I Don't Even Know What to Call This...

We are attending the 2011 Montreat Youth Conference, week V.  It's a youth conference.  Like any good Presbyterians, youth like their conferences done basically the same way.  Let's not get too far from our comfort zone...we like to know what to expect, at least in the big things.

The keynoter, David Ealy, has begun each day with an interesting exercise.  Every day, a word.  Every day, a request for definition.  This is not a rhetorical request.  Walk up and down the aisle.  Stick the mike in people's faces.  Ask for the definition.

And the daily words are significant, foundational to our faith.  These words represent cornerstones of who God is and who we are in relationship to God.  Incarnation.  Temptation.  Discernment.  Community.  Salvation.  The words beg the question of whether or not we can even be disciples of Jesus if we don't understand or can't define them.  (Note, I said "disciples," not children of God.  All people are children of God, regardless of what we understand.  God creates, loves, and works to redeem us all whether we are aware of it or not.)

But we are called out...into the body of Christ.  We are set apart to work for God in the world.  We are God's people charged with making disciples, sharing the good news of the Gospel, living as Jesus taught--in ways that reveal to the world who God is.

We choose, are called, to spend a week away from our jobs, our friends, our school, our families growing our discipleship...and when asked by David to define these words...We. literally. don't. know.

Most kids asked could find some understanding of temptation and community.  Not surprising given the importance of peers to adolescents and the importance of friends to adults.  But Incarnation yielded--silence...I don't know...a flower (in-carnation).  Temptation...doing something we shouldn't.  Discernment...not a clue.  Salvation...being saved by God.  OK, that's partly true.  But when we can't even understand salvation well enough to define it without circling around to the original word, how are we going to share the good news of God's saving work in the world.

We have failed to teach our children.  Perhaps, someone has failed to teach us.  Is that an explanation? an excuse?  Is the decline of interest in church membership due to something far more significant and far more frightening than disagreements over contemporary/traditional worship or whether we wear shorts or suits and ties to worship?  Might it be that we just don't know why we are there?  A nebulous "feeling" that we ought to be there...or an undefinable "good feeling" is not compelling to those who are not in the church...and only slightly more compelling to many in the church.

Our faith is a practice, a way of life...not fire insurance.  Our call is to obey God and help save the world...redeem it from selfishness, greed, hatred, loneliness, isolation, injustice...not insure it believes some correct doctrine that will earn streets of gold and a nice crown.

After the first day, the first question, "What is the incarnation?"  I kept saying to my youth...please tell me you know what the incarnation is.  Please.  Surely you know.  (They do now...)

I don't know where we go from here.  I don't even know what to call this.  I know I am going to be more deliberate about knowing and teaching clear, repeatable definitions--hopefully to folks who see a need to learn and speak those definitions to others.  So, for your edification:

• Incarnation: God in the flesh.  God comes to be with us, so we can see, feel, touch, hear, know what/who God really is in Jesus and what kind of life God expects us to lead.
• Temptation: the desire to do something...Ealy says we can be tempted to do good or bad.  I'm thinking about that one.
• Discernment: consideration of action...specifically, for disciples, a practice of prayer, study, conversation with other disciples, and trial actions to figure out what God wants us to do.
• Community: people in relationship with each other.  The disciples' community has a particular character that includes everyone and practices unconditional love and radical egalitarianism while serving God.
• Salvation:  God's work on our behalf to restore our relationships with God and with each other.  Shirley Guthrie suggests that when we are "saved" it is our recognition of God's work.  God's work happens with our knowledge or without.  

Learn one.  Practice one.  Teach one.  I feel sure God's church will continue with or without Americans, but what a significant part we could play in discipling the world with the resources God has provided us.    I'm going to be ready for that definition microphone.  Are you?

Change Has Already Come...

Barbara Kingsolver said in a 2008 commencement address, “The arc of history is longer than human vision. It bends. We abolished slavery, we granted universal suffrage. We have done hard things before. And every time it took a terrible fight between people who could not imagine changing the rules, and those who said, ‘We already did. We have made the world new.’”  


I've never looked at conflict from that perspective--we're not fighting to change, we're fighting because change has already happened.  That certainly holds true in church conflict.  I am wondering about the current political impasse--have we remade out world in such ideological hard-line stances on both sides that we can no longer govern effectively?  Or have we remade the world with 24 hour news cycles in a way that grinds the ability of our legislators to be friends and work together to nothing--allowing no space for conversation or relationship, only political position and sound bites.


I think I want "we have made the world new" to only be a good thing.  A new world should be more positive...work better.  A new world should bring life and health to all.  A new world should welcome people in.  But I think the reality of "we have made the world new" in everyday life (as opposed to eons or ages) is that much of our new is not good.  Is it good that our national debt is so high?  Is it good that jobs are cut during the tenuous effort to rebuild an economy?  Is it good that so much of our country's wealth is located in the hands of so few?  Is it good that fewer and fewer people are interested in and connected to faith?  I'm understanding that we can't even really make the decisions on those issues--good or bad.  The change has already come...now we're talking about it.  Now we're fighting about it.


The arc of history is what I place in God's hand.  I have to know that somehow, with God's work through us, that we are moving in the right direction.  I do see that really long-term progress.  But I wonder how our decision-making might be affected if we understand that the "new world" is already here.  It's always hard to vision a new thing.  If we are not trying to stop change that has, in fact, already happened, might we vision better?  If we understand that change has already come, is here right now, can we stop our fighting?

Outside the Box...

I have green toenails.  They are weird.  Uncomfortable.  My daughter says she likes them.  But I have never had green toenails.  No one in my generation has had green toenails.  Well, perhaps some people did, but they weren't supposed to...that was reason to go to the doctor.

I thought perhaps on my way to a youth conference with teenagers that I might stretch and do something a little fun.  And now, I have green toenails.  Nothing significant has changed in the world.  Politicians are still being stupid about the debt ceiling.  Homework is still to be done, books beg to be read, dreams inspire, and frustrations divert energy from important concerns.  But my toenails are green and not all is right with the world.

I even had her paint one and let me decide.  She painted on of the small nails...and that looked OK.  But then when green went on the big toe, well all I can say is I have green toenails.

Toenails will be green for  a few weeks.  We'll see if the world ends or the brain explodes.  Maybe it will open up a whole new world of creative thought and new perspectives.  Or maybe my toenails will just be green.  The worst thing is that my reputation is ruined.  You see, one of my youth asked me a question last weekend and after my answer she asked her friend if I was right.  The answer, "Beth's always right."

Not any more...

How Long...

Sometimes I wish I had something to hold over God's head.  Perhaps the threat of not giving any more money to the church...but then it was God saying "do not worry about what you will wear or eat...God will provide."  Guess that won't work.

A few weeks ago, God's approval ratings were in the tank...33%.  Seems like that would have rated a miraculous intervention--or at the very least, an appearance on a piece of toast.  Seems God either doesn't read ratings or doesn't care.  Guess that won't work either.

Two year olds seem to think temper tantrums work.  Perhaps.  I'm not sure I could get up once I threw myself down on the floor, however.  And as the adult, the tantrum doesn't really work anyway.

So I guess I'm just still in the God is God mode--waiting and wondering what will happen next...and how long it will take to see progress.

Freedom...

I was listening this morning to Bruce Feiler talk about his new book which is about the grassroots movement toward freedom in the Middle East.  He compares the Arab Spring movement with the story of Moses and the freedom of the Hebrew people.  He's right.  The biblical stories are human stories.  We relive them and retell them again and again.

But all this discussion about freedom begs the question, what is freedom?  Lots of freedom exists in the lives of dictators who live off their people.  They can do and spend whatever they want.  The Arab Spring, it might be argued, actually limited their freedom.

Yes, but it provides freedom to the people...OK, freedom to what?  for what?  On the 4th, we celebrated our "freedom."  Freedom to what?  for what?  Freedom to argue with each other without compromise over political issues?  Freedom to authoritatively speak completely fabricated information in media outlets with no consequences?  Freedom to put profit over safety in W. Virginia mines?  Freedom to what?  for what?

Feiler suggests we parallel the story of Moses.  So what kind of freedom did the Hebrew people get?  After God brought them out of Egypt and through the desert...they got rules.  Ten big ones and according to the biblical text, a whole boatload of extras.  How is that freedom?

The difference between the freedom we too often practice and God's freedom is in our ultimate focal point.  God's concern is always for the "other."  Abraham was chosen and blessed to "bless the nations." God's work is always toward the redemption of his creation.  Freedom for the Hebrew people moved them from the Pharoah's focal point--all I see is mine and everything I do is for me, to God as focal point--you will be my people and I will be your God.  Selfishness vs. relationship.

I heard someone define the Ten Commandments as a way to live that honors God and honors other people.  Pretty good definition.  And that is how the people of God ought to define "freedom."  In a dictatorship, we have to behave in ways that support the dictator.  Freedom from that usually means we get to start thinking about ways we can support ourselves (or our own) over everyone else.  Perhaps God's freedom means we are free to live in ways that honor God and honor other people.

Perhaps as the people of God, celebrating the "freedom" we have in this country or watching as other cultures and countries work toward "freedom,"  we should look at the biblical definitions of a free people and not our cultural definitions.  Because, living in "freedom" that is all about what is best for us is not really freedom at all.  When it's all about us, we are trapped in the effort to be the best according to a culture that has no interest in our health or well-being.  What we find is that we can never get to that "best" status.  We are always trapped by something we can't achieve.

If we are living in God's freedom, we have already arrived as beloved children of God.  It's not about what we do, it's about who we are.  "I will be your God and you will be my people."  Living in God's freedom enables us to live in the love of God, to live with love for others.  That ability to love and be loved is the real definition of freedom.  That lifestyle that honors God and other people is the one that brings joy and celebration and what we all ultimately seek...freedom.

Practice...

My husband likes to say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.  Perhaps.  But today, the dog we are sitting for, who spends much of his life on the two-story back deck at him home, jumped OVER the 5 foot wall of our two-story back deck.  He hurt his foot.  It's a wonder his didn't break his neck.

I will do a lot over and over...and probably expect the same results, but I will not jump off a two-story deck.

Just so you know...