long to feel the fulness of His gaze and to grant it to others. As a community of Jesus followers, we at Riverside want to echo the words of Bono from U2. We ask God. "When you look at the world what is it that you see? People find all kinds of things that bring them to their knees." With the song, we then testify that how Jesus relates differs dramatically from our own visual attempts with people. "I see an expression so clear and so true," Bono continues, "that changes the atmosphere when you walk into the room. So I try to be like you, try to feel it like you do." But then we humble ourselves and confess that apart from Him we cannot see. We agree with Bono, "But without you its no use. I can't see what you see when I look at the world."

Jesus, as your followers, please teach us to see human beings again. Please free us to see ourselves without illusion but with your eyes.