What kind of life are we meant to do together?

We are meant to do life together. To accept and pursue this purpose however, we must examine our assumptions.

What kind of togetherness are we meant to have? Localities are not often healed by gangs or clubs or networks of people who use their togetherness in order to loot neighbors and promote locked doors. A togetherness of meanness does not offer the hospitable grace our individual dignity warrants and requires.

A togetherness of misdirected tolerance doesn't suit us either however. It does no good for the child to tolerate her walking out into the street while cars are coming, even if that child really wants to. Even if that child will trantrum-cry if the baby-sitter should find the courage to say with all love and the experience of wisdom, "no." A togetherness of this kind of tolerance, is misguided because it celebrates disrespect to those who must endure it, as if the enduring one's are foolish about what is wise and hospitable, and implies that the tantrum-thrower possesses true wisdom. The wolfish one is allowed to roam free to bite and devour the rest.

A togetherness of meanness and a togetherness of misguided tolerance both have this one thing in common. They use community to demean or destroy persons, including themselves. These groups share geographical space but they know only the kind of togetherness that folly can provide.

Togetherness is meant to create a hospitable place for each individual to safely dismantle their folly and steadily find what is wise and good for their comings and goings. Folly is not meant to rule nor provide the entertainment for our evenings.

Jesus invites us into relationship with others. He leads us to do life together. But for togetherness to last, what kind of life must we do? His footsteps and teachings show us the way.

Got

A few days ago, I watched this video clip that showed a conversation (of sorts) between individuals who follow Jesus and those who do not. The “roundtable discussion” was held to hear various voices across the broader culture interact with large, metaphysical questions. Interestingly, a passing comment callously directed towards the Christians was the notion that God sits on his throne and gets everyone who is evil. 

The reason this critique came was because what we all needed to do was to move away from mental categories of “good” and “evil,” and to see the world as having constructive and destructive forces. But what we must not do is assign moral value to these forces or to anything (be it winning the lottery, getting your car towed, or an event like 9/11). To do so, so the reasoning goes, is a sign of weakness—an inability to see the world as it is. Therefore, to need a God to come and punish evil is a crutch. 

There is much that I would like to interact with regarding these sentiments. I would love talk about the notion of moral ambiguity. I would love to talk about why, I think, Christianity gives a better answer to pain and suffering than functionally ignoring it. But what I want to interact with in the next few minutes is the way this line of thinking sees God as acting toward evil.

I hope I am being fair (I do not mean to malign) to the above perspective on reality in my thoughts below. However, one of the fundamental problems with this way of viewing God is that, perhaps, He (she or it?) remains indifferent except for when punishing needs to be doled out. Then, with a short fuse, he gets off his duff and starts punishing people. In other words, “God’s out to get you.” 

Now, in one sense, the Christian understanding of the way that God acts towards evil is quite interesting. It affirms that God himself, crushed his own Son, so that he will not “get” those who love and delight themselves in Him. Said differently, God “gets” his own Son, precisely so he will not “get” those who otherwise deserve to be “got.” 

There is another sense, too, in the way that Christianity understands God “getting.” Perhaps this slice-of-life will help. I recently was chatting with a friend of mine when his daughter saying, “Daddy, will you get me?”, interrupted us. She took off running and my friend followed closely behind, letting her get a few steps ahead. At last, her speed wasn’t enough and he scooped her up into his arms and planted a big, fat kiss right on her cheek. The little girl was beaming with excitement, enjoyment and laughter. She had been “got,” and it was a delightful thing.

For the Christian, the problem with thinking that God is out to "get us" fails to account for this sort of being “got.” It’s a getting of enjoyment; it is one of pursuit and delight. There is no reason remaining for there to be any sort of punishment whatsoever. Yes, God is out to get you, but you don’t know the half of what He is getting your for!

Lastly, I often wonder if our reasoning gets the best of us. Sometimes we fail to understand something (which is quite okay) and, then, based on this faulty understanding, we reject the (faulty) understanding by creating a reason to reject it. It’s like trying to build a house starting with the roof and, then, realizing that there is no place to put it, rule the roof out as useless. Then, the house is constructed without a roof and we are left wondering why we get wet when it rains. 

The truth of the first Good Friday (which Christians celebrate tomorrow) was that there was a double “getting” that day. Yes, God came after (read: punish) somebody for sure. But it wasn’t you and it wasn’t me. It was Jesus. And, for the reason they call it Good, God “got” somebody else too. But this second kind is “gotten” of delight—both in the “Getter” and the “gotten.” --Ryan

A Present Community

I felt at rest. Time seemed to move slowly and my schedule had nothing on it. Have you ever had one of these seasons in life? Some of you are thinking, “Yeah, 15 years ago when I was in college.” Or, “I can remember the days before we had kids…” Perhaps it happened on your last vacation. Well, regardless of the circumstances, most of us have had moments of deep rest at some point in our lives. We’ve known what it was like, as it were, to be at peace in the world.

I recently returned from a study leave afforded to me by Riverside. The lake house I found myself in had a massive fireplace, the cupboard was fully-stocked, and the company I had all played a role in giving me a restful place to simply be. It provided me “space” to study, to read the Bible, to pray, and enjoy moments of reflection too. It was ironic because I was reading a book by Henri Nouwen called “Reaching Out”. One of the major themes of his book is a recovery of Christian hospitality. Hospitality, says Nouwen, is "the creation of free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy." In that lake house, hospitality was shown forth and I was further invited into being human.

Hospitality does not simply refer to giving someone, who happens to be passing through town, cookies and milk and wishing them happily along their way. Rather than treating people like Santa Claus, hospitality is much more than providing a meal and a place to stay. I need to interject: room and board are certainly hospitable acts of love, but there is much more to hospitality than just food and sheets. Nouwen suggests that hospitality is a “disposition of the heart” to allow people that God brings in our midst a safe place to be. To be hospitable is to allow room for God’s work in the lives of our neighbors, without our forcing or controlling. It is to create space while remaining present.

As we seek to be a community at Riverside, it is our aim to create space while remaining present. It means that we won’t run away. It means we won’t control. And it means that loving-well will be characterized by patience and care. Why would we pursue community this way? Because we are aiming to promote restfulness and comfort, ultimately, in Jesus. What does this mean—restfulness in Jesus? While I’m no statistician, my experience in caring for the human heart leads me to the conclusion that about 100% of our disquietude of soul (whether one is a follower of Jesus or not) comes from our inability to rest—to find our deepest satisfaction—in Him. So true rest is of this kind: where the soul is at rest in Jesus alone.

To have this sort of community will mean that we must remain present with others. It will assume that we are doing the hard work of taking our own fears to God, so when people respond in ways that are uncomfortable for us, we’ll know that we are safe too. In other words, our best community will only be experienced to the degree that we are able to give space while remaining present (hospitality). But the giver and protector of this space will only be able to do so to the degree that they themselves have found Jesus providing this selfsame space for them...

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

A Community of Dogs

My cynical and ungrateful thoughts began: “Great, what is this? Another DVD set that I’ll probably never watch? Sweetheart, do you think we can get the receipt and exchange it?” It was Christmas 2007 (my first Christmas married to Laura), and I had just entered the world of “gifts from people who you wish knew you better.” The wrapping paper had yet to hit the floor and I was already “writing off” one of the best Christmas gifts we got that year (Thanks, T & R!).

Aside from having issues of ingratitude that I need to deal with, I also had just never heard of this extremely fantastic DVD series: Planet Earth (If you’ve seen it, you now know how ignorant I truly was about its magnificence. If you haven’t seen it, quit reading this blog and go rent it…or call me and you can borrow it.). I digress. Planet Earth is an amazing series about our “little blue ball” and how delicate and stunning the various ecosystems therein (or is it thereon) truly are. 

One of my favorite vignettes tells of the wild dogs of the African plains. These dogs are incredibly impressive. Eight or nine of them live together in a pack and they all work together to get their food. I was amazed by the way they “flesh out” (sorry for the gory pun) the need for one another. To survive, they depend on each other; and to live alone is sure death for any one of them. Modern day community theorists are not saying anything new.

Not only is it fascinating to watch the way they work together, but I was also stunned at how they pursue their prey. On the DVD there is an overhead shot of them in attack formation—they are all running in a straight line and then they “peel off” to attack their prey. It is a planned pursuit. It is an intentional pursuit. It is a communal pursuit.

What if these dogs teach us something about community? Now, some of you who have been burned by a “less-than-biblical” Christianity might be thinking, “Yeah, the church’s pursuit as wild, rabid dogs is incredibly fitting.” Touché. Sadly, this has been the case on more than one occasion. However, what I aim to address is what if the Christian community began to be marked by a resolve in its pursuit, not to the detriment of those whom we pursue, but for their good? It seems to me this is something of the way Jesus himself lived, so much so that at one point in his life he mentioned that his whole reason for coming was to “seek and to save the lost.” There is resolve. There is constancy.

At Riverside, we long to be a people characterized by the sort of pursuit that Jesus himself embodied. It seems to me that this will be quite costly of our hearts, resources, and time. It would mean that we do not choose passivity in our approach to fostering relationships. It would mean that the marginalized are celebrated and that we would not quit on people when they became difficult. Why would we choose to live like this? Because we would know that “alone-ness” would be tantamount to the vulnerability experienced by the dogs’ prey.

After all, the gospel—at its core—is that we, too, were these things…and Jesus doggedly (sorry, I couldn’t resist) came after us. It is my hope that Riverside Church would be a community that pursues. Would you join with me in dreaming about community? Something about it tells me it should not be done alone.   --Ryan